What' the most memorable (not necessarily in a good way) pub you've ever drunk in...?

[samale]

I earned my living laying bricks for 44 years between the UK and Cottbus on the border between Germany and Poland. I don't know where to start except to say' Auf Wiedersehen Pet' was tame. I know because I'm a Geordie brickie!

I worked in Berlin in 1983 and because of German law couldn't work on Sundays so occasionally crossed the border into East Berlin. It was grim, an experience I'll never forget. On the plus side, the wall made no difference to the quality of the beer.

After reunification I lived and worked in the East for two years. I rented a room in a village just North of Brandenburg and my landlord was a former Stasi officer. I spoke reasonable German by then and spent nights talking to him over a beer or glass of wine. There was a sold fuel fire in my room but I was limited to two fire bricks per night.....in January!

I could talk forever but the best time was living in South Holland (Roermond) and crossing the border into Germany for work. This was before the euro so the best of both worlds: paid in German Marks and spending Guilders. I could walk to Belgium from my digs! There was a nightclub called Charlie Chaplins just over the border that sold some amazing beers at reasonable prices. It wasn't unusual to finish work on a Saturday afternoon, have a few beers with German mates then head back to Holland (15 mins drive), have a few in 'Der Appel' in Roermond, head home for some food and shower/change then into Belgium.

We called it the 'Eurobender': three countries in one session........happy days!

That's a good life

 

[West wind]

That's a good life

We used to call it 'the easy life' despite the graft being really hard. There was some amazing experiences. One that comes to mind was working for a company in Braunschweig, Germany. The company was owned by a beautiful lady who was diagnosed with terminal cancer. She was also a producer of classical music and her daughters were models in the fashion industry. Her husband was the polar opposite and treat foreigners like dirt. She invited us to a fashion show and made her husband wait on us and paid our bill. A night I'll never forget.

 

[foxy]

I was in lagos with work and was entertaining 2 of my customers at a bar called Paddy's on Victoria Island. If you know anything about lagos you will know its all compounds to keep the thieving locals out and the customers in! And you don't walk anywhere, you get driven or you'll be pinched for ransome by the local boys.
Now this place was an utter dive, but it was near to my hotel and it served star beer and decent bbq wings / burgers and stuff.
These places are always teeming with hookers (many very beautiful) trying it on with the oil rig workers. Whilst I was at the bar, one of my customers started talking to a couple of them on the table next to ours. Big mistake.
The girls are Not allowed to pester the guests (bars, hotels, restaurants, all have the same rule in lagos) unless you speak for them. If they break that rule they get kicked out.
Now I didn't know these two as they were fairly new to me, so thought let them get on with it. Std's aren't my cup of tea, but that's their choice!!!
So we sit and chat for a while and I'm bobbing back to the bar for drinks and stuff and then - BLAHBLAHBLAH, SHOUTSHOUTSHOUT and the girls get up and storm off.
Go back to see what's going on and both of them say the girls were getting a bit 'fresh' so they told them to do one on account of them both being married.
Now the thing is, once you start talking to them, there is an implicit understanding you either do the 'deed' by taking them back to your hotel, or pay them a bit of money for their time and company at the bar... Companionship payment. Might sound weird but the vast majority of whites are working there 6 months a time in the oil or mining industry and it's very lonely I'm sure!
Anyway, back to the story... I frown at them both and we carry on drinking. Next thing I know the landlord comes over and hurriedly grabs us and our stuff and bundles us behind the bar and through the kitchen.
"where's your car, where's your bloody car?" he's yelling.
Our driver was parked out front waiting for us and the landlord sends a member of staff out front to get him to pull round the back of the compound and he gets us to the back door.
Apparently the girls were rather put out and not getting a full night's business from my 2 clients and called the Boys (pimp gang) to come and get their money.
What happened next was a blur as we all dived in the car and the driver raced like Lewis Hamilton all over Vic Island trying to lose 3 merc G wagons full of very serious looking locals chasing us!
We eventually got back to Eko hotel, where the guards on the compound entrance had obviously heard what was going on and literally dragged us out of the car and we got an armed escorts up to the hotel in case anyone had jumped over the hotel compound wall to get us!

So I can honestly now say I got chased out of a downtown bar in lagos by hookers and pimps.

Another thread should be started, 'Whoring around the world' I've got heaps of stories from my rig days in Singapore and mining days in Indonesia. Twice I was summoned to the Personnel Office in Indonesia, to be told the Indonesians are supposed to rip you off, not the other way around.

 

[Shirley Bassett]

When I was 16 and in my last year of High School we used to go underage drinking in the Sea Lion pub in Stoke.

At the time in was run by 4 gay fellas, so they used to let in all the young boys. Getting your girlfriend in with you, was always an uphill trauma.

Anyhow, last orders used to be 22:30 in the week, and you were allowed 10 minutes drinking up time before the pub had to close up.

