London 2012 Olympics: A pub landlady's Olympic diary with Janet Dooner

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Dooner: "We didn’t know what was going to happen but it has exceeded expectations"

Janet Dooner, licensee of the Railway Tavern in Stratford, a stone's throw from the Olympic Park, begins her exclusive Olympic diary with her experiences of the opening ceremony and first weekend. Follow her daily diary by signing up to our daily news alert.

The day before the opening ceremony we were very busy with people getting ready for the event. Come Friday and the big day we had a lot of people coming into the pub during the early part of the day, but from late afternoon onwards we just had so many people coming in and out.

I knew we would be busy as people had called up during the week. Westfield Shopping Centre closed at 3.00pm and that made it difficult for a lot people in Stratford as they thought they could go into the centre and get a good view of the ceremony.

There was a lovely atmosphere in the evening and we had people from all over the world coming into the pub to watch it, and cheering for their teams. I had karaoke running for three hours from 6pm before the ceremony got underway.

Then, at 1.45am, after the ceremony has finished, about 300 drummers who had been involved in the stadium turned up. We have a 24-hour licence but finally, when it got to 5.00am we decided to close. We left it that late as we couldn’t just let people out on the streets knowing they couldn’t get home, and the first trains start running from 5.00am onwards.

By the time I finished clearing up it was 7.00am. Some of my staff had started at 4.00pm and others at 9.00pm, but they didn't mind - the atmosphere was fantastic. We took roughly five times more than we would usually on a Friday night.

Saturday was quiet but steady during the day and busy again in the evening. On Sunday, I had the privilege of getting some Olympic Park tickets so I went into the park with my family. By the time I got back to the pub, we were busy again and finished at 2.00am.

I'm sure it's going to be different today when people go back to work. Today could well set the tone for how it going to be for the rest of the fortnight. I am now getting myself prepared for the closing ceremony. My husband doesn’t think it will be as crazy as it was for the opening ceremony, but I know that all the people who came in for the opening ceremony know where they can come now.

Overall, I am knackered! We didn’t know what was going to happen but it has exceeded expectations. I was really happy with my food sales because we don’t normally do a lot but we ran out of things twice over the weekend and had to stock up at the cash ‘n’ carry.