Given the ongoing, and apparently escalating Covid Omicron virus epidemic crisis, I was seriously considering not going out for New Year’s Eve, and in the days leading to it, I feared the government might close public socializing too, but fortunately that never happened.
There was no New Year 2021 celebrating for me, due to still being in hospital recovering from my life saving bowel cancer surgeries (December 2nd and 6th 2020) and I wasn’t released back into the wild until January 18 2021, after which my only possible travels involved visiting clinics and surgeries (when district nurses didn’t tend to me at home) until May 2021.
After that I returned to going out properly, making up for lost time, taking long mostly urban walks with my cameras, taking shots of pubs and their signs, and visiting several bars too, in Preston and further afield, Buxton, Dumfries, llandudno, York, and my city of birth, Manchester among them. Some of my captures may feature in future books and poems. Watch this space.
A favourite bar in Preston is the relatively new Friargate Tap Room, a real ale utopia where staff and customers actually talk to one another. Shortly before Christmas I went in to check they were open for New Year’s Eve. They were.
Living alone and detached from my Mancunian roots, I was out alone in a World surrounded by people out with friends, family and their partners, but in many ways I actually like being detached, apart, etc. I did want to get out from total solitary confinement though. Friends did pop by and treat me to a night out the weekend before Xmas (with a meal in The Green Man at Inglewhite), and I met up with friends in Manchester for an early evening beer or two at The Bank Inn after calling on my Mum, but Xmas, and the week leading up to New Year were just me, books, the internet and the Telly. New Year’s Eve was not going to see me being a total Howard Hughes/Billy-No-Mates. I put my Covid fears aside and headed to the city centre.
The Friargate Tap Room was quite busy when I arrived, but many drinkers moved on to other bars, and it got more relaxed, then filled up again, then relaxed again. As midnight and the change of year loomed, the staff handed out party poppers, and we triggered them dead on time. The usual hugging, and hand shaking followed.
I got a drink on the house and a customer treated me to a whisky just as he was leaving too.
One charming lady wanted to dance with me and if the music had been slower I might well have joined in. Alas my stoma means I am officially disabled, so I can’t be too energetic. Dancing to a fast number by The Pogues might have been disastrous for me. (Not sure which track it was but it had this kind of pace – The Pogues – Fiesta https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6pYI9t-I6qo )
I stayed at the bar until the relaxed closing way gone 1 am, grabbed a kebab and then a taxi home, after a truly lovely night. Big thanks and lots of love to all at The Friargate Tap Room.
Arthur Chappell
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