The Tale of Tommy Ducks – a story of notoriety and philistines The mirror came from an infamous Manchester pub called Tommy Ducks that once stood on East Street that now lies under what is the rear areas of Costa Coffee and the Premier Inn across from the Midland Hotel. The mirror was part of a collection of promotional memorabilia sold by the ahead of his time landlord in the mid 1970s. You could buy pint and half pint glasses with the ‘united’ duck logos on them as well as the mirrors. The logo was seemingly pinched from an of the era parody logo for United Airlines and suitably (though perhaps not by todays moral standards), adapted for the use within the public house. The pub can first be seen in census records in 1871 with Thomas Duckworth ‘Retailer of Beer’ living there with his large family. The census ten years earlier showed it to be two homes (numbers 8 & 10). The pub was originally called the Prince’s Tavern. The story told is that Tommy wanted his name writ large across the front of the building so he commissioned a sign writer to the task. His choice of tradesperson however left a little to be desired or perhaps he plied him with too much free ale. The sign writer badly misjudged the available space and concluded that having written ‘Tommy Duck ...’ and with so little space left that the addition of an ‘s’ would be fine! This tale is perhaps best described as folklore rather than fact. Whatever the reality, the name and the tale stuck. One hundred years later the pub stood alone the area seemingly assigned for redevelopment having been acquired by local brewers Greenall Whitley about 1906. The brewers would remain its owners until its demise and in the later years assume the role of villain of the peace albeit by then going under the name of Greenalls Group plc. More on this later In the years following its re-branding, the pub became quite an institution attracting a variety of clientele. On Wednesday 22 October 1884 the Athletic News, a local publication shared within its En Passant column that, ‘I find that a new resort of Manchester footballers is “Tommy Duck’s." It is wonderful how they find their road to such out the way places, but they do, all the same’. Another newspaper reported a rather darker tale, that on the 23 December 1898, John George Turner, a 29 year old groom, having already drawn a dagger during an argument within Tommy Ducks, stepped outside and shortly after stabbed to death the unfortunate Samuel Brown. By the 1960s, the pub was a well-established name. It even received a name check in the Daily Mirror Andy Capp cartoon strip in June 26 1968. Around the middle of the 20c, its notoriety was not so much based on the clientele, but what the female customers left behind. Their knickers and other undergarments bedecked the ceiling. The process and circumstance by which they transferred from owner to ceiling appears, perhaps unsurprisingly, to be © Mirrorpix unreliably documented. As I only ever visited Monday © deltrems flicr.com to Thursday’s and never witnessed such an event, (mid 1970s) I can only conclude this was a purely weekend tradition. The innovative interior decoration, fixtures and fittings were for ever evolving and in February 1976 the Sunday People reported the introduction of a glass topped coffin complete with a skeleton by the then landlord Ken Rigg. It was probably during Ken’s tenure that the ‘United Ducks’ memorabilia appeared. When Ken left he took the coffin with him, transported by poll bearers through the Manchester streets to its new home the Old Nags Head. The new landlord had a suitably engraved tombstone put in place of the coffin. Perhaps the seventies were its peak. During this period it was visited by many famous faces and the local police too had an affection for the place. I am reminded that on one occasion a policeman nicknamed Fangio held his retirement there complete with a brass band and Coronation Street stars all in attendance. Standing alone, Tommy Ducks remained something of an institution until the 1990s. By then, historical societies and CAMRA were fighting plans for demolition. This was no doubt much to the annoyance of the surrounding landowners and Greenalls Group plc as this was all prime real estate within which they had no plans to retain Tommy Ducks. The circumstances surrounding the last days of the pub vary according to which social media is read. Manchester CAMRA in their of the time magazine tell that, Greenalls ‘hand delivered a notice of their intention to demolish the pub "at the earliest opportunity" to the City Council late on Friday 19 February.’ Whatever the truth, with the council offices closed for the weekend, the bulldozers moved in under cover of darkness and by sunrise on Sunday Tommy Ducks was no more. Questions were asked in the highest ‘public’ house in the land. The UK Parliament’s Early Day Motion 1735: tabled on 31 March 1993 and signed by 40 MPs demanded ‘That this House notes with great concern that Greenalls Group plc, acting like philistines, have demolished Manchester's famous public house Tommy Duck's, thus depriving the city of a part of its heritage and achieving what Adolf Hitler's Luftwaffe failed to do during the wartime blitz on Manchester; condemns the off-handed decision to demolish the pub during the night and without adequate consultation with Manchester City Council's Planning Department …… ’ Greenalls were apparently fined just £150,000 for what many would call Manchester’s greatest act of historical vandalism. All that is left of Tommy Ducks are the memories and memorabilia such as this mirror. This abbreviated history of Tommy Duck’s was written on the occasion of the gifting of the mirror to Rich Fowell by a Yorkshireman(!). The words are based on his own memories from his time working in the Midland Hotel and midweek frequenting of the pub coupled with internet and archive research. © 2021 © Rose McGivern