Life Behind Bars (4 page)

What surprised me more than
anything was that they were generally great girls.  One was studying for a
BA in Divinity, another was the niece of a prominent member of the aristocracy
who had fallen on hard times, and a few were single mums trying to make a
crust.  Of course there were the usual slappers amongst them and some were
definitely a bit long in the tooth.  One girl, Big Marie, one of the old
brigade and certainly not in the first blush of youth, could really get the
crowd going.  She left nothing to the imagination!

Watching as she was getting ready
to go on, I remarked she appeared to have put on a bit of weight since the last
time she’d worked for us.

“Hey Marie, been overdoing it a
bit?”

“Just water retention,” she
replied. 

The retention was cured two days
later when her waters broke in Marks and Spencer’s and she gave birth to a 6lb
girl in the back of a black cab on the way to the Nursing Home. 

She was back on stage two weeks
later.  Well, she did have an extra mouth to feed!

Sweet smell of . . .

There are regulars and then there
are regulars.  Most publicans know their customers either by their tipple
or their nickname.  Very few actually know the names of individuals. 
We had the Cider Man, Old Dustin, Big Mary, Wee Mary and Anybody’s Mary (work
that one out.)  The Steak Pie Man, Dirty Gary and Snotter, and like most
pubs, we had a Smelly Brigade; members of the great unwashed.

A very mixed bag, each of whom
you had to drink down wind of, and preferably in the next bar, during the
summer months.  One of this ripe crowd, named Herbie, dressed in the most
bizarre fashion.  He looked like an Oxfam reject.  He seldom changed;
he just added another layer when the stains became too obvious.  It was
quite normal to see him wearing two shirts, a t-shirt and a couple of sweaters
in the middle of July! Much to his delight, we clubbed together to buy him a
new shirt for Christmas. He was so taken with the garment which we had
carefully chosen to camouflage the food stains, that hard though this is to
believe, he steadfastly refused to change it until just before Valentine’s Day.

  It went round like wild
fire.  Herbie’s got a date.  Well he had, and he appeared early in
the evening with his usual mismatch of clothes and a ‘new shirt’ but the smell
lingered on.  On close inspection, (well as close as you would want to
go,) we discovered he had no
new
shirt; he had just turned his Christmas
present inside out, honest!  His date ventured halfway down the bar then
beat a hasty retreat.

It puzzled me for weeks how he’d
managed to snare the young woman in the first place.  Until I sussed out
he’d answered a Lonely Hearts Ad.

 They had never actually
met!

Twin Set . . . and Match

There were two sets of twins in
this group; a pair of each gender, although that was questionable.  We had
two women of an indeterminate age, tiny in stature and with ferocious
tempers.  They were such a peculiar pairing it was often remarked that in
the case of one of them, they had mistakenly thrown out the baby and kept the
‘afterbirth.’

They were a bit like a couple of
Jack Russells who thought they were Dobermans and would ridiculously take on
all-comers, no matter what size, sex or build, after just a couple of beers.

One was married and definitely
suffered from O.C.D.  The other was single and made Herbie smell like a
bed of roses.  Neither were the sharpest knives in the drawer but both had
that weasel cunning and missed nothing.  They were true exponents of the
art of free
drinks.  Both could appear early in the day and be well
oiled by closing time, having spent virtually nothing.  They were not real
scroungers; they had just perfected the art.

However, by closing time they
became a menace.  They would circle the bar looking for a fight or an
argument.  They were two of the most aggressive drunks.  If there were
no other malevolent punters then they would fight each other.  They would
fight night after night, no winner, no loser, just regular visits to A & E.

They eventually ceased their
patronage when the unmarried smelly one was sent down for three months. 
One of her equally odorous pals had won a holiday for two in sunny Spain. 
Unfortunately, this prize could not be exchanged for cash, nor could anyone but
the winner and a partner go, despite many telephone calls to the
benefactors.  So there was no option but to participate in a two week
beano in Benidorm of sun, sea and in their case, Sangria! 

