A trip around some of the old pubs of Middlesbrough.

PETER Brown, of Middlesbrough, takes us back to New Year's Eve, 1970, when he celebrated his 18th birthday and gained a new found freedom - the legal right to partake of alcoholic beverages.

He writes: I was not keen to get into a pub and enjoy my first legal pint of draught beer, I had other things to occupy me. I was an unemployed disabled person to whom money was tight.

On the morning of Thursday, December 31, 1970, I carried all my documentation through heavy snow from the youth employment bureau at Fry Street to the adult employment exchange in Grange Road.

I was a radio enthusiast and one of preoccupations on my 18th birthday was that the BBC local radio station, Radio Teesside, was coming on air on the evening of that New Year's Eve and I was frustrated because they was not an FM or VHF radio in the house in which I could get the new local radio station.

I think I enjoyed an alcoholic drink at home when the New Year 1971 came in.

In later years I often did not go out on my birthday because I could not face the double celebration of New Year and my birthday.

Looking back it seems strange to me that I never bothered to sample my new freedom on that New Year's Day. I think I got up too late to go over to the Speedway for a lunch-time pint, and was too preoccupied with other things to accept an invitation from my parents to join them for a Saturday evening drink.

I finally accepted the invitation to join my father in the Speedway for a lunchtime pint on the Sunday. The taste of John Smith's Magnet bitter on draught tasted good - not all pints of beer that I would have in the future would taste as good..

I have since got into the habit of having a Sunday afternoon pint.

In the late 1970s and '80s I occasionally used the Speedway, drinking mostly in the nearby Yellow Rose and Linthorpe.

In the mid 1970s I became interested in real ale but found that there was little desire amongst Middlesbrough drinkers to bring back real ale, they preferred the national brands of keg beer and lager.

The Speedway In 1990 I heard a report that the Speedway had cask-conditioned John Smith's behind the bar again and I decided to drink there more often, and did so regularly until its closure in 2005.

Often on Sunday lunchtimes there would be cheese, biscuits, pickles and black pudding available.

The Speedway was the Rovers Return of the West Lane area. Among the prominent people the area who used the Speedway was Walter Gladwin, who founded the local coach firm, Gladwin's, whose buses could be seen throughout the UK and on the Continent.

Walter died in 1998, shortly after his wife Brenda, who used to look after the administration of the business.

Another elderly and well-respected Speedway regular was Mr Coates, who had built a lot of the houses in the West Lane area before World War Two. Mr

Coates died in the late 1990s in his late 90s.

I have fond memories of drinking in the Speedway with my father on Christmas Day 1995, it would be the last festive session he would be able to enjoy for he died in 2001 after suffering a severe stroke in August, 1996.

I saw many licensees come and go during my years as a customer in the Speedway. I particularly remember the McCann family who ran the pub in the 1990s before going on to run a pub in Hartlepool. There was also down to earth but friendly Patricia Fortune, who had a barmaid also called Patricia. It was very important to remember to always call the barmaid Trish and the landlady Pat - if you got it wrong neither would speak to you.

The Tap and Barrel From the mid to late 1980s there was a pub in Newport Road, on the same side as the North Riding Infirmary, called the Norma Jeans, which was not a particularly good pub but became well known for operating a topless bar.

The pub closed in 1989 and re-opened as the Tap and Barrel, a real ale pub offering traditional beers and ciders from all over the country. The owners even had plans to attempt to brew their own beer.

The Tap and barrel soon became a favourite pub for me and my acquaintances, and the barmaids were more attractive with their tops on than most of the topless barmaids of Norma Jeans.

Merlyn Kelly, who had been a barmaid in the Princess Alice, was one of the first barmaids at Tap and Barrel and was joined by a daughter and niece. In charge of the catering was Vivian Hughes, assisted by Merlyn's sister, Linda.

Vivian put out free dumplings and gravy on Sunday lunchtimes. While this was not a particularly favourite dish of mine the bar snacks were good, especially the steak sandwiches with fritters.

The pub became a favourite with the staff of BBC Radio Cleveland and the GPO. Ken Snowden, Allen Wright, Mark Turnbull and Les Cole from Radio Cleveland were all regulars and did not complain when barmaids preferred to play the commercial Great North Radio.

