I had just moved to London and when this job came up it seemed an ideal way to get to know the city (and of course its watering holes), the post came with a company car and generous expenses so I took it.
My territory was mainly all the SW postal districts of London, from the Kings Road in Chelsea down to Wimbledon and some plush suburbs like Surbiton and Esher.
In those days the pubs were restricted on trading hours so they would open around 11am and close at 3pm, before opening again around 6pm in the evening.
This left myself and my three colleagues in London with nothing to do in the interim (we had to do evening calls as well).
However, all laws have loopholes including the then UK Licencing ones, so hotel bars and private clubs were allowed to trade all day, which led us to having afternoon meetings at the 'Pavilion Tennis Club' in Neasden, a private drinking club owned by 'diamond geezer' Les.
It was impossible to play tennis there, but this was irrelevant, the bar was always open and had an eclectic mix of customers, mainly male and mainly 'dodgy'.
I took some friends there one evening and the experience led me to write 'Pavilion Tennis Club', a poem currently on my blog, which gives more detail about this amazing club.
The best part of my new job however, was covering the Wimbledon Tennis Tournament.
I had to attend all day every day throughout the fortnight and do two circuits of every bar on their premises and phone through all their drinks orders, tough, but someone had to do it.
It came with an 'Access all Areas' pass and a badge allowing my car to enter via the main gates (priceless!).
I was amazed to discover that the Centre Court was hollow underneath and used as a store, mainly for our beer, so we built a pub bar down there out of beer crates, complete with a dart board and draught beer on a pump, so while you might have been watching a 'duel in the sun' between two great tennis players, I could have been underneath playing darts.
The experience led me to write 'Wimbledon or SW19' a poem contrasting the gentility of the tennis with the gladiatorial approach of the now defunct Wimbledon FC Football Club, which is in my new collection of poems entitled:
'A Message to Father Time'
I will do a video blog shortly and explain other sources of inspirations for my poetry, but meanwhile thank you for taking the time to read this blog.
