It may not really be the weather for it today but we are again able to visit a pub to have a drink outdoors after the latest easing of lockdown restrictions. The prospect of being able to go out and enjoy a drink and a socially distanced conversation may be another step towards getting back to a semblance of normality, but it also serves as another reminder of the pubs that are no longer with us. We asked members of our nostalgia Facebook group ‘We grew up in Watford’ which former pub in the area they would have visited first this week and why.
TEN YEARS AGO
Residents express anger at bizarre planning decision Residents and councillors have expressed their anger at a bizarre decision to grant permission for a block of flats on the site of a former Bushey pub. Proposals to build a three-storey block of flats on the site of the former Otter Pub, in Bushey Mill Lane, were twice rejected by the Bushey and Aldenham planning committee, in September 2009 and June 2010. But on the second appeal, planning inspectors overturned the committee s decision. Councillor Roger Kutchinsky (Bushey North, Liberal Democrats) said: I think it s a completely bizarre decision. I m shocked and disappointed the planning inspector decided to overrule us. This is an example of us being dictated to by central government and it is a monstrosity.
FIVE YEARS AGO Hospital chiefs admit they need a bigger A&E unit after it reached crisis point. The lack of beds and over-stretched services forced West Hertfordshire Hospitals NHS Trust to suspend services for adults with minor injuries or illnesses several times this week. Patients have faced long waits to see a doctor and others have described how there were trolleys queuing up outside the A&E ward with patients waiting to be seen. David Gaunt, divisional director for unscheduled care at Watford General Hospital, admitted the hospital needs a bigger A&E department to cope with patient demand.
Circa 1928: Looking south down Watford High Street. St Mary s Church and Queen s Road Methodist Church (now demolished) can be clearly seen as can the gasometers in Lower High Street One of the best ways of illustrating how much a town has changed is from the air and thanks to an old publication we can give an insight into how Watford altered over a near 70-year period. Roger Middleton shared these newspaper cuttings with fellow members of the Watford Observer s nostalgia Facebook group We grew up in Watford . They were taken from a magazine this newspaper published in 1994 called Past and Present - A History in Pictures .