but the pub rock movement, which began in the early 1970s, and the punk boom that followed encouraged licensees to open up their back rooms and cellars to mop up the extra beer sales that live bands generated. But, unless you managed to find a gig supporting an established band, it was a hard road getting any joy on the bookings front: publicans wanted acts that already had a following in order to guarantee pulling in punters who required pulling of pints. So we found ourselves in a catch-22 situation: it was impossible to build a following unless gigs were in the offing and, because we hadn’t got a fan base, no gigs were in the effing offing. There was only one way out of this concert-free conundrum as far as we were concerned - being a little creative where our CV was concerned.
Having trudged round just about every pub in Camden Town during the winter of 1978-9 in search of a gig, it was with the echo of rejections still ringing in our ears that we entered the Dublin Castle on Parkway with its red-and-cream exterior and hanging baskets dripping water on to the pavement. The Dublin was - and still is - a friendly Irish boozer where you can sometimes find a bit of live music at the weekends.
‘What’s your act then, lads?’ enquired the genial Irish guv’nor, Alo Conlon. ‘Erm, we do jazz and a bit of country and western,’ I replied. It was pretty weighty stuff for a bunch of seventeen-year-olds to be claiming, I’ll grant you, but we were hoping both styles of music might be right up Alo’s, and his clientele’s, alley.
The man who held the keys to our future had come to England as a stowaway in 1956 and worked as a labourer digging tunnels in London, which perhaps explains how he later managed to unearth some major underground talent, but more on that in a moment. Alo’s labouring background chimes precisely with the Dublin Castle’s early history, which is why the two seemed made for one another. Back in the nineteenth century thousands of immigrant labourers headed for Camden to work on the construction of Euston, King’s Cross and St Pancras railway stations along with their extensive goods yards and sidings. The enormity of their achievements can really be appreciated from the window of a train pulling out of one of those stations. Although the British Rail TV adverts fronted by Jimmy Savile during my childhood would have you believe otherwise, the nineteenth century, and not the 1970s, was truly ‘the age of the train’.
The work was all by hand and unremittingly hard and dangerous yet this was no deterrent to the groups of Irish, Welsh, Scots and English navvies who, after a hard day’s graft, liked nothing better than to take out their differences in the streets of Camden over which group was getting the best jobs. In one recorded incident - defined as a riot in legal terms - a group of Irish and English clashed over a trivial incident, which quickly escalated and lasted three days, paralysing three police forces.
Eventually, the powers that be sought to keep the tribes of the British Isles apart of an evening by building each group its own pub as far away from one another as possible. So, up went the Windsor, Dublin, Caernarvon and Edinboro Castles on the four corners of Camden Town. Unfortunately, the Caernarvon Castle went down in the Camden Lock conflagration in 2008, which (to quote Her Maj after one’s own Windsor Castle suffered a right royal fire in 1992) was Camden’s ‘annus horribilis’. The other three pubs are still going strong, each with their own loyal following.
The Irish community was still thriving in Camden during the 70s and I well remember blokes gathering outside the tube station waiting for the Murphys Builders’ van each morning which, on arrival, would spark an On the Waterfront -style scrum for work. Boozers like the Dublin didn’t just serve as Guinness-pumping stations, they were also places where regulars went to catch up on the latest news from back home,
Having trudged round just about every pub in Camden Town during the winter of 1978-9 in search of a gig, it was with the echo of rejections still ringing in our ears that we entered the Dublin Castle on Parkway with its red-and-cream exterior and hanging baskets dripping water on to the pavement. The Dublin was - and still is - a friendly Irish boozer where you can sometimes find a bit of live music at the weekends.
‘What’s your act then, lads?’ enquired the genial Irish guv’nor, Alo Conlon. ‘Erm, we do jazz and a bit of country and western,’ I replied. It was pretty weighty stuff for a bunch of seventeen-year-olds to be claiming, I’ll grant you, but we were hoping both styles of music might be right up Alo’s, and his clientele’s, alley.
The man who held the keys to our future had come to England as a stowaway in 1956 and worked as a labourer digging tunnels in London, which perhaps explains how he later managed to unearth some major underground talent, but more on that in a moment. Alo’s labouring background chimes precisely with the Dublin Castle’s early history, which is why the two seemed made for one another. Back in the nineteenth century thousands of immigrant labourers headed for Camden to work on the construction of Euston, King’s Cross and St Pancras railway stations along with their extensive goods yards and sidings. The enormity of their achievements can really be appreciated from the window of a train pulling out of one of those stations. Although the British Rail TV adverts fronted by Jimmy Savile during my childhood would have you believe otherwise, the nineteenth century, and not the 1970s, was truly ‘the age of the train’.
The work was all by hand and unremittingly hard and dangerous yet this was no deterrent to the groups of Irish, Welsh, Scots and English navvies who, after a hard day’s graft, liked nothing better than to take out their differences in the streets of Camden over which group was getting the best jobs. In one recorded incident - defined as a riot in legal terms - a group of Irish and English clashed over a trivial incident, which quickly escalated and lasted three days, paralysing three police forces.
Eventually, the powers that be sought to keep the tribes of the British Isles apart of an evening by building each group its own pub as far away from one another as possible. So, up went the Windsor, Dublin, Caernarvon and Edinboro Castles on the four corners of Camden Town. Unfortunately, the Caernarvon Castle went down in the Camden Lock conflagration in 2008, which (to quote Her Maj after one’s own Windsor Castle suffered a right royal fire in 1992) was Camden’s ‘annus horribilis’. The other three pubs are still going strong, each with their own loyal following.
The Irish community was still thriving in Camden during the 70s and I well remember blokes gathering outside the tube station waiting for the Murphys Builders’ van each morning which, on arrival, would spark an On the Waterfront -style scrum for work. Boozers like the Dublin didn’t just serve as Guinness-pumping stations, they were also places where regulars went to catch up on the latest news from back home,
Similar Books
![Kansas Nights [Kansas Heat 2] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting)](https://fs.dianahicksbooks.com/540708/thumbs/152x264/kansas-nights-kansas-heat-2-siren-publishing-menage-everlasting.png)
