I was on North Quay the other day going flat out on Pullyman 1.
There was a brisk tail wind and I suppose I must have been nudging at least 8mph when I saw something that made me slam on the brakes.
Newsons was closing down? I couldn’t believe it. I mean to say, shops are closing down all the time.
I watched Woolworths vanish, so what! John Collier, the window that the advert told us to watch, disappeared. And the Dogs Home was just a memory.
Shops and pubs, just like their customers, come and go. But Newsons, on the Quay closing down, impossible. So I went in to demand an explanation.
It was true, the property had been sold, and the shop was to re-locate, but at the time of asking, to a place, as yet unknown. A small crumb of comfort but things could never be the same again.
Newsons up the road or Newsons on the Terrace just doesn’t have the same ring to it as Newsons on the Quay.
The words of the well known song that goes something like this: ‘You don’t know what you’ve got ‘till it’s gone’, describes North Quay perfectly.
If you are of a certain age, like me, you will remember the shops and the pubs and the Market Hall.
Now during the last few years, the North Quay has been transformed. Some folk like it, some folk hate it, but I for one think that the planners got it spot on.
Instead of 12 hours of mud and sea gulls alternating with 12 hours of open water, we can stroll along the pedestrian friendly walkway, and enjoy a quick game of ‘guess which one never goes out’ as we admire the line up of pleasure craft in the marina style boat park.
Over the years, in one way or another, the North Quay area has been part of my life, so I thought that it would jog more than a few memories if we took an amble down Memory Street.
I’ve got a feeling that this little trip into the past will be thirsty work, so how about a swift half in the pub at the top of the quay, The Railway which at the time of my first visit was under the command of the late Frank Mears.
I first met Frank in 1960 when I started a job in the Lake Road abattoir. I was led astray by my new workmates when the price of a pint of Castletown bitter was 1/3 , or in today’s money, roughly 6p.
That must sound like dreamland to today’s average 20 year old, but to put it into context, my weekly wage was only about £5, and don’t forget, that was for a 45 hour week.
Then if you crossed the road from the Railway Hotel and went through the fine pair of gates and into the station forecourt, to your left, roughly where the customs office is now, you would have found the Buffet Bar. In it’s day the ‘Buffy’ was a typical working man’s pub, with a good customer base of typical working men.
Sadly, the Buffet, like so many of it’s customers is long gone.
The next pub on the North Quay, just past the Clinches Building, is the Bridge Inn, and I’ll finish this week’s tale just inside the bar.
Before Sunday opening came to the island, if you knew where to go you could always find a pint or two behind closed doors.
One such pub was the Bridge, and one such Sunday lunch time, a posse of officers from the local constabulary, under the command of Sergeant Hector Duff, who I am pleased to say is still alive and well, knocked on the door.
He proceeded to take the names and addresses of the illegal drinkers, and for prosecution purposes, what they had in their glass.
He approached my late father, who he knew well and said: ‘What’s your name, Percy, and what are you drinking?’
Percy replied: ‘Percy Cowin, Hector, but I’m OK for a drink, I’ve just got this one in.’
Editor’s note: We have since been told Newsons is moving to Strand Street.