Friday, January 06, 2006
He belonged in a time gone by.
The Coach and Horses has always been there, and the people who frequent it always seemed to have been there too. It is an old-fashioned large red brick building with small leaded windows and the familiar, strangely heart-warming smell of stale ale and cigarettes. The dusty sign on the wall read ‘smart dress essential’ the one below it advertised live sky sports and below that ‘smoking permitted throughout’. Upon entering the bar it took a moment for my eyes to adjust to the dim lighting. The bar was directly ahead, cluttered with old men reading newspapers and rolling cigarettes slumped over half empty pots of bitter and lager glancing occasionally at the racing on TV. The landlord: John: a grumpy sort, gave me an inquisitive, disinterested and somewhat disappointed look. I ordered a lager, £1.50, quite reasonable. It was happy hour! John had been the landlord for as long as I could remember and was a unique character. He was the only landlord I knew who actually resented his customers. He resented the money they earned, he resented the cars they owned, he resented them coming into his pub. John was a huge, balding man in his fifties. He had hands like shovels and preferred to do as little as possible. In his prime he had been a professional Rugby League player for a top club and had even been to Wembley, but had earned little from it except a reputation. He was an insufferable gambler and not a good one. To win on the fruit machine after John had spent the day filling it out of his own pocket was playing with fire; it would be safer to have been caught in bed with his wife. Some of the regulars at the bar each day were younger than John and retired, John feigned friendship with them and they with him but when backs were turned there was a mutual loathing. He put up with them for the money they brought in and they put up with John, well, because they had to. John’s wife was Jean, she was often in the background and they seemingly made a good couple, on the surface. But deep down everyone knew that this was a guise they put on for the customers to disguise a marriage that had been dead for years. Johns gambling, drinking, infidelity and violent temper had taken its toll on their relationship and it was only that fact that they were too old, too ugly and too scared to go their separate ways that had held them together so long. Rumour had it that she had caught him in a compromising position with a bar maid on the pool table one night after hours and had broken a porcelain ashtray over his head. No one knows for sure. The only thing I know is that I never dared ask him. John was renowned through out the town as a man not to be reckoned with. Despite that side to him I still miss him.
The Coach and Horses has always been there, and the people who frequent it always seemed to have been there too. It is an old-fashioned large red brick building with small leaded windows and the familiar, strangely heart-warming smell of stale ale and cigarettes. The dusty sign on the wall read ‘smart dress essential’ the one below it advertised live sky sports and below that ‘smoking permitted throughout’. Upon entering the bar it took a moment for my eyes to adjust to the dim lighting. The bar was directly ahead, cluttered with old men reading newspapers and rolling cigarettes slumped over half empty pots of bitter and lager glancing occasionally at the racing on TV. The landlord: John: a grumpy sort, gave me an inquisitive, disinterested and somewhat disappointed look. I ordered a lager, £1.50, quite reasonable. It was happy hour! John had been the landlord for as long as I could remember and was a unique character. He was the only landlord I knew who actually resented his customers. He resented the money they earned, he resented the cars they owned, he resented them coming into his pub. John was a huge, balding man in his fifties. He had hands like shovels and preferred to do as little as possible. In his prime he had been a professional Rugby League player for a top club and had even been to Wembley, but had earned little from it except a reputation. He was an insufferable gambler and not a good one. To win on the fruit machine after John had spent the day filling it out of his own pocket was playing with fire; it would be safer to have been caught in bed with his wife. Some of the regulars at the bar each day were younger than John and retired, John feigned friendship with them and they with him but when backs were turned there was a mutual loathing. He put up with them for the money they brought in and they put up with John, well, because they had to. John’s wife was Jean, she was often in the background and they seemingly made a good couple, on the surface. But deep down everyone knew that this was a guise they put on for the customers to disguise a marriage that had been dead for years. Johns gambling, drinking, infidelity and violent temper had taken its toll on their relationship and it was only that fact that they were too old, too ugly and too scared to go their separate ways that had held them together so long. Rumour had it that she had caught him in a compromising position with a bar maid on the pool table one night after hours and had broken a porcelain ashtray over his head. No one knows for sure. The only thing I know is that I never dared ask him. John was renowned through out the town as a man not to be reckoned with. Despite that side to him I still miss him.
# posted by aworthlessexistence @ 10:20 AM 
