"A Place of My Own"- Jane Melvin

Prior to their arrival at The New Inn...

…Jane and Rosie Melvin, as daughters of a peripatetic tenant farmer, had been brought up in the Scottish Borders, Canada, Shropshire, and then Herefordshire where their father was, at first, a tenant farmer on the Downton Estate before finally having a place of his own by buying the freehold of the farm he was working.

After finishing school, Jane went to The College of Food in Birmingham and then landed her first job at The Angel in Kingsland but her love for Scotland along with a new job opportunity took her to Dumfriesshire where she worked for six years.

In 1984, Jane's father received a telephone call from Roger Williams of the commercial real estate company Sydney Phillips, informing him that a tenancy had come up at The New Inn and that Jane should come back down from Scotland and "give it a go". This, she did.

One of her first obligations was to be taken by Colin Dyer, the previous tenant of the pub to the Licensing Board in Kington to receive her licence. Upon doing that, she was then escorted by Colin Dyer to The Queen's Head to spend the afternoon there imbibing. That had always been the tradition when a new tenant had replaced the previous one. When the day comes when Jane finally decides to pack it all in, she would, if she could, carry on that tradition. But, more likely these days, internet applications have now made traditions like this one redundant.

Upon taking the tenancy, the first person that Jane served a drink to was Ian Lawson.

Six years before, as a barmaid at The Angel in Kingsland, Jane would regularly serve Ian.

For the next 38 years, between the hours of 6 pm-8 pm, Ian would drive almost every weeknight from Aymestery to the New Inn in search of a drink and good company, and often, back in the day, when Crossroads was on the TV, he would have to flash his lights and toot his horn to distract Jane and Rosie from their soap addiction to notify them that he had arrived.

“Get that door open!” he would say.

Sadly, Ian died late last year in a car accident.

Jane - "That's been one of the biggest losses in my life. I can't describe how I feel about that".

Rosie - "He has a lovely friend from Staffordshire, Mick, and our big worry is that we won't see Mick".

Jane - "We won't see him here for a while."

Rosie - "He'll go to other places. He can't bear to come back."

Jane intended that she would take the tenancy for about six years and then move on to fresh pastures. But then, in 1990, the pub landscape suddenly changed. To comply with new regulations that would restrict and thereby reduce the number of tied houses that breweries could own, these breweries started to divest themselves of several pubs, usually poor-performing pubs. It was in these circumstances that Whitbread, the brewery owners of The New Inn, put the pub up for sale. Jane's father now saw the chance for his daughter to have, like him, "a place of her own".

The pub was put into auction with six other Herefordshire pubs. The successful bid by Jane's father was £142,000. The next highest bid was £140,000. It was a close-run thing.

In 1991 Jane, along with Rosie who was 19 at the time and who had just completed a course in catering at Hereford College, was now the licensee and landlord of The New Inn.

They both maintain that the pub is built on its customers but it could just as well be said that it is the pub, with Jane and Rosie at the helm that has laid the foundations for “the building work” by the customers to be done. It's a pub with character and this character is not just imparted by the seeming timelessness of the place but also and, maybe more so, by qualities which are distinctive to Jane and Rosie. You are always ensured of a welcome but also ticked off for swearing which gives the pub an otherworldly aura and often makes grown adults regress into mischievous, smirking schoolkids as they improvise on certain words to say what they mean without actually spelling them out. But you do so at your peril! Childish indeed but all part of the fun.

Over the years, countless weddings, shooting lunches, and end-of-season shoot parties have been held at The New Inn.

Jane - "The shooting season is my favorite time of the year without any shadow of a doubt. And that has sustained us through any bad times. Edward Thomas…

...and his shoot and Andrew (Thomas) has carried that on. And they (Andrew Thomas and his cohort) could go to Eardisland very easily really. It's on their doorstep. But they choose to come here because Edward would have wanted to come here.”

Something is happening there most nights. If it's not a British Legion meeting then it could be a meeting of doctors, a weekly bridge party, or a ukulele night. Whatever, it's a place to meet and greet.

Jane - “New Year's Eve is a funny one. Because either everyone is here or doing something else."

Rosie - "I always think Christmas Eve is the best really with the hunt meet. It's fantastic."

Jane - "Yeah, wonderful. It's a picture."

Rosie - "Used to start with half a dozen horses. Didn't it? And a few people."

Jane - "It's about seventy to eighty horses now. It is lovely. It's always been a tradition on Christmas Eve. But they always ask us if we want to do it. They don't expect it. They ask us if we want to do it, which we do."

Robert Duggan…

...some twenty or so years ago, while paying a visit to a farmers’ meeting in Roscoff broached this concept to Jane who took it up. The farmers who came to these weekly meetings all came from a five-mile radius. When they first arrived, Jane was astonished that many of the farmers were unknown to each other.

