I worked at Wetherspoons in Liverpool for about a year and a half. They are a good company to work for in fairness. The hourly rate is pretty good- i was on about £5.70, and yeh the shifts are long (i used to do 5pm - 2am quite regularly, sometimes longer) but that means you only have to do a couple of shifts a week and you still have loads of hours.
As for training, i had no bar experience whatsoever and they had no problem training me, most of the people they took on in my pub were new to working on a bar. Everyone helps each other. Although as for free stuff...totally depends on your manager! We weren't allowed free pepsi or coffees, both of which cost the company 7 pence. They wouldn't even spend 7p on us!
Tips are usually pretty damn good, although again it depends on your manager. I used to get between £30-£50 a month, doing 2 or 3 shifts a week.
They were really flexible with me, they knew i was a student so i just asked for the shifts i wanted and i got them. Agreed with the above poster about the notice with the rotas though- we were shown the rota on sunday which started the next day on the monday! So not even 1 days notice! Nobody seemed to mind though.
Overall it was a damn good job, despite how much i said i hated it at the time i do actually quite miss it now!