John Stooke, 70, has launched an appeal for photos, stories and memories of Swindon’s vanished pubs for a book he is putting together. John, a company director and CAMRA member, lives in Haydon Wick and is a member of the local parish council. He is married and has four daughters and three granddaughters

JOHN Stooke’s fascination with the licensed trade began early.

“I was born in an off licence in Rolleston Street. My father worked for John Groves, a Weymouth brewer,” he said.

When the off licence was demolished to make way for a car park, the family moved to another off licence in Ferndale Road.

“I grew up working in the shop, and even as a little fella I used to serve railwaymen – because most people then used to work for the railway. They used to walk across the Rec to the Works,” he said.

“They used to bring along a jug and we used to have ale in a barrel tipped up behind the counter.

“We used to fill these jugs with two pints of beer and they used to go off and do whatever they did at home if they weren’t going out that night.

“So I kind of grew up with the smell of beer. I remember going down Regent Street and on the corner there was a pub called the Fox Tavern.

“The Fox Tavern was all tiled at the front and it had shaped seats. I thought it was so fascinating to sit on these shaped tiled seats on the front façade. They were all green.

“When the door opened you got this smell of smoke and hops, and noise and conversation. Then the door would close and it all stopped. I used to think: ‘What goes on in there?’

“I grew up with this idea that I had to find out what went on in those places because I loved the smell of them and I liked what sounded like a lot of camaraderie.

“I suppose that’s what sparked my interest originally, and I’ve always been fascinated by local history.”

The young John’s working life began at Plessey and included college studies in business management. There were increasingly senior roles with various electronics and engineering firms, and he still holds directorships with two companies, one based in India and the other in Germany.

John and his wife returned to Swindon a few years ago following a long period in Upper Minety, where they built a house and John became involved in a long but ultimately doomed battle to save the local pub.

His reasons for putting together a book about Swindon’s lost pubs include not only his interests in pubs and local history, but also a fondness for projects which can be seen through to a clear result.

The definitive guide to old pubs in the area is Home Brewed by late CAMRA stalwart David Backhouse, which first appeared in 1984 and was updated in 1992.

John has no intention of encroaching on that book’s premise.

“David was essentially a historical researcher,” he said.

“All his records are in Chippenham now. He died in about 2001. What happened was that he went into the reference library. Roger Trayhurn was manager then.”

Roger Trayhurn, since retired, is himself a respected Swindon historian and archivist.

“David gave him these three boxes and said: ‘This is everything I’ve researched. I’m going into hospital on Monday and I won’t be coming out.’

“Sure enough, he didn’t come out. Roger then moved the work down to the archive in Chippenham. I went there three weeks ago – they were very, very helpful, and basically the boxes were where they’d been put on the shelf. Nobody had even opened any of it.

“So I’ve had a kind of pristine view of David’s work from the time he put his pen down.

“It’s fascinating to read, when you look at the detail of the research. It took him 12 years to produce, which is a colossal amount of time.

“He did things like draw a map of old Swindon – mainly Newport Street, High Street, Wood Street – and he plotted every house on both sides. He went through the census records and plotted all the people who lived in every house.

“Mostly, his work is impeccable, and there’s no point in me doing the same research and coming up with the same conclusions.”

John’s book will focus purely on lost pubs; he calculates that about 96 have vanished since roughly the latter part of the 18th century. There will be more of an emphasis on the memories of people who drank and worked at the pubs, and on photographs of interiors.

“There’s quite a lot of photographs of the outsides, but when you think about it you can imagine that if you went into one of these pubs with a camera a few years ago and started taking pictures, you’d be looking to be put outside the door.

“So those photographs are one of the things I’m trying to find.”

He wants to hear not just about older lost pubs such as the Oddfellows Arms in Old Town, the Grapes, the Frome Hotel and the Gardeners Arms, but also newer ones whose lives were relatively short, such as the Bulldog and the Cock Robin.

People are already coming forward to share their memories.

“Yesterday I interviewed the son of a long-time landlord of the Bell and Shoulder of Mutton, which was a pub in Old Town, at the end of Newport Street, which closed in the ‘60s for road widening,” John said.

“He gave me photographs of him sat on the bar with his parents when he was two. This guy is 75 now.”

Then there was the woman who told him a story about the long-demolished Greyhound in Westcott Place, whose landlord kept a boat on the nearby canal.

“When he left they sank it in the canal. He was fed up with it so he just sank it – filled it up with earth and rubbish,” said John.

“I don’t know if this is true but a few years ago, she said, they got a seismic analysis next to the tow path. The boat was still there.”

Memories and photos will not just appear in John’s book.

“They’re going to be preserved for all time. It’s a tiny addition to the body of history and the body of historical images that are around for future generations.”

He can be reached at jstooke@btinternet.com and on 01793 737269.