Got thrown out of a club for having no trousers What happened was that one of my mates was refused entry because he was wearing jeans or something similar, so stupid me went to the toilet cubicle, took off my trousers gave them to another mate who smuggled them out to the mate who was refused entry. Plan was we would swap once he was in the club, what could go wrong........ Well he was still refused entry on account of being off his tits. So I was stuck in the toilet minus trousers. Eventually I came up and lasted about 5 minutes before clocked by the bouncer and thrown out Outside my mate had cleared off so I had to persuade a taxi to take me home. Was living at home at the time and thankfully parents had gone to bed.
When I was a young and impressionable first year at uni I went on the first of many big nights out with the guys from the cricket club.
We'd been drinking for a while before we decides to head to Venue - the nightclub on campus. On the way over a third year student (who I later learned was absolutely mental - known as Dopey because of how much of the stuff he smoked) told me he knew how we could get in for free. I assumed he knew the guy who worked on the door or something so I stuck with him keen to avoid the £5 entry. Before I knew it we were in the bushes behind the smoking area and he was sliding one of the wooden fence panels up out of its concrete posts so we could all crawl underneath! About 5 of us got in that way. We quickly dispersed and thought we'd got away with it. I tried to lose Dopey but he stuck with me. Before we got to the bar the 2 of us were grabbed and chucked out. We were only identified because Dopey had decided wearing shorts on a night out in October was a great idea and they'd spotted his knees as he climbed in. I was guilty by association.
And that's how I was banned from my unis nightclub on my second ever visit there in freshers week firat year.
I went back the next day and they let me off with a 3 week ban.
Also chucked out of the queue for that place before getting in for downing my drink rather than putting it in the bin.
And another occasion for calling the bouncer a cow (she was) when she wouldnt let my mate in because he was too drunk.
If it's the main bouncer who has worked there for years, she was a cow, I agree.
I managed to not get chucked out of the Venue once somehow when an absolutely paraletic mate sat on the sofas (when it had them) and threw up in his own lap - managed to convince the bouncers someone had walked over, threw up on him and walked off.
Yeah that's her. Everyone called her a cow except not to her face
The son of a work colleague of my Dad and my wife (yes they worked together for a while) got a job chefing at a pub that had recently come under new management. My sister in law was looking for work and when the chef heard about that he kindly took her on as an apprentice chef. We had dinner there a couple of times while things were getting setup and the food was good, so when they had a big grand opening night we took ourselves and a few other members of the family over for dinner. It didn't go well, the kitchen got overwhelmed as way too many people showed up and after waiting over an hour for our food, and after a couple of promises it'd be right out, half our party went home. Because we a) had friends and family in the kitchen and b) were being too British about it, we stuck around for a while longer but after 2 hours my extremely mild mannered Mum (who had not been drinking either) snapped and went to give the landlord a piece of her mind. The landlord (who definitely had been drinking) didn't take too kindly to this and threw us out. My memory gets a little hazy here, but somehow my Dad and I ended up in the car park with the landlord trying to start a fight with us, while my Mum was still inside loudly telling the whole pub how badly we were being treated and that my sister in law had been fired because we had complained about waiting two hours for our food. This latter part turned out not to be true, so my mum felt she had to go back into the pub and clarify to everyone that we were being chucked out but the Sister in Law wasn't. In response the landlord barred her. The idea of my Mum, probably the most reasonable person I know, and who only drinks half a glass of wine a year on Christmas day, getting barred from a boozer still makes me laugh.
I think she technically still is barred, but the pub changed hands a few months later after the landlord's wife was found dead at the bottom of the stairs with him nowhere to be found. I never heard if the police caught up with him. The sister in law and the chef both quit shortly after the grand opening.
I got thrown out of the Phoenix pub at Oxford Circus for firing a replica gun ( A real gun firing blanks) in the toilet . Its a long story but involved a gay fella there trying to accost me the previous week........ my mate got three months in a YOI for bringing the gun into the pub in the first place. It seems incredible now , but I was only 17 when it happened
I think i (and everyone else) need to hear the long story please. And whilst your mate got done for bringing it into the pub, what happened to you for taking it, firing it, and presumably scaring the shit out of an entire pub?