Jane - "And most of the farmers work on their own and they're all good friends now. And whatever happens, they keep coming back after...I would say...this COVID thing has affected it the most and there are forty members and twenty keep coming back. Just keep coming."

Rosie - "It's sociable too. It's not just about the buying. It's a chance to discuss things and spend time with your neighbors."

The farmers don't just come to discuss the price of everything agricultural but also because they value each other for who they are. The latter notion seems to be endemic in the pub's DNA. This is probably more apparent to visitors as opposed to locals because locals take it as given.

Once, not that long ago, there was a New Inn crib team comprising Dick Morgan, Little Stevie…

...Alfie and Keith Ward. One night, Keith Ward accused the local league secretary of cheating.

Rosie - "And there was hell to pop."

Consequently, The New Inn crib team was disqualified from the league never to rise again up through the league tables.

Rosie - “Dick Morgan was extraordinary at card games. He had a very quick mind. He could calculate anything, couldn't he? And he was hard to beat."

Jane - "He was very good at darts as well."

Rosie - "Very good. He was an extraordinary fellow."

Dick Morgan would walk to Pembridge to work from Hereford. He was a chicken catcher by trade. Most nights, he would try to catch a lift home but sometimes, unlike his skills as a chicken catcher, he would be out of luck.

What is a village without a pub? It's something that Hamlet might have pondered.

Jane maintains that the A44 is not a curse but a lifesaver for the village. Jane - "If you see a village with a bypass, it just kills everything.”

Rosie - "Pembridge is very vibrant.”

It's difficult to argue the contrary. As a corollary, Pembridge is what it is because of the A44, not despite it. With two cafes, a farm shop, two pubs, and a restaurant, Pembridge, except for Weobley, outdoes any surrounding village in terms of facilities. A bypass can, according to Jane, drain the lifeblood out of a village. After all, if there was a bypass around a village, how many travelers would care to take the detour to that village on their way to the Welsh coast? By having no other option than to travel through the village, many travelers stop to take the village in and absorb the historic features of the village and, in many cases, spend money which helps make businesses such as Jane’s and Rosie's viable. Lyonshall, again according to Jane, is a good example of a village with a bypass - no shop, no pub, and no cafe.

Two years ago, a Morris Dancing group entertained the village with some dancing outside the pub.

It was to celebrate the group's anniversary of the day that the group had first appeared at The New Inn to bless the pub when Jane had become the landlord. Jane reimbursed the dancers by charging them the same price for a pint of beer as she had originally charged these dancers when they had first blessed the pub. The price was 78p. Sounds cheap but 78p back in the day probably felt just as expensive as what a pint of beer costs today.

Saying "Ouch" to the price of a pint never changes but prices always do.

Rosie - "Do you remember when Percy Hall kicked off when the price went up? And he said 'How can it come out of the same barrel yesterday and be ten pence or five pence more today? It's the same beer as yesterday.’”

Jane - "He didn't come in for three months". Rosie - "Wasn't going to have it. Was he?”

It has been said that most people know the price of everything but the value of nothing. In The New Inn's case, this is simply not true. The value added is so enhanced that the government, about this pub, is completely justified in charging VAT.

And then there was Beano, the French Bulldog.

Some of you will remember him. He originally belonged to Steve Holder.

Steve Holder has known Jane and Rosie as long as Ian Lawson did. Both Steve and Ian would frequently visit The Angel in Kingsland when Jane was a barmaid there.

Jane - "Steve is a total hero. Good fun, naughty. Amazing character!" Rosie - "He loved his bulldog."

Jane - "Yeah, he gave us the bulldog to look after for six weeks or something and never came back for it.”

As it happened, Steve was on his way to Oman or some other potential hot spot in the Middle East but before he went he had to find someone to take care of Beano. So, he asked Jane and Rosie to take the dog in for about six weeks. After a few months had passed, it seemed like Steve, for whatever reason, was not coming back. But Steve did, at last, come back (and has kept coming back) and when he saw Beano upon his return from overseas lying on the front step, snoring away, it didn't take long for him to realize that for Beano every day at The New Inn was a dog day afternoon. Steve knew where Beano's bone was being buttered and Beano knew it too. Beano had decided that he wasn't going anywhere. The same can just about be said for many others who have frequented The New Inn. A dog day afternoon is about as pleasurable as life can get and The New Inn does a damn good job of providing this.

Rosie - "You know, we've lost so many close friends over the years. They're not just customers. You talk about people like Bert and Fred. There's no one to take their place. You know there's nobody who's got their knowledge and their stories. Their attitude to life. And making the best of..."

