I've only just found/joined this site and would like to resurrect the thread from 2007 regarding the former Sawyers Arms at Bromley Common (put 'Sawyers Arms' in Forum Search Box).
Oggy Red, bingaddick and Badger, are any of you still out there? Or is anyone else interested if I post a few memories of what was a brilliant pub (Sadly now a McDonalds).
jackogz
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Sawyers Arms eh? Great pub. I come from Pratts Bottom (although born at Masons Hill Maternity Hospital Bromley), and I went to secondary school at Ravenswood, Oakley Road Bromley Common.
My local was the Bulls Head at Pratts Bottom. One of my mates lodged at the Pub and when I was in my late teens/early twenties, that was where we used to start our Saturday match day build ups. Down the Bull at about 12.00 noon, down a pint or two, then off to the Sawyers for some decent stuff. Off to the match.
On a Saturday evening, in those days, most pubs didn't open until six. We used to go to The Teasel in Burnt Ash Lane (no longer there). It wasn't much of a pub but it opened at 5.30pm. By the time we'd got out of the ground, back to the car and then away from the area, it was usually about 5.30 when we got to the pub. Sometimes we go on somewhere, it might be the Sawyers and then back home, change, down the Bull and then off for a ruby in Orpington. Sometimes we'd end up at Sinatra's in Croydon.
Most of the pubs in the area were Courage which was OK or Whitbread or Watneys which were sh*te. The Sawyers was one of the few Shepherd Neame pubs in our area, so it was a treat to go.
I can remember just, my 18th Birthday when I ended up pissed as a fart waiting at the Bus Stop by the Bus Garage having got wasted in a pub crawl that ended up at the Sawyers.
Happy days!
The Teasel was a good pub and as Bing mentioned saturday night would be a visit to sinatra's Tiffany's Bibas or Tites,spoilt for choice.
Cherrys wine bar was also good as was henekys or the white hart.
Beckenham Junction? Well theres a thing. I went to Orpington College for a year and we had our student Xmas do there.
The band which we booked was ..........Squeeze! With Jools Holland. After Packet of Three, but before Take Me I'm Yours etal. Didn't know that Mr Tillbrook was an Addick though!
Only went to Tiffanys once, it seemed a bit too sedate for my liking.
One the girls I went around with at the time was going out with the lead singer of the resident band at Sinatras. It didn't stop one of my mates being chucked out for being falsely accused of aggressive behaviour. Fortunately he managed to blag his way out of a pasting and got back in again with an apology from "The Management".
Oh I don't know Moby, that doesn't sound too bad an evening to me.....:o)
I'm really pleased that you're all still around!
Please bear me - I only have library internet access and time is very limited - but I hope to post some of my memories of The Sawyers Arms in the next few days (if you knew it in the mid-70s they might be of special interest).
In the meantime - Moby Duck, I think you were particularly unlucky! A fight in the Sawyers? This doesn't sound like the pub I knew. The Saloon Bar was always immaculate, and although the public bar (used by the bus crews) was basic, I wouldn't have called it a dive. I have a strong feeling you're referring to when the Sawyers Arms became just 'Sawyers' (don't know when - late 80s/early 90s?). I'd already moved away by then, but occasionally driving past on my few visits back to the area, all I remember about Sawyers was the horrible garish (green?) lighting outside, and yes, then it looked like some kind of Sports Bar and a real dive. I never went in there. So is this when you, ah, 'experienced' it?
Will post some more asap, please be patient.
Nostalgia's not what it used to be!
jackogz
Having reached that age where nostalgia somehow seems important, together with my best friend and schoolmate of some 40 years, we've set out on a quest to try and find some photos of the pub, especially the interior (as we knew it) for the period 1970 - 1978. So far though, no luck. Like all of us, when we were there enjoying pubs like the Sawyers, we never thought to take any photographs and there was a sort of (unrealistic of course) assumption that they would be there for ever.
I found the Sawyers by accident one day in 1973 when I was working for Lewisham Council. I'd been given a job following buses in a council minivan and timing them between stops (really!) for some traffic survey or other. On that particular day, the bus we were following terminated at Bromley Bus Garage. It was lunchtime, we were thirsty.... and there was this very convenient pub right in front of us (and Shepherd Neame too, a real bonus). And that began my association with it.
At that time I was living in South London and, over the next few years, the pub became a firm favourite to drive or get a bus to, and after that whenever I could visit (I now live in Devon). Many wonderful memories of the middle-aged Welsh landlord Ken (who reminded us of Groucho Marx) who would always try to sneak a drink with us when he (and the pub) were not under the disapproving glare of his large and frankly quite daunting wife, who we called (but never to her face!) 'The Dragon!'. Her sole purpose in life (apart from ensuring that poor henpecked Ken never had any fun), seemed to be to sit behind the bar all evening and silently scrutinise the saloon bar customers for even the slightest hint of unruly behaviour or even too loud laughter! She must have actually liked us lot though - occasionally we even got a smile out of her! For some reason she never served in the adjoining Public Bar - either the bar (a basic but comfortable long and narrow affair with bar billiards and a jukebox) or the the bus crews who used it were too much for her, or she just considered it beneath her status to even enter it. For Ken, however, going next door was his excuse to escape from her watchful gaze until she went to find him and drag him away!
There was a small group of us who used to use the pub, some from the school we went to in Orpington (I went to St Olaves - please don't hold it against me, I hated every minute of it and left early when I was 16) and all of us in our late teens and early twenties. Add to this a passing parade of eccentric characters like Mark the Touring Cyclist with his ill fitting and far too tight shorts (how he got below The Dragon's radar we'll never know!) and Stoney Steve the Graveigger with his hysterical laugh (His father was a local vicar. Steve acquired his nickname because of his great liking for certain mind altering substances. So his father bought him a Morris Minor, working on the assumption that if he took on the responsibility of driving a car, then Steve would cease his other leisure activities. This was a naive hope of course, and all that happened was that Stoney Steve was now able to both smoke and drive, with the equally inevitable consequences of leaving a trail of destruction and damaged walls and signposts wherever he went!)
The Sawyers really was not only typical of so many pubs in the 1970s but also the kind of establishment we will sadly never see again. I went back recently with my friend Steve (not the Stoney one) and we raised a cup of McDonalds coffee to the memory of Ken and The Dragon, our toast being vaguely in the direction of where he used to sit at the end of the bar, now, of course totally unrecognisable in it's current corporate burger identity. I'm just really glad we found it when we did.
And if anybody in the Orpington and Bromley area knows the current whereabouts of Steve Willis and little Pete Barron, please do show them this brief reminder of great nights spent in a great little pub.
Does anybody know exactly what year the Sawyers Arms ceased being a Shepherd Neame House and was turned into that 'Sawyers' Sports Bar monstrosity? And does anyone else remember Ken and The Dragon?
Hope this was of interest to some of you.
jackogz