stephen

The school I was at, most of the kids were into heavy rock. I was getting stick for being a punk off the other kids at school, but I didn't care. The one thing we had in common, we all hated disco music. We all hated crappy pop music.  

The first time I ever went in The Tavern it would have been about 1979. Me and a mate had been to see The Great Rock and Roll Swindle at Wolverhampton Odeon and we met this older punk from Willenhall called Ecky that we knew. Afterwards he says Fancy coming for a pint? So we did. We went into the Tavern in the Town and had the one drink and got the bus back. And I didn't go there again until about 1983. I'd moved to Wolverhampton by then.

The first time I went in there, as you walked in the bar was on the left. And towards the bottom end there was pool tables. I never really bothered down there. I don't play pool. It had the sticky carpet and everything. And I remember – it might have been January ’85 – they opened just the back bit of it. You had to get in there through the alleyway at the side rather than the front door and there was a much limited capacity, probably only room for about thirty people. Eventually they re-opened the whole lot of it. They'd moved the bar, so as you’d walk in the bar was now on the right hand side.  

You might get different groups of punks in there that would all be scattered around in different parts. It wasn't like we all kept in one little corner and kept everybody else out. I’d be wearing a Damned or a UK Subs T shirt. Studded leather with names of bands and logos and badges and that all over it. Doc Martens, bootstrap studs and wristbands, studded belts and bullet belt. A green or pink mohican, whatever colour it happened to be that month. I think the first dye I got was probably either from Oasis in Birmingham or else Ebony Rooms. There was an Ebony Rooms in the town centre, Cleveland Street I think it was in.

I was sat at a table the once and there were some heavy metallers sat on the other side of the table. I was going to leave, and I could see my donkey jacket....what I thought was my donkey jacket... just on the floor by people's feet. I grabbed it, and this rocker just kept hold of it. I’m going What you doing? I grabbed it a bit harder. In the end I went F***in’ gizit! and snatched it right off him. Then I realised it was a different lining. Mine had a tartan lining in it. His didn’t. I felt such a prat. I was apologising like anything.

The most packed I ever saw the Tavern was Christmas Eve 1984. I arrived there with my girlfriend about 8.20pm, and the door was shut. There was a handful of people outside, and they were doing one out, one in. We got in after about fifteen minutes.