Had an interesting phone call from a chap called Robert Bainbridge, who lives in Texas USA. Roberts ancestors built the Bottom House (Queens Head) in or around 1851 and he was asking me if I had any information on the pub from that time. As I haven’t got any contact details and I’m still researching the pub, here is an account of life there from the 1930’s from my cousin Christine Mapp.

Joseph and Mabel Stephenson, my maternal grandparents, took over the tenancy of the Queen’s Head Hotel, Cockfield, a Camerons pub, in the early thirties. They had previously lived at Esperley, then spent a short time in the Queen’s Head, West Auckland but they found that a bit rough and couldn’t settle there. Joss and Mabel had three sons and a daughter. Jack became a butcher, Harry went down the pit, Bill became a medic in the RAF and later immigrated to Canada, and Mary worked in the pub. “A glorified scivvy” she used to say. She was an excellent pianist and played to entertain the customers, especially through the war years when the pub was very popular with the young soldiers from the camps at Barney. In 1948 she married Robert Wall Dowson and they lived in with the in-laws. Bob worked delivering coal for Johnny Morrell (big house later owned by Rolph’s) until he was trapped between a wall and a reversing coal wagon. He suffered with a bad back for the rest of his life and wore a steel corset. No “where there’s blame there’s a claim” in those days! He drove buses for the OK until Joss died in 1952, when he took over the tenancy of the pub.

From 1951 when I was born, until 1964, I lived at the Queen’s Head, Cockfield with my parents Bob and Mary Dowson. These are some of my memories.

As you entered the front door a long flagstone passage (scrubbed by Mary every day) led past the Bar to the right and the Kitchen and Snug to the left. The bar was a long, narrow, wood-panelled room with a small fireplace, bench seats around the walls, and square wooden tables with wrought iron legs. At the far end were the dartboard and a door leading out to the back. (The urinals were outside!) There was sawdust on the floor and spittoons under the seats, and the air hung heavy with the scent of Woodbines and Capstan Full Strength. It was a man’s world! The Kitchen had similar bench seats, a large square oak table in the middle, a black leaded range and an upright piano. This was our living and dining room during the day and a public drinking room at night; here the ladies could enjoy a port and lemon, a gin and orange or a barley wine in comfort. The kitchen led to a tiny pantry, through to the cellar. Cleaning the beer pipes involved a lot of coming and going between bar and cellar. The Snug was next to the kitchen, up several steps and out of the way, therefore popular with those who liked a drink during the day, but didn’t want anyone to see them!

Upstairs were the bedrooms and a sitting room, which was never used after Mabel died. My parents had no time to sit! My bedroom window looked out over the vicarage garden where Mrs Taylor, the vicar’s wife, used to sit reading amongst the lilacs and roses. It was like looking into another world. Later the Taylors were replaced by Peter Lund and his family.

Attached to the pub were two cottages. Harry and Eva Stephenson spent their early-married life in one, until they and my cousin (now Heather Dickenson) moved to the Fallows in 1951. In the other lived an old lady, always dressed in black from head to toe, who had a nasty, yappy Pekingese dog; they both scared me to death!

There were stables out the back, which had presumably housed customers’ horses in times gone by. Pigs were kept there in the war years to supplement rationing. It was all hands on deck when the black pudding had to be made while the blood was still warm. It was mixed by hand in a tin bath; nobody died of e-coli!

Food was always important in our house and we were fortunate that we always had plenty. It was a good grub shop! Keeping up the traditions of hospitality meant a lot to my parents. Darts matches and domino nights meant potted meat or ham and pease pudding sandwiches and meat pies, all from Simmers of course!

Two weeks before Easter was Carling Sunday. (Nothing to do with lager or football!) For days you couldn’t stir in the pantry for enamel buckets full of these black peas steeping. Then they were boiled and finally on the Sunday heated in dripping tins in the oven. They were served over the bar in old saucers, and liberally doused in either the malt vinegar or rum, which stood on the bar in vinegar shakers.

For Easter Day there were Paste (from Pace meaning peace?) Eggs. Onion peelings were saved for weeks before Easter. Eggs were wrapped around with onion skin, then newspaper, then tied with string. They were hard-boiled, removed from their wrappings whilst still warm and rubbed over with buttered paper to make them shine. They were piled up on the bar on Easter Sunday lunch-time and the jarping began.

Every summer there was a “Bottom House Trip” when the regulars took a trip to the seaside. It was an all male party. The bus was loaded up with wooden crates of bottled beer and trays of sandwiches for the journey, and off they went in their sports jackets and flat cap or trilby, ready for a good day out. The crates came back empty!

On Christmas Day customers were given their first drink and wished “the compliments of the season”. But the biggest night of the year was New Year’s Eve. Between closing time at 11(because of a late “extension”) and midnight, the kitchen was cleaned and polished and the table loaded with pork and stuffing sandwiches, a Christmas Cake beautifully iced by Mary’s cousin Eileen, rice cake and lots of cheese. (My mother was always a firm believer in the sobering effects of eating cheese. As far as I am aware there is no scientific evidence to support this!) From midnight onwards all first footers were made welcome. Mary played the piano, Bob sang and everyone joined in. Nobody slept before dawn and usually Bob just kept on going all night and all the next day!

The 1960s saw the end of the spit and sawdust days and the start of the rock and roll years, when Mary’s much- loved radiogram arrived and the kitchen became a dance floor. I can see Malcolm Hodgson now with his sharp suit and brylcreemed hair………………… Bob and Mary bought their own pub “The Mill House Inn” at Crook in 1964. We were moving to a TOWN!

Footnote: If anyone has any further information please contact me at nigeldowson@yahoo.co.uk