The Beehive, Paradise Street, Liverpool Jan 6 2007

by Mike Chapple, Liverpool Daily Post

THERE are old pubs which can be compared to the stubby veteran defender who will stand his ground in a defensive wall, despite being muscled by the towering younger strikers to the right and the left.

The feisty Beehive on Paradise Street is like that.

Defiantly quaint and welcoming, it puffs out its chest in outstanding contrast to the garish chrome/glass fashion palace Zara on one side, and the mundane frontage of the Leisure Time amusement arcade on the other.

Set in the heart of the department stores quarter, its nearest equivalent is the marvellous Carnarvon Castle nearby, where at particular times of the day the floor is a minefield of fit-to-bust Scouse briefcases (that's plastic bags to you) as weary shoppers take a break to have a sup and a bite to eat.

We - Arts Editor Mr Phil "All right, tosh" Key, Grantie and Yours Truly - avoided this sometimes testing period to arrive after spending another working day in the neon-lit dungeons of Castle Greyskull.

To be truthful, the last time the Pub Column visited a couple of years back, the cosy bar lined with shelves of hardback books was a little too cosy for comfort, with barely enough space to raise your glass.

That, combined with the great billowing clouds of cigarette smoke so thick you could ladle it into jars as a benzene buttie spread, made it a very short stop before the move was made to somewhere else less constricting.

This time, however, we were in for a pleasant surprise.

The wood and glass partition which had blocked off the bar had been removed to open up the long and spacious room at the back which has been ostensibly set aside as a no smoking area for diners during the day.

Customers are also now asked to refrain from smoking at the bar, which means that a session in here nowadays can be an altogether healthier experience.

Health and Mr Key, though, make wary bedfellows, and he wasted no time in lighting up the first of his familiar king size Dorchesters while taking a sip of his Bells with ice away from the bar area.

The Beehive differs from the aforementioned Carnarvon Castle in that there is no real ale on sale, which in itself hardly presented a problem since Grantie stuck to his customary Extra Cold Guinness and Yours Truly had a perfectly adequate Stella.

And as has been made perfectly clear before, a good pub is as much about the people who frequent it as the ale it sells, and the Beehive, like the Castle, is awash with character - and characters - which makes it a haven for astute People Watchers such as Mr Key.

Penge's only honorary Scouser remembers when the Beehive was where both the jurors and the judged would inadvertently adjourn from the Crown Courts up the road.

"That could lead to some very interesting situations indeed, mate," said Mr Key, with an enigmatic puff on his ciggie.

The pub is destined to get an even more widespread customer intake when the palatial Grosvenor development - a mere stone's throw away - opens next year.

In the mean time, the pub has more than enough existing characters to go around, including the unfamiliar well- spoken gentleman who asked if he could join our table.

After requesting that his identity not be compromised, as he was working undercover for the SAS, he peered over at Yours Truly and said with spy-like insight: "I know your face from somewhere don't I, Frank?"

You just had to laugh - and the Beehive is the place to have many more of them.

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