CHAPTER 18
Plastic Santa
The plough and harrow #2
Early 80`s
I could not find any old photos of the interior of the pool room, so I have added some photos of some of the guys with the room in the background, so you can get the idea of what it looked like back in the day.
I was up the plough early.
I was on holiday, it was what was called back in the day, The Miners Fortnight, two weeks were everyone in the mining valleys took their annual holidays, all the coal mines and the factories in all of Wales closed down for a full two weeks, this was a traditional two weeks were all industry stopped, there was no choice, everyone except maybe maintenance crews were made to take their holidays.
This all happened in the last week of July and the first week of August, everyone relaxed and chilled, some people went on holiday down to Trecco Bay caravan site in Porthcawl for two weeks, it did not matter how the weather was at the time, there could have been gale force winds with lashing rain up against the windows or a heat wave, if there was an outing planed or a holiday destination booked everyone went regardless of the weather, this was the only time of the year that people could get away from the everyday grind of work, then sleep, then back to work again.
If they had a few bob put away over the year, a family holiday in Spain was on the cards, some people just stayed in bed knowing they did not need to get up for work.
Well not everyone had this privilege, some had to keep the wheels of industry turning and it was my turn this year.
I had a whole two weeks of maintenance, I had to sort all the machinery out in the factory shut down to get it ready for all the production that would be desperately needed to keep the world running when everyone came back to work, ( that was the speech the head of maintenance gave everyone ), I thought it was bollocks then and I still feel the same now, all it does is make rich people, richer.
By Thursday myself and two others had nearly completed all the tasks that we had on our maintenance list, so on the Friday of the second week, we finished early knowing that there was only a couple of hours work left for us to do on the last day.
We had to work the whole two weeks, so we dragged the work out a little, as I was in charge and I decided we would finish early on Friday, strangely nobody argued with me.
There were no bosses, they were all on holiday, as long as everything was done by the time they came back, there would be no issue.
We went home at noon, we had finished a long time before 12:00 we just sat in the canteen drinking vending machine drinking coffee until the clock very slowly ticked onward’s, the last half hour seemed to take an age to finish, and because we finished the working day early, I had a lot of time on my hands, so I planed to go for a ride, it always helped to blow the cobwebs away and nullify stress, I popped home, it was only a quick ride up the valley 3 miles or so away.
I washed up, changed into clean clothes and jumped back on the bike again and just headed straight down the pub which was 17 miles away, I was looking forward to the ride after working in all that crap for two weeks.
The journey would be just long enough for me to enjoy the ride and I could relax at the end of the ride with a quiet pint and have some me time, I would only have one pint as I would need to ride down to Wick village to pick Gaenor up at 18:00.
But one quite pint in a relaxing environment is all I would need to unwind and put the last two weeks of work behind me.
I knew the Plough would be quite, it was only us bikers and the local farmers and of course the villagers from wick and the local area that ever went there, the plough would have the occasional passersby out for a drive that would pop it for a quick pint.
The plough didn’t serve food back then, just out of date crisps and pasties that were warmed up by the cat sleeping on them.
The pub relied on us and the locals to keep going, and we were always willing to help by keeping the bar busy, Beryl and Harry were never going to get rice, but they had somewhere nice to stay and the regular customers would keep the pub ticking over.
If you didn’t know the location of the pub and where it was in the countryside, it was quite easy to drive past it without ever notching it was there, as it was tucked away down a quite country lane, The pubs' location was ideal for us to be honest, it was out of the way and off the main roads, looking back on it now, we were spoilt having this pub basically all to ourselves.
I was hoping the Plough would be quite after crawling around oily machines that were covered in a large assortment of chemicals all week, it would suit me just fine, a quiet pint is just what I needed to unwind.
The pub was empty when I arrived, there was only one car outside, I knew the car I had seen it before, it was very common to see it parked up at the plough, it was one of the old regulars, who would have been in the bar having a quiet pint just like I intended doing.
( Photo 1) . The Plough and Harrow, the door on the far left is the outside men’s toilets, it was the only men’s toilet in the pub and the first window on the bottom right of the toilet with the red dragon in the window was our back / poolroom. ( this is a modern day photo of the plough 2018 ).
