A Night At The Unity

A Night At The Unity

By Paul McCann

When I was young I had job in the evenings working at the Unity club in old Ardoyne . It stood proudly there adjacent to the old Butler Street school dinners . In the busy nights I worked there with two or three others running orders and carrying a tray .

Topper was the Barman we waiters went around the tables taking their drink orders to the bar . Back then there was no such thing as a note pad or pencil and pen , you had to memorise the orders in your head .

So as you went from table to table the customers would give a wave or out then they would give you a drink order . It was amazing how they could raise their voice louder than the noise of the band .

“ 2 Pimms , Larger and lime , Guinness and a babysham “

Then off I’d go to the bar and splurted out the drinks order I had going around in my head .

Topper was a genius , you never had to repeat anything . You only had to him once and he had the drinks lined up like soldiers along the bar .

You’d hand him over the money and he’d give you the change .

Every now and then when you returned the change to the customer you would get a tip which was brilliant .

We put all our tips in a big jar and at the end of the night they were split up equally among us all .

You soon got to know the regulars

there the crowd and their drink order never changed .

Mostly everyone was friendly .

There was this one night I had to work and I hadn’t had any dinner and wasn’t feeling the best but showed up for my shift . That night there was a function on and lots of new faces in the crowd . The club was full, no tables left and standing room only left . My first drink order of the night was the biggest order you could ever imagine with mostly shorts and expensive liquors . I managed to remember the order and run it around my head over and over until I got to the bar . The tray I was carrying was full of expensive drinks . As I returned to the table this young guy was sitting back in his chair with his big lanky legs sprawled out in front of him and I couldn’t see because of the overfilled tray and the half light in the club and I tripped over his legs .

The whole tray went on the floor and there would have been a weeks wages lying there . I nearly died and had to run a hide . All eyes were on me and one of the regular customers got up on his feet and grabbed this lanky big lad and lifted him out of his chair and made him clean up the mess . Then the manager took over and told off the lazy man for the way he had been sitting in his chair .

They also made him

pay for the drink order as it was his fault that then tray had fallen .

After the paid for the drinks he left the club . When I returned to the floor the crowd all gave me a big round of applause .

That lazy lanky big fella was never seen in the club again .

The End