BASTARDS & SLAGS (or CHORLEY BY NIGHT)
Here are accounts of our readers' experiences in the town's bars. If you are, as is the case with most people reading this page, at a loose end (it's nothing to be ashamed of), why not write to us about your experiences, however trivial, to chorley_pol@yahoo.co.uk; we aren't choosey.

Applejax

Chorley's only nightclub; this place has to be seen to be believed. It used to have a notice on the way in which read, "Trendy Gear Only! NO SCRUFFS!" The clientelle are a bizzare mixture of teenagers and the over forties on the second time round. It also seemed that the older the women were the less they wore. There's a good half-an-hours entertainment to be had just looking at the clothes people wear. For example the DJ sported a black shirt with leopard skin collars and white slip-on shoes. He also had a moustache. After a short while, however, the experience becomes unpleasant (at about the same time they start playing Hanson records) and you begin to feel that the world would be a better place if the people in there were quietly put to death.

At some point during my only visit there, an old hag came up to me and, without a word of explanation, started playing with my tie. I didn't want to offend her so I just smiled politely and waited for her to go away, but then she removed the tie completely and ran away beckoning me to chase her around the dancefloor. When I caught up with her, I tried reasoning with her to give it back. She started giggling as I wrestled with her for about two minutes. When I got the tie back, I went home appaled. I presume she wanted to have sex with me or something.

Barry, Euxton

Heros a.k.a Dicey Riley's, Sapphires, The Entertainer

Heros...the claustrophobics nightmare?? Used to be sapphires, a bar that my devout catholic mother told me was a strip club....she described it as a right old den of iniquity...then it became dicey rileys, an irish pub with no actual irish ppl in it but it had guitars and ice skates nailed to the ceiling, which was very irish indeed, don't you think??

oh and there were traffic lights too. even ballykissangel doesn't have traffic lights.

so now its heros, belonging to the funpub genre....hmmmm, what can i say??

the traffic lights are still there, the legacy of its irish heyday. but now we get to see drunken sluts bare their breasts on the tv screens, courtesy of sleazy young boys with camcorders who are employed by the management to egg them on. teenage schoolgirls regularly shake their booty on the stage after three tequila slammers and half a cider, trying their damnedest to make teenage boys snog them in the corridor by the toilets, where the people stood at the bar get an eyeful thanks to the cctv screen behind the bar.

then there's the djs. oh dear. in 1997, i was treated to the "funpub" atmosphere....the dj was
informed by one of my close "friends" that it was my birthday and i was blackmailed into performing on stage, else i would not be served again. it was my goddamn birthday, i needed a drink!!

i was made to lick the djs bellybutton. and then they "rewarded" me with a bottle of what i can only describe as a urine scented liquid, which was drunk by a group of teenaged strangers before i even left the stage. so i licked his bellybutton and had my booze stolen...happy birthday me.
then the dj was replaced by a drag queen called peggy, or some other old lady name....ooer, how controversial.

peggy would play "its raining men" by the weather girls (i think he/she may have worked in the sebastopol at one time) as well as "summer loving" from grease...but changing the lyrics to ones such
as "then he came in my tights" and comments about trouser tents. how very wacky. as a new bunch of underage drinkers has emerged into chorleys bars, heros has become even more popular with teenyboppers, the toilets have got a little more unhygienic, we didn't think that was possible, and how long has that left hand bog been blocked?? but there's one good thing in all this, actually, no there isn't one.

heros, dare you go there??

Steph, Chorley

At a low point in my life I was browsing through the vacancies in the Job Centre and noticed a vacancy advertised at Sapphires and as I heard they paid cash in hand, I figured what the hell! I regret to admit that during this period ('93-'94) I regularly attended Sapphires, especially on Thursday's 'Rock Night with DJ Mad Hatter', where under the pretence of dancing to Rage Against The Machine, I used jump up and down punching out the ceiling tiles; ususaly at that point in an evening when you've given up all hope of getting any play with the ladies. No wonder my parents were ahamed of me.

Anyway, I reluctantly went up to the counter and a girl phoned them up for me. As soon as I started speaking a member of Sapphire's management team told me "We only want women, but  we aren't allowed to put that on the advert." So, that was that.

Lennox, Wheelton


The Swan with Two Necks

I've had many so called 'experiences' in this bar. Once I actually got punched for spilling someone's pint. Untill I started drinking in Chorley I didn't realise this actually happened, well appart from maybe in deepest East Lancashire (the land that time forgot). I was completely stunned and didn't know how to react. Then this guy's girlfriend started screaming, "Why do you always have to ruin everything?", and began to repeatedly kick him. This threw me even more and after a short period of gawping I turned away and left.

My favourite moment though, was a contest between a man who took his shirt off  in the goading stage of the fight (this was another thing I only thought happened on television) and an thin asian man in white pants who disasterously employed his own fantastic form of Kung Fu. He was saved from a severe beating, by the bare chested man suddenly being viciously attacked by his own girlfriend.

