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26-05-2016, 10:44
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http://i0.wp.com/boakandbailey.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/newcastle_breweries_1929_474px.jpg?resize=609%2C46 4An ad from the wrong time period (1929) and wrong city. So sue us. On our travels round the country over the last few months we’ve been seeking out small press local history publications like Mike Axworthy’s*A Garston Working Life (https://www.amazon.co.uk/Garston-Working-Life-Countyvise/dp/190682374X) (2012),*which*we found at Liverpool Central Library. As well as being a keen frequenter of pubs Mr Axworthy also worked as a drayman (beer deliveries) when he was a teenager in the mid-1960s, and gives us this glimpse behind the scenes:
I soon learned why our wages were so poorly paid, because the company knew we made them up on the fiddle. I am ashamed to say that no one was safe, the company were robbed in many ingenious ways, like putting extra crates on when the checker wasn’t looking. These we would sell cheap to barmen at a low cost cash price. Then often we would walk out of the bar with some of their stock in empty boxes, or with bottles of spirits up our shirt. We justified this thieving by our low wages, but really it was just greed…
I was definitely not guilty when a big robbery took place in the warehouse. Inside ‘Kings of the Bottlers’ warehouse*there was a strong room that contained the*spirits… [It] had a steel door and a 2ft thick brick wall. One*morning*we*came in and a hole had been knocked through the wall and most of the spirits spirited away. No one was ever caught for the theft but we all had an idea who it was but grassing was definitely out in our culture.
Presumably this kind of thing doesn’t happen today, or is very rare, what with electronic stock control and CCTV and so on… or maybe we’re being naive?
We’re posting this in response to something on the same topic that appeared on, and then disappeared from, Ron Pattinson’s blog (http://barclayperkins.blogspot.co.uk/). When it turns up again we’ll add a direct link.
PS. There was no blog post yesterday but we did update this 2014 post on*The Britannia Inn at the 1958 Brussels Expo (http://boakandbailey.com/2014/06/britannia-brussels-1958/) with new information and pictures.
Definite Scope: Dodgy Draymen, mid-1960s (http://boakandbailey.com/2016/05/definite-scope-dodgy-draymen-mid-1960s/) from Boak & Bailey's Beer Blog - Beer blogging since 2007, covering real ale, craft beer, pubs and British beer history. (http://boakandbailey.com)


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