London 2012 Olympics: Final day of pub landlady Janet Dooner's diary

Related tags Olympic games Paralympic games

Dooner: "All in all it was a very successful Olympic Games for us - we had an absolutely brilliant time"

Janet Dooner, licensee of the Railway Tavern in Stratford, a stone’s throw from the Olympic Park, completes her exclusive Olympic diary. Follow her diary by signing up to our daily news alert

Last night was as crazy as the opening ceremony, and maybe a fraction busier. We shut at 6am as opposed to 5am (for the opening ceremony) and could have shut even later.

We had all sorts of people from the closing ceremony in, including 200 of the performers who had light bulbs on their heads, the women who escorted the flags, punk rockers and some of the fashion girls.

It was really nice and everyone thanked us and all the staff for our hospitality and for providing them with somewhere to go where they can have a drink.

I had karaoke from 4-8.30pm before we put the closing ceremony on the television. I thoroughly enjoyed it - I listened to the news earlier and people were saying it was weird but I thought it was very good indeed.

I don’t know whether we will be back to normality or it will just be different in the run up to the Paralympic Games. We will have to wait and see.

On Saturday evening, I had a group of coaches in from the Team GB swimming team who told me they had been working with kids from Newham.

There is definitely going to be a legacy. It won’t happen overnight, it will take about 25 years, but there is a lot to be said for what the Olympics has brought to the area.

I hope they will the keep the park open a bit longer and not shut it, as it will give people more incentive to visit Stratford after the Games have finished.

All in all it was a very successful Olympic Games for us - we had an absolutely brilliant time. It was very good for business and although I haven’t had the chance to look at the books yet, I know our takings last week were double what they usually are, and we were five times busier on food take.

I can’t say it was what we were expecting because we didn’t know what to expect but overall we were definitely one of the luckiest businesses in the area.

I have got tickets to the Paralympics and I am looking forward to it. I think because of how well the Olympics has gone, people
have been scrambling for tickets off the back of it.