ALMOST got kicked out of our hotel in ayia napa when me and my mate decided it would be funny to take every bar stool from the hotel bar up to our room after returning from the clubs at about 6am. This was a tiny hotel with the owner living downstairs and about 8 rooms upstairs. We had to walk past his room to get to ours so was bound to get caught. After we got all the bar stools we just started taking random things. Needless to say the hotel owner barged into our room 20 mins later and made us take it all back down. Bar stools, plant pots, plates, straws. I'm such a weird drunk..
Got thrown out of a bowling alley for drunk and disorderly. I worked there at the time, but wasn't on shift. I'd gone in to watch a football match and ended up in a session. Was making a fool of myself and was asked to leave by the manager. I stormed out with such vim it wasn't until my front doorstep that I realised I was wearing bowling shoes. I had to go back the next day to swap them back, and word of my previous deeds had already spread. I was welcomed in to whoops of mirth and derision. Fortunately, I worked with such a motley bunch that was considered normal behaviour, so it wasn't mentioned again!
Got thrown out of my mums house for giving my sisters boyfriend later to be husband a good hiding on the doorstep. They came home arguing and woke my mum up around midnight mum called down and told them to keep it down, his reply. "Shut up you old slag" I launched myself at him and was beating the crap out him when I was smashed over the head with what turned out to be a tea tray. It was my mum, she told me to get out of the house. Threw me out for the last time I never went home again after that, she still had that tray when died and it's now here at home.
I got thrown out of the Phoenix club at Oxford Circus for firing a replica gun ( A real gun firing blanks) in the toilet . Its a long story but involved a gay fella there trying to accost me the previous week........ my mate got three months in a YOI for bringing the gun into the pub in the first place. It seems incredible now , but I was only 17 when it happened
Got thrown out of my mums house for giving my sisters boyfriend later to be husband a good hiding on the doorstep. They came home arguing and woke my mum up around midnight mum called down and told them to keep it down, his reply. "Shut up you old slag" I launched myself at him and was beating the crap out him when I was smashed over the head with what turned out to be a tea tray. It was my mum, she told me to get out of the house. Threw me out for the last time I never went home again after that, she still had that tray when died and it's now here at home.
Has it got a dent the same shape as your head in it?
Shagging in the pool in the middle of a busy nightclub in Aiya Napa... Classy lad don't you know
Reggae Reggae? The filth in that place.
River Reggae indeed... What a place
@CAFCsayer completely off topic were you at Shrewsbury game Thursday? Just clocked your profile picture and think I was stood/ sat next to you if you were maybe?
Was indeed... North upper, purple retro cafc shirt
Ah maybe not mate, unless you had a maroon body warmer over it and were waving a scarf. You obviously have a doppelganger :-)
Being 18 and able to get into Greenwich Wetherspoons (other places are pretty easy but Wetherspoons never take risks) a group of us decided to get there at opening time and leave at closing.
Mid day rolls around and a few people have fallen asleep on their comfy sofas, causing a staff member to come and kick us all out (one person had already been warned).
I tried to protest our case and that it wouldn't happen again but she was having none of it.
"Fine, we will go to Lee." I respond.
Cue about 8 pissed teenagers walking all the way from Greenwich Wetherspoons to Lee Wetherspoons, only to arrive to be told Greenwich Wetherspoons had rung ahead and that we weren't allowed in there either. Luckily the walk had sobered most of us up so we went to Lewisham Wetherspoons, I hadn't blurted out to the staff that that was our intention this time though luckily and we got in...
About 1979 Room At The Top club in Ilford. It was New Year's Eve, about 11 at night, was all rocking. There was a long pice of string hanging down from the ceiling about 4 foot above my head. Lept up grabbed it and pulled.
About 2000 balloons came tumbling down from an overhead net thing straight into the crowd an hour early. Some bugger in the crowd pointed me out to doorman, I was gone by 11:05.
I was trying to get in the Jokers night club in Lanzagrots back in the 80’s. The bouncer wouldn’t let me in as too drunk. I spent five minutes arguing with him but he was having none of it. Not sure I blame him, I was lying flat out on my back on the pavement having a rest whilst arguing my case.
Shagging in the pool in the middle of a busy nightclub in Aiya Napa... Classy lad don't you know
Reggae Reggae? The filth in that place.
River Reggae indeed... What a place
@CAFCsayer completely off topic were you at Shrewsbury game Thursday? Just clocked your profile picture and think I was stood/ sat next to you if you were maybe?
