The Duchess of Albert Road passes away as we reminisce pubs in Pompey after her 52 years in the trade.
Mollie was the duchess of Albert Road, and her death hit us all like a tonne of bricks. Things have changed a lot since Mollie and her husband first took over “The Railway Hotel” in 1966. The price of a beer in the early seventies would only set you back around 14p compared to nearly £5 these days, and number one in the charts at the time was “Reach out I’ll be there” by The Four Tops.
The landlord Barry Kewell, who runs The Northcote Hotel, said “when we moved to the Northcote, Mollie was again the first to help us through our opening night and gave us some very sound advice about the area and the local clientele”. He went on to add “she was so supportive to me during the three years that I did as President of the men’s Licenced Victuallers Association, again helping with her ladies to raise money for our local charities”
Mollie lived a good life, and after running the Railway Hotel, moved to the Trafalgar Arms in Fratton Road, before ending up at the Duke of Devonshire in 1982. Barry went on to say “she touched and influenced so many different lives not only across the bar but on a personal level as well”. The personal aspect is hard to find nowadays with Pompey slowly turning from a traditional naval city to a student city, meaning people come and go and never stay in just one place, a sad decline for the smaller pubs, but they understand the moving of times.