The Rose Bar: Keeping the Customers satisfied for more than 140 Years

By Sharon Jaffray
August 2005

The Rose Hotel has operated for more than 140 years in the same building, under the same name, longer than any other licensed premises in Stanley.

The building stands on Plot No. 1 Pensioners Cottage Allotments. This was land allocated by Government for the building of 30 cottages to house the military pensioners and their families who arrived in the Falklands in 1849. No. 1 was allocated to Private Thomas Gilmore and his wife Elizabeth.

Thomas Gilmore became owner of the property under Crown Grant on July 12th, 1856. The property changed ownership in February the following year (1857) when it was sold to Thomas Dowers and again four months later when it was purchased by Thomas Havers. (Whether Thomas was a particularly popular name of that era I don't know, but that the first three owners of the property were called Thomas is notable.)

The Falkland Islands Company Limited were the next owners from November 1858 until October 1864 when it became the property of Thomas Aldridge, the man who was to establish the Rose Hotel. For the price of £112 Thomas Aldridge became the 'Licensed Victualler' of the premises which were briefly known as the 'Star Hotel'. The name soon reverted to the 'Rose' which was the name of a public house Thomas Aldridge had owned on another site.

Mr Aldridge had opposition to his proposal to establish the Rose Hotel from 1st Lieutenant GH Elliot of the Royal Marines because of the possible consequences to the nearly garrison. Lt. Elliot wrote to Governor MacKenzie suggesting that a public house being bought nearer the barracks and placed on the side of the road, "by which the men invariably go into the town is likely to be most prejudicial to the state of the detachment," and asked that the Governor would take such steps, "as will avert this further temptation."

The Stipendiary Magistrate, Edward Griffiths, was not in agreement with the Lieutenant's fears for his troops well being and also wrote to the Governor outlining the background. He said that the house that Aldridge's first pub was in had been purchased by a man named Smith who had consequently given Aldridge, who was the licensed publican, notice to quit, "I presume to try and get a licence himself and benefit by everything Aldridge has done without paying anything for the goodwill."

The Magistrate said that he considered this unfair and had consequently promised Aldridge a transfer of his licence to a new house if he found one. He expressed doubts to the Governor as to whether a Magistrate, "ought to refuse a licence upon the grounds that there is a presumed probability that a marine or soldier cannot pass a public house without entering it and when there drinking to excess." He added that if the house was so near as Lieutenant Elliot described, "it will be so much under the eye of the officers that it would be the last place of resort for a soldier of bad character."

There is evidence in other letters that Edward Griffiths continued to back Thomas Aldridge's efforts to have his publican's licence transferred and it is thought that it was granted in 1865.

In 1901 a visitor to the Islands who lodged at the Rose Hotel described it as an "appalling little shanty of wood, badly in need of a coat of paint." Inside, however, he said was "not so bad" although he did not seem too impressed with his bedroom which he said was a "fair size, with a low ceiling sloping at many unaccountable angles."

"By keeping to the centre I am able to stand upright. It rocks a good deal in a high wind, and the paper on the walls billow like a sail from the wind outside. It contains two large feather beds, various chairs, most of which are strong enough to bear the weight of my clothes when I go to bed." His first meal consisted of "a snipe, a teal (a small wild duck), tea, bread, butter, jam and cake."

The building remained in the Aldridge family for 70 years until they sold it to Albert Hardy who had managed the hotel since 1921. In 1942 Mr Hardy sold it to Axel Pettersson for £1,600 and his family owned and ran the Rose Hotel for some 44 years.

Axel Pettersson had managed the Stanley Arms public house since 1934. Born in 1902 he was the first son of a Swedish seaman who was shipwrecked at Spring Point on West Falkland when the Swedish ship Samoa was lost. Axel died in a boating accident at the Murrell in 1949 leaving half the Rose to his wife Beatrice and the other to their children Velma and Tony. Beatrice and Velma set about running the bar, not having been allowed in there when Axel was alive.

Velma in her memoirs entitled As Ignorant As Sheep said that at this time women didn't tend to go into bars and if they did were considered "a very loose woman." She recalled one female who frequented the bars who had the mind boggling name of Sea Lion Mary.

Jasper Anderson who was then running the Stanley Arms helped the ladies find their footing and Cyril Betts helped out as barman. Cyril's wife Mally (now Spinks) started to go to the bar because Cyril was there and gradually other females followed. With the help of an Irish school teacher who was also a keen darts player and Mally, a ladies darts team was formed.

Beatrice later married Stan Johnson which resulted in Velma and Axel becoming 50/50 owners of the Rose. Axel had stated in his will that this should be the case if Beatrice remarried. Beatrice, Mrs Johnson or Mrs J as she was fondly known at the Rose, kept a tidy bar and was a force to be reckoned with. If her customers ever overindulged and behaved badly she never reprimanded them while they were anaesthetised - she would wait until they returned sober and then they received a blasting that there was no chance of forgetting.

