A lost Greater Manchester "gimmick" saw a former RAF plane transformed into a restaurant with a 'cockpit' cocktail lounge.
Back in the 1970s, customers would venture to Pomona Docks to board a 21-year-old plane - known as the Comet - to enjoy a delicious meal or have a drink in its 'cockpit' cocktail lounge. The brainchild of Liverpool businessmen George 'Jud' Evans and Colin Peers of Compass Catering, the Comet was built by De Havilland Aircraft Company Limited at Hatfield and is said to have first flew in 1953.
After being struck off charge 1974, that same year the former RAF plane was acquired by the Compass Catering and flown to Manchester by a crew of six from the Wyton air base in Cambridgeshire. The plane cost £10,000 and had its wings, tail and fin removed to take a 12-mile road journey to Salford.
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But this was not the first business venture for the George and Colin, who already had two unusual nightclubs under their belt. Bobbing gently on the still waters of Salford’s Pomona Docks, the North Westward Ho! started its life as a floating nightclub in the early 1970s.
Years prior, the pair also opened a floating nightclub in Liverpool called the Clubship Landfall, which was moored in Salthouse Dock. Due to the popularity of Salford’s North Westward Ho, the same year the owners purchased the Dehavilland Comet and the RAF aircraft was parked besides the ship, offering something new to their existing customers.
Sven Evans, the eldest of George Evan's children, grew up in Halewood, Merseyside and said he remembers the Comet as a young boy. Sven, 60, told the MEN: "They wanted to expand and make it a whole attraction.
"They had loads of contacts in the military and navy and things like that because of the clientele they had, so maybe there was some kind of connection there. They bought the Comet from the MOD (Ministry of Defence) and they flew it on its last flight ever."
On May 10, 1974, the Liverpool ECHO reported how the two Liverpool businessmen bought themselves a 500 mph, 80-plus seater aeroplane but that the ex-RAF Transport Command Comet jet would be "grounded" on the banks of the Manchester Ship Canal as a restaurant and bar.
It read: "Colin Peers, aged 38, of South Road, Aigburth, and George Evans, aged 39, of Gerards Lane, Halewood, already have a converted tank landing craft - the Clubship "Landfall" - in Liverpool's Collingwood Dock and a converted Isle of Wight ferryboat in Manchester's Pomona Dock as restaurant and bars. Now, the Comet, which is to be added to the fleet, will fly into Manchester Airport on Monday with Mr Evans and Mr Peers on board.
"The RAF crew will dismantle the wings, tail and fin and it will be carted by road to the Ship Canal two miles from Manchester centre. Then it will be reassembled and converted to seat about 50 diners."
At the time, Mr Peers said: "The idea started about two months ago when we wondered whether to put a small aircraft on the site just as an attraction. We discovered we could buy the Comet which has flown practically all round the world, and thought it would not only be an attraction but useful."
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George's daughter, Freja Evans Swogger, 57, said she remembers seeing local TV news coverage on the Comet as a child. She said: "They bought this plane, the Comet, and had to take part or all of the wings off and had to transport it down part of the motorway.
"I didn't understand when I was a kid that to do that you had to put it on the back of a big lorry. I thought they'd driven it down the motorway like a car with no wings."
In 1974, the Daily Mirror reported on the the grounded comet and the success of the business venture. At the time, Colin Peers said: "It attracts the customer in search of a gimmick.
"But the service and food have to be good. We couldn't survive on a gimmick with nothing to back it up."
In images, you can see a sign for the North Westward Ho also on the aircraft and what the plane looked like on arrival. You can also see the Comet completed with its wings and more reattached.
As a young boy, Sven said he spent quite a bit of time on the North Westward Ho and remembers the arrival of the Comet. He said: "Down in Pomona Dock, it was a kids paradise. There was so much stuff to play on and as a boy I was making swings and dens.
"I think I went onto the Comet only once when they were still in the process of converting it and they built a cocktail lounge in there but I confess to never actually seeing it when it was up and running in its intended purpose.
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"I remember sticking my head around the door because I was an eight-year-old boy and they were saying to me its dangerous, we can't let you loose in there. I think they didn't want me going in the cockpit and switching things on and off or playing with stuff.
"They had converted the flight cabin into a cocktail lounge and left most of the pilots and navigators seats in position where drinks were served . "All of the planes equipment, switch panels and navigation equipment were left in situ so it must have been quite some experience."
Looking back on the Comet as an adult, Sven said he thinks his dad and Colin's idea was "amazing and risky." He said: "It was imaginative and bold, quite out of the box.
"It takes guts to do something like that, to have an imagination like that and follow through with it as a business venture, financial and otherwise. I think they were both trying to offer something new and very different."
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Many will remember the Comet, from visiting as diners to seeing the new restaurant at Pomona Docks next to its sister business, the North Westward Ho. But decades on, the business now only lives on in our memories and photographs.
In the early 1980s, the Comet is said to have been broken up, with the cockpit section being sold to a collector. It is believed that by 2000, what remained of the Comet was scrapped.
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