I started work at the Royal Brewery in 1970, working as a casual during the Easter and summer holidays. The first year I worked in the large yard opposite the beer stage, sorting empty bottles into their relevant crates.  I then fell out with the yard foreman, Bert Newnham and didn't return until 1972 after he had retired.  I was then drafted onto the beer lorries as a drayman's mate.   This was the life!  Freedom, the open road, lots of sleepy little Island pubs to deliver to and plenty to drink. But these were to be the last of the golden summers.  The Whitbread giant was to close the majority of its Island pubs; the old days were over, no longer did the brewery look after its estate but the smiling accountants with £ signs in their eyes, took charge.  I was there to see the last of those days and strangely enough, enjoyed it.  Eventually the Royal Brewery depot would close and only a small yard would remain on Newport quay.  Government legislation broke the brewery's monopoly on local areas but by then it was years too late.  The pubs that survived flitted from holding company to holding company and the old loyalties between pub landlord and brewery that I witnessed were gone forever.

I know, I know, what a poser! Me, Kevin Mitchell in 1975.  The lorry is one of the
Brickwoods' Austins splodged in Whitbread brown. However, you can spot the red
Brickwoods' paint on the edge of the dropside hanging down to the right of the pillar.

This was the open shed in front of the gate opposite the Railway Medina. Now 1975
and its tipping down, not an idyllic summer at all, it rained a lot and you had two choices,
(a) you got wet, or (b) you put lots of rubber overalls on, sweated like a pig and got wet.

Here's a close up of that pillar above, I was trying to catch the raindrops splattering off it!

Bill "Curly" Matthews, appears to have discovered an important piece of paper
lodged down the inside of his window.  Notice, its still raining.

Bob Jolliffe grins to the camera as it catches driver, Peter Winchcombe, having a sly
word with one of the drayman's mates.

Peter Winchcombe and Denny Curtiss (yard foreman), caught for the camera, they
don't look happy!  Denny left as yard foreman to work for Court's Furnishings.

My younger brother, Robin, with his nifty little electric fork lift.  At Whitbreads, my
sister Jacque was the telephonist, taking the weekly orders from the pubs. My
brother Robin made up the orders with his little red forklift, I  loaded them on to
the lorry and then delivered them.  Perhaps, we should have renamed the Whitbread
company, "Mitchell's".

Bill Brewer, in a bit of banter with a drayman's mate.

Alan Sibley strolls up the ramp next to the stream wearing his silly yellow Whitbread
hat on a wet summer's day. Notice how the yard is cluttered with pallets.  The building
to the left of the photo is part of the old bottling plant, in latter days it had a large metal
tank where I used to have to empty the barrels of "ullage" (returned beer) with my mate.
The Customs & Excise man would then come and measure it with his hydrometer and the
brewery would then get a credit on the duty.  After that,we pulled the plug and let
several hundred gallons of beer into the Lukley Brook.
The fish must have loved it!

The Railway Medina pub peeks through the trees.  In the foreground is the metal
conveyor system for bringing barrels across the brook.  The metal loop circles
were rusted and overgrown when I arrived in 1970, I believe Mew Langton had the
system installed.

The footbridge over the brook. To the left is Vic Cantelo's van, he was one of two
fitters who used the cellar to the left of the picture as their stores.

Yes, its the maltings and this photograph was taken from the old railway embankment
south of the then Newport Station. In the foreground is Hurst's yard, the roof immediately
in front of the maltings belongs to the Railway Medina pub.

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