There are many bars that might honestly claim they hold a special affection in the heart of any ‘red blooded’ gay man who lived in the London in the ‘80´s but few perhaps hold quite as much affection as the London Apprentice , or ‘LA’ as it was almost universally known.
I sometimes feel I lived much of my life in the eighties in the place; traversing its three dark floors from top to bottom. And then going round again. Then again, backwards. In its eventful and long heyday, it was usually rammed on a Saturday night, such that you queued to get in, queued to get a drink, queued to get your coat checked and to get out. And you simply didn’t care; it was part of the ritual. Like all those very special places, it had ritual firmly on its side.
It was by no means the first or only gay pub in the east End. Charley Brown’s (after the retired sea man who bought it) in Limehouse was ‘gay’ from the 1920’s, and only demolished in 1990. Francis Bacon regularly frequented its bar. The Royal Oak , still going strong, in Columbia Road, Hackney was ‘gay’, initially run by a trans couple Lil and Maisie, who lived in Hackney throughout World War II and performed at the Royal Oak whilst the bombs were more or less falling and it was still popular in the 80’s and 90’s. There were plenty more. Run ahead 30 years and pubs like this were having preservation orders slapped on them by the London Mayor, Sadiq Khan. Oh, how we would have chuckled, back then.
The ‘LA’ was always a little bit more though, than just another pub with drag. It goes back a long way as a public house with rental agreements from around 1895 and film footage of the nearby Britannia Theatre shows the LA in the 1920’s looking very similar to how it was in the eighties. However, it rather slowly rose to its infamous status in the late 1970’s, when a new owner took over, Michael Glover who has said that he brought his experiences of gay bars from a gay scene that was slightly more advanced that existed in the ghettos of a few American cities, back to London.
Described by my friend Gus, who worked there for a while, as ‘the best gay pub ever in the world’, as London began to relax its laws, little by little, Michael, a jolly leather queen who looked like the laughing cavalier, crafted an experience that few would forget and it became like a second home to many gay Londoners Gus recalls how, because of licensing hours in the early eighties ‘there were only two hours (drinking time) on Sunday lunchtime – they’d all pile in at twelve and empty out at two to go on to the Market Tavern, (in Vauxhall) which had a special late afternoon licence’.
Originally, it was very much a place where clones and transvestites would dally –or troll- in an unholy alliance. It had infamous secret parties in the dungeon-like basement, The Tool Box. This, more or less square shaped black hole, featured walls & ceilings dripping water, a skanky, small dance floor with a DJ mainly playing loud hi energy music and a reputed secret tunnel from the eighteenth century, under Hoxton Street to the Magistrates Court over the road. Above the skanky dancefloor was an upper balcony level, on both sides, where you could watch the spotlights pick out the faces you hoped to attract. It had poles you could twirl and dance around or grind against if the mood took you that way. And it usually did. It was an extremely sexually charged club, where inhibitions, if indeed they even existed in the first place, often slipped away like the sweaty punters, grooving on the sticky floors.
I recall standing there in the basement on a Saturday, week after week, mesmerised, watching, transfixed by the spotlights and the sea of bodies, faces, noise, the generally good humour and the pervasive sweet smell of sweat, poppers, warm leather and beer ; it was not by any means the only place to get the formula for this brand of sexual success (and indeed excess) so right, but it was perhaps one of the few to hold it close, for so long, so confidently, so clearly, so cockily. It sold a fantasy world of course, so far removed from the dreary dull realities of day to day London life, that eventually it almost became a cliché of itself. There were times when you had to laugh at its absurdity, the things you saw and heard, the scenes you witnessed, and yet, and yet.. it kept you coming back for more. To enter the door of the LA was to enter a world of complete acceptance, complete understanding, complete familiarity, complete escape. Friends, new friends, new faces, willing embraces, sweet hard earned successes and conquests. It was the glorious hell, concocted by Dante, imagined, perhaps experienced by Caravaggio, as enjoyed by the chosen but willing few.
Later in its life, it hosted the club night known as the Block. The Block which had various incarnations (and at one stage was hosted at the aptly named Paradise Club in Islington) was aimed more at those into the gay S&M fetish scene in London but it managed to encompass a very broad church in its regular clientele. Each Saturday night the top floor would be artfully re-dressed, to become a maze of ropes, netting, canvas, camouflage and leaves. And that was just what the punters wore. It filled up quickly each week and by midnight the dark red lighting would reveal those punters in various states of dress or undress, dependent on the attire itself. Disrobing completely for example, whilst wearing a rubber one piece body suit is a prime example of necessity intervening over concept and often required a degree of creative invention, not to mention manual dexterity. And boy, were they hot to wear: mid summer nights could see you collect a stream of sweated moisture, trapped at the knees and releasing the rubber fold at the knee would send it cascading down the legs, chilling you off quickly, as you came out of the fetid smoky club into the -by now -cool night air.
