If anyone has ever sat and had a relaxing pint in the Free Trade, gazing over the curve of the Ouseburn and up the Tyne spanned by the bridges old and new. If anyone has ever appreciated the Free Trade, removed enough from the town centre to have an identity all it's own yet barely 10 minutes walk along the quayside. If anyone has ever sat in it's beer gardens on a warm summer's afternoon and drank genuinely good beer with friends and strangers, then make the most of your memories because ladies and gentlemen, the 'Developers' are moving in.

A London property developer has bought the site of the Ouseburn pub for £6 million quid, and plans to build a large block of Yuppie flats where the pub and beer gardens now stand. Of course that will effectively end the chances of most locals ever seeing that view again, given that many of these new flats are being earmarked as weekend homes for Futures traders from the City. The Fighting Cocks has gone, the Free Trade is under threat - god knows what'll happen to the Tyne, can you see it's famed Bank Holiday weekend techno parties carrying on once Toby and Georgina move in?!

If anyone is interested and wants to try to stop the Free Trade going the way of the Haymarket and so many other places, there's a meeting tonight at 7:30 in the Ouseburn yacht club building along down the bank from the pub itself, ie just along from the Spillers building on the quayside. A lot of people are very pissed off about this.

-- Anonymous, January 31, 2001

Answers

Martin

I live in Leeds so won't be at the meeting but anything I can do (e- mails, letters etc.) just let me know. This really gets to me. I used to live on Commercial Rd, Byker and drank at the Free Trade often. The walk along the then open quayside to town was a favourite of mine and the lass. I guy called Ted owned the Free Trade along with the Strawberry when that was a decent boozer. S&N took the Strawberry off him when the great western bypass plan was cancelled.

The finest drinking experience I know is to sit at the Free Trade window gazing along the Tyne river as it slides past the bridges and supping a pint of Mordue (brewed in Byker). There are so few genuine spit 'n' sawdust pubs left in Newcastle the ones left should be listed monuments. The Haymarket goes to make a carpark (the original bar is upstairs in the Cumberland Arms under Byker Bridge), The Strawberry, The Baltic and The Bridge get endless brewery makeovers (nice niknaks, nae atmosphere -matchday at the Strawb excluded)

I know I'm just an old git whinging about change and I know that the big alcoholic spenders are the young who like their pubs to be like a club in Ibiza but they've got to leave one decent scruffy boozer for the likes of me haven't they? Whinging old gits have rights too.

-- Anonymous, January 31, 2001

Sorry to hear this. I've never been there myself but empathise with your splendid description. The fact that this has been bought by a London developer rankles with me and the fact that many of these new flats are being earmarked as weekend homes for Futures traders from the City. We used to have a Stock Exchange in Newcastle and it would be good to have such wealth creating centres in Toon again instead of watching our best people and our wealth-creating chances being sucked greedily into London's gaping maw.

-- Anonymous, January 31, 2001

Dread, your a man after my own heart - I share your memories of the old Strawberry (Ted), Haymarket, Free Trade. We probably waded in the same piss together.

Martin, how did the meeting go?

-- Anonymous, January 31, 2001

Shags - the meeting's tonight (Wednesday). If people are interested I'd be happy to let you all know what went on tomorrow.

-- Anonymous, January 31, 2001

I'd like to know the details from the meeting Martin. Incidentally why isn't it taking place in the pub itself?

If the Free Trade has to close then I'm definitely making a special trip back to have one last pint there. Ahhhh! I can smell the cheese'n'onion'n'beer'n'tabs now.

-- Anonymous, January 31, 2001