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A cabinet-maker, a cabbie, a carpenter and a firefighter-that's
life-or at least it was for Tom Harley until he moved to Stoke Newington. Today, 13 years
after he and Glenis took over the Rose & Crown on the corner of Albion Road and Church
Street, it's more gin and Jag than beans and chips. With a house in Marbella and an
expanding group of pubs and a wine bar, their hard work has paid dividends.
 Tom left school at the age of 15 in Tilbury, Essex with a basic education and
no clear idea of what he wanted from life except to enjoy himself. At first he became an
apprentice cabinet-maker but drifted into a series of jobs none of them well paid. One of
his tasks during a stint at a mental hospital in St Pancras was to carry the bodies of
dead patients from their beds to the van waiting to take them to the local morgue. He says
there is no similarity between shifting corpses and persuading customers to leave the pub
at closing time.
In 1967, as a 17-year-old mod in a sharp blue mohair suit, Tom met Glenis, from Aberdeen
but living in Golders Green, who was on a night out with her friends in the West End.
Turning on the Essex charm, he persuaded her later to allow him to move into her flat.
Eventually they decided to decamp to the far north and lodged with Glenis's parents. Tom
says that at first there was something of a clash of cultures between the
Catholic-educated Tilbury man and the Scots Protestant family. That was soon overcome and
they married shortly afterwards. Although he liked Aberdeen, Tom missed the London area
and they returned to live in Chadwell St Mary, near Grays in Essex.
Times were tough. They had two children, Tom had two jobs as a firefighter and mini-cab
driver at night and Glenis had to work as a medical secretary. They decided to make a
complete break. Although they knew absolutely nothing about pub management they took out a
second mortgage on their house and scraped together £18,000 for the lease on the Rose
& Crown. It had been run by an elderly couple who seemed to take pride in barring more
people than there were regular customers. Within a couple of months Tom and Glenis had
doubled the turnover and made it a hospitable place in which to drink.
Glenis was in charge of the food and, risking a shock to the English plate, she decided
that part of the menu would include 'Stovies', an Aberdeen recipe for 'the leftovers of
the Sunday roast served with oatmeal biscuits'. The lunchtime menu was very popular and
way above the usual pub grub level.
They decided to buy the lease of the Royal Mail in Upper Street, Islington, another empty
and run-down pub and then took over the Lord John Russell in Bloomsbury.
Spotting a gap in the market has always been one of Tom and Glenis's strengths; for
instance the Lord John Russell was one of the first pubs in London to install Czech Budvar
beer on draught. Both of these ventures are now thriving. About 18 months ago they took
over Wards of Holborn and it is being transformed into a wine bar called Harleys
(naturally) to cater principally for the legal types who work in nearby Lincoln's Inn and
Chancery Lane. They have a policy that their establishments should be run by friends or
family. The Rose & Crown is now managed by Mabel (one of their original bar staff) and
Mick. The Lord John Russell is with Lisa, their daughter, and her husband Dave. Micky,
previously a regular customer, and Zoe are at the Royal Mail. Martin, their son, a former
amateur boxing champion and captain of the England boys squad, runs the Wrestlers in
Highgate (another part of the Harley empire) with his partner Diane.
Tom can now afford to relax a little and can often be seen with his friends and a pint of
Guinness at the bar of the Rose & Crown. He enjoys a chat and a good laugh but watch
out. He once barred a customer for being 'too boring.'
Consider these useless pieces of information the next time you're
bumping and jolting along Albion Road.
The 73 bus route was established at the end of the First World War and ran from Stoke
Newington to Richmond, the full  journey costing one shilling
(5p for younger readers).
In the 1950s the route was extended to Hounslow. In 1968 the first 73 Routemaster appeared
on the streets, replacing the older RT type buses (which were briefly re-introduced in the
early1970s when they ran out of Routemaster spare parts).
The 73 Routemaster fleet has travelled mileage equivalent to the moon and back (really
someone actually worked this out...). · Route 73 was voted best crew route in London in
the Caring Bus Awards in 1995 and 1996. Clearly the jury don't travel on Friday nights.
The 73 fleet offers free advertising to charities, including Oxfam and the British Lung
Foundation. In the year ended 1997, the 73 bus carried nearly 12.5 million passengers.
That's enough for this issue. We welcome readers' 73 stories and experiences for inclusion
in future issues, and hope to establish a regular column on this Stokey stalwart.
Fares please!
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