Spread Eagle at Rolleston

sjglondon, on June 30, 2007, said:

34 years after sitting outside of the pub while visiting with my grandfather I returned to sample the ale inside (Yes it also serves Pedigree!).

lewpoole, on November 2, 2007, said:

My parents ran The Spread Eagle from just before WW2 and I lived there until about 1948 when I joined the Army. I went first to the village school where the teachers were Miss Dobson, Miss Redfern and Mrs Cotton. Togeher they got me through the 11+ and I went on to Burton Grammar School.

After the USA came into WW2 a large number of US Army Camps and one Base Hospital were built all round us. As a result of this presence part of the Hotel was taken over to accomodate Ammerican Red Cross ladies. These "girls" manned converted Green Line Buses which had been converted into Club-mobiles. In essence these were mobile Doughnut and Coffee factories. The took these buses round to a different camp each day and dispensed free coffee and doughnuts together with books magazines and some knitwear to the soldiers. (British included if they came across any!)

Sometimes during the holidays I was invited to go along. On one memorable occasion we went to the Base Hospital to see General Paton present medals to the survivors of the Ploesti Oil Field Air Raid.

This raid, because of the distances involved was always a "one way trip". It was designed to show the Germans that the Allies could hit anywhere and the aircrews were told to bale out in the Eastern Mediterranean where they would be picked up by ships. Quite a few, many wounded, did survive and it was they who got the medals.

Later in life I did a tour of duty on the Attache's Staff in Washington DC and was able to look up the sister of one of the "girls" who lived on Long Island.

Since being widowed 2.5 years ago I was able, by a happy coincidence after some 53 years,to meet up with my "first ever" girlfriend now a widow. She used to live in Stretton and we used to go to the Cinema in the Village Hall and go cycling together. We now make the effort to keep in touch by 'phone virtually every day (Thank you Skype) and see each other as often as we can, but far too infrequently

mwatkins625.orangeho…, on January 12, 2008, said:

Merv Watkins. I used to work at the Spread every saturday and sunday morning, emtying the bottle baskets and sorting the bottles into their respective crates, cleaning the glass shelves, and on the sunday, washing the boss's car, which I think was a white and yellow Ford Zodiac. I got paid 10 shillings, and had to give my mother 7shillings and sixpence. The owners at the time, (1962-64) had two Labrador dogs, one black and one golden, they were called Bass and Worthington!! I remember even earlier than this, I think the late fifties, we used to wait for the Beer delivery men to arrive, and we would help them to reload all the emties, and if we found any crisp packets left in the tins that they came in they lets us keep them. We also had many a good day's fishing in the brook, catching amongst other thing's Pike, Roach and on many occasion tried to catch an Eel that lived under one of the footbridges with a fork on the end of a stick, Always got away though.