Daughter bought me this for Christmas and has a few interesting tales. Doesn’t give a lot of background of some of the sites though. The Room for instance, what was it before it became The Room? Also a pub called Low Valley Arms (now demolished). My recollection is that there were three pubs in Low Valley all within a stones throw of each other. I think one was the Bricklayers Arms also known as The Drop because of a split level bar. My great grandmother was a barmaid in the Drop before the first war. Miners from Darfield Main would call in coming off night shift to wash the dust out of their throats and prepare to go to bed. Presumably this would be in their pit muck, because there were no baths until the 1950s. The other two were, to the best of my recollection, The George and the Cross Keys. Anyway, I don’t recall The Low Valley Arms. Does anybody recall which of these pubs it was? Or was it something completely different?
The house I live in now as a poltergeist, my cash always seems to disappear out of my wallet when I’m not looking and yet my wife as never noticed anything and doesn’t seem scared…spooky
Does it mention the "dancing walking stick" in the Cranberry up Dodworth Road.I' seem to remember Arthur C.Clarke investigating it.
The Low Valley Arms is what they re-named the old Wat Tyler on Station Road. Behind it was a football pitch known as Scarborough Corner which, if you ever played there, you may remember as the one where the home team always had to carry a fishing landing net to retrieve the ball from the deep, water filled ditch that ran close to the pitch. The three pubs, in close proximity were indeed The Drop, The George and ironically, the one you can’t remember is the only one still standing and still a pub - The Sportsman.
The Low Valley Arms is now the Premier Shop on Station Road, there was also the Wat Tyler. The Drop and Sportsman were up near Pitt Lane at the bottom of Snape Hill. Only The Sportsman is left open & the Wat Tyler and Drop were both demolished years ago. The Low Valley Arms wasn't called that for long, think an American landlord was in place towards the end. It's probably his story in the book, went downstairs and the toilets were flushing themselves and he saw the figure of a woman or something?
When I worked at Jaguar's, Castle Bromwich plant, the building I worked in had a cellar called "the morgue". During the war they built Lancaster bombers there and were bombed on many occasions.....
Yeah I think I'm mistaken, the Premier was Thawleys but was known as the Miners Arms before that IIRC. The Wat Tyler was the Low Valley Arms for a while, though I've always known it as the Wat Tyler. I remember going there to watch us play Fulham on Sky when Mitch Ward got three yellows.
