Paul McCartney's Coat

by Michael White

  I suppose it’s a bit like a lot of ideas back then. They all disappeared over time so that anyone thinking of it these days would think we were taking the piss if we tried to explain them. Good times, good times, my friend - but all gone now, just like old Todd.

  You see, The Salt House was our boozer. It wasn’t much to look at back then but you could get a decent pint there, and when the pub opened its doors at 5 O'clock we’d be there for a couple of pints after work. By we I mean me and my buddies. There was no bloody juke box or piped music and you could have a well-deserved fag indoors too. It’s probably best not to start me on that one though!

  There were a right old crew of us there in the sixties. We were all working men and we seemed to congregate there after work. It was just for a few pints, mind you, and then off home for our dinner. Perhaps on a Friday we might have a few more than we should have, but sod it! It was Saturday the next day and we’d worked hard all week. I think we had earned it. Looking back there was me of course, Todd who was a bit of a tradesman. He was a joiner, in fact. Anything to do with wood he was your man! Makes me laugh to remember that he always parked his van right outside the boozer he did, it being on the way home and all. Then there was long Pete. Funny nickname I know, but blimey I have never in my life seen anyone make a pint of beer last as long as him. Course, there we never got in to rounds with each other as such so it didn’t really matter. Nevertheless he used to sip his pint as if he had to make it last for hours. Quite often it did!

  There was also Jim. Now he was a tailor I seem to recall and he was a bit of a regular too. Nice bloke, good tailor as well, apparently, though I never had much of a need for a suit those days. I was down on the printing press back at the time. Back in the good old days before Rupert bloody Murdoch came along and buggered it all up. There were a few others but those were the people who spring to mind. Like a regular little knitting club we were, bang on 5 O'clock when the pub doors opened. It was always a couple of pints, a chat about how our day had gone, a bit about the footie, and so on.

  Charlie was there as well of course as he was the barman, and landlord of the boozer. Suppose he was the one I knew the least really, probably because unlike the rest of us he had to be there, and we were there by choice. Still, he was a decent enough bloke I dare say, though he did have a thing about polishing the glasses.

  Looking back on it now it seems as if over the years some of our group changed. New people, people not turning up as much as they used to, but there was always Todd Pete and I like the three wise old hens we were. Gawd, when I look back on it, good friends we were, and do you know, some of them I never even knew their last names. Some of them I never even had any idea where they lived, and apart from Todd I never ever saw any of them outside the Salt House. Not once. Despite this it’s strange to think that they probably knew more about me then most members of my family, and that includes the missus, God rest her soul. Good friends, indeed.

  One of two of the blokes we got friendly with were musicians. I think that they played with some orchestra or another. Now you’d think they would be a bit polished, but they enjoyed a pint as much as any other bloke, and to be fair, probably a few more as well. I seem to remember one of them - Barney I think he was called. Or it might have been Bertram? Anyway, it was some kind of posh name but he was a pretty much down to earth kind of guy. Big hammers fan, in fact. Got some stick for that, as you would imagine, yet they were just working men I suppose, though it wasn’t what I would call hard graft, but it was a profession, you see? That was as important then as it is now. Better than hauling bins for a living, anyway.

  Now the reason we had a few musicians in was because of the recording studio around the corner. Pretty handy for them, eh? Used to be a lot of records made there. All the classical stuff, I suppose, and we were the nearest boozer to it. You wouldn’t get many of them in, but one or two. There were always enough of them in there for you to realise that they were there. Some of them mixed, some of them didn’t. Just musicians, making a living recording records, and as long as they didn’t get all hoity toity with us then we were fine with that. Stands to reason, really. We didn’t care if they got their hands dirty or not. Work was work, truth we had more of a problem with Bertram or Bertie - or whatever his name was - supporting the Hammers than we had with what he did for a living. I mean, the Hammers!

