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Last orders for the Oddfellows

by Eve Dugdale
18/ 6/2008

WHEN the First World War broke out and King George V ruled over the British Empire, a little piece of family history was being created in an Ashton pub.

Step inside The Oddfellows Arms in Alderley Street and you’re greeted by nearly 100 years of tradition.

When landlord John Lucas calls time on his reign it will mark the end of the pub being run by his family since 1914. If they sold just 70 pints a day, it would mean the Lucases have served nearly 2.5m beers. Before John took over in 1984, his father Thomas ran the pub and grandfather Albert before him.

John’s ancestors began running pubs in the late 1700s but that link with history is about to end. John is retiring and there are no family members who want to take over the pub.

"Pubs are not what they used to be and people no longer drink in the way they used to. My customers know how to drink and they don’t go out causing trouble," he said. The days I remember when a working man had a pint and a half then went home for his tea are gone and the characters have gone – they’re being bred out of society."

The Oddfellows is said to be the place where the National Union of Mineworkers started. Miners would collect their wages in the pub and were allowed one pint before having to go home and get a wash.

The pub also has its own ‘vestry’, a small room where a preacher would sit on Wednesday and prepare his sermon while the vicar had two or three pints at the bar.

In Tom’s Bar, named after John’s father, is an old church pew known as the ‘`love seat’. Its regular occupants are a retired couple who have been regulars for years.

John, 60, has lived in the pub all his life. His early memories as a child are of lighting the coal fires, cleaning the crates, and smashing empty bottles with a hammer to save space in the bin to earn pocket money

He is planning a holiday in Las Vegas with partner Christine James, after working seven days a week for the past 25 years.