Derek JamesCigarettes, caps and a pint of Bullards, mild or bitter, it is a magnificent picture which illustrates pub life in Norwich just after the Second World War…a world so different to the one we live in today when almost every street had at least one local.Derek James

Cigarettes, caps and a pint of Bullards, mild or bitter, it is a magnificent picture which illustrates pub life in Norwich just after the Second World War…a world so different to the one we live in today when almost every street had at least one local.

This photograph was taken in the old Wellington public house in Muspole Street, just one of the many city centre boozers which survived the savage bombing raids which tore the city apart.

Although this was the way it was in the Wellington, it would have been much the same scene in the dozens of pubs, large and small, which served both the locals and the hundreds of workers at the many factories dominating the city centre in those days.

And remember the pubs were selling beer brewed on the doorstep in the large Norwich breweries, the biggest being Pockthorpe, home to Steward & Patteson, followed by Bullards, at the old Anchor Brewery.

The Wellington was a Bullards pub - and proud of it.

They brewed a fine pint - one of the best in East Anglia and ran hundreds of pubs across the region. The Bullard family were loved by the people. They played a major role in Norwich life…they were the last of the real beer barons.

The picture of the people in the Wellington comes from Ray Newman who says: 'I remember the pub during the years when food was short. My father would bring home the odd tin of Shrewsbury biscuits or a large pork & egg pie.'

'Sometimes I was allowed to go to the pub with dad and I could watch the bar from the window at the back,' added Ray.

'I always had a piggy back ride home on his shoulders. We didn't have much but there were happy days,' he said.

His brother Cecil Newman (fourth from the left) worked at Barfield & Richardson's factory in Starling Road and in those days he would have been a foot soldier in an army of men and women working in the many shoe factories dotted around the city.

Their footwear went all over the world.

Edgar Culyer (second from the right) was a waiter at the old Castle Hotel on Castle Meadow. Remember that?

The gentleman standing on the far left with the cigarette in his mouth was the landlord Bert Marshall and the women at the front is Mrs Marshall.

Perhaps you can recognise some of the others and can remember if there was a reason why they had their picture taken.

It, along with so many other pubs in the city, disappeared in a cloud of dust…leaving just memories.

Watch this space for more pictures of the old Norwich pubs and their customers.

Did You Know?

On this day in 1478 George, Duke of Clarence, was murdered in the Tower of London. According to legend, he drowned in a butt of Malmsey wine.

On this day in 1807 hundreds of men and women were drowned as ships were wrecked in fierce storms along the Norfolk coast. There were desperate attempts to save people and events that terrible night encouraged William Manby (better known as George) to invent his 'Manby Mortar' which fired rescue lines to ships.

On this day in 1915 Germany's blockade of Britain by submarine began.

On this day in 1932 fire damaged the music emporium of Wolsey & Wolsey in King Street, Great Yarmouth.

On this day in Norwich of 1941 bombs dropped on the Vauxhall Street, Horace Street, Walpole Street and Coach & Horses area of Norwich damaging around 50 houses and leaving almost 150 people homeless.