Midge Ure – Wine and Dine at Emma’s

So, in Gosport, there was Ark’s, right by the Ferry. When you come walking off the Ferry, you’re looking towards the High Street. On the right-hand side there’s a Coffee Lounge underneath now I think, Coffee #1 or something, that was a big Bar, and above it, two floors worth was, it might have been the middle floor, but ultimately there was something up the top, a Bar up the top as well.

There was a full nightclub, Ark’s, and it was another … when I first met Lesley 20 years ago it was there and would go up there and it was another full on nightclub. There was one half-way up the High Street which I think existed until recently. There’s just no foot fall for any of them.

So, Emma’s was one that you got in with your ID card, and on certain nights of the week it was free. You would go in there and when I first joined it, when I first came down here, I was told about it and it was this mythical place everybody went to, and I was quite young and I didn’t really go out ‘cos when I stayed here I had a lot of football initially until I was like 18, 19, maybe 20, and then I would start to go out and hit the Pubs and stuff like that.

But my first time of going to Emma’s, it was at a time when they did something called, ‘Wine and Dine’. It was a Wine Dine ticket. They give you a ticket, so it was in two halves, one was wine and one was dine, and one I think gave you an entitlement in, I don’t think you got free beer but the dine ticket, you kept it.

I can’t remember how much, say it was £3 to get in or maybe £5, I can’t remember, but you were entitled to food, so you went in, you got a drink and then there would be a little cubby hole would open up and then it wasn’t very romantic or very special, it was basically a polystyrene tray with sausage and chips, chicken and chips, chicken and chips, burger and chips or whatever.

Of course, in a nightclub, everybody’s dancing and they’re generally drunk. First thing you did, you’d take a couple of chips and you’d probably just do that, so that’s how the carpets ended up full of potato, full of … oh it was disgusting. So, they had their own … but people always went there because that was known as somewhere Matelots would go.

There was certain Pubs Matelots wouldn’t go. There were certain Pubs in the area you just wouldn’t have went to. Ark’s was one of those that was neither fully civilian or … you always took a chance going in Ark’s that you would meet civilians. Emma’s was pretty safe.