Marking 20th anniversary of brewery closing down
VAUX MEMORABILIA GOES ON SHOW AHEAD OF EVENT
Scores of pieces of brewery memorabilia have gone on public display in the buildup to an anniversary event.
July 2 marks 20 years since Sunderland’s iconic Vaux Breweries shut with the loss of about 700 jobs.
Now Vaux collectors Richie Morgan and Peter Heslop have helped organise an anniversary evening to mark the city centre site’s sad demise.
Richie is also promoting the event by displaying just some of his memorabilia at Sunderland Museum and Winter Gardens.
Bottles, ashtrays, beer mats, models, trays, posters, ties and hats are among the dozens of items in a display cabinet until the end of June.
Richie, 64, who even has his own Vaux bar in the back garden of his Seaburn home, said: “We’ve got items here going back to the 1940s and 1950s and people are already saying how many memories the display has brought back.”
The Sunderland school crossing supervisor said he cannot estimate how much he has spent on his hobby.
But he did let slip that his wife once unsuccessfully bid £90 online for a 1930s Vaux beer mat as a Christmas present for him.
Richie and Peter, 54, of Ryhope, a warden with Sunderland Care and Support, have organised the reunion night along with family through their Vaux Brewery Collectables Facebook page.
Entry at the Chesters pub, in Chester Road, Sunderland, on Friday, July 5, from 7pm is free and the event is open to former staff and “all Vaux lovers”.
Flagship Vaux beers such as Double Maxim and Lambton’s, now brewed in the city by Maxim Brewery, will be on sale.
Former Vaux boss Frank Nicholson, who fought the closure plan triggered by London financiers, will be there and joined both Richie and Peter to admire the display.
He said: “It has certainly brought back happy memories and the ‘good luck Sunderland’ poster was particularly poignant.
“We produced them to wish the football club well before the 1992 FA Cup final. And here they are going back to Wembley in the play-offs this weekend.
“The posters went down well. Except for the one at St James’s Park Metro station, near the Newcastle United ground, which lasted around an hour and a half.”
The memorabilia is on show until Sunday, June 30, with Sunderland Museum and Winter Gardens open Mondays-Saturdays from 10am-4pm and on Sundays from noon-4pm.