You never knew quite who you would see there, all sorts of people you vaguely recognised would turn up and hang around but often in very different gear to that which you might have associated them in. One night I was there with my friend Gus and there was an attractive guy in some leather and rubber combination that ticked the ‘effortlessly butch’ box for me standing on the side of the largest room, which was a little unusual, as you tended to cruise and get off more in the ropes and camo area. I sauntered past and getting the ‘come on’ eye contact I don’t think we said much but got on with things, as you did. It was pretty good I thought, with chemistry enough to make it feel worth taking time over. It was however in full view of everyone, which was quite unusual for me but I was too engrossed to care that much. Anyway, after about half an hour or so we finished and said a few words and I came back over to Gus, who I had at least noticed, had been watching. ‘You star fucker’ he said laughing. Why I asked? That was Marc Almond, you did realise that? I had had no idea; I never did.
There was another occasion when in ‘Traffic,’ when I had a long ‘session’ with Andy Bell, (also looking effortlessly butch) also without realising who he was, before being told afterwards. I’m sure if I had known, there’s absolutely no way I’d have approached such people, so it’s likely a good thing. It does make me wonder who else I met, without realising it though. But of course the whole point I am making here is that they were just people, cruising their patches, like everyone else. There was always a certain classless structure to our scene that said everyone was ´just another person. Of course some were writing some damn good songs about it as well.
To some extent, perhaps strangely, the scene was quite conservative, within the gay milieu. Generally, as I mentioned, the idea was to look as effortlessly masculine as possible, even if you had spent a few hours getting ready in the comfort of your home boudoir: trying on tops, inspecting positions, angles and styles. The wearing of combat tops, camo gear and tags was de riguer to get that butch look absolutely right but there were always those who liked to subvert the subversion and play around a little more with ideas of gender and drag. By and large, these guys existed very harmoniously with the ‘straight ‘ gays and the broad church notion that it took all sorts to party was widely accepted. Sometimes, there were guys who took it a little too far for my liking, by wearing bright yellow and red rubber one piece jocks stretched ludicrously tightly over, perhaps, rather too skinny bodies. Call it a ‘Tom of Biarritz’ look. It kind of killed the butchness and you sometimes just had to close your eyes and pray they might go away, before you squealed with what would surely be seen as cruel laughter. I constantly had to remind myself that it takes all sorts. A very useful lesson in life.
During the mid eighties kilts briefly became very fashionable on men, (well, on some men.. ) perhaps prompted by a now infamous cover on the Face magazine, in November 1984, simply known now as Kiltboy. A buff model, styled by Ray Petri and rather beautifully shot by Jamie Morgan, stood in full length tartan kilt (..worn well below the knees, if you please) , buffed chest exposed in open jacket: the article entitled, succinctly, ‘Menswear at the Outer Limits’.
We wore them to the Block and rather later to the Anvil, a similar and very popular incarnation of the Block, based near Tooley Street in SE London. A later version of this style, featuring mini kilts less than eighteen inches long was very much derided at a later stage by the real kilt aficionados. I know, as I, dear reader was a real kilter man , if only for a relatively short time. The benefits of kilt wearing instead of a rubber one piece in certain clubs are far too obvious to be discussed of course. If you were not careful though, the material would snag and run, over various metal buckles and braces.
And it all eventually unravelled of course. How could it not? By the mid to late eighties as HIV sadly became ‘established’, such venues were under attack from all sides. Rents were rising as Shoreditch, Hoxton became trendy, the very beginning of its prime position in the early twenty-first century as a hipsters paradise, the press were painting such venues as dark, seedy, smoky places and people were thinking about moving on. Even an article in the oh, so carelessly liberal Guardian in that period noted that ‘AIDS dangles like a flashing neon sign in front of the gay community’. Why, the writer asked the LA landlord did people continue to come to these dark, dank places for sex, week after week? But even to ask this question was to some extent missing the point; the experience was more about life, of living, of loving, of giving, of receiving: of simply being. The response given to the writer was perhaps as honest as it was possible to be in those times.
It was perhaps appropriate, given this perception and yet being seen as such a pillar of the gay community, (the punters of the LA raised huge amounts for the early gay charities including London’s Gay Switchboard) that the LA hosted the first ever Terence Higgins Trust meeting to spread awareness of AIDS and HIV. So there you have it. Sex, love and death, death, love and sex: all entangled together. As I reread it, it sounds harsh but I do not say it as a criticism, simply as a lived reality.
In 1990, the pub was bought by Vicki Pengilley of The Bricklayers Arms, to prevent it becoming another ‘yuppie’ wine bar and she kept the vibe much the same there for some time. It became simply 333 in 1998 with innovative DJ’s and designers keeping the place on its feet and it was soon once again a local for partying celebs. While musicians from the Gallagher brothers, to Seal frequented the venue, there were several bands who cut their teeth in ‘333’: Babyshambles, The Libertines and Razorlight all played some of their first London dates here.
But of course its days as a gay watering hole were long over. The clients had moved on, moved up, gentrified or in some cases, sadly, died. However in my mind there is absolutely no doubt. Its early glory days do deserve to be written about, remembered and just as surely, celebrated.
ON to Sex, love and life (The Rituals) 2.13 A completely new flikker agenda..
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