Was indeed... North upper, purple retro cafc shirt
Ah maybe not mate, unless you had a maroon body warmer over it and were waving a scarf. You obviously have a doppelganger :-)
On a night out with a group of mates at CM20's in Harlow (real classy establishment...!) All drinking bottles of Corona - early on in the night one of my mates had got me a couple of times by tapping his bottle onto the top of mine causing it to fizz up and overflow all over me and my nice new shirt.
A couple of hours later said mate is chatting up some bird by the bar and it was time for my revenge... I sneak up behind him and... lets just say my "tap" to his bottle was slightly harder than intended - the bottle shattered, broken glass and booze everywhere.
My protestation of "get me a dust pan and brush!" fell on deaf ears as I was hauled out by the burley bouncer as the rest of my mates who had goaded me into it were rolling around laughing in the background.
Being as it was in Harlow my other mate still managed to cop off with said bird - whilst I ended up with a kebab, a chipped tooth and an early night.
I got thrown out of the Phoenix pub at Oxford Circus for firing a replica gun ( A real gun firing blanks) in the toilet . Its a long story but involved a gay fella there trying to accost me the previous week........ my mate got three months in a YOI for bringing the gun into the pub in the first place. It seems incredible now , but I was only 17 when it happened
I think i (and everyone else) need to hear the long story please. And whilst your mate got done for bringing it into the pub, what happened to you for taking it, firing it, and presumably scaring the shit out of an entire pub?
Righteo here goes ……..
I’d left home in 1984 aged 16. I’d grown up in care, children’s homes and foster homes (after my dad was imprisoned and my mum was ill with alcoholism) and decided that I was old enough to go into the big wide world. I moved in with a mate I was working with to a bedsit in Forest Gate in Essex Road. I used to go to the Earl of Essex pub on a Sunday where I remember the strippers, most particularly a young lady with a snake and some whipped cream who used to go around with a glass afterwards collecting change.
Heady days for a 16 year old
When the flat in Forest Gate fell through, or as the landlord called it evicted for non payment of rent, and after a few weeks of sofa surfing I ended up moving to a bedsit in Haringey. I was working for Peter Lord Shoes in the West End just around the corner from the Phoenix Pub behind Oxford Circus, and we would drink there four or five nights a week.
I shared the bedsit with a very lively fella called Angus who was an Arsenal fan. He used to get himself and me in awful lots of trouble.
On one particular occasion while drinking Phoenix (and for those of you who don’t know it there is a downstairs club ), I was asked by one of the bar staff whether I would be prepared to work in a club night downstairs that Friday. I’ve never done any bar work but was game for it and that particular Friday headed down and worked behind the bar. I don’t ever recall being told that the club night was a Gay night. I wasn’t particular familiar ( IE Had no experience of it whatsoever) with the gay scene either then or now and to say it was a bit of a surprise to me that night would be somewhat of an under estimation.
It was a full on gay night in the mid 80’s with all sorts of debauchery, semi nakedness and goodness knows what going on. The main thing I remember about the night was the kiwi bar manager who seemed to be spending more time with me than serving and who appeared to be taking a shine to me, something which I did not like at all. Anyway at the end of the night I was told that cabs would be organised and this Kiwi fella and I would be travelling together dropping him off and taking me to Haringey. I should have been a bit more worldly wise to this but found myself sitting in an all-night café in Chelsea with this chap saying that my cab back to Haringey wouldn’t be long.
He spent the next hour persuading me that the cab was clearly not coming and I ought to go back and stay at his place, something which I was neither keen nor prepared to do. Frankly I was terrified but when he went for a jimmy I made a bolt for it and I ran down the Fulham High Road, into a taxi office where I told a big burly black fella that I was being chased by a gay man and said black fella stepped in and dealt with the situation and very kindly got me back to Haringey without any money for the cab fare.
When I arrived back at the bedsit and regaled my young friend of the story he decided that we needed to wreak revenge. He had a brother who was, so I was led to believe, in the Gooners called pint One Pint Bob based upon what he could fit fully into a pint.Im not going into that. Through Bob we were able to get a starting pistol or replica gun. Our plan was to go into the Phoenix confront the New Zealand bar manager frighten him senseless, pull the trigger and do the offski.