A bold move for Velma who was barely 20 years old was to start importing her own beer, following the advice of her father's friends, John Bound and Ted Lellman - they helped her to get established with McEwans and Highland Queen. During the 1950s the Rose began importing all its alcohol and soft drinks apart from less used tripples. Velma married George Malcolm in 1956 and they had a daughter Ailsa two years later.

The Falkland Islands Dependencies Survey (FIDS) personnel, later to become BAS (British Antarctic Survey) had adopted the Rose as their pub and in the 1960s their expectations of the service provided increased. No pubs in Stanley offered food at this time, but the FIDS would ask for a snack. After some persuasion Velma managed to get a local lady to supply some sausage rolls when the FIDS were in as well as doing some baking herself. She wrote, "this well and truly got up the noses of the locals, never mind, they wouldn't buy food, they only had it if you gave it to them."

Darts, as they do now, began to play a big part in Stanley's social life during the 1960s. Velma's competitive spirit came to the surface after being subjected to countless stories from lodgers at the Rose about how great their dart team at the Ship Bar was (now the Upland Goose Hotel). She also wrote that the dart league was becoming "a pain in the neck trying to dictate to bar owners how the customers should not speak to them while a game was in progress and everybody had to be quiet."

She decided to put a dart team together to challenge the "super team" for the Kendall Cup with her first move being to get her brother Tony Pettersson away from The Ship team and "home where he belonged." The Kendall Cup was given to the bars by an FIDS wireless operator by the name of Jock Kendall to promote darts.

Players to become part of the Rose A and B teams were James Lang, Terence and Ian McPhee, Gary Hewitt, Brian Middleton, Burned Peck, James Lee, Tooty Morrison and many others over the years. Both teams became forces to be reckoned with and Rose A won the cup on several occasions. The Rose teams were treated well with an end of season competition and a slap-up feed for their efforts. The Rose also started the Challenge Shield which is still played for by the teams in the lower half of the League.

Music played an important part in the social life at the Rose. Side and Fred Lee would be press-ganged into playing whenever they were in Stanley while Owen McPhee, Jim Peck and Ronnie Clarke were just some of the popular performers.

After the Argentine invasion in 1982 when British troops were still billeted in homes and buildings in the town and at Stanley Airport the Rose became a hive of activity. Velma mentions some serious debate with the military regarding behaviour and her insistence at maintaining standards - of invaluable assistance in this area was the fact that some of the Military Police lived at the Rose with Velma and George. The Rose side room was reserved for locals as the main bar was a "seething mass" from opening at 5.30pm until closing at 10pm.

Mrs Johnson passed away in August 1982. In 1986 Velma decided her landlady days were over. "Drunken customers would be abusive….. I felt that although we tried to run a pub with certain standards we weren't appreciated." She told customers they were closing in December, and on the 22nd as she let the customers out at 10pm she said "Thank you very much, that's the end." It was her first Christmas since 1943 that was not governed by pub opening times.

John and Ellen Berntsen (now Davis) purchased the Rose and reopened in April. Ellen said they didn't make any major changes but did introduce the first juke box in Stanley pubs. In 1989 Ellen sold the bar on to Jimmy and Ginny Wallace who undertook some major changes to the bar area.

The Rose took on the appearance of an English country pub with its dark red paintwork, beamed ceiling, large bay window and plants and ornaments around the room. A carpet was laid, something that was unheard of in Stanley's pubs, and there was comfortable seating and tables all around. Interestingly the carpet that the Wallaces put in the Rose is still there today and looking good 15 years on - proof indeed that there is no substitute for quality.

Joan and Trevor Browning bought the Rose in 1998. Joan had been working in the bar for the Wallaces since 1991. Again there were no major changes to the bar but they did introduce a food service which consisted of substantial Falkland style lunches and takeaways.

In 2003 Robert (Rag) Macaskill bought the Rose as an anniversary gift for his wife Tracy. After a short closure for redecoration the Rose reopened on Rag and Tracy's wedding anniversary, October 5th, and retains to this day the local atmosphere it has always been renowned for. Darts and music are still at the heart of the in-house entertainment with the size of the bar being just right for a social gathering on a winter's evening or Sunday afternoon.

The Rose B dart team is at present sitting in second place in the Darts League and apart from Rag all the players (Gary Hewitt, Lewis and Tooty Morrison, Boy Miranda and Basil Faria) are loyal Rose B players from Velma's days at the Rose. The folk club gather for an evening's entertainment on occasion and there is always a guitar tuned and waiting behind the bar for an impromptu Falklands style sing-song when the customers are in the mood.

In the midst of it all is Mally Spinks, the lady who helped pioneer the acceptance of women in public bars some 62 years ago. Mally still pops in on a daily basis, weather permitting, and is an essential part of the Rose Bar with her wealth of Falklands history and information which has decided many a discussion.

With thanks to the Heathman family for the use of Velma's book and pictures, and to the Government Archivist Jane Cameron and the Macaskills for the early history

Sharon Jaffray is Deputy Editor of the Penguin News, and for many years was a farmer on West Falkland

This article was first published in the Penguin News on 26 August 2005 and is reproduced by kind permission of the Editor.

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