Pub Characters

There are many things that make the British pub different from bars around the world, the best and worst of these being The Pub Regular.

Nowhere else do you find these characters who turn up at the same time everyday, sit in the same seats at the bar, and make the same pronouncements and conversations.

They're the Kings of the Pub. Inside these walls, they are gods - so long as the landlord says they can be, anyway.

You can tell who they are because they've got their pictures up behind the bar, showing the time they were surprised by a stripper on their birthday, or the stupid hat they wore for Comic Relief. And on the rare occasions when they leave the pub to go on holiday, they're the ones who send postcards straight back.

Tell us about your most brilliant pub characters, past or present: the pub bores, pub hard men, pub nutters - and let's raise a virtual pint in their honour.

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Lovely Ned
The Beaconsfield, Haringey, North London
Liz from North London writes:
Ned was a sweet old Irish man who used to be a maths teacher in Ireland. He must have been in his seventies. He was always smiling and gentle and whiskery. He talked really softly but whenever he said anything he had to have his hands up above his head, a bit like Magnus Pike. Me and my mates always used to spend ages dressing up on a Saturday night, taking a long time over our make-up, making sure we looked just right. We were the queens of the pub, sitting there holding court. Until one night, one of Ned's mates pipes up, "Ah you girls, yer great. You come in here and have a laugh, you just enjoy yourselves and you don't care what you look like!"

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The hidden lecherous old bloke
Streatham, South London
Chris writes:
We used to go to a pub in Streatham. It was a big road house which sold good beer and had a mix of old blokes, geezers, students etc. One night we were sat in a mixed group when an old guy with a dog came and sat next to us. After a while someone started to pet the dog and asked his name. The bloke replied that it was Cariad, which is welsh for sweetheart. He then proceeded to repeat this several times, getting more sibilant, spraying us with spit.

There were several odd things about this guy, Firstly his dog had an ID tag on it's collar which didn't have it's name or it's address. No, the dog had picture of itself in the locket, presumably so that if it got lost people could check that it was the right dog!

Another strange thing was that in between saying Cariad, he claimed to the dad of a famous punk rocker. Also, when he went to the toilet (with his drink) he stood at the urinal swearing continually.

Anyway he seemed harmless enough, until halfway through the night he started getting friendly with the female members of the group and just blurted out phrases like "If you are a student, have you studied sexual congress?"; "Are you a student of sexual knowledge?" etc. We made our excuses and left.

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Mad dwarf glass collector
Leeds
Chris in Sarf London writes:
In a market pub in Leeds there used to be a short, bald toothless guy - we'll call him Billy - who used to collect glasses. Like many of these guys he wasn't "paid" by the pub - he collected the glasses for free, and got the odd pint for his troubles. Anyway he was either a drunk or had some mental health problems, but everyone liked him and bought him drinks. He did have a party piece. Whenever a band played, a chant would go up of "Billy, Billy Billy" and he would get dragged to the mike. There he would sing a terrible, almost undecipherable, out-of-tune version of Danny Boy. He would shout very loudly whilst stamping his foot on the floor roughly in time to the tune. At the end he always got a massive cheer.

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