and the rain started. I found myself walking in the dark, in the rain, not knowing on what side of the road I was walking on. Then suddenly, out of the black night, a lorry would come roaring towards me. I would have to jump out of the way, all too often landing in a muddy ditch. That was the most frightening experience of my life! Finally, I landed up outside The Devonshire Arms which was not yet open. Irene took me in and arranged for me to have a shower. Then, with my wet and dirty clothes taken from me, I sat in the lounge of the pub, in a borrowed dressing gown, eating a lovely meal as the locals began to arrive. They were quite surprised, to say the least. Arrangements were made for Mavis to come from Clayton and collect me and bring clean clothes. Not the usual request a wife gets when her husband asks her to meet him at the pub! There was a sad postscript to those happy visits to The Devonshire Arms. My wife and I were in Hartington several years after Irene left. The new landlord was someone from Newcastle. When I was raising money for the NSPCC in North Staffordshire, he offered his premises for one of our quiz nights but said he would charge me for the ‘privilege’ of using his place. I declined his offer. And now here he was, taking over from the lovely Irene. We went in and bought our drinks. We were in a filthy and dirty pub, the very opposite of what it had been when Irene reigned here. We took our drinks into the pub garden and found it as bad as the interior. The landlord had several dogs and they were allowed to deposit their mess wherever they found themselves to be when nature called. And no one ever cleaned any of it up. I tried my beer, took a few sips and no more. It was bad. It was undrinkable. I told the landlord what I thought of his beer and his pub and we left, never to return. I have met and worked with many, many CAMRA members since I first joined in 1974. I have found some – too many – who could not hold their drink yet still drank too much. I have found some to be boorish and boring. But most – nearly all – I have found to be pleasant, decent, good human beings. But the nicest CAMRA member of them all is a young man (well, young to me! He is 12 years younger than myself and technically now a fellow Senior Citizen) who I have had the pleasure to know since 1969. He was also a civil servant and we both worked in a large office, where the usual ‘office gossip’ was rife. But in all the 25 years we worked at that office, I never heard anyone speak of him with anything but warm, friendly feelings. And it he was the same in CAMRA. He appreciated good real ale and, like most CAMRA members, over the years he put away a good few pints. Yet he never, ever drank more than he could hold. And when I began the Leek CAB pub quiz, he offered his services as a driver. For three years he drove me all over the Moorlands. And he proved to be as popular in every pub we visited as he was at work. People would ask me the name of ‘that nice young man’ everywhere we went. On one particular quiz night, we arrived at a pub in Longford to find a surly landlord who did not want us there, although a group of his regulars had entered a team and were waiting for us, as were the other team, along with some quiz supporters who followed us to every match. We always had a tape round and when it was time, the landlord told us he had no facility for playing tapes (although ‘his’ team told us otherwise). But my friend came to the rescue once again. And we all trooped out to the car park, where both teams stood around as the tape was played in his car. On one quiz night we took a guest with us, a young man not used to going out at night for a drink. On returning to North Staffordshire, we dropped him off at home and the young man stuck his head through the window and said – in a voice showing the beneficial effect of real ale “that was the BEST night I have ever had”. And that had been due, as much as anything, to my friend and fellow CAMRA member being such a pleasant human being – and the best possible advertisement for CAMRA. For all that you have done over all those years, thank you Malcolm Sproston. JSB Many thanks to Chesterfield & Sheffield CAMRA branches for supplying the photos (via WhatPub) AUTUMN 2016 <strong>POTTERS</strong> <strong>BAR</strong> 21
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