The pub was also popular with local politicians; Dave Walsh, leader of Cleveland Council was one regular. On one Saturday morning in the early 1990s the local Fabian Society had a meeting in the upstairs room with the guest speaker being was Lord Ivor Richard, then Labour leader in the House of Lords and former British representative at the United Nations in New York. A friend and I watched with amusement as the portly peer consumed a steak sandwich and fritters washed down with half a pint of Dizzy Dick, a very strong and expensive dark stout.

In the early 1990s the prostitution problem around the Newport Road was developing and customers were often approached by prostitutes while walking through Harris Street on their way into the pub.

The owners, the Tinsleys, opened their own brewery, the North Yorkshire Brewery. They brewed a mild North Yorkshire Bitter, a strong Flying Herbert and Dizzy Dick, an exceptionally strong black beer.

The Tinsley abandoned the Tap and Barrel and their other tied house, the Malt Shovel, in the mid 1990s to concentrate on brewing.

I remember a London lorry driver drinking in the Tap and Barrel on one Boxing Day. He was delivering meat to a local meat distributor but had failed to get the meat there on Christmas Eve before the establishment closed for the Christmas holidays. He had to wait until the day after Boxing Day before he could make his delivery - any longer than that the meat would have been unfit for human consumption.

He spent Christmas Day in his cab keeping a eye on the meat and he told me that he had lived on a bottle of whisky and one Cheese Sandwich all Christmas Day.

The Fly and Firkin In 1994 the old Southfield closed and was replaced with a pub called the Fly and Firkin, part of a chain of home brew pubs offered something different - two or three of its own beers plus a guest beer. It was also the only pub in Middlesbrough in those days to put out daily newspapers. The home-brewed bitter was very drinkable and the bar snacks were very good - nothing was better in my opinion than a jacket potato with cheese washed down with a pint of pub brewed bitter.

The cheeky and smutty atmosphere was something myself and other customers liked about the pub, but it did draw criticism from Evening Gazette columnist David Lorimer who complained about the pub's unsuitability for families. I wrote a letter to the Gazette in defence of the pub which was very much to me like the perfect pub described by George Orwell The Moon Under Water.

The Bodega Bar, off the beaten track in Exchange Place, was perhaps not a pub but a dive bar in the real meaning of the word. It was essential to go down a flight of stairs to get into the bar. It was owned by the Winterschladen company, which had been involved in the wine and spirits trade in Middlesbrough since the 19th century.

I got to know the Bodega in the early 1980s - it had briefly closed because of the proposed demolition of buildings and the development of the new motorway. The developments were slow in materialising so it was decided to temporarily re-open the bar. It was very much like a pub in the City of London - closed on a Saturday evening and all day Sunday, closing at 8pm on weekdays. On re-opening it was decided that the bar would sell real ale - Theakstons XB and Best Bitter. The bar snacks were of a high standard; I used to be partial to the ploughman's lunch with two high quality cheeses, crusty bread with sesame seeds and nice pickled onions.

The bar manager was Robin, a member of the Winterschladen family, who was a gentleman with perfect manners and diplomacy in the way he dealt with both staff and customers . The elder of the Winterschladen family, who I think was Robin's father, used to help run the bar.

Mavis was the popular barmaid who, after the Bodega closed, went to work in the bar in Middlesbrough theatre.

Blonde and attractive Jenny was a member of the family and also helped out behind the bar. She was active in the local operatic society - I remember seeing her in the chorus of The Merry Widow at Middlesbrough theatre in 1987 long after the Bodega had finally closed its doors.

The Four Pubs Today.

The Speedway closed in September, 2005, and was demolished in mid 2006.

Today there is housing on the site and the community of West Lane now has nowhere to meet and socialise.

The Tap and Barrel closed around 1999, and changed ownership a number of times. Several attempts to turn the old pub into restaurant have fallen by the wayside.

I do not remember exactly when the Fly and Firkin pub chain ceased and the Middlesbrough pub reverted to the Southfield.

It is nearly quarter of a century since the Bodega closed, and walking around the Exchange area it is difficult to tell if the building was, in fact, demolished..

CAPTION(S):

GOING FRENCH: Kevin and Joyce Johnson from the Tap and Barrel put on celebrations to mark Bastille Day in 1996 - and to try to persuade the then Chancellor of the Exchequer, Kenneth Clark to slash the prices of lager to match French prices