Pub 47, Day 17 – Hollin Bush

By Rob 

There is one sad fact of life that I have come to learn in recent years: never trust your childhood memories.

I recently went to Cleethorpes with my good friend Zak. I hadn’t been there for years and I was eager to revisit some of the places that I'd frequented as a child.

Chief among them was Fantasy World – the biggest arcade on the seafront. So big, in fact, that it was essentially a carpeted aircraft hangar filled with gaming machines, pool tables and flashing lights.

Only it wasn’t.

I stepped through the entrance at 24 years old, ready to be swept away in a wave of nostalgia. Instead, I walked into a relatively small and shabby amusement venue that had chewing gum woven into the fibres of the floor and a single member of staff who looked ready to fling himself from the nearest pier.

How could this be?

Well, there are two factors at play here:

1.    My memories were not an accurate reflection of reality. The building obviously hadn’t shrunk – it had simply never been that big.

2.    The place had deteriorated. It might never have been The Ritz, but the years had not been kind to poor old Fantasy World.

So, what has this sobering lesson got to do with Pubquest? Well, the same thing happened to me again very recently. To help you appreciate the emotional impact of the event, allow me to reminisce…

…It was the summer of 2009. I had just turned eighteen and, naturally, I lived with my parents. My good friend Andrew Wilson was located just around the corner and being allowed to purchase alcohol was still very much a novelty.

Our local pub was called the Hollin Bush. Every Thursday it held a pub quiz and we became regular attendees. This is the place where we learned to love the British public house.

The customers were friendly, the staff were welcoming and the cosy pub was a great place to sit, drink and talk. The landlord was a cheerful man who ensured that his pub was stocked with a reasonable range of beers. He even went so far as to put the occasional guest ale on, which was a big deal in those days.

The Hollin Bush was part of our youth. We frequented that pub until we moved away to university, and we didn’t go back for a very, very long time…

…So here we are, in 2015. Six years later and Pubquest was in full swing. We had been excited about visiting our old haunt for some time, and now the moment had arrived.

Walking together, we turned the corner and saw it standing tall on the horizon. Would the landlord still recognise us? Were the same customers still there? Was the quiz still impossibly difficult? Could we win it now?

With our hearts in our mouths, we stood in the car park and gazed upon our one-time local.

It hadn't changed one bit.

Smiles on our faces, we stepped over the threshold and entered the pub.

It was totally different.

Had it been 2009, here's what you would be reading:

The pub was small inside, but warmly decorated. The lounge was particularly comfortable and the customers were a cheery bunch. The staff were welcoming and the landlord was a great guy who, over the course of our many visits, had come to recognise us as friends.

Considering the size and location of the pub, it was a real treat to find a guest ale on tap, and to see that they served John Smith's Magnet.

The quiz was maddeningly difficult, but this only served to strengthen our resolve. We never even came close to winning, with an average score of 12/25.

After the quiz it was time for bingo, followed by 'Open the Box'. Once someone had received the winning ticket, the landlord would then play a game of 'Deal or No Deal', in which he would try to offer them money to walk away from a potentially bigger prize.

We had a great time at the Hollin Bush and would definitely go back again – the pub gets 9/10.

But it was 2015, so it goes like this:

The pub was small inside, but the warmth had evaporated some time ago. A few friendly old faces were still dotted around the place, but now they were mixed in with some slightly less welcoming ones.

We got to the bar and were greeted by the landlord. Gone was the man we had once known and in his place stood someone very, very different. A young lad in a tracksuit, with a shaven head, now ran the joint.

He asked to see some ID – a request we were happy to oblige. It quickly transpired that this was a joke: he inspected our driving licenses for quite some time, holding them up to the light and squinting at them. After an inordinate amount of minutes in silence had passed, he commented on how poorly the years had treated our once fair faces.

No doubt you think this sounds like classic barman-customer banter. All I can say is that I was there and you were not, so trust me when I tell you that it wasn't.

After taking note of our addresses (he genuinely did do that) he began the interrogation – wanting to know why two apparently local guys hadn't been in before now. We explained our situations, which seemed to intrigue him.

He asked us what we did for a living. At the time I was still a student, an occupation for which he showed little interest. However, when Andy told him that he worked for the Home Office he was somewhat more engaged. When Andy told him that he worked in immigration, the man's eyes bulged.

"What do you think of the EDL?" came the question, straight out of the blue.

At this point we both sensed that the conversation had strayed onto dangerous ground. I flashed Andy a look that, considering we had known each other for a long time, I hoped he could interpret.

With a lift of the eyebrows, I said: Andrew, I don't like where this is going. I think we should leave this pub immediately and go somewhere else.

Andy frowned and inclined his head towards the bar: No Rob, we can't go. This is Pubquest. We will have to come back here eventually, so if we walk out now then it will only be worse when we inevitably return.

I lightly shrugged my shoulders and rolled my eyes: OK, I suppose you're right.

Andy lifted the corner of his mouth: Of course I'm right.

Turning his attention back to the barman, Andy answered the question.

"I think they're idiots," he said.

Now, obviously this is a thunderously understated noun to employ. However, it was the best answer that could have been given under the circumstances.

The landlord's eyes were aglow at Andy's response. "Well," he said, gesturing to a man stood nearby, "this man here is the leader of the EDL in Yorkshire."

What followed was one of the most awkward conversations of Pubquest to date. We quickly made our excuses and moved to the other room. Once there, we were faced with a somewhat restricted selection of beers: John Smith's or Carling.

Yes that's right, to ensure you read that correctly I will repeat: the options were Carling or John Smith's.

Tossing a coin and leaving the matter to Lady Fortuna, we ordered a Carling and went to sit down.

The quiz eventually came and, for the first time in our lives, we did well. Don't get me wrong: we didn't win. But our score reached an unprecedented 19/25.

Of course, we were older and wiser than we were at eighteen. However, the quiz was also much, much easier than it had ever been in '09.

It wasn't long before our unashamedly racist acquaintance found us again, wanting to compare answers. Once again, we slipped away from him and moved back into the room that we had escaped from in the first place.

Under Pubquest rules we couldn't leave the pub until we finished our pint, and so we were forced to hop from one room to another in an effort to avoid our xenophobic stalker – all the while watching the foamy head slide lower down the glass.

When it eventually reached the bottom, we made a speedy exit. The fellow, whose name we never caught, came out into the doorway and shouted after us – but his outbursts were already fading into the distance, along with our memories of a once great pub brought low.

The Hollin Bush, in its present form, gets 1/10.

Pub: Hollin Bush (108 Hollinsend Road, S12 2EG)

Rating: 1/10

Pint: Carling Extra Cold

Brewery: Molson Coors Brewing Company (based in Ontario, Canada)

NEXT UP: Graves, bodies and coffins, at The Church House...