Mum and Dad had had interviews to join Whitbread’s, and they started in The Duke of Edinburgh in Battersea. They were managers in those days and governed by the brewery. Managers had no choice where they worked and could be moved to another pub at any time. This approach allowed people to learn the pub trade because they received excellent training, and any mistakes did not come at their expense. The brewery taught bar and cellar work and how to manage money, pay wages and keep a good set of books. Low wages were offset by rent-free living and costs, such as food, heating and lighting, paid for by the brewery. So, Mum and Dad had made quite an impression on the directors, who had earmarked them for a brand new pub in Kingsland Road. In the meantime, they continued to learn the ropes in Battersea.

After moving to The Royal Standard and gaining more experience, Mum and Dad decided they wanted their own pub, meaning they would take home any profits. A tenant of a pub paid rent to the brewery that owned the establishment. Tenants were tied to that brewery in as much as they sold the brewery’s beer, wine and spirits, but otherwise could run the pub as they wanted and pocket the gains of their hard work. Tenants could also put down some roots without the constant moving.

Few people own a pub outright. It costs a fortune. Such pubs, called free houses, can sell any brand of beer, spirits, wines, soft drinks, crisps and so on. Breweries would vie with one another for a free house’s trade, and the owner of the pub could reap the benefits of all the discounts on offer. The breweries all wanted to promote their products. Customers could also purchase their favourites.

Having been very successful in The Royal Standard, my parents had saved enough money for a deposit on a small pub where they could be tenants. My Grandparents already lived with us, and they helped Mum and Dad with the money they needed to set up on their own.

As children, we didn’t know all these details; only when we got older did we begin to understand why our life followed that particular path. We liked living in The Royal Standard. It was clean and bright and modern and big. Moving to The Ship came as a bit of a shock.

Although Mum and Dad worked for Whitbread’s brewery, they couldn’t find a Whitbread’s pub of their own to buy. The pub they eventually found, The Hop Pole, was a Truman’s venue.

Whitbread’s were not at all pleased when they received my parents’ notice. The Standard was doing really well with Mum and Dad at the helm. I guess it cost quite a bit to train my parents, and maybe after getting just a few years of service, the brewery felt cheated. Anyway, they wouldn’t let us work out our notice in The Standard and moved us to The Ship in Artillery Lane.

What a move that was!

Taking over a pub and moving in occurs over the course of one day. A particularly intense task involves completing and signing off the stocktaking for your old pub and the new one. Lists yards long. The licences are changed on the day and sometimes involve a trip to the local magistrate’s court. Usually, a director of the brewery would go along as well.

Then, of course, there is the actual moving to organise. The pubs still had to open for the allotted hours. Trading as usual. Opening times varied, as did closing. Then, as you focus on numerous documents, your goods and chattels are somehow leaving your old flat and being settled in the new one. Based on our experience, you just had to trust your removal men. And at the same time, customers would be coming in for their pint! It was all very complicated and so puzzling to us youngsters.

Usually, we were shipped off to my Mum’s cousin and out of the way. Only once was that not possible: the move from The Hop Pole to The Claremont. It was very exciting to see everything packed up and loaded onto a huge yellow Bishop’s Move removal van. The removal men were very jolly and looked after us for the day. We had to stay out of the bar while the changeover took place. I remember my Dad running out of the bar when he saw his precious piano going up the side of the pub on a hoist. It did look very precarious. Apparently, there were too many stairs and awkward turns, and this was the only way to get it in. A window frame was taken out of the designated room for the piano and a jib rigged up and, slowly, the beautiful instrument was gently put in place. This piano was Dad’s pride and joy, his passion. It was beautiful. Black and shiny. It followed us to every pub and was never used in a bar. After Dad retired, he had the time to play it every day.

Most pubs had a piano, but they were usually part of the bar furniture and never moved from pub to pub. The changeover also meant the bar furniture and equipment required documenting and counting. What a palaver. Mum did her best to organise our beds, set up the kitchen and spend a little time with us, but she was very involved with the whole process. I should imagine the fish and chip shop enjoyed a roaring trade from us all that day. This was long before more exotic world cuisine and Deliveroo.

When all that was over and the pub shut briefly for the afternoon, Mum, Dad and my Grandmother would set about making sausage rolls and sandwiches for that evening’s grand opening ‘under new management’. The locals, who all knew about the change of publican, would come in for the free drink and food and give the new licensees a once over. The customers in those days were loyal to their local pub and liked to voice their opinions about how to run it. They didn’t like change and wouldn't be backward in saying so. We had a very busy evening.

We had a brief few months in Artillery Lane at The Ship, which I believe was a hostelry back in the 18th century. In my day, the pub had a beautiful varnished wooden exterior, brass fittings and so on. It was very dark in Artillery Lane, and we had the lights on most of the time; the tall buildings and narrow lane made it dark inside.

It had been a hotel in the past and had so many rooms in addition to an imposing double staircase that went up one side, along a landing and down the other side. It was old and dirty and dingy upstairs. My Grandparents always came to help on moving days and were horrified at the state of the living quarters. I can still see Grandad on his knees with a large knife literally scraping grease out of the oven into a bucket. I think me and Stephen only slept there one night, and we were shipped off to my relatives again. We only used to ‘visit’ after that and never stopped overnight. But we had fun there. The rooms were full of all sorts of things. Chairs, bottles, curtains, books, ladders, old crockery, pots and pans. We also found large ledgers full of beautiful writing that I think might have been accounting books and records of who stayed there. We played pirates and had treasure hunts. We particularly enjoyed hide and seek: it was so easy to hide with so many cupboards and nooks and crannies. 

We also loved the dummy waiter that connected all the floors to the bars. It has been electrified now but but not when we were there as Dad didn’t serve food. However, we kids used it. We always got in trouble when we did, but it seemed so exciting. Looking back, I can appreciate the danger, but when you are young, you don’t think about it. We used to get in the waiter, one at a time, and go up and down the floors. There wasn’t a guard or door on it, just a shelf. The ropes sere easy to pull and we loved surprising the customers. It was worth all the telling off!

The customers of the pub consisted mainly of market traders. Accordingly, we kept odd hours: 5 am to 11 am and 5 pm until about 7 or 8 pm. The afternoon shift was for the office workers on their way to Liverpool Street Station. We tended to have more custom in the early session than the late one.

The bars were lovely. Very classic Victorian decor. Beautiful glass mirrors with the pub's name and brewery etched on them alongside images of flowers and London. The bar had a long brass rail that kept customers a foot or so away from the wooden polished servery. Spittoons were still on the floor. I don’t think they were used in our day, but they were decorative and highly polished brass, as was the rail.

Mum and Dad were only there for about three months before we all moved into The Hop Pole. Looking back, coming from such a clean bright pub to The Ship must have been quite a shock.

The Ship is now an ale and cider House and was once a wine bar. A few years ago, my youngest daughter and her friend took me out for lunch and a trip around the Spitalfields market for my birthday. My goodness, how the market has changed! The switch from fruit & veg to touristy street food and high end clothing is a world away from the 1950s.

I was pleased to see ‘Dirty Dicks’ looked much the same. My parents knew the publicans there and would often socialise with them. The name of this pub made the girls laugh (as it probably still does today)