Characters galore on pub crawl of the past

THERE was a pub landlord I once knew who was such a sociopath and despiser of any kind of jollity, he’d pay us youngsters 50 pence each to go on to the next pub if we called in early. You could get a couple pints for a quid back then, so the offer was not to be sniffed at by a young reporter who earned £12 a week.

Jim had been a hangman in Africa and everything about him was loathsome and repugnant. I guess, for all his ugliness and past cruelty, he was what used to be called a ‘colourful character’. All Jim ever wanted to do was bring back hanging so that he could string up half the UK male population and quite a few miniskirted females as well.

The only food I ever saw served in that pub was a congealed version of chicken in a basket, often served with dog hairs.

The next pub was run by a man who also detested most of humanity. But he’d happily take your money, then hope his evil white Alsatian would bite you when you visited the filthy men’s loo in the back alley.

Bill preferred the beef bullocks he kept in a field opposite to the humans he served. He may have liked beef, but the only food his hard working wife ever served was a ploughman’s featuring a huge slab of cheddar, a pickled onion the size of an apple and enough bread to feed an elephant.

A posh friend once asked him for a gin and tonic, and I thought the redfaced, bewhiskered Bill was going to have a coronary. It wasn’t that sort of pub.

An erudite man called Brian kept another watering hole and he had been a friend of the writer John Steinbeck – a fact which impressed me no end.

He had a white beard and a deep raucous laugh which I can still hear years after he roared his final guffaw. The pub had just one tiny bar and it was all he could do to manage that. From some nether-region, his Irish wife Bridie used to peer fearfully out at us as if we were the youth wing of Sinn Fein.

Her menu contained at least three different dishes, but for some reason all of them came smothered in mountains of mixed frozen vegetables, which often contained traces of ice.

In another establishment a charming man called Eric ruled the roost, armed with bright yellow fag-stained fingers pouring the pints. He was incredibly well-mannered – reminiscent of the classic butler. The opposite, indeed, to the rather sulky ungracious woman who seemed to do most of the work.

The status of their relationship was unclear but, despite never marrying her, he left her everything when he went to the Great Puff of Smoke in the Sky. Ridding herself of the pub, she blossomed, started smiling and was a pleasure to meet.

Near the newspaper office where I worked, a posh military man ran an old coaching inn. Or rather, his wife ran it because the lovely old fellow drank. Everyone overlooked this alltoo-obvious fact because, as an officer during the Second World War, he’d led a mass escape from a Japanese prisoner of war camp, successfully taking scores of men through hundreds of miles of jungle.

I presume the experience had left its mark which is why he drank. But, no matter how befuddled he got, he was held in great respect by the community. The older men of the village would salute him in the street and help him home if he was worse for wear.

On a high hill there was an ancient road-house owned by a dubious little man whose features were singularly porcine. It was rumoured he peered through guest-room keyholes to catch glimpses of women undressing. A rather upmarket young lady came to manage the place for him and surprised everyone by marrying the chain-smoking lurker.

There was a pub way out in the sticks run by an old crone who served everything from a hatch in what was really just her living room. There were no tables, you sat around the sides of the room on pews. I never saw anyone speak or laugh in that place, so didn’t go there often.

The opposite to another isolated establishment (frequented by the present prime minister’s grandfather) where they’d have lock-ins until two in the morning. The customers often had vehicular mishaps on the way home. One (no names mentioned) ended up in the River Exe and lay there half submerged for hours until a farmer spotted his sunken car in the moonlight and lifted a gate from its hinges to use as a bridge so he could reach the old fellow inside. Who, by some miracle, was totally unscathed.

I mention all this simply because the West Country has opened up in recent weeks and I have seen local pubs filled with flocks of jolly people ordering meals and the like.

And I wanted to point out that the world of hospitality has changed an awful lot over the decades. It is cleaner, brighter, more comfortable and vastly more flavoursome in all respects – with infinitely better beer and immeasurably superior food.

But… dare I say it? It’s just not as interesting.

The older men of the village would salute the publican in the street and help him home if he was worse for wear