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By Dennis Rookard We all have our regular local pubs, Somewhere we're welcome and feel at home in. Mines the Travellers Rest. Now to be fair, for the first timer it's rather hard to find. being off the beaten track in one of the quieter parts of town., being hidden behind the as yet to be fully occupied sixties style shopping mall. But should you venture down New Road, you'll find the Traveler's Rest just tucked in between the United Reform church and the old Court house, just across the road from the Library. True it's not much to look at from the outside, a bit down at heel in fact, and sadly both inside and out, in need of a lick of paint. Normally the world outside the door of our favourite watering hole in New Road passes for the most part unnoticed. It not that we're not interested you understand, but for those of us who use the pub, we regard the Traveler's Rest as more of a private club then a local boozer. We don't mind it's down at heal look. It's brown tobacco stained ceiling or the unwashed carpet. it's the friendship and good conversation we go for. That and the fact that Jack our landlords excellent best bitter is poured direct from the barrel, rather then pumped via a bar mounted beer engine. Another factor for it's popularity is that the Traveler's has the reputation of after hours drinking, when once strangers are got rid off, and the pub doors locked, the heavy curtains are drawn, the lights go down and everybody tells everybody else that we are now at a private party. It's also a service to the community that is very well received by our local off duty police who ever since their own bar was closed down by a penny pinching Essex County Council Police committee, pile in at the end of their shifts, or indeed halfway through them. All we ask is they park their patrol cars up the road a bit so as not to lower the tone of the place. But recently we very nearly lost our favourite pub. Indeed had it not been for the gang all pitching in. The old Traveler's might have become like the old White Heart up in the High Street, a fast food take away joint. It all happened early one morning after our normally laid back Landlord Jack received a letter from the Brewery that drove him into a state of shear panic. "What's up Jack," asked Sue reporting for her lunchtime duty behind the bar. "It's this bloody letter love," he said, waving it under her nose, from the bloody brewery, they want to make an inspection visit" "Is that bad," asked and innocent Sue, "Bad," shouted Jack, "I'll say it's sodding bad, if they don't like the place, they'll have me out of here and close us down. So yes love, you could say it's bad." Latter the day, as news spread among the regulars there was an atmosphere or glum silence in the bar. Everybody had read and reread the letter until it had been pinned to the wall. Nobody wanted to say much, much less crack any jokes until Jerry's fed up with the gloom over the bar, piped up, "Look here Jack, if we know what they want to find, maybe we can help," It was then that Jack gave us the sorry background to his impending visitation. Like most of his calling Jack was a tenant of just one of a string of pubs owned by a 250 year-old brewery. This in days of old had been a family concern who took the view, that so long as tenants like Jack flogged their beer and kept the punters flowing through the door they were more then happy. But things had changed for the worse in recent years. First they had been forced to go public ten years before to keep the business going. However it was not long before a month or so before, they had fallen pray to a large multinational brewery who's own products were byword in tasting like bottled dish water. Luckily for our pints of foaming best bitter, rather then closing the local brewery down, they kept it going. But the down side was the new order brought in to oversee the companies' pubs through the area. Maximize the profits was their war cry as much loved local water holes were closed down, and others were turned into steak and chip restaurants. All of which meant that the only way old fashioned real ale pubs like Jacks could survive was by being able to shift the booze in large amounts, being too small in size to change or by being a tourist attraction due to their uniqueness or history. Now it was going to be the turn of the Traveler's Rest to undergo inspection by it's new owners team of whiz kid accountants, who had also let it be known in their letter that because of his age, Jack was on the short list to lose his pub. The new owners it appeared wanted to move in young managers on short term contacts, who they insisted had to be ideally a married couple to run their 'New style alcoholic retail outlets' as they called them. As Jack, was single and on the wrong side of forty things were not looking good for him. On hearing this, "Pete, who was known to have held shares in the brewery, turned to the rest of us, saying, "This my friends is the time for all of us to come to the aid of Jack and the Traveler's," Nods all round greeted this comment, "Our very future drinking sessions have been put at risk," moaned Big Brian for the corner. "So has anybody any ideas then," asked Jerry's. "I think I might just have an answer," came the quiet voice of Fred our local news hound from the end of the bar. Now Fred being a freelance journalist is very much into ideas and this one had the smell of success about it. "You know that patronising bird on the telly who zaps about all over the place getting people to build things," he said, "Well how about us doing the same thing, only the useful project we take on will be the 'Traveler's', you know," he said glancing around him an the interested faces, "get a bit of a working party together to clean the place up a bit, that will impress them." Within days, plans were being set in hand. Those involved were issued their orders, and arrangements were made for the pub to be closed throughout a Sunday. Regulars around the town were contacted, and soon donations of materials were piling up in Jacks backyard. All was now ready. It had been decided that it would take a full twenty fours hours to clean the place up, so with the calling of last orders on Saturday night, Various regulars, wives and assorted Girlfriends are drafted in for the start of 'Operation Clean Up.' Throughout that long night and into late Sunday afternoon, work parties crowded the pub, as fortified by endless mugs of coffee and the food cooked up by the girls they set to work. First stripping out the old carpet, then moving on to wash down ceiling and paintwork, before stripping and hanging new flock wallpaper and generally cleaning the dust out of the place. By 6pm that Sunday Evening with the last of the rubbish having been carted down to the Council dump, the pub looked brand new, all bright and shining and ready for business. The only problem we told Jack as we supped the two free barrels of beer, and the girls worked their way through the spirits he'd donated to his gang of helpers was to persuade the accountants he was their man and not a couple of kids. In the end it was easier then we thought, for it turned out the team of whiz kid accountants were secret real ale lovers. The sight of Jacks barrels behind the bar sent them into raptures of delight, that and the bringing out from under the counter of a special pint of extra strong winter warmer brought smiles of joy all round. Indeed by the time they staggered out to their taxies some ten hours latter it was to assurances in writing that (a) Jack was safe and (b) no way would any future attempt be made to change the pub. But Jack had to draw the line at their suggestion of getting the pubs name in the real ale best pub guide. As he said when he managed at last to push them through the door, "Let just keep this pub our little secret shall we." ENDS |
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