Jane - "They were so unwanting. They didn't want anything. That's the biggest thing. They just didn't want it. They were happy with what they'd got. They were so happy.”

Rosie - "And losing Tom Harper was a big shock. Wasn’t it?

And the way that happened. The fact that he had paid for his fuel before he...that was probably his biggest thing. That was very, very sad.”

Jane - "He went to Morrison's. He took Iris shopping...

…went and bought some petrol and then got back in his car and died. Just passed away quietly and that was the end of it."

Rosie - “Bobby's (Bob Davies) demise was very sad because, you know, when we first knew him, he used to ride up through the village on these fantastic point-to-pointers and race horses that he would train and then he would have those girls from Manchester living there and all the shenanigans that used to go down at Mill House.

They used to drink at The Lion and Bobby would come up here to get a bit of peace, I think. But he kept in touch with quite a lot of them. He would come up here at whatever time of day. But it happened very quickly for Bob and he missed Tom. It was a bit like losing his right arm. ‘Cause as they retired, they went everywhere together. They went to horse sales, they went racing. They'd go to any market just to have a look.”

Jane - “Bob brought that big flat-screen television and Tom would look around the corner. He'd never seen a television screen like it.”

Rosie - “And he would jump when the horses came because he felt they were coming at him. I was very sad at the way Bob's life went. When The Greyhound closed, he and Bob decided this was it."

Jane - "They were in here nearly every night I would say. But he (Bob) was remarkable with his racing. A strong extraordinary man. He (Tom) used to see off the bare-knuckle fighters at the Pembridge Fair.”

Rosie - "They used to go to Red Barn, didn't they? To do a bit of illicit fighting for a little money and Tom would clear the decks".

Jane - “But you know, if you felt there was a problem in here, he would step in and he was like in his seventies and eighties. He could square up to a huge height. Amazing. His knowledge and interest in horses was fantastic."

Rosie - "Robin (Gough) is a great miss. Boxing Day lunchtime into Boxing Day Night. Do you remember when Joan picked them up (Robin and Colin) on Boxing Day?”

Jane - "Yeah, took them home and then ten minutes later they were back in here in their slippers."

Rosie - "In slippers, yeah."

Jane - "They were standing in the bar again and then the phone went and Joan said 'Is my husband standing there back in your pub?' They had sneaked out the front door, got the car keys, and came back. They'd fancied a game of darts.

Joan said 'I'll come back and get him home again. Very tolerant lady."

Rosie - "Colin Thomas. That was one of the greatest sadnesses really. He was a lovely man, Colin".

Jane - "He was so supportive".

Rosie - "And he was so young. He and Joan were very, very sweet people".

Rosie - "Do you remember Ted Vaughan's wife?"

Jane - "Gabriella."

Rosie – "Well, Ted used to drop her off here on a Saturday night and then he would go around the other two pubs, and by the...this shouldn't really be on tape... but by the time he got back here, Mrs. Morgan and Mrs. Williams would fill Gabriella with all sorts of nonsense and then there would be a heck of a showdown. Wouldn't there? They were just naughty girls. Just naughty. Ted used to drive the minibus everywhere. He used to take the ladies to bingo. And I think another person who deserves a mention in the square was Peter Clarke from the store and Vicky Quinn. Because of Peter and Vicky and Percy..."

Jane - "Huge character!"

Rosie - " And honestly, that shop. It was a hoot. It truly was. Jane's cat...

…was the first customer every day and you'd go in and Peter would be in such a bad mood but funny. Wasn't he? And very good as a postmaster. And Reg Herbert. He used to deliver the bread and we always thought that Reg would pick up the bread from Hussey's every morning and he didn't. He used to pick it up from the shop here, drive it around the square, bring it in his fancy basket, and charge us four pence a loaf for delivery. And that went on for how many years? And he'd have a bacon sandwich on a Saturday morning. I think it was Tom Jenkins who landed him in it. They just used to take us for mugs. Well, we were mugs, I suppose."

Many have come and many have gone who have trod the inn's "modern burnt tiles made at Pitfield Brickyard" (WI History of Pembridge 1850-1950) while Jane and Rosie have been running the pub. The aforementioned Ian Lawson to begin with.

About five or six years ago, there was one person who to date has only come to the pub twice and then he was gone, never as yet, to come back. But who is to say he won’t? Perhaps, it will all depend upon what is happening in Aberystwyth. And, after all, he more or less implied the second time that he came to the pub that he would come back some time or other.

It was about seven years or so ago, on an autumnal early Monday evening that a shaggy, tousled, and aging hobo lookalike casually strolled into the inn. As yet, there were no other customers in the pub except for one. Yes, you’ve guessed it – Ian Lawson.

