My Moon Under Water
Better late than never. Inspired by George Orwell and the topic of the Christmas competition, here's my 'Moon Under Water' - an ideal pub henceforth to be known as the Fat Cock Inn.My favourite public-house, the Fat Cock Inn, is an hour’s stiff walk uphill from where I live. In summer this allows for a brisk ramble to build up a thirst and a casual gambol back downhill to home. There’s no car park or bus stop, but the landlord will happily pick you up and drop you home if the weather (or your constitution) turn inclement.
It has atmosphere and character. The atmosphere is not painted on the walls. The clientele *are* characters and they *have* character.
The architecture and fittings are eclectic and functional. A hard-wearing pewter bar fills one side of the long main room. Etched glass screens surround the adjacent parlour. Old, stained, woodwormy oak panels shroud the snug. Settles and stools topped with hand-sewn sagging cushions are found everywhere. Underfoot, worn red tiles and bare boards tell tales of beer and blood split over generations. A cracked beam, recovered from the wreck of a Spanish galleon, is spliced into the sagging ceiling and has a rusted cutlass thrust into it. Only the Minton tiles in the toilet corridor and stained glass above the potstands exhibit frippery. But both were rescued from a mid-terraced pub long since levelled and built over. A slate mantle stands over a log fire which roars in the winter and fills with fresh flowers from the garden in the summer.
A new dartboard sits flush to the far wall, a steel rule sunk into the floor for an oche. Close inspection of the upturned brewers barrels-turned-tables in the bar reveals the old dartboards are recycled as table-tops. A bar billiard table adorns the opposite corner, although none of the regulars ever seem to play it. Playing cards are behind the bar, but only venture out for the landlord’s rigged poker games after closing.
In the Fat Cock Inn, it is the banter (or lack of) that provides the soundtrack. Customers may share gossip and a dirty joke at the bar; settles on the far side are for solitary crossword solvers who do not wish to be disturbed. Music will only be allowed on three occasions – Jimmy Page wishing to play ‘Kashmir’ on acoustic guitar, Steven Isserlis wishing to play Bach cello suites and the whole bar joining in a rousing chorus of ‘Swing Low, Sweet Chariot’ in the unlikely event of England winning the William Webb Ellis cup again.
Three kinds of staff are found behind the bar. At lunchtimes, topers are bossed along by a blousy divorcee. She may wear eyeliner of a shade last seen in the 1960’s but she has a heart of gold which is often broken by some rogue. When this happens, regulars will volunteer to pour paint stripper over the offender’s car bonnet. Evenings are often staffed by a succession of doe-eyed students with impossibly pert breasts. Sadly, just as they finally learn to pour a decent pint they leave due to exam failure/charity work in Azerbaijan/contracting chlamydia. Every now and again, a thin man with big hands appears from the cellar and, if he really has to, will pull you a pint. He's ex-military - he really is, because he genuinely doesn't want to talk about it.
The landlady is short, feisty, commands respect yet on darts night she swears like a docker. The landlord is broad shouldered, badger-bearded and always right. He keeps good beer, he keeps good order and never, ever goes round the ‘wrong’ side of the bar. He is grumpy in a curmudgeonly uncle kind of way. He only knows three jokes, all filthy and one positively litigious, but you still laugh like a drain when he tells them. He won't lend you a tenner or let you run up a tab, but he will put a bottle of scotch on the bar when the last-of-the-out-of-towners finish their crisps and dissolve into the midnight air.
Unlike most pubs, the Fat Cock Inn doesn't sell cigarettes (the machine was sent back just after the smoking ban). But you can buy a few useful things; eggs by the half-dozen, strawberries in the summer, fruit cakes in winter.
Three things are banned at the Fat Cock Inn: children, smoking and mobile phones. And woe betide any GPS-misled rep who tries to fire up a laptop in the parlour.
You cannot get dinner at the Fat Cock Inn, but there is always pork pie, cubed cheeses, pork scratchings, Seabrooks crisps, cashew nuts, chutney and pickled beetroot.
If you want a three course meal, staff will gladly point you down the corridor. There you will find a door that leads to a path that runs to a road that twists three miles to the next village where there's a barn-sized pub that's been ruined by diners drinking coffee.
Cask beer is served into pint pots, cider and perry into stoneware mugs. Bottled beers are poured into plain glasses that suit the beer style. Hanging from the ceiling are a wide variety of tankards; none are for show, all are used by regulars. Leather, pewter, porcelain and crystal reflect the tastes and eccentricities of their owners.
The great surprise about the gardens at the Fat Cock are that there are so many. A flagstoned patio by the back door has solid wooden chairs, loveseats and sturdy tables - no toper traps. Flowers and hops cascade down the trellises that line a gentle slope up to a rose garden. Past these shrubs, a lawned walled area offers a suntrap in the summer and respite from the wind in the winter. A pentanque pit can be found via the secret door in the far wall. All around the gardens, pots of herbs are studded about, offering ever-changing aromas through the seasons. No-one - not even the pipe-wielding landlord - is allowed to smoke outside.
A few animals can be found around the Fat Cock Inn. The landlord's dog, a lugubrious chocolate Labrador named Rollo, usually has to be shooed out of the snug in the winter. In the summer, it plays dead on the patio outside. Ever since an unpleasant incident involving a docile daschund and a hyperactive Staffie terrier, customer's dogs are no longer welcome. In a corner of the walled garden, the landlady keeps a few chickens (hence the eggs for sale on the bar). There's a fat cock, of course, but he's stuffed and lives under a bell jar in the parlour.
For those with hangovers or with anti-biotic addictions, bottles of Fentimans soft drinks are available. For everyone else, beer choice is straightforward. All year round, three beers are kept: a house bitter (light in colour and malt), a best bitter (malty yet fruity) and an IPA (properly hoppy and over six percent). As the seasons change, so does the fourth barrel on stillage: a mild in spring, a cask lager in summer, a porter in autumn and a stout in winter. All are sourced from a local microbrewery. Every now and again, a nine of something experimental turns up. All are served on gravity. Bottled German or Czech lagers are available, as are unusual Belgian, Amercian and Scandinavian beers. Cider and perry are available in season and chosen by the landlady, who's a real fan - the landlord says that his other half loves a Fat Cock Inn Cider on a Friday night.
But now is the time to reveal something which you, dear toper, will probably have guessed already. There is no such place as the Fat Cock Inn. But they have a website coming soon...
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