© Schlock! Webzine
Jim Mountfield, the nom de plume I use when writing fiction of a scary nature, has a new short story featured in the October 2024 edition of the online publication Schlock! Webzine. It’s entitled The Hole in the Wall and it chronicles the spooky events that befall a real-ale enthusiast while he’s researching a pair of English pubs. Writing The Hole in the Wall allowed me to poke a little gentle fun at the organisation the Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA) and its members, though here the main character belongs to an outfit called ABRA, “the association for Action on Bars and Real Ale”.
Now I whole-heartedly believe CAMRA does sterling work in Britain promoting decent-tasting beer and fighting for the preservation of pubs, and I have absolutely nothing against its members. Indeed, in my youth, I was in CAMRA myself. But a few CAMRA-ites I knew could be somewhat intense and zealous. I recall doing a work-experience stint as a trainee journalist with the magazine Camping and Caravanning in 1992. To keep me busy, the editor suggested I write a feature about cider – the next issue was to focus on camping and caravanning in Somerset and Devon, a region famously home to much of England’s cider. A mate in CAMRA put me in touch with the organisation’s cider authority, whom I interviewed for the feature over the phone. More than an hour later, I could not get the interview to end. The guy would not stop talking about cider. At one point he started singing wassailing songs down the phone-line at me. Such enthusiasm for his favourite beverage was impressive, if frightening.
Of the pubs featured in The Hole in the Wall, one is a dive and is called the Year and a Day Tavern, which was based on now-closed hostelry on Norwich’s Magdalen Street, the Cat and Fiddle. I visited it once or twice when I lived in the city in 2008-9 and I have to agree with an acerbic reviewer of the bar who advised online: “…don’t go to the toilet in any circumstances unless you’re wearing a full nuclear biological and chemical protection suit and gas mask.” The other pub in the story, a smart one called the Cache, was based on a couple of places I used to imbibe in, including the Bodega on Newcastle-upon-Tyne’s Westgate Road and the Fat Cat on Norwich’s West End Street, though the hanging ‘artefacts’ on view inside it were inspired by the décor in the Nutshell in Bury St Edmunds, which claims to be the smallest pub in Britain.
For the next month, The Hole in the Wall is available to read for free here, while the contents page of Schlock! Webzine’s October 2024 issue can be accessed here. So, please pull up a stool, pour yourself a pint and enjoy.