Before the Falcon closed in the mid 80's, it had really turned into a shithole (even by today's standards) people were filling up glasses from cans in the toilets.
So you used to buy, your first pint with a £1 glass deposit, so you wouldn't leave it, so others could use it to refill it with there contraband tinnies.
@Croider said:
As a mid 20s year old resident of High Wycombe in 2022, where is there that is still even open past 12 that isn't Trilogy or Butlers? Or these wonder tales of pubs from the yester years make me jealous.
What sort of numbers does Butlers get these days?
10-15 years ago it always seemed to be handfuls maximum, with the place opposite heaving.
I wouldn't dream of suggesting words like laundering but we always wondered how they stayed in business.
Was it the landlord that shot himself at the pub in Prestwood (the one that's not a pub anymore) can't remember it's name ? And someone hung themselves in the old changing rooms in the carpark of the Bat and Ball in Holmer Green
Was it the landlord that shot himself at the pub in Prestwood (the one that's not a pub anymore) can't remember it's name ? And someone hung themselves in the old changing rooms in the carpark of the Bat and Ball in Holmer Green
@ChasHarps said:
If I remember the story correctly, he was shot dead in his chair in the hour glass.
And the tale goes, that after that fateful day, no one would sit in that seat, as it was referred to as 'The dead man's chair' !!
This could start another thread, Wycombe pub shootings, you had the one with the bar maid shot in the iron Duke about 20 years ago. Also the fateful shooting of a girl in the Reggie Groves centre, during a dj/rap/ hip hop night.
I remember the shooting at the Iron Duke. I heard that it was a family honour thing.
I missed the Castle out for some reason (like we usually did on our all day sessions walking into town). I remember going in there once with a girl I'd met in the bar after a game at Adams Park of all places, who lived in Castlefield. This must have been not long before it closed about 1995 and it was Thursday midday - benefits day I think so it was rammed like the average pub on a weekend night back then. It was like something out of that programme 'Shameless' but worse. People talking openly about thieving and what you could buy off them. There was something so disgusting that I saw that day in there that I won't even mention it on here but I've used it as a "shocking tale" when out with the "right" (wrong!) people up here ever since! I don't think I ever went in again after that time.I believe as you say it got burnt down eventually and became a mosque or something.
When I returned to Wycombe a few years ago for couple of days after a long period away up in Lancashire I went for a pretty comprehensive drive around Wycombe when I arrived to see how it had changed. It was a summer night and I drove through Castlefield (Spearing Road) it was shocking. I knew Castlefield had always been rough (I saw a telly programme on it which said bus-drivers wouldn't drive through it when I first arrived up north in 1997) but by 2013 it seemed to be on a par with the worst inner city estates I'd seen.
Groups of young men openly selling their wares in the street early in the evening - the kind of place you wouldn't dare walk through even if you were paid if you could help it. The police must have known of the goings on up there but they must have turned a blind eye to avoid the hassle. I hope it's improved since then which would have been about 8-10 years ago.
And to the serious violence connected to pubs and clubs in the 1980s a young Asian somehow stabbed to death two fully grown black males in the International Club in Desborough Road - it became a bit of a cause celebre in law books for some reason. There was also another poor bloke stabbed to death trying to break up a fight outside the Bird in Hand near the White Horse around the same time. And slightly further afield but in South Bucks people in my family have told me of a ypung girl being shot dead as she worked on the tills in a supermarket by her ex-boyfriend in the early 70s in Chesham. And finally when I was in one of the first years at secondary school in about 1979 wasn't there a fatal shooting at that seedy Fawlty Towers in Wooburn Green I remember some of the kids at school knew the family of the shooter or something.
And Chas Harps the old fellow who told me about the Hour Glass shooting said it was over a woman - someone's wife who'd ben being a bit naughty I think.
All a bit morbid I know but unfortunately also all a part of the history of the area, Hopefully we've covered them all now as it's beginning to sound like the South Central LA!
Well certainly made me a little nostalgic @BuryExileWasRochdale . Mentions of Club X/Attic brings back (hazy) memories. The London Bus always felt it could've been more, never did enough with it really. The Antelope, Buzz Records in Desborough etc etc. Also you mentioned Strawberries in Vauxhall which was a regular haunt of mine and my mates in the 90's, heady days.
