Stephen stevenson AKA Coco

I started drinking in the Tavern when I was fourteen. It was 33p a pint.  And it wasn't until I was twenty-one that they asked me my age. By then, different managers had taken over and of them goes You look too young to drink in here.

Well, I've been drinking here for seven years. 

And?

You still wanna know what mi age is?

Yes.

I’m twenty-one.

Got any proof on ya?

Of course. 

In my wallet I had my old birth certificate. There ya go.

When I first went in there it was fat hairy bikers, as we used to call them in those days. And the Hells Angels were drinking in there too. I just kept to myself and my mates, and let them do what they was doing. Then all of my other mates said It's not our kind of thing. But it didn't stop me – I liked it. The music and the actual vibe. The people in there was so friendly, and it wasn't just full of Angels and rockers, it was a mixture of everybody else – New Wave people, punks – and the way everybody interacted with each other it was more like a family pub than any other pub. Never mind what people used to say outside the Tavern who had never been in there. You had to go in there first to understand what type of pub it was.

When you walked in through the double doors and were inside the actual Tavern it was always dark, because there were no windows. So when you'd been drinking in the afternoon, and you walked out the dark pub directly into sunlight, your eyes'd be all out of focus cuz it was that bright. If it was too hot in the Tavern we used to sit outside on the floor with our pints of beer, or sit round by the man on the horse, or on the benches when there was benches in the square.  And you could hear the jukebox from there, so you could still listen to the music and enjoy your pint in summer. In fact, you could hear the Tavern jukebox from the other side of town as you was walking in. The closer you got to the Tavern the louder you could hear the jukebox. Oh god, I like that track. All the way from AC/DC to Saxon, Steve Miller, Stevie Nicks, Fleetwood Mac, and of course Motörhead.  Ace of Spades was always blasting out of the jukebox there.

I was working at Lindy Lou’s Bakery when I first went in the Tavern, and I’d go in with a bag of fresh bread and doughnuts, because when I first started working at Lindy’s they said Eat as much as you want, tek some stuff home with you if you want. I’d walk in the Tavern and everyone’d go, God, what you got in your bag? It smells nice. So I used to take a couple of bags of doughnuts at the end of the day, and then sell them in the pub. That bought me my beer.   

One Saturday afternoon, just getting close to my birthday, my parents popped in with my birthday present. It was Momentary Lapse of Reason by Pink Floyd. My dad bought us a drink for my birthday, and as I was with my mates, he bought them a drink as well. My mom and dad loved the place. Being a lot older, they'd heard rumours about the place and they were shocked to see my friends, and how friendly they all were. They loved it. Good God, it's a brilliant pub.

I actually ended up working in the Tavern. Dave James was in charge of the bar and he says, Pour your own pint if you want a drink. I guz, Alright, then. So I went over and started pouring me own pint. Tennents Extra. Dave goes D'you wanna work part time behind the bar? I says Depends on the money.… I quite liked working there, because you knew your mates, you knew exactly what they wanted, as soon as they walked in you’d pour their drink. It was that kind of vibe in there.

On a Saturday afternoon, pubs used to shut at two o’clock. Dave would come round shouting, Last orders at the bar! And if you don't drink up I will drink your beer for ya! With him he either had the soda syphon, or a fire extinguisher. You had two choices. Drink your beer up quick, or get squirted by whatever he had in his hands. And he did use it! If you weren’t a regular, and thought Oh yeah, you're just joking he'd get the soda syphon and squirt in your face.  We used to do tricks against each other behind the bar, hiding people's drinks if they'd disappeared to go to the toilet. We’d hide the drinks underneath the bar. 

You sin ma lager?

No.

I suppose I better buy another one now.

The HA kept the pub in order when they were in there. If you didn't bother them, they didn't bother you, but their presence was known when they were standing round in the bar. Bish, who was the president at the time, was the one who kept 'em in order. Even if they wasn't there, other people knew about their presence and they knew it wasn't a pub to play up too much. You could get away with so much but there was a limit.

There was that many Steves in the pub, so if anybody shouted Steve you used to get about four or five Steves turning round going, Yeah, what d'ya want? One day Fiji Kev come up with my nickname, Coco. Another Steve was called Rambo, then there was another Steve called Yeti, so everybody had nicknames. I’ve stuck by that name all these years. So people that really know me call me by my nickname.

The Tavern meant the world to me. It was the main place where everybody went. We had other pubs to go to –The Queens, the Giffard, The Plough, The Fox Hotel, The Feathers – but The Tavern was the main one. When it shut, people just went into small groups to other pubs. We still had the Cock in Bilston to go to after The Tavern closed, but it wasn't the same again. Changing the Tavern to Moriarty’s was the worst thing they did. They had a doorman, and he'd say Sorry, you can't come in with your leather. I’d think I've been drinking here for twenty years, and you're trying to tell me I can't drink in here no more? The brewery were trying to change it into a different pub altogether. They even changed the jukebox.

Towards the end of the Tavern’s days I remember somebody broke the toilet cistern in the gents’ toilets, so they improvised and put a cardboard box in there. Seriously. The gents had a cardboard box to do a number two. This was just before it closed, and the brewery wouldn't spend the money. Some men wouldn't go upstairs to the ladies toilets, they used to go and use the box.

Now, we have Tavern Reunion days at the Wheatsheaf, once a month. I DJ from three in the afternoon straight to 11pm. That way, the ones with families come out early, and then I get the night time. People I haven't seen for years turn up out the blue. We’ve a Facebook page where we talk about the old days and our memories.