Ida Gallacher’s tales of cleaning up a country pub in the 1940s

Press, 17 June 1986, Page 17

Ida Gallacher’s tales of cleaning up a country pub in the 1940s

By

STAN DARLING

Some of the locals called it ‘‘The Blood House” when Ida Gallacher and her husband went there as the new publicans in 1944.

The Pier Hotel in Kaikoura, which celebrated its 100th year last year, had a long history as the fishermen’s pub.

Ida and Pat Gallacher had never been hotelkeepers before they took on the challenge to clean up the old pub, a challenge that was given to them by the then owner, Jim Ballin. Mrs Gallacher, a Waiheke Island resident, had been working at the D.I.C. in Christchurch. She had been born in the old Chester Street fire station, now the Plunket Society offices next to the Oxford Victualling Company. The Gallachers found a lot of hard work ahead of them when they arrived in Kaikoura. It took three days just to clean up the kitchen. The Pier had a reputation as a place where you could drink long hours. Those drinkers who fell by the wayside before getting out the door were lined up along the corridors to sleep it off before being rousted out the next morning.

The place was called “The Blood House” because of all the fighting inside. In 1941, after being renovated, it had been described by one inspector as "the best country hotel in New Zealand,” according to a history of early Kaikoura pubs written by Constance Gray. It had rooms for single men that opened on to the back

staircase so they would not disturb the other guests when they left on fishing trips in the early mornings. Ross Smith, who has been the hotel’s publican for 27 years, still provides rooms for long-stayers. In the end, after almost two years at the pub, the Gallachers moved on. “We had raised the standards quite considerably,” says Mrs .Gallacher, "but we had a young family and felt it was not the best life for them.” They managed a guest house in Akaroa for several years before moving to Auckland.

‘Bow tie’ on the ‘collar’

Some years ago, she joined a writers’ group for one session, and submitted an account of her years at the Kaikoura pub. She remembered the first time she poured beer, years before Kaikoura, while staying at a West Coast pub. She offered to help the publican, while he had a few hands of cards, if he would show her how to use the pump. Her first pour was not a roaring success, she wrote. She found a twisted cigarette paper floating on top of the beer.

“Well, love, you gave me a collar, so I may as well put a bow tie on it to complete the job,” said the drinker with his hand on the glass. She says that she will never forget the first night they took over at the Pier. It was midnight, and a Scot was playing the bagpipes. “The noise was terrific,” she wrote, “the bar jammed full and all I could see were arms reaching out with glasses to be replenished — by 2 a.m., my feet were soaking with spilt beer.” During a lull, one customer happened to mention a sister in Timaru who had nine children. “Gosh,” she said, “it’s time she joined the local library, I reckon.”

The customer gave her a nasty look, saying it was obvious she would not do any good there. She was one of the sarcastic types. They closed the bar at 4 a.m. “The cook, who waited on two guests for luncheon, staggered me by waltzing into the dining room with a cigarette dangling out of the side of her mouth,” she wrote. Her life was much easier when she organised a decent staff. Washing and ironing for a full house — the A.A. had given them a notice for the wall that said the hotel was up to standard some months after they had arrived — took up most of the

time. A good cook who got the mumps was away for six weeks. Mrs Gallacher doubled as a cook and helped in the bar at night. Then the cook said she could not return because of her health. The housemaid came down with the mumps at the same time, and she put them both in a double bed, carting trays of food up to them. A barman, the housemaid’s husband, got up early one morning and did a huge pile of washing for the hotel. When she and her husband came back from a break at the movies one night, they found a man doing all the ironing. One day, when the accountant was up from the brewery, she had six pounds of steak to cook. She put some coat in the stove to keep the meat simmering, but it missed and went into the steak pot.

“I took the pot off, let the coal sink to the bottom — thank goodness it was large slack — and I laboriously lifted out the steak and carrots and strained the gravy,” she wrote, “cooked up some more onions and served it up.” One of the diners came back for more. She told him she had a hint for his wife. Before she served the braised steak, “a shovel of coal gives it the flavour.”

One traveller, sitting at the family table for dinner, had the sink plug served up with his cabbage. Mrs Gallacher, for once at least, was speechless.

One week-end the hotel had a team of women basketball players up from Christchurch. Before they left for the local dance, they had a drink in the bar. Mrs Gallacher heard a commotion. Two fishermen told her to make way — for a stillstruggling shark which they placed on the bar amid shrieks from the women.

One of the girls caught a fisherman’s eye, and she promised to have a drink with him before breakfast. Her drink would be seven West Coast schooners.

When Mrs Gallacher opened the bar in the morning, the fisherman showed up in an illfitting suit “which hadn’t seen the light of day for years,” she wrote. “Its buttons were straining. He had a white scarf tucked in, and his hat at a jaunty angle.” The girl showed up and dutifully downed the seven schooners. She had breakfast, then returned to the bar. At

midday dinner, “she walked out of the bar straight as a die. Jed? He. was propping up the bar, looking cross-eyed.” Mrs Gallacher had never seen a woman with such capacity. "She was a tough peanut, all right,” she wrote. She was on her own in the bar one day when 19 men came in, most of them up for a society wedding the next day. One of them confided that they intended to get the bridegroom drunk, and wanted a tin of blacking to do up part of his nether regions. She got the groom to one side and told him not to comment on his next drinks. She would be serving him ginger ale for a while to keep him fit for the wedding. The next day, "the bridegroom looked marvellous in his top hat and tails,” she wrote, “and his lovely bride on his arm as they left the church, and I got a broad wink as they walked to the car.” The Gallachers bought one of

their daughters a horse. Friends who managed a hotel about a mile away bet Pat Gallacher that he could not ride the horse to their place. He took the bet, and set off after a few stiff whiskies. He had hot been on a horse for years. "I was waiting to see him arrive,” wrote Mrs Gallacher. “He looked so ludicrous. Why he wore his hat I’ll never know. So there he was humpity-bump and hanging on to his hat with 006' hand and the reins in the other.” Pat Gallacher rode up to the bar entrance, then up the steps, and inside on old Bill. Unfortunately, old Bill had been on green feed and let loose several times in the corridor, with the publican coming up close behind to clean up. One day, a local fisherman rowed his dinghy to the beach, where several holidaymakers were. He had a shark on a rope, towing it along. He hauled the huge shark up on to the sand and

told the gathered crowd that he suspected the catch was a maneater. He slit open its belly. Inside was a hat and a pair of shoes. One woman fainted. Another man gave him two dollars for being so brave. Many patted him on the back. “No-one recognised Tom’s old hat and shoes which he had shoved down its throat,” Mrs Gallacher wrote. Jack Jorgensen, a long-time regular at the Pier who remembers Mrs Gallacher, was not forthcoming about being involved in any of the shenanigans in those days. He remembers, but he is not telling. He said the old fire ladder coming down from a first floor bathroom used to be the afterhours entrance to the hotel in the old days. “I haven’t told all that happened there,” says Mrs Gallacher. “In that type of pub, your hair would rise.”