Popular pub landlord prepares to pull last pint in famous Ayr bar

One of Ayr’s best-loved potmen is to bid farewell to the regulars he calls family.

Jim McSherry will pour his last beer at the Wee Windaes in Newmarket Street this Sunday – 21 years after taking charge behind the bar. The former footballer, who turned out for both Ayr and Kilmarnock during his career, has been a pint-sized host with a huge character down the years.

Now as he prepares for a well earned retirement, he admits that leaving behind his punters will be an emotional day.

McSherry told the Ayrshire Post: “Barely a person walks in this place who I don’t know. And if they do, I make sure I walk over and find out! It’s just the way I’ve always been. The regulars are what makes this pub and it’s like no other place I know.

“We all look out for each other - the customers and the staff - it’s really special in that way. But the time is now right to step aside...I’ve things I want to do like spend more time with my family and watch my grandchildren play their football on a Saturday. I’ve been an awful one for working in here seven days a week, it’s just the way I’m built.

“But I wouldn’t have changed it – this place has given me and the staff in here so many happy memories down the years.”

McSherry insists the historic Wee Windaes will live on under new leadership, but he’ll be happy to sit on the other side of the bar from now. The move to take charge of the Windaes was set up by his close friend, John Gilligan, who had been managing director of Tennent’s and also a former director of Rangers.

Jim said: “It proved to be a very good decision – the regulars have made sure of that. Down the years we’ve raised thousands for charity and that was always very important to me. Our Wednesday coffee club has also become a bit of an attraction with the great and the good of Scottish football converging up at Cafe Le Monde.

“Sometimes there can be more than 20 of us having a catch-up. Craig Brown was a real staple of that and we all miss him dearly. We could spend all day sat sharing our stories and these are the kind of things that have made this pub so special for me.

“Big Fergie (former Ayr racecourse PR and journalist, Iain Ferguson) was another at the centre of everything. These people made the pub.”

One of Jim’s most loyal regulars, Jackson Anderson, admits he’ll never find another watering hole to match the Windaes under McSherry’s leadership.

He said: “Jim is a great host and character and his staff are the most friendly I’ve ever encountered. I won’t go to the farewell do because it will break my heart. You could take your wife, sister or daughter into that pub because it was the friendliest anywhere. In more than 20 years I never saw so much as an argument, a fight or heard bad language spoken – and I think that says it all.”

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