ARTHUR Morris never entertained his mum and dad at his pub, The Fishes at North Hinksey.

It was not because of a family disagreement, but to avoid embarrassment on both sides.

The parents were members of the Plymouth Brethren, who were very much against the selling and drinking of alcohol.

Whenever they threatened to leave their home at Tredegar in Wales to come to Oxford to see their family, Arthur and his wife Alice would invent all sorts of excuses.

The favourite one was to say that one or all of their three sons had mumps, measles or another contagious disease.

The parents – we don’t know their first names – never did visit The Fishes or realise that their son and daughter-in-law dabbled in drink.

It was one of many memories of life at The Fishes shared by Jane Hills and Susan Cianchino, grand-daughters of Arthur and Alice.

Jane, of Shipton-under-Wychwood, and Susan, who lives in Canada, recently visited the pub and reminisced over lunch.

Their family ran the pub for more than 40 years, Arthur and Alice from 1919 to 1947, and their son, Bertie, and his wife, Florence, from 1947 to 1962.

Jane and Susan, daughters of Bertie and Florence, have a variety of memories at the pub, including making hundreds of Cornish pasties for the Queen’s Coronation party in 1953.

There were flower shows with a greasy pole competition over the Seacourt Stream, punting on the stream, games of Aunt Sally, pony rides, a bumpy miniature golf course and buses dropping off dozens of Sunday and Bank Holiday customers to enjoy a drink at the pub.

The two sisters also recall their father creating the pub gardens, planting the saplings which are now enormous trees and planting 700 geraniums every year.

Another memory was the revolutionary glass-washing machine with a conveyor belt and transparent front, fitted in the centre of the bar, which attracted not only glasses but customers’ hats, wallets and other possessions as a joke.

Then there was the ghost, which Jane saw in her room at the pub as a 17-year-old.

That came as bad news for current waitress Tyla Mansergh – she now sleeps in the same room!

As we reported (Memory Lane, May 28), former landlady Florence Morris, mother of Jane and Susan, who ran the pub with her husband Bertie from 1947 to 1962, celebrated her 107th birthday on May 25 at the care home in Toronto, Canada, where she now lives.