HAVING just read your article about The Flying Shuttle pub in Farnworth (‘Even John Wayne couldn’t handle this pub’s customers’, April 4), I feel compelled to write to you.

My wife and I held the licence for the pub from 2008 to 2010 and, with a lot of hard work, determination and strong management, turned this rundown pub into a thriving, family-orientated establishment.

We organised family fun days, barbeques, discos, free food, etc.

During the World Cup, we decorated the pub to such a degree that we won first prize from the pub company for the best decorated pub in the North West, and we have photographs of this and many other events to prove it. This pub had darts teams, a football team, a pool team and was no different to any other pub in the Bolton area. As with the recent riots that affected all the country, the recent events at the Shuttle were nothing more than a few people out to get a bit of publicity for their own glorification and your article has certainly helped them no end. As for the police being scared and suggesting John Wayne couldn’t handle the pub, well that just about sums up why the country itself is in a mess. Weak policing and even weaker sentencing.

There are two sides to every story and I think that it is only right that the decent people that used to be our customers and friends ought to be represented.

By the way, not a single plant from the beer garden or hanging baskets ever went missing.

Toughest pub in Britain? You’re having a laugh.

Neil and Debra Hamblett