Extracts from The New London Spy (1966)
‘Pubs are what other countries don’t have. In England, country pubs are perhaps nicest of all. After that come the London ones.
Pubs change character as you tipple down from the top of Britain. In the dry areas of Skye you have none at all. In Glasgow they are just drinking shopos. In Carlisle they are cheerless and state controlled.
But in London, there are pubs for all men and for all seasons.’
…if you took the pub away from London, social life in public would almost cease to exist…’
ROUGH PUBS
…London has its quota for the enquiring drinker who likes a barney, or the proximity of physical violence and available women. The most obvious in this category are those around the docks where seamen drink. On of the nicest pubs, though mot kind of place you’d take a maiden aunt, is the Custom House Hotel, known as ‘ the Steps’, Victoria Dock Road. This is a vast sprawling pub, with a raised bar a the back. It provides live music, as well as throwing in a couple of juke boxes. There are other lively pubs nearby, including the Freemasons Tavern an the Railway Tavern, but the Steps take pride of place. You could be in a waterfront bar anywhere in the world, and the atmosphere would be much the same. It is not unusual to see someone almost kicked o death outside, so unless you are on the look-out for a rough-house or know how to ake care of yourself in a fight, avoid getting into an argument.
A better known, and almost as rough, pub is Charlie Brown’s ( actually called the Railway Tavern, but known generally by its nickname, West India Dock Road, which boasts a splendid museum of curiosa from all over the world, collected by one of the landlords. Another guv’nor was stabbed through the glass door, trying to get rid of an argumentative customer. It is also very handy for one of the best Chinese restaurants in London, the Old Friends, almost next door.
Nearer central London is the Admiral Blakeney’s Head, just beyond the Tower in the now rapidly disappearing Cable Street. Cable Street still manages to hit the headlines with the odd murder and the Blakeney’s Head is as virile as ever. Juke boxes, spades, seamen, tarts mingle in a remarkably friendly atmosphere and there are cafes nearby catering for all nationalities. The police still patrol Cable Street in twos.
For those who like their squalor without the atmosphere of violence, there is Dirty Dicks opposite Liverpool Street Station. This has dead cats, cobwebs and sawdust by way of décor. But is in fact a genuine old pub keeping up the tradition of its founder, who amassed a fortune and refused to spend money on clothes. There is a curious collection of postage stamps on which couple have written their names.
In the West End there are a number of well-established rough and ready pubs. Much the famous is the Duke of York’s, Rathbone Street, the beat meeting place in London. This marvellous pub, superbly managed in the face of terrible odds, has a fine and bawdy museum, with a portrait of the late ( and lamented) guvnor, Major Alf Klein, framed by a lavatory seat. Every available inch of the wall and ceiling is taken up with paintings, seaside postcards, ties, sailors’ hat bands and other totally obscure objects. Nearby, in Goodge Street, is the One Tun, known simply as Finch’s, which offers an escape from the beats, which have recently been barred the premises en masse.
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Six years before homosexual acts between consenting adults were legalised Encore, the ‘little magazine’ devoted to contemporary theatre, published in Jan-Feb 1961, a perceptive item by ‘Roger Gellert’ entitled ‘A Survey of the Treatment of the Homosexual in some plays’. Gellert was the pseudonym of the one-time Third Programme announcer John Holmstrom, who left the BBC to become a playwright and theatre critic, only to return as an announcer on Radio Three and a contributor to Test Match Special.