I have since descided that this pub is full of scum and the sort of people who go there should be exterminated. For example, I once saw a drunkard (who incidentally looked the spitting image of Eric Cantona) pick a piece of unlit coal out of the fire and then attempt to eat it.

Barry, Euxton

The pub has regular lock-ins, every night it seems. Though you need connections to get in. My friends brother usually sorted us out, as he worked there as a glass collector for a few weeks during the late eighties. One time a group of us tried to get in without our contact, but they refused to let us in. Feeling dejected, we decided to inform the police and blow the lid on this illegal drinking den, though none of us had the courage to make the necessary phone call. This matter was to be settled by a drunken rock-paper-scissors contest, though there were several arguments about the rules which nearly came to blows and I just went home. I never really wanted to go in there anyway. Its full of 16 year old sportswear wearing violent scum.

Gary Bonehill, Millfield Road

S.P.K. a.k.a. The Polish Club

Dear Sirs,

I would like to recount one of my memories of Chorely. Coming from the hard streets of London, I was surprised to find myself rather enamoured with the pleasures of Chorely. From my sadly infrequent visits, in the Mid 90's, I have many favourable memories of this most Lancastrian Place. However, one place in particular stands out, The Polish Working Mans Club.

After a particularly heavy night, which had culminated in dodging the amassed ranks of Liverpool and Manchester United fans celebrating the result of the 'local derby' outside the White Swan, I was spirited into this late night drinking den. Up to this point, I had been doing what is done in a place of limited post-pub drinking, and quaffing my 'bitter' at an alarming rate. I had already been warned, that come last orders, the town was a dry place, unless you count the local nightclub, which as an outsider, my friend didn't feel he could risk taking me too.

However, as we were heading home, debating the staggering ratio of police to public, he suddenly ducked into what appeared to be an unassuming semi-detached. Unfortunately, in my stupor, my memories of this place remain vague. What do I remember...Well, I have definite recollections of comfy, ruby red, leatherette chairs, something akin to those found in the den of a Bond villain. Come to think of it, Polish clientele, mostly war veterans, leant something of a Bond flavour, as they conversed in their bizarre Chorely via Krakow brogue.

I also recall being served pints of that 80's favourite, Skol lager, washed down with a potent home brew cherry brandy. However, my overriding memory was of the toilets. I had been forewarned about their state, and buoyed by several shots of brandy, I tried them out. I seem to recall that my trip north coincided with the release of 'Trainspotting', hence, for those that remember, my friends ironic description of this toilet as 'The Worst Toilet in England.' Anyway, I can confirm, he was quite right.

Despite it's partial open air construction, the stench was quite appalling. The near suffocating ammonia fetor will stick with me forever. To finish, I have carried a shameful secret with me since that night, one that I never revealed to my friend and host. During my trip to 'that' toilet, in the gloom, and with alcohol coursing through my veins, I found myself tackled by an unseen step. As a result, I was sent reeling into the trough urinal, my hands and elbows immersed in the stink. Even now, as I write, I can still smell it. By some quirk of fate, my friend never did find out, despite the unsavoury reek that was emanating from my direction. No, despite this, Chorely is a warm and wonderful place and hopefully, one day I will get my chance to go back and reek havoc on that blasted urinal.

Yours faithfully, Pee Kinsman, Chairman, West London Official Pasta Society (WOPS)

 

The White Bull

In the summer of 1999, I had returned to oasis of Chorley after studying overseas, and was eager to catch up with friends. So with my new tan in tow, I met with all my usual drinking mates and headed for a long session around the delights that Chorley has to offer. After a few in Harry's Bar we decided that it was time to go the "Bull". So we meandered through the usual groups of underagers pouring out of hero's claiming to have had a "wicked time" and the needed groups of over weight 40 year old women, who spark the questions of "would you?"

when approsching the entrance to the "Bull" we noticed a body slumped over the steps. Upon closer inspection we discovered it to be a tramp. We then prodded him a bit, but he was passed out cold, with an unopened bottle of whiskey in hand. Nick a friend of mine suggested that the bottle would be handy for us on the way home, and it looked like he'd had enough so we'd be doing him a favour really! So I took it upon myself to try and remove the poison from his grasp and deal with it accordingly later. What happened next made me absolutley shit myself!

 

This boney hand lept from his side and grabbed me by the wrist with a vice like grip! I honestly thought the old bastard was gonna squeeze my fucking hand off. I then turned into a gibbering and cowardlypiece of shit, and told him the bottle was falling and I was stopping it from smashing. At this point my mates did a quick one to the bar and left me with the drunkard. He thanked me and told me his name was bob and that he had just got back from a holiday in Jamaica, and that I should invite him to my house. I then told him "yes, good idea" and gave the address of my good mate Critch who had left me to go the bar. So after claiming my hand back, I gave him a couple of quid and claimed my place around the pool table, shaken and stirred. Serves me right for nearly being a robbing bastard. So moral of the tale? Don't fuck around with tramps, they have good grips.

Carl, Chorley