by Mike Chapple, Liverpool Daily Post

IT SOUNDS like one of those names used in old British monochrome movies set in a public school where an excited headmaster bellows: "Greave Dunning!!!!! Get yourself to my study for an immediate sound thrashing."

Greave Dunning is in fact not some snooty little oik, but the intriguing moniker for an intriguing boozer near the heart of the ancient Wirral village of Greasby.

Ancient is a much overused and abused word in a modern world obsessed with change and celebrity numb nuts.

But Greasby qualifies as the real thing. The earliest recorded human settlement in the Merseyside area was near Greasby Copse, where excavations suggested that it dated back to 7,000 BC.

eave Dunning Fast forward a bit to 1066 and you also get a clue to the name of the pub.

Dunning was a steward for the Earls of Mercia who owned the village at the time of the Norman Conquest, and Greave is a derivative of one of the many different christenings it has had through the centuries.

Here endeth the history lesson.

Well, almost. Arriving on a windy Wirral Wednesday, the remark was made to the Pub Column's most faithful companion Mr Phil "Blimey O'Riley" Key that, despite some of the modern additions, the building looked like a large old farmhouse. Which indeed it is.

Dating back to the 18th century, it only became a pub in 1981 when what was an old barn was converted into the main bar area.

It is also now one of a chain of Mitchell and Butler's Ember Inns.

Now let's get this straight - any alehouse that has the words "chain", "theme", and "Inns" has definitely been "out" as far as this column is concerned.

It brings back images of pubs smelling of stale fat, serving Watneys Red Barrel slops with Rubbish Burgers and manned, or femaled, by misery-moos in contradictorily bright happy-clappy uniforms.

That is until now.

The Greave Dunning experience has allowed the Pub Column to cast its prejudices to the winds. The place was packed, which on a midweek night, so soon after the annual seasonal blow-out and with wage slips so miserably far away for many, is an indication that somebody is doing something right here.

The service was peerlessly prompt and cheerful and the prices cheap as chips.

(Talking of chips - which a hiccoughing Mr Key had with gammon, while Yours Truly munched a supremely cooked juicy steak - ours were not rickety sticks but great whopping doorstoppers fresh from the pan).

There was real ale to be had too, with Cains Bitter as a staple joined by three different guest beers in rotation.

It also has a ghost, which for the pub column is a de rigueur requirement for any building constructed outside the 20th century.

This one is a Mrs G and is believed to be one of the leftovers from its farm days. However, she hasn't been seen since the pub's last refurb a couple of months back.

Ceri Clark reckons she must have been mistakenly bricked up somewhere.

Ceri is one of the 32 staff working with manager John Newton. Her title is Senior Team Coach, which in any other situation would make for a bureaucratic and unfriendly feeling, raising immediate suspicions.

But given that everybody working here seemed to be part of a happy winning team, her football-style title in these circumstances seemed to be highly appropriate.

So what type of coach was she - an abrasive Brian Clough or a loveable old Bill Shankly?

"Oh, Bill Shankly!" exclaimed Ceri.

"This is definitely a Bill Shankly kind of pub."

Bluenoses apart, what more could you wish for?

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