The drinking and enjoyment of imbibing the odd pint does not harm so long as it is in moderation.

Unfortunately, that is not the case when too much imbibing has been enjoyed.

This applies now as it did through time immemorial; for instance, if you enter a watering hole in most countries and ask for a pint of ‘Wife Beater’, you will not have to explain to the bar person, as they will know you mean, Stella Artois – reputation it has gained through being a slightly more potent brew.

It is fair to say that the owners of the brand Budweiser reduced the potency from 4.8 per cent to 4.6 per cent in September last year (and it is still a palatable brew).

The effects induced by overindulgence in alcoholic liquor caused ructions in the 1800s.

With no televisions, computer games or other forms of entertainment, people would visit the local pubs, of which there were far more than there are today.

Overindulgence was common, leading to domestic problems in the home later. In the current book we are writing on Murders in Cheshire, it is a recurring problem.

It usually resulted in warnings to all present by the presiding judge in murder trials on the evils of drink.

Accordingly, in 1864 this evil was uppermost in the minds of the great and good, not to mention the spoilsports who wanted the total abolition of alcoholic liquor.

One poster, albeit from the prohibition era in the US, would fit well in the following story of 1864 Winsford.

The poster features a group of rather plain ladies with banners declaring that “No lips that have touched liquor will touch ours”. The ladies in the photos were chosen for their most virtuous and self-righteous, not to mention ugly visage that invoked humorous appreciation.

At the beginning of the fight against alcohol. Pubs were being converted into Cocoa Houses; in the 1800s, the Falcon at Chester became for a while a Cocoa House serving only non-alcoholic drinks.

Later on, in Northwich 89 Station Road next door to the more conventional boozer, The Lion and Railway, was a Temperance Hotel owned by Mr Nancollis.

The growth of temperance hotels and cocoa houses in the 1800s became extremely popular. The temperance movement was active for a long time, as we see here and up to the First World War when it received a boost from the Liberal Government and their reduction of pub opening times.

But in 1864, Winsford did its bit for the movement with the Ninth Annual Festival of the Total Abstinence and Rechabite Societies.

On the June 1, 1864, the festival was held in the town. The ‘Young Man’s guide’ tent of the Independent Order of Rechabites was formed in October 1863 and then numbered 100 members.

Winsford was the first, and it was expected that tents would be opened in the surrounding towns and villages.

Led by the Meadow Bank brass band, the Rechabites formed a procession and marched from the Weaver School in Weaver Street to the town hall; on the way, the members of the Temperance Society joined them.

The parade of about 120 adults and children walked through Over, round by Wharton and Gravel, stopping outside the homes of two leaders, Mr Evans and Mr Kay, where the band played several pieces.

At about 4.30pm, about 200 people sat down to tea in the town hall, and there was an abundance of ‘creature comforts’, but not a drop of liquor touched their lips!

Several speakers from various Temperance Societies made speeches. Congratulations were heaped on the new Rechabites tent in connection with the Total Abstinence Society of Winsford.

Rechabites ‘tents’ had been established in all areas of the country. This had given solidity and permanence to the temperance movement.

Looking further though, churches and schoolhouses had flourished in the past year but sadly, so had those pests, the public houses that were thriving equally well.

The last speaker hoped that the teetotal movement would flourish in Winsford and throughout the country at large, and the crime of drunkenness that now came abroad in daylight, would in all events, be turned into a bird of the night. And there endeth a long and booze-free day.

But what you may ask at times like that did Winsford later have a pub selling alcoholic beverages called The Rechabites Rest?

The pub was at the corner of Dingle Lane and High Street. The Rechabites named themselves after the people in The Book of Jeremiah, strict teetotallers.

And farmers Joseph Dodd of Darnhall, James Hatton and the Cornbrook Brewery of Manchester opened the pub in 1871, and the name was a sort of dig at the Rechabites because they criticised Mr Dodd for serving his workers in the fields with beer.

So, giving that name to a pub would now be called cynical! It was closed in 1973 and demolished sometime later to make way for the dual carriageway.