I parked alongside the red Escort van nearby the stone wall of the pub’s front garden and went straight into the back-room, it was empty just like I expected it would be.
The room being devoid of people was exactly what I wanted, some peace and quite, it would soon get noisy soon enough when it filled up with people throughout the rest of the evening, my friends would turn up at different times throughout the night and then it would be difficult to hear yourself think let along talk.
I went to the bar in the back-room, I shouted ( Shop ) for some attention, eventually Harry strolled over to me, he was in no rush, he said to me, “ you are early, there is nobody here yet “.
I answered, ” yes, early finish from work, I came up for a quiet pint “, he poured me the pint from the pump, I asked him to switch the jukebox on for me, he just looked at me and gave me my change and said ” you know where the plug is “ and walked off, harry`s customer service was second to none, maybe I just mean none.
So, I flicked the mains switch on and after a few metallic clicks and a wiring of electrical motors the jukebox bursts into life, a record was selected without me touching any buttons, there must have been some selections that did not play at the pub at closing time the night before.
Slade began to play.
I had the pub to myself, I was quite happy sipping my pint and listening to Slade on the jukebox, Slade had an audience of one as Noddy Holder the lead singer sang “ how does it feel“.
Noddy fitted into this tranquil scene very well, at last I had some quite time away from the humdrum nonsense of what life throws at you, like working during holidays.
I had time to reflect as I sat there, I had the music on the jukebox turned down low, the flat black glass topped space invader table machine quietly beeped to itself every now and again, just to remind anyone in the room that it was ready to play, it did this every few minutes or so if the space invader thought it was being ignored, it would announce itself by notifying to anyone that was willing to listen it, that a swarm of alien Galaxions were about to attack earth using its electronic beeps and pings to draw attention to itself.
I ignored it.
All the furniture in the room was odd, nothing matched, there were odd chairs with odd tables scatted around the room, at the time nobody noticed or cared, it was all part of the makeup of the pub, nowa days everything is theme driven to make the customer feel like they are sitting in a pretend environment, which is created by someone in a office block in a large city somewhere.
These faceless people would design the internal decor of the pub and fill it full of pretentious hipsters with money to spend, take for example the harvester group of restaurants in the UK, trying to make you feel that the place you are eating you’re Plough-mans lunch is how your great, great grandparents eat their food in the ye old worldly tavern, they try and conceive you that this is how country pubs looked like back in the day, they couldn’t be further from the truth.
But in reality, it was a lot different and a lot more relaxed and scruffy with no frills.
I think this was the first and last time I had ever been in this back room with no-one else in it.
It seemed very strange, this room was always busy.
As I sat there, I looked around the room, it was not really a very big room maybe 15 foot across and 20-25 long, it had one small window that faced onto the front of the pub which did not leave a lot of natural light in, on one wall there was a recessed set of shelves, large enough to hold one person on each shelf with their knees bent up, this I know because we tried to do it, nearby the wall shelf was an old-fashioned stone Tondu brick fireplace.
It was a very rare sight to see a fire burning in the hearth, it would need to be extremely cold for harry to bother to light a fire.
Normally during the winter we would all still be wearing our jackets or just huddling around the Calor-gas fire or the electrical wall heater to stay warm.
I was reminded by Wobble about one simple event involving the fire place, on one very cold and icy day in the middle of winter, I was standing by the fire trying to keep warm, even standing close by the fire you could still see your own breath it was so cold, we all still wore our leather jackets and scarf’s around our necks some people kept their leather gloves on, there were only three hot spot in the room, and we were all hogging them trying to stay warm, it was too cold to hold your pint in your hand.
The plough as two foot or more thick solid stone walls and all they seemed to do was to keep the cold in, I think the thick walls acted more as a fridge then insulation from the cold weather outside, even in the summer it was cool inside the pub, the sun didn’t get a lot of chance to warm the room up, as there was only one small window in this part of the pub.
Well, I was standing by the fire.
It was only a small fire, it seemed to glow more than give off any heat.
It did help to keep the cold at bay, if you stood practically on to of it, I had placed my pint on the small mantelpiece above the fire, there were a couple of other pints placed along the same area next to mine, I was just talking and chatting like you do when you in the company of friends, most likely moaning about how cold the world was at the moment.
