A great piano bar
1959
“Jimmy's bar had got to be one of the nicest bars. Jimmy’s was a subterranean bar with leather sofas and nice pictures on the walls and a fabulous bar, of course. In those days, of course, we called it a piano bar because invariably it had a grand piano in it with a pianist who would come in for perhaps an hour every evening and play whatever tunes. My friend was one of the pianists, Tony, and he would play in maybe three or four venues in one evening and make quite a nice living doing it five nights a week, as well as having drinks bought for him. I was very fond of Tony but I’d then become one of a couple so I couldn’t act on it; I wouldn’t have done anyway in those days. Jimmy’s was well staffed with Tony playing the piano in the corner but it was a mixed clientele but there was no mistake when something young and pretty went down there, it was well and truly looked at and categorised. There were even in the late sixties, heterosexuals going to place which they knew gay people frequented and vice versa, of course.”
Contributed by: Robin McGarry, 66