@Onlooker said:
All these stories would make a great book to while away the summer
They've done that for a lot of towns/counties they have titles like 'Darkside of insert name of town or county" or "Murderous insert name of town or county" - I've seen quite a few on the internet over the years. As I said a bit morbid but definitely history and actually memorialises the victims. If it was for say South Bucks and not just pubs and clubs there'd be loads to fill up a book some quite well known. Actually thinking of the old proper Bucks (pre-Heath in 1974) boundaries my mum used to tell me about a murder in the Cat Balou nightclub (near the dairy and Isaacs furniture) when we passed it - I didn't really know what a murder was and defintely not a nightclub but this one seemingly happened in the late 1960s - the extremely dodgy Cat Balou nightclub lasted until the late 70s/early 80s. Basically a large bungalow with tin shutters over all the windows.
@Ozzie_the_Relaxed said:
Well certainly made me a little nostalgic @BuryExileWasRochdale . Mentions of Club X/Attic brings back (hazy) memories. The London Bus always felt it could've been more, never did enough with it really. The Antelope, Buzz Records in Desborough etc etc. Also you mentioned Strawberries in Vauxhall which was a regular haunt of mine and my mates in the 90's, heady days.
Yes used to go in Buzz and Slough Imports (don't think it was called that but that's what it was always known as (it went back all the way to the jazz-funk and electro days) off Bath Road. Slough might have a notorious reputation nationally 'come friendly bombs and fall on Slough etc) but I always found the actual town centre so much cleaner and better than Wycombe back in the era of the dingy Octagon with graffiti going back years that was never cleaned off and as for Wycombe Bus Station back then!
Yes Strawberries was unique I remember taking a friend there who has stopped raving at the end of 1989 - (we were both regulars at the legendary Yikes in Slough Centre and at Club X in the late 80s although didn't know each other then) - to Strawberries for the first time and we got in got a drink and after all the pandemonium he had seen in the acid house days in London and at the M25 parties in 1988/89 he still turned to me and said "this is mental" - he'd never seen anything like it.
I went to their reunion rave in December last year (my first rave since 2000 or 2001 I think) from 12 noon to 1am it was great (except I got covid (on the underground I think going there) - I'd travelled all the way from Bury in Lancs to go! Nearly all the ravers were a few late 30s, but mostly 40 and 50 somethings with a few grown up kids of the originals coming with their parents. Slipmatt and Ratpack headlining as they played a bit of early 90s old school there too that day - although Strawberries itself didn't start until 1995.
Great days to live in Wycombe - straight up the M40 at pub closing and to Strawberries, Sunnyside Up (Sundays daytime)/Mind Over Matter at the Camden Palace/Freedom/A Match Made In Heaven/Peach/Club UK and even the dark Box trance and techno room at the Ministry Fridays and on a good night be there queueing within not much more than half an hour.
@ChasHarps said:
Slough Centre, strict entry policy, if you 'weren't off your tits' your not coming in.
you know your stuff:-) before my time but it was also legendary as a jazz-funk venue at the start of the 1980s too I knew older blokes who went to both. And it had one quite famous clubbed who went to both the now sadly late Gary Haisman who was big on both scenes but most famous for being the rapper and the inventor of the “acieeed” chant on the famous 1998 hit by D-Mob We Call It Acieeed”. I love all this unchronicled local history - Slough of course being in Bucks for nearly 1000 years until Ted Heath decided to put it in Berkshire in 1974.
Comments
Before the Falcon closed in the mid 80's, it had really turned into a shithole (even by today's standards) people were filling up glasses from cans in the toilets.
So you used to buy, your first pint with a £1 glass deposit, so you wouldn't leave it, so others could use it to refill it with there contraband tinnies.
What sort of numbers does Butlers get these days?
10-15 years ago it always seemed to be handfuls maximum, with the place opposite heaving.
I wouldn't dream of suggesting words like laundering but we always wondered how they stayed in business.
Kings Head?
That's the one ! Just before the Polecat
I remember the shooting at the Iron Duke. I heard that it was a family honour thing.
This has reminded me of growing up on the same road as the Cedars pub in Hazlemere, which always looked rough as fuck
The Cedars used to be The Ninepins
The Castle in Castlefield wasn't exactly an eclectic wine bar !!
It Seemed rather popular meeting place for the arsonist society.
I missed the Castle out for some reason (like we usually did on our all day sessions walking into town). I remember going in there once with a girl I'd met in the bar after a game at Adams Park of all places, who lived in Castlefield. This must have been not long before it closed about 1995 and it was Thursday midday - benefits day I think so it was rammed like the average pub on a weekend night back then. It was like something out of that programme 'Shameless' but worse. People talking openly about thieving and what you could buy off them. There was something so disgusting that I saw that day in there that I won't even mention it on here but I've used it as a "shocking tale" when out with the "right" (wrong!) people up here ever since! I don't think I ever went in again after that time.I believe as you say it got burnt down eventually and became a mosque or something.
