This happened during “The Coventry Visit” in our Lower VIth, November of 1988 I think.  We had been given an hour or so of free time and a group of us, wandering around the Brutalist pedestrian shopping precinct in the centre of town, rushed into a pub for a sneaky pint and to smoke lots of fags. I was into Newky Brown Ale and filterless Gitanes at the time and pretty soon we were all slurping our choice of drinks, puffing away at our fags and making a bit of a racket – between our yelping and shouting at one and other –  whilst the adult locals glared at us.

Nick E must have thought he was being clever when he brought one of his dad’s old pipes with him on the trip. I remember observing him on that occasion, him shouting obscenities at others comments whilst stuffing the pipe with very sweet scented tobacco that he would then light and draw on hard until the embers were ashes – producing thick clouds of smoke – to then repeat the process all over again. I’ve no idea if this was the publican or just another patron but at some point a very tall and corpulent man with a thick mustache came crashing over to where we were, stopped right in front of where Nick was sitting on a stool and pointed down at him with his huge index finger; “You!!! Yes you!!!” He had a broad Scottish accent.

“You!!! I don’t care if you are smoking rose petals or shit but whatever the fuck it is you’d better put the fucker out NOW…..or I’ll throw you out on your ear!”

Nick threw the pipe on the floor and stamped on it hard, to the sound of an audible crunch, before the lot of us got up pretty sharpish and stampeded for the exit.