About three weeks later we turned up we turned up at Oxford Circus. I think we drove there in a small red car that my buddy has stolen a few weeks before.There was a full Gay club night and it was busy. We went in , had a look around and unfortunately it became clear the New Zealand bar manager was not working and we’d been told he had returned to New Zealand. We’d worked ourselves up into such a state that instead of walking out calmly we foolishly contrived a situation of confrontation in the gents toilet where I pulled the gun and fired it. I can not remember much aside from feeling terrified before during and after the incident. The gun echoed and reverberated like something I’d never heard and all hell broke loose. People were running out of the club fighting each other on the stairs and my mate Angus and I were trying to make it out too, but the bar staff and bar were being shouted at by people saying ‘it was them, it was them’. Eventually we get to the door where we were thrown out, (the gun in the meantime was dropped in the club) only to be confronted by a group of muscle Mary’s.
My mate an I took a look at each other and he said let’s make a bolt for it. We ran towards Oxford Circus being chased but the group but somewhere in the chase we got separated. I could caught and somewhere behind Regent Street took a pasting , largely from a metal dustbin lid. My mate was caught some minutes later and the group who caught him rang the police and they made a citizen’s arrest on him.
I made it back to Oakfield Road N4 where we lived but my buddy didn’t turn up to mid morning. He had a significant record ( much worse than mine) and was subsequently after pleading was sentenced to 3 months in a YOI in Kent where I visited him. For the life of me I cant remember the name of it but it was 1984/85 and I don’t think It is there now. I know it was around this time as we had been to David O’ Leary’s testimonial against Celtic in the same time period , another mad night
This was a rather crazy period of my life and the friend that I lived with and I got in a hell of a lot of trouble with other notable stories …..
I did a lot of learning during this period. I was a mixed up kid who had grown up in care, vulnerable and living on my own with no support from anyone. There were lots of other crazy things that happened during this period, many of which I am ashamed of, not unlike the story I have just shared. I consider myself lucky to have survived the madness. My brother and sister who also grew up in care were not so lucky.
Anyways 30 years on , I have been married 26 years , have 3 great kids , and a fantastic career , culminating in being a CEO for the last 20 years, much of which involves working with troubled young people. I may have been a total twat at 17 but I think I have had a good crack at turning it all around.
I got thrown out of the Phoenix pub at Oxford Circus for firing a replica gun ( A real gun firing blanks) in the toilet . Its a long story but involved a gay fella there trying to accost me the previous week........ my mate got three months in a YOI for bringing the gun into the pub in the first place. It seems incredible now , but I was only 17 when it happened
I think i (and everyone else) need to hear the long story please. And whilst your mate got done for bringing it into the pub, what happened to you for taking it, firing it, and presumably scaring the shit out of an entire pub?
Righteo here goes ……..
I’d left home in 1984 aged 16. I’d grown up in care, children’s homes and foster homes (after my dad was imprisoned and my mum was ill with alcoholism) and decided that I was old enough to go into the big wide world. I moved in with a mate I was working with to a bedsit in Forest Gate in Essex Road. I used to go to the Earl of Essex pub on a Sunday where I remember the strippers, most particularly a young lady with a snake and some whipped cream who used to go around with a glass afterwards collecting change.
Heady days for a 16 year old
When the flat in Forest Gate fell through, or as the landlord called it evicted for non payment of rent, and after a few weeks of sofa surfing I ended up moving to a bedsit in Haringey. I was working for Peter Lord Shoes in the West End just around the corner from the Phoenix Pub behind Oxford Circus, and we would drink there four or five nights a week.
I shared the bedsit with a very lively fella called Angus who was an Arsenal fan. He used to get himself and me in awful lots of trouble.
On one particular occasion while drinking Phoenix (and for those of you who don’t know it there is a downstairs club ), I was asked by one of the bar staff whether I would be prepared to work in a club night downstairs that Friday. I’ve never done any bar work but was game for it and that particular Friday headed down and worked behind the bar. I don’t ever recall being told that the club night was a Gay night. I wasn’t particular familiar ( IE Had no experience of it whatsoever) with the gay scene either then or now and to say it was a bit of a surprise to me that night would be somewhat of an under estimation.
It was a full on gay night in the mid 80’s with all sorts of debauchery, semi nakedness and goodness knows what going on. The main thing I remember about the night was the kiwi bar manager who seemed to be spending more time with me than serving and who appeared to be taking a shine to me, something which I did not like at all. Anyway at the end of the night I was told that cabs would be organised and this Kiwi fella and I would be travelling together dropping him off and taking me to Haringey. I should have been a bit more worldly wise to this but found myself sitting in an all-night café in Chelsea with this chap saying that my cab back to Haringey wouldn’t be long.
