Ahead of Their Time

For early risers, it was the perfect New Year’s Eve. There was noise and silly hats and horns and streamers and singing and sentimentality and plenty of good beer and infectious shoulder-to-shoulder conviviality.

And at the appointed moment the poppers exploded all over the room and glasses were hoisted and “Auld Lang Syne” was sung.

At 4 p.m.

That’s 4 p.m. if you were talking Pacific Standard Time. But it also was midnight London time, and that’s the only chronological measurement that mattered Tuesday at the Olde Ship pub in Fullerton.

For the last four years, the patrons of the Olde Ship--many of whom are expatriate Britons--have celebrated the new year at the same moment as their friends and family 8,000 miles to the east.

“It’s almost as busy as St. Patrick’s Day,” said Doug Collier, a native of Epsom, Surrey, who owns the Olde Ship. “Lots of expatriates and Anglophiles who have lived in Britain or traveled there show up.”

The place fills up early, particularly with veteran revelers who know that staking out a good spot in the low-ceilinged, black-timbered bar is essential. Julie Vandergrift, who lives just a few blocks from the pub, joined forces with a dozen friends and arrived early with a camper, which she parked in the lot behind the Olde Ship.

“We did the same thing last year,” she said. “We got some lawn chairs and put them out in the parking lot. We really like this place and the English tradition. It’s nice to start off in the afternoon and not go full-bore into a party just yet.”

*

Meanwhile, David Brace, a native of Bristol and the pub’s piano player, was keeping the music going from his corner nook under the dartboard. Soon George Britten would arrive to lead the increasingly sardine-like crowd in singing traditional English pub songs. Britten, an aerospace engineer who lives in Costa Mesa, is a true Cockney, born within the sound of the Bow bells, and got the revelers up to British New Year’s speed with home favorites like “Maybe It’s Because I’m a Londoner” and “Knees Up, Mother Brown.”

“It’s the nearest thing you’ll ever get to a British pub in this country,” said Noel Grennan, a native of Dublin who lives in Irvine.

Virginia Herron of Fullerton, who also has seen pub life in England, agreed. “The only thing missing here,” she said, “is the cigarette smoke.”

By 3 p.m. the crowd was clapping along with Britten, who was singing an old music hall paeon in praise of overweight women. Collier was beginning to pass out hats, balloons and noisemakers. The street lights would not come on for another two hours.

*

Ken Potts of Fullerton, a native of South Shields, contentedly sipped a pint of Newcastle brown ale, brewed just down the road, he said, from his hometown in England.

“This is special,” he said. “It’s just a touch of home. It’s almost become a tradition here by now. And you get the bonus of a double New Year’s celebration. It’s a kind of bonding. Everybody misses being home, so it brings all the British people together.”

By 3:30, a light rain had begun to coat the street outside, lending an even more British cast to the afternoon. And outside the front door, Malcolm Gray of Orange, an elementary school teacher on most other days, strolled up and down dressed in kilt and tam-o’-shanter, preparing to play the new year in on his bagpipes.

With three minutes to go, Collier began flinging party poppers out into the crowd from behind the bar, bartenders Danny Ellis and Jennifer Hardie continued to tap drinks as fast as the liquid would flow, the crowd bellowed out “The Hokey Pokey” along with Brace and, with one minute left, all fell silent as Collier fulfilled yet another tradition by playing a BBC tape of Big Ben striking midnight.

Then suddenly the bar and the floor and nearly every head in the room was covered with streamers and the acrid smell of powder from the party poppers filled the room and Gray made his way haltingly through the crush playing “Auld Lang Syne” the way it was probably played the very first time. The crowd accompanied him on their party horns, which, strangely, did not sound at all unlike Gray’s pipes.

The crowd dissipated slowly, reluctant to leave. But, they knew, in eight hours they had it to do all over again.