A Year With the Brighouse Stars Walking Club - The September Weekend Part 2

A Year with the Brighouse Stars Walking Club

The Club September Weekend

Part 2 - Saturday

Beryl’s full English breakfasts were something of a legend. She would brook no talk of muesli or croissants and it was rumoured that a guest who had once asked where the mixed berries starter was had been chased out of the dining room.

The Stars of course met the challenge head on (Lumby had the audacity to ask for extra toast) and they were driven off at high – nay reckless – speed by Blanky towards the start of their walk at Ribblehead.

Just pausing here as this is a tale featuring a key annual outing in the calendar for The Stars, it may be appropriate to take a few moments to discuss the club’s origins together with a couple of key events in its history.

The year of formation - 1979 - could have been said to be like any other year in the United Kingdom in that there were the usual desultory introductions to the population at large. 1979 saw – among other things - the opening of the first Wetherspoons pub, the death of Sid Vicious, Margaret Thatcher becoming the UK’s first female Prime Minister and the establishment of a naturist beach in Brighton.

However, what was of particular concern to the disparate group of characters assembled in the lounge bar of The Star in Brighouse was that the price of a pint of beer had risen by over 17% (not that anyone would have made that particular calculation) in a year to thirty-four pence. If Billy the landlord could have been in receipt of a pound for every time he was greeted with the response of ‘How much’ when requesting payment for a drink that night he could have retired there and then.

So, all in all, it could be thought perhaps that 1979 didn’t usher into the world anything that was unduly remarkable. However, what an unsuspecting world could never in a million years have been prepared for was the birth of a walking club in an unpretentious public house located in sleepy old Brighouse in deepest West Yorkshire. No-one could have foreseen that this group of unassuming lads would, in no particular order, save planet Earth from total destruction, be the first walking club to adopt a diversity policy that would include space aliens, represent the United Kingdom in a newly recognised Olympic Sport and liberate a pub landlord from the onset of alcoholism.

Those first twelve brave defenders of man’s right to roam in open countryside and any public house before closing time thought long and hard before deciding on the name The Brighouse Stars. It was quickly established that St John would lead the walks. He was deluded enough to believe that he could actually read a map, adding to the fact that no-one else could be arsed.

Lumby was voted the first club President – or El Presidento as they say in West Yorkshire. In fact all the members voted for him owing to his terrifying reputation and a fear of reprisal against anyone who didn’t.

It was decided that Lumby (because he said so), Petty and Denbo between them would be in charge of any kitty established whenever longer than usual drinking sessions were envisaged. This triumvirate would go on to represent Great Britain and Ireland in the Olympic Games held in Heckmondwike in the summer of 1998. (More on this in a later instalment).

In 2001 the Club was the subject of a takeover by its Intellectual Wing. There were a few members who joined later and – being university educated – believed that the club should offer more to its members than casual walking followed by long bouts of senseless drinking. Their mantra was that the Brighouse Stars should acknowledge that it was a ‘walking club with a drinking problem’ rather than the other way round. They said that there should never be – on any one day – more pints supped than miles walked by any individual and they wanted a signed statement from each member agreeing to that. They also wanted each member to be qualified in map reading and mountain safety skills and be able to knit a pair of knee length walking socks without supervision.

The final demand – in fact the one that led to the ultimate failure of the coup – was that the monthly club meeting be relocated from The Star to the Sarsaparilla Wellspring, a local temperance establishment. It was deemed unacceptable when it was learned that Laughter Yoga and Local Gothic Architecture classes would be held on the same night as the club meeting. That, and the threat of physical violence from Lumby in his role as El Presidento.

Moving on…….

Notwithstanding the assault made on both the senses and the digestive tract by Beryl’s full English, the lads succeeded in climbing Whernside – and in relatively fine and warm weather as well. Blanky drove them back from Ribblehead at his usual breakneck speed and they arrived back at The Gerbil and Jockey in good time for baths to be run, toilets to be prepared and completed, and a pint or two to be enjoyed before choices for dinner had to be made. All except Tom that is, who had the bad luck to be sat at the rear of the minibus on the drive back. He was unfortunately forgotten about and only later helped into the pub, still partly crying and partly howling with hysterical laughter, only to be greeted with the news that the hot water had run out.

A fine dinner was enjoyed and the evening wore on in the usual Brighouse Stars fashion.

It was just before 2am when the robbers broke in, although in fact the front door was actually unlocked. Both men wore balaclavas; one was armed with a sawn off shotgun and it was assumed that the other was the bagman.

‘Where’s the landlord’, yelled Shotgun.

No-one responded.

‘Come on, where is he? Any stalling and I’ll use this’, said Shotgun waving his piece around.

Now this is where the trouble could have started, seeing as Landlord Jack was lying face down unconscious behind the bar, unable to respond in the affirmative at just that moment.

Petty – who else - stepped up to the mark. Landlord Jack, knowing that his time as a sentient being for the night was quickly running out, had given Petty permission to act as substitute landlord and to continue to serve drinks to the lads adopting the honesty method.

‘I guess I’m the landlord’, said Petty.

‘No, I’m the landlord’, said Lumby.

‘I’m the landlord’, said Denbo.

All the lads spoke up in the same way, Spartacus style.

All except Tom that is, whose lamps had gone and whose mechanism had failed about an hour before Landlord Jack’s and who was lying similarly unconscious next to him behind the bar.

‘We’d heard that you lads were up for the weekend so don’t try and tell us there won’t be record takings behind the bar. Now hand it over’, said Shotgun with more accompanying weapon waving.

It was at this point that Lionel stepped forward from the gents, for the record it being his 25^th visit of the night. For a laugh, he’d been wearing a German Pickelhaube spike helmet captured by Landlord Jack’s grandad in the first world war and which was perched precariously atop his enormous head, and a pair of Rockin’ Ronnie’s spectacles, the right lens being frosted owing to a cataract operation that Ronnie had undergone the week before.

From the assailant’s viewpoint and reading from west to east across the huge head -underneath the leather helmet captured from the Wehrmacht - what they both saw (or imagined that they saw) was a normal spectacle lens, a massive central eye, and a frosted lens. Shotgun’s weapon dropped to the floor, slightly in advance of his jaw, and both robbers immediately fled the scene.

No-one spoke.

Petty served Denbo another pint and Lionel decided an immediate return to the loo was in order.

Postscript

It transpired that the two robbers had made an equally unsuccessful raid on Ye Olde Sweete Shoppe in the village the previous evening. On that occasion they had been repelled by the two elderly spinsters who owned the shop. But why did the robbers flee at the sight of Lionel? It must be remembered of course that to this point Lionel had only ever been seen in Yorkshire where his appearance – while granted somewhat striking – was not considered particularly unusual. Turns out the assailants were from London.

When Landlord Jack finally regained consciousness the following afternoon, he admitted that he was a beaten man. He took the immediate decision never to partake of another alcoholic drink. He became something of a fitness fanatic, and took to taking long walks and wild water swimming. He was a new man. He advocated stocking low alcohol wines and beers and The Gerbil and Jockey became the first pub in the UK to serve sarsaparilla on draught. The Brighouse Stars never returned.