Harp Scratchings 7 - Bucket Diplomacy

Dad taking a break after scrubbing one of the Harp's two bar floors

One of Dad’s daily rituals was to scrub the bar floors on his hands and knees.

He had tried a mop but had decided it just didn’t get the wooden boards clean enough. Years later a linoleum floor was put down in order to make cleaning easier. Dad tried the mop but soon resorted to his old bucket and scrubbing brush.

As he worked methodically through the bars Dad would change the water periodically, throwing the remnants of what was left in the bucket across the gravel car park. If Dad had a busy day ahead of him he would sometimes wash the floor after evening closing.

On one occasion his nocturnal cleaning activities had unexpected consequences.

Taking the dirty water in his bucket out to the car park, now in darkness, he emptied it, obviously with some enthusiasm. Coming up the path that adjoined the car park was Mrs. Jeffs’ daughter and her boyfriend. Mrs. Jeffs lived two houses down from the pub and ran a small shop. Unfortunately her daughter was the recipient of a late night shower from Dad’s bucket.

I don’t know how the conversation went and while it has an amusing side I still feel sorry for Dad. He just would not have known what to say to calm the situation. I do remember that Mrs. Jeffs and her family ceased to communicate with us briefly. But economics came into play. We were regular customers of the shop and Mr. Jeffs did enjoy a pint with the boys. I imagine that the apology was offered and accepted because before long I was being dispatched to the shop to buy raspberry ripple ice cream to put with the fruit for whoever happened to be staying at the pub that night and needed dinner.

Years later in 1971 Britain launched a new decimal currency to replace the old pounds, shillings and pence, with the old coinage being phased out over an 18 month period. I don’t recall Mum and Dad having too much difficulty with the transition. Mrs. Jeffs did. In fact she was so indignant about it she refused to switch over to the new currency and would instead recalculate everything in the "old money".

Entering her shop from street level a bell would ring alerting Mrs. Jeffs to make her way up the stairs from the kitchen below to serve her latest customer. Purchases made, she would undertake the arduous task of recalculating what was owed in LSD. She said she was too old to change, but as the phase out period came to an end, even Mrs. Jeffs embraced commerce in decimal currency. It made shopping trips much quicker and the bucket incident was never mentioned again.