大象传媒

This is a story told me by my father, Sydney Brooks (1917-92). He was unfit for military service but was called up into a reserved occupation, and joined the Home Guard. He was a member of the 7th Bn, North Staffs regiment, and was stationed at Uttoxeter.
I have heard the "pint glass" part of this story in a slightly different form from someone else, and I wonder if it is an urban myth rather than a true story. Or perhaps it happened all over the place and many people could tell the story.
Part of my father鈥檚 war work was to do the calculations necessary to design gauges. This aspect of armaments work seems to have been undertaken in particular in Uttoxeter. He had been a mathematical wizard at school and so it was no surprise that he was called into that area of war work. Technically, he was a "2nd Class Examiner and Mechanic" employed as an "Industrial Employee serving under the Chief Inspector of Armaments". Sometimes, he had to visit companies which manufactured the gauges. One such was the Horstmann Gear Company of Bath. It meant staying over two nights. Taking the old Midland line from Birmingham, he got off the train at what he called a small local station. I am sure he must have meant Weston Station, a mile or so short of Queen Square Station, the terminus. Arrangements had been made for him to put up at a nearby pub, where he arrived just before closing time at the bar. Venturing forward, he ordered a pint of bitter. 鈥淕ot a glass?鈥�, came the reply. Presumably there were none behind the bar. "No glass, no pint.鈥� Before he could do anything to remedy the situation, time was called 鈥� and in those days time at the bar was fiercely enforced.
After his day at Horstmann鈥檚 he returned to the pub. Entering the bar, he saw an empty glass on an unoccupied table. Taking the glass to the bar and proffering it to the barman, he ordered a pint of bitter. 鈥淣o more, sir,鈥� said the barman. 鈥淥nly one pint per customer tonight, we鈥檙e running short.鈥�
According to my father, he explained his way out of the predicament and got his pint, but in other versions of the story I have heard, the thirsty customer is always less fortunate.
My wife and I moved to Bath in the 1970s, and lived close to Horstmann's. My father visited us often after that, and was quite clear that the Newbridge Road entrance to the factory site (now disappeared under a housing development) was the one he had used; but he did not recognise any of the pubs I would call "nearby" (The Weston, The New Crown, perhaps The Dolphin). Anyway, he had only seem them during the blackout.
He never did work it out for certain, but wondered at one time whether it had been the Windsor Castle, still a busy pub in the 1970s though now gone. If so, he said, the bar had changed completely. In any case, in his second incarnation (so to speak), he never liked the Windsor Castle. He could not bring himself to say it was definitely the right place, so the mystery will never be solved.
I also suggested to him that it might have been one of the pubs on the south side of the river, but he would have had to cross the halfpenny bridge at the bottom of Station Road to get to them, and he was sure he had never done so.

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