Middlesbrough shall never be a ghost town,
The founding father's motto remembered,
Erimus - We shall be!
This will be a suitability rambling article on the History of drinking in Middlesbrough and my own experiences growing up in a beer drinking culture. The History of the English love of ale goes back to the Bronze age, with hairy neanderthals getting pissed and dragging the missus by the hair to their Cave for a quick shag. Not much has changed. I recently read a History of the City of Paris when in medieval times much of France was in English control. The Parisiens complained that the English soldiers garrisoned there spent all of their days drinking in the local taverns, fighting and vomiting in the street. Bringing culture to the French.
We will start with a brief history of the town of Middlesbrough. A Priory was established in the area as early as 686ad but by 1801 Middlesbrough was a small farm with a population of 25. By the mid 1800's it had boomed to 7,600 due mainly to the establishment of the the Stockton and Darlington Railway, the world first allowing for a development of a Port on the river Tees. This expansion exploded following discovery of ironstone in the Cleveland Hills allowing for iron and steel production. By 1870s Middlesbrough produced one third of the nations Pig Iron output earning the name Ironopolis.
Clearly all these good people wanted to indulge in Britain's favourite past time, getting pissed. The name of Boros first pub is debated but many believe it was in 1830, the Ship Inn, on Stockton Street which later became the Middlehaven. There are plans to reopen the pub in the next year or so. This was quickly followed by the Captain Cook, the Steam Packet, the Stables and Coach House, the Queen's Head, the Navigation and the Gladstone. By 1870 the population had grown to 32,000 with 69 public houses and 127 beer houses, a ratio of one for every 150 residents. One of these pubs is the Green Tree, near the bus station in town. It is still there and about 4 years ago me n Cath went in. I had last been in there in the 70's but it was exactly the same. Even the juke box didn't have anything on older than 1979. By the late 1800's the town had also gained a reputation for "bad behaviour" which was not looked kindly upon in Victorian England. To quote "I have never seen sin so rampant than in the streets of Middlesbrough wherein are gathered the vilest of the vile." He must have been a Geordie. Even by the 1960's someone wrote "Middlesbrough was delightfully untouched by the sophistication prevelent in the rest of the country." Cheeky bastard. In the early days all of the pubs brewed their own beer even though Theakstons Brewery was established around 1840 and John Smiths in 1882/3. More of them later.
So Boro was clearly established as a drinkers paradise from early on. I started drinking when I was 17, sneaking into the Rudds Arms, in Marton, for a pint of Sam Smiths Old Brewery Bitter. It was bloody awful. A promising career as an aleologist was very nearly nipped in the bud but I persevered. So at age 18 and legally allowed I set out to give the ball a real kick, as they say. For most of the 70's and early 80's pubs didn't brew their own beer and would only serve one or two different ales along with a lager and bottles of stout, cider and maybe Newcastle Brown (terrible stuff known as electric soup and Vaux Magnet a Ruby red yeast fest which guaranteed regurgitation). The ale on tap was usually John Smiths, Bass or Cameron, a Hartlepool brewery and now owners of the Head of Steam Real Ale Emporium in Sheffield. Sam Smiths was served exclusively in their own pubs and was and indeed still is an aquired taste though very cheap. The pubs I frequented most in town were the Corporation, near to work and usually packed and the Albert a small three level boozer where my mum worked. I had my 21st party in there and still have the tankard I was presented with, now more valuable than the holy grail. 3 mates I worked with in those days now live in Sheffield and we still talk about the days we used to go to the Albert every lunchtime have 3 or 4 pints then go back to work at the Jobcentre ready for a fight with the customers. Great days.
The main obstacle for the committed drinker was the opening hours for pubs. In 1921 the Licencing Act set pub opening hours to 11.30am to 3.00pm and 5.30 to 10.30pm Mon to Saturday and 12.30 to 2.30 and 7.00 to 10pm Sunday. These went unchanged until late 80's when pubs could open from 11am to 11pm though it took many a few years to do so. The 2005 Act then allowed pubs to apply for 24 hour licence though the Stags think that's not enough. Anyway during 70's and most of the 80s the opening hours were very strictly enforced. Last orders were called 15mintes before closing but at the call of "Time Gentlemen Please" you were literally kicked out even if you had a full pint so you learnt very quickly to slug a pint back in one go. That's why Brits still drink as many as possible in the shortest time. That fear of Time geing called is real. I remember playing for a Stockton pub team in a competition in Ghent, Belgium, a lovely place by the way. Most of the lads had never been out of Teesside and had no idea of the drinking culture in Europe. So, fearing last orders they hit the bars and started fast and hard. Of course the superb Belgian beer was very strong and soon the streets of Ghent were filled with vomiting and unconscious Teessiders. Great days. Back home you spent most of you waking hours trying to find some way of extending your drinking times. Say hello to the legendary "Stoppy Back" allowing you to continue drinking when the pub was officially closed. This was usually only available if you were a regular or knew the landlord. Many's the time you were bundled out of a pub at closing time whilst being laughed at by locals cradling a full pint. Bastards. To chase the lock in we took to visiting the many villages surrounding Boro where a lock in was more possible as the police rarely ventured out of town. Even then the locals were usually unfriendly "whooly back sheep shaggers" who turned their noses up at long haired hippie types like us. I tried living and working in Yarm a tiny one highstreet village just outside Stockton. Yarm was mentioned in the Domesday Book of 1086. In 1890 it boasted 12 inns on the High Street, Inc the Black Bull, Cross Keys, Crown Inn, Ketton Ox, Lord Nelson, Red Lion, 3 Tuns, Tom Brown and Union Inn. All of these apart from the Tom Brown were still there when I lived there for two years. It was great. I never left the high street with so many pubs my office and flat were there too. Still Hever got a lock in. Bastards. This changed significantly when in mis 80's I moved to Saltburn by Sea whilst working in Redcar. Saltburn is a ting Victoria seaside town with surrounding cliffs, Valley gardens and a pier. Trouble was it was founded by Methodists who frowned on Boozing so the only pub was right on the seafront at the bottom of the cliffs. However the town had plenty of Hotels each with their own bars. Even when the Hotels ceased trading their bars remained open. It was like something out of The Shining. One such was the bar of the old Alexander Hotel, which had been converted to flats and was where I lived. The bar was behind the hotel in an alley so was known as the Back Alex. Me and my flatmate, now a Sheffield resident also and a rugby playing beer machine, got to know the landlord really well spending all of our non working time in the bar. Every night was a lock in and we often drank until dawn even taking a crate onto the end of the pier to watch the sun rise over Huntcliffe. Great days though working with a hangover every day was a pain in the arse and head.
So it was with great celebration that we greeted the change to 11am to 11pm. Indeed the American Football Team was playing with at the time (that's another story) decided on the first day we would do the whole 12 hour session" for Charity" the 3 day hangover was worth it and it Brough in a slightly less pressured drinking culture. Actually it simply gave us more time to get hammered. The rest of the 80s and 90s were spent in the same pubs drinking the same beer you had done 20 years earlier. But things were changing. A real ale revolution was happening. I had had enough and decided to leave Middlesbrough and take a job on the big city. I had always loved London visiting there many times over the years usually for Football and Cricket matches or gigs so had no qualms about the move. I got a job with Overseas Labour Service doing work permits for Sports people and Entertainers which turned into a dream job. I would be based in Westminster and having visited so many times knew the are quite well. The Part II will details my boozing exploits in the capital and subsequent move to Sheffield, the home of real ale. Stay tuned where alchemists were born.
