Saturday night out.

A light hearted look at the pubs and clubs on a Saturday night in the mid-sixties.

Saturday night in our house in the sixties was a bit of a free for all. With at least nine kids in the house it was a bit chaotic to say the least, especially on a cold and dark Winter evening when none of us could go out to play.

So, it’s no wonder that the old man got himself ready about 5.45 after it was confirmed that he hadn’t won the £75,000 jackpot on the pools. The pubs in those days were open at 6.00pm and closed at10.30 pm, by which time most drinkers were three sheets to the wind (drunk). My mum was expected to join him about 8.00pm. It didn’t matter that she may have been tired, or she may be feeling poorly, it was the done thing on a Saturday and a Sunday night for the wife to join her half-sloshed hubby for a bit of a knees up and a sing along.

Most public houses on a Saturday would have some sort of entertainment on. Sometimes it may have been a local up and coming pop group who were basically using the pub as a practise room. More often than not it would be a pianist. Every pub had a piano or a Joanna as it was called around here. There would be beer rings and cigarette burns along the top. He or she would tinkle the ivories in exchange for a drink or two – or three. In our local we had a male pianist; everyone would pray that he didn’t start up on a Saturday night. He made Les Dawson sound like Liberace or Bobby crush. Of course, his excuse was that the piano needed tuning, the piano actually needed burning!

He would eventually get the landlord to turn the Jukebox off so he could play. This would lead to a queue of disgruntled punters lining up at the bar demanding a refund on the one shilling they had just dropped in to listen to five records. But the landlord was wily, he would ask them if they wanted to listen to the music they’d paid for. If they answered yes, then he’d simply tell them to come back in at twelve o clock the next day, which is when it would be switched back on.

A lot of the pubs back then had early escape rooms, well, they were known as Men Only rooms to be exact, but almost the same thing. I worked as a barman in the last Men Only bar in Kidderminster in 1975, I worked with the landlords wife!

Skippy, (he was nicknamed Skippy because he made a tut noise like Skippy the kangaroo every time a bum note was played), would start up with a classic like Hound dog to which everyone howled and hooted as he played it far too slow. Then the landlord -who was still annoyed at people asking for their money back – would reek his revenge by plugging in the microphone. This was basically an open invitation for every crooner in the pub to get up and make people listen to their extremely out of tune voice.

I have to say that they were a great bunch of people in there, the salt of the earth, but a Welsh choir they were not. Out of eighty people there wasn’t one in the room that could hold a tune after downing a gallon of Batham’s best bitter. But, they just had to give it a go didn’t they.

Inevitably, and as almost a bit of relief the Salvation Army girl would come in clutching copies of The War Cry and The Young Soldier under her arm, most people in the pub willingly gave a donation but rarely took either of the newspapers, those that did would always leave them on the seat at home time..There was always some wag would shout “Do you save loose women” and when the poor girl said “Yes” he would reply “Could you save one for me”.

Another regular on a Saturday night was the cockle man, punters would wait eagerly for him to appear carrying his wares in a large wicker basket, he would wear a white trilby and a pristine white coat that would give away the fact that he was meticulous in the selling of his seafood, people wouldn’t buy off a man who had a stained coat or no hat, so that basically was the uniform of the cockle man. He would have cockles, whelks, mussels, crab and even jellied eels, I was never a fan and won’t eat seafood to this day, even though I’ve never tried it! It has always amazed me that you would get thrown out of a pub for taking in fish and chips because of the smell of the vinegar, and yet the drinkers would gladly sit and eat jellied eels or anything smothered in the same vinegar. One of our friends would always say “ got any crabs on yer cock.”

It wasn’t always the dyslexic pianist on a Saturday night though. Sometimes the landlord would actually put his hand in his pocket and pay for entertainment, This would normally mean the chap you’d seen on a loom earlier in the week would suddenly turn up in a group to entertain you for the night, for a paltry two pound each in most cases. Or that chap who emptied your dustbin just yesterday may turn up with his guitar and sing most of the night whilst perched precariously on a rickety wooden stool that threatened to collapse beneath him every time he reached out for his pint between sessions. Then of course there was the girl from the office who you never gave a second glance to as she passed you in the factory, suddenly, there she was in front of you, but you wouldn’t recognise her, because her make up was completely different and she was wearing a long blonde wig, gone were the dreary everyday clothes – all exchanged for an eye-catching gown which would put Shirley Bassey to shame.

I miss those wonderful smoke-filled pubs on a Saturday night, especially since lockdown, the supermarkets are all going back to basics by returning to the corner shop syndrome, so why can’t these breweries go back to basics and bring back the old traditional boozers of the fifties and sixties. They should stop turning all the best pubs into eateries and let some of us old drinkers relive the glory days, but then, perhaps not eh.

But back in those hazy crazy days of Summer there was always the good old Working Men’s clubs, or the Social clubs. The entertainment in these packed establishments were a smidge better than what you’d get in the local. This was thanks to the committee. The committee were made up of the longest serving members of the club in most cases, or the men who spent the most money in the aforementioned club. Either way they were the most miserable sods the club could find.

Your average club goer was a suited and booted chap with either a flat cap or a trilby, either way they always wore a hat of some type. The thing was that the club was more popular than the local Community centre and definitely more popular than the church. In 1967 I worked with a Welsh bricklayer who reckoned that they should pull down all the churches and build clubs where they once stood, because they’d have been a lot busier! The other reason they were popular was that you could take the kids out with you. You didn’t have to look after them, you just took them out and let them run riot as long as they weren’t near you.

If there was entertainment on, then it would be guaranteed that there would be a raffle in order to cover the costs of the group or comedian. It was in the sixties that some bright spark came up with the idea of having a meat raffle. No disrespect, but this was not a good idea in a room packed to the rafters with smokers, I mean, everyone smoked in those days – even the kids!

There would be no attempt to cover up the meat which was displayed on the stage just behind the drummer who was sweating profusely and kept his pint of Mild and Vimto on the same table. The committee in their infinite wisdom wanted the punter to know what they were getting for their one shilling raffle ticket. So there would be a continuous line of women on the stage prodding and poking at the meat available. By the time the raffle sellers had gone all around that room and the band were taking a break, that meat was in a right old state and unrecognisable. I don’t think I ever bought a ticket.

By ten o clock, everyone was well lubricated so everyone wanted to get up and dance. Problem was that the tables were so tightly packed together, and some of those girls were big, the sort Benny Hill liked in the Italian Job. The result was that a lot of ale was spilled by girls three feet wide barging their way through a two-foot gap in order to strut their stuff.

This was when the ritual would start, stilettos that were a size five on a size seven foot were removed to ooh’s and aahh’s. Then the handbags went into the middle of the circle of girls, it was then and only then that the dancing commenced and the light fittings on the ceiling swung in motion.

By the end of the night, the room looked like Armageddon. Ashtrays overflowed, the floor was swimming in brown ale and dog ends and no one wanted to go home.

But eventually, they would go home, ready to go through the whole process again the next night. After the bingo session of course.