Presumably as the holiday makers
would have to share a room, there were very few takers.  Hence twin number
two struck gold.  There was a problem!  Due to the state of her home,
no one would volunteer to look after her pets.  She had the most ferocious
little Yorkie that seldom saw daylight and a couple of goldfish. 

Not to be done out of a holiday,
the stupid bitch had opened a dozen tins of dog food, laid them out with two
bowls of water, chucked some fish food in the tank and gone off for two weeks
in the sun.

She should have got a lot longer
than three months and been fed a diet of bread and water.  More than the
poor dog got.

What
the f f f f f f f ?

The other twins, Harry and Gerry,
were as mad as a box of frogs and smelt equally as unpleasant.  These guys
were absolutely identical.  However, there was one dead give-away. 
Harry had a terrible speech impediment.  He had a severe stutter, and a
very pronounced lisp.  Sadly, they were of the generation where nothing
had been done to help him overcome these problems.  So any ‘simple
sentence’ became:

“Tth th th tho   
eh eh eh any   th th th thimple    th th th thentence.”

This gruesome twosome were only allowed
in at certain times for the sake of my other customers.  They spent most
of their barred time working out how to outwit us and gain entry.  They
seldom succeeded but were absolutely infuriating.

Like many twins they squabbled
and bickered constantly, but poor Harry never won an argument because he was
always three sentences behind.  The madder he got the more pronounced his
impediment became and he spent most of his time jumping up and down, screaming
at the top of his lungs.

“F f f fucking, b b b bastard! I I
I I’ll, f f f fucking, k k k kill you!  Y y y ya, f f f fucking, idiot!” 

Or some other such pleasantries.

They were inveterate gamblers but
unlike most they seemed to win more than they lost.  There was one problem
though, they were virtually illiterate and Harry could never be trusted to put
on the bet.  By the time he got the details out, the race was usually
finished. 

On one memorable occasion
however, this worked to his advantage.  He had been sent to put a fair sum
of money on a horse called ‘Fascinating
Flirt’ but
it proved too
difficult and after several attempts at ‘f f f f f f’  he changed the bet
to a horse he could pronounce called ‘Once in a While.’

Well you can imagine the
reception he got from his brother, who was convinced his £100 was down the
drain.  On the brink of another battle, the race results came up on the TV
and, lo and behold, ‘Once in a While’ won the race.  The f f f
fucking
other h h h horse is probably still running . . .

Next to gambling, their other passion
was Dean Martin, they were his greatest fans.  Every day they would select
a tune on the juke box and play it over and over again.  I can’t listen to
Deano without a shudder and because of them we all dreaded Christmas.

 Harry’s rendition of ‘Let
It Snow, Let It Snow, Let It Snow’ took till Easter!

Date Night . . .

Jimmy was an associate of this
crowd, a poor soul who at the age of 55 became a single father to two fairly
young children.  He had been in the Merchant Navy for years and had married
fairly late in life.  Unknown to him, his new wife was a closet alcoholic,
who managed to keep things on an even keel while Jimmy was at home.  So he
would go off to sea under the misapprehension that all was well. 

When the children came along,
things went from bad to worse and he had to weigh anchor and take over. 
Things got so bad, he moved out with the children but stayed in constant
contact with his wife.  When she had money she would drink, when she had
none the kids could visit. 

This carried on for a few years
and although it wasn’t the best situation, it looked like it was working
reasonably well.  Until that fateful night she fell asleep with a
cigarette in her hand and died in the ensuing fire.

Many people have a black sense of
humour and I’m probably worse than most.  So when I read the notice of her
funeral, it struck me as excruciatingly funny.  The family were taking no
chances when they announced she would be cremated.

A few weeks later Jimmy appeared
in the bar along with the kids and he had a large parcel which looked almost
gift wrapped.

