What is the phone number of the Brigadier (I *think* that's the
spelling of it) pub in Sale, near Manchester UK?  Directory enquiries
don't have it, but phoning another pub in Sale reveals that the pub
does exist and "on the Firs (furs?), near the race course" was their
words.  I want to get in touch with this place so that I can trace an
old friend who I think still works there.

Hi,

The Brigadier does indeed exist, and is on Firs Way, adjoining the
Racecourse Estate.

The phone number is 0161 962 5880.

Hope you have some luck tracking down your friend!

grimace

Search strategy: sale + "racecourse estate"
                 sale + manchester + pubs
                 & finally, phoning the 'Lively Lobster'!

The answer was prompt and correct, which is all that one can ask for
in this life.  More to the point, I managed to get a message passed to
my friend, he's in good health and still works there.  Thanks.

This is a list of all the pubs in Sale. Could it be Jackson's Boat
Inn, formerly called the Bridge Inn?

The Buck Inn
 This pub, on Green Lane, Ashton-on-Mersey is a protected building. It
originated in the eighteenth century and was once the village gaol.

The Bull's Head
 This public house stands at the junction of Washway Road/Cross Street
(A56) and the main shopping street of Sale, School Road and therefore
is a local landmark. The original pub dated from 1830; that was
demolished in the 1870s and the new building opened in 1879. The
bull's head was the crest of the Massey family who were the Lords of
Sale in the fourteenth century, and use to be displayed on the pub's
exterior.

Jackson's Boat Inn
 Situated beside the River Mersey and Jackson's Bridge, near Sale
Water Park. Formerly called the Bridge Inn, the pub commemorates the
site of a small ferry called 'Jackson's boat'. A footbridge crosses
the Mersey outside the pub.

The Sale Hotel
 Formerly part of a nineteenth-century botanical garden complex, known
as Moorfields and as Sale Botanic Gardens, it was built to rival
Manchester's Belle Vue and Pomona Gardens, the Hotel is now all that
remains of this bold, but unsuccessful initiative on Marsland Road,
towards Sale Moor. Allegedly the world's first pneumatic-tyre bicycle
race was held here and the Manchester Wheelers cycle club met here.
The curious tower on the hotel was a vantage point over the gardens.
The complex also boasted a ballroom which allegedly held 5,000 people.

The Station at Sale
 As its name implies, this hostelry lies adjacent to Sale Station.
Formerly the Queen's Hotel, the premises were gutted, rebuilt and
extended in the 1990s.

The Vine
 A nineteenth-century pub, altered in the early twentieth century and
again in the 1990s, it is located on Washway Road (A56) between Sale
centre and Marsland Road.

The Volunteer Hotel
 This impressive public house, opened in 1898, and now the property of
Holt's Brewery, stands on the site of an earlier pub, opened in 1807
as the White Lion. Its name derives from the Ashton-on-Mersey cum Sale
Loyal Volunteers, a force raised to counter a threatened Napoleonic
invasion of England in 1803. The Volunteers drilled on the nearby Sale
Moor, to the east of the A56.
http://www.luso.u-net.com/sale2.htm

Here's a post from rec.arts.sf.fandom which lists a pub on the
Racecourse Estate called 'The Lively Lobster':

rec.arts.sf.fandom: Regional descriptions 
http://makeashorterlink.com/?S28353F91

Sounds like a new name, anyway, so it might once have been the
Brigadier. Incidentally, there's no racecourse in Sale any more, so I
presume the Racecourse Estate is what was meant. As for 'on the Firs',
I have no idea.

Okay - there's a 'Firs Road', a 'Firs Way' and a 'Firtree Avenue'
around the Racecourse Estate. I haven't found any evidence of pubs on
them yet, but the 'Lively Lobster' is on Manor Avenue, which crosses
'Firs Road' and 'Firs Way'. None of the other pubs listed here:

Night-Life.co.uk: Sale
http://www.night-life.uk.co/cheshire/sale.htm

are anywhere near, so I suspect this is your pub. I shall try to ring
them to check.