Where Everybody Knows Your Name
I’d always viewed The White Bear, this charming if scruffy little pub perched on top of the hill overlooking Idle Village as the sort of place my dad and his dad would have gone to drink; inhabited by coffin dodgers with no prospect of meeting women who owned their own teeth. I nicknamed it “The Scruffy”, with affection, many years ago, albeit the irony has been lost on some. Demonstrating my love of the pub, all three of my houses have been dominated by the almost gravitational pull of the place; circling no more than half a mile in whatever direction, the only challenge has been to remember which way home.
My earliest recollections of it are as a pioneer, well ahead of New Labour, of twenty four hour drinking although café culture was certainly an accidental by-product rather than an aspiration. In those days the Bear was run by an old Irish couple named Billy and Pat who have long since passed on in search of a nip or two of Jameson’s in the clouds above. Pat was a feisty little woman who ruled Billy with an iron rod, not that Billy seemed to notice thanks to the medicinal properties of Jameson’s. Each time Pat was out of sight he could be seen sneaking a “nip”; she almost always caught him out and some of the ear-clippings he got were comical but it never deterred him, battered and bruised as he was.
Idle’s First Suicide Bomber
Whether Billy should have been driving towards the end of his tenure at the Bear is also a matter of doubt and not just down to his blood being 40% proof. Billy’s eyesight was not great, perhaps from blurred vision from the many batterings, so trips out in his Mini Metro were always fraught with danger although mainly for other motorists.
Outside the Bear is a very busy and tricky cross-roads which Billy would take a unique approach to, one nowhere to be seen in the Highway Code. Revving hard he attacked it like a ski jumper oblivious to oncoming traffic from either side or coming up the hill. In effect he was Idle’s first suicide bomber; cars would screech to a halt and pedestrians would duck out of the way as Billy, courtesy of Jameson’s, flew off down the hill oblivious.
Open All Hours
Billy was equally unconcerned by licensing laws and especially the notion of opening hours. As I said this was well before New Labour bent over for the Pubcos and brewers under the ruse of giving us all twenty four hour drinking, ignoring the gradual transformation of town centres into war zones. Billy was clearly ahead of his time and the Bear was always “Open All Hours” as long as you made it in there by 11pm: the official last orders. Many times we left to a lovely sunrise and although far from Mediterranean the haze accompanying a night in the Bear was enough for most.
For a time we ran White Bear FC and one day, with the game was called off early, I popped into the Bear around 9am one Sunday to tell Pat not to bother with the culinary fare of the day only to be amazed to find the pub full with the lads from the Watmoughs, the local print works, having just clocked off the night shift. This truly was continental drinking at its finest.
A New Day Dawns
Those that do not know better may suspect that pubs like the Bear are drunken trouble hot-spots but nothing could be further from the truth. The only scuffle I have seen in nearly thirty years (apart from the Pat and Billy show) was for the last bag of pork scratchings. And now the next chapter begins with Michael and Sara taking over; this follows the retirement of Lady Pamela after a decade or more. The signs are good, already several youngsters in danger of lowering the average age from sixty have been turfed out with their Blackberrys and coffee is now available as café culture returns once again.
Worryingly though, there is now talk of a refurbishment; why should we be suspicious? Well, most pub refurbs are dreamt up by some chinless wonder in a London office who will have never been near the well-worn “hole” they now wish to rebrand. The fact is that most pubs need nothing more than a dusting down and the Patsy Cline Greatest Hits CD chucking out; there is no need for flowers – real or otherwise – or a colour scheme likely to require sun glasses for a night out.
The Railway Carriage
The Bear has some great features, take the affectionately known Railway Carriage for instance; a two seat bench set into the hearth as iconic as the sofa in Friends. Or the bar stools so rare these days where many have sat until sleep has overcome them facilitating a slow slump forward onto the bar top. Of course we have mod cons with the ubiquitous television but, thankfully, no Sky Sports, albeit for a while we did have football commentaries from Costas and Spiros via Bankrupt Athens TV and a dodgy receiver.
Like most pubs we have the quiz – in fact there’s barely a night we don’t have one. The PA system is the only surviving pre-war wind up Marconi set and the regular quizmasters have a weekly battle with feedback replicating a set of African drums.
The Bear is evidence that life continues in all forms, indeed in sheer defiance, at locals across the country. Despite successive governments’ desire to fleece the pub trade dry and their spineless acceptance of the greed of the new breed of pub owning companies the pub survives simply because it is an essential part of a way of life. So a message to any designer hovering over plans for the Bear: send Michael the budget, let the locals give the place a scrub up and we will have a party with the rest.
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