The New Year when plastic beer glasses arrived in Sunderland - to a mixed reaction

The New Year in 1972 was a time of debate for Sunderland's drinkers.

And the question of the day was 'plastic beer glasses. A hit or not?'

To reduce costs - and broken glass on bar-room floors - plastic beer tumblers and non-returnable beer bottles were being trialled part of the Wearside public house scene.

A handful of complaints

They were in use experimentally in the Continental Hotel, where a handful of complaints were reported.

In appearance the see-through plastic tumbler were indistinguishable from a genuine pint glass.

But when empty the plastic tumbler is feather-light.

“It is only when it is empty that people really notice it is not glass, ” said the manager Leslie Mignonelli.

But a commercial traveller, John Harrison, who visited the Continental, said at the time: “I think this new kind of pint pot could be unhygienic because glass will always clean better than plastic.

Pints of a different kind

“I must admit I don’t really know if it tastes any different but it’s the idea of the thing.”

A spokesman for Vaux Breweries said: “When a large pub such as this is very busy a large number of empty glasses are knocked to the floor and broken.”

There was plenty more news that New Year.

There was another debate raging. Where had all the milk bottles gone.

More than one million milk bottles disappeared over Christmas in the North East.

A Milk Marketing Board official - Mr M Preston, manager of the Board’s Durham area - said his depot’s average monthly loss amounts to nearly £150,000 and he warned that unless this trend changed, steep increases in milk bills could be on the way.

Sunderland Creamery said they had a severe loss of bottles throughout the year and the holiday period was no exception.

Yvonne saved one of Sunderland's best known stores

A Sunderland schoolgirl’s call to the fire brigade saved a store from thousands of pounds of damage - and won her a new year treat.

As her reward Yvonne Parker, from the Red House Estate, was allowed to pick an outfit from the boutique in the Liverpool House store in High Street West.

She spotted smoke in a display window of the furniture department on Christmas Day.

She was on her way to meet her boyfriend at the time but she ran to a telephone kiosk to ring Sunderland Fire Station.

Firemen had the outbreak under control within minutes and the brigade spokesman said that the fire had all the makings of a serious blaze, which could have caused thousands of pounds worth of damage.

Firefighters stared in disbelief when two men drove up in a car and said: “We have a cat in the gearbox.”

When they put the car over the inspection pit, they found a kitten tightly wedged behind the engine.

It was kept at the fire station by the night-shift crew who fed it milk and meat.

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