A Christmas "tradition" which I have tried on a couple of (disastrous) occasions, is the trip to the local for a couple of pints before Christmas dinner. Of course this was back in the day (when we lived in the UK) so 30 years ago (wow, really that long? - Yes). The times I tried it, the result was always the same - half-ratted and half-full before the main feast began.
Nowadays, I tend to restrict myself to champagne / cava and smoked salmon (poser) - but I always think back to the "local" pint. This year I got to musing on locals I have frequented. Basically a local to me is a pub (not necessarily the closest) where you are recognized and where you normally choose to drink. A proper local should also have a landlord who knows your name (and vice versa). Basically it is a bar you can go into on your own and expect to feel at home with the staff or other customers.
My first one (and pre-age requirements) was Jackson´s Boat in Sale. It was on the banks of the Mersey at the bottom of Rifle Road - also on the route I cycled to school from our house on Broad Road! The landlord was a lovely guy named Les Christopher and the beer Tetley´s. The locals reckoned the beer was at it´s best for a few weeks after the Mersey flooded the cellars - a fairly regular event. I vividly remember going in one day and Les pulling a pint with shaking hands - "try this John lad" - "wow, that´s perfect, how much?" - "nay lad, with beer that good, you give it to your friends"!
All that at about 17 years of age - no wonder I became a boozer!
About that time, I also used to go to the Temple in Sale Moor, where I was taught to play "3-card brag" and "Don" - also to play "round the board" on a log-end "Manchester board" using "wooden" darts. A good training establishment, but never my local.
Next (and once mobile) was probably the Griffin in Bowdon as the assembly point before the weekly hunt for a party to crash. Amazingly, we never went in the Boddies pub next door, despite it having better beer!
After that it was Withington. There were loads of pubs around there, with three colors of Lions for starters, but we always used the Red Lion.
During the early SMBP years in the computer centre, we always used the Portway, managed by Billy Young. We used to send "runners" before the coffee break and meal breaks to get a few rounds in. Friday late-shift could entail someone ordering about 40 pints just before time was called (which was when the shift actually finished). Flo would spot the computer centre runner over the sea of people at the bar, raise an eyebrow and receive a hand signal for the number of pints of mild. Boy could she get them poured at some speed! We often used other pubs in the area (notably the Birch and Andy Black´s) but the Portway was our working local and where we could extend "drinking-up time" beyond all normal expectation. I knew I was a real local when Billy eventually gave me a tour of the cellars. I´d never seen vats so large. Nothing like the Boat´s wooden barrels.
A variety of other watering-holes came and went during the rugby-club and traveling to work for ICL days (the Bells of Peover springs to mind for Sunday evenings), but basically most of them were rallying points or meeting points at weekends, not somewhere you would normally go to through the week (another consideration).
Next, and best of all, was the Davenport Arms (known to all who went in there as the Thief´s Neck) in Woodford. The Hallworths, John, Ray, June and (John and Rays´s parents and children) all served at one time or another. I used to drink Robbie´s bitter at first, but eventually June persuaded me to switch to mild as it didn´t blow you away after 4 or 5 pints (not uncommon, as a quest for a quickie "early doors" on the way home from work, often turned into a mega-session). Oh, and don´t forget the loaned bottles of booze for the ad-hoc post-Sunday-lunch sessions at someone´s house. Thus a mild-drinking, dart-playing, regular - with the ultimate badge of recognition being the invite to the Christmas "do" - a nod and wink as it neared closing time, then sneak through to the family´s rooms, then a lock-in with free bar and food. You really knew you had arrived at that point.
After we left the North, I became an occasional-regular at my local (100yds away) in Ingatestone - the Star. Haunted by the ghost of a dog (whose head was affixed to the bar), beer tapped straight from the barrel, wonky flagged floor that made you feel seasick as you moved gently out of the way of other drinkers, and a fireplace half the size of the bar - all that and loony Roger the landlady´s barman son. Great place, but drinking Abbott meant that 2 pints was the limit before you got hallucinations (hence the ghost I guess), so never really managed any extended sessions (and left many a 3rd attempted pint behind the curtains).
After the UK, whither? The Golf Club in PDO was more than just a local (Arthur shouting "Vargees, gie us a drink") for the fellow workers and golfers - and some Omanies. I vividly remember Mohamed al Wahabi´s fabulous rendition of 10 green bottles in Arabic - it took us ages to twig what he was singing.
Brunei was dry when we arrived, so my house became quite a local for my team and pals. So much smuggled booze came past or through our relatively quiet and "hidden" house for all and sundry to later collect, that one Christmas the smuggler gave me a hamper in thanks!
In the Hague there was Der Smoozer. Not far from our apartment and the centre for all the ex-Wythenshawe Shell expat lads after work. (All that and the Canton - the best Chinese restaurant ever next door).
For some reason, there were no real bars in Syria (!!) but the staff club was always jumping on a Thursday night.
Thence to Spain. I have avoided Brit bars for most of my stay here, but eventually started to go to Roger´s "Village Inn" a few year´s ago to watch the United matches when no other options were available. I was even inveigled into throwing a few darts for the bar too one season. Now he´s gone, the place is usually empty and even the attached Indian restaurant has closed.
So now I have the Niño, where Juan is always very friendly and usually comes over for a chat. Unfortunately it is usually a place I go solo, unless G and I go for a bite at the weekend. Coffee and a chupito of anis dulce on your own isn´t quite the same as a few beers in a bar with a friendly clientelle, but needs must when I have to go out.
Realistically, all that´s left now is the memories of all those haunts, staff and customers. Now I have a predilection for champagne at home and I´ve probably found the perfect local in my lounge. It just took over 50 years of testing other places to find it out.
Comments