Billy - looks like your old pub went the way of our old pub - Progress wins, folks lose. Remove the poor locals & singers, add fancy furniture & gambling & modern music & rich trendy people = money.

25 years ago I used to drink in an inner city pub, in Darlinghurst near where I worked. It is now a super trendy pub with a Comedy night & fancy restaurant catering to the rich folks who now live in the new towers that now sprout where factories & offices once held sway.

Then it was a decorative disaster - most of the outside was original late Victorian, but big glass windows had replaced the outside walls some years before (looked good). The walls of the back bar were covered with 1960's yellow floral wallpaper (pretty!! colourful!!)& the front bar (original 1890's) had a plastic Tudor(!!) area (dunno what else to call it). The pool room was not much bigger than the pool table & I once beat a visiting expert who didn't know how to lean on the wall & hold the cue so as not to hit it on the wall. He was probably drunk cos I couldn't really play pool.

Ah, the good old days, when we were young & foolish & (whisper in an ashamed voice) we drank with the coppers who worked nearby - load of drunks they were. But the NSW police force has been cleaned up since.

sandra