Last Post bar makes awards finals shortlist
A POPULAR bar-turned-museum has reached the finals of a prestigious awards ceremony for its work in supporting its community.
The Last Post Memorial Bar on Canworth Street in Thornaby has made it to the grand finals of the Great British Pub Awards.
The bar, owned by Julie Cooper, 57, also plays the part of a museum with memorabilia from as far back as World War One.
Dedicated to helping as many people as possible, this is the third time the bar has made it to the finals, after previously winning the community hero award back in 2021.
The competition itself has a wide array of categories, such as Best Pub for Dogs, Best Pub for Entertainment and Best Country Pub, and that’s just to name a few.
The competition, which has been self-titled ‘the pub industry Oscars,’ prides itself on being the biggest and the most ambitious awards ceremony in the industry. Julie’s pub is just one of many to have qualified and she couldn’t be more proud.
She said: “I am passionate about what I do, our establishment is the first port of call within our community, if anyone has a problem or if we need help with our fundraisers everyone’s more than happy to help out. If we can help, we will.
“Charity work is a big part of what we do, we collect bags of food from Greggs on Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays and we hand them out to those who need them.
“We supply hospitals with pyjamas for patients and bingo nights for the elderly. Without this large
community, we wouldn’t be able to do as much as we do. It really does lift people’s spirits.”
Alongside her local, and international, charity work, Julie runs The Don War Museum, a separate part of the old St Patrick’s school which she renovated into her pub, which along with her walls of memorabilia, is specially dedicated to war veterans. With members of her own family being part of the army, it first started as a way to honour them but as more and more families started sending in old uniforms and pictures of loved ones.
Julie added: “It is a safe space for everyone but especially our veterans. We had one veteran, Tommy, who we bubbled with during the lockdowns, who helped us hand out food to people when the pandemic was at its height. The community all came together for his last birthday, he received 3,310 birthday cards that year and we filmed him as we read them all out.
“For his 101st birthday earlier this year, we had 903 people singing him happy birthday, the military bikers, one of our biggest supporters, came too.”
Sadly, Tommy has since died but he continues to live on in the heart of his community, his fellow volunteers and, of course, Julie. She added: “It was a very emotional day, I helped to carry Tommy’s coffin and the military bikers came up for the service as well. It goes to show what a community can do when everyone comes together.”