He spent the next hour persuading me that the cab was clearly not coming and I ought to go back and stay at his place, something which I was neither keen nor prepared to do. Frankly I was terrified but when he went for a jimmy I made a bolt for it and I ran down the Fulham High Road, into a taxi office where I told a big burly black fella that I was being chased by a gay man and said black fella stepped in and dealt with the situation and very kindly got me back to Haringey without any money for the cab fare.
When I arrived back at the bedsit and regaled my young friend of the story he decided that we needed to wreak revenge. He had a brother who was, so I was led to believe, in the Gooners called pint One Pint Bob based upon what he could fit fully into a pint.Im not going into that. Through Bob we were able to get a starting pistol or replica gun. Our plan was to go into the Phoenix confront the New Zealand bar manager frighten him senseless, pull the trigger and do the offski.
About three weeks later we turned up we turned up at Oxford Circus. I think we drove there in a small red car that my buddy has stolen a few weeks before.There was a full Gay club night and it was busy. We went in , had a look around and unfortunately it became clear the New Zealand bar manager was not working and we’d been told he had returned to New Zealand. We’d worked ourselves up into such a state that instead of walking out calmly we foolishly contrived a situation of confrontation in the gents toilet where I pulled the gun and fired it. I can not remember much aside from feeling terrified before during and after the incident. The gun echoed and reverberated like something I’d never heard and all hell broke loose. People were running out of the club fighting each other on the stairs and my mate Angus and I were trying to make it out too, but the bar staff and bar were being shouted at by people saying ‘it was them, it was them’. Eventually we get to the door where we were thrown out, (the gun in the meantime was dropped in the club) only to be confronted by a group of muscle Mary’s.
My mate an I took a look at each other and he said let’s make a bolt for it. We ran towards Oxford Circus being chased but the group but somewhere in the chase we got separated. I could caught and somewhere behind Regent Street took a pasting , largely from a metal dustbin lid. My mate was caught some minutes later and the group who caught him rang the police and they made a citizen’s arrest on him.
I made it back to Oakfield Road N4 where we lived but my buddy didn’t turn up to mid morning. He had a significant record ( much worse than mine) and was subsequently after pleading was sentenced to 3 months in a YOI in Kent where I visited him. For the life of me I cant remember the name of it but it was 1984/85 and I don’t think It is there now. I know it was around this time as we had been to David O’ Leary’s testimonial against Celtic in the same time period , another mad night
This was a rather crazy period of my life and the friend that I lived with and I got in a hell of a lot of trouble with other notable stories …..
I did a lot of learning during this period. I was a mixed up kid who had grown up in care, vulnerable and living on my own with no support from anyone. There were lots of other crazy things that happened during this period, many of which I am ashamed of, not unlike the story I have just shared. I consider myself lucky to have survived the madness. My brother and sister who also grew up in care were not so lucky.
Anyways 30 years on , I have been married 26 years , have 3 great kids , and a fantastic career , culminating in being a CEO for the last 20 years, much of which involves working with troubled young people. I may have been a total twat at 17 but I think I have had a good crack at turning it all around.
Wow! Great story mate, its a rights of passage to be a total twat at 17. Many are.
I got thrown out of the Phoenix pub at Oxford Circus for firing a replica gun ( A real gun firing blanks) in the toilet . Its a long story but involved a gay fella there trying to accost me the previous week........ my mate got three months in a YOI for bringing the gun into the pub in the first place. It seems incredible now , but I was only 17 when it happened
I think i (and everyone else) need to hear the long story please. And whilst your mate got done for bringing it into the pub, what happened to you for taking it, firing it, and presumably scaring the shit out of an entire pub?
Righteo here goes ……..
I’d left home in 1984 aged 16. I’d grown up in care, children’s homes and foster homes (after my dad was imprisoned and my mum was ill with alcoholism) and decided that I was old enough to go into the big wide world. I moved in with a mate I was working with to a bedsit in Forest Gate in Essex Road. I used to go to the Earl of Essex pub on a Sunday where I remember the strippers, most particularly a young lady with a snake and some whipped cream who used to go around with a glass afterwards collecting change.
Heady days for a 16 year old
When the flat in Forest Gate fell through, or as the landlord called it evicted for non payment of rent, and after a few weeks of sofa surfing I ended up moving to a bedsit in Haringey. I was working for Peter Lord Shoes in the West End just around the corner from the Phoenix Pub behind Oxford Circus, and we would drink there four or five nights a week.
