Coventry Pubs

In the seventies we used to start on Friday night with a pocket full of 'beer tokens' in the Long Bar in the Leofric Hotel, move on to the Jaguar where a chap called Jimmy held court, then to the Thistle, into the Three Tuns and finally in the Climax before stopping off at the Market Tavern on our way up to the Rock house where all the lads stood looking over the balcony drinking whilst spotting the girls dancing below. When they played the song Green Onions the stage turned through 180 degrees and a band came on, that was when the girls stopped dancing and you rushed to the Long Bar which was upstairs for a top up. When it got to the last song we rushed downstairs asked a girl for a dance, offered to buy them a drink but suddenly realised the bar had shut, with a "ah well then love perhaps I can walk you to the taxi rank, are you doing anything in the week?"

Potters Green Lad. I so remember those days, they bring back so many memories. We used go from the Silver Sword to the Turks Head and then to the Tudor Rose, then on to the Jag and all over Spon Street, then on to the Thistle and the Climax where I was barred for putting a pint on the pinball machine and smashing the glass (oops). After leaving there it was Three Tuns and the Market Tavern which was my local as I worked in the market in the 70s. Then on to the Top Spot or the Rock House, wherever the girls were going, and to finish the night the famous Parson's Nose for a faggot and pea batch to walk home with.

Stop you lot you will have me wanting to drink alcohol again, I haven't touched it since 2000. I was brought up on Atkinsons rough, one and three halfpence a pint, 8 pints to the pound was great, your lucky I am told to get 2 pints for a fiver these days. My haunt was the good old Radford pub on the Radford Road. Anybody tell me if it still exists. Getting back to good beer the breweries are trying to just get folks to drink chemical beer, beer that is put into aluminium casks to ferment in the barrel without the hassle of a proper fermentation process - up here in Yorkshire we have lots of small brewers making good ale, some good some bad, our biggest seller was Tetleys, then Carlsberg got their hands on it, end of another good ale. Enjoy your ale folks. Cheers.

Eight pints to the pound? That would have been half a crown a pint. One and three halfpence means that you would have got nearly 18 pints for a quid! That would be some night out. The so-called chemical beer in aluminium kegs is pasteurised so that it doesn't ferment once in the barrel. That is why it is so poor, with the fizz added by carbon dioxide as it is dispensed. That's how lager works. A real draught beer is not pasteurised but put into the barrel to continue fermentation right up to when it is pulled into the glass. There is a world of difference between the two types of product. I know which I prefer!

I recall a period when Watneys Red Barrel, Worthington E and Draught Double Diamond were among the popular beers - not sure why Kaga may back me up when I say Harvey's Best, down in Sussex-by-the-Sea, takes some beating

You're right MisterD-Di, I got that well and truly wrong, yes it was a good night out, but then again I was only earning 38s a week and you could go out for a few nights on a quid, sounds daft now. And you were right I got the beers the wrong way around.

Sorry Arthur, the Radford is now a housing estate, it was demolished in 2002

Thank you MickW, shame it was a good building too, anyway they can't knock my memories down, can they. All ways remember Harry who used to do a turn at the singalong in the Rock and Roll era, a good impression of Elvis was Harry. Maybe Harry is still about, I believe he was related to the Woodwards, the newspaper shop at the side of the Swanswell Pool.

I always washed up at the Parsons Nose as well on a Saturday but was always starving hungry so I went for the 'one all in" Faggots peas and chips on a tray off the big Greek woman who was always known as Mom then spent two hours standing on the edge of the ring road by the old fire station trying to stop a taxi so I could get home, I usually got home at 4.00ish then got up for work at 6.00. those were the days when you could do that and go out for a drink on Sunday dinner!

Midland Red, you remember that, yes I liked it, but seldom drink these days, as Potters Green Lad said, there was a time, hustle and bustle of a pub, these days, too much for me now. There is a quiet little pub close to with a lovely little garden, that suits me fine, but it's one San Miguel for me and my eyes close.

Kaga Simpson, I'm like you, too much hustle and bustle these days but since moving house this year there are no decent or quiet pubs in the area so I have to contend with having a drink at home and just relaxing in the garden watching the time go by - but it has to be a Stella for me, and savour every moment

I fully agree, the thing is when we were younger we wanted the same thing from a pub that the kids want today, I remember donkeys years ago when the Red Lion at Walsgrave was first refurbished and the snug, lounge and bar all knocked through into one 'theme' pub, there use to be a bagatelle table in the snug where the fellers played at dinner times. On the opening day after its remake they had a DJ in one end of the place playing Led Zepplin with the volume control set at '11' and the old chaps playing bagatelle at the other end knocking beer glasses out of customers hands with the thick end of their cues and shouting for them to turn it down! I live over in Rugby these days and my brother and his mate came over from Binley recently (on the bus passes) and we had a great afternoon in the Merchants pub in the town centre, no kids, no music, some cracking hand pulled beers on sale and a real old boozer feel about it, well worth a visit, the forum should be running a bus service there if the members can be persuaded to behave themselves!

Potters Green Lad, I remember the bagatelle tables and the old pianos, you just don't see them anymore. My only wish that them times would return as we get older, we could do without the noise of loud jukeboxes and kids who want to take on the world when they have a few but I used to enjoy a good sing song with the old boys where you could enjoy yourself and your beer

Here it is, up and running as "Creams" Creams Cafe website

Here's the site of The Cheylesmore PH now ( I wonder where those lamps went? )