sparkeysinging — 14 years ago(August 24, 2011 03:17 PM)

It was back in 1959. I called in the long gone Dog Inn at Firle, East Sussex. The place was in complete darkness apart from a dim light shining through the serving hatch. It shone on to a table marked out with lines. I bought a pint and asked what the table was marked out for. The landlord told me it was a shove halfpenny board.
"Donald will show you how to play", he said. I hadn't realised anyone else was in the room. I followed his gaze and could just make out a man sitting at a corner table. He picked up his pint and walked over. We began to play The conversation was mostly about the game. I thought his voice sounded familiar, but I couldn't see his face. Everything above the table level was still in darkness. We played for half an hour or so, and then he said he had to catch an early train to London in the morning, so we said goodnight and he left. I was eightpence in front.
"Do you know who that was?" the landlord asked. I shook my head.
"Donald Pleasance", he said.
Fifty years later I looked for the pub, but it was gone, so I went in the Ram for a pint. There was a young lady behind the bar. I asked about the Dog Inn but she had no knowledge of it. Around the shelves high on the walls were various antiquities. I wondered if the owner had bought any of the artifacts from the vanished pub.
I asked the young lady if the pub had a shove-halfpenny board. She put on a thoughtful face.
"No" she said, "but we do have toad-in-the-hole".
I remember a friendly man who let me win. Thanks Donald for the memory.