Sue Whitehouse

It'd be about '77 when I was old enough to go drinking.  I didn't go to the Tavern much, because I'd got a little baby, but Darrell, my husband, used to go there a lot. I went in there a lot in the end, and we just used to have a great time. It was a starting place mainly. We'd go there, then we'd go maybe the Queen's Arms. Or you’d go and see a band, or go to Kipps's. You remember Kipps's with all the candles? And go and get an order. Then the Giffard. You'd do a tour of duty round the town, that’s what we used to do. You'd never stay in the one pub, you would go three or four or five pubs.

I’d wear jeans. Always jeans. Cowboy boots. Or knee-length high boots. I used to have cowboy boots with boot straps so they would clunk when you walk along, like you're Clint Eastwood. Studs and chains on them. So I was quite loud actually clunk clunk clunk clunk. A fringed jacket – that was my favourite – but sometimes velvet, purple velvet jackets.  And denim. Denim jackets. Anything like that. Yeah.  

The fringed jacket was suede. You had to be careful in the rain, because it'd go rock hard. Where did I get it from? I don't know. It was second-hand. They were hard to get. I suppose you could get them from London, couldn't you? It was long and fringey at the bottom and so everything was fringey. Crimped hair. Jewellery. Lots of jewellery.

The Tavern would shut at… was it three o’clock? So you'd got hours… What we gunna do now until it opens again? So you had no choice but to go in Stantons and throw things. Yeah, you remember? Throw things about and that.

On a match day Skip would sit outside the Tavern on a chair, with a baseball bat. Nobody's going to start a fight in my pub like! He wasn't a big fella but he was a bit tasty, do you know what I mean? I don't think people were willing to start.

I worked in Dragonfly at the time. It was bijoux. On one wall we had rails of kaftans, and what we called ‘rock tops’ for ladies.  There was a rotating jewellery glass thing, where you pressed the button and it'd go round. Do you remember it? Oh I like that ring. Oh, I like that Egyptian necklace. Every now and then it would judder, and then it'd go over the belt and then go again. Another glass cabinet was full of bongs, and long Rizla papers, and scales and anything to do with smoking gear. And the back wall was covered in felt and all the jewellery was pinned up there. Mad ornaments that you would never get anywhere else.

Oh I'd like that in my flat.

Your mother wouldn't like it.

Great. Tick. I'm havin' that!

It was mad times.  Mad times. You’d go, I'll have that! and you'd put it in the cupboard and keep paying for it till you'd have it. Sometimes she'd let you have it before you'd paid for it.

I worked there in the early ’80s, for quite a few years. The owner used to go down to London a lot and buy stock from there. She’d buy directly from India, and Morocco and places, and we loved being there. It was everything we loved. Everybody you knew'd come in, so you're not really at work, are you? This is great, this is!