To the woods to pick Bluebells

My father was not a great drinker but he did like his occasional pint and a game of darts. Traditionally, Thursday night was his dart’s night and he and a friend would head out to one of the local pubs or the RNA Club and have a game of darts and a pint or two. When I was tiny, if Dad was going out and I didn’t know where I would ask. The answer, on a Thursday night would be ‘Off to the woods to pick Bluebells’. Even at that age I knew I was being given the brush off but what a super way of doing it! Definitely beats ‘Mind your own business you nosy child!’

A game of darts

 

Unlike many menfolk of Liverpool, Dad only went to the pub once a week and that was principally because he enjoyed his game of darts – he was still playing in his early eighties. Probably because he didn’t want us youngsters saying he’d been to the pub his standard response when asked where he was going on his one night out would be ‘I’m going to the woods to pick Bluebells.’ Nowadays political correctness would demand that if you were going to the woods to pick bluebells you told your children you were going to the pub!


In his younger days he would travel all around Merseyside playing for his darts team and in later life every so often when out in the car he would comment – “That pub used to have a good dartboard”. The main pub I can recall him using when I was little was the Broad Green Abbey Hotel which was just down Bowring Park Road by my prep school. The Abbey was subsequently knocked down.


The Rocket was an occasional haunt but I cannot recall it having a dartboard so that may have been only for those rare occasions when he was meeting someone for a drink. The Rocket too has been knocked down since then but it has been replaced by a new pub a hundred yards away. He also went to the local Catholic club but he tended to play that fact down a bit – he being proud that his Orange Lilies always flowered every July 12th.


The Childwall Abbey was another occasional haunt and we sometimes used it for family party meals and ‘wakes’ – my cousins Dudley, Young Frank (Denny) and going with Dad and I for a meal after Dad’s sister’s funeral. The Childwall Abbey is basically a 15th century building and was probably originally a monastery chapel. This and the Rocket were Mum’s Dad’s regular haunts.


When the dartboard went from the Broadgreen Abbey Hotel he and his main darts partner (who lived in Huyton) moved out to the Black Horse at Cronton. I cannot recall his partner’s name – perhaps GB, who knew him better, will ‘comment’ it. This photo is from a very good site aboput Merseyside pubs - www.merseypub.com


Later still he could be found playing once a week at the RNA Club, a popular social club on Bowring Park Road, just at the end of our road.