Back in the 80s, I was an aspirant recording engineer, constantly trawling for customers. One afternoon in the Castle I observed a young man park his sax at the bar and spotted a business opportunity. Kismet. Irish Paul, the landlord’s son wanted to be recorded and I wanted to record him.
As we all know, Paddys can often play and Paul was no exception. Father to son, nimble fingers and quick fists; where Paul was a wild man on a sax and his dad was nifty with the accordion; they were both equally handy in a fight. When a brawl broke out one night: I was there with some clients, a folk group. An abiding image is of the old man holding about four of the baddies in the bear hug of death while his boy Paul clubbed another with a bar stool. Don’t mess with the Murphys. The folk group was very impressed.
The family also ran the Atlantic (now the Dogstar) in Brixton, which Sonny, a one-time brass player with the Manfred Mann band used to look after for them. The back bar was a dark no go area given over to dealers and pimps, bands used to set up in the front and occasionally Courtney Pine popped in to play, while outside the cops constantly hovered.
I pondered, ‘Who else but the Irish would dare to try and run a black pub in Brixton?’ When the 1981 riots broke out, the Atlantic was one of the few buildings on the Railton Road Front Line that wasn’t trashed, doggedly open for business while the rest of SW9 burned. Sonny was fully occupied serving pints to the over heated journalists, when he wasn’t charging them five quid a time to use the pay phone.
Back in Dulwich, the Castle locals were ever interesting, Nick played bass for Sniff and the Tears, Mary would be strongarming customers for money for Guide Dogs for the Blind with a fag permanently dangling from her lips, Martin the bar man used to steal televisions, Dick the Brick slashed his own throat with a Stanley knife. I remember Declan telling me that his chickens used to climb the tree in his garden and the only way to get them down was to shoot at them.
One afternoon Ken the Quantity Surveyor was playing pool. Kids stood at the door watching and one of them said, “Crap shot, what a shit shot.” Ken said, “Bugger off you lot,” and played another ball. “ What a terrible shot,” the kids said. Ken turned to Paul who was serving, ‘Can’t you do something about these kids Paul?” and Paul said, “Well I would Ken but they’re your kids.”
When the place started to actually fall down, even the old man resigned himself to redecoration. I remember one day standing just inside the public bar front door, wiping my boots on the mat. “I wouldn’t stand there if I was you,” advised Paul. “Why’s that?” I asked. “Because I think the ceiling’s about to fall in.” And it did. Sure enough, as I moved down it came, a great slab of plaster that might have killed me.
There used to be toilets at the back of the pub that were sealed off when they put the stage in. Paul used to say that that there were a couple of drinkers still in there who had unluckily been using the facilities when the builders bricked up the doors. Recently, the back area and stage has been ripped out but if there were any skeletons found in there with their trousers round their ankles, they’ve hushed it up.
The important thing is that both the Castle and Mary are still standing. The long overdue latest refit is a good one; the pub looks smart in its new livery, it’s one of the last real boozers left in Dulwich and it serves the best Guinness in town. Hoorah.
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