Seeing ALAN BLEASEDALE on telly last night I was reminded of my favourite telly drama scene – the last bit in Boys From the Blackstuff – the pub scene with ‘SHAKE HANDS’. I dont think theres ever been a better description of the degeneration of working class life – not palatable to those who want to paint an always heroic portrait of our class but familar to anyone who’s beeen in a similar boozer. The geezer whistling ‘If I was a blackbird..’ being chucked through the window sums up Thatcher’s attempts to destroy our class as a class for itself…..often successfully. I was walking past THE BARLEY MOW in Bedminster Bristol about 10am one morning when two good mates DAVE and ANDREW COCKS hailed from the pub window. Everyone was ratarsed at 10am – there were three Captain Birdseyes dotted round the pub singing Freda Payne’s ‘Band of Gold’ and a desultory slow motion fight going on. ‘You’re not comfortable among the proletariat’ correctly surmised Andrew. Too right – I saw danger in every corner. However after a swift and nervy four pints I suddenly changed my analysis and was quite comfortableamong the proletariat. Funny that. Anyway thats enough of rose tinted beeer gogles – what’s your favourite telly sene comrades?
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Ian Bone 
Well this clearly shows what we’re up against.
Roll on….
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=6VaP1HB7Vew
Favourite TV scenes – too many in the Prisoner to name, but if I had to pick one it would be as he heads through the cave to the trial in the final episode, and “All You Need Is Love” starts playing – very, very surreal.
Also from a few years back, the scene in Coronation Street when Stanley Ogden wants to know what the strange smell is in the house. Hilda is wearing perfume, and informs him, triumphantly “Its woman, Stanley, woman”…….
Very occasionally I used to drink in the Green Man (the pub in Boys from the Blackstuff) at first to prove I was tough enough and then for the laughs. But I always went there with one or two pints under the belt as Shake Hands types were very real and you needed the “piss off and have a drink mate” comradeship that can only be achieved by drinking.
Most of them Scotty Road type pubs are long gone now and with them the banter. I had a small tour of pubs in Liverpool this afternoon and it was all blank faces, no conversation, what’s the point of being there. I blame the barmaids they get in, they should only give jobs to people who like talking and don’t stand there ignoring you and texting their mates, then huffing when you finally remind them that they are there to serve beer.
Agree with Paul Stott about Corrie giving the best scenes. I remember Eddie Yates giving great performances, but the finest of all was Hilda Ogden coming back home after Stan had died and all she had was his glasses case.
Incidentally, Hilda Ogden (actress Jean Alexander) lives in Southport but is pretty reculsive, she’ll only ever talk about her days on the local variety stage, never Corrie
She was a fantastic actress, don’t think she got the recognition she deserved in her day. She should be in that Battle of Seattle film.
Jeremy Paxman shitting in Margaret Thatchers mouth on Newsnight, oh no hang on i think i dreamt that.
I used to drink in a Pub called the Dove, St. Helens Street, many years ago now, and you have brought beck happy memories – especially the slo-mo fight,
The working class ? Our hopes sill lie with the proles.
As well as the slo-mo fight, can I add two other observations that identify a truly working class pub:
1. The two pint man. The guy who drinks so much he has to buy 2 pints at a time, especially as it saves time having to go to the bar every 15 minutes.
2. An off-shoot of the slo-mo fight is perhaps “hold me back”.
This is the pub-goer who is always being held back from hitting someone (usually on the other side of the pub) who would beat the shit out of them in any straight fight.
Ideally “hold me back” should be accompanied by a long suffering wife or a distraught daughter. (Extra points if the daughter is really attractive, and you are left weighing up the plus points of chatting her up, with the minus points of getting to know her dad).
No matter how successful others are at calming “hold me back” down, he will always try to start his dream fight, until he is either arrested, beaten up or thrown out.
How very quaint. Somewhat akin to the ape house at a zoo. Working class people are actually quite amusing really if you look deep enough. You force me to look at your kind differently. Onward with the class war.
I always thought that the two pint man was the old bloke who bought two pints at seven then spent the whole evening slowly drinking them.