CHAPTER 15
Confusion
The Plough and Harrow #1
Early 80’s
The Plough and Harrow pub is a very old building, with very low doorways and very thick walls, and it’s history dates back many hundreds of years, the first recorded date was 1383, so it has been around for a while.
The pub has over the many centuries seen many changes of customers and witnessed many comings and goings of different types of people from all levels of society, far to many to list here even if I knew them, like an old saying goes if walls had ears what tale’s they could tell.
The pub has seen many changes over its long history from Cistercian Monks in the eleventh century.
The monks' grange at Monknash was the richest estate owned by the Cistercian monks of Neath Abbey, it also had a huge tithe barn measuring over 200 feet long which was a massive building a 1000 years ago, many remains are scattered around the pub in the fields from this time period, it pub as also had round-heads ( Cromwell’s troops or / and Charles the first’s royalist in the 1600 hundred’s and a bunch of raggedy Arse bikers in the 1970s — 80s.
There are only two rooms on the ground floor ( first floor ), there is only one main entrance which is set in the middle of the building which nearly everyone needed to duck not to bang their heads on as they walked in, except for me of course because I am the normal height for a Welshman, well 200 years ago I would have been, maybe there are some advantages of being shorter than other people, one advantage is people tend to understatement you and you can get away with more.
People are very judgmental, especially the police, I have gotten away with a number of things because the boys in blue have jump to the wrong conclusion and the other advantage is that you don’t bump your head when you walk through a doorway, looks like a win-win situation to me, possibly even a chicken dinner.
There were two large rooms one on each side of the doorway, the main bar was on the right side of the entrance, which is the lager room of the two, this is where most of the locals would go for a quiet pint and the back room which is on the left side of the doorway had many uses, one of the most notable was that it was used as a make shift mortuary for dead sailors that the locals found washed up on the nearby beaches.
The backroom had a number of descriptions, some people called it the pool room, some even called it the lounge which is a bit of a stretch for it to be described in that fashion, we just knew it has our room, this is where we all hang out and spent most of our time, we had a jukebox and a pool table and our own small bar, that’s all we needed.
( Photo 1 ) . The plough and harrow, our poolroom was on left-hand side.
We had Many great times here, in this ancient watering hole and the story you are about to read is one of the funny ones.
The jukebox in the plough wasn’t the most reliable piece of machinery, I can not remember it ever been upgraded for a newer one, it was moved around the room at random intervals to suit what was going in the room, which could not have been very good for the records or the jukebox, if we had a party in the room with Beryl’s permission, the pool table would have been pushed to one side up against the wall and all the tables and chairs rearranged to suit the event and this included the jukebox.
When we would seek permission for a party we would bypass Harry and go straight to Beryl, and she would always say “ that’s ok with me, you boy’s sort it, but I want no nonsense and any trouble, you lot sort it out “, she would insist that we don't bring our own drink in and buy any that we needed over the bar and if we did that she would not charge us for the room.
We respected this and never messed her about, if anything we had a great respect for beryl.
There was never any real major issue with the jukebox, it played 45 single records and that’s all was excepted of it, but some times it would completely skip a record selection or totally refuse to play certain records, this didn’t happen very often but if you pays your money you want your tune played.
( Photo 2 ) . Lawson, 9 out of 10 photos show him sticking a finger up his nose, nobody knows why.
A track that was listed on the jukebox that Lawson had selected failed to play, so Lawson went to the small bar at the end of the room to get the problem sorted.
The bar was never manned, nobody stayed behind waiting for the next customer, there was never anyone on duty this side of the bar at any time.
The normal thing to do was to call out the word “ Shop “ and this would bring someone from the main bar to deal with your request, you may have to wait a little while but eventually with a little persistent calling someone would come and serve you.
Both the main bar and the backroom were served by the same bar it was basically a corridor that straddled both rooms with a walled room in the middle separating them, just remember this is an old place everything had to fit into it’s 700 year floor plan.
Lawson did what everyone else did he called out the magic word “ Shop “ and after a minute or two Harry appeared.
Just in case you didn’t know Harry was Beryl the landladies husband.
Harry was not the happiest of people, I can honestly say I have never seen him smile, if it was not for Beryl we would have been thrown out of the pub years ago.
Harry on numerous occasions has marched into the pool room with great purpose and headed straight for the jukebox and then without saying a word, he would turn the volume right down so that the music was just about audible to the human ear and then without uttering a word or making eye contact with anyone in the room storm back out again the same way he came in.
Harry always left the room with a chorus of laughter following him out.
( Photo 3 ) . A very similar jukebox to the one we had in the poolroom.