“Oh, Jimmy!” says I,
“
You
shouldn’t have bothered.”

“It’s the wife,” he
replied. 

What could I say?  Mind you,
it was the first time they had been out together in years!

If it’s not nailed down . . .

Staff stealing is one thing but
customers under the ‘affluence of incahol’ think most pubs are a
free-for-all.  We have had everything, including the bar cat, nicked at
one time or another.  Some eejit even took the goldfish out of the tank in
his crash helmet.  Fortunately for my poor wee fish we caught him at the
door.  The thief had more than a wet head, believe me.  The cat, I
think, was either a suicide attempt or just plain running away and I knew just
how it felt.

But the most unusual and questionable
piece to be stolen, on numerous occasions, was the gents toilet door. 
What anyone would want with a toilet door and especially the gents (ladies
being slightly sweeter,) is absolutely beyond me.

We would frequently receive a
call from the local constabulary informing us that the door had been on its
travels again and had turned up on someone’s roof rack, outside the Scout Hut
and even in the vestry of the church.  Someone had actually pinned the
order of service on it!

However, one evening in late
October, off it went again never to return.  I must say that at the local
bonfire on Guy Fawkes night there was the most pungent smell of ammonia, which
leads me to believe . . .!

Smoking Ban . . .

One memorable theft was so
blatantly cheeky it almost had to be admired.  Often on Sunday afternoon
we would have a band playing in the bar and it would be particularly
busy.  The cigarette machine was usually located near the door in the bar
and after one busy Sunday people had been complaining about the lack of a
machine. 

Towards the end of that week I
called the company to ask when it was to be returned and was more than a little
surprised when they informed me that they never took machines off-site, but
either repaired or replaced them immediately.  So it had been stolen.

Given that the machine had never
been secured, just basically plugged in, I am surprised it hadn’t gone
earlier.  But the culprits had removed it in broad daylight and carried it
across our car park.  No one ever admitted to seeing anything.

Mind you one particular brand of
cigarettes with only eighteen in the packet was frequently passed round for
weeks!

What a
Turkey
. . .

New Year is without doubt the most
celebrated holiday in Scotland and the only day we closed.  It was the one
day I could invite friends and family to dinner.

The Chef had lovingly prepared a
huge stuffed turkey and a fantastic glazed ham, which would feed the dozen or
so guests expected.  I had spent a fortune on making sure everything was
just right and was looking forward to our celebrations.

Hogmanay had been riotous as
usual and the bar had been packed to capacity.  Everyone having a great
time.  I vaguely remember someone asking if we had a large carrier bag and
I’m sure one of the staff obliged.

Fuck me!  We helped them to
nick our dinner!  If I had caught them it would have been their ‘Last
Supper!’

How to explain to my hungry
guests that it was turkey flavoured crisps and pork scratchings but with all
the trimmings for dinner . . . 

I’m sure I’ll laugh about it one
day!

Inside Job . . .

The piéce de resistance has to be
the theft experienced by Hubby and Co.  For a short while I had taken over
a pub in town and at the end of the first week sent David, and Chic my cellar
man, up to check on things.

David emptied the fruit machine
and the safe and cleverly left the money bag on the windowsill in full view of
the local neds.  He then joined Chic in the cellar.  He heard a crash
but dismissed it as someone outside.  Oh!  They were outside
alright—outside with my fucking takings!

He phoned in a panic, what was he
to do?

“Well phone the police for a
start.”

I asked him how much he thought
had been stolen.  He reckoned about £1,000.  Being the honest and
upright citizen I am, I told him to say £1250 to cover the excess on the
policy.

Two of ‘Edinburgh’s Finest’
eventually arrived to take a statement.   They questioned both of
them at length and implied they thought it was an inside job!  It was—just
not by them!  Before leaving, one of the constables asked both how much
money they had on their person.

David checked and had approx £150
and when asked, Chic admitted to having £1100.  You couldn’t make this
up!  David was gob-smacked.