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Picture source: Luke Britton

The Fleece Inn was situated on Clayton Lane. This pub closed in 2023 and is being converted into three houses.

My uncle, Donald Singleton, was the licensee of the Fleece in the 1960’s,I remember working behind the bar some nights when I was at Bradford University studying my chemical engineering degree, Taking orders and doing the mental arithmetic when it was still pounds shillings and pence with no calculators or tills kept me sharp. I knew I’d made the grade when I was asked to tap or re-rack a barrel, they were wood and all the pumps were mechanical no bottles of gas back then, disturb the sediment in a barrel when re-racking when it was approaching empty would literally destroy any profit from the barrel. There were Mild and Best Mild on tap, the difference was that the best mild tap didn’t pull the slops from the spill tray under the pump spouts, the regulars knew that and watched carefully when you pulled a pint, and the head on the pint had better be just right, pulling a good pint was a craft. Donald died in 1972/3 from kidney cancer.

Michael Singleton (August 2025)

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