'I don't know how I lasted the couple of years I did, it was that rough'

The landlady of a notorious flat-roofed pub that sat in the middle of a concrete estate has said she didn't know how she lasted the two years she was there.

Lynda Carroll was only in her late 20s when she and her husband got asked to run The Eagle pub in Hulme. Together with husband, Brian, they took over the estate pub in late 1976.

Lynda, now 74, told the Manchester Evening News: "I was a barmaid at the Sharston pub in Wythenshawe. I was friends with the landlady and she told me they wanted somebody to take The Eagle over."

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Lynda said she knew nothing about the pub beforehand but was keen to have her own business so she agreed to take over.

"First impressions were alright really," she said. "It was okay until we settled in there after about six-months and then thought, 'oh God!'"

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"We were quite able to manage it but things got worse in the end - fights and things like that.

"It was only a tiny pub when you think of it. You just walked straight in and it was like a terraced house really.

"You walked through the main door and there was a right side or a left side, and in front of you was the bar. On the left side there was a pool table around the corner of the bar where you couldn't really see what was going on. Drug deals and stuff like that."

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When she first took over the pub, one of the things Lynda had to contend with was finding out who the trouble-makers were.

"Customers would say 'he was barred with the last landlord', or 'she was barred', because the women