[2007] THE1950s
[2007] THE1950s
0026 Butlins - Bar Waiter
For whatever reason, probably because I was becoming too involved with my (attractive, female!) bar supervisor, my uncle moved me to be Bar Waiter in the French Bar - one of the down-market large bars. He said, at the time, this was so I could earn more money . He may well have been right, because our income came largely from tips and as a waiter these were much greater than anything I received as a barman.
Bar waiters operated only in the larger bars, where they supplemented the barmen by delivering drinks, ordered from them, to each of the tables scattered throughout the bar. The main skill was in learning to remember all of the order. You could have up to a dozen people ordering at the same time, wanting a wide range of drinks. You had to get it right, because any mistakes came out of your own money!
The big advantage was that some of the punters tipped you for doing this. Clearly it saved them having to queue at the bar, and it added to any feeling of luxury they felt – though, in bars where this operated, luxury was scarcely a word that was applicable to the squalid ambience. After a shaky start, and losing some money, I rapidly progressed to be the most successful waiter in the bar. At least I was in terms of the amount of tips I received -- which eventually was over £10 a week, a lot of money in those days.
There was a skill in it, which I learned from the others:
The first, and most important, rule was that you only served punters that experience told you were likely to be tippers. If you judged any party was not likely to tip you, then you didn't serve them. If they indicated they wanted serving, then you made frantic motions showing you were serving someone else. They had to wait for a less experienced bar waiter, or go to the bar themselves. This was not infallible, once or twice I was forced to serve such people and they actually did give quite a good tip; but as a rule, it proved to be the first rule of salesmanship - always pitch the customers that are likely to 'buy'.
The second rule of salesmanship is that the most likely customers to tip are those that already have done so, and this certainly applied with the vengeance in that situation. I guarded them like a mother hen with chickens. They really did get super service!
The third rule of tipping was simply to give excellent service; to talk to them and make them feel they were the most important people in the world.
The fourth rule, which I always broke - but which I was told about - was that you should always pass change back to them on the tray with beer slopping around on it, so they wouldn't want to pick it up . As far as I was concerned that militated against the earlier and more important rules, so I never did this.
Whatever the reason I did make quite a lot of money in tips.
I also got various propositions. I remember, for example, one young girl, a very attractive one, sitting for half an hour or so on the skip I was pulling around collecting the empty bottles from the tables before we closed. I've no doubt that I could have had sex with her, since that was the whole ethos of the camp - let alone in the bars. The younger campers used to go out into the sand dunes for their nightly assignations. But I was a virgin, I was innocent, and I was scared of the whole thing. I even got back to my cabin one night to discover a girl in my bed, and my immediate reaction -- a genuine one -- was to say "Oh God! I am too tired for that". I proceeded to pick her up and throw her out of the door. I suspect my colleagues put her in there to try and relieve me of my hang-ups, though it took a lot longer for those to be resolved. Now I wish I had taken the opportunities on offer!
The worst part was during the 'wakes', the two weeks when -- traditionally -- Merseyside heavy industry shut down for its holidays. It had been a tradition because employers couldn't manage with people taking holidays at odd times, so the whole factory was shut down at one time. Indeed the all the factories shut down for the same two weeks in August. When that happened the world descended on Pwllheli, or at least that bit of the world that was working class and living on Merseyside!
During those weeks life for us staff was a battle. We hated campers with real passion. And we had every right to so, because there often was a true conflict between the two sides. At times it actually came to a physical battle. In one of the campers’ dining rooms, perhaps canteen would be a more applicable term, hand to hand fighting broke out between the staff and the campers, with the air full of flying crockery. It raged backwards and forwards for more than an hour.
It was not pleasant environment. You used to hear the chalet maids, most of whom were Irish, sadly singing in their own bar ‘Oh how I want to go home’. I think we all felt pretty miserable. I certainly would have done so if I hadn't kept myself busy working from eight o'clock in the morning to twelve at night. Perhaps it was there that I learned my habit of working all hours God gave me.
Anyway it eventually was over and we caught the coach home -- taking just 2 1/2 hours rather than six hours on the train. I was never so happy as when we reached a bit of the road I recognised as the way home from the cottage!
With me I took a large box containing literally hundreds of beer mats and bar advertisements -- on tin. My mother thought it was a present for her, and was very disillusioned when she realised what it was. She was even less happy when I decorated the walls in the playroom with them. I eventually had to throw them away, which was a pity because they would now be worth a small fortune to collectors.
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