J is for JB Parker’s Bar…

There’s a lot of scaffolding in the reflections; how appropriate since there is scaffolding everywhere you turn all through town. But it is a shame about yet another selfie photobombing the pic…
And if you’d like to know what is special about JB Parker’s Bar here’s their potted history. I haven’t been in myself but have frequented most of the earlier versions.
Jack Buller Parker was born in Bristol on 12th January 1900 the second youngest of a family of 8. He married Ella Bennett in 1926, and they then came to Guernsey along with his older brother Seymour. Jack and Ella had a lease on the Golden Lion Pub and lived in the flat above. ( Seymour and his wife Ruth also took on the Swan pub.) Their only daughter Sheila was born in 1931.

In 1940 with the imminent threat of invasion Ella returned to Bristol with Sheila, and Jack remained in Guernsey however along with other British Nationals in 1942 he was deported to Laufen in Germany where he remained until the end of the war. Returning after the war they continued to run the Golden Lion for another 11 years. In the meantime Sheila had met and married a young Austrian who had moved to the island, and so in 1956 the foursome took over the lease of Moores Hotel. (The first step in the founding of the Sarnia Hotel group). Jack looked after the public bar - aptly named Jack's bar. Over the year's Jack's bar has had many incarnations: the Almanac, the Pollet Bar, latterly the Library and now JB Parker's.