Teens in the Pub
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| Bob Fisk returns to his boyhood haunts |
What's it like to be brought up in a pub? It was 1969 just after the floods when my parents, Ron and Pat Fisk, took over the Lamb and Star on Hampton Court Way after running an off-licence in Alexandra Road, and pubs elsewhere in the South-East. My dad used to be a professional boxer after he left the army, which is useful to make known in a business where customers can get rowdy. As a labourer he'd helped build All Saints Church. At that time, he wouldn't have dreamed he'd one day run the pub just around the corner.
When we first arrived the Lamb seemed tiny. It hadn't had a facelift for many years and was very dark and dismal inside. It didn't have many customers either! But we managed to rebuild the bars without closing them, and they were named the Weston Bar and the Ditton Bar. I was 15, and went to Waynefleet School as it was then known, where I met my wife too - now there's a fairytale romance! To explain what it was like growing up in a pub is difficult: you don't know any different and it just seemed 'normal'. Looking back, though, it was anything but normal: lack of privacy, noise and not seeing much of your parents despite their being only yards away downstairs in the bar. It was very much a family pub and Grandma Muriel, my mother's mother, would cycle over to help out in the kitchen. Life as a publican is extremely hard and I only realised that in later life. Having friends round in ones or twos wasn't a problem but parties weren't really possible, although I did celebrate my 21st with a party in the bar after closing time!
I can remember my mum and dad regularly used to lock up forgetting that one of us kids, then in our late teens, was still out on the town. We'd arrive back in the early hours with no keys. We didn't want to wake up mum and dad - they didn't get much sleep as it was, so we used to get out the ladder, climb up on the flat roof and knock on the girls' bedroom window. Luckily there was always one sister in. Our poor guard dog didn't have clue what was going on. But the local police often kept an eye on the place. I remember when my Dad had a problem with his car radio. I went outside to have a look at it, and I'd only been in the car for about 5 minutes fiddling under the dash when a loud voice shouted out 'what do you think you're up to?' It was Jack Underwood the local bobby on his trusty bicycle, thinking I was up to no good. It's funny; Jack always appeared when there was something going on, he must have had second sight. I remember he caught me riding a moped behind the telephone exchange a few years earlier when I was only 15. Now I wish there were more like him!
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Good times in the Ditton Bar in the 1970s. From left: Ron Fisk, Bert the barman, Pat Fisk, Muriel |
We got to know many of the local characters who used to frequent the bars. Bert the barman ran the Ditton Bar from the 70's until he died prematurely in 1980. He made the Bar his own empire and you could have been mistaken that he was the owner. New Year's Eve was always a special event there, and fancy dress was the order of the day. Ron, Pat and Bert always used to join in the fun along with the customers. Frequent local visitors included Ralph the postman who always used to call everyone 'old chappie' in a strange elongated manner, becoming louder and more elongated after every pint; Cyril the butcher, whose premises were opposite the pub which is now a private residence; Ted the grocer, whose little shop was opposite All Saints church - also now a private residence; Eddie Parrot, whose mother ran the greengrocers in Alma Road, another casualty of development. Kate Marney was another habitué, whose wood yard used to be in the beer garden of The Alma, now Marney's Village Inn. The Marneys also used to keep a cow behind the rear of Thames Ditton Telephone exchange!
Some other famous visitors to the pub included Pattie Boyd (Beatle George Harrison's wife at the time), Linda Lewis, who was a top ten singing artist in the 70's, Blakey from 'On the Buses', and Annie from Emmerdale. One visitor came all the way from Texas, USA as a previous client from the pub my parents ran earlier in Ashford. Bill was an oil geologist who worked for Red Adair. There used to be an old concrete WWII air raid shelter in the back garden, which I'd commandeered for myself as a workshop. Bill wanted to see it: 'Hot Dawg!' he exclaimed… I suppose you don't see many air raid shelters in Texas back gardens.
My parents ran the Lamb and Star until they retired in 1982. Since then the premises have seen a number of different guises, almost turning into an Indian takeaway at one point, and having its car park given over to a car wash more recently. Latterly the name has been changed to the Ewe, marking the end of a piece of pub history. One strange fact was the position of the old pub sign, which used to be on the opposite side of the Hampton Court Way. Why? - because before Hampton Court Way was built, the pub used to be positioned near the sign but was demolished to make way for the new road. Now the sign itself has been removed, and another part of our quirky local history has been lost.
And me? Well, I was never called to the Bar and I wouldn't be a publican for the world! I became a network engineer…
Bob Fisk
The Lamb and Star was named from the insignia of the West and East Surrey Regiments in which men of Weston Green served and died. Newly refurbished and somewhat bafflingly renamed The Ewe, it has a pleasant atmosphere, a competitive menu, and hosts good salsa on Monday nights.