When I returned to Wycombe a few years ago for couple of days after a long period away up in Lancashire I went for a pretty comprehensive drive around Wycombe when I arrived to see how it had changed. It was a summer night and I drove through Castlefield (Spearing Road) it was shocking. I knew Castlefield had always been rough (I saw a telly programme on it which said bus-drivers wouldn't drive through it when I first arrived up north in 1997) but by 2013 it seemed to be on a par with the worst inner city estates I'd seen.
Groups of young men openly selling their wares in the street early in the evening - the kind of place you wouldn't dare walk through even if you were paid if you could help it. The police must have known of the goings on up there but they must have turned a blind eye to avoid the hassle. I hope it's improved since then which would have been about 8-10 years ago.
And to the serious violence connected to pubs and clubs in the 1980s a young Asian somehow stabbed to death two fully grown black males in the International Club in Desborough Road - it became a bit of a cause celebre in law books for some reason. There was also another poor bloke stabbed to death trying to break up a fight outside the Bird in Hand near the White Horse around the same time. And slightly further afield but in South Bucks people in my family have told me of a ypung girl being shot dead as she worked on the tills in a supermarket by her ex-boyfriend in the early 70s in Chesham. And finally when I was in one of the first years at secondary school in about 1979 wasn't there a fatal shooting at that seedy Fawlty Towers in Wooburn Green I remember some of the kids at school knew the family of the shooter or something.
And Chas Harps the old fellow who told me about the Hour Glass shooting said it was over a woman - someone's wife who'd ben being a bit naughty I think.
All a bit morbid I know but unfortunately also all a part of the history of the area, Hopefully we've covered them all now as it's beginning to sound like the South Central LA!
Well certainly made me a little nostalgic @BuryExileWasRochdale . Mentions of Club X/Attic brings back (hazy) memories. The London Bus always felt it could've been more, never did enough with it really. The Antelope, Buzz Records in Desborough etc etc. Also you mentioned Strawberries in Vauxhall which was a regular haunt of mine and my mates in the 90's, heady days.
All these stories would make a great book to while away the summer
They've done that for a lot of towns/counties they have titles like 'Darkside of insert name of town or county" or "Murderous insert name of town or county" - I've seen quite a few on the internet over the years. As I said a bit morbid but definitely history and actually memorialises the victims. If it was for say South Bucks and not just pubs and clubs there'd be loads to fill up a book some quite well known. Actually thinking of the old proper Bucks (pre-Heath in 1974) boundaries my mum used to tell me about a murder in the Cat Balou nightclub (near the dairy and Isaacs furniture) when we passed it - I didn't really know what a murder was and defintely not a nightclub but this one seemingly happened in the late 1960s - the extremely dodgy Cat Balou nightclub lasted until the late 70s/early 80s. Basically a large bungalow with tin shutters over all the windows.
Yes used to go in Buzz and Slough Imports (don't think it was called that but that's what it was always known as (it went back all the way to the jazz-funk and electro days) off Bath Road. Slough might have a notorious reputation nationally 'come friendly bombs and fall on Slough etc) but I always found the actual town centre so much cleaner and better than Wycombe back in the era of the dingy Octagon with graffiti going back years that was never cleaned off and as for Wycombe Bus Station back then!
Yes Strawberries was unique I remember taking a friend there who has stopped raving at the end of 1989 - (we were both regulars at the legendary Yikes in Slough Centre and at Club X in the late 80s although didn't know each other then) - to Strawberries for the first time and we got in got a drink and after all the pandemonium he had seen in the acid house days in London and at the M25 parties in 1988/89 he still turned to me and said "this is mental" - he'd never seen anything like it.
I went to their reunion rave in December last year (my first rave since 2000 or 2001 I think) from 12 noon to 1am it was great (except I got covid (on the underground I think going there) - I'd travelled all the way from Bury in Lancs to go! Nearly all the ravers were a few late 30s, but mostly 40 and 50 somethings with a few grown up kids of the originals coming with their parents. Slipmatt and Ratpack headlining as they played a bit of early 90s old school there too that day - although Strawberries itself didn't start until 1995.
Great days to live in Wycombe - straight up the M40 at pub closing and to Strawberries, Sunnyside Up (Sundays daytime)/Mind Over Matter at the Camden Palace/Freedom/A Match Made In Heaven/Peach/Club UK and even the dark Box trance and techno room at the Ministry Fridays and on a good night be there queueing within not much more than half an hour.
Slough Centre, strict entry policy, if you 'weren't off your tits' your not coming in.