The Fifth Hants Volunteer Arms – or the Fifth Hants as it is frequently referred to – stands tall in the landscape, and whilst not dominating the street, it is surely synonymous with it. It is one of those iconic pubs that if it ever closed, Albert Road would be the poorer for it. Actor, musician and playwright John Bartlett shares his memories of it.
Despite so many pubs in recent years putting the towel on the pumps and calling ‘time!’ for the very last time, Portsmouth still has numerous hostelries. The Fifth has always enjoyed a unique atmosphere of its own. At one time it was known as the Volunteer Arms and became the Fifth Hants Volunteer Arms in 1953. In living memory, the pub has always been a Gales house but changed to Fullers when the London-based brewers bought up Gales Brewery lock, stock and numerous barrels. Despite the inevitable refurbishment, the pub remains much as
it would have been in the 19th century.
There are two bars which have always had, as far as I am concerned, a relationship similar to chalk and cheese. Each has their specific identity and, depending upon your disposition, you would more than likely favour one over the other. A friend of mine once came to stay, who in turn brought along with him a friend of his. This friend of a friend turned out to be a police officer in the Criminal Investigation Department (CID).
The mists of time have veiled my memory as to why we ended up on one bright Saturday morning in the front bar of the Fifth enjoying a pint of HSB. In quick succession, the jukebox blared out a variety of classic rock numbers whilst the clientele balefully regarded us with some suspicion. I suppose like attracts like and we must have stood out like the proverbial sore thumb. The CID man, whose name escapes me, confided in us, more serious than jocular, that he would normally be arresting the whole caboodle of humanity gathered in there, that sunny morning, all those years ago, in the front bar of the Fifth.
I think we retreated to the smaller back bar or lounge. There is indeed a timeless quality about the lounge bar at the Fifth Hants. It is comfortable whilst still retaining a sense of its Victorian past. In an ‘L’ shape, upholstered pews range round two of the walls. Small tables, some fifties-style Windsor chairs and a few stools create additional seating. There is an original fireplace, with a dark candlestick carved wooden mantel which also contains period polished metal panels. I would say this is a later addition, probably dating from the Edwardian
period. Decorating the walls there is a modest collection of military memorabilia, including a framed Volunteer’s scarlet army tunic. Times move on, tastes alter and of course the clientele are also subject to change.
I first visited the pub when it was still enjoying the reputation of a must-visit if you were out for a drink or two in Albert Road on a Friday or Saturday night. The robust atmosphere had originally been stoically created and inadvertently nurtured by publican Gladys and her dog Toffee. It is always amazing to me how a particularly mildly offensive, belligerent even, landlord or landlady can create an atmosphere that is so attractive that customers almost fall over themselves to be insulted over and over again and yet still come back for more! Maybe it is the tight ship syndrome and knowing exactly where the parameters are and where the line in the sand has been drawn. After all, we all want to
know exactly where the boundaries are, otherwise they can’t be pushed. On the subject of, for those of you who can remember, breaking the boundaries, the ‘lock in’ was particularly sweet. This simple pleasure has all been swept away of course, by the changing of the licensing laws and all day opening.
Sadly, I say with trepidation owing to her reputation, Gladys was before my time and had, ‘‘shuffle’d off this mortall coile’’ some years before I had the pleasure of supping an ale or two within the Spartan, but pleasurable ambience of the lounge bar. However, her reputation lives on in the memory of all those past imbibers of the amber nectar who were the faithful regulars of the institution. By all accounts it was reputed that Gladys had been born in one of the upstairs bedrooms and had spent her entire working life behind the bar, first as the daughter
and ultimately as the landlady. I suppose, reminiscent to biting the hand that feeds you, such an existence creates a certain kind of attitude.
Apparently Glady’s was more than happy to serve you a pint prior to closing, but as soon as the clock struck the appointed hour she used to insist upon drinking up and closing time to the second! Even in winter at five past eleven, she would fling open the outside doors shouting phrases like ‘Outy! Outy! Outy!’ and, just like the clock, this axiom was reliably followed up by ‘Drink them or you’ll lose them!’ and woe betide you if you didn’t, as she would take your beer and pour it away! Ouch!
Every dog has its day, as they say, and the fortunes of a pub ebb and flow. In the late seventies and early eighties, when the pub was regarded as ‘an institution’, the regulars, especially on a Sunday lunchtime, would sit with their pints in serried ranks draped around the extremities of the room. Amongst other things singing was strictly forbidden, with the one exception, punters were permitted to sing along with the Last Night of the Proms in the front bar. ‘Land of hope and glory, mother of the free……’.
A handful of select individuals were allowed to come in off the street and hawk their goods. One frequent visitor in and around the local pubs, was the seafood man. Dressed in a short white coat, a chap with a large square wicker basket packed with small trays of cockles, whelks and that sort of thing, would sweep into the room and ‘do the rounds’. Somehow the purchase of these fishy delights along with the ubiquitous dash of vinegar, belongs to a different era. As far as I know, in Portsmouth at least, the custom has dropped off as the trade has ceased to be viable.
Another practice that seems to have died out was the frequent and regular visitation of the Salvation Army, whose sole purpose as far as I could see was to raise cash by guilt, moral manipulation and artifice. At the time, selling copies of The War Cry to unsuspecting punters must have seemed like a contradictory but relatively soft touch. On the upside, at least the money went to a good cause. It was during one such sally into the dens of depravity and iniquity where I first met Eric. One cold winter’s evening, much to my amusement and my fellow demon drinkers in the bar, the door flew open and in walked a Sally Army lady dressed in her finery; black tunic and skirt, topped off with the traditional bonnet. As this was prior to the advent of kiss-a-grams there seemed nothing untoward, especially as these nightly visits in the mid to late seventies were quite commonplace and besides nobody really minded anyway. Indeed, the evening wouldn’t have been quite the same without the momentary blast of cold air and the ferreting around for some loose change. However, on this occasion, things were slightly different.
