The Day Fidel Castro Came To Rotherham
2016-11-27
The death of former Cuban president Fidel Castro this week, brought back memories of happier times for 90 year old Dalton man Arthur Cox.
Arthur was landlord of The Grapes pub in Dalton in the 1950’s, and remembers a young Fidel Castro booking into the pub on a bed and breakfast basis. He says that Castro was visiting the area on a totally undocumented trip to study worker-management relations in the local coal industry for an early political project. Arthur recalls that Castro came into the bar most evenings where he smoked fat cigars, drank mild and played a mean game of ‘arrars.’ “His English was pretty good,” recalled Arthur, ” which is just as well because my Cuban’s rubbish.”
“There was never any mention of revolution, communism or the overthrow of capitalism” said Arthur “ so all of that came as a bit of a surprise. He just wanted to talk about football, women, and why the Yorkshire board didn’t have a treble ring.”
Arthur is very specific about when Castro paid his visit to The Grapes. It was the week of June 7th 1955 he said. “I know that because it was a few days before Elvis Presley walked in on spec looking for board and lodgings. He didn’t have enough money and so did 20 minutes in the tap side to pay for a steak and kidney pie. He were crap and walked off to the sound of his own footsteps, but you don’t forget something like that.”
- Arthur’s book ‘Great’s At The Grapes’ is now out in paperback
