The Dean Tavern - A Gothenburg Experiment

Tom Hackett was the manager of the Dean Tavern until 1934 when got the sack as the Committee had heard he was applying for a licence elsewhere. At the same time Bob McKinlay was sacked as he had been seen under the influence of drink in the Dean. Mr. Hackett took the Argyle Bar in Leith Street and later had the Central Bar at the bottom of Leith Walk.

The Dean Committee sent for Andrew Aikman to see if he would be manager. He had begun at the Dean as a boy in 1925 and left in 1932 when he was second man, to take over as manager at Hamilton Lodge in Portobello. He was still only 24 when he came back to the Dean. He was to get £3 a week and Tony Docherty, who was engaged as second man, got £2 a week.

Willie Yuill, the present manager of the Dean, recalls, "22 years ah worked for him and Andrew Aikman was really a publican among publicans. He was a man of foresight. When he came here as manager, he saw that the Dean had to move and he changed the Dean. He told me there was big wooden tables and forms. There were no curtains in the windows - nothing. 'Why should the mirier be different from anyone else?' It was a stone floor - a terrazzo floor. He went on to lay a floor of lino. He brought in tables and chairs. He put blinds up in the windows. I learned a lot from him. He taught me a lot. He was near teetotal. Ah've seen the man take a sherry on occasion but he never drank in the pub. He never drank locally. Andrew Aikman was a family man. He was popular with the authorities. He ran a good place. He was a very benevolent man. He was good to the old people - very popular among old people. To me Andrew Aikman was a perfect publican."

Anderson Duncan remembers, "Ye came in the Dean, 'Wha's beer is it?' It didnae mak' much difference. We drank it just the same. Three or four pints and we were happy." Jim Reid says. "Ah remember my father tellin' me. He could tell whenever Deuchar's beer was in. He said it was great and then the second best was McLennan and Urquart ot Dalkeith. Well they're both gone now. Beer was a tanner a pint. Three pints and ye knew you'd had a drink. Ah don't think the beer is now what it was. If ye wanted a drink on a Sunday ye had tae gaim up tac Lauder or that -bona fide traveller, passing through.''

John and Tom Ix>ckhart recall. "It \vis a' pints they bought. There \vernae much whisky then. It wis a' pints. They yist tae say the miners washed the stoor away. There wis nae heavy beer in the Dean or the Bottom Shop. It wis a' light beer. Yejist asked fir a pint. The Abbey Inn was aye Youngers, Robert Youngers o' Abbeyhill. The Dean had different beers. If they tain the coal that's hoo the}' tain the beer. They jist geen ye onythinV'Jim Reid: "John Gilmour was the chief wages clerk up there but he was also secretary of the Dean Committee an' he yist tae crack tae me aboot the Dean, ye know, and what they did - it was barter in a way. All right, you buy two waggons (20 ton) of our coal tac keep ec goin' and we'll take x number of hogsheads of your beer. They were always good quality beers.

In those days it was barrels - a hogshead or a barrel, or a half barrel. Now it's a' these tin things. Well, they can bump them off, put them up and serve in practically an hour after, but ye cpuldnae do that wi a barrel o' beer. Ye had tae tae knock the wee thing tae let it seep, you know, an' if ye did it at the wrong time, or the barrel had been badlv shaken up, ye didnae get a good pint o' beer."

Anderson Duncan remembers, "The Bottom Shop had a better cellar than the Dean. The Dean wisnae a whisky shop, it wis a beer shop. It wis jist the auld men that drunk whisky then."

John and Tom Lockhart: "Ah think when ah startit dnnkin it wis f)d. a pint and 7d. a nip. If ye wantit Special it wis 8d. When a went an asked for the Dean whisky - an it's the end bottle this side, it's aye the end bottle. It s a different brand - every wee while its a different brand o' whisky. It's cheaper. It s no their ain brand. They yist tae buy that whisky in bulk an bottle it thersel and the same wi the sherry. They cried it Dean Cream. Till they got fed up an' got it bottled fir them.

Jim Reid recalls. "Originally the miner liked to stand with his feet in the sawdust. Maist o the miners smoked a pipe and it |Ust ** mtae the sawdust - and it caught spilled beer too.

George Armstrong: "It's changed. An awfu' lot o' the auld vim went tae the Dean. It s the younger element now. John and Tom Lockhart: "There s hardly ony miners m the Dean now - a miners then.

Jim Reid: "200 men ye got intae the Dean - a' in wee groups and thir only conversation, strangely enough, was their work. There's more faces been worked and roads back brushed in the Dean Tavern than anywhere else."

There was an alcove in the public bar called 'the manhole'. Jim Reid: "The manhole was where the local worthies congregated." Alec Trench: "Oo cried them the manholes because the miners a' sat in there an' howked coal and brushed roads an' that. Ye ken, every night when they were havin' a crack."

Katherine McKerrow writes, "The Dean played a big part in the lives of the "Nitten" folk as we were called. It was our meeting place over the years but with one difference. We were on the outside, not inside. What I want to tell you about is my grandpa. He started work in the Lady Victoria, at the age of 13 and retired at 65. His life being when he was finished work and washed in front of the fire. After his dinner -down to the Dean where he had one seat, he never sat on any other. We knew where to get him. Every night Granny and I had to go down to the jug bar at the side with the wee pitcher and get it filled - one pint every night. When Gran took ill I got the job, every night, which I carried out for many years. The high spots for me were on a Saturday night, when Grandpa would bring me a comb or hair gnps or any small thing, but he never forgot me on the Saturday. A gentleman with a case used to come into the Dean selling small items. My mother also met my dad coming from a dance. He was outside of the Dean and chatted Mother up."