This building will always be a pub.
Even when everything is stripped out,
and nothing else remains,
you will still smell the ghost,
of a million pints.
Be haunted by the echoes of late nights,
hear the clicks and whistles, of the electric quiz machine.
Even if new carpets are laid,
and the walls painted a sensible magnolia.
You can’t paper over forty thousand servings of mushy peas,
or non-Hellman’s mayo,
or tarte sauce from a small plastic packet.
The memories of summer,
and the first sip of your dad’s pint.
Tobacco has ingrained itself in the wood of the beams,
chairs and stairs,
in a way that your candyfloss flavored water could only dream.
You cannot bury a pub.
It clings like glue to the sole of your shoe,
a reminder of what a building can be to you.
A place for laughter,
and curry,
and mates,
for heartbreak,
and tears,
and terrible first dates.
The good ones have a soul all their own.
Built of more than bricks,
and mortar,
and stone.
.
By Fudge Cooper
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