Roasted peppers filled with aubergine, mozzarella and anchovies make a rich Italian substitute for British pub grub
There was a staircase off the main bar of the Gardener’s Arms pub. It had thick, red carpet with swirls and led to the flat where the landlady, Alice Jones, our granny, lived with Grandpa, and where we stayed when we visited. When you’re nine years old, being sent to bed is like being banished. Even more so when you’re sent at precisely the moment things are getting interesting: as the pub was filling with regulars whose habits seemed as much a part of the place as the brass fittings, and as Robinson’s bitter rushed into glasses. My younger brother, sister and I would plead for extra time, two more songs on the jukebox, then we’d go upstairs, although rarely to bed. Rather, we’d sit at the top of the staircase and watch the increasingly boisterous scenes through the banisters. Who would notice us first? If it was our parents, we would scatter like marbles; if it was Granny, we knew we had another 10 minutes. We always hoped it would be Colin, our deep-flared, rock’n’roll uncle, who, if we were lucky, would bring us bottles of Schweppes lemonade and bags of crisps.
I like to think I can still remember the prickle of the bubbles and the sting of the crisps. I certainly remember the smell of the pub: an intoxicating mix of beer, bodies, carpet, cocktail cherries, smoke, Brasso and spray polish, and Granny’s perfume. Also, onion or bacon in a hot pan, meat pies, vegetables boiling, chips frying in dripping, or roast lamb – all the things that came out of the kitchen behind the bar of that Oldham pub.