  It was about this time that we started to notice a bit of a change in the musicians that were popping in for a few pints of an evening. Not that it made much difference to us, but the new guys were definitely much younger, and blimey, did some of them need a bloody hair cut! Course, hippies were pretty much everywhere you looked then, and they were well suited for that description, believe you me! Mind you, they didn't interfere with our little gathering. Pretty much kept themselves to themselves, they did, though we did notice quite a few odd accents as the months went by. Even had a bloody Yankee in, one night! Now they weren’t in every night by any stretch of the imagination, but we were on nodding terms with them, but that was about it.

  Course, Todd knew more about it than the rest of us, what with his interest in music and all, and one night told us that the recording studio around the corner was breaking into pop music these days. From time to time Todd would sit and watch some of these blokes with wide eyes and whisper names to me and Pete. Anyone who was within whispering range, in fact, but it was rare for any of the names to mean anything to me!

  Anyway, it was early on in 1967. I think that was when it was, as at the time me and the Mrs were expecting our third son. This happened just before he was born in March, so it was probably February or something we’re looking at. Real cold winter it was, but not as bad as the winter we’d gone though in 1963. Gawd that was a killer that was. Never known weather like it in this country, and it seemed to last forever!

  Anyway, there was Todd and I sitting at the bar. Long Pete was there as well, as I recall, when in wandered four of these new musicians who proceeded to order their beer and then went and sat at the back. Looked like they were holding a bloody meeting or something, as I seem to recall. Lots of chatting and writing stuff down on bits of paper. At the time Pete and I were having a chat. Probably the usual, footie and work, Pete nursing his pint as usual, but Todd! Well, blimey, he’d gone very quiet, which believe you me was very unlike Todd, was that!

  “What’s up with you?” I asked him, leaning forward on my bar stool. Todd looked at me kind of sideways and his eyes never left the blokes in the corner, as if he feared that if he had let them out of his sight even for a second they would have disappeared. Todd leaned forward to me and whispered, “It’s only the bloody Beatles, mate! Bugger me if it isn’t the bloody Beatles!”

  I had a quick glance at them and to be honest they looked kind of familiar to me, but it could just have been the case that they had been in for a pint the night before. Perhaps they had done, and maybe we’d passed the time of day, or I’d recommended the little crackers in packets to one of them.

  Probably best to say at this point that at that time the Beatles weren’t the legends that they are these days - time gives you that, I suppose. Yet they were still bloody huge and I couldn't really get my head around the fact that these four ordinary looking blokes were the same guys that you would hear all the time on the radio and see on the telly. Looked just like anyone else going about their business, having a pint and so on, and that was that.

  Now Todd, I could see, was in a bit of a dilemma. These blokes were his heroes, after all, and I could tell that he was just aching to go over and say hello. But that was the thing about Todd, you see. A funnier guy you would never hope to meet and clever with it too, and as I said, he was always up for a laugh, but he was also a bit of a shy guy. Took a bit of time to get to know him, it did, but once you had made that effort you had a friend for life.

  “Go and say hello” said Long Pete, sipping at his pint “Not every day you see the ruddy Beatles sitting having a pint without half of the neighbourhood’s gi
rls sitting screaming at them, is it now?”

  Todd looked perturbed - you see, going over and saying hello would have broken one of the fundamental rules. Every night the three of us would wander into the boozer and take our seats on the stools at the bar. Todd would get his crossword out and Pete would buy the pint he’d nurse until he decided it was time to go home. Now if anyone else wanted to pull up a stool at the bar and join us that was fine. They were more than welcome, but otherwise it was very much the case that we would leave anyone to get on with it and enjoy their beer after a long hard day at work in peace and quiet, if that’s what they wanted to do. To be fair, sometimes one of the three of us would do that too, and there were no questions asked. I remembered when my second lad was on a right old sticky wicket with a case of measles. Only three he was, and I didn’t feel much like sitting round the bar chatting. We were fine with that, no questions asked.

