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I've been to the memory bank again and found there's still a small balance in the old account - this time it's a couple of old Coker characters I drew out.
Amongst the regulars who frequented the bar of The Royal George in my adolescent years there was always a mutual friendly antagonism among some of them. A pair of gentlemen that were always twitting one another were Jim Hunt and Frank Marsh, especially if they were opponents at shove ha'penny, which was a very popular bar game then. I remember there was a dickens of a humorous uproar one day when Jim found out that Frank, who was marking the board, had fashioned a stick of chalk at one end to produce two lines at a single stoke - but only when he marked his own side of course! It really was an ingenious masterstroke by Frank.
Another novel event that featured the same two gents completely emptied the George one Saturday lunchtime. It was a challenge bet, for a pint, on who could out run the other, down to Shelley's garage, round the petrol pumps and back. The much longer legs of Jim's prevailed to earn him his prize of scrumpy that Frank gracefully presented.
The really great happening between these two gents, which was a topic of conversation for quite sometime, occurred when Jim was driving a bus for Southern National on the Yeovil Pen Mill to West Coker Square serv
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ice. Frank, who worked in Yeovil, used to cycle back and forth and it was his return journey that coincided with the Coker bus passing him, somewhere near Uplands. Jim had somehow mastered the art of making his bus engine backfire and he could never resist doing this every time he passed Frank on his bike. This used to rile Frank no end besides nearly blowing him of his bike.
One day, Frank heard the bus coming, just as he was nearing the Green Lane junction and thought he'd escape the explosion by turning down Green Lane to Holywell, then up Halves Lane to Font where he lived. Have you guessed it? Yes, Jimmer followed him down Green Lane in the bus - it certainly must have raised a few eyebrows for the passengers, especially those who were about to alight at Uplands Terrace. As it was too narrow to pass in the lane, Jim had to wait for the Holywell road before the inevitable confrontation happened. He was still chuckling when he stopped to let the Font folk off at West Coker House - it was the first time they had made it home before the Uplands people for sure and the first time the West Coker bus had been re-routed to satisfy someone's ego.
That was Jim, he was someone special to me as was Frank, what a privilege to have known such gentlemen.
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