John Weysome, The Jerbourg Hotel, Guernsey.

Long, long ago

THE BOSS AND THE TILL. (A till is now called ‘cash register’)

Every seven years or so, I read, 98% of the cells of our bodies are replaced, except for just a few long-lasting ones in our brains. So John Weysom, my patient boss, and myself, are many times different folk since the days I was his barman. But this memory lingers.

John was a young bloke in those days, and had inherited the old hotel from the family, I believe, but his hopes had been elsewhere, perhaps, when our lives briefly touched. He hired me as a barman for the deserted and enormous lounge, with its huge bar and windows sand-blasted opaque from the driving salt air of that beautiful promontory, on that beautiful island.

I was a strange, annoying child, given to periods of silent introspection, a gloom which settled over me for days, sometimes, when it became painfully difficult to converse normally with people. It was an illness which afflicted me for decades, gradually fading with age. At the time a source of irritation and teasing from my friends: Andy’s in one of his moods.  I’d recover to become normal after a while, usually a day or two. No idea of the cause.

John Weysome gave me a talking-to, one day, when we were doing the barman’s inevitable chore, sorting thousands of empty bottles. He accused me of ‘dumb insolence’, having caught me in one of my ‘periods’. I had no defense to offer, not understanding my condition either. This upset me, and him, considerably, but I became an asset in the bar; it was gratifying to have the responsibility and the freedom to run it as I wished.

But this is a story of a different kind. Time went past. My job at the Jerbourg Hotel was my project, too, and every idea I had attracted more young customers, and I was allowed to choose helpers behind the bar, and bands for the room, and decorations and themes, and design cocktails, and order special beers. It was a great job, and I’m sure the boss was pleased, until one day……..

The five of us barpersons (two were girls) were ordered to assemble, one day before opening time. Bear in mind we were all relative amateurs at the job. Highly successful amateurs. The bar was no doubt the most successful on the island at that time; we had fun, we worked hard, we earned our wages, but, like our boss, we were not trained, we were too busy always to run an orderly business: the empty bottle situation, for example. There was no time or labour to sort, pack, and return them, just a huge heap, and growing daily.

We realised that there was some trouble, some threat, but what? John confronted us: someone was robbing the bar. We had one week to produce the culprit. After which, with no result, we were all sacked, no references.

Well, we were all mates, and good kids, relatively, and we knew none of us was stealing, and had no idea what action to take. It really was a strange situation, and depressing, to be accused, and threatened, and it put a cloud over what had until then been a joyful job. Today, the way we ran that bar would be called a criminal outrage, an accounting nightmare. But there was no bar more successful. For example, shortly after I was hired, John Weysome said, Andy, if you’ve got everything prepared and ready in the bar, don’t try to look busy; sit down, have a drink, read the paper, relax, be ready for the first customers! What? Imagine a boss saying that today! But John, like us, was a gifted amateur.

The dreaded week went past without confrontation or sackings, and we began to relax, though wary. Undoubtedly there was a problem big enough to upset even John’s accounting, but what? We were still sure of our group innocence. Towards the end of the second week after accusation, and after a staggeringly busy night, I was doing my lonely job of emptying the tills of their damp, packed notes and change; such crude accounting: it all went into a bag for John to sort out. The old pub tills were thrashed every night in a hopelessly amateur way, the drawers hard to close, and stay closed, in the frantic rush.

In the empty, now-quiet bar, I had a beer and tried to work out how to make the till-drawers work better; perhaps they needed oiling? Now any normal bar-person would not believe how stupid we all were, how unbelievably dopey, the boss included.

I got on eye-level with one of the tills and worked the drawer. It WAS really hard to close without violent slamming. Somehow there must be a way to get it out to clean and adjust. And of course I found the little recessed knobs on the sides, at the back, that released the drawer, and I found the hundreds and hundreds of tight-packed notes, two-inch thick wads compressed and added to each frantic night. Each till was the same. There were thousands of pounds stacked away in that bar. No-one had ever taken out the drawers.

Before work next day I called John to meet me in the bar early, to tell him I had found the thief. I was behind the counter, he at the bar. Neither of us spoke, he waited for me, I silently sprang the first empty till drawer, put it on the counter, reached into the cavity and gathered the solid block of notes in my fingers and placed it next to the drawer.

Then the second drawer, then the others. The sheer volume of compact cash really was astounding. John was astounded. We packed up the cash, he shook my hand, and with teary eyes said he’d see us all later. He was a romantic bugger, certainly not your typical publican, obviously: didn’t even know the till-drawers were removable.

When the others arrived I told them the story, and that John wanted us to stay behind for a while after the bar closed that night. Apologies, bonuses, and a rise in pay for all of us, and the bar at the Jerbourg Hotel powered on. An enriching experience for all concerned.