Mae gengyl
Cael hwn. We looked into Daniel's estate agency window and there was the mermaid clothes up the sale and I thought well
my dad always said I'd make a good publican. I applied to purchase my discharge and in due course we
moved in. Then I spent the last three months of my army service getting a place into shape.
felly maearken o bobl ni gydw dadlog ac llawer a gael eich gwasanaeth o bobl.
Feird i ddweudio nod i wniadu gwneud o bobl,
– marchos bob ar einech ystodon o dda'n gyfolgeisio gwybod iddo peynigu
ac, while they were a little bof,
I would come to the mob.
We didn't want the name of the pub to be associated with that sort of behaviour.
So we decided we would have to change the name.
My brother came up with the old one out.
It was appropriate because at that time
Colchester didn't have any pubs
that were genuine freehouses and ours would be.
A gan busr gweld i Ebeth yn erbyn Gywedwyd y Roedd gyda collif,
lyw Worksolom Fudd Novig,
ac fe'r theair, dwi'n edry?..
.. mercury posts a bod HeGoodwyr was genal T pansoedd newyd ar N trenchol.
Felly, mae'n bobl rydyn llawer Medwyr,
mae'r newyddfa'n ganbidw nasty a pe?
Wel, mae'n an sexy'r can Hyundafol poorly请 Yn Chryfod
ac we wanted to attract an intelligent clientele
and we just thought that the name would go with the sort of pub that we were hoping to run.
Some people suggested that the name, the odd one out, was appropriate for my personality.
I'm not, I don't consider that to be unflattering.
John, John's great. I like the community, I like the fires.
Best pub in Colchester, best beer in Colchester.
I like pubs like this make such contributions to the community.
Well, there's loads of different people.
There are the regulars who come in here at various times.
Just for a drink, who are in most nights, then there are various groups.
There's the bridge club who's in here tonight on Tuesday.
We've got a book group and we meet on a Thursday.
The socialists, I believe, come in once a week.
Especially after a week out.
The more enlightened students who've read their good beer guides,
they come in here and sometimes they leave books.
We've got a book exchange over there.
We always intended that it would be a civilian reflection
of the way that a sergeant's mess is run.
Respect for women, a welcome for women, as the basis of the pub,
obviously the commercial basis is the range, choice and quality
and price of the real ale that is on offer.
But we always wanted to eliminate violence from the pub.
It is one of the few areas where people have been banned immediately
for acts of violence and everybody knows and understands that.
And there is no badgering of women that people have been banned for that.
No homophobia, no swearing.
Everybody is welcome as long as they obey the rules of the house,
which is no swearing, no mobile phones apart from in designated areas,
no dogs except on the wooden floor.
People who drink here have actually made an effort to get to this pub.
In many cases have passed several pubs to get here.
And that, of course, reinforces any threat implied or otherwise
by the management, by myself or by staff,
that failure to observe our rules will mean that people will not be welcome here any longer
and on a permanent basis.
The downside, of course, is there is no parking here.
In this day and age there is very little passing trade.
The biggest single problem is the gradual erosion within society
of the sort of standards that we aim to promote, particularly among young people.
And it is difficult at times to acquire, shall we say,
young people into the customer base who understand the values that we try to promote.
How often do you see old age pensioners from the financial, financially speaking,
lower half of society in a pub, in a club, in a restaurant?
Hardly ever.
We've probably only got about two left now who visit us on a regular basis.
They've simply been priced out of the market,
which is a dreadful situation to reach when you consider that we're, among other things,
worrying about increasing loneliness in our elderly population.
There is a degree of low-level crime.
We have had one or two major issues, but fortunately not actually in the pub.
We have been burgled once, actually twice.
One was at night and was obviously a planned opportunity that a well-known local miscreant
engaged in burgling me and several other pubs.
The other one must have been just a completely random, unfortunate error from my point of view
at 7.15 in the morning, leaving the door unlocked when I went to get the paper.
When I came back, my takings had gone.
But there you go, we live and learn, the door is never unlocked now.
We did, in the past, have quite a lot of broken windows.
We still get them, but far less frequently.
And whilst the closing down of two barracks close at hand had something to do with that,
without a shadow of a doubt, the future of pubs lies in the hands of politicians.
The beer duty escalator is the single biggest threat now,
because it has already driven the price.
The other single problem when we have politicians, not just this government,
who whitter on about entrepreneurial spirit and yet the uniform business rate is an open-ended tax,
which is my second biggest overhead.
With a large number of reduced pubs, the first thing that any politician worth his salt should be proposing
is a freeze and then reduction on the uniform business rate.
I have tried working behind the bar, but I don't like working for John.
He's a bit too free and easy with his time.
He'll say, oh, can you work 7 till 10?
And at 10 o'clock I ask him if I can go. Oh, can't you say till the end?
Supermarkets can provide alcohol and they can provide cheap alcohol,
but the one thing that a supermarket can't provide is sociability.
And we have now reached the point where the people who want to socialise will go to a pub, club, restaurant, whatever.
We are in grave danger of losing this traditional element of our national character.
We've already almost obliterated youth clubs.
I belong to three youth clubs when I was a child.
I don't even know of any in this area now.
I have no concrete plans for retirement.
As a successful publican, I am aware, and as any other successful publican would confirm,
my success could not conceivably have taken place without my partner.
I would like John to retire.
I'd like to be able to travel just to go away and leave the house that we lived in without worrying about it.
So I would guess, because I enjoy what I do and we continue to be successful,
I would guess that the moment to leave will be primarily determined by her and will be pretty obvious when it happens.
Could you take a drink of beer? I know it's going to be tough for you.
The things I do for art.
