We live nearly next door to the Best pub in our town. At the top of our street is the other Best pub in our town. This is not a coincidence. From a very young age my Dad instilled in me the importance of a good local pub. The landlord and landlady of the pub in our street have been there for 22 years today. The pub is obviously closed at the moment in these days of isolation so I thought I would celebrate The Local Pub in my blog and hope we can all be back in ours soon.
The Old English Gentleman, Gold Street Saffron Walden.
Your local pub is not necessarily always for getting wildly drunk in, although we don’t have far to stagger if we have accidentally got a bit relaxed. Pubs are often a mine of information and a place to make friends in too. My parents discovered this the night they moved out of London and into the sticks - the Essex countryside, to a village called Henham. On their first evening there was a power cut which was no fun with an 18 month old and an unpacked house. So my Dad ran down to The Bell which was the pub at the end of the lane and within the time it takes to drink a pint of bitter…….or possibly a restrained half as he had left his wife and young daughter in darkness, had the number for Sid Stringer the local electrician.
Sid was called and came and simply “flicked the trip switch” which became an all too familiar procedure during the 40 plus years we lived in Henham no matter which house we lived in. The relationship between my parents and Sid was one that lasted forever though and Sid was consulted on everything electrical from that day forward.
Due to isolation restrictions I am interspersing with photos from my dog walk today rather than all the pubs I am writing about…..
The Bell became a house shortly after as is the way with a lot of pubs since the 1970’s but Henham still has, and had then, another pub called The Cock which was in staggering distance from all the houses we lived in Henham. We would often go to The Cock for a-can-of-coke-and-a-packet-of-crisps after a family walk on a Sunday or for a huge treat we would have a meal-in-a-basket-chicken or scampi on a Saturday lunchtime after Dad had played golf and we had done The Big shop at Sainsburys with Mum. My Dad would often meet his friends at The Cock and put the world to rights. I had my 21st birthday there and our Nannies wake was held there.
It was the destination for many a family gathering or discussion as we got older and we even had a couple of Christmases there when we were feeling frightfully modern. I was employed at The Cock from the age of 13 to 17 in the kitchen washing up and progressing to starters and puddings and finally cooking steaks. This job, or the alternative usually given to a boy of walking the pub dogs, was a right of passage in the village. On my first day my family decided to generously book themselves in en masse and order starters, main courses and puddings which I had to wash up. I think my dad sent a round of drinks through to the kitchen which was traditional practice for locals.
I worked either Friday nights, Saturday lunchtime and Sunday night or Saturday night and Sunday lunchtime. Most of the people who worked in the kitchen were related and everyone who worked in the kitchen had the nickname of Stella. This was due to the Landlady and he daughter being called Stella, So we had Mum Stella and Little Stella. The other main women who worked in the kitchen were Maureen, who I think was a niece of Charlie and Mum Stella and Louise, who I had known all my life. They were both called Stella at work. It was always packed for dinner on a Friday or Saturday night.
After we had finished work on a Friday or Saturday night Louise, Maureen and Stella would often get a taxi to the local town of Bishops Stortford to the Juicy Duck nightclub or to the Indian restaurant in Stansted. I would watch them finish work looking tired and covered with a light film of chip fat only to disappear upstairs and return minutes later with shimmery purple eyeshadow and metallic blue or silver top, spray on leather trousers or jeans and vertiginous heels. They would have a couple of Tia Maria and cokes in the bar to top up the Tia Maria and cokes they had been steadily drinking all night before pouring themselves into a taxi. The following shift my eyes would nearly fall out of my head as they regaled their tales of the night before. The men they had met and sometimes the fights they had got into. It was a wild world outside of the village….
Throughout my teenage years we all frequented The Boars Head simply known as The Boars in Bishops Stortford. Bizarrely it was next door to the Police station and yet it was rare for anyone over 18 to drink there.
I moved to Lincoln for college. Although I was attending an agricultural college a couple of miles from town I made friends with a girl from Lincoln, Jo, who soon took me to The Falstaff or The Folly as it was locally known. It was a pub frequented by bikers and hippies alike. It was a dark dingy place, the walls plastered with band posters, the floor sticky with Guinness and Snakebite and black, a juke box in the corner with slightly out of date songs. I can’t remember the names of the man and woman who served behind the bar but I do remember the occasional Reggae nights of music in the back room from Reggae John who became a friend together with his wife Corrine and her brother Dobbin and his wife Debbie.
It was where my then boyfriend James and his friends Stef and Joss used to hang out much of the time getting up to all kinds of mischief. Days would pass in a blur once entering The Folly. Once you were absorbed into the local melée it was the friendliest place in town. It’s entrance was slightly elusive hidden down a passage off of the High Street (270) at the foot of Steep Hill. The Falstaff has long since been gentrified and built on top of. I attempted to take my husband there about 20 years ago for a sticky pint of Guinness but was saddened to find it had been blocked out by some modern shops. Other pubs that were favourite haunts in my Lincoln days were The Corn hill Vaults and The Gay Dog ( now called The Dog and Bone) on Johns Road off of Monks Road where the Arboretum is.
When I eventually moved back to Henham and met Matt, who grew up withThe Nags Head in Little Hadham at the end of his garden and who was part of The Boars Head crowd from my youth, we lived round the corner from the Cock and used to do the same can-of-coke-and-a-packet-of-crisps dog walks with our kids. I think it was probably the first place we went to when venturing out with Elliott. Even going back there now after moving from Henham 16 years ago it has the reassuring comfort of home.
We moved to Saffron Walden 16 years ago this July and I can remember on the night we exchanged contracts having a drink in the Duke of York with Matt and my old schoolfriend Sarah, now the landlady. The Duke was one of my most favourite places to go when my friends and I were about 18-20. It has been smartened up considerably now but in those days had a tiny bar and a fantastic juke box. We do still go there now occasionally but if we do venture out it is usually to The Old English Gentleman which is oh so conveniently situated next door but one to our house. Jeff and Cindy, the landlords are our friends and we see them on a daily basis, not necessarily as customers but during dog walks or narrowly avoiding barrels as they fly off of the Adnams lorry on to a crash mat in the mornings.
We met our good friends Adam and Louise in the OEG one serendipitous night about 12 or 13 years ago when Louise, in animated conversation shot a glass of red wine straight over us, we have been friends ever since. I have had late night drinking sessions with my dear friend Marc putting the world to rights way past a decent hour for a Thursday. Matt and I have been to commiserate or congratulate our parenting skills after parents evenings. We have planned holidays, new kitchens, wall colours and life changing job decisions have been made here. I once met my friend Louise ( another one) and learned the very early stages of knitting a sock.
When the announcement came from the government about closing pubs to deter people from venturing out and to restrict movement of people to protect the old and vulnerable during the pandemic of Covid 19 I immediately worried about all the people whose lives would be a perpetual isolation without places like The OEG. The men and occasional woman who prop up the bar from midday onwards and who, whenever I walk past with the dogs, don’’t ever seem to run out of things to say. I wonder how they are coping now without their friends and regular hang out. I hope they all return when this is over. I am missing the noise and the buzz of walking past or popping in on a Friday or Saturday night. That feeling of community and a frisson of excitement and possibility even though we are literally ten steps from home.
I don’t want to sound too dramatic as I do understand the importance of the lockdown during cornonavirus times but I hope that not going out doesn’t become the forever normal and as our Elliott approaches 18 in May I really hope it isn’t too long after that date that he can buy his Dad the traditional first pint in the OEG as a six pack of Heineken from Waitrose doesn’t have quite the same romance…..