The Royal Oak: Pulling pints for half a century

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THREE weeks after Olive Brooks got married in 1953, she and her husband, Lew Wilson, moved into their first home together – a cold and damp run-down pub with no bathroom, a shared toilet and the only hot water coming from a geyser in the bar.

It was the Royal Oak, at Ockbrook, at the time a very unfashionable Offiler’s Brewery house with hardly any customers. Lew continued his job on the railway, leaving his young bride to run things with the help of his mother.

“I was not too impressed as I had been working as a shorthand typist, but I was lucky – a neighbour used to invite me over for a bath. Otherwise, we had to go into Derby to the Slipper Baths. We only paid £1 a week rent for the pub and it was tough to begin with, but I said I would try and stick it out for five years,” said Olive.

The locals were certain she wouldn’t make five weeks.

Fifty-three years later, Olive (79), is still at the Royal Oak and proud of being the longest serving landlady in the area.

Though these days much of the hard work is undertaken by her family, they say she still “rules the roost”. She isn’t seen in the bar so often now, as she is recovering from a hip operation, but she lives next door, keeps a close eye on what goes on and can’t wait to get back into harness.

Many of the customers are now among her closest friends and all enjoy her quick wit and knowing smile.

“If anyone had told me I’d be here after a half a century, I would have collapsed with laughter,” she said, “but now it’s part of my life.”

Lew, who died 10 years ago, worked all day at the railway, so he could only help out in the evenings. That was why Olive’s name was always on the licence and, though their two daughters and their families are now closely involved with the business, they still regard her as “the boss”.

Things have changed dramatically since those early days.

The Wilsons bought the Royal Oak from the brewery in 1990 and it is now a pretty and very busy village pub, where its excellent food and extensive wine list attracts customers from far afield, as well as the locals.

But it has never lost touch with its past.

There are no fruit machines, juke boxes or pool tables and the quality of its beers has seen it at the top of the Campaign for Real Ale’s Good Beer Guide for the past 30 years. It has also been voted both Derby’s Pub of the Year and the Best Pub in the East Midlands.

“We do our best to keep up to date while keeping old-fashioned values, which people seem to appreciate,” said Olive.

The pub’s large assembly room has helped keep the local community spirit in Ockbrook and it is regularly used for functions, including weddings, christenings, anniversaries, funerals and major events as well as big televised football matches.

This began back in Olive’s first year in charge when she hired a large-screened television set – in the days before many homes had one – so that villagers could watch the Queen’s Coronation.

“Everyone came; it was so busy we had difficulty coping,” said Olive. From then on, the room was in regular demand.

“One year, I had every wedding that was held in the village. Only the other day, someone showed me a bill from years ago when we had charged a half a crown (12½p) a head for their wedding breakfast.

“We put on a good show because my mother-in-law was a waitress at the Co-op, which was one of the best caterers in town, at the time, and she would get her friends from there to help us out.

“Since then, we have done those early couple’s silver and golden wedding anniversary parties, so they have stayed loyal and good friends.”

At the Millennium, Olive’s daughter suggested they do something completely different and organised a champagne breakfast for 80. Every new year since, it has been repeated, by popular request.

Though Ockbrook was her first marital home, Olive’s parents, Sarah and Percy Brooks, brought up their family in Wilmorton where her granddad, Joe Tipping, ran a general store on the corner of Taylor Street .

“When I was 12, I started working for him, going out in the mornings before school to deliver milk. During the dinner break, I delivered bread and, at night, I was out again with milk.

“We used to cover all the streets from the Portland Hotel to the Navigation Inn. We used to take it out in buckets and measure it out into people’s jugs. I remember delivering during the black-out in the war. We had lots of business because Rolls-Royce and the railway were all around us.”

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This article is from the Derby Evening Telegraph and is reproduced online here.