Pubs, publicans & their customers
Alderton Swan Roger Pryke - Alderton Swan When we first moved to Alderton the local pub, The Swan, was owned by Roger Pryke. A true Suffolk man, he was awkward and as stubborn as they come. All the incomers loathed him and we adored him. He had made his money selling agrochemicals and did not need the income, so couldn’t care less. One Sunday lunchtime an already packed pub was augmented by a coach load of CAMRA members. Roger took one look, stood up and announced, “I’m going over the water!” i.e. on the ferry to Felixstowe to go on the lash at the sailing club. So I ran the bar, a local girl acted as waitress and another cooked the lunches. About four hours later Roger returned “All right?” “Yeah, perfect”
∑ When he sold the pub he identified a modern and increasing problem. This is the habit of companies and government to get you to do the work on their behalf that you have paid for. Asking the electric supplier to come and do the final meter reading they said: “Oh no, you do the reading and phone it in.” Roger told them that he would take £40 off the bill as he would be saving them the cost of the van journey and an employees wages. “You can’t do that” they replied. So he left, emigrated to Thailand and they didn’t get a penny. ∑ Alderton Swan is probably the only pub in rural Suffolk where, during a Sunday lunchtime session, you can hear a conversation being held in Russian. The participants would be George Kieffer, who is multi-lingual, Ian Stewart, who used to eavesdrop on Russian forces from a base in Berlin and Dicky Howe who set up the Benson & Hedges business in Russia. Two Russians, with hardly a word of English between them entered one day to ask for directions. They were absolutely flabbergasted to find three people giving directions in fluent Russian. ∑ A regular in the Swan, Bob, had the strangest marriage proposal I have come across. At his wedding reception each place at the table had a Murray Mint in the centre. All intrigued by this we sat down for the meal after which his speech made all clear. On a motoring holiday in Wales he had opened the glove compartment and said to Liz, his girlfriend, “Would you like a Murray Mint?” Mishearing, delighted and happy she replied “I thought you’d never ask, of course I will.”
Bramfield Bell Crauford Stopher - Bramfield Bell Another great character was Crauford Stopher, landlord of the Bramfield Bell, he did outside bars as well. Once he was asked to do an outside bar at the Eye Airfield for a large antiques fair. Hundreds of stands, thousands of visitors.When the day of the event arrived there was a howling gale and horizontal rain. and no punters. On the second day the first customer arrived, in much the same weather. A lady who asked for a gin & tonic, with ice and lemon. Crauford replied, “There is only one lemon round here, and you’re looking at him�.
Brome Swan Fred Barham - Brome Swan Buster Brown once went for a drink in Brome Swan with his father, who drank 32 pints – so Buster drank 32 1/2 pints to beat him. ∑ We had a friend, Derek Driver, who was in a partnership making reproduction antique furniture in Martlesham. He drove once a week from Brussels, where he ran the retail outlet, to Martlesham, to collect the furniture, then return to Brussels. He was lonely there and moaned every Sunday in the pub that none of us came to visit him. So one day we all said we were coming together. We packed our bags in record time and drove to Felixstowe to catch the ferry - in those days there was a very convenient service to Zebrugge.
Fred owned, at the time, a firm of international hauliers and had trucks on ferries every day on most routes. He arranged the last minute booking for us. As we drove onto the ferry the ticket was checked by a crewman who said “Funny looking Fiat”. I was puzzled as we were in the Fred’s huge Mercedes. “What was that all about?” I asked, “Oh, I booked us on as a Fiat 126, it’s the shortest car in the world” – in those days the ferry fares were calculated by the length of the vehicle. Having embarked we needed a cabin for five people. Derek had a word with Mr Ambrose, the purser. It transpired that a couple of first class cabins were always kept vacant for VIPs who had boarded at the last minute. Mr Ambrose said, “Wait until we sail and if one is empty you can have a four berth cabin and I will order the steward to make up a fifth berth as well”. Profoundly grateful we asked how much we owed him, “A gin and tonic” was the reply. To decide who would sleep on the made up bunk on the floor of the cabin we played a game of Spoof. I ended up in the final with Fred, which he won convincingly. I was a good Spoof player and surprised at losing I asked how he had won. “Never play Spoof on a carpet” he replied. At the time Fred didn’t have a passport. For the trip to Belgium we drove to Roy Bartrum’s house and Fred asked Roy’s wife, Daphne, if he could I borrow Roy’s passport. “Course you can Fred” she said. Fred is about 5 foot six and Roger is 6 feet or more, different face, hair, the lot. At first few passport checks we kept Fred in the back of the car as we handed the passports over out of the driver’s window. After several checks Fred said, “Give me the passports” and, quite unnecessarily, got out of the car to hand the passports to the quite charming, I think Dutch customs officers, and said, “You won’t realise that this one is not me.” The officer smiled politely, leafed through the passports and waved us on.