A 90s Manager's Tale of Seduction and Passion Walsall Pubs I Wolverhampton and Dudley Breweries is not the world’s best employer, especially if you were one of their legions of pub managers in the 90s. The wife and I were unemployed, both having been made redundant, me after 4 months, she just before they needed to pay redundancy. Neither of us had transferable skills, I had sold but it is difficult to find that kind of employment in your mid-40s, when there are so many youngsters after the positions. We both find part-time work that paid the rent and ran the old crate of a car that we had. We saw an article in local the paper advertising an open day for people who had a yen to be a pub manager. We went, were accepted, underwent the training and eventually were offered an extremely run down pub in the Walsall area. The promise was that it was to be refurbished into a “Tap House”; a chain of real ale pubs and we would be the first to be considered. In the interim we ran the pub on our own with very few staff and only afternoons off. Our customers were a very rough bunch, but that was the only source of revenue, the state of the pub being nowhere good enough to encourage new visitors. The refurb was supposed to happen within 6 months but wrangles over who owned the freehold made it drag on for 3 times that. In the meantime we drew staff from a very small population. One such was Julie. Julie was about 5” 4” and 13 stone, overweight and not the prettiest female you ever saw. She was 35 and a grandmother although she hardly ever saw either her daughter or granddaughter We took her on to do few hours each week even though we knew she was drawing benefits, but that was her concern, not ours. Most men will say they do not understand women, but I bet most will understand the meaning of looks and glances from a member of the opposite sex. In my situation I was very careful, the bar area was small and even casual touches can be misunderstood. I always took great pains to ensure I passed our female staff giving them the widest possible berth. Julie never made that possible. She was a big girl and, unlike the other girls would not pull herself in to give me room to avoid touching. Then, on one occasion when there were few customers, her hand brushed my rear as I passed. …and then things took a turn
