Wigan Album
PUBS
11 CommentsPhoto: RON HUNT
Item #: 30660
Great picture. This is what WW is all about.
It was the place to be in the sixties if I recall. I went out with a group of girls one Friday and we stood on the stairs for ages! That's all I can remember of the pub and leaving at 10 45 as I had to be home for 11 00!
Hi Veronica The CLARENCE was a pub we always visited on our boys Friday night out in the 1960's. As you say it was always packed out especially the Cocktail lounge on the second floor, which overlooked Wallgate. No doubt we knew each other by site at that time, as you always saw the same girls and boys. Great days. No trouble. and every one caught the last bus home, unless you met a girl and walked her home<g> We always did the same route. Started in the MARKET then the COMMERCIAL or sometimes the Tory Club in the Commercial Yard. Clarence, Stable Bar, and finished up in the Bodega. Just talking about it brings back so many happy memories and it only seems like a few years ago ..
Yes I remember a young man walking me home from there- but not quite all the way. I recall leaning on the window sill of the stocking factory in Vauxhall Rd making arrangements! I was 20 and he was 19 1/2 I thought he was too young for me! How daft was that! Happy carefree days! Wigan was a lively place then and far safer than it is now!
The Clarence was always on our route every Saturday night in the sixties! Started off in the Crofters reading the 'Pink', then Clarence, Bier Keller and Pacific Ocean for a Special [remember the egg on top?] and sometimes the Palais. As Ron says, it just seems like yesterday. Perhaps if we built a time machine...
Alan yes the Bier Keller aka the Bodega. When it rebranded as the Bier Keller they sold Steins of beer about 2 pints a novelty in Wigan. They had an OOMPAH BAND with all the band members dressed in lederhosen. What great times they were. As I have mentioned previously, on numerous occasions. It was very very rarely you saw any trouble If there was, it was just two lads at Handbags. Nothing serious.Never saw an ambulance called. The only BOUNCERS were the McParland brothers who were on the door at the King of Clubs. I have never heard anyone of my generation say that they would rather be young again now. Now where did I put my BEATLES jacket????
We might never say it, Ron. But we certainly think it = well I do anyway!! Young as times were then that is - the young of today are certainly better off materially than we were but their lives are more pressured and stressed.
I had a mate Terry fallows whose parents ran the Clarence. On my 21st a Friday night, 21 of us met in the Crofters, drifted to the Grand then the Clarence. Terry opened up a back bar for us...Free ale and then off to the Bodega and ended up in the Casino til early morn!! My lost weekend!!
Ron it was the Macfarlane brothers, Billy and Joe who were on the door at the King.
Good to see your pic and the information about the book on Linacre School in this week's Wigan Observer, Ron.