Colin Price’s excellent article about the Young’s 135 Club in the December/January edition prompted me to share my own recollections of completing the pilgrimage in 1979/1980, along with a similar but more ambitious project some friends undertook at the same time.
I grew up in South London and my love affair with beer started illegally at the age of 15 in 1974 when most bitter in South London was so undrinkable that it was usually mixed with light ale! Lager did not taste as bad but neither did it taste of much at all and, as I remember, it was about 10p a pint dearer; 30p verses 20p; no contest!
My uncle Fred (a local police constable) mentioned that I might find a decent pint in Young’s pubs but his advice came with a ‘Special’ warning. Young’s Special Bitter had an OG of 1047 and you’d be hard pressed to find anything stronger in SW London at that time. I headed to a nearby Young’s hostelry, the Gorringe Park in Tooting, hoping to get served and looking forward to my first pint of Young’s. The trip was a partial success as I did get served but, guess what, I didn’t like the Special. It had too strong a flavour for my fledgling taste buds. I tried the Ordinary Bitter next and became hooked. Hops, a hint of sulphur and an enticing loose head. From then on, it was Young’s for me whenever it could be found.
So, my taste for good ale was forming but, as Young’s pubs were a bit traditional with an older crowd, it became a choice of good beer or a pub with a bit more excitement but poor beer. It all depended on my mood. At some stage an older mate pointed out the leaflet listing all the Young’s pubs and told me that, if you got the lot signed off, there was a free pin of beer on offer. I decided that this would be for me but there were two problems: I was skint and had no transport to get to those pubs that were further afield than southwest London. It would have to wait.
Fast forward to 1979/1980 when my mate Chris and I were final year students at Brunel University in Uxbridge. We were not skint because, back in those idyllic days, students got their fees paid and had grants to live off. Our taste for good beer had been sustained by three hand pulls in the Student Union bar and, to top it all, Chris had a battered old mini for getting to the long-distance Young’s houses. When I say this mini was old, its windows did not wind up and down, they slid back and forth.
We went at it, with a few pubs being picked off here and there, whenever we found ourselves in the right parts of what was mostly south and west London. We would get the lists signed and some pubs even stamped them. There were longer trips into Surrey, Kent and, to the furthest pub of all, the Fountain at Plumpton Green in Sussex. The longest haul in London was to the Britannia in Barking, although our first effort to get there ended badly when we arrived just after closing time. There was no Satnav to help in those days; we had to rely on the London A to Z atlas. Don’t forget that, back then, pubs closed early and also for a few hours every afternoon (just in case we lost the First World War) so that planning was more to the fore than it would be today.
Once our final exams were completed, we embarked on the glorious final day of what by now had become the Young’s 139 because of new pubs being added to the list. This was July 1980. To complete our mission in style our last day had to be Wandsworth and its fourteen pubs. We first took a diversion to the Founders Arms on the South Bank which had opened that day and we reckoned made us the first to complete the 139! A trip to the cinema occupied the afternoon closing time and we finished appropriately, and quite the worse for wear, in the Brewery Tap. The highlights of the great endeavour were many. The beer was wonderful, Ordinary and Special Bitter and occasionally Best Malt Ale and Winter Warmer. The pubs were almost universally excellent, often with separate public and saloon bars, and always welcoming. Boozers standing out in the memory from nearly fifty years ago are the palatial Spread Eagle in Wandsworth, the Lord Napier in Thornton Heath, which had live jazz every night, and the Prince of Wales in Tooting where our pamphlets were signed by the licensee, Nosher Powell, ex professional heavyweight boxer, famous stuntman and world jousting champion!
The reward for our efforts was a pin of beer (although you could opt to take it as nine four-pint party cans), a commemorative tie and a tie pin. These were proudly worn at our graduation later that month. There was also a visit to the brewery, which involved a short tour and a long time in the taproom. Beer aside, the tour was great, with the highlights being the heavy horses (then still used for deliveries within a three-mile radius), a farmyard with resident ram and chickens, plus a Victorian steam powered beam engine, then still in use.
Just before Chris and I kicked off on our Young’s ale trail, three fellow Brunelians and ale enthusiasts, Roland, Pete and Duncan embarked on their own, and more ambitious, ale trail. It was totally unofficial and with no offered reward but they decided to visit all 242 pubs in the Greater London section of the 1979 Good Beer Guide. It is a great testament to Young’s that they had 44 of those entries. All went well but they hit a barrier. That year, the very posh restaurant, Simpsons in the Strand, had been included in the GBG. This was because they served draught Bass in silver tankards. The GBG entry came with a ‘smart dress’ warning but, whatever they tried, our friends were never deemed smart enough to get in. Finally, with Simpsons being all that was needed to complete their odyssey, they made the ultimate sacrifice. Not just booted and suited but, with hair cut and beards shaved, they made it in. It could have ended quietly there and then but, to mark the climax of their tour, once the Bass had been supped, off came jackets, shirts and ties to reveal custom made T-shirts saying ‘GBG 1979 WE DONE LONDON’. They managed to take a few photos before being politely escorted from the premises.
Inevitably, things have changed. Young’s stopped brewing in Wandsworth in 2006 while Simpsons in the Strand allowed women into the main dining room in 1984.
Russ Durbridge