Biography, Autobiography, Old Steve of Scarborough, North Yorkshire, United Kingdom

1. I bet you thought that running a Pub was fun? Well it was and I am only telling of the down side, which human nature being what it is, is always more interesting.

2. So to continue! What about the planned scuffle at one end of the bar and where, when everyone's attention is drawn to it, someone nips behind the bar, at the other end, and grabs a bottle and legs it. Of course those in the scuffle are nothing to do with him and are sorry to be in your way, if you try and pursue him, and you are left with only your suspicions that they all came in together.

3. On busy nights we used to place a cover over the Pool Table but that didn't stop them, when we were very busy, from feeding in a coin and then stealing the Pool Balls. Later they would be thrown about in the street and would often end up through a window and we were left to purchase a new set of balls. It even reached the stage where we would have to open up the table and remove the balls from within but that only caused hassle and ill feeling when people, before it got busy and later on when it went quiet, wanted to play pool and we had all the messing about to set it up again.

4. You never lent strangers a set of Dominoes, as they would inevitably be left on the table, when finished with, minus one domino. Playing Cards didn't matter too much as they were cheap to replace but you could still have problems with card players when they claimed they didn't care a shit about the law and gambling and if they wanted to play for money then they would play for money. Often the only way to kill that was to reach over and pick up any loose cards that happened to be laid on the table and walk away with them.

5. You also had to live with the fact that throughout the summer and on occasions during the winter, vast volumes of beer would be thrown about and you would get Dry Cleaning bills from innocent bystanders.

6. Pub Trips could also be a pain. Landlords would organise pub trips and come with their punters for a good day out in Scarborough. As the day progressed so they would loose it and end up in a worse state than most of their own punters and as their behaviour deteriorated so the punters thought they had the right to follow suit, as after all they were with their Landlord, who kept assuring them and us that everything was alright, and that we could disregard and ignore their behaviour. One such incident ended up with quite a few of them bringing in Fish and Chips, from the takeaway next door, and when I said sorry, no, this Landlord started to ague with me but at the same time openly admitted that he would not allow it, but then they were not in his pub, they were on a day out, so that made it right. He then turned and declared that they were obviously not welcome and that they were leaving and suggested the Fish and Chips were left behind. A vast volume of fish, chips, mushy peas, gravy and curry sauce, along with all the wrapping paper and several large cream cakes were hurled to the back of my bar and got in among everything. It took hours to clean up; the dirty sad bastards.

7. Pictures from off the walls, ashtrays, beer towels and anything else, not fastened down, could and did, disappear at any time.

8. Stag Nights, Hen Nights, Birthdays and Private Parties could all be great fun, unless of course someone chose to spoil them, but that was not often. The format for these festive occasions could and obviously did vary, but there was still a fairly consistent theme that ran through them all. The idea was that as many pubs as possible had to be visited, by the whole party, in the allotted time, the total number being something to brag about later, as were the number who fell along the wayside as the riotous tour progressed. So in order to achieve this, a collection would be made at the beginning and the cash given to two elected 'runners,' who would move on, one pub ahead of the main group, with a list of drinks and order and pay for them in advance. As soon as the main party arrived and the drinks were sorted out the runners would move on. Again because of our location we were inevitably towards the end of the 'run' and they would arrive in all sorts of states of inebriation and often, after they had left, there would be a large amount of untouched and unconsumed drink, left on the bar, on the tables and in the toilets, and the locals would have a ball sharing out the plunder. For the vast majority of these mad, planned tours, our pub was a must as we had introduced, copied from somewhere else, where we had seen it done many years before, the 'potty'. A large, round, old-fashioned, glazed, earthenware pot that originally would have sat, many years ago, under someone's bed and have been used to save trips to outside loos etc. The runners would come in and ask for the 'potty' to be prepared to a value that they had predetermined. I would then take the potty and amid much frivolity, from all those in the bar, put into it a totally random selection of spirits, making sure, to the best of my ability that those I selected were fairly compatible and then increase the volume considerably by adding fruit juices and soft drinks. But there were always three essential (secret) ingredients that went into every mix, a generous amount of Black Current Juice, a splash of neat Orange Squash and a measure of cream based liqueur. This produced two important features; firstly it made it palatable and all the aromas collectively made it smell of strawberries. Secondly, the cream liqueur would curdle and float on top and although harmless it looked fairly revolting. When handed over the recipient would be made to stand on either a stool or on a table and then with a towel wrapped round their necks, would be encouraged to try and drink it all in one go. Some, but not many, made it but if any remained then the potty would be passed round to finish it off. Over the years that 'potty' brought us a lot of business and was very popular among the younger end and created entertainment for everyone. The down side, which we had to accept and ignore, was the fact that as long as you had large numbers passing through and only wanting to spend limited time on the premises, you tended to find that those not prepared to leave their unfinished drink behind, took their glasses and bottles with them and they would either be retrievable later, from the surrounding areas outside, or sadly would be smashed by others not involved. It was amazing how often locals would come in carrying large quantities of glasses that they had collected from outside. But the taking of glasses and bottles was not confined to any one particular group. The stealing and smashing of glasses was part of the 'in' thing for many.

