It was inevitable that I would be a beer drinker, following in my father’s footsteps. He had a few beers some evenings, mostly at the Chesterfield Miners Welfare which was conveniently at the bottom of our garden.

There were occasional times when the family would walk up the road to the Crispin Inn in Ashgate Road (picture below) and I, and later my brother, would be allowed to sit outside with a lemonade and a packet of crisps (complete with blue salt bag),  We were never allowed  inside of course.

As appears inevitable these days, the combination of the freehold pub company and Tesco want to turn this pub into a drive through shop. Good luck to those who are fighting this stupid idea.  I am pleased to say I have been back a few times on my visits to Chesterfield and it is a good local pub. (Since I wrote this the Co=op took it over!)

Like many I started drinking before the age of 18 – probably just over 17 – before that was wasn’t tall enough to ‘get away with it’! The beer came from places like the Barnsley Brewery and the Old Tom Mild was 1s 8d (8p) where as the bitter might be as much as 2 shillings (10p). Some of the pubs I would have been in nearly 50 years ago have long been demolished,like the Shakespeare in Saltergate pictured here. 

One memory is of a school (Chesterfield School as it was then) ecology trip to Robin Hoods Bay on the North Yorkshire coast.  We stayed at Boggle Hole Youth Hostel to the south, and those who had been on previous trips knew the clifftop footpath into the village and that the best pub was the Laurel Inn.About a mile along the top in daylight was fine, but a tricky return – with a deadline when the hostel doors were closed. You could use the beach – but had to aware of the tide!

And then it was to London University and nothing changes in that finding the best local pub was important though we had a bar in the basement of our hall selling Whitbread Tankard for 2 shillings. Well we didn’t know any better then – it was long before CAMRA. Two of the pubs we used were the Marlborough Arms near Tottenham Court road and the Friend at Hand near Russel Square. Both good but the ‘Friend’ charged an extortionate 3 shillings!