Landlady Margaret Dove is calling last orders for the final time after an incredible 61 years of pulling pints at the same Nottingham pub.
It was 1958, when Margaret, then 18 and sporting a very fashionable beehive, started running the March Hare, with her late husband George.
Now, armed with a lifetime of memories, she's saying farewell to an industry that has changed dramatically since she first stood behind the bar.
Opening night, at the brand new pub in Carlton Road, Sneinton, in October 1958, was quite an occasion. As punters piled in, police on horseback had to direct the traffic.
During the golden era of the 60s and 70s, the pub gained a reputation for live music from little known, but talented performers, who later changed their names to Alvin Stardust and Engelbert Humperdinck.
But there was one band George refused to cough up for. He famously became the man who said "no" to The Beatles before they went on to make music history.
"He said he could fill the pub for a fiver so why should he pay them £25," says Margaret, 79, who has run the pub with the help of her daughter Angie (she makes the BEST chip cobs, according to regulars) and son Andrew after George passed away in 2007.
While there's no signed photos of the Fab Four on the walls, there are autographed pictures of other celebrity visitors such as David Jason, Birds of a Feather's Linda Robson and Pauline Quirke, Robert Powell, Jasper Carrott and a very youthful Ant and Dec.
With enough tales to fill a book (and probably a sequel), Margaret recalls the time the Lord Mayor visited to present trophies, leaving his chauffeur and civic Rolls Royce out the front.
"We were having a party and there was plenty of food so I told the driver to come in and the Lord Mayor said it was all right.
"Someone stripped the car. They took the flags, the badge, everything. I think he lost his job," she says.
Then there was the time the pub used to have strippers. "A rugby team pulled up and they all stripped off and filled buckets with beer."
It wasn't always rowdy. Sometimes customers fell asleep - photographs of them having a snooze went up on a board on the wall.
Despite her advancing years, Nottingham born and bred Margaret has always run a tight ship. The pub is scrupulously clean, there’s not a slashed seat in sight, and the bar top is polished until it gleams.
It's like stepping back in time with the dated decor, an old-fashioned big backed TV and until recently a jukebox which played 45s.
There are no digital tills either. Margaret tots up the bar bill in her head before ringing it into the vintage cash register. Obviously debit cards aren't accepted. And as for Wi-Fi, forget it.
Displays of silk flowers, countless thank you cards for all the parties thrown at the pub, knick knacks galore and a swirl of blooms around the pool table lamps add a feminine touch.
And as for Margaret herself, the Bet Lynch style beehive has been replaced by a neat perm but she still cuts a glam figure with a splash of scarlet lippy and nail polish.
Late husband George might have been a boxer but Margaret could stand her own. Woe betide any man who misbehaved. The feisty landlady would ask if they wanted a pair of earrings, made from a certain part of the male anatomy.
It's the state of the industry that has swayed her decision to pack her bags and leave the March Hare, which was crowned the Nottingham Evening Post Pub of the Year in 1988.
"There's no trade. No-one comes from the bottom of the hill and no-one from the top. When they built 150 new houses across the road, not one poked their nose in the door to see what the pub was like.
"None of the customers want me to go. I am losing my home," says Margaret, who will move to a flat near the City Hospital.
"It's all money, money, money now. The no smoking ban didn't help and everyone can get a couple of cans from Tesco to drink at home. They don't go to the pub any more. It's a way of life that's gone, it's so sad.
"In pubs now, they can't get you served fast enough and out of the way. I'm nosy, I'd ask people where they're from and what they do for a living.
"Mobile phones were the worse thing ever invented. They destroyed conversation. People just stand there staring at their phones."
Regulars are devastated about her departure and say it won't be the same without her. As the big pub companies implant managers, who come and go, they fear the likes of long-serving licensees like Margaret are a dying breed.
Geoffrey Hoad says: "She's the best landlady ever. It's very sad. I have been coming in since I was a kid with my parents and I'll be 67 this year. This has always been our local.
"It's friendly - they don't make pubs like this any more. There's lots around here that have been pulled down and turned into flats."
He and his friend Valerie Allwood walk her two dogs Swiper and Coco, and when it gets to 2pm they go to the pub for an hour every day without fail.
Valerie says: "It's the end of an era. Everyone has tried to get her to stay but she needs some time to herself."
The worst that could happen, they say, is for owners Ei to come in and change their local into a soulless modern pub.
"It needs to stay the same. We don't want a new person coming in and changing this and that," says Val.
Retired BT engineer Mick Lee, who has been drinking there since the 1970s, adds: "There is character in these walls. Margaret has made it what it is.
"Americans and tourists would love this because it's an old-fashioned English pub."
In 2016 the pub was given asset of community value status which protects it from demolition or change of use without
A spokesperson for owners Ei Publican Partnerships said: “Margaret is truly one of a kind and we thank her for her incredible stewardship of the March Hare over the past six decades.
"All of us wish her a long and happy retirement. The pub is now being run by a new publican who is focused on respecting Margaret’s legacy and we look forward to welcoming customers old and new for a drink.”