9. We had a common building brick, of the type that has two round holes in it and that can be found on any construction site, secured to the bar, to prevent it from being used as a weapon, and in the holes we placed matches. The idea for that was that smokers could take a match and strike it on the brick to obtain a light. A popular novelty but one that often got targeted, to be set alight, and then while all the matches blazed away and there was a strong smell of sulphur in the air, the area around it would be a sea of innocent smiling faces.

10. Bus Drivers, with a coach full of 'trippers,' would come in and claim that they were only stopping for a couple of drinks and then they would be moving on and they would do this knowing that there would be a couple of free drinks and perhaps a snack, in it for them. That was fine, if they did just that, as the average coach party, of fifty, was a hundred drinks in a very short period of time. But it could and sometimes did, go 'pear shaped,' particularly if it was a random trip with no prearranged itinerary and with no where to be, at a predetermined time, i.e. a show or theatre trip etc and naturally something we would not know about in advance. So if then the group decided that they were going to stay and settled down for some heavy drinking, we would try and get a glimpse of the Driver's Badge and note the number before he disappeared, which they would inevitably do. But many of these drivers were not daft and after only a few minutes the badge would disappear out of sight whether they, themselves, intended to go or not. It was amazing how many Bus Drivers and others who claimed to be in charge of parties, could miraculously disappear when things showed signs of getting out of hand. Some groups, after their initial drinks, would move on but then come back, without their minders, and tell you who they were and where they were from, the name of the Coach Company, promise to behave and anything else, that they thought, strengthened their case, and all this proving, later when you needed it, to be a load of bull shit. When faced with this dilemma, previous experience, learned the hard way, had shown that there were several ways of dealing with the situation and the most effective was to hope and then find that after another couple of drinks they would just go away. But this could not be guaranteed so you had to encourage them a little. Be polite and very friendly, over friendly, so that you interfered with their conversation as you asked them a barrage of questions about where they were from, where they were going, why they had come, what did they do for a living, tell them how rotten the weather had been and how business was bad and ask their views on political issues and express your own. In fact ask them anything that they had not come into a bar to hear. Send the female staff out of that bar and starve them of glamour and slow down the service rate so that they were obliged to wait that little bit longer and unless obvious, not have what they asked for, so that deprived of drink, service and selection, they became irritated and dissatisfied. Turn down the Jukebox, from the control behind the bar, and claim that for some unknown reason it would stay like that until it decided to change and that the following day you proposed to send for an engineer and then spend a little time explaining how it was always going wrong and the problems you have always had since the day it was installed. Or turn it off half way through a record, particularly one they may have selected and then go over and open up the machine and look inside before declaring that it had finally broken down, as it had done several times that week and the engineer was thinking about moving in with you. In the meantime staff, all familiar with the situation, would strike up conversations with other punters and carry that conversation on, across the bar, while at the same time, half-heartedly, serving the 'undesirables.' Eventually someone would get fed up and suggest they moved on and then your problem was solved. If it wasn't then you may well end up with a load of abuse or even a battle and the Police.

