Saturday 21 January 2017

Stories from the Beer Festival .... no 1 meeting old friends

Now if you write a book about Manchester Pubs and in particular the people who drink in them you shouldn’t be surprised if you met them at the beer festival in GMex hosted by CAMRA.*

Looking out from GMex, 2017
What did surprise me was that we met up with three in a matter of a few minutes.

It began when Mike Davey’s wife bought a copy of Manchester Pubs soon after the Festival opened on day two.**

Just a little later Mike came over to announce that he was made up by finding a picture of himself in the book.  “There I am” he told us “in the Marble sitting in my favourite seat.”

And while Mike was with us Yvonne McVitte was buying her copy , and yes she too was in the book!

In her case we had encountered Yvonne, her husband Craig and two friends in the Castle back in September.

The "Four" in the Castle, 2016
Peter couldn’t resist recording their stay in Manchester in the Castle with a photograph given that Yvonne and Craig were down from Glasgow and their friends had travelled across from Yorkshire.

It was a smashing picture made all the better because we met up with them again later in the Crown and Kettle which in turn meant that they appeared on the blog in a story.***

Now what we knew and Yvonne didn’t was that the picture of the four also appears in the book.

* The Festival began on Wednesday night and finishes today.

Location; Manchester

Pictures, inside GMex at the Beer and Cider Festival, January 19-21 2017, from the collection of Andrew Simpson, and the four in the Castle,2016  from the collection of Peter Topping 

 * The Festival began on Wednesday night and finishes today.

**Manchester Pubs is available  from www.pubbooks.co.uk 

***A new book on Manchester Pubs, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/A%20new%20book%20on%20Manchester%20Pubs

No comments:

Post a Comment