Ticking over is the new affluent. That’s the unanimous verdict  from Norfolk’s least trendy pub where sound thinking rivals sensible drinking as a post-election pastime. 

At least either side of The Happy Five Minutes.

The Shiny Buskins at Lower Dannocks encourages a brutally honest approach to our parlous economic climate.

Landlord Jasper Bullard has replaced football flags over the bar with the legend” We are now at that bridge we were going to cross when we came to it”.

He knows more cruel cuts will eat into  his meagre profits and further discomfort faithful regulars who asked long ago as ration books disappeared why the man entrusted to invest all your money was called a broker.

Mine host has warned against too much whinge drinking – complaining loudly about exorbitant prices on tap – and called for “measured moderation mixed with our renowned sense of humour”  to meet exceptionally hard times.

Immediate encouragement flowed from a reserved table with comfortable chairs in a cosy corner as far away as possible from erratic young darts enthusiasts, effusive tourists trying out their three words of dialect and the big chap from the next village whose farmyard impressions consist solely of smells.

The hostelry’s three mainstays throughout feast and famine, boom and bust, mild and bitter, are setting perfect examples on how to cut back without cutting off vital supplies of liquid sustenance and community awareness.

Retired coypu catcher Ezra Masters, who gave up second helpings of bread and butter pudding at turn of the year, says it will be no hardship to reduce Friday’s night’s beer intake to “just a half instead of one over the eight”.

Retired hunnycart driver  Gibby Lawson, who gave up chocolate biscuits with his morning cup of tea last week, decrees he will henceforth describe Arthur Sawney as “ a few crusts short rather than a whole sandwich short of a picnic”.

Retired road mender Alec Waters, who gave up morning tea  and chocolate biscuits last week in favour of extra bread and butter pudding, promises to leave the pub “merely two sheets to  the wind” at weekends, despite obvious blows to the local laundry business.

With their combined ages adding up to 238 for 3 – a highly respectable score on any Norfolk cricket pitch – landlord Bullard hopes their experience and wisdom can inspire rest of his clientele to show true grit at the crease in big tests to  come.

 

Ticking over

 

“ It’s no good drinking and carousing like there’s no tomorrow. This is tomorrow in a manner of speaking and I want our meeting place to reflect a new sense of responsibility for as long as it takes to safely reach the day after” he added philosophically.

Semi-retired dishwasher Elsie Wedgewood has taken the austerity message into the Sinkers & Swimmers Restaurant at back of the pub. She told chef Percy Pingle that apples were so expensive now people might just as well have the doctor. While he was working that one out, Elsie suggested humpbacked rabbits would keep the crusts up nicely on their celebrated dinnertime pies. Percy put out his “same-day service” sign.

Meanwhile, those three wise men up the corner bantered and chuckled loud enough to attract the sort of interest any bank account would cherish. Their well-honed “our family was poorer than yours” routine brought a free round on the management.

Ezra recalled how burglars broke into their tied cottage to leave things while the tooth fairy dropped an IOU on the pillow. Gibby said his dad used to sell furniture for a living; “Unfortunately, it was ours”.  Alec wiped away a pretend tear as he told how his dear old mum couldn’t afford talcum powder. She used self-raising flour instead;” “When I got hot, I would break out in pancakes”.

That big chap from the next village sitting alone at the bar said his parents were so poor they  got married just for the rice. And they took it out of the tins.

Arthur Sawney, tucking into a beef sandwich, stopped chewing to announce he had been working out their budget and told his wife; “One of us will have to go”. she had volunteered. Landlord Bullard couldn’t resist a personal tribute to his favourite uncle’s habit of scraping the wallpaper. “We thought he was redecorating. Turned out he was moving”.

So they’re pulling together for the shore of make-do-and-mend, the golden sands of cheerful acceptance that having less could mean there’s more to get when the tide turns.

Only a small Norfolk watering-hole in a desert of savage cuts and crushed ambitions. And yet there’s genuine hope radiating from a reserved table with comfortable chairs in a cosy  corner …

Ezra; “Are you two really against inflation?”.

Gibby and Alec together: “Oh, yes .. 300 per cent!”.