Letters – Villagers should have used pub

When I visited an old friend of ours who still lives in Gedney Dyke village about a week ago my wife and I could not help ourselves laughing at all the “Save our Pub” and talking to our friends they told us that once again the villagers were up in arms after the Chequers Pub shut its doors at Christmas in the village.

I wonder if they were the owners who had been let down by the locals.

Don’t they know to save a business you have to put money in the till before it shuts and gets into trouble?

For a few years I lived in Gedney Dyke, so I used The Chequers a lot of times.

It was my local watering hole and for some evening meals and afternoon sandwiches during my lunch break. I enjoyed many a good time in there.

When Simon and Lynda owned it, they went bankrupt due to the fact that the villagers did not support their local amenities but then moaned when the pub was closed for business, same as the shop.

If my facts are right the chef and a friend bought it to keep it running for the locals and they also got into financial trouble due to the poor support of the locals.

It’s a shame this is the third time this has happened, but when my wife and I lived in the village the locals used to go down Black Lion at Gedney to get a skin full and a meal there.

They would then wander back to The Chequers, have one pint with the barman or woman who had been standing for hours with mostly two or four of us supporting our local.

When our friends showed my wife and I the photo in the paper protesting outside the pub even they commented “I bet half of them have not set foot in the place.

I will admit looking at the pub and the inside gives one the impression of a city pub/restaurant dropped into a country village where it’s mostly surrounded by land worked.

Tod
Formerly of Gedney Dyke