The article reproduced below article dated 22^nd Feb 1963 written by Richard Field. is reproduced

‘At the sign of the Red Lion’

 

‘- all Four musketeers’  for one, all for beer.

 

There’s never a dull moment in the bar-room of the Red Lion at Denton when the ‘four musketeers’ get together.

They are Alwyne Henry Robinson 76, James Cawley, 72 year-old retired roadman, Harry White, 71, self-styled pub crank and 78-year-old Ernie Smart.

 

They’ve been meeting here for years and while away many an hour supping beer and telling stories of yesteryear.

 

Alwyne Robinson likes to day he was a teetotaller –at least until he was 19. Then, on doctor’s orders he started taking two pints of stout a day – ‘and I haven’t stopped since’ he jokes.

 

Today he drinks his Stingo, no 10 – ‘the best beer in the world’ – as he spins yarns about his days as a carrier, pig-killer, shop salesman and licensee.

 

He started work at, he recalls, at the tender age of six. He fed poultry night and morning for the princely sum of sixpence a week.

 

At 9 he recalls carrying tea to workmen building the old Cogenhoe council schools …. ‘Remember it as clear as yesterday’ he says.

 

Than at 12 he left school and worked in a turnip field … ‘Got my ears frozen off that winter’ he remembers.

 

Next he worked at Brafield Co-operative Society, where his dad was manager. He sold the store’s first bicycle and first pair of shoes.

 

‘And I’m not likely to forget another ‘first’ at the Co-Op’ he says chuckling into his mug ‘I measured a lady for her corsets. I bet you daren’t publish that ….’

 

Alwyne has memories, too, of his days as a carrier. ‘I used to cart coal, beer and furniture. In fact I’d take almost anything. But there wasn’t a lot of money in it’

 

He remembers carting 9-gallon kegs of beer from the brewery to Denton. He got paid 9d. –  2d. for returning the keg.

 

Another job. He used to fetch salt in the winters from Castle Station. The Co-Op paid him five shillings a load. He also carried coal for 1s 6d a ton. Later he was publican at the Red Lion, Bozeat.

 

These days he keeps himself busy doing a bit of shepherding, gardening and, this weather, snow clearing.

 

Alwyne’s pal James Cawley, has been a patron of the Red Lion since he was 18 – ‘that’s about 54 years I reckon’ he says.

 

James started work at 13 as a ploughboy earning 3s. 6d. a week. Later in life he was a soldier, building labourer, farm labourer, horsekeeper and finally roadman.

 

James remembers the old days in Denton with nostalgia. He recall times when ‘everyone was pals and matey’ and when the folk at the Red Lion met to make their own entertainment with a fiddle, piano and tin whistle.

 

Those were the days, he’ll tell you, when Denton folk stayed in Denton. As a boy it was a big adventure to go as far afield as Northampton. That only happened once a year – in October for the mop fair.

 

More stories of yesteryear are sure to be contributed by Harry White, roadman at Little Houghton, who, at 71, is probably the council’s oldest employee, and by Ernie Smart who has a few yarns about his life on Lord Northampton’s estate.

 

Red Lion licensee Mackie Hollowell knows most of the stories by heart. And so, presumably, does Jackie, his four-year-old pet jackdaw which is as much of a ‘regular’ these days as any one of the musketeers.

 

 

The characters involved are all well-known Denton folk. Alwyne Robinson was also known as ‘Bot the pig-killer’ as another job he had (surprisingly omitted from the article) was local slaughterman in days when a lot of Dentonians kept one, or a few, pigs  a valuable source of meat for their families. He was also known to always drink his Stingo No. 10 beer from the bottle and never use a glass.