I stretched out my hand to pick up my pint for a drink, I gave a quick glance over to the line of glasses to make sure I picked up the right pint.
Wobble was drinking Guinness which is a dark blackish pint, and I was drinking a beer called Mann's which is another dark looking pint, and they look very similar to each other.
Except that Guinness bends light.
We had an hour discussion about how dark a Guinness was, myself, Wobble, Fat Mike and a few others discussed this at length, we examined the pint by holding it up to the light in the room and looking thought the pint glass no light penetrated, then we dropped a number of coins into the pint it's self, once they entered the dark liquid they disappeared from view, if you held the pint up and looked from underneath you could just make out the obscured shape of the coins, so the conclusion was at the end of the night.
A pint of Guinness was made up of some kind of dark matter, and light cannot penetrate dark matter so a pint of Guinness can bend light and basically it is a liquid black hole.
Well it was funny at the time, we laughed all the way thought this examination.
I picked up the wrong glass, and took a mouthful of Guinness.
I don’t drink Guinness, and I was a little startled by what it was when I started drinking it, and as soon as I had tasted the drink my first reaction was to spit it out.
So that is exactly what I did right into the fireplace.
And with a whooshing sound and a cloud of white steam and ash the Guinness hit the fire and nearly put it out completely.
Well it was funny at the time, it made everyone laugh.
Harry wasn’t very happy.
There was ash all over the grate and the carpet.
Harry said “ who did this “ looking around the room as he said it.
I said “ it was me, it was an accident “.
Harry said “ how can this be accident “.
He gave me a hard stare and shook his head, he said to everyone in the room “ if your all cold “ pointing at me as he said this “ you can blame him “.
Everyone just laughed, it didn’t make any difference to us, it was always cold in the room.
Has harry walked out, back into the warm bar, where there was a large open fire blazing away, he said “ if it goes out, it goes out and stays out “.
As I say, It made no difference to us, we all rode in the depth of winter, with all the dangers that winter brought to biking in that kind of weather with falling off on black ice or being so cold you can't feel your fingers because they had gone numb or trying to unbuckle your helmet or even hold a door key in your hand to let yourself in to your home and not forgetting the frost in the early mornings and trying to avoid the white lines in the road and the manhole covers that make the back end of your bike skip out, and not forgetting the freezing rain.
It rained so hard sometimes you could not see any distance in front of you.
But this time we encourage the fire back into life.
And I made sure which pint I was picking up the rest of the night.
I did get a brush and pan from behind the bar and cleaned the mess up in front of the fire great, and covered the burnt marks in the carpet with a chair I put in front of the fire.
All we had to heat the rest of the room was an old electric heater that was fixed high on one of the walls near the bar and a mobile calor-gas heater.
There was a thin shelf very near to the ceiling that ran all around the room, I guessed that it was for ornaments or to hang pictures on.
The only thing that was sitting on this shelf was a burnt out firework that one of the boys had put up there many years before as a joke just to see if anyone would clean the shelves.
It was still there years later, the firework also had some company over the years, a Scotch Egg, a decomposing Crab just to name a couple of things, they were never ever cleared away, it was part of the character of the place.
At one end of the room was a huge dark oak ornate cabinet, it must have been hundreds of years old, it had carved out figures of mistrals using musical instruments, one figure was blowing a flute and another was playing what looked like a mandolin.
We used this old antique cabinet as a table-top to place our pints down on, the flat surface of the cabinet had multiple rings marks from the glasses.
Beryl never supplied beer mats and there were also burn marks off fags that people left on the cabinet while they played pool.
With the pool table sitting in the center of the room and the table and chairs that surrounded the walls of the room there was only enough room to walk to the bar, the girls toilet was in the corner of the room next to the ornate cabinet, in fact it was the only toilet for the girls to use including the women in the bar who had to walk through the middle of us all to go to the toilet, thinking about it now, it must have been a little on the intimidating side if they were non- biker type of people and as for the men’s toilet you had to go outside and walk around the front of pub and then around the side in all weathers with no lighting, and I believe it is still the same with the toilets, nothing as changed, except they have lights outside.
The pub is more of a restaurant nowa days that caters for walkers that head down to the beach.
I never thought about it at the time on how lucky we were to have such a welcoming pub and a understanding landlady, it did help that Beryl tended to be drunk most of the time.
