Yesterday morning I went to get our weekly shopping done as with the delivery of Meg's bed yesterday and a morning punctuated by the visit of the Eucharistic minister from church, our normal shopping routine was disrupted. Meg and I made our way down the hill, somewhat later than usual to Waitrose for our elevenses this Friday morning with our University of Birmingham friend.
In my career at the Old Swan Hotel in Harrogate, I had now been promoted, as it were, from washing dishes at 12.5p an hour to washing glasses for the bar at 20p an hour. Why the differential in pay rate was in operation escapes me now, as it did then, for one was exchanging heavier and more arduous work for lighter and less onerous work but at a higher rate of pay. It was not too long before I was prompted again to become a cocktail barman in the main hotel bar (even though, paradoxically, I was under the legal age for drinking when this happened) I exchanged the white linen overall I wore when washing dishes for a little jacket which was like a small waistcoat and pointed to a small 'V' at the back. We were expected to buy and wear our own black trousers and a pair of black shoes as we now served the public. Although behind the bar most of the shift, one had to collect empty glasses and do a general tidying up to make the bar area presentable (emptying the ash trays, wiping down the tables, keeping them supplied with crisps and nuts and so on) The rate of pay was 25p an hour i.e. I had doubled my wages but the hours of work were generally shorter. There was, of course, the opportunity to get tips and we always found the Americans generous in the extreme and the English generally stingy. One was expected if the night was a quiet one and a customer wanted to make conversation to be able to do so on a wide range of topics. We were instructed if a customer bought us a drink not to abuse this by having a real drink but taking the price of a small soft drink such as a coke or a tonic water. Although I started off in the main bar, the hotel management decided to open up another more specialised area. So we had what was termed a cocktail bar which specialised in serving some quite exotic sea food type dishes and this was staffed by an experienced waiter and myself. Everything seemed to be going extremely well and we made a great team until one night I discovered that the waiter was outrageously drunk which I suppose was an occupational hazard. As a young barman, I was actually given a great deal of autonomy on occasions. If there was a large function such as a dinner and dance then a temporary bar would be set up on trestle tables. One quickly learnt what kind of stock was required and the glasses were arranged in neat looking diamonds together with cigarettes, nuts and crisps. We had to make a good guesstimate as to what stock was required (gin and tonic and Double Diamond beers being the favourites), organise a float of money from the hotel reception, then at the end of the evening do everything in reverse including making sure that the stock sold and the money collected were in a sort of balance with each other. The thing that was particularly enjoyable, though, was when we were detailed as washers up in a part of the hotel when a large wedding reception was organised. I well remember that one occasion, one hundred of champagne were ordered for some three hundred guests. We used to say to ourselves on occasions like this that there will 90 bottles of champagne for them and 10 for us, which we consumed in beer glasses behind the scenes. Serving is so frantic of course that nobody could possibly literally count the bottles of champagne as they made their way into the function room so I drank more good champagne when I was about 17 or 18 than I have ever done since. Of course, we ensured that the guests never ran out of the champagne that they wanted so we always had some in a strategic reserve. It is said that everybody remembers what they were doing on the night that President Kennedy was shot, which was 22 November, 1963. Although I was working during the day at the National Lending Library, I would still do occasional evenings and functions when called upon to do so and indeed, I was working with the chief barman-cum-cellarman on a temporary bar such as I have described when a member of staff shot into the room to exclaim that Kennedy had been shot. Christmas was always a special occasion in the hotel because it was one of those types of hotel where families would spend their Christmas and so the hotel would be full. The management imported a bevy of young female catering college students from a catering college in South Yorkshire to act as a temporary waitresses and, of course, to the local lads employed in the hotel this was like manna from heaven. The young waitresses were supplied with some temporary accommodation in an obscure part of the hotel and so seemed to be around for every meal and I did strike up a friendship with a couple of them who actually came from Middlesbrough as I remember. When the Test matches were on, I did serve Fred Trueman, the famous English bowler on one occasion. My abiding memory of him was with two quite gorgeous looking young women, one on each arm, of whom one was a blonde and the other a brunette. Whether it enhanced his performance on the field of play the following day, I was never able to ascertain. Being what was technically described as a cocktail barman, I was expected to know a range of cocktails. Typically at Christmas people would come and order a 'sidecar' and the like. But half the time, the customers themselves were unaware of the actual ingredients particularly if a 'John Collins' was ordered as there are so many different concoctions by which it can be made. We had a little book to consult on occasions when we were stumped and on the occasions when there was some ambiguity we used a certain amount of guile to extract from the customers what their preferred recipe was and so went on our merry shaking way.
© Mike Hart [2024]