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.
3 November 2024
Bill O’Hagan died in 2013 at the age of 68.
