Low life
Driven to drink
Jeffrey Bernard
Ijust heard a terrific bang and smash followed by screams, and ran out into the street to find that someone had driven a car right into the Draper's Arms. It was sitting there oozing smoke in the saloon bar. Luckily the occupants were not hurt, simp- ly shocked. Whether they were shocked by the crash or shocked by the fact that it wasn't quite opening time is debatable. We know that a drink can often be a matter of great urgency but to actually drive into a pub is slightly over the top. (The Fire Brigade has just arrived to extract the car.) Over the years I have been kicked out of pubs, thrown out of them, .forced to leave them for a lack of readies or because of the daft licensing laws but it has never taken the Fire Brigade to convince me that last orders had been called or that it was not yet opening time. (Now I have just heard that the car was parked outside the pub and that the driver — yes, yes, a woman driver — put the car into first instead of reverse.) I think that maybe there might be a strange cosmic force, a magnetic field of sorts, something as mysterious as the Ber- muda Triangle surrounding pubs. I some- how contrived a crash in the car park of the George in Lamboum once, and on another occasion, late one night, drove into the Queen's Arms in East Garston just up the road. That is one of the reasons I moved back to London where I need only the odd taxi or two a day. (The Fire Brigade has just extracted the car and an ambulance has taken the occupants away for what I hope to be a medicinal drink.) And it is still ten minutes to opening time although you wouldn't think it to look at the pub.
Yes, life — if it can be so called — in Islington is heady stuff. Why only this morning I woke up to find a spring roll in my blazer pocket. I did live in Islington once before in a house beside the canal where I used to overstay leave from my short-lived stint of National Service. That was 1950-51. The proximity of the canal made the house the only one I have ever known to be infested with frogs as opposed to mice. Such dear little things to watch hopping up the staircase.
But it is alleged that there was once another strange incident involving the Fire Brigade and a pub. It took place some years ago in the Queen's Elm in the Fulham Road. A nutter called Eileen, known to all as The Fox, one day dialled 999 and asked for the Fire Brigade. They arrived with sirens screaming, leaped from the engine hoses in hand and asked, `Where's the fire?' The Fox lifted up her skirt and said 'In here, boys.' I think she got three months. What she should have got was nine. (The builders have arrived already and they are clearing up the mess. We should be on target for the one in twenty minutes.) But a good man to have next to when there's a fire is Peter Langan who extin- guishes the awful things with champagne. And I have just remembered something. And don't stop me if I've told you but the house with the frogs in Islington was owned by a woman who had a grocer's shop. She didn't live there but she kept, God knows why, a drum of maple syrup in the hall on the ground floor. One day it fell over. Now, it has probably never crossed your mind and why should it but it is a strange experience to come home late at night after having taken refreshment to find yourself rooted to the spot in a sea of syrup. One survived. Others didn't. With Newton it was apples. With frogs it was syrup. I suppose one should have cooked the legs of the poor blighters. (The 'Busi- ness as Usual' sign has just gone up.) Which reminds me, the firemen from the fire station in Shaftesbury Avenue drink in the Coach and Horses and what a fit, strong and brave bunch of lads they are. Can you imagine scaling one of those ladders to enter an inferno to rescue someone? They probably don't get paid very much either. One of them told me that one person a day in Great Britain dies through falling asleep drunk with a cigarette. Perhaps that is why the Govern- ment say they can seriously damage your health. Anyway, I am now going to tele- phone the Fire Brigade to see if they can get me into the pub. Through the roof if necessary.
Meanwhile I shall be 55 on Thursday. No flowers please. Fifty-five. That's just about enough. Much more would be a kind of greed, but maybe just the gloomy one more.
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