As many of you will recall I was once a professional, I had an actual career. I am so immensely proud of the Plough and so sewn into its fabric that I sometimes, some eight years in now, forget I was once a real person.
For those still in the real world wondering what life is like on the island (known as a load of alcoholics clinging to a rock in the Solent) let me tell you how a normal Saturday went.
I knew who would be first in but I did expect some memory, he had none. After checking him for injuries I explained that he had been run into by a car on his way home, really? he had no idea but…. it may explain the damage to his hand.
What about the head? oh no that was caused by headbutting every stair when he got home, at 7pm I might add. Next up I get to explain to the person , who probably shouldn’t have been driving, that he hadn’t killed anyone. It was just Jay and he was pissed and its all cool. Person A thinks he ran someone over and killed them and the corpse doesn’t remember the car, welcome to the island.
Then my next customer explains that at 6.30 in the morning on the way home he stopped to explain to people how he would walk their dogs. This is Shanklin, walk your dog before 12 and you will meet a drunk, a friendly drunk, and get instructions/advice/noise.
My first drunk leaves with a wobble, breakfast was beans on toast and a can of beer, and returns twenty minutes later. The entire pub is in awe of the state that he has got in, twenty minutes and he is spangled. So this fella has to go through staring (like he wants to kill you), crying, and incoherence before he shuffles off for a kip (its 3pm). Anywhere else he would have a black eye but here we laugh and smile and make it all seem normal.
The same drunk will return a mere two hours later and one of my regulars will note that he has ’embraced the island drinking culture with ‘some vigour’.
You see that is where the island culture comes into its own. We don’t judge drunks we collect them .It is still 1970 here and the more you can drink the better you are and the funnier your stories are and that’s what we do well. That’s what my tourists love, that’s true island life. A load of weirdos talking about the absolute carnage that we are still, just, allowed to create when drunk. So we still got speed limits, sorry, and all that but the island makes drunk stories better than most places on earth and long may I be a small part of that.