I shared the bedsit with a very lively fella called Angus who was an Arsenal fan. He used to get himself and me in awful lots of trouble.
On one particular occasion while drinking Phoenix (and for those of you who don’t know it there is a downstairs club ), I was asked by one of the bar staff whether I would be prepared to work in a club night downstairs that Friday. I’ve never done any bar work but was game for it and that particular Friday headed down and worked behind the bar. I don’t ever recall being told that the club night was a Gay night. I wasn’t particular familiar ( IE Had no experience of it whatsoever) with the gay scene either then or now and to say it was a bit of a surprise to me that night would be somewhat of an under estimation.
It was a full on gay night in the mid 80’s with all sorts of debauchery, semi nakedness and goodness knows what going on. The main thing I remember about the night was the kiwi bar manager who seemed to be spending more time with me than serving and who appeared to be taking a shine to me, something which I did not like at all. Anyway at the end of the night I was told that cabs would be organised and this Kiwi fella and I would be travelling together dropping him off and taking me to Haringey. I should have been a bit more worldly wise to this but found myself sitting in an all-night café in Chelsea with this chap saying that my cab back to Haringey wouldn’t be long.
He spent the next hour persuading me that the cab was clearly not coming and I ought to go back and stay at his place, something which I was neither keen nor prepared to do. Frankly I was terrified but when he went for a jimmy I made a bolt for it and I ran down the Fulham High Road, into a taxi office where I told a big burly black fella that I was being chased by a gay man and said black fella stepped in and dealt with the situation and very kindly got me back to Haringey without any money for the cab fare.
When I arrived back at the bedsit and regaled my young friend of the story he decided that we needed to wreak revenge. He had a brother who was, so I was led to believe, in the Gooners called pint One Pint Bob based upon what he could fit fully into a pint.Im not going into that. Through Bob we were able to get a starting pistol or replica gun. Our plan was to go into the Phoenix confront the New Zealand bar manager frighten him senseless, pull the trigger and do the offski.
About three weeks later we turned up we turned up at Oxford Circus. I think we drove there in a small red car that my buddy has stolen a few weeks before.There was a full Gay club night and it was busy. We went in , had a look around and unfortunately it became clear the New Zealand bar manager was not working and we’d been told he had returned to New Zealand. We’d worked ourselves up into such a state that instead of walking out calmly we foolishly contrived a situation of confrontation in the gents toilet where I pulled the gun and fired it. I can not remember much aside from feeling terrified before during and after the incident. The gun echoed and reverberated like something I’d never heard and all hell broke loose. People were running out of the club fighting each other on the stairs and my mate Angus and I were trying to make it out too, but the bar staff and bar were being shouted at by people saying ‘it was them, it was them’. Eventually we get to the door where we were thrown out, (the gun in the meantime was dropped in the club) only to be confronted by a group of muscle Mary’s.
My mate an I took a look at each other and he said let’s make a bolt for it. We ran towards Oxford Circus being chased but the group but somewhere in the chase we got separated. I could caught and somewhere behind Regent Street took a pasting , largely from a metal dustbin lid. My mate was caught some minutes later and the group who caught him rang the police and they made a citizen’s arrest on him.
I made it back to Oakfield Road N4 where we lived but my buddy didn’t turn up to mid morning. He had a significant record ( much worse than mine) and was subsequently after pleading was sentenced to 3 months in a YOI in Kent where I visited him. For the life of me I cant remember the name of it but it was 1984/85 and I don’t think It is there now. I know it was around this time as we had been to David O’ Leary’s testimonial against Celtic in the same time period , another mad night
This was a rather crazy period of my life and the friend that I lived with and I got in a hell of a lot of trouble with other notable stories …..
I did a lot of learning during this period. I was a mixed up kid who had grown up in care, vulnerable and living on my own with no support from anyone. There were lots of other crazy things that happened during this period, many of which I am ashamed of, not unlike the story I have just shared. I consider myself lucky to have survived the madness. My brother and sister who also grew up in care were not so lucky.
Anyways 30 years on , I have been married 26 years , have 3 great kids , and a fantastic career , culminating in being a CEO for the last 20 years, much of which involves working with troubled young people. I may have been a total twat at 17 but I think I have had a good crack at turning it all around.
I'd definitely say you were curious.
Seriously though, great story and a different world to what I would imagine most of us on here grew up in.