11. We got a lot of Coach Parties in, or we did in the beginning, as there was then a very large Coach Park to the rear of us and we were one of the nearest pubs. Fortunately not all Drivers were alike and some would be as good as their word and look after their party and then when they had moved off, towards the sea front, these drivers would have an odd drink and perhaps buy, or have given, a few sandwiches, before retiring back to their coaches, to clean them out, and then get their heads down and sleep. Others would consume vast volumes of beer and then being several times over the legal limit to drive, would be quite happy to drive their buses and passengers back home. Others would ask if it was all right to bring in their own food and we really didn't mind as long as they didn't return with Fish and Chips. For those not familiar with Fish and Chips, in the confines of a Pub, will not realise that in addition to a very strong smell of cooked fish, there is the gas produced from vinegar over the hot fat that has the effect of making draft beer go flat. Don't ask me how or why, just please take my word for it that it does and people in pubs, for a drink, do not like the smell and effect that it can have on their beer, but yet nearly all are quite happy to eat vast amounts later when the pubs have closed. Ourselves included and with two Fish Shops very close, it became a regular feature. We would close and clean up while they, in the chip shops, served their late night rush. Then they would wrap up anything unsold and come along, with their staff, in through the back door, and share them out while we provided the drink. A brilliant arrangement, as everyone, having worked hard, then had a wind down period before going home and bed. A great British tradition, which entails a few drinks, fish and chips and bed but also a problem when those, having consumed fish and chips before coming into the pub would then complain that the beer tasted strange and was flat. But we were talking of Drivers and should mention, before we draw the line under them, that there would be others who would drink, chat up one of the female members of their party, that is if an arrangement had not already been made beforehand, and ask if they could hire a room for a couple of hours. My wife drew the line at that and would never allow it but we were all quite happy, live and let live and all that jazz, to send them just along the road where there was a bloke who was only too pleased to cater for them and claimed it was good money as he charged well over the odds. The Lady Coach Drivers could be and were, just as bad.

12. Pubs make money, if they can, in a variety of ways, other than opening their doors and having drink for sale, and one is to encourage people to come on to the premises by providing jukeboxes, vending machines, gaming machines, quiz machines and various other gambling machines and from all these hope to make a small additional profit, from increased drink sales that should result from having them, after everyone else has taken their disproportionate share. The courts will change an annual fee, per machine, for the gambling licence. The local authority will charge an exorbitant fee for a local authority license. The brewery will charge what they term as site rent, for allowing you to have the machines on their premises and then the owner of the actual machine, as they are inevitably hired because of the high capital investment and maintenance costs involved in owning them outright, wants the largest cut of all and everyone wants it off the top. So at the end of the day these machines, which by the way you are required to insure and to provide the electricity to run them, can, if you are not careful, cost you money, but you have to have them for two main reasons; the brewery make it part of their agreement and the punters expect them. So what happens when you end up in a near legal battle with a group of punters who you think are, in fact you know are, abusing them. There is little you can do when you find Condom Machines smashed open or when holes have been drilled in the sides of Gaming Machines so that something can be inserted to active the 'pay out' mechanism. Or someone comes along, having planned it to coincide with the fact that you are very busy, and claims the Cigarette Machine has failed to deliver or a prize has not been paid out or the mechanism is jammed following the insertion, usually by them, of a foreign coin in the mechanism. These and even the fifty pence piece that has come loose from the piece of cotton originally attached to it to ensure its retrieval and multiple use, can almost be classed as occupational hazard and at the end of the day you can still hope to make a few quid out of the whole lot. But not out of the situation that comes to mind. On this occasion it was three, sometimes four, IT lecturers, from the local Technical College, who came in regularly, until sussed, and bought soft drinks that would last them all night while they played the quiz machine. Nothing wrong in that and for thinking so you would be right, except that these buggers were working out the simple sequence of the operating software and there after would proceed to empty the machines and to do so in every pub, every night of the week. The brewery did not want to know, as usual, because they had the answer to nothing except their own money grubbing scams and the rents due to them. The LVA were equally useless because they knew very little of any importance about anything. So, according to them, it was down to the individual Licensees to take the usual steps and simply ban these people, who were making thousands a year, in their spare time, out of us, for behaviour not acceptable in your establishment, a reason, which under the law, you are not obliged to say what that was or why you were imposing the ban. But Licensees, being the very brave bunch, that they usually are when it comes to taking major decisions, all decided to sit back and see how the other guy went on first. So I, fed up with the whole carry on, told these intellectual twits that the quiz machine was on my premises for their entertainment and for my financial gain and not the other way round. They thought that hilarious and were going to sue me for goodness knows what and it was only when I threatened to go to the National Press and tell them there was a criminal element working out of the local technical college that they stopped and moved on to the next town.

