A SPY AND A PINT
Shine your glasses and spruce up the gantry.. it’s back
In the late 1970s he was as feared inside Scotland’s pubs as customs officers, weights and measures inspectors and undercover police.
And judging from his reviews, our lamented columnist, the Pub Spy, suffered for his art.
Sunday Mail cuttings show our man’s working life as a horror combination of disgusting slops, flying fag ash, broken glass and filthy bathrooms.
Consequently, our anonymous correspondent spent his heyday as Britain’s most uncompromising critic.
On a visit to a bar called Whispers in Glasgow’s east end in 1976, he wrote: “The public bar was freezing and a small heater behind the bar had a towel drying over it.
“The barman paused from trying to fix the lock on the door to going behind the bar. His hands, like the glasses, looked none too clean.
“I could say the same about the colou r of the d res sing on a wound across his knuckles.”
On another excursion, titled “Where the heavies are tough women”, he wrote: “There’s a lot of tough talking, swearing, shouting, threatening and singing in the Oxford Tavern, London Road, near Glasgow’s Barrowland. All done by women.
“As the men hung quietly round the bar, women who had muscles the men would be proud of, stalked up and down.
“Their language would have found pride of place in the trophy room of an Irish navvy. They were as drunk as lords at 11.20 in the morning.” Another titled “In the dragon’s den” began: “The St George Bar in Glasgow is aptly named. For the carpet looks as though it was trampled underfoot by his dragon. It is covered in dirt and doesn’t look as though it has been cleaned since St George’s time.” The good news is that the Pub Spy
returns from a 40-year break but this time it promises to be different. The intervening decades have been kind to the licensed trade.
So our new spy will be casting a more feminine eye over the nation’s bars – asking whether they’re child-friendly, dog-friendly and making sure readers know the price of a glass of prosecco.
The first review is published today – The Amethyst, in Govan, Glasgow.
We’ll publish a new review every week, travelling the length and breadth of Scotland to find the best and worst of the licensed trade. All the pubs will be marked – in full cocktail glasses – out of five .
The Sunday Mail will also continue to run our Pub of the Year contest, in association with The Dram, separately.
Paul Waterson, chief executive of the Scottish Licensed Trade Association, welcomed the Pub Spy’s return.
He said: “Pubs now have to be at the top of their game. The majority of all drinking now is done at home so for the 25 per cent of the population who go to the pub, they have to be really good at what they are doing.
“We have lost a lot of good pubs over the years but we’ve revolutionised the pub business since Pub Spy was in its infancy. It’s a different trade now and what the inspectors see are far more food-orientated, family-friendly and service-orientated pubs.
“Pub Spy was in a time when people went to pubs purely to drink. If you ordered wine, you were put out. Now we’re in a different leisure industry. Pubs now are all things to all men.
“We are very proud of our pubs and we are still the social centre of the Scottish social scene.”
The original Pub Spy’s anonymity
was fiercely guarded. But the man behind many of the bri l l iant yet punishing reviews was the late Harry Conroy, who passed away in 2010.
His widow Margaret said: “Harry liked that it was varied and sometimes very amusing. I’m sure it will be all those things again now that it is back as a regular feature in the paper.
“There were times that Harry had to be careful because some of the places he went to were a bit suspect. And if the staff sussed out who he was, he would have to talk his way out the door, which he was very good at doing.” Susan Young’s father, former Sunday Mail editor Noel, was responsible for introducing Pub Spy to the paper.
Susan, publisher and owner of Dram magazine, said: “My father tells me that the first people to act as Pub Spy were two of his female colleagues who visited a pub and were horrified by the loos.
“The news that Pub Spy will once again be out and about no doubt will keep today’s pubs owners on their toes. But I am hoping this new Pub Spy will find great family pubs, good pub grub and excellent service.”