In 'A Grand Day Out', I was talking about
pub outings, particularly train outings, which were such a feature of pub life
in the 1950s and 1960s. Most of my
experience of these came about through my parents' tenancy of The New Talbot
Hotel in Anglesey Road, Burton in the 1960s.
However, there's one pub outing which happened a little later than that,
in 1973 to be precise, which lives in my memory.
At the time, Kev (my mate from
the Majorcan holiday, if you recall) and I were regulars at the Coopers Arms,
also in Anglesey Road. In fact we were
pretty much part of the fixtures and fittings.
I can only imagine those in authority at the pub decided that they
needed some 'young blood' on the Outing Society Committee as they co-opted us,
although I can't remember contributing anything meaningful to the meetings,
which seemed to go on for ages.
The outing which we were
supposedly 'organising' was an ambitious day out to Portsmouth and Southsea by
train. Ambitious because most of these
outings were usually to the usual suspects, Rhyl, Blackpool or Skegness; places
which were relatively close and therefore reduced the amount of time spent
travelling. In comparison, Portsmouth
was almost like going abroad.
When the appointed Sunday finally
arrived, it was a beautiful summer's day, hot and sunny. The train was the longest I've ever seen,
with a line of carriages that seemed to stretch forever, and certainly the
length of Burton station platform. There
were clutches of customers of pubs and clubs from all over Burton , lined up
and ready for their grand day out. Kev
and I were not sufficiently high in the committee ranking to be assigned to
drink dispensing, or anything important.
I think we probably helped to load the beer, pop and food onto the
train, but that was all. Other than
that, we were just another couple of customers, imbibing the beer and enjoying
the food.
The beer imbibing bit was
particularly successful, as I recall ‘not feeling a lot of pain’ on our arrival
at Portsmouth station. At this point,
our party split, with some heading for the high spots of Portsmouth, others for
the beaches of Southsea. For reasons that
I cannot remember, Kev, me and a few others decided to catch the ferry to the
Isle of Wight. I do recall travelling on
the train from Ryde Pier Head to Ryde Esplanade. The carriage was full of day-trippers and
there was standing room only.
Unfortunately, the lurching of the train, and unsteadiness on my part
brought on by a morning's concentrated boozing, led to me taking a step back
and stomping heavily onto the foot of a very large and angry man standing
behind me. A good deal of apologising,
and our arrival at our station, probably saved me from a degree of, entirely
justified, physical retribution.
After that excitement, and given
our obvious inebriation, we decided that discretion was the better part of
valour and headed to the beach. Kev was
a keen sunbather, despite this being an exercise in futility. Kev was very fair-haired and pale-skinned,
and had no chance of ever going anything other than bright red, but he lived in
the hope that this absolute truth might one day be miraculously overturned.
 |
| Kevin (nearest to camera) failing to tan! |
Ryde beach, at that time, left a
great deal to be desired as a holiday venue.
It was mostly covered in evil-smelling seaweed, interspersed with
deposits of oil, tar and other detritus.
To sun-bathe, you had to find a rare patch of clean sand and lay claim
to this. We managed to do so and soon
found ourselves slumbering under a hot sun, with my radio belting out the Top
40. In fact it was the memory of the
Linda Lewis hit, 'Rock-a-Doodle-Doo', echoing around the beach which meant that
I could pinpoint the year as 1973. They
don't write songs like that anymore, do they?
Next time, I'll tell you about
the less than successful journey home.
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