A 'real community pub' ... but I felt about as welcome there as a crispbread on Billy Bunter's dinner plate

AS A public performer, I'm proud to have played some of the finest stages in the city before now, including the Victoria Hall and the Mitchell Memorial Theatre in Hanley, as well as the excellent Wade Conference Centre in Hartshill. However, I can now claim to have landed the big gig - I'm speaking at Spoons in Hanley next week!

- HISTORIAN MERVYN EDWARDS REMEMBERS SOME OF HANLEY'S LONG-LOST INNS

I've been invited to talk about the subject of Lost Pubs in Hanley. It'll be a chance to wax rhapsodic about the glory days of the public house, when people drank M & B Mild or Tetley Bitter out of a dimpled glass, when smokers sitting at the bar coughed all over the plates of gratis black pudding offered to customers and when proper ventilation was only provided when someone had thrown a chair through the front window.

The trouble is, where do you start in recalling Hanley's Lost Pubs?

Over the years, many readers have reminisced about bygone boozers in the city centre. Among those we've lost in living memory have been the Golden Lion, the Sea Lion, the Trumpet, the Hawkesmore, the Antelope, the Globe, the New Inn, the Three Tuns, the Burton Stores (Pig Pen) and... a pub with no name.

The derelict Jovial Foresters in Marsh Street lost its relief signage and rendered facade on safety grounds as reported in this newspaper in March. There was some talk at the time about the pub being one of the oldest in the city. However, it was not even one of the oldest in Hanley, though it certainly appears by 1876 as a beerhouse.

Many folk will remember the Black Horse, whose address was also Marsh Street. When I think back, I am reminded of just how many pubs earn a reputation that persuades some punters to give them a wide berth. The Burton Stores was among them though I never saw any trouble in there. Perhaps I was lucky.

David Vickers, the renowned poet of Penkhull, offered recollections of the Black Horse in The Sentinel in 2019. David and his friend - with a degree of trepidation once ventured into the hostelry.

He scribed: "Have you ever entered a place and had the feeling that you'd better choose every word carefully, avoid eye contact and act generally as though you are privileged to be let in at all? That was my first impression of the Black Horse."