Was refused entry to a bar in Horsham for wearing trainers, I returned to my car and put my steel toed site boots on (basically tan coloured wellies) over the tops of my jeans - looked like a massive tosser but was promptly let into the establishment, then was thrown out about 30mins later for accidentally treading on a girls foot...... I tried to explain how this whole episode could have been avoided and then was literally thrown out the door.....
Not proud of this. Norwich away 1988. Stayed in a B&B. Not en suite. Woke up dying and I mean dying for a slash. No toilet available. I tore around the establishment desperately trying to find a khazi or at least a suitable receptacle. Saw a door open and a small hand sink. As I said I was desperate. Relieved myself in said sink. I didn't know it was the landlord's room. Landlord was in there. I was slung out of the house literally while still urinating.
I shared a house with two others and we all played for the same Sunday morning football team. One sunday we got up for a match but one of us reported injured showing us a bruise from ankle to hip on one leg. He explained that the night before he’d been thrown out of the Venue for being too drunk but not to be defeated decided to climb three stories up a cast iron drain pipe to the fire escape leading to the top bar. He got about thirty feet up when the drainpipe came away from the wall and cartoon-style swung back in a large arc depositing him in a paladin bin below. He thought it best to give up at this point and had to climb out with no feeling in one leg and hobble to the cab firm to get home.
Comments
What happened was that one of my mates was refused entry because he was wearing jeans or something similar, so stupid me went to the toilet cubicle, took off my trousers gave them to another mate who smuggled them out to the mate who was refused entry. Plan was we would swap once he was in the club, what could go wrong........
Well he was still refused entry on account of being off his tits. So I was stuck in the toilet minus trousers.
Eventually I came up and lasted about 5 minutes before clocked by the bouncer and thrown out
Outside my mate had cleared off so I had to persuade a taxi to take me home.
Was living at home at the time and thankfully parents had gone to bed.
I think she technically still is barred, but the pub changed hands a few months later after the landlord's wife was found dead at the bottom of the stairs with him nowhere to be found. I never heard if the police caught up with him. The sister in law and the chef both quit shortly after the grand opening.
After we got all the bar stools we just started taking random things. Needless to say the hotel owner barged into our room 20 mins later and made us take it all back down. Bar stools, plant pots, plates, straws. I'm such a weird drunk..
I dont even smoke.
Mid day rolls around and a few people have fallen asleep on their comfy sofas, causing a staff member to come and kick us all out (one person had already been warned).
I tried to protest our case and that it wouldn't happen again but she was having none of it.
"Fine, we will go to Lee." I respond.
Cue about 8 pissed teenagers walking all the way from Greenwich Wetherspoons to Lee Wetherspoons, only to arrive to be told Greenwich Wetherspoons had rung ahead and that we weren't allowed in there either. Luckily the walk had sobered most of us up so we went to Lewisham Wetherspoons, I hadn't blurted out to the staff that that was our intention this time though luckily and we got in...
About 2000 balloons came tumbling down from an overhead net thing straight into the crowd an hour early. Some bugger in the crowd pointed me out to doorman, I was gone by 11:05.
A couple of hours later said mate is chatting up some bird by the bar and it was time for my revenge... I sneak up behind him and... lets just say my "tap" to his bottle was slightly harder than intended - the bottle shattered, broken glass and booze everywhere.
My protestation of "get me a dust pan and brush!" fell on deaf ears as I was hauled out by the burley bouncer as the rest of my mates who had goaded me into it were rolling around laughing in the background.
Being as it was in Harlow my other mate still managed to cop off with said bird - whilst I ended up with a kebab, a chipped tooth and an early night.
Great times...
I’d left home in 1984 aged 16. I’d grown up in care, children’s homes and foster homes (after my dad was imprisoned and my mum was ill with alcoholism) and decided that I was old enough to go into the big wide world. I moved in with a mate I was working with to a bedsit in Forest Gate in Essex Road. I used to go to the Earl of Essex pub on a Sunday where I remember the strippers, most particularly a young lady with a snake and some whipped cream who used to go around with a glass afterwards collecting change.
Heady days for a 16 year old
When the flat in Forest Gate fell through, or as the landlord called it evicted for non payment of rent, and after a few weeks of sofa surfing I ended up moving to a bedsit in Haringey. I was working for Peter Lord Shoes in the West End just around the corner from the Phoenix Pub behind Oxford Circus, and we would drink there four or five nights a week.