I think even now all these years later we all have fond memories of the pub, we all still talk about the times we had there, it left an impression on all of us in one way or another, there are not many places in your life that you can have this kind of connection with.
( Photo 2 ) . My rough hand-drawn floor plan of the poolroom from memory, this is how I remember how it looked in the 80s. ” not to scale “
BACK TO THE ORIGINAL STORY
And then to break my chill time a man and a woman walked into the room, they were both in their early 20s or maybe late teens and right behind them they were followed in by a stout looking guy who could have easily been Farther Christmas on his day off.
He was wearing a blue Levi denim jacket with a white t-shirt with the words “ Genesis Rocks “ emblazoned on the front in large red letters and a pair of shrink fit blue jeans and I thought at the time “ I think maybe the jeans had shrunk to far “ mainly because most of his gut was hanging over the edge of his belt.
He looked to me to be around 60 years old which seemed ancient to me back then, he had a long white busy beard and shoulder-length hair of the same colour.
I thought no more about them, but it was always necessary to know who comes into to your pub, so a quick visual once over was always required.
They all made their way to the small bar in the corner of the room, and ordered their drinks, when harry finally turned up to server them which seemed like a age, they had waited a few minutes before I called over to them, I told them that they had to call out “ shop “ to let harry know that they wanted to be served.
When they had their drinks, they picked their seats at the opposite end of the room to me.
Almost immediately, the two youngest of this small group went to play on the pool table, there was already a 20 p coin sitting on the top above the coin slot, the young guy looked up at me and said " are you playing ", I answered “ no, the money must have been left on there from the night before, you have it, have a free game “.
The boy said “ cheers, thank you “.
And then he proceeded to rack the balls up on the pool table.
I kept myself to myself, minding my own business and quietly sipping my pint while watching the young couple play pool, the jukebox was now playing a different song, it was still playing songs that were chosen from the night before now it was Roxy music’s turn, someone had picked the song Virginia plain, it would not have been my choice but it was free, so I was happy to listen to Brian Ferry giving everything he got to sing the song.
Everything was cool.
And then father Christmas got up off his chair and came across the room to me and walked right up to me from across the other side of the room.
I had noticed that he kept looking over in my direction earlier, I tried not to make eye contact with him and ignored his glances in my direction, I did put it down to the fact that he was watching the other two of his party playing pool.
He stood in front of me blocking my view of the pool table and said “ is that your bike outside, bro “.
I replied “ yeah that’s mine “.
I was thinking “ I’m the only biker in here “ and my helmet was on the wall shelf nearby me, ok, I know the guy was trying to find an excuse to start a conversation going, but I was hoping for some quite me time.
( Photo 3 ) . The small bar is in the right corner and Brian is leaning on the jukebox, and some other very strange people, trying to look normal for the camera.
Santa pulled a chair out from under the table and sat down right in front of me, which I though was a little weird, after all I didn't know this guy and I didn't invite him to sit down by me.
He carried on talking “ I used to be a biker, I used to run this area for the local Hell’s Angels”.
He looked at me waiting for some kind of response, I just looked at him not saying anything.
But what I was thinking was “ what the fuck is this guy going on about, there is no HA chapter in this part of Wales and if there was I would have known about it “, this guy was playing a dangerous game and talking Bollocks.
The plough is in the middle of nowhere surrounded by countryside and the closest town is miles away, and there is fuck all in between and there was no Angel Chapter in this part of Wales.
As I didn’t say anything, he started to talk again “ yeah I was in charge bro, nobody messed with me bro “.
He kept saying how all the chicks loved him, and he had a Harley.
I said “ sorry about you picking a Harley to ride, bad choice then “.
At this comment from me, he stopped talking for a short time, not sure how to respond.
I said “ I did fancy a 1000 cc Harley Sportster, but after a friend of mine had one and all the trouble he had with it, I think I’ll stick to Jap bikes “, i would have liked an Italian bike, but that is a different story.
He said “ yeah, yeah “ and nodded his head pretending he knew what I was talking about, I could see he didn’t have an answer for anything I was saying to him.
He didn’t have a clue.
He had no idea what I was talking about, and I knew this, so I carried on, I wanted him to feel like an idiot mainly because he was boring the crap out of me.
