Bad Boys Banned from Bernie Inn

Yeah, I just remembered this little incident. 1979/80 it must have been. So I am living in Norwich at the time being seriously bad ass working for a bunch of crooks (see the forthcoming book for details). So, this bloke Bill I was working with, agree to have a nice cozy with our respective partners eating some juicy steaks at Bernie Inn steak house.

Well fuelled in the pub after a few toots to get us in the swings, we rock up for our telephoned reservations. Told to wait and three pints later, Billy boy is kicking up a bit.

The waitress calls the manager and he tells us you can’t make reservations, which was a bit odd as we had!

Anyway, we get the table and skof the grub and the bill arrives. Bill tells the waitress we aren’t paying. By now I am off my head and wondered where this bit of agro was going.

So we tell our better halves to check out the downstairs’ bar whilst we men sort this out.

The waitress gives up and calls the cheeky manager along with his assistant. Much to my surprise Bill tells them –

            “Listen you pair of shit heads, you fucked us over with the reservations and, I tell you what, let’s go outside and sort it out. You two beat us up, we pay up. If you don’t we will call it quits.”

Now, personally I am not that way inclined and Bill had always seemed a reasonable bloke but the beer was obviously making him see the dark side of the force. I didn’t care. One way or the other I was likely to get a good kicking.

Anyway, of course we had become quite boisterous and getting evil looks from nearby clientele. Bill didn’t quite make things better by telling them,

            “Mind your own fucking business before I tip your fucking meal over your head.”

The manager now starts getting a bit shirty and says if we don’t pay, he will call the police. We (Or Bill in this case) happily agrees and asks for two more pints. This was strangely refused.

Well, knock be down with a beer bottle, just our luck, it turns out that there was a patrol car just around the corner showing a local magistrate around how well they kept the filth off the streets. Next thing you know we have a Chief Inspector, a Sergeant and a Magistrate making some serious noises at our table with some hard core hints that if we don’t cough up dosh for the steaks - a night in the cells was to be expected.

Well, Billy boy and I just shrug, and we were quite happy with the status quo when suddenly the waitress runs over and says the bill had been paid. It seems the other half (now weeping and doing right girly moaning), had used a credit card. We were furious!!!

Bloody women messing in real mens’ affairs and in the car park we told them so. Oddly, we got banned from the place for ever…