OCCUPIED COUNTRY

While Lennon Read a Book on Marx and the Quartet Practiced in the Park............

This pub, above, was my haunt du jour from 1985 to 1990. As a "mature" student I had embarked on a journey of discovery of myself as well as the rest of the planet that resulted in a decent BA (Hons) degree in Politics and Contemporary History. I loved every minute (apart from the Saturday morning exams). I loved the structure it gave to my reading. The purpose it gave to my life. The consolation it brought me during the dark hours when I was holding down a demanding full-time job and studying. The friends, the debaters, the arseholes, but, most of all, the little coterie who canoodled intellectually after every evening of lecture and tutorial in the Crescent. A pub that did not bow to the all-consuming late 80s Thatcherite style and no substance of the day, but actually had a landlord who spat in the face of the Grande Dame and her cohorts.

And now, today, I find out that a) it's under threat from DEVELOPERS and b) Marx and Engels considered it their local during the writing of the Communist Manifesto and some of the rest.

It was a great pub.. It sold real ales. It had proper furniture picked up from house clearances, a black-leaded range with a proper coal fire. A great juke box and great clientele.

Developers eh?