Closing Time author Kevin Casey
IN KEVIN CASEY’S childhood, the front room of a pub doubled as an adventure playground.
In the hours before the punters rolled up for a pint of mild, the lounge was his domain, the jukebox his personal stereo and the boxes of crisps behind the bar treasure troves buried in a perilous land.
This is not the world he has captured in his photographs. The pubs in those are empty, too, but they are not poised to welcome supping crowds.
Their regulars have long moved on – to lean on bars in other streets, some to sample the brew served in the great public house behind the pearly gates.
Windows cracked, doors hanging off their hinges, signs dulled with grime, they are the casualties of a changing world with less time for teatime gossiping in the snug or a swift half at lunchtime.
“My family background was in pubs for more than 20 years, so it seemed a natural subject for me,” explains Casey, whose exhibition Closing Time: The Lost Pubs of Liverpool opens at the Milk and Sugar gallery, Wood Street, tomorrow.
