If you work in politics, chances are you have drunk in the Westminster Arms. Located just off Parliament Square, every night it hosts the collection of hacks, wonks and mandarins that comprise the SW1 bubble. For 30 years, Gerry Dolan has run the pub with his mix of Irish humour and no-nonsense determination. When we meet, three days before his retirement, his roving eyes still flick up every time to scan each new patron that enters his beloved bar. ‘I have loved the Westminster Arms. It’s been a great mistress’ he says. ‘My wife ran the wine bar downstairs, and she probably worked harder than I did. I was like a Redcoat, really.’ Dolan is one of a dying breed of lifelong landlords in the capital, tied to one establishment. He still lives above the bar, where he is woken by the clip-clop of horses’ hooves rehearsing at 3 a.m. for the Trooping of the Colour. ‘I’m probably a bit of a dinosaur in a way that I’m associated with the Westminster Arms. Everyone knows Gerry. Some good, some bad.’ He grins: ‘But people who you’ve thrown out will definitely find fault with you.’
Dolan prides himself on hosting the full political spectrum from the Lib Dems during Charles Kennedy’s pomp to Nigel Farage’s Ukip
His story began as a young barman in Dublin some five decades ago. ‘You turned up, your fingernails and your shoes were checked. It wasn’t a nice pub, it was tough. And yet you still had to keep those standards.’ It’s a training that served him well when he moved to London in the 1980s. The first pub he ran was the Silver Cross adjoining Trafalgar Square. Located just half a mile away from the Westminster Arms, it nevertheless represented a world apart in its clientele. Saturdays were dominated by football fans arriving or departing London via coaches that parked at the Embankment. ‘They all come down Parliament Square. The first pub they saw was me: the Silver Cross. I used to have to stand in the door and really decide who got in and who didn’t.’ On the day of the infamous Poll Tax riots, Dolan’s was the only pub open in Whitehall that day: ‘I got behind the lines at one stage because the police and the protestors were back and forth, up and down. Pretty scary.’
Two years later, he moved to his current berth in ‘the village’ where rambunctious MPs are more of a risk than marauding hooligans. He fondly recalls encounters with familiar faces of Westminster. Ted Heath walked in one quiet Monday: ‘The Lagavulin, the Glenmorangie, all the good old top-shelf whiskies – he’d have a few of those and he’d sit down, having a big chuckle to himself as if he had a big secret that nobody else knew.’ Another was Ken Clarke. During the ‘Celtic Tiger’ boom, he once popped in and asked why the bubbles in a pint of Guinness sink, unlike those in lager which rise. ‘Gerry, you’re an Irishman, can you tell me why?’ ‘I said, “Yes, very easy, Ken. The bubbles always go in the national drink, the opposite way of the economy.”’ Dolan prides himself on hosting the full political spectrum from the Lib Dems during Charles Kennedy’s pomp to Nigel Farage’s Ukip. ‘I suppose you could compare it to the fellas playing rugby. They all play hard in the match, but afterwards it’s a good old pint in the pub, isn’t it?
It’s not just politicians. Sting, Bob Geldof and Angelina Jolie are among previous patrons, while other encounters have been with the clergy. ‘I probably am the only person alive who swore at Desmond Tutu. You know when you’re conscious someone is standing behind you sometimes? I turned around and I went without thinking. I went, “Fuck me, You look like Desmond Tutu”. And he went, “I am, I am”. He thought it was hilarious. He was a lovely man, he had steak and kidney pie.’ But for Dolan, his most treasured customers were the diminishing number of world war veterans who would march past the Cenotaph every Remembrance Sunday. ‘They were great characters, the old boys had great stories. The Sussex used to be up here and have their party, they’d sing “Sussex by the sea” here and they’d be thanking me so much. We looked after them, they were so appreciative: “See you next year” It was a big emotion to have them all meeting each other and probably missing comrades, fallen comrades.’
The Irish landlord’s longevity gives him perspective on the challenges facing London’s pubs – often exacerbated by the politicians who work across the green. ‘Now to be a publican, we have to be almost doctors now’ he says, such is the increased focus on allergens and health conditions. ‘A lot of it is not standing behind a bar. It’s in the office, ticking the boxes and doing this legislation.’ The cost of keeping a pub fridge has spiralled since the recent energy crisis: ‘Some places can be up to £300 at night when you’re asleep. So, when you start open in the morning you’re down 300 right away.’ Hiring staff, he says, has been made more difficult since Brexit when ‘the Europeans fucked off and never came back.’ Commuting into work has been made more difficult – ‘don’t get me started on Ulez’ – he warns, while Liz Truss, ‘she did more damage than Hitler did in four years.’ The working from home culture in Whitehall means ‘it’s still pretty dead’ unlike ‘the old days’ when ‘all the civil servants were here at 12 o’clock on a Friday’ and ‘they went at it hard all day. It was pandemonium. They were brilliant days – I had great fun then.’
So, after all that, what comes next? At 68, Dolan wants to spend more time playing golf and with his grandchildren. What of rumours about a book? ‘Watch this space’. One thing is for certain, the Westminster Arms is not going anywhere. With the pub dating back to the Victorian times, it now turns to its next landlord to add a new chapter in its history. ‘Any decent pub has got its own ghost or two,’ Dolan reflects ‘I’ve had people say they’ve seen a lady walk into the wall downstairs. In fairness, most of them had a drink taken at the time. I think it’s easier to see ghosts when you’re 75 per cent to the wind.’ Perhaps when future generations drink here, after a good few pints, it is the ghost of Gerry Dolan that they will see smiling behind the bar.
Comments