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Picture source: Darkstar

The White Hall Tavern was situated at 759 High Road. This pub was known as Lucky Larry O'Shaugnessy's at time of closure and is now used as a health centre.

I live now in Cornwall but my life began in late war-time North London, my family - like so many - finding themselves moved by the post-war property re-construction boom outside of London. I grew into teenage very much aware of my London roots, and spent nights with my friends going back for a few occasional hours to London pubs to enjoy something that we didn’t quite get in our new lives. Although a life-long Arsenal supporter, I always felt a sympathy, an empathy, with this little pub so near to the dreaded White Hart Lane. What was it like ? Why did we go back there again and again ? The pub was so ordinary, full of nice, ordinary people. People who were friendly and welcoming, people who had found the courage to tolerate the Second World War, and the mess that it left, so slowly being re-developed. By “ordinary” I mean those dear folk were, like me, just typical working people, comfortable with the modest pleasures that life allowed us. The pub in the late 60s and early 70s had good nights on Fridays and Saturdays with a hilarious group called the “Spiders”, stuck in the corner on a plinth in the back of the bar. They were 3 gentlemen - one wearing his Jewish skull cap - and all wearing rather dilapidated old dinner jackets, well known for their renditions of all the famous Ink Spots songs. The pianist was regularly suffering the effects of too much beer, but why worry ? It was all good fun. Someone, who all the local folk knew, but we obvious didn’t, would always be called up to sing a song or 2 of Al lBowly songs, which he did to everyone’s delight - including mine. Magic...!

Alan Lamb (January 2020)

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Other Photos

Picture source: Adriano Kuc