Those who were around in the early 1970′s may remember a Sunday evening religious programme presented by a white haired old chap called Jess Yates, or “The Bishop” as he was known in showbiz circles. The Bishop played the organ and “sang your favourite hymns” in a condescending voice that left you in no doubt that he was probably only one step behind Jesus on the stairway to heaven pecking order, that is until he was revealed in a sunday newspaper as a philandering adulterer – his other and later claim to fame was that he was Paula Yates’ (dead wife of Bob Geldof) father and in a hilarious twist of fate was revealed after his death as not the father of Paula Yates at all as his wife had also been a philandering adulterer and had been shagging Hughie Green for some considerable time before Paula was born – you can only imagine the elation that the bleached blond Ms Yates must have felt when, arriving at her father’s funeral she was told “He wasn’t your father” only to be followed by immediate despondancy by the second part of the sentence, “Hughie Green was”.
Anyway…
The Poole family were a sugar-sweet, sickly, vomit inducing, hymn singing self righteous family from Leeds who appeared on Jess Yates’ religious programme – everyone hated them, even more than everyone hated Jess Yates and the one they hated the most was the small bespectacled kid stood at the front who sang “Jesus wants me for a sunbeam” every week – Glynn Poole.
So we walked in the Westbourne this Friday night to find the place completely empty of patrons and a poster of The Poole Family on the wall…”Fook me” we all cried in unison, “who put that poster of the fookin Poole Family on the wall ?”…
…and then in a classic double take we all looked towards the bar, and then back to the poster, and then back to the bar again…
“Fook me” we all cried in unison again, “its the fooking Poole Family – behind the fookin bar”
And there they all stood, in formation, just like on the poster, a few years older than on the poster, but it was The Poole Family none the less, and there in the middle was the despised Glynn Poole.
“Hello lads” Father Poole greeted us “…and welcome to our public house, we’re the new landlords”
“Fook me” we all cried in unison, again.
“Oh by the way lads there’s no more bad language in our pub” Father Poole warned, “we run a Christian house”
“What about the strippers ?” we all cried in unison
“Absolutely not” replied Father Poole
“Fook me” we all cried in unison, again
“You’re all barred” Father Poole said.
By the look of the place he had barred all of the clientele that should by now be crowding out the place, so we left, and as we left another group of regulars arrived in expectation of a Friday night full of strippers and burnt pubes, as the door closed behind us we heard them all cry out in unison…
“Fook me, who put that fookin poster of the fookin Poole Family on the wall ?”
