THE SHIPWRIGHTS ARMS - liquid inspiration

THE SHIPWRIGHTS ARMS

liquid inspiration.

 

Compass Point

Extract from BLOOD ON THE TIDE

"The Shipwrights Arms was a modest building, with stone walls, tiny recessed windows and a pantiled roof. It sat right at the end of the quay, next to the station, hunkered down against the weather. It had withstood any number of gales and powerful storms and had survived, battered but unbowed. Inside was a small, low-ceilinged room, the once white paintwork now the colour of nicotine, stained dark from years of coal fires and the smoke of a lifetime of tobacco pipes. The woodwork was an even deeper colour, with a tar-like quality. Indeed, tar may well have been used as a ready substitute for paint. The room served as the solitary bar and a door marked PRIVATE led to Alf’s compact accommodation. The landlord was far from being the archetypal mine host. Rangy and thin, he barely spoke more than a sentence at a time, always wore a suit and tie and had bookshelves crammed with classics in his living room. He stood, impassive, in front of a brace of barrels of ale sitting on a rack behind the wooden counter. There was a foxed mirror on the wall above a shelf, reflecting a line of brown bottles. Below the barrels, shelves held clean, upturned glasses; pints and halves. The floor was bare floorboards, with a dusting of sawdust and sand and apart from a couple of stools, the only other seating was comprised of three chairs that had seen better days, arranged around a battered tin-topped table, next to the unlit fire."

 

The Shipwrights Arms - Poole

The inspiration for the Shipwrights Arms on my model, Compass Point, and in my books, Blood on the Tide and Blood on the Shrine, came from two sources. The name came from the one time pub, across the water from Poole Quay, where I worked as a barman when I was a student there. Sadly this was demolished many years ago, just part of the planners desire to render Poole characterless.

The Red Lion, Snargate.

But the atmosphere came, most definitely, from The Red Lion at Snargate, near Appledore on Romney Marsh, colloquially known as 'Doris's' after the late landlady. I first went there in the mid 1970s, and it has hardly changed since then, when it still had an atmosphere of the 1950s. Almost uniquely, it has been in the same family for three generations, since the beginning of the last century.

Di, Aggie and Greer

We visited today, after viewing the wonderful floral displays at Winchelsea church. We took our 83 year old friend Di, who remembers taking hops there when she farmed in Headcorn, next to the aerodrome that she started. If you're interested in reading more about her life, there is a book, Redhead in the Clouds, which Greer wrote, available on Amazon. 

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Redhead-Started-Headcorn-Aerodrome-Colourful/dp/1908616768.