“I feel sad – even though he could be difficult because of his age and dementia, still, you get used to him being around,” he said.
“Even though I suppose he wouldn’t go on forever, he would’ve carried on I think for a bit.”
Robert Ormerod, a retired civil engineer, said his father used to visit the Crow’s Nest regularly and described him as a popular character who young people would buy beer for when he visited the bar.
“What happened is not nice. The pub has changed a lot over the years. It has become a youngsters’ pub,” he said.
“Me and my brother would visit our father regularly and clean the house.
“His eyesight had deteriorated and he had been diagnosed with dementia two or three years ago.
“He walked to the pub two or three times a week… he was a beer drinker and I suppose some people saw him as a bit of a character at his age.”