Be prepared

I used to run a pub, The Cross Keys, in Totternhoe, Bedfordshire. It is believed to have been built in 1433 and, as you might imagine with a building of such age, is the subject of a couple of ghost stories. Ghost stories are particularly associated with old pubs because the cool temperature of cellars meant that they were often used as makeshift mortuaries.

On this very day, fifteen years ago, I had a very creepy experience. It was about 5.40pm and I was getting myself ready so that I could open the pub at 6pm. I had just had a shower and needed a clean shirt. My washing machine was downstairs in the cellar area, so I wrapped a towel round me and went down into the bar to get to the washing machine. It was already very dark and the lights for the bar were on the other side of the room. I walked through the bar and jumped out of my skin when I saw a man, outside and peering in through the window. I didn’t think he had seen me, so I stepped back behind the wall. My heart was pounding and, partly because of the cold, I was shivering. Every now and then, I would look round the wall, but he was still there, both hands and forehead pressed against the window. I could not see his face because the faint yellow glow of the pub car park lights rendered him in silhouette. Because I was only dressed in a towel I didn’t feel entirely comfortable going out to ask him what he wanted, but time was passing by and I had to get a shirt and iron it before I could get dressed and open the pub. I peered round the wall again; he was still there. What did he want? Why was he not moving? By now, my eyes were adjusting to the gloom and I was suddenly hit by a combination of relief and embarrassment; the strange ‘man’ was not a man at all, it was a ‘Guy’ that two of my regulars had made and had dropped off at the pub for the following evening’s bonfire and fireworks.

Therefore, the moral of the story is, ‘Be prepared…. Always have at least one shirt ironed and ready to wear’.