(no subject)
So that's it, the last house in Talbot Street came down today. Another 100 metres and it would be my own house they would've taken for the new bypass/inner-and-a-bit ring road.
Most of Talbot Street was renowned only for the odd stabbing, but there was a pub at the end that I quite liked to walk past.
Freddie's had a gorgeous pub sign at one point; it was a painting that made you squint up at the shillouette depicted and go "hey, that's Freddie Mercury! Nifty!" They had to take it down a couple of years back, presumably for legal reasons.
Freddie's was never as popular a gay pub as Curzon's or even The Crown, in fact as I walked past it every night I saw the same dozen or so middle-aged men in there. They'd all drink with the distant expression of men who have sat in that stool for the last decade, and would continue to do so until either the pub died or they did.
In my head as I walked home they became demotivated Grail knights, or a coven that had long since given up ritual for real ale. In my head, they'd all had each other in various combinations, but that was long ago, and now they all sat drinking to get away from their blokes and the odd wife they believed to be unsuspecting. In my head, now the pub is gone, they've gone back to their blokes and/or the Grail Quest, or else they're unwillingly developing a new interest in Coronation Street.
I hope they're okay.