13. Some were not as subtle as that, as was demonstrated by the youth, from whom I took a long screwdriver, when I caught him trying to lever off the back of one of the machines. He claimed that I had no right to take it, which legally I hadn't, but I told him to 'sod off' if he didn't want it sticking somewhere painful. He returned sometime later with a Policeman claiming that I had taken a screwdriver that he needed to start his car and also accompanying him, were several friends, who were all prepared to vouch for the fact that what he claimed was true. The officer told me to give him the screwdriver, told me the evidence of the attempted break into the machine could not be proved as I had no witnesses and when I suggested possible drink drive violations, relating to the screwdriver and his car, said that until he actually attempted to drive and was caught, there was nothing there. In the end he reluctantly escorted this youth and his mates off the premises and then returned to ask me if there was nothing of greater importance that I could find to occupy valuable police time. The police could be so inconsistent with some being good for a laugh, while other took the job very seriously and did great work, leaving the remainder to fall somewhere in-between, or completely out on a limb and not really knowing what they were doing and so making it up as they went along. OK until they got stupid about it and let the whole side down badly.

14. Often we would have friends in, late at night, the chip shop lads and their staff, for example, plus 'others', and that is quite legal as long as no drinks are sold and so a 'common cloths peg' would be clipped onto the till drawer so that it could not be accidentally closed or an 'unwanted' time stamped on the till roll, as would be the case each time it was opened and closed, and the police often found it amusing to ring and ask me, the result of one of their 'own kind' walking past the outside, how many Constables I needed to clear the pub? I found it equally amusing to give them my standard reply of, 'as many as you like, for by the time you arrive there will be no-one on the premises not legally entitled to be here.' Sometimes they would simply knock on the door and I would let them in and watch them deflate when they realised we were doing nothing wrong, before I offered them a drink. I must say they nearly always accepted and with the exception of a very few, only took soft or hot drinks.

15. I felt sorry for the visitor who simply would not go at closing time and insisted that he was waiting for one of the barmaids whom he proposed to take to a Night Club. She was waiting for her girl friend to come and pick her up so as you will gather was far from interested. It was getting to the stage where he was being stupid and banging the bar and wouldn't stop demanding more drink and we were planning the best way to physically eject him when this girl said that if he would sit down and be quiet she would go with him. Turning to me she said they were all going to jump him and throw him outside and if all the girls did it then the humiliation would sort him out. They did and when they had him pinned to the floor one of them produced a Ladies Razor and suggested they shave off his eyebrow so that he would have something to remember them by the following morning. I cringed when they stood on one leg of his trousers and almost ripped them in two, round the gusset, before throwing them after him and out into the street, where he stood holding his private parts that were sore from the nicks caused by the enthusiastic removal of his pubic hairs. He didn't come back and one of the girls said she doubted if he would survive the ordeal as she had heard him say, at some point during the evening, that he was married.

16. At one time 'No Smoking' became the in thing in public places and the media and goodness knows who else decided to turn their attention on to restaurants and pubs. Now to a certain extent we found ourselves having to agree as sometimes the level of smoke pollution was more than the extractor fans could cope with. But we really couldn't do much about it without major capital investment and a ban was out of the question, as it would have involved about ninety percent of our clientele, and our bar was also one large open room so there was again no question of setting aside a separate room for non smokers. But for a laugh, I decided that we would be one of the first pubs, at least in our area, to have a 'No Smoking Area.' I got a piece of hardboard, about three feet by two feet, painted it yellow with black chequered edges and lettering to the effect that to stand on it was to enter the strictly no smoking area. I then placed it in the middle of the bar floor area and tacked a strong transparent cover over it. It caused quite a stir, that I hoped it would, but we never believed that the local rag would latch on to it and come along and take pictures and congratulate us on being the first pub to take no smoking seriously. It wasn't long before it was almost illegible the result of the burn marks on the plastic from hundreds of cigarette ends that had been crushed under foot on it and all the tacks holding it down had come loose and I was seriously contemplating removing it when someone saved me the trouble. One lunchtime my wife remarked that having taken it away the carpet beneath, where it had been, was much brighter than it's surroundings, and when had I removed it? I had not and said so and we came to the conclusion that the cleaner must have done it and put it outside. No, she had not and it was not outside. It was not to be found anywhere, and who took it and where it ended up, remains a mystery to this day.

Many years later a Bank Manager, while looking at his notes in a file, would ask me if we were not the first pub, in Scarborough, to have a no smoking area and congratulate me on my commendable and conscientious efforts. Street wise arn't they; these people?

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