  It was perfectly alright to engage anyone in a bit of chat when they were at the bar, of course. It would usually be about the weather, footy or even the price of beer. Little did we know then, eh? Apart from that, that was it. You may give a nod to someone you’d spoken to at the bar on the way out, but that was all. So for Todd to go over and say hello broke all the rules. Funny, isn’t it, how we can have all of these unspoken rules, and stick to them? I think personally that’s the crux of the problem with the youngsters of today, when you get down to it. It’s a lack of respect, and we certainly had that back then, even if we didn’t have a piss in a pint pot to our names, living from week to week with just enough to pay the bills and to have a quick pint after a hard day’s work.

  “Nah,” said Todd, and he turned back to the bar. “The poor buggers probably don’t get much peace and quiet - leave them to their beer.” and that was that. Pete nodded thoughtfully, and we carried on drinking - well, me and Todd did, and Pete’s beer probably just kept getting warmer and warmer. Next time I looked round they had gone. They never did come back to the bar for a refill. I suppose they had work to do, writing more music, probably, and as I said before nice work if you can get it too!

  Isn’t life funny that things like that can happen? I’m not a bloke to bang his own drum much, and I don’t suppose in the scheme of things I’ve made much of an impact on the world. Yet what I have is mine, and I’m happy with that. I married a lovely woman and fathered three fantastic, loving lads. Isn’t that enough? Yet now I could say that once upon a time, long ago when I was a much younger man I sat in the same bar with the Beatles enjoying a pint not ten feet away from where I had sat. Not much of a tale, but adds a bit of gloss to it all, doesn’t it?

  I was pretty much saying this to Todd at the time, as he looked just a bit crestfallen that he hadn’t got to speak to them, but Todd just shrugged and we got on with it. Because that’s what we did then, wasn’t it? No dwelling on stuff. Count your blessings and all that, and on we bloody well carried. Best way, if you ask me. Never did me any harm! Anyway, we were sat there for about another twenty minutes when Todd decided he wanted to go to the toilet.

  “Watch my bar stool for me boys” he said as he went. Which he always said, and was a bit of a joke really. At the time we were the only three people in there!

  “Will do” either one of us probably answered as Pete cut across the bar on his way to the loo. Back then the gents was located right on the opposite side of the bar. Around the bar itself, and also past the table where only twenty minutes before we’d watched the Beatles having a quick pint. From where we were sat we could see Todd sideways along the bar as he made his way to the gents. As he passed the table which had been occupied by the Beatles he hesitated and went round the table.

  “Blimey! He shouted as he picked up a long coat from a stool at the side of the table. “Looks like one of them Beatles has only gone and left his bloody coat” he said, and waved it to us.

  It was a long coat, quite expensive looking, and as Todd made his way back to the bar, his visit to the gents now forgotten, we could see it was a nice one. All kind of woolly. Obviously cost a bob or two, that’s for sure. Todd looked at the label inside it, and it said cashmere. So as I said, expensive. Oh, and it belonged - probably - to a Beatle which made it probably just that little bit more on the expensive side, I would imagine!

  “Which one of them has left it?” I thought out loud, and to be honest I couldn’t remember all of them names. John Lennon I could remember. He was the sarky one. Then there was Paul, and there was George, the quiet one, oh - and the gawky looking one - he was the funny one - well, funny looking anyhow. Gawd knows how he managed to down his pint what with all of those rings on him. Bit odd, was that, I remembered thinking, a bloke with a thing for rings. Anyway, Todd started looking at the label, much to Pete’s amusement.

  “He’s not going to write his bloody name on the label like a school kid, is he?” he laughed, and we all had a chuckle.

  “Well there’s no rings in the pocket so it’s not Ringo’s” said Todd. That was his name! Ringo! Kind of obvious, really.

  “Never mind that” I said, “It might not be theirs anyway. Could have been there before they even came in, for all we know”

  “Nah,” chimed in Charlie, the barman. “I always check before I lock up at three just to make sure no one has left anything and there was nothing there then It must be theirs”.