After being served a drink by Jane, the “hobo” proceeded to sit down in an old and somewhat worn armchair that used to be positioned to the right of the small drinks table in the back of the bar room. Both this “hobo” and the worn armchair must have felt like complete bedfellows. A marriage made in heaven. After a few minutes sitting there, the “hobo”, in a Californian drawl, stated to Jane as the fact that this was the most darn comfortable armchair that he had ever sat in. Indeed, so much so that he would be prepared to pay her £200 for it. Jane was thrown. This Californian was offering way over the asking price not that Jane had ever previously conceived of any price for this armchair. After all, it had been almost a fixture in the pub from time immemorial. Maybe this Californian knew the price of nothing but the value of everything. Without much equivocation, Jane replied to the “hobo” that she would sell it to him for £100. The “hobo” agreed to this price and told her that he was on his way to Aberystwyth but would drop in the following day on his way back to London. This he did, informing her as he left the pub along with the armchair that he would be back someday with the extra £100 which he had offered Jane but which she had declined to accept.

Several of us, upon entering the pub that week, inquired about the absence of the missing armchair. Maybe it was being reupholstered? Jane proceeded to set the record straight relating the events of that autumnal early Monday evening and the day after and even the name of the Californian who had bought the chair. You see she was now much better informed than she had been on the night when the “hobo” had first entered and then left the pub. Ian Lawson who, as previously mentioned, was the only customer in the pub when the “hobo” had first arrived, had informed Jane, after the hobo had left for Aberystwyth, that he was none other than Seasick Steve.

Here's a picture of Seasick Steve taken about two years ago which is posted on his Facebook page. The armchair and Seasick Steve have become very close buddies.

In an interview with an Australian magazine, Seasick Steve attributes much of his unlikely success to his cheap and weather-beaten guitar, "The Trance Wonder" and reveals the guitar's mojo might come from supernatural sources. "I got it from Sherman, who is a friend of mine down in Mississippi, who had bought it down at a Goodwill store. When we were down there last time he said to me, 'I didn't tell you when you bought it off me, but that guitar used to be haunted'. I say, 'What are you talking about, Sherman?'. He says, 'There are 50 solid citizens here in Como who'll tell you this guitar is haunted. It's the darnedest thing – we’d leave it over in the potato barn and we'd come back in and it would be moved. You'd put it down somewhere and the next morning you’d come back and it would have moved. When you took that guitar the ghost in the barn left'. He told me this not very long ago and I said to him, 'Sherman! Why didn't you tell me this before?' and he said, 'Well the ghost was gone – I didn't want it around here no more!'"

Quite possibly, it was for that very same reason that Jane sold Seasick Steve the armchair and that she was so desperate to get rid of it that she was prepared to sell it for half the price that was being offered by Seasick Steve to make him an offer that was too good to refuse. After all, she probably knew as much about the armchair’s supernatural sources as Sherman knew about “The Trance Wonder’s” supernatural sources. Jane had observed over the years that many of the pub customers sitting in that armchair entered into a trance-like state. Was it the booze or the chair? She wasn’t going to take the risk.

In 2012, the Wailers bassist, Aston "Family Man" Barrett…

…referencing one of Bob Marley’s and The Wailer’s most well-known songs, "No Woman No Cry", told the New Musical Express - "The song is about the strength in the mama of course, strength in the ladies. And we love a woman with a backbone. Something like a wishbone! They have to be like a she-lion! Woman strong, you know, not depending on the man.”

Aston “Family Man” Barrett could just as well have been talking about Jane and Rosie.

With a slight modification or two, the first verse of the song would go something like this -

“Cause—'cause—'cause I remember When ah we used to sit

In a pub parlor in Pembridge, Ob— observing the folks that come in.

Yeah!

Mingle with the good people we meet.

Yeah!

Good friends, we have, oh, good friends we've lost Along the way In this great future,

You can't forget your past. So, dry your tears, I seh.

Eh, Said, said, said I remember

When we used to sit In the New Inn front parlor in Pembridge, Yeah!

And then Rosie would make the fire light, I seh log wood burning through the nights. Yeah!

Then we would nyam the pheasant I seh, of which I'll share with you.

Yeah!

My feet is my only carriage.

And so, I've got to push on through.

Everything's going to be alright. Everything's going to be alright...etc”.

When you enter The New Inn, it always feels like everything really will be alright as we “Mingle with the good people we meet”.

So goes the song, and so goes the New Inn.

Here’s a link to Seasick Steve’s Facebook page where he is sitting in the supernatural armchair playing one of his guitars.

https://www.facebook.com/seasicksteve/videos/588108062636570/

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