Visiting the Masters' Pubs at Long Last

[Chrissie Boy]

As a person who didn't live near Horsham, it wasn't till years after leaving school that I had the chance to visit pubs near CH which were seen as Masters' pubs in my day.

The Fox & Hounds/Boar's Head was very much my sort of place (well, the public bar was, anyway): I particularly liked the stone floors. The Hen & Chickens at Southwater was a place I'd visited as a pupil and of which I didn't form much of an opinion (no change there). The Green Dragon at Dragon's Green had too low a ceiling for me and I whacked my head a real treat on the low beams. The Ship (?) at The Haven was staggeringly primitive and tiny and the garden was full of stomach-churningly plummily-voiced horsey types. But the one that astonished me most was the Bax Castle.

In my day, it famously had a 'manic depressive' landlord who ultimately committed suicide by hanging himself in the bar (as we were told). This had always stuck in my mind - so imagine my consternation upon entering the boozer and finding that it had such a ridiculously low ceiling that the landlord would've had to be a dwarf to have been able to hang himself from it. Or was he a dwarf - and is that why he was so depressed that he killed himself?

[oldroamer]

The Green Dragon, was that the pub that had an albino buried in the front garden? It was just possible to get there on a Wed afternoon in time for a couple of very swift pints after lunch which I did on several occasions in the company of Mike Barram (Col A 56-63?) in the summer term of 1963. It was just far enough away from CH to pretty much guarantee that no masters would be there.

The Bax Castle was always a no-no, reputed to be the regular of Fal Matthews, housemaster of Pe B.

[Great Plum]

The Green Dragon does indeed have an albino in the back garden...

The Bax is still a favourite haunt of the staff...

[Richard Ruck]

The Green Dragon does indeed have an albino in the back garden...

The Bax is still a favourite haunt of the staff...

Any chance you could arrange for some of the staff to have a quiet word in the landlord's ear?

His attitude towards the irritating ******** who insist on ruining his day (customers) seems to be earning him a bit of a reputation.See the reviews here http://www.horshampub.co.uk/baxcastle.html

[A Dirty Old Jack]

I was a good boy, I was, and I never sneaked off to the boozer when I was at school (er...except for three times). One time was when I nicked off to that Hen & Chickens joint in Southwater, well camouflaged as a civilian but nevertheless dreading meeting a master or two, and was amazed to discover a broad assortment of Housey boys sitting around in the bar, actually wearing Housey coats. I mean, flamin' 'eck, the school had officially asked all the landlords for miles around not to serve CH pupils, so I was not a little astonished. (Some of the drink-sodden schoolboys were school monitors, cigs burning away in their hypocritical claws. I was singularly unimpressed.)

Maybe Richard 'Rubber Duck' Ruck knows the answer to this one. Have all the pubs changed their names to Iggy's Bar, Ziggy's Bar, Trumper's, Thumper's, The Frog & Radish etc., etc. since our day? Is the Fox & Hounds now called the Fox & Firkin? And has anyone opened a boozer called The Penguin-Basher yet?

And is that cottage up the road on Tower Hill still haunted, along with the road outside?

Questions, questions....

[Richard Ruck]

Maybe Richard 'Rubber Duck' Ruck knows the answer to this one.

Hmmm, a typically 'inventive' junior house nickname from 1972/1973. Well-remembered, or reinvented? Only you can tell us........

Questions, questions, eh?

[A Dirty Old Jack]

You were known as 'Rubber Fcuk' by the time I woke up to your existence, but I was told you were formerly known as 'Rubber Duck' - which was a pleasantly non-obvious nickname I thought. I've met several people named Ruck since leaving school and they were all called 'Fcuk' at school, which has a certain dismal inevitability about it, wouldn't you say?

So tell us, Mr Rubber Duck: Did various Ch-area boozers change their names to Nobby's, Swiggers', The Sneak Inn etc. since our time?

[Richard Ruck]

You were known as 'Rubber Fcuk' by the time I woke up to your existence, but I was told you were formerly known as 'Rubber Duck' - which was a pleasantly non-obvious nickname I thought. I've met several people named Ruck since leaving school and they were all called 'Fcuk' at school, which has a certain dismal inevitability about it, wouldn't you say?

So tell us, Mr Rubber Duck: Did various Ch-area boozers change their names to Nobby's, Swiggers', The Sneak Inn etc. since our time?

OK, this is one of the perils of not hiding behind a mask of anonymity on a public forum, I suppose.

Question 1 - The answer is 'yes'. Thankfully my adult mates have always been a bit more inventive (though not much more....).

Question 2 - The answer is 'no'. Only newly built / converted pubs around here tend to have these crap names.

For example, Southwater still has The Hen and Chicken and, to raise a schoolboy snigger, The Cock Inn.

Interested (mildly) to know that you've met several people named Ruck - the surname's a bit unusual. I've never met anyone with the name outside my immediate family, although I am aware of a few others.

And now, with dismal inevitability, I have to go to the Post Office.

[J.R.]

You were known as 'Rubber Fcuk' by the time I woke up to your existence, but I was told you were formerly known as 'Rubber Duck' - which was a pleasantly non-obvious nickname I thought. I've met several people named Ruck since leaving school and they were all called 'Fcuk' at school, which has a certain dismal inevitability about it, wouldn't you say?

So tell us, Mr Rubber Duck: Did various Ch-area boozers change their names to Nobby's, Swiggers', The Sneak Inn etc. since our time?

OK, this is one of the perils of not hiding behind a mask of anonymity on a public forum, I suppose.

Question 1 - The answer is 'yes'. Thankfully my adult mates have always been a bit more inventive (though not much more....).

Question 2 - The answer is 'no'. Only newly built / converted pubs around here tend to have these crap names.

For example, Southwater still has The Hen and Chicken and, to raise a schoolboy snigger, The Cock Inn.

Interested (mildly) to know that you've met several people named Ruck - the surname's a bit unusual. I've never met anyone with the name outside my immediate family, although I am aware of a few others.

And now, with dismal inevitability, I have to go to the Post Office.

Doesn't pension day come round so quickly as you age, Richard ?

Didn't Rubber-Duck have some sort of CB radio meaning ?

[A Dirty Old Jack]

Interested (mildly) to know that you've met several people named Ruck - the surname's a bit unusual. I've never met anyone with the name outside my immediate family, although I am aware of a few others.

All 3 of the Rucks I've met had body-mass problems: one was well chubby and the other two were clinically obese.

Should I picture you these days as an enormous roly-poly dollop?

Sort of like http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v629/ ... r/otis.bmp ?

[Richard Ruck]

Nice picture!

Well, I have gained a few pounds as a result of giving up smoking, but I'd have to go on a severe fast-food diet before I'd start to look like that bloke.

[Spoonbill]

Umm....Actually, I look a bit like that bloke in the photo these days, I'm embarrassed to say. Too many kebabs, possibly (or perhaps not enough). And to think I was an ultra-skinny Jack Frostlike teenager at CH.....Nobody would have guessed I'd grow up to be a giant barrage balloon with hair on top.

(Maybe one of the reasons I've never been back is that I don't want people hooting with laughter at me and comparing their wives' cup-sizes with mine.)