I shared the bedsit with a very lively fella called Angus who was an Arsenal fan. He used to get himself and me in awful lots of trouble.
On one particular occasion while drinking Phoenix (and for those of you who don’t know it there is a downstairs club ), I was asked by one of the bar staff whether I would be prepared to work in a club night downstairs that Friday. I’ve never done any bar work but was game for it and that particular Friday headed down and worked behind the bar. I don’t ever recall being told that the club night was a Gay night. I wasn’t particular familiar ( IE Had no experience of it whatsoever) with the gay scene either then or now and to say it was a bit of a surprise to me that night would be somewhat of an under estimation.
It was a full on gay night in the mid 80’s with all sorts of debauchery, semi nakedness and goodness knows what going on. The main thing I remember about the night was the kiwi bar manager who seemed to be spending more time with me than serving and who appeared to be taking a shine to me, something which I did not like at all. Anyway at the end of the night I was told that cabs would be organised and this Kiwi fella and I would be travelling together dropping him off and taking me to Haringey. I should have been a bit more worldly wise to this but found myself sitting in an all-night café in Chelsea with this chap saying that my cab back to Haringey wouldn’t be long.
He spent the next hour persuading me that the cab was clearly not coming and I ought to go back and stay at his place, something which I was neither keen nor prepared to do. Frankly I was terrified but when he went for a jimmy I made a bolt for it and I ran down the Fulham High Road, into a taxi office where I told a big burly black fella that I was being chased by a gay man and said black fella stepped in and dealt with the situation and very kindly got me back to Haringey without any money for the cab fare.
When I arrived back at the bedsit and regaled my young friend of the story he decided that we needed to wreak revenge. He had a brother who was, so I was led to believe, in the Gooners called pint One Pint Bob based upon what he could fit fully into a pint.Im not going into that. Through Bob we were able to get a starting pistol or replica gun. Our plan was to go into the Phoenix confront the New Zealand bar manager frighten him senseless, pull the trigger and do the offski.
About three weeks later we turned up we turned up at Oxford Circus. I think we drove there in a small red car that my buddy has stolen a few weeks before.There was a full Gay club night and it was busy. We went in , had a look around and unfortunately it became clear the New Zealand bar manager was not working and we’d been told he had returned to New Zealand. We’d worked ourselves up into such a state that instead of walking out calmly we foolishly contrived a situation of confrontation in the gents toilet where I pulled the gun and fired it. I can not remember much aside from feeling terrified before during and after the incident. The gun echoed and reverberated like something I’d never heard and all hell broke loose. People were running out of the club fighting each other on the stairs and my mate Angus and I were trying to make it out too, but the bar staff and bar were being shouted at by people saying ‘it was them, it was them’. Eventually we get to the door where we were thrown out, (the gun in the meantime was dropped in the club) only to be confronted by a group of muscle Mary’s.
My mate an I took a look at each other and he said let’s make a bolt for it. We ran towards Oxford Circus being chased but the group but somewhere in the chase we got separated. I could caught and somewhere behind Regent Street took a pasting , largely from a metal dustbin lid. My mate was caught some minutes later and the group who caught him rang the police and they made a citizen’s arrest on him.
I made it back to Oakfield Road N4 where we lived but my buddy didn’t turn up to mid morning. He had a significant record ( much worse than mine) and was subsequently after pleading was sentenced to 3 months in a YOI in Kent where I visited him. For the life of me I cant remember the name of it but it was 1984/85 and I don’t think It is there now. I know it was around this time as we had been to David O’ Leary’s testimonial against Celtic in the same time period , another mad night
This was a rather crazy period of my life and the friend that I lived with and I got in a hell of a lot of trouble with other notable stories …..
I did a lot of learning during this period. I was a mixed up kid who had grown up in care, vulnerable and living on my own with no support from anyone. There were lots of other crazy things that happened during this period, many of which I am ashamed of, not unlike the story I have just shared. I consider myself lucky to have survived the madness. My brother and sister who also grew up in care were not so lucky.
Anyways 30 years on , I have been married 26 years , have 3 great kids , and a fantastic career , culminating in being a CEO for the last 20 years, much of which involves working with troubled young people. I may have been a total twat at 17 but I think I have had a good crack at turning it all around.
Great story mate, its a rights of passage to be a total twat at 17. Many are.
Well done for spinning your life 180 though.*
*Claps Hands.
Seriously though, great story and a different world to what I would imagine most of us on here grew up in.
And congratulations for where you are now.