Where’s your local? By which I mean, of course, your public house of habitual patronage. Not a club which you turn up at after work on Friday for a cheap middy and a tilt at the meat raffle, but a living, breathing hostelry that’s the centre of a community, a stepping off point for adventures, a safe, welcoming haven on the completion of same… a home away from home with, as the blessed Alanis might say, benefits.
A long time ago, in a galaxy 12,000 miles away, we drank so frequently we were allowed two locals – one, the Coach and Horses (which you’ll remember, doubtless, from my accounts of happenings there the day England beat Germany 5-1 in Munich) for our Monday to Saturday imbibemental activities, and the other, every single Sunday, rain or shine, The Pegasus.
The Pegasus was legendary. It was run by the benevolent dictatorship of publican Ted Rehill, a man for whom most patronly behaviour was in order as long as it was accompanied by the clarion call of the till ring. Ted was assisted behind the bar by John the barman, a man so dry that atrophy would best describe his sense of humour and, most importantly, behind the wheels of steel, spinning the platters that mattered, every sing- – god dammit, you get the picture – DJ Steve Wilkes.
If Ted was the steel-fisted brains behind the operation, and John its baleful sober-eyed general factotum, then DJ Steve was its seething, febrile yet always jocular and accommodating soul. He’d play anything. Got the latest Venom album? Yeah mate, bring it down. Soft Cell? No problem. Somehow, he’d even obtained a promo copy of a Jimmy Barnes single which he delighted in informing us ‘wasn’t even released yet’ for the entire year he played the thing.
All this was accompanied by the reckless consumption of industrial amounts of Tennants Pilsner, Bass Bitter and (and I realise this may come as a shock to our younger readers, suckled on the teat since birth with so-called Alcopops) real Jack Daniels and Coca Cola from separate bottles, over a period of about five years – I got these here gin blossoms for a reason sir, oh yes… At its height the pub attracted a crowd from miles around, all keen to sample the frankly momentous tunage, Steve’s inimitable hosting style and the competitively-priced ales. Oh, and the fact that on any given Sunday members of Marillion, Iron Maiden or Jeff Beck or Gary Moore were likely to be out in the back room jamming with the pub’s resident ‘I coulda been a contender’-style local hero, the inimitable Les Payne.
But I’ve digressed. The reason I’m blathering on about this is twofold (and therefore qualify as reasons plural, before you decide to get all hot-fingered on your gooseberries, or whatever they’re called). A Facebook group in honour of ‘Sunday Nights at the Peg’ has started up, roughly simultaneous with me finding, amongst my personal effects at a time of extreme upheaval, a compilation tape called, simply, “Sunday Night at the Peg.” Oh, the delicious, Stingesque synchronicity…
Anyways, this tape is 90 minutes of pure class. Pop Will Eat Itself, Stone Roses, the House of Love, The Smiths, Carter USM, Adamski, EMF, Stereo MCs, The Wonderstuff, The Shamen, The Charlatans, Inspiral Carpets, The Beloved, Moby, Orbital, New Order, Morrissey, Electronic, Depeche Mode and The Levellers. Jeez what a lineup. Tell ya what, drop a line to the usual address and I’ll run you up a copy (in digital form, natch) and you can listen to it to get in the mood when I tell you about the time I won a Ford Escort in the pub raffle…
