gary jones aka gobbo

It would be just after my eighteenth birthday when I first went in. Saturday dinner times.  Before the Wolves match to start with. Just dipping a toe in. I was a bit scared to go in there with its reputation. Those nasty smelly bikers. I was only eighteen and a bit, and it was a bit daunting. I think for most people it'd be a bit daunting.

It was basically a long thin pub and you'd think God, the bar's long! There was lots of biker types in there, whether it was HA or whether it was just bikers and rockers and I thought You know, that's alright.

The women’s toilets were supposed to be bad. The men's weren't any better. When I had a broken leg from a bike accident and was on crutches, I went down the stairs and slipped on the wee. And my very nice friends took the crutches and hung them on the horse’s ears in Queen Square. Another time a couple of people were beating somebody up and I went down to have a wee and I says Do you mind, I'm trying to go to the loo…  Sorry they said. And they moved to one side and carried on.  

My other big memory of the Tavern is they used to have Adam Ant on the jukebox. And there was a certain point in – was it Ant Music? – when they went Ahhhhhh! and everybody used to stand up and then just go and duck down again, in time with the music. Wherever they were, whether they were on a space invader, playing pool, at the bar, or playing darts, whatever. They'd just duck down. That's what we used to do. And then we used to go and worship at Adams – it was a shoe shop, I think, or a children’s wear shop – and call out Adam! Adam! Or we’d push people round the Mander Centre in shopping trollies, or put washing up liquid in the fountain in the Wulfrun Centre. 

What made the Tavern special? The people. The music. The atmosphere. They had six or seven of my records on the jukebox in the later days which I never got back, but that doesn't matter. Split Beaver was one of them. Stick that in your fusebox. Great music.  Great people. Reasonable beer. Decent pool table. Home. For all of us.

That bike accident where I broke my leg, it was in Wombourne. I’d stopped, and a mate on another bike came from behind and hit me at an angle. I broke my leg, he dislocated his shoulder, and the nurse on the back of his bike fractured her pelvis in two places. I rode the bike home, my aunty took me to A&E next day to get it put in plaster, and the next week I went to the Wolves match. The FA cup semi-final at Sheffield.

Much later on, when I used to run my coach trips we’d pick up at the Tavern occasionally. We’d go to The Highwayman, or Rock City Nottingham, or Rock House Derby, or Rebels at Limit Sheffield, even the Granary in Bristol once. I think the biggest one we did with a pick up at the Tavern I took three coaches. It was July 4th. I can’t remember what year it was, but it was a Saturday night. We went to the Rock House, Derby and took three coachloads.

We were doing these coach trips, and my mate said You've got to call it something! He says We'll call it the 'Big Beard Tour'. That’s where Big Beard Tour started. Then when I first put Engine on at the Cock in Bilston, and then Wolfsbane and a few others we had to call that something so he said Call it 'Big Beard Promotions' BBP.  That grew into BBP Security which I've done for 25-30 years.