THE DRUM, 1971

A tsunami 85 m high rises over the Ryukyu Islands in Japan.
Bangladesh and eastern Bengal are flooded.
A coup attempt is exposed and foiled in Egypt; there is a coup attempt in Morocco and a military coup in Sudan.

Yes, it’s 1971. I have just graduated and I’m looking for a summer job until I figure out what I’m going to do. My grandfather, who lives at 553 Old Shettleston Road, is a regular in The Drum on Shettleston Road, and my Dad asks him to enquire at the Drum if I could get some work as a barman. I dress up in my graduation suit and turn up for an interview and I’m signed on as a full time barman. It is the day before Fair Friday.

My Shettleston story goes a bit further back, though beyond my memory. I have my Identity Card in front of me as I write.
My address, 553 Old Shettleston Road.
Born in Lennox Castle maternity hospital, Shettleston is my first home, but soon after that we moved out of my grandfathers place to Uddingston, and via Letterkenny and Carlisle, we end up in Coatbridge.

I go into my first shift in The Drum at 10 am, and get my first instruction in pulling pints and serving haufs, ready for opening at 11 am. A pint of heavy is 12½p, lager and export are 13½p. Light or “ordinary” is 11p; this was the draft McEwans pale ale. Screwtaps (bottled pale ale) was 13½p and bottled Whitbreads was 15p.

By midday the pub is absolutely full. Three or four deep at the bar. Pints and haufs being served like crazy. We close at 2:30pm and open again at 5pm and we’re full again within the hour. My poor arithmetic quickly improves; the till is no help as it is in the pre-decimal currency. An illegal card game starts in the corner and some serious money is changing hands. A grinning customer gets me to change a tenner and tells me he’s getting some of his own back. At 9:50 it’s last orders and the bell is rung; at 10pm the bell goes on and it stays on till 10:10. Fair Friday establishes my concept of normal for a barman, but over the next couple of weeks the crowd thins as the holiday pay runs out. Tuesdays eventually become my dread night, hardly a customer to be seen.

Betty Hunter was the chargehand then, John Russell the manager. There was me and old Jimmy and Tam, the fulltime barmen. Then there was John Reynolds, Packy Loftus and Alastair, the part timers, and occasionally others. Alastair showed me the ropes in the cellar and gave me the advice that if I lean across the bar then I should always keep my hands on the bar so’s I could push myself back from an aggressive customer. Wee Eddy lifted the glasses, a job my grandfather had done for a while after retiring. Eddy used to get the odd free pint from us. Joe used to come in before opening to clean the pipes.

We are entitled to a half pint every shift and we got this, and more. The “Confessional”, the corner of the bar where we would be out of sight, is the place for a quick swally. Off duty barmen got a free pint when they came in, though I don’t think the management knew about this arrangement. There were also some management arrangements over the whisky that was getting into Bell’s and Black Label bottles. It was all either The Clunie or Mackinlays.

Many customers I remember. Davie O’Hara in overalls during the week, grey suit and purple tie at the weekends. “There’s ma two haunds tae God” says Davie “if there’s a God”, and, “I used tae staun at this corner of the bar before it was here”. There was a wee guy who was a detective, there was a ex-footballer (Fulton by name) who used to spit continuously on the floor. There was wee Jimmy who had a tobacco tin that he said you only got if you were in Barlinne, who Packy told me “that man kilt his faither”. I saw wee Jimmy drink a pint faster than anybody I knew, and that was after about 5 pints already. Sparra and his brother were real heavy drinkers. Sparra used to come in absolutely blitzed, I only saw him sober on one occasion. The brother, John, likewise, totally drunk before heading for a night shift at the Olivetti.

Three guys drinking thegether, two of them mocking the third for drinking something strange, whisky and blackcurrant, or something similar. “Ah like whit ah like” says the third, a great put down to the two. There were plenty of comedians, better than Billy Connolly, came into The Drum.