Every night around 22:35. the most effeminate of the four owner used to mince around the pub, John Inman style, shouting, “Glasses or your *****”, as he collected the empties.

The pub was always empty on time.

 

[FirebladeAdam]

The Spread Eagle, in Manchester, sticks in my mind just for its name. Used to go in there before a night in Rock World, or Jilly's, as it was.
But probably the best current pub has to be the Pigs Nose in East Prawle. Crackers decor, fab Landlord, crazy stuff everywhere, live bands, anything goes but everyone behaves. Kinda perfect!

 

[The-Engineer-That-Brews]

Pubs that stick in my mind from my Manchester days are Tommy Ducks, Square Albert and the Lass O'Gowry...

 

[LED_ZEP]

Used to go in there before a night in Rock World, or Jilly's

@FirebladeAdam I used to love the Salisbury over the road from Jilly's that was a proper rock pub, always called in there if I was in Manchester.

 

[chesters-mild]

Pubs that stick in my mind from my Manchester days are Tommy Ducks, Square Albert and the Lass O'Gowry...

I miss Tommy Ducks, anyone remember the 'Kicker Bar' there - They had good Jazz evenings too. On the plus side the 'Peveril of the Peak' is still going (met Robbie Coltrane one evening there when he was filming 'Cracker') as is the 'Britain's Protection'
Best bar - Cafe Botteltje in Ostend a great place with an amazing collection of beers

 

[trueblue]

Not long after I started work aged 15 a co worker invited me to go to the pub to see the lunch time stripper. Once we got a beer, probably Watneys, we started to watch the entertainment. The young lady once naked went to a man standing at the front who looked like someone out of the Benny Hill show with round thick rimmed glasses. The slightly raised stage ment his face was level with the lower part of her anatomy. She then grabbed his tie and made it disappear, I will leave the location down to you imagination. I grew up quite a bit that day.

 

[The-Engineer-That-Brews]

I miss Tommy Ducks, anyone remember the 'Kicker Bar' there

I think you mean the ‘knicker‘ bar.... yes, I certainly do!!

 

[chesters-mild]

I think you mean the ‘knicker‘ bar.... yes, I certainly do!!

Thanks for the correction! senior moment! Also the coffin 'seat' and the 'loo' seat in the bar. I also remember one bar on Deansgate that had a ladder on the wall leading to a door stuck to the wall just under the ceiling, and the sign on the door was 'Ladies' - Manchester was full of funny old pubs, mostly gone now.

 

[The Baron]

Memories fading here chaps but in 1985 I went in what I believe was one of the smallest/if not the smallest at the time pubs in England think it may have been Manchester?It was just a bar with a sink behind it anybody know if it was Manchester

 

[Linalmeemow]

Memories fading here chaps but in 1985 I went in what I believe was one of the smallest/if not the smallest at the time pubs in England think it may have been Manchester?It was just a bar with a sink behind it anybody know if it was Manchester

There's one that claims (claimed?) to be the smallest in Southport.

 

[Druss]

Both the best and worst pubs I've ever experienced were in a little Cornish seaside town called Perranporth, when I was in my early teens my parents bought a few caravans there on a Haven holiday site in order to let them out for a bit of extra cash. Being a penniless teenager with a fondness for beer, I would regularly bus it over there and clean caravans for the other owners, cash in hand of course, then go straight into the nearest pub to fritter away my hard earned pittance.

There was one pub on site called 'Stars and Strikes' (later renamed to just 'Strikes') that was American themed and had very cheap booze. It was there that I was introduced to nachos, heated beer nuts and American pale ales, all the while sat on a big fancy Chesterfield sofa right in the middle of the pub (near a tiny bowling alley).
So many happy, usually fuzzy, memories of that place.

In the off season most, if not all, of the on site pubs shut down so into the adjacent town I would wander and it was here that I found a charming little spit and sawdust establishment called 'The Green Parrot' which I never really patronised enough for the pointy headed inhabitants to get to know me well enough for the whole 'stop, absolutely statue still, when a non local enters and fix them with snarling, piggy eyed, faces contorted in rage' to be relaxed.
I made the mistake of asking if they served alcopops there once (by way of justification, I was about 16/17, and it was the 90's) and was met with a series of growls and semi intelligible slurs from the staff, the customers were less accepting and after, what appeared to be Worsel Gummage on a copious amount of narcotics, told me very angrily that I should drink somewhere else as his ferret didn't like me, I left never to return.

Although to be honest, I'm not much of a pub person, I always liked the atmosphere of the friendly local, something almost non existent nowadays it seems.

