Desert Island Pubs – Robert Thomas, founder/owner of Remarkable Pubs
Robert Thomas, founder/owner, Remarkable Pubs
1. Earliest Memory of a Pub
In 1947 and before the IRA blew up Nelson’s column my parents emigrated to Dublin for a year or so from Bristol on an ill-fated business venture. My father had bought two shops, one of which housed the family above, opposite ‘O’Reilly’s’ pub located in Sandymount on the coast at the terminus of the Dublin tram.
Entering ‘The Bottle & Jug’ of O’Reilly’s we were greeted with the enlivening chatter together with the unmistakeable beery aroma of a pub. On an old mahogany counter, with a brass bell on top, my mother would ring for flagons of fizzy cider in large brown bottles together with bottles of lemonade. Suitably armed we would sit around a scrubbed pine table in the kitchen sampling ‘beaded bubbles blinking at the brim’ pinging surprisingly on the end of my nose. Oh what joy! Unforgettable.
2. Most Inspirational Pub to my Career
Slap bang in the middle of Islington’s burgeoning gentrification of the 1970’s lay The Island Queen – a glorious high-ceilinged Victorian masterpiece on Noel Road – run by John Evans. He had an arts background of some sort – we never found out exactly where or what, however, he definitely had the eye. He was in cahoots with artist Nicky who was a graduate of a London Art College presaging the YBA’s by yonks and possibly the inspiration for the models seen later in Spitting Image. Nicky’s Mrs T was remarkably similar and was constructed much earlier.
Nicky had beautifully constructed the massive papier-mâché caricatures that rested atop the centrally located servery and hung from the ceiling. Subjects included a grinning Edward Heath and the blue-rinsed Margaret Thatcher amongst an ever-changing panoply of subjects. Creativity did not stop there. The entire pub had items of interest – Greek statues, Victorian mirrors, cut-glass screens and a truly memorable jukebox. The pub attracted all types including a weighty smattering of the arts intelligentsia. Conversation was rich, colourful, animated, and never boring. While the drinks selection on tap was the same.
3. My Current Local and Favourite Pub
In 1985 through a series of coincidences, misadventure, and blind opportunism I ended up with my wife Jean entering into a tenancy agreement with Whitbread at the Prince George in Parkholme Road, E8 – my local to this day. London Fields was going through very early gentrification pains and the availability of neighbourhood cask ales on tap was scarce. On the bar at the PG was Whitbread Tankard, Guinness and very little else. Upon asking the outgoing tenant why he didn’t feature a cask product he replied that ‘there was no call for it around here Guv’. ‘We did have a couple that we got it in for but they moved to Basildon’.
‘No call for it from the new local residents moving in then?’ I asked. “Oh no, they wouldn’t come in here.” We opened a week later with six brand new polished brass beer engines and by 8pm on our opening night we’d sold out six firkins of real ale – one from each pump. Jungle-like telegraph signals got around the neighbourhood and patrons poured in.
The plain decor recipe consisted of sanded bare matt varnished floorboards, plain furniture, church pews, pub benches and traditional cast iron tables. Camouflaged under years of Formica, hardboard and trite tangled tat emerged a mahogany 1830’s back bar piece complete with Ionic columns together with a suitably aged bar counter redolent with original 19th century patina. These are assets you cannot buy to recreate a pub interior.
The classic jukebox according to Time Out became the ‘best in London. Forty years on I still get that feeling of joy entering the Prince George. There is always someone on hand to discuss the events of the day or celebrate or commiserate with – mixed in with the beery aroma and the animated pub chatter timelessly, joyfully entertaining one and all.
4. The Pub you’d like to take to the Island
The French House in Dean Street, Soho, together with its average Friday lunchtime crowd. Gaston Berlemont was the aristocrat of landlords from the 1940’s until his retirement in 1989. Although he was born on the premises he lived for most of his life in Hendon travelling down on the Northern Line every day. He attended Bell Lane School along with my mother who was also a Hendon resident.
Gaston knew how to entertain and orchestrate all types and classes of patron and there was no side to him. He possessed that indefinable quality – the ability to engage and conspire with you, and you alone, to partake of the new delivery of wine that had just arrived, or engage with you news of the latest gossip or scandal that was topical.
As a result of this talent he attracted a varied and interesting clientele from the bohemian, arts and general London intelligentsia. On a visit to the French to this day it is impossible not to engage with someone at the bar who will not fail to enlighten, amuse and entertain.
5. The beer (unlimited supply) you’d take to the desert island
Southern session beers are my choice. A 3.4 ABV Fuller’s Chiswick, Young’s or Adnams Ordinary were my choices earlier. Chiswick alas is no longer brewed. Of the remainder my choice would be Adnams – nothing finer to enjoy and without the risk of getting blotto after a couple of pints an hour or so.
Glynn Davis, editor, Beer Insider
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