Anyone that knows me would know, I don’t suffer fools for to long.
I always blamed wobble for all the Nutters that seem to be attracted to us, I told wobble he must have had a invisible neon sign above his head with big huge fuck off letter’s flashing NUTTER LOVER with a large arrow pointing down at his head that can only been seen by nut jobs, well it was getting to a point that I was thinking I must have one above my head also.
“ when my friend wobble reads the last couple of lines I know he will be thinking of the time we were both in the York pub in Bridgend on a Saturday afternoon, involving the guy with the chocolates , but that is a separate story “.
( Photo 4 ) . Plastic Santa looked very similar to this guy, but the plastic version had longer hair.
Ok, let's get back to this idiot.
Just to make it more awkward for this guy, I carried on making him feel uncomfortable, so he would get the idea that it was not a good idea to make up stories and bore people to death with his bullshit that he was spreading and hopefully leave me alone.
So I also added “ you must know Maz Harris then “.
He said “ who, I don’t know the dude, bro “.
I said “ if you were in the AH, you should have known him or knew about him “.
“ Just for the guys that don’t know who Maz Harris was, he was a founder member of the Hells Angels in England, and he was a spokesman for them, and he also contributed to the bike magazine “ Backstreet Heroes “, he also had a doctorate in philosophy and was tragically killed in a motorcycle crash in MAY 2000 many years after the events of this story, he was very well known and respected in all circles ”.
Santa said nothing, I think he was sorry he started this conversation off with me.
This guy had no idea what I was talking about.
The two younger people with him who were playing pool were concentrating on listening to our conversation and had basically stopped playing and were knocking the pool balls about the table without paying any attention on where they were going, and they were looking in Santa’s and my direction.
Just to make a point to you guys reading this story, never in my biking life have I or anyone else that I knew back in the day ever referred to another biker has “ BRO or DUDE “, in this part of Wales you would call a friend “ MATE “ or in my case as I am from the valleys, it would be “ BUTT “, never “ BRO “, Santa had been watching to many American films or reading too many of their chopper magazines, just by calling me “ BRO “ I knew he was full of shit.
The two pool player were now looking in my direction watching how I was reacting to my new-found BRO, now and again they turned away so they had their backs to me, but I could see them plainly because I had my back to the window and was looking into the room and the large ornate cabinet opposite me had a large mirror at it’s center and I could see their refection if they turned away from me, they were both smirking at each other and basically laughing behind Santa’s back.
I don’t know what kind of relationship these two had with Santa, but there didn’t seem to be a lot of respect coming from them towards him.
Santa was oblivious to what was going on behind his back, he just carried on talking crap and how he was the king biker in these here parts, he actually used that phrase “ King Biker “, and he actually did say that full sentence, alarmingly, he said it with a lot of confidence as if he really believed what he was saying, and at this point I was losing the will to live.
I was drowning in bull shit.
I was seconds away from telling him to fuck off and grow up, the younger boy looked at me and shrugged his shoulders, I think he could see I was getting pissed off with this idiot, he could most properly see the 10,000 yard stare I had.
The two pool players stopped playing their game altogether, without finishing it, leaving most of the coloured balls on the table and sat down at their table across the room from me.
The boy called over to Santa and said “ come on, ( Santa ) “ I didn’t catch his real name “ come here and finish your pint, we will be going soon “.
He got up and gave me a nod and then said to me “ got to go and hang with the kids see you later “.
I thought “ thank fuck for that “.
I just smiled without answering him, I was glad to see him walk away.
Only a few minutes later, I could hear the noise of a bike pulling up outside, the girl with the group said to the two others “ come on drink up we are off “.
The boy left first, he headed straight for the door, the girl followed him but stood in the doorway holding the door open, I think mainly because Santa wasn’t finished with me yet, he came straight over to me and out stretched his hand, I had nothing against this guy, and I was hoping this was goodbye, so I raised my hand to shake his “ hoping this was the last time, I have to see this guy “.
And then the idiot done the most complicated handshake known to man, I thought I was joining some secret society like the masons or something similar, it was like a fucked up version of the game ROCK, PAPER, SCISSORS.
He said “ that’s a bikers' handshake".
I replied “ really “ with a very strong hint of sarcasm.
