First published in The Study of Light, on Substack, on March 10, 2026
I’ve told my twenty-something year-old son Leo a few stories about my brief tenure as barkeep at the Crown and Castle on Highland Road in Hackney. He asked me if I would go back, were I in London again. “Well, why not?” I asked. A few good stories, a few good pints, let the memories and the laughter flow again.
So I looked up the pub, to see if I could find it on the map, and whether it was still open in the same form. I’m grateful for the information that closedpubs.co.uk gave me, but disappointed to see that the pub is now a Chinese noodle bar. Nothing against noodle bars, mind you, but it’s not what comes to mind when I think of my youth in Hackney. England conjures different flavors and textures, most of them English, even if it is a world crossroads.
In 1994 I arrived in London after travels in South Asia. Out of money, and recovering from dysentery, the first great challenge was to find housing. I spent a week with an old friend, before I met Hugh and Yolanda, proprietors of a vegan restaurant on the East Side called Pumpkins. They were proud of their little anarchist diner, where it was joked “there are no orders.” Hugh and Yolanda had an offer for me that I couldn’t refuse. They had a flat nearby, under reconstruction, and I could “squat” there for free. My presence would serve to deter more traditional squatters, who might move in and never leave. To sweeten the deal for them, I promised to move out whenever they asked me to.
Pumpkins had only eight or so hours of work every week for me. It wasn’t enough to buy groceries, much less save for an airplane ticket. After a long, desperate search for an under-the-table employer willing to take a chance on an emaciated American, I found the glorious Crown and Castle, in Hackney, London.
In 1994 the Crown and Castle was notable for two reasons. First, while it was an Irish pub by day, it was a Jamaican nightclub by night. Between afternoon and early evening, it would go from sleepy neighbors quaffing stout, to shouting, chain-smoking denizens of Britain’s infinite horizons filling its space. By nine p.m. the band had set up, the opacity of the smoke screen had filled in, and the real party began.
The second notable quality of the Crown and Castle was that it had an official, permitted close time of 1 a.m. Effectively, this meant 3 a.m. And while other pubs closed at 11 on the weekends, the C&C stayed open. This meant that everyone in the neighborhood not ready to quit drinking, smoking, and fighting came to us. And suddenly the place was more crowded, thicker with smoke, louder yet with the sounds of a reggae band as space became more limited.
Most varieties of British accent I could understand reasonably well. This was nowhere near true in a crowded pub, with live music. Pointing and gesturing became a more dependable way to order from the American. At one point, the governor of the place told me to get some “Tyler pepper.” He repeated this a dozen times or so, yelling at my face, with both of us getting quite frustrated. I had no idea what he was talking about, until a Brit with a softer accent translated for us. One of the bathrooms needed toilet paper.
In bars in America, a bartender earns a low wage, like $7/hour, and makes the bulk of his pay off tips. In the UK, tipping the bartender is rare. As an illegal worker, I was paid just 20 quid cash for each shift I worked. My shifts began at 4 pm, and usually went until 3 a.m. On top of that low pay, no tips. But one night, a regular, who appeared to be friends with the governor (pub owner), surreptitiously gave me a 20 pound tip BEFORE the night began. It wasn’t clear to me why, but I was pretty sure he was not coming on to me, and that perhaps he was trying to buy his drinks in advance. That is, bribe me to not charge him for the numerous drinks he would be consuming that night. Sure enough, when he ordered his second mixed drink twenty minutes later, he offered no payment. When I asked him for it, he beckoned for me to lean toward him, and he said into my ear that he’d already paid for as many drinks as he cared to order that night. “Bullshit!” I yelled in his face, and I pulled the drink back. “Pay for it or get the fuck out.” He paid reluctantly, then made a threatening motion to me that he would be cutting my throat later in the evening.
About the time I was there.
As I pulled pints, and mixed and served drinks, this was the future that I dwelled upon. At the end of my shift, I would be killed, or just beaten up, by one or more of the patrons. I had done a decent job of posturing, showing him that I was ready to fight, to kill him right back. I shouted him down and shook my fist in his face. The governor, and other patrons, if they bothered to look, had a little show to watch. The American and the regular, facing off.
At the end of the night I was hyper-aware. Ready to run, or ready to fight. I was alone in London, without a friend nearby, and not sure what I was facing. I mentioned to the governor that someone would be waiting for me, and he told me not to worry. I left the pub at 3:30 without confrontation. Every following shift I worked I sold the man drinks in the usual way, and no threats or hard feelings were expressed again. In hindsight, I believe the whole thing was a test. Had I taken the bribe, I would have had a different type of confrontation, and likely my face would have met the fist of the 26 stone (360 lbs) bar owner. I made the right call.
Ten hours of smoke and beer had a way of keeping a man awake, long after his shift. I soon developed a habit of finishing the night with a large can of Foster’s lager. I’d carry it as I walked home, and I stopped for late-night chocolate muffins at the Ridley Road bagel bakery. This diet, complemented by egg and cress sandwiches from the Tesco market, and many, many cans of baked beans, put most of my weight back on.
Another feature of the Crown and Castle that I never took for granted was the civilized fist fighting that took place every night. I’m not much for it myself, and in my condition would not have fared well. What I was thankful for was that Brits could settle their differences in this somewhat simple manner. There were many times I’d watch drunks punching each other out, and reflect “If this were happening in the US, bouncers, gangs, cops, and guns would enter the mix.” The tension in an American bar is a different beast. We know there’s a different endgame, so we hold back, most of the time, and the rage builds up without a way to express it. Put it this way: We don’t trust one another to fight with our fists.
Not surprisingly, my employment at the Crown and Castle, and at Pumpkins, ended shortly after I’d saved enough money for a plane ticket to Los Angeles. I’d been carrying hundreds of pounds cash in my money belt, everywhere and all the time. I finally put that money into a ticket, and stopped worrying about losing it to the tough neighborhood of London I was living in. Before I left, I took a weekend holiday to Scotland, and said goodbye to the friends I’d met. Unlike at other jobs, I gave the C&C short notice of my departure. I finished my Saturday night, and informed them I would not be in the next Thursday. I was headed back to America, to complete the circle and my journey.
Postscript 1: I wrote this eight years ago. Last night, I read that the Chinese noodle bar is out, and the Crown and Castle is restored. It is very bougie now, farm to table and microbrews. No more week-old pot roast, but at least it’s a pub, just as it was in the 1880s.
Postscript 2: Did you read this? Tell me, just tell me. I will buy you a pint of ale.
Back in the 1880s.