The club within the hospital? No. There was an incident with a couple of mates and the service level porters in there that had them out for our blood for a while. A friend who drank in Aldwinkles (The White Horse - venue of Suede’s first ever gig) and who played football every Sunday with us knew them and eventually got them to back down. It was a bit scary at times. I used Aldwinkles as my living room, pretty much, and was in there most nights, although we used to drink in the Coach and Horses on Hampstead High Street a fair bit, particularly for the Sunday lock ins, where Gerry (the landlord) would wait till we were all pissed and then suggest a game of killer on the pool table at a fiver per man. He swept up every week. I’d head down to Camden a lot too. The Dublin Castle was my favourite pub. Still is, as it never changes. It was the Free’s proximity to Camden that drew me there. Being a male A&E nurse, qualified in paediatrics I could get a job anywhere, so when Dave and Maz from the London Branch convinced me to move from Brighton to London I basically looked at a map of London, armed with a book that had details of all the hospitals, and looked for a hospital with a busy A&E and that had paediatric wards, in a nice area and close to somewhere cool to go out. It was 95, so Camden was still the place to be and that made my choice easy. Getting to live in Hampstead was a bonus, particularly as I was in hospital accommodation and paying very little. The first 7 or 8 months, up to Southgate missing the penalty, was the best time ever. The fact that it was the only 7 or 8 months of my adult life (until a couple of years ago) that I was (sort of) single is purely a coincidence.
Ha! Yes, when you turned round to give the Kiwi a piece of your mind for mocking little old Barnsley and your eyes came up to his chest. They were big buggers. Weren’t we stood at the bar ordering bangers and mash, but without the bangers, cos you’d had your tongue pierced and it was the size of your shoe? Remember that little gobby **** who’d been telling us all the way up how many goals they were going to get, and when we went and found them on the return journey he pretended to be asleep all the way
The lad who reckoned Rob Jones was gonna score against us? Yes he seemed to have lost his voice on the way back.
I used to love working around that way - The Rec Club was quite a place and the walls could tell stories - the nurses once played a netball match there against a team of playboy bunnies, which says a lot ............. Didn't venture in to Camden as much but Belsize and HH was great for people spotting and watching
More recent than you mate - I was there from 2012 to 2020 and I worked for the charity that used to fund research and ran various services - nurse accommodation being one of them...Happy Days
I lived on the top floor of Ann Bryan’s House. But I, er, spent the odd night in South House and the one opposite Jack Straw’s Castle.