Royal Oak Ruardean
Courtesy of: Cliff Harper. Uploaded: .
Back Row: 2 uncle Joe, 10 uncle Billy, 11 uncle George, 12 uncle Sid
Middle Row: 2 grandfather Duberley, 11 Dad, 12 uncle Jim Reid
Front Row: Sidney Reid with his dog "Jack" which my dad gave him
(All as related to Reg. Duberley)
The "Royal
Oak" pub was located near The Pludds. The pub door was split into
two like a stable door. Customers (mostly miners) would take their empty
bottles or jugs to the hatch The containers were filled with ale or cider
which was consumed outside beneath a tree. The local nickname for the
Royal Oak was the "Bag o' Nails".
Quoits has long been a popular game in the Forest of Dean. Nowadays it
is played indoors with rubber quoits on either a red and green wooden
board or on a concrete "board",
either one being about one metre square. This quoits club would have thrown their
iron quoits at a spike in a sandpit on the Gill Ground a disused quarry near
the pub. The middle spike was traditionally called the "meg".
The
detail from the photo shows one of the quoits held in the man's right
hand. A modern day indoor quoit would fit into the palm of a man's hand.
The second detail on the right shows the cider flagon decorated with
flowers. The small boy with the dog is Sid Read 
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WANTED: Old photos, old postcards, ephemera and memories of the Forest of Dean, Gloucestershire. U.K.