Midge Ure – Pubs in Gosport

So Gosport back in the early … I tried to explain to my two younger ones, there were decent, what I perceived as being decent Pubs back then. You had the George and Dragon, you had Arks on the Front, you had nightclubs, Emma’s which is still there to an extent. It just seemed more vibrant and there was certainly more people about.

The High Street, although it wasn’t the best High Street in the world, but it had the big Supermarkets, it had Littlewoods, it had Woolworth’s, it had Top Man. There was an element of … it was busy.

There was a Saturday Market when I was young, so when I was doing my Apprenticeship down here, I was a footballer and thankfully I got selected to play for the Navy Youth Team, so I used to spend a lot of time down here on my Apprenticeship staying here at weekends, to join up with the football team, and we would go out on a Friday night and a Saturday night as a football team, but you would naturally and it was a really good vibe because you’d come down into Gosport and … what to me at the time felt really classy Pubs. You know, what are you looking for? You’re looking for a beer and you’re looking for women to be there and other blokes and you want that environment.

Gosport had some of that. You then went over into the Guildhall, remember Gun Wharf wasn’t there. You went over into Guildhall and that was a level above again. That was like, ‘God, this is really classy over here.’

I don’t know whether that was my youth. Ultimately you always ended up at Joanna’s anyway, right along the far end of Southsea. Joanna’s is a world-famous nightclub.