He turned to leave and said “ if you have any trouble with anyone, you tell them you know me “.
I replied “ yeah ok “ in a very disinterested voice, I will be sure to tell them that Santa will come and visit them if I have any hassle with anyone.
I thought “ Jesus, please fuck off out of my life “.
( Photo 4 ) . Tony Dog, with the entrance door to the pool room, on his right, showing the mixed furniture types that were in the room.
He finally left, the girl was still standing in the doorway, she let the door shut behind her once Santa left the building and came back into the room, and walked over to me, as she did this one of the guys who had just pulled up outside came in to the room, he had just arrived on his bike, his nickname was BEAKER, he looked at me and said “ hi frog “ I said hi back, he then put his helmet on the table and went straight to the bar.
The girl stood by the side of me and waited for me to finished talking to beaker, and she said “ sorry about him, I know he can be a pain, every time he sees a biker he tells them the same story.
I said,” I gathered that you two guys has seen it all before, you looked if you have heard it before “.
She replied “ he tells the same story about the angels to everyone, it’s all bull shit, he is going to be sorry one day, he did have a bike once but only a small one “.
I said “ why does he go around saying crap like that, is there something wrong with him “.
She said “ no, there is nothing wrong with him he is just a liar, he just makes up things to say to people “.
I replied “ I guessed that, you should stop him telling story’s about being a H /A, he is going to say it to the wrong people and the angels won't give shit how old he is, he will end up in a wheelchair and you will be pushing him around".
The door opened once more and PJ and Sharon had just pulled up and came into the room.
The girl said thank you for putting up with him and then gave me a Cwtch “ a Welsh hug “ and a “ sws “ which is a kiss, she kissed me on the cheek.
I smiled, she smiled back and said sorry once more, than gave me one more Cwtch, and then she left, giving me a little wave as she closed the door behind her.
I don’t really know what her relationship was with Santa, but she seemed to be very happy and appreciative to the fact that I didn’t embarrass him in front of them, I don’t really know what it was all about or what the issue was with the old guy and I will never find out, but no harm done.
The girls parting gesture was watched by the others in the room, who were all standing by the bar looking in my direction all the time, not saying a word, I could see them all looking at me and the girl.
I was surprised no-one said anything to me, has Gaenor my girlfriend was not with me and an unknown girl was cwtching me in an empty pub before anyone else had arrived.
They all looked, I could see by their expressions they wanted to know what was going on, they must have been thinking something was wrong with this picture.
But, I suppose what happens in the plough stays in the plough, they never ever said anything to me and if anyone did say anything to Gaenor she never mentioned it to me, anyway I had nothing to hide.
And that was the first and last time I ever saw Santa, thank fuck, of course except at Christmas, Santa always visited me then, he always gives presents to good boys that behave themselves.
Lol, yeah right.
( Photo 5 ) . Photo of Fat Mike with the fire place behind him and the girls toilet right behind him on the left wall and the dark mass on mikes right was the antique oak ornate cabinet.
I'm not really explaining how strange this scenario was for me at the time.
I seemed to have gone through a number of emotions in a short space of time, firstly I was annoyed at being disturbed in my temporary chilled world of the back-room and then my personal space was invaded by Santa Clause.
I was exposed to all the bollocks that this guy was directing at me, the barrage of bull shit gave me two separate emotions at the same time.
I was very disinterested in what he had to say to me, his conversation was boring and someone blowing their own trumpet and bragging on how big they are and how good they are at something always triggers an inner voice inside my head and this voice was telling me to stick the head in him or punch him in the face, just to shut him up, after all I had already tried to look completely disinterested in what he had to say and that didn't work.
The second emotion I had was keeping the first one at bay.
The second feeling dominated the first one, it stopped me from doing anything rash.
In honesty I felt sorry for the guy, I knew from the very beginning that there was something not right with him.
So empathy won the day over Violence and then at the end when the girl came on to me, and she seemed genuinely happy with the way I had dealt with Santa which was unintentional in my case, I just did what I did and, the Cwtch’s and Sws`s she gave me made the world right once more.
The whole encounter was very surreal.
I have always been curious of what was going on with Santa, and what the real story was behind the man and also about the two youngsters that he had with him.
But, I'm afraid that will have to stay a mystery.