Looking back at Red House pub on Barkerend Road

Writes Vincent: I read recently in the T& A that a developer had applied to demolish the Red House pub. So I thought if the application goes any further and the pub is to be no more, it’s worth looking back at what was once a thriving pub.

This picture might bring back memories for the handful of people left in the area who were regulars. The Red House had some well attended trips over the years. This photo is a men’s trip to Morecambe in 1935. The man on the extreme right-hand side of the picture with his pipe in his mouth and his camera over his shoulder is my father, Tom Finn.

On the second row, the third man from the right, with an open shirt neck, is Mick McGrath, my father’s cousin. The man in the centre of the front row, with the white moustache, was an army veteran who served in the First World War.

Many old pubs used to run an annual trip for regulars. It was regarded as a special occasion.

Up to the 1950s, and into the 1960s, most pubs had at least one annual trip. They tended to be to somewhere within a couple of hours’ drive. Seaside places were popular - Morecambe, Blackpool, Bridlington, Whitby and also Lake Windermere and horse races.

The trips were organised by a committee, and the funds were collected by the treasurer each week. They were usually restricted to men, although in the 1950s some pubs organised a women’s trip too.

Most of these trips left in the morning and returned late in the evening, often organised around the opening and closing times of pubs.

By the 1960s, the Red House was one of four pubs within half a mile of each other on the lower end of Barkerend Road. There was the Army and Navy, the Barkerend Hotel, The Ivy and the Red House. The Red House Inn was the last remaining pub on Barkerend Road.

It was quite a large pub. It was built in the 19th century with stables and a coach house.

Like many ‘locals’, it offered several social functions and pub games such as dominoes, darts and whist. Many pubs went on to have leagues, with teams competing in darts and dominoes.

On ‘games nights’, usually on Mondays, the teams would travel to away matches on a hired bus.

I also have a 1979 photo of the Red House pub with longtime landlord, Jack Stott, who was the landlord for at least 20 years, standing at the bar with Harold Fox, my brother-in-law. And I have a 1964 photo of a pub trip to Bridlington, showing Harold Fox and Harry Williams, who was my friend.

I thought about him this year on the anniversary of D-Day. A T&A article said Harry was one of the paratroopers who dropped into Normandy on the night of June 5 1944, in preparation for the landings the next day. He was the most un assuming person you could ever wish to meet, and probably one of the few Bradford men who landed in France that night

The Red House had a good collection of interesting people among its regulars. It will be sad to see it disappear - and with it a whole lot of happy memories.