I do three to four nights, 16 hours a week, to supplement my pension. At the start, I wasn't recruited, I didn't even volunteer, my mum, Annie, just said: "You're free tonight, please come and help." She was behind the bar at the Grand for a long time - maybe 20 years - so we have half a century between us.

I remember feeling very nervous that first night because I was an office wallah and had never worked in a bar before. The prices of the drinks had to be added up in your head, not like today. It's more demanding than a pub - people have 30 minutes before the start of a show for a drink and then a 20 minute interval which is actually 15 minutes. Everyone wants serving at once and if they don't get served they get a bit irate.

What is drunk depends on what show is on. For the opera and ballet crowd, it's still gin and tonics. For a one night show, it's completely different, more like beer out of a bottle. When I started wine wasn't popular. Now it's the in drink.

I love the theatre. I like ballet, I don't see much opera. To me, coming in is a sociable occasion. We all have fall-outs but most have a laugh and a joke. We used to have some real characters backstage. I remeber an electrician, a very dapper man with a moustache, who always had a flower in his jacket. That was from an older generation. The characters aren't what they were.

I've worked in the Green Room where my friend had the franchise to do the food. I'd say 99 per cent of the artists are very friendly, no airs or graces. I've met so many. In more recent times Paul O'Grady is as nice and as funny off-stage as he is on. He's very down to earth, happy to sit down with a glass and chat. Quite a lot go for the mineral water now. It's quite fashionable to carry your water with you, isn't it?