Nostalgia: Worthing's changing nightlife

Remember the Spaniard, Buckingham, Ship and White Hart? Or how about Bubbles, the Carioca and Sterns? All are history now but they hold fond memories for the thirtysomethings of Worthing who graced these establishments in their youth when lager was under £1 a pint.

The Spaniard was in Portland Road, where Boots now stands. Legend has it the pub was named after a crew from the Spanish Armada which was held captive in the hostelry after their ship was wrecked.

Youngsters wandering into the Body Shop, Montague Street, will have no idea the building was once a pub called the Buckingham. Virtually opposite was the White Hart, famous for its pickled eggs.

Teenagers out for a night on the town would generally start at the Rose and Crown, Montague Street, which was the local fleshpot in the early Eighties and consequently bore the nickname the Rose and Pose.

In the days when pubs shut at 3pm, it was the first in Worthing - and possibly the South - to have screens showing pop videos. The next port of call was invariably Becket's Wine Lodge, the recently-demolished Spanish-style building at the junction of West Buildings and Marine Parade.

It was followed by the Beachcomber, later renamed the Town's Pride (after a book about Worthing s old lifeboats), and now called TPs.

Sometimes we would pop into the Ship, South Street, situated in a building with a facade made to look like the stern of a galleon.

A rotund bloke with a beard ran it but it was always ominously empty and there was little surprise when it closed and became a building society.

We generally made a beeline for the Thieves Kitchen, Warwick Street, which boasted a mixed clientele of bikers, heavy metal disciples and the trendy set.

The interior bore no resemblance to the pub of today, which is called the Vintner's Parrot for some unfathomable reason.

It was a long and narrow pub, with a live band regularly playing at the eastern end. During the daytime, the Thieves boasted a fine restaurant, serving cheap, tasty and plentiful food, which drew lots of customers.

But the atmosphere of the pub was lost when the landlord bought a clothes shop in the same block, knocked the pub through and closed the upstairs.

Today, customers can once again sit upstairs but many people still long for the name Thieves Kitchen to be restored. It allegedly relates to the time when Worthing was full of smugglers but Thieves Kitchen is in fact a 20th Century title.

We would occasionally call at the Warwick, a spit and sawdust establishment in the Maggie Thatcher era when white stiletto shoes and big hair were all the rage (and that was just the fellas!).

Options were limited after the pubs closed.

On Thursday nights, we would pile into the Carioca, Eriswell Road, a bit of a grim hole but full of Scandanavian students who delighted in stripping off on stage.

There was also Bubbles (later Liberty's) in Chatsworth Road, a disco in every sense of the word. Occasionally, we would jump in a taxi to Sterns, a former country home on the outskirts of town where the hardcases from Worthing and Littlehampton regularly clashed.

Today, it is a pleasant carvery called Highdown Towers, complete with kids' adventure playground in the basement.

Thursday night was also George night, when a few beers in the pub at the top of George V Avenue was always high on the agenda. Does anybody remember the carved turtle shell that hung on the wall?

Other out-of-town hostelries worth a visit included the Sussex Yeoman, in Palatine Road, once a disco pub, and the Broadwater, formerly The Maltsters.

In the mid-Eighties, a raft of bars opened, including Jonesy's, situated in a former car showroom in Chatsworth Road.

It later became the Tsar Bar, with a weird Communist Russian theme and then the Green Mango. Chris Chapman took over the Central in Railway Approach and turned it from a dive into another popular establishment, not surprisingly called Chapmans.

He also built an extension called Benson's (later Illusions II and now XS), which outclassed every other club in town.

But Chapman's most ambitious project was Cloisters, a redundant church in High Street, which the high priest of Worthing pubs turned into a hugely successful bar, complete with nun mannequins in suspenders.

They raised a few eyebrows at the time.

This was in the days when the Rivoli was called the Lennox Hotel, 3TO was the Norfolk Hotel, the Jack Horner was the Anchor and The Assembly (previously the Fathom and Firkin) was the Fountain.

But not all pubs have changed identities. The Hare and Hounds in Portland Road still bears the same name, as do the Vine and the George and Dragon in Tarring High Street.

The Wheatsheaf also survives, having been transformed from an uninspiring back street local into one of the trendiest bars in town.

But the surviving "locals" are under pressure from a new breed of superpubs which have turned Chapel Road into skid row. The Toad is the new Rose and Crown and Wetherspoons and Yates are very popular.