Hosts help stranded travellers
A pub manager accepted watches, rings and a family photograph as collateral for food and drink from desperate motorists stuck in the blizzards which swept the south-east at the end of last week. Jason Kingsbury said around 350 people ended up camped out at his pub, the Airfield, in Hatfield, as thick snow turned the whole of Hertfordshire into a no-go zone. He stayed open overnight, transforming his breakfast room into a sleeping area for around70 stranded drivers and their passengers. "I contacted the police and let them know I was staying open and they dropped people off all night long," he said. "It looked like a refugee centre. But there was real camaraderie people were buying meals and drinks for each other, lending money, and loaning out spare coats." Kingsbury said everyone with a tab card had returned to pay their bill and collect their items. Travellers trapped by the wintry onslaught were also put up at the Hollybush pub in Welwyn Garden City. Licensee Claire Kelleher was dubbed the "Hollybush Angel" by Lez Steed, his wife and his 77-year-old diabetic mother. Kelleher also looked after drivers from Birmingham and Hitchin and travellers heading to Heathrow. "I realised they were stranded and couldn't throw the poor people out in the snow," she said.
