CHARLIE

My first impression of the Tavern? Blimey, it's dark in here! I can't see a thing.

I worked at the Tavern from 1st November '84 until summer of '86. I was friends with Poet and he took me in. I didn't know its reputation or anything. My mom knew more about that than I did! But her reaction when I told her I’d got a job there was a lot better than I expected. I’d been unemployed, so I think she was relieved that I was getting a job anywhere.

I remember very clearly how I got the job. I was sat on the floor, up near where the dart board would have been. I'm guessing it was a Saturday. I was with some of my friends in what later became known as 'kiddies corner', and Don was collecting glasses. I asked him if he had any jobs going, and he said You're not old enough. I was sitting there with a pint in my hand! So I told him I am! I am old enough! He told me to come in at half ten next day. I did. He took me behind the bar and told me to pour a half pint of bitter for him. I filled it to the absolute max. Don looked at it.

You know there's meant to be a head on it?

Yeah, but you’re the gaffa, so I want you to get the most you can!

Fair enough.

I started the following day.

A matter of days later I walked in and the top end of the pub had been sectioned off because they were starting the refurb. Don told me it was first in, first out and he didn’t need me,  so I toddled off. I carried on drinking there, and then when the bar reopened at the top end… I'm fairly sure it was Halloween… I walked in and one of the bar staff told me Pam wanted to see me upstairs. I went up and Pam was sitting in the office and she just handed me a piece of paper and said Can you work these? It was a shift roster. I said Yes. She said Start tomorrow and I was back at work.

You’d start at half past ten in the morning, to open at eleven. First thing would be to restock all the shelves, make sure everything's replenished which meant going down to the cellar with the list of what you needed, putting bottles into crates and carrying them back up. You were supposed to move old stock to the front of the shelves and put new stock behind it, but it used to depend on how I was feeling and how much I had to do whether that happened, or whether the new stuff went straight on the front of the shelf.

Don and Pam were good as gold. Don used to say if there was any trouble the bar staff weren't to get involved. We were to give him a call and he'd come down, sort it out. I always got the impression that Pam was really the boss, even though Don officially was.

Sometimes he’d have a little go at me, because I’d turn up at half past eight on a Friday morning and get him up. My girlfriend lived down Bushbury, and if I’d stopped over at hers I’d get the bus into town with her when she went to work and I’d think there was no point going all the way home to turn around and come back out again. So I’d knock on the Tavern door. Don would have a go at me for turning up so early and disturbing him, but he never stopped me. And that pretty much summed Don up. He'd have a moan about something and – as long as it wasn't anything serious – he’d tell you not to do it again, and you carried on doing it.

When Don was there he had the marketing idea to have Tavern in the Town T-shirts.  You could have black or white...and I think a couple of different pictures. I know the one I've got had 

Good Sounds. Good Beer. Tavern in the Town.
If found return to by the 'man on 'oss'

It was Don's marketing ploy and he told the bar staff we all had to wear one of these T-shirts whilst working behind the bar. Oh, and we had to buy the things first. That didn’t go down well. I think we might have got a £1 discount or something as employees, but we still had to pay to buy the T-shirts that were to be part of our work uniform, which I thought was a bit underhand.

I'd say at least 70% of the people I knew in there, I knew by their nicknames rather than their actual names. There were loads of people whose nickname began with G. Gizmo who's Martin. Gobbo who was Gary. Gap who was an ex-Angel on leave who I think was a taxi driver. In fact I know he was a taxi driver because he turned up a couple of times when I ordered taxis. There was also Gollum, Paul, who passed away a couple of years or so ago. There was a really tall Liverpudlian we called Scouse, obviously, and there were people like Stig, Riff, Tufty.  All people of a like mind. Predominantly your heavy rock but I know that there were people who liked punk in there, and people who liked New Wave used to go.  

One event that stuck in my mind was when the Tavern was one of the very few pubs left around that the Angels were able to use. One afternoon, it may well have been a Saturday, but it was certainly an afternoon and in the summer, some of the Angels were in. Some mods turned up on their scooters and parked their scooters directly outside in Queen Square, next to the Angels’ bikes. I remember thinking Oooohhhh, gosh. This is not going to go down well! And then being absolutely flabbergasted when they came into the pub and they and the Angels were chatting to each other Then they all piled outside into Queen Square and were just talking to each other about their respective bikes. 

How about this?

Yeah, I like the look of that. 

What's it do?

I left Wolverhampton in September ’86. I was sad to leave the Tavern, but it had changed manager and they’d tried reducing my hours. Before, I was there 36 hours a week. I must have really liked it because I'd been there for fifteen months and never taken a day off – apart from scheduled days when I didn't work. Wednesday afternoon, Thursday night, Sundays, were the only times I didn't work. We didn't know we were entitled to any holiday, and I certainly never went sick. It was only when the new people took over that they told us we were entitled to paid holiday! 

Are we? Oh God! 

I was one of the smallest guys working there, but I was also always the first one on the scene when there was a fight. I didn't used to think too much about it. I used to just get in between whoever was fighting and hope they would twig it was me and choose to stop swinging punches. And at least seven or eight times out of ten – not that there were that many fights – but a good percentage of the time, they did stop.  And if it was one regular and one person I didn't know, I'd just get the person I didn't know and take them out and tell them to clear off.

I remember one fight. Scouse, who was about 6 and half foot tall, for some reason he got into a fight with a guy he knew, who was probably closer to 5'4" 5'6". I thought There's no point stopping the little guy from having a go because that's not going to stop Scouse. So I jumped on Scouse’s back and tried to put a full nelson on him, but instead I was just hanging on to his back with my feet off the ground. I remember thinking What have I done? Luckily, he twigged it was me holding on to the back of him, telling him to stop fighting, and he did stop. I dragged this other guy out of the pub and told him to come back some other day when Scouse had quietened down.

There wasn’t a bouncer. There was no need. The only time we got closed down, the fire brigade did it. 

People could be themselves in the Tavern. You didn't have to put on any airs or graces. You just went in there. You were what you were, and nobody used to judge you, and you could just relax. If you ended up getting in a state nobody would take the piss, nobody would take advantage of you. In fact probably far from, they would probably go out the way to try to get you on to the bus safely, or into a taxi or what have you. As I said, when I started working there, the reason I asked Don for a job in the first place is because I was unemployed. Most of my friends used to go up there, so if I could get a job there, then instead of me spending money to be there, I'd be getting paid to be with my friends, which to me was the ideal scenario. 

To this day, it is the most enjoyable job I've ever had. It may not have been the best paid, but I didn't used to think about that. I looked forward every single day to going into work. I just used to love that fact that I was going in. I was seeing my friends, I got on with people I worked with.