June Maddox

I was born in December 1946, which makes me the grand old age of 78, and lived in Willenhall. In 1967 I got married to John Maddox. After getting married, I was working for a refrigeration company in Wednesfield as an administrator, and then in charge of the typing pool.

As my husband was working as a salesman for a double glazing company, he was working unsociable hours, and I was working during the day. We decided that working together would be a better option, so we applied to Mitchells & Butlers and they offered us a position on their training course in Cape Hill, Birmingham. 

Once we had compled the course, we were offered a couple of pubs on relief whilst the publicans were on holiday, the Fisherman in Wednesfield was one, but I cannot remember the other. Then we were offered the Tavern in the Town by the brewery, but we had no knowledge of its reputation.

We were there from approximately late 1976, and we were definitely there in February 1977 as this was the time of the silver jubilee for Queen Elizabeth II, and I can remember decorating the pub for the celebrations. During our time at the Tavern, we attempted to bring in lunchtime customers, staff from shops, banks, etc., I purchased a hot display case, and cooked upstairs in our quarters. I’d do hot pork for sandwiches, meat pies, home-made shepherds pies, cheese and onion baps (we called them cobs), and lasagna. This gave us a good lunchtime trade. Night time trade was totally different.

I’m not totally sure who preceded us, I think it was someone called Tony Stone. Malcolm (Skip) Guest and Sue Guest took over from us, they were on our Mitchells & Butlers course and we became good friends.

We lived above the pub. It was a simply lovely apartment, very olde-worlde, and nice being in the town centre, where we made friends with other licensees, such as Alan and Carol Jenkins, who were the licensees in the Giffard Arms. We used to go out for meals after closing the pubs. Can you imagine eating at around midnight? Not healthy. Like us, Alan and Carol had two Irish red setters. Our red setters were happy to clean ashtrays of scratchings, but of no use whatsoever in situations that involved fights, and would hide under the machines in the pub. Alan and Carol’s lady red setter had, I’m not sure how many puppies, but they were entered into the Guinness Book of Records, because they exceeded the record of pups born to one dog. 

The Hells Angels were definitely an important part of the Tavern. When we first moved in, we tried to ask the guys to behave; to remove their feet from the seats; stop swearing. But it didn’t work. To be honest they were a part of the pub and as long as they didn’t cause too many issues, we didn’t really worry.

I remember a specific thing to do with the Angels, it was one Father’s Day. I usually ran the pub on a Sunday, as it was mostly quiet, and one of the Hells Angels, a big guy with a beard, was in the pub at the bar, chatting with me, and he was telling me how he was upset because his son had not sent him a card. It was quite upsetting for me. Football day was always an issue, the police would meet the away team at the railway station and escort them to the ground. And after the match back to the station to their train, to avoid issues in the town.

The worst thing about the Tavern was New Year’s Eve. Once you opened the door, you were never sure what was going to happen. Whoever came in to the pub stayed in. If they went out they weren’t allowed back in, my husband stayed outside the door and refused access.

We had to have the brewery organise carpet cleaning on a regular basis, as carpets were saturated with beer. The pub closed for an hour on a Sunday morning so the carpet could to be cleaned and dried.

Unfortunately my ex-husband, John, died a couple of years ago. I moved to Spain in 2011 and have lived here since then.