  Todd and I exchanged a look. Charlie had told us more than once about things that people had left behind in the bar. I suppose you would expect newspapers, umbrellas and that kind of stuff, but he also kept us amused on more than one occasion with his tales of lost spectacles, false teeth, and one time, a trumpet still in its case believe it or not!

  “Well that’s that then” said Pete. No-one else has been in since we came in. It must belong to one of them.”

  “What the bloody hell are we going to do with it?” asked Todd, and we all looked at each other like a gang of schoolboys trying to make our minds up who was up for a bit of apple scrumping or the like.

  “We could always sell it” said Charlie, and when we all looked at him as if he was suggesting we should get in Todd’s van outside and go and rob the crown jewels.

  “Just saying” said Charlie, and Todd snorted.

  Charlie shrugged and carried on drying glasses behind the bar. One thing always confused me, did that. At that time of night, early doors and all, the saloon was closed until seven and we were the only people in the place. Pete could hardly be said to be emptying glasses at a record pace, and Todd and I only usually had a few. Yet Charlie always seemed to be drying glasses. I think I decided back then that he wasn’t drying them as such, just polishing them. One thing you could always say about the Salt House was that you always got a clean glass. Not only that but you could also see your reflection in the glass when you held it up to the light, if you had a mind to.

  “We need to give it back” Todd nodded, “It’s a pricey coat is that, and though I’m sure that they’re not short of a bob or two it would be wrong to keep it . We need to give it back.”

  “Problem there.” I had said, “First of all we don’t which one of them it belongs to, and secondly we don’t know where they have gone.”

  “They may come back for it.” said Pete, taking a longer sip of his pint than I’d even seen him do. At that rate he may have just been in danger of having to buy another one!

  “Well, I’ve never seen them in here before, and believe you me I’d notice” muttered Todd, and he started to look through the outside pockets to see if there was anything inside them that may identify whose coat it was.

  “Nor me,” said Charlie, and let’s be honest. He was in the pub a lot more than we were, to be fair. So we had to take his word on it.

  Todd carried on searching the pockets but they were empty.

  “Try the inside pockets” said Charlie as he continued to polish the glasses, and this Todd did, eventually pulling out a small folded piece of paper.

  “Ah-ha”. he said and waved it at the three of u
s.

  Todd opened the piece of paper up. It was folded neatly up in quarters, I seem to recall, as if it was important to someone, and he opened it up and spread it out on the bar. We all gathered round to have a gander.

  “Looks like a kids drawing,” said Todd, and it surely did. It was a picture. Obviously drawn by a kid. As I said, I have three of my own so I could tell that whoever’s kid had drawn this was quite young. It seemed to show a little girl in a boat in what seemed to be the sky with big stars like diamonds and the Moon, the sun. That kind of stuff. Didn’t make much sense to me at all, and yet it was also sweet in a kid’s drawing kind of way. Written across the top of it were the words, “Lucy with diamond eyes” and in the picture she did have them too. Little coloured eyes, just a bit like diamonds.

  “Well that’s made my mind up” said Todd, “we need to give it back for sure, now!”

  “We still don’t know who the coat belongs to or where they are now, though” said Pete, and as Todd carefully folded and put the piece of paper back into the inside pocket we turned back to the bar, the coat sitting on its own empty stool by the side of us. For a few minutes we were silent as if by agreement we were trying to will them back to pick up the coat, or for inspiration to hit us as we attempted to decide what to with it.

  Todd suddenly sat bolt upright. Only a few minutes had passed, and truth be told, I had no idea what to do with the bloody coat. It was a right old thing, and was in danger of becoming a real millstone about our necks, if you see what I mean.

  “They’ll be at that recording studio round the corner” said Todd, his face splitting into an ear to ear grin.

  Course, we knew that the average musician coming in to the boozer had changed a bit over the last few months. Their bloody hair had got longer for sure! So it stood to reason that that was where they had gone. It was only round the corner, and all! That just had to be where they had gone.