Street people

One last point I'd like to make about the street people who infest the city of Nice - I saw the best busker I have seen for many a long year there.

She was an old lady who sang without any form of amplification in the market place. She was accompanied only by a guy in a beret, who plonked away on string instrument (I'm no good at identifying such things) to very good effect.

Altogether, they were an excellent combination and the marketeers applauded with the public at the end of each song. They performed for about an hour, which I thought to be the limit of the old lady's strength and repetoire, as she really put heart and soul into such classics as "Je ne Regrette Rien", then gathered up their money and left with dignity to an all-round peal of applause.

What a contrast to the buggers who make a damned nuisance of themselves in our High Steets, blasting out amplified crap to annoy passers-by.

The Refurbished Zoo

Once upon a time we had a bar in our town nicknamed The Zoo. It was so called not only because of the plate glass window along the front of the bar where habitual drinkers sat and stared out moodily at passers-by, but also because of the behaviour of the clientele.
A constant row seemed always to be taking place in that vandalised and smoke-blackened bar-room. People hurled insults at each other across the room in the ripest of language, although the arguments, no matter how endless and fierce, never progressed beyond verbal combat.
It was good to go there and quietly enjoy the spectacle. Alternatively, if you felt like letting off steam, it was equally good to join in. Leaping to your feet you could roar across the crowded hubbub;
"YOU, you f**king bastard, shut your f**king hole!", or some such pleasantry.
Yes, it was a wonderfully refreshing experience and one left feeling light as the air, having gotten all the aggression and rage out of one's system. Far better, and cheaper, than a visit to the psychiatrist.
But now the owners have spoiled it all. Recently the premises was closed for a fortnight and was fully refurbished. Gone are all the old slashed sofas and greasy tables and the place gleams with new paintwork. No-one feels at home there any more. The creatures of The Zoo have been scattered to the four winds and the old place is as quiet as the grave.
I went in there yesterday and heard no swearing and not even a single cross word.
What a let-down! I left feeling all bottled-up and frustrated. There was no relief to be found.

Goodbye to The Alkali

The Alkali, the oldest pub in Jarrow, has finally called "last orders" and has been converted to offices.

The pub opened in 1857 to serve the nearby chemical works, where soda (alkali) was produced from a process involving the evaporation of seawater. The major problem associated with the job was that the process released hydrochloric acid which was very harmful to the workers' health, although some employers had the nerve to suggest that it was actually good for them! It cleared the lungs, they claimed.

No safety equipment being provided, workers who did not like having their lungs "cleared", were obliged to "muffle up" as a rudimentary protection.

Despite the hazards of the job (blokes like the pair shown in the photo rarely lived past 50), times were so desperate that there was no lack of takers for the jobs. Irishmen flocked to Jarrow and set up a bit of a colony around Church Square, near the ancient ruins of Bede's Monastery.

Working people will always make the best of things, however, and I have no doubt that many a raucous night occurred at The Alkali when the workers had a bob or two in their pockets.

But now their ghosts will be finally laid to rest.

The Belching Olympics

Yesterday, arriving too early for visiting time at the hospital, I went into a nearby pub to sink a pint whilst waiting.
At first I thought that I had come across a swearing contest : everyone in the place was addressed as a c**t and no sentence, or even part of a sentence, was complete without the descriptive and imaginative use of the word f**king.
But I soon discovered that it was in fact a belching contest I had stumbled across. In fact, it was possibly the belching Olympics. A thickset middle-aged man who looked like he had suffered a hard paper-round started the proceedings with an explosive offering. Glancing round, I noticed that this performance impressed no-one. All the c**ts sat stoney-faced.
Next came a wet, crackling effort from a huge, bald, tattooed f*cker, but this drew no comment whatsoever. I soon knew why - they were all waiting for the champion, a little bandy-legged fellow wearing a cloth cap!
His contribution, which I cannot find superlatives enough to describe, almost lifted the roof and drew roars of protest from the assembled company:
"For f**k's sake, is there no peace in this f**king place, you c**nts?"
Apparently not.

Girls Allowed

Further to my previous article, about the "gentleman's buffet", the last bastion of male chauvinism was once the workingmen's clubs.
In my local club in Primrose, Jarrow, ladies were only allowed in the "lounge". All other parts of the club were banned to them until government regulations forced changes to be made.
Oddly enough, the consequence has been a deterioration in the behaviour of the "gentlemen" and much more trouble than in former times.

The "Gentleman's Buffet"

One of my regular readers, themaninthemoon, asked me recently if I knew what a "gentleman's buffet" was. You can still occasionally see this legend engraved on the glass doors of some of our oldest pubs.
Well, it was room in which men could talk "freely", as women were barred. Not possible nowadays, of course, with all our equal opportunity legislation.
In effect, it was a room in which "man's talk", replete with the most colourful swearing, could be enjoyed.
Actually, I think it originated in pubs which catered for commercial travellers, who were renowned for their dirty stories and coarse sense of humour. Those of you who saw the T.V series Pennies from Heaven may remember scenes where the salesman Arthur and his friends met in the gentleman's buffet to swap jokes etc.
Bar managers used to make sure that only their fiercest, most experienced barmaids served in the gentleman's buffet, battleaxes who had heard it all before.
Got that, you f***ing c*nts?

Rum 'n Egg bars

During Tyneside's heyday as a shipbuilding area there were a number of Rum 'n Egg bars near the shipyard gates. One still existed in Howdon in the 1950s and was pointed out to me by a pensioner who remembered these historic institutions very well.
Apparently these pubs had a long thin bar fronting the street with a doorway at either end. By tradition, you entered at one end, progressed along the bar and exited by the other door.
Lined up along the bar were rows of glasses of strong dark rum and a (peeled) boiled egg on a saucer. This was breakfast for the shipyard workers, who began work so early in the morning that they had merely bundled out of bed and rushed off to work with nothing in their bellies. It must have been very invigorating for the workers as the neat rum hit their stomach - a real awakener!
The old bloke told me that the barman watched like a hawk as the shipyard workers dashed through, each slamming down a tanner (sixpence in old money) on the bar before throwing down the rum at a gulp and departing, munching on their egg. It was all done on the run, no-one lingered or even stopped at the bar or the flow would have been broken.
How I would like to experience a Rum 'n Egg bar today!
It was part of a whole world of working-class culture which has been forgotten.