THE HONKEYMOON CAFE

Gone for nearly everyone these day are the milk floats, the clink of bottles on the door step and the cheerful, friendly milkman. The village ceased having its milk delivered many years ago, but milkmen had a reputation. Did ours leave something behind? It was while Paul Goggin in our village shop was stacking milk into his chiller that prompted me to ask him if milk bottles were still delivered. In fact do they still exist? ‘Not round here they don’t,’ he told me. Continuing my shopping I thought I could remember when I was in Bristol the chink of bottles being put on door steps, but that might be my ‘false memory’. Certainly in my childhood in South London milk was delivered every morning, except Sundays, and with a carton of cream, if you’d ordered it the day before. I was probably the last generation to have milk at school. Metal crates with serried ranks of small bottles, perhaps a third of a pint, in the shade of a school entrance waiting for morning playtime. To each child a hea...

Ridge Farm changes to Ridge House, and the new owners plan to modernise. The Old Laundry to be partially demolished and the fireplace opened up, and what will they find? No matter how up-to-date it might appear, you can’t change its past, and you can’t make something leave, that doesn’t want to. The death, apparently accidental, of Jean Carter’s little brother Pauly in the old laundry, followed by the family’s prompt move to Shipston, caused suspicion. When there was no evidence of Pauly’s death having being recorded, and then during the development of Ridge Farm, the Carter’s old home, the bones of a child were discovered, it appeared to be obvious what had happened. But appearances can be deceptive.  During my enquiries about ‘imaginary friends’ I had spoken to Jean regarding hers. She called him ‘Edward’ and had said how much her Edward had hated her little brother. Rachael, our village historian, and I, wondered how much influence could an imaginary friend have, and was it enou...

Imaginary friends are not uncommon, they can be a child or an animal. Are they just an innocent fantasy? Or can they have a darker purpose?  Is an imaginary friend always just that? It was Terry Marshal our film buff who mentioned the film ‘Harvey’ in which James Stuart has an imaginary friend, a six-foot three inch tall rabbit, known as a Pooka. It was when several regulars were discussing what the cross between Liz Wintern’s errant Cocker and the  Carbright’s Poodle might be called, before the name ‘Cockapoo’ had reached us. Subsequently I have discovered imaginary friends are not uncommon up to the age of about nine or ten. So in Harvey’s case, an imaginary friend is somewhat unusual for a mature adult.  One of the people I asked was Jean, who assists Dave at the pub occasionally and incidentally, is still attending Penny Marshall’s singles dinners though the rep from Swindon is long gone. She grew up on the outskirts of Leigh Delamere. Her family had been farmers for ...

If someone pays you in advance for a story, especially if it’s the landlord of your local pub, you want to give good value. And if it’s as a result of some banter, then you have the freedom to be creative, even if the landlord might regret asking you. I’d called into the Drum on some business and was about to leave when landlord Dave asked me what evil wind had blown me into the village from which it was never likely to recover. Dave has a way of engaging you in conversation with an insult. It’s banter and it confirms he and the person to whom the insult is aimed are on friendly terms. It’s badinage, typical of male company, but not solely, and invites a playful response. It’s like play fighting, but there are limits, for instance, a man’s virility, a woman’s figure, and the landlord’s beer. My repost was that I’d been hoping in vain for the same evil wind to blow me back to where I came from. A direct enquiry into my arrival might have been interpreted as nosiness, as it was, it gave ...