The jukebox we had at the plough had a small black round knob at the rear of the machine that controlled the volume, as soon as harry had left the room someone would rush over and turn the volume back up again and then return to their original seat just as quickly, harry would look around the bar into the poolroom to try and catch someone turning the volume back up, and we would pretend no one had moved.
Sometimes harry would stand behind the poolroom bar not serving anyone, he would just stand there doing absolutely nothing, he would have his arms folded across his chest and watch us all in the room, he would just shake his head back and forth in disapproval at our behaviour.
Don’t get me wrong, he was a nice guy in his own way, he was never rude and always polite except when he kept catching Pete Woodman pouring his own pints from the bar, Pete would lean across the bar, topping up his pint from the pump from the customers side.
I think harry would have been happier if we all never came back to the pub.
My own personal opinion of Beryl and Harry was always good, beryl was funny and she was a character and harry always looked stressed, sometimes the situation behind the bar between beryl and harry give me the impression of the comedy sketches from Faulty Towers, sadly beryl button the landlady died in 1985, I’m not sure what has happened to harry but all in all they were two nice people trying to run a pub with a mix of Farmers, Village Locals and Bikers as customers, so hats off to them. It could not have been an easy task.
( Photo 4 ) . This photo show’s some of us at a party in the backroom / poolroom around Christmas time in the 80s, the jukebox is on the left of Brian and some of the strangely clean looking guys are standing in front of the small bar.
From left to right Brian leaning against the jukebox, Galen with the blue jacket on, behind him is wobble looking over his head, to Galen’s right side is Lawson behind Lawson is Dai Parrot who raced for Suzuki, on the far right is Simon and Joss with Caroline with her back to the camera.
Getting back to the story.
Lawson was standing in front of the small bar after calling for someone to attend to him.
So the conversation between Lawson and Harry went like this.
Harry – yes what can I get you.
Lawson – my record won’t play on the jukebox, can you have a look at it for me.
Harry gave a big sigh and just gave Lawson a “ why are you wasting my time look “ he didn’t need to say a lot his body language and his facial expressions spoke 1000s of words.
Harry – there’s a record playing.
Lawson – yeah, but it’s not my record.
Oliver’s Army by Elvis Costello was playing in the background.
Harry - yes ok then, but you will have to wait, give me a few minutes, I have customers to serve.
Lawson – it won't take you a second, you only have to flick a switch.
Harry - cant you wait a minute or so.
Lawson – come on, you could have done it by now.
Harry – oh aright then.
Harry was getting very stressed at this point, harry lifted the hinged counter on the bar and stepped out from behind the bar and then walked into the poolroom and as he did so, Lawson said.
Lawson – do you think I’m sexy.
Lawson was referring to the song by Rod Stewart, the record he had attempted to play earlier, harry didn’t know this.
He had no idea what the current music scene was or what was in the charts, modern pop music in his opinion would have been something like Bill Haley and the Comets.
From this point on confusion reigned.
Harry stopped in his tracks, he looked at Lawson and wrinkled his forehead and said.
Harry – I beg your pardon.
This response from harry confused Lawson, and Lawson replied.
Lawson – what do you mean.
With a very confused look on his face.
Harry – I am a married man and I don’t do that kind of thing, and how dare you ask me such a thing.
Lawson – what kind of thing, what are you on about.
Confusion was the order of the day for both parties, Lawson was completely confused at this point .
Harry – that’s a very strange thing to say to me, I didn’t know you were like that.
Referring to the fact that harry now thought Lawson was gay.
Lawson – what do you mean like that, I just want my record to play.
Harry paused for a second and said.
Harry – then why did you say what you just said to me.
Lawson – say what to you.
Harry – what you just said.
Lawson – you mean “ do you think I’m sexy “.
Harry who was not very amused by how this conversation was going and said.
Harry – I thought you were coming on to me.
Lawson - Fuck No, what’s the matter with you.
Harry - don’t you swear at me young man, I’m not having it, I will not be spoken too in that fashion.
Harry turned around and stormed off in disgust, he went back behind the bar and slammed the hinged part of the counter down behind him, it made a laud bang which drew the attention of everyone in the room, and we all watched harry disappear back into the main bar.
Lawson just stood there by the bar, not sure of what had just happened.
He turned around and faced the room and said “ what the fuck just happened then, I only wanted my record to play “.
Lawson never had the opportunity to listen to his chosen song that night, harry ignored him for the rest of the evening, he even refused to server him at the bar and had beryl to pull Lawson a pint.
Every time I remember this story it makes me laugh.
Happy days.
( Photo 5 ) . The Welsh coastline, not far from the plough.