Time Gentlemen Please !

Well another chapter in my life has closed! I no longer have my Thursday evening bar job at The Bell Hotel in Driffield. I’m feeling a mixture of sadness, anger, relief and freedom.

When I moved to Driffield 2 years ago, I had just bought an old house, was new to the area, knew no-one and was working at a job I did not enjoy 25 miles away, earning very little money. I wanted Lydia and I to enjoy our new home and feel part of our new community. Easier said than done! I saw an advert in the local paper for a part-time evening bar job at the only hotel in central Driffield. The Bell Hotel is a 300 year old former coaching inn, with an à la carte restaurant, and traditional bar. No widescreen TV, no gaming machines, no fancy gimmicks, just a selection of local brewed real ales, house wines, the usual optics and 300 single malt Scottish whiskies. It’s a central venue for club meetings, parties, etc.

I went for an interview with Andy the manager and was offered one night a week, Monday, together with every 4th Sunday. Minimum wage, but hey, it’s still extra money. And a chance to chat with local people and see what’s going on in town. Maybe make some new friends and maybe have a free drink in the bargain? Monday’s were pretty dead, and not very exciting, except for the monthly ‘Singles Night’ which should have been called the ‘Derby and Joan’ club as there was no-one under retirement age. In fact, make that ‘Joan and Joan’ club as they were virtually all women! If anyone remotely young (under-60) and attractive (more than, say, Pat Butcher) did come along to try out the club, they usually took one look at the others and left pretty rapidly, after recovering with a stiff drink at my bar! (In fact I think Pat Butcher was one of the club members).

Is it acceptable for a girl to be alone in a bar and chat to all or most of the guys in that bar? I think not. Even in these days of equality. Especially not in Yorkshire. However, if you are behind the bar…..that’s exactly what you can do. And get paid. It’s like going out for a social evening at the pub, chatting with friends, making new ones and coming away with money instead of spending any. Great if you are single. I am often chatted up (great for the ego), and have been propositioned on a number of occasions (sometimes welcome and sometimes not). I have even dated a couple of guys I’ve met from the pub!!

I got on pretty well with Andy the manager, and managed to persuade him to change my evening to Thursdays – not too hectic or smoky, but usually busy enough to make the evening more fun and interesting for me. Andy left shortly after that. Hopefully nothing I said. I discovered that there is a pretty quick staff turnover at the Bell. If the low pay wasn’t enough to put people off, George and Rita, the owners, had a very low regard for most of their staff. Whenever someone left or was asked to leave, the story from G&R was always pretty much that they were unreliable, bad workers and un-necessary! (I’m guessing that’s what’s being said about me now!!)

By now, I had changed from a low paid job I didn’t like in central Hull, to a slightly better paid job I liked more in the countryside near Driffield. Did I still need the extra hours at The Bell? I had got to know what was going on in Driffield. I had met a plumber, electrician, car mechanic, local historian and various people who knew mostly everyone else in Driffield between them. I had a full-time job and my work at the pub was a little extra bonus. When it was busy it was quite good fun but tiring. When it was not busy it was boring. So, for a while I have been thinking I would like to give up my job in the pub. But then, I quite liked it when I was there, and it was a bit extra money, and I’d only be staying in watching the TV anyway……

So, I decided to ask instead if I could be taken off the Sunday evening rota, where I was now working every 3rd week. Not all staff were required to work this shift, so I decided I would prefer to just stick to my Thursday evening. I asked last week, and got a message back after 6 days saying that G&R had decided that if I just wanted to work one day a week, then it wasn’t really worth it and so they would let me go. HOW DARE THEY! Even though I might have wanted to leave…..it makes me angry that they got there first!! But hey, I’m a grown up. I’ve had a few days to come to terms with it. I’m over it now. It’s what I wanted. I’ve moved on. I get an extra evening to do what I want. Late night shopping or something. This week I had my hair cut at my hairdresser’s only late night opening (Thursday). I can pack for a long weekend away. I can take up an extra evening class (no, don’t get me started…).
Yes, it’s quite a relief not to be working at the Bell. My barmaid career has spanned quite a few years now, and I can’t say for certain that I will never do it again. It’s easy and often fun.

My first bar work was at the Prince of Wales in Oatlands. I didn’t intend to work as a barmaid. My sister Mia was a ‘resting’ actress and wanted to top up with some bar work, so had applied to the PoW. She hadn’t done bar work before and the pub was just around the corner from me so she asked me to come along. I didn’t think that it was appropriate for me to attend a job interview with her, but Mia can be very persuasive. The pub manager, Cath, was really looking for someone to do more hours than Mia wanted, and somehow (I still don’t know how this happened) we came away with both Mia and I agreeing to work some evenings. This quickly turned into Mia and I working together on 2 evenings a week and we had a lot of fun.

Cath then decided to fire Mia, mostly because Mia attracted more attention from the customers than Cath did and she was jealous. Well, that was our theory anyway, as Mia didn’t actually do anything wrong. Perhaps she could have claimed unfair dismissal at an industrial tribunal, but hey, it was only a lowly paid part-time bar job so it wasn’t much of a loss. I decided to leave also as a protest, but Mia and I did agreed that we had quite enjoyed our bar working together. I saw an advert for bar staff at a trendy wine bar in Weybridge called Sullivans. It was one of those places we didn’t frequent as it was rather an ‘in crowd’ and people we didn’t know. Feeling brave, I rang, got an interview, got a job 2 evenings a week, and nervously started. One great thing about the wine bar was that it sold just wine and beer, so rather a no-brainer to serve drinks. The people were really quite friendly, and lots of regulars so I got to know them quickly. Having been brought up, went to school and worked in Weybridge, it was obviously the case that I did know quite a few of the people who frequented Sullivans and then got to know a few more, so it wasn’t really the scarry place it had first appeared. As soon as I heard they were looking for more bar staff, I suggested Mia who promptly got a job working with me again. More fun! So it was that Mia and I clocked up several years of bar work between us and have many funny stories to tell from the experience.

I have been asked on several occasions how difficult it is to work in a bar. Think about it. We’ve all met bar staff that don’t seem to be blessed with loads of intelligence, so how difficult can it be? Can you pour a drink? We’ve all done it at home. In a bar, you just have to measure it out and not be as generous and then ask for money. Not difficult at all. You don’t even have to have a large cleavage and bleached blond hair to be a good barmaid, as I have proved. What about all those difficult cocktails and strange combinations? To be honest, it’s not a problem I came across much in a traditional pub in Yorkshire, but on the odd occasion when someone asked for something I wasn’t sure about, I would just ask them what was in it? Sometimes they didn’t know themselves, so we would just make something up between us!

Unfortunately, I didn’t get a chance to say goodbye to all my regulars and friends at the Bell as my departure was somewhat sudden, but I will miss them all really. Being a small town, I will no doubt bump into them from time to time, and I may even go for a social drink in the Bell one Thursday, just to check they are all missing me! So, goodbye to Tony the gamekeeper and shepherd; Greg the American; the cheeky boys; the choir boys; the Lions and referees; Katie the medium and husband Tony the gambler; the well behaved students; Steve from Ash; and Wally.

Cheers!