Stepping straight up to Eric, this particular Sally Army lady, brimming with confidence and purpose, planted a big sloppy wet kiss on
Eric’s unsuspecting but resigned lips, all the while calling out ‘My baby! My baby!’ One’s Mother can be so embarrassing, but, though denied the ‘demon drink’, even members of the Salvation Army are allowed to have children.
Once the hugger mugger of the occasion had subsided and the general amusement had died down, I was able to fall into, one of the first of many conversations with my new-found friend, Eric. It turned out that Eric was a great raconteur and the teller of tales. Personally, I have always sought out such people for their wit, amusement and general bonhomie and in Eric, all of this was in great abundance. Certainly, no fool, Eric was a character that people either loved or disliked in equal measures. Probably disliked, by some sections of society, for his manner of telling it like it is.
In my observations of life, honest as it is, this is a character trait that some people don’t always find endearing, preferring to hide behind their own sensibilities and double standards. In many ways, Eric is a modern day Everyman, full of entrenched but considered and knowledgeable opinions which he is not frightened to share. Equipped with an innate intelligence and aptitude, coupled with a fine
sense of humour, Eric had worked in a variety of occupations. He spent a short time as a bobby on the beat which, it has to say, didn’t last for very long, he travelled the world working in the NAAFI and a number of other occupations.
These various other livelihoods generated a plethora of stories in their own right, but there was one in particularly that sticks in my mind.
As a young man, Eric had secured a position as a railway guard and being new to the job was assigned to working on the goods trains. To enable the railway to function properly, rolling stock must be moved about the system so that carriages and trucks are in the right place at the right time.
Much of this essential work is carried out after the last passenger train has departed. On one particularly cold midwinter’s night, Eric was the guard on a long goods train of some thirty trucks making the regular weekly nocturnal journey from Stoke on Trenton to Nuneaton in the early hours of the morning. Eric was travelling in an ex Great Western Railway goods van more commonly known as the ‘Brake’. The rough and ready coachwork was made entirely of wooden planks, with a single veranda at one end. These old antiquated GWR trucks were more popular than other designs as they featured a larger stove making them slightly more comfortable.
The usual procedure was to first scrounge some coal from the yard and prior to inspecting the train, light the stove to warm up the Brake. The locomotive was normally a powerful ‘type 2’ diesel engine, weighing in at some 74 tons. The first ten trucks had a braking system that was connected to the engine, the remainder were unbraced or loose coupled which was the reason for the Brake, or Guards Van, at the back.
Once the train had been checked and under way, there was little more for the guard to do other than to keep an eye on things and get a brew going. The inside of the Brake was much like any other guard’s van, functional and uncluttered, grubby, dark and apart from the stove, devoid of any luxuries. Eric watched the red-hot embers of the fire in the stove and was looking forward to his brew, which was just beginning to come to the boil.
The soporific rattle and rhythmic movement of the train lulled him into a false sense of security. Gradually he was struck by the unmistakable and overpowering smell of paint. Something wasn’t quite right. Like an abruptly released, overstretched elastic band, Eric’s consciousness jerked back into awareness. Searching round for the cause of the stench, his eyes followed the line of the stove pipe to the roof and to his horror he realised the wood around the hot metal pipe was ablaze. To reduce the noise of the rattling chimney some bright spark had stuffed newspaper around the pipe and now it had caught fire. Yellow fingers of flame were eagerly flickering and devouring the dry wood and extending their reach across the ceiling. In desperation, Eric flung the half a pint of boiling water at the conflagration, nearly scalding himself in the process, but to no avail. Somehow, he needed to contact the driver, the manual says: ‘attract the driver’s attention by winding the brake on and off’.
Ah-ha! Salvation! Well perhaps not, pulling for all its worth, the heavy-duty diesel locomotive was thirty trucks away and completely impervious to his efforts. What to do? By now the heat and smoke was so intense that Eric had to retreat to the veranda. This might have been slightly to his advantage if the Brake had been facing the other way around but now he found himself in a rolling stock sandwich. The only thing he could do was to try and signal to the driver by turning the side lamps from white to red. In reality of course, the chances of the driver, intent on what’s up ahead, checking the rear of the train were fairly remote.
Eric’s predicament was looking bleak and, as the Brake became more and more like an inferno, becoming bleaker by the minute. He could jump for it but the train, in the pitch black, was travelling more than 45 mph, a speed that could more than damage your health. Stanchions, positioned every ten yards for the overhead electric cables, were also a risk he didn’t want to try out. If he didn’t break every bone in his body on the embankment, he could easily, like a cartoon character, impale himself on the cold steel, Triffid like structures spaced along the track.
His only option was to turn his hand-held light to red and frantically wave it in the dark and the murk, in the forlorn attempt at attracting attention. Colwich signal box flashed by, followed by Lichfield, at Tamworth luck was finally on his side, the train was signalled into a siding loop and brought to a standstill. In the nick of time Eric instantly leapt from the clutches of the fire that was rapidly engulfing the Brake.
The driver, none too pleased at being diverted onto the sidings, was making his way down the side of the train and when in earshot said, ‘What the bloody hell is going on?’ which was truncated into ‘Bloody hell!’ as the full extent of the inferno came into view. The Brake was beyond saving so they uncoupled it and let it burn. Having momentarily re-lived the tale, Eric turned to me and sardonically said, ‘I always checked the chimney after that!’
The last I heard of Eric he’d moved to Portugal.
Picture ‘Fifth Hants Volunteer Arms’ by Hassocks5489 re-used under a Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication licence.