 

[Nicks90]

I went to uni in Manchester during the mid nineties and jillys featured heavily! Cracking place.
Also worked at the Lord Nelson in Gorton to make ends meet - it was just like shameless! In fact shameless was filmed just up the road.
Alan the landlord was epic, I remember the local gang (mcDonnas) pulling a shotgun on him one evening for protection money. Cool as you like he poured his bottle of blue WKD and said "I wiped your arse when you were a lad, whilst yer mam was getting pissed in me working mens club, now bog off"
We had a chap walk in with an ice pick embedded in his skull, people getting knifed, cars set on fire in the car park.... Bloody loved working there, it was ace!!!!

 

[The-Engineer-That-Brews]

I went to uni in Manchester during the mid nineties and jillys featured heavily! Cracking place.
Also worked at the Lord Nelson in Gorton to make ends meet - it was just like shameless! In fact shameless was filmed just up the road.
Alan the landlord was epic, I remember the local gang (mcDonnas) pulling a shotgun on him one evening for protection money. Cool as you like he poured his bottle of blue WKD and said "I wiped your a**e when you were a lad, whilst yer mam was getting p****d in me working mens club, now bog off"
We had a chap walk in with an ice pick embedded in his skull, people getting knifed, cars set on fire in the car park.... Bloody loved working there, it was ace!!!!

Strewth!

 

[Crappyfish]

Went to an old pub in Beverly near Hull called White horse, or something like that but most call it Mary's even the tourist office did. Its a really old place with lots of small rooms with benches and stone floors.

 

[terrym]

The pub where I had my first glass of beer, when I must have looked over 18, and not 2 or 3 years younger
Sadly the pub has long gone.

 

[Rodcx500z]

I remember back in late 70s used to frequent the gerrard arms in Aspull, i worked with a lot of italian guys at an Italian owned kitchen firm they used to come over till they were 28 to avoid conscription so Mario who was their leader rekond he could drink anyway he stayed at my girlfriends and my house, so we went round a few local pubs and finished up at the boddies house in the tap room what you want Mario campari and lemonade i walked out in shame, he had a massive hangover the following day

 

[DavidHatton]

So many (hazy) memories - but a few honourable mentions:

1. Went to meet up for a weekend in Bath with a load of other 20 year olds I had spent a placement year working with in pharmaceutical research at Glaxo Smithkline - no mobiles in those days so debunked straight into first boozer across the dual carraigeway from station figuring thats where people would turn up- place was full of rough bikers and bizarrely a washing line with loads of pairs or ladies frilly knickers strung across the ceiling of the pubic bar. Cant remember the name of it.

2. Ye Old Axe in Shoreditch/ Bethnal Green - first time I had ever been in a quid in a pint glass strip pub kind of place. Mid 90s so still a bit of tension between folk who'd strayed from the City for a late drink and dyed in the wool locals. Someone started on the American guy who worked in our accountancy firm - he came across as a gentle giant but had just returned from a tour of duty as a tank commander in the Gulf war, was as hard as nails and sent them packing with a flea in their ear.

3. The Cobblers in the City of London (opposite the now defunct Cartoonist) - it was under our office so we pretty much had the run of the place and used to run up and slide face down along the length of the longest table. Randomly met a lad Id been to boarding school with in Carlisle and after a bit of reminiscing he ended up nutting an important client of the senior manager I was with and then chinning the landlord - police carted him off never heard from him again. Same pub I set light to the entire floor having spilled a flaming drambuie and got asked to maybe not come in again for a while.

4. The Closed Shop in Sheffield S10 - thought I had really arrived as an 18 year old as would be allowed to participate in lock ins with some of the locals, felt really grown up and the whole town versus gown thing used to be parked once the curtains were drawn.

5. The Guest House in Southport - my dads regular haunt, we were like royalty and anytime of the early hours would go and tap on the window and gain admittance. menu strictly Hollands pies in cabinet and a ladle of peas.

6. Lescar Hotel - also Sheffield - floor covering of choice, linoleum.

7. The Boardroom, Carlisle - formative drinking years as a 16 year old. Never used to get IDed and all the lads from school used to wear the pub tie. Border City Firm (football mob) would occassionally put the windows through.

8. Pub in Stevenage new town centre - cant find it now so probably and hopefully long shut down. Could buy anything in there especially drugs and guns.

9. Archway tavern North London, first time I went in my flatmate (who I met through Loot remember that that?) hastened me to my feet at 10:50 when they religously would play the Irish national anthem each night - a real nationalist stronghold.

10. The Beehive in Eamont Bridge near Penrith - as a kid we had a caravan at Lowther and had my first ever proper session with my Dad - he was surprised not only that I smoked but also my proficiency with roll ups. We drunk a whole bottle of dimple after hours and they let us take the empty bottle home. They also were short of space and so had a hexagonal rotating pool table so you could always take your shot from the same place.

You'll be pleased to know that at last check, Ye old axe was still in operation, covid19 not included, although the locals keep trying to get it closed, whenever I pass there is the solitary doorman sat on his stool even at 1pm in the afternoon.

Also have frequented the Lescar hotel many many times when I lived in Sheffield.
good pub for the football back in the 90's.