The White Horse

The White Horse in Stevenage Old Town at the top of Albert Street was very much a builder's pub in the early 1990's recession. Pretty much every construction site and building project had been shut down and men were desperate for work. They used the White Horse as a job centre. If you hung around, there was often a chance of a plasterer needing an electrician or a kitchen fitter needing a plumber for a few days.
The landlord was John Brown who, with his lovely wife, Margaret, ran a tight ship. John would spend most of his time on the pub side of the bar, chatting to regulars and even lending them money.  He knew that they would spend it in his pub and people didn't default on John. He had a lot of friends.
As a taxi driver, we never minded going into the White Horse to get people out, even though it was often very busy. They had a separate serving hatch for off licence sales and it was easy to call Margaret to let her know that Frank, Jim or Peter's taxi was waiting outside.
I believe that the building is now the Bangladeshi Social Club, although there are no signs to prove or disprove that.
My funniest memory of the pub was when a gang of roofers used their ladders to climb up to the pub sign and change it from The White Horse to "The Fat Pig" complete with a picture of a pig. John saw the funny side and left the sign as it was for a couple of weeks until he got the gang to take it down.