I see the Juniper Berry in Castle Square Southampton is now called The Bosun's Chair.
They claim on at least one site to have been the "Music Scene of the sixties".
P*ss Off ~ it was a real rough dive and well known Queers Pub.
It boasted the longest bar in the county (whether true or not I don't know).
There used to be a ship's timber on the wall where the stevedores would hang their hooks (for handling bales).
Possibly Probably apocryphal but it is said that the expression of "Sling yer hook" came from the practice of the stevedores slinging their hooks to make them stick into the timber. Others said it came from a past landlord who would order drunken stevedores out by slinging their hooks out of the door.
Strangely the dockers and the queers got along fine. The fights came when those not in the know arrived or if the docker's fell out with one another. My Grandfather (Mum's Dad) was a stevedore when he left the boats. He introduced me to the place when I was 6. I had to sit outside with a bottle of lemonade while he "Cured his cough" with a tot or two or rum. Mum would have gone berserk had she known the places the old boy took me! 'Twas our "secret"
I took to going there after I left home for the RAF and then later when I moved back to Southampton. Neither docker nor particularly queer I was always welcome because of Grandfather.
