A tincture or two with
Bill, the Sausage King
By PAT PRENTICE
If German pizza makers think they were the first to concoct cocaine cuisine (recent news item), they are much mistaken. That honour could go to our very own late Bill O'Hagan, once dog-watch reporter based at The Daily Telegraph and Press Club (not necessarily in that order) and pioneer of the Save Our Sausage campaign.
When I had put the last slip to bed, we occasionally went in search of an early tincture.
On one occasion, we left Lennie's Bar on HMS President in the company of the now also late Tim Woodward, actor son of the star Edward "Callan".
As dawn matured, we headed back to O'Hooligan's Greenwich sausage emporium in Bill's old taxi, which was never stopped by Mr Plod, even though the driver wore a deerstalker hat and distinctive cape. A couple of Absolute Final Blinders were on the menu.
As a gale howled outside, Tim and Bill decided to sniff some medicinal lines, which I was never partial to. Even so, the beer was there and the company was good.
The trays of meat were ready to be transformed into one of Bill's delicacies with the aid of the early sausage man - who suddenly and surprisingly burst through the door.
An incredible draught instantly obscured the room behind a white fog as the lines took to the air, and I held my breath and headed for the exit and my nearby home.
O'Hooligan was at that time busy between shifts making his name with superior savouries of his own invention, such as Beaujolais nouveau, venison and multiple ingenious bangers.
Now he could add cocaine boerwors to the list.
A few days later, Bill appeared behind his belly and snorted with his distinctive South African mirth. His latest finest frankfurters had been a triumph and orders for the next week had tripled.
He was on a surprise high.
As fate decreed, those days have gone, but the spirit of O'Hooligan lives on. His son Liam has followed in the old hot dog-watch's footsteps and holds the Guinness world record for producing the most sausages — 44 — in a minute from his Chichester kraal. He is, I suspect reliably, quoted as saying he enjoys his connoisseur's sausages and a good quaff of ale.
Surely a block off the old chip.
Boozy nights with O’Hagan
By PAT WELLAND
The late and much lamented sausage king Bill O’Hagan, whom Pat Prentice so engagingly recalled, is remembered as an old Telegraph hand. But it tends to be forgotten, and was not mentioned in his Times obit, that he first adorned Fleet Street on the Express.
Bill fetched up on the subs’ desk soon after I joined the paper in ’72, having previously worked on some publication servicing Gatwick Airport. Unhappily, after impressing all with his astounding capacity for drink, he left shortly afterwards having committed, if I recall correctly, some headline indiscretion.
Bill was a committed patron of the Pemberton Media Club, which many will remember as a late-night haunt in Pemberton Row close to Dr Johnson’s house. This was a rebrand of the inkies’ Newspaper Workers Club in an attempt to elevate it above the level of stygian hellhole (hacks entered the Workers at their peril – I was privileged to be present there when it was suggested to gay barman Geoff that, as it was his 60th birthday, he would appreciate 60 candles rammed up his fundament).
As Bill and I both lived in the Greenwich area, I occasionally had the pleasure of being driven home by him in his decommissioned London taxi. His previous vehicle was, I believe, an ancient ambulance sailing under similar false colours, in this case the old LCC. When I say 'home', I mean the sausage shop where Bill would produce a primus and fry up a selection of some of his more exotic bangers to be washed down with Swan lagers before, suitably fuelled, I tacked the remainder of my way home in the rising dawn.
Bill’s ability to hold his drink while remaining ever genial was phenomenal. But even the greatest among us have our frailties. I remember him downing a last potent tumbler of spirits in the Press Club circa 3am. It may not, however, have been his final drink.
The next morning, I joined a small queue of cars on Greenwich South Street while drivers waited patiently, and with much amusement, as Bill uncertainly negotiated the complexities of crossing the road via a zebra crossing. A lovely man.
3 November 2024
Bill O’Hagan died in 2013 at the age of 68.
