Chris Maclean: Back to Ground Zero

For 15 years we ran a very successful village pub. We won all the prizes. The pub traded out of its socks.

Then I had a moment of madness.

I decided to embark on a new challenge - a vast Victorian hotel with seven letting rooms and a disused restaurant in a town.

Just to make it interesting it had evolved into a sports bar with five televisions, fruit machines and a thin layer of coke over the toilet cisterns. The barmaid proudly announced they sold four bottles of sambuca on a Sunday afternoon.

We have been here four months.

The televisions have gone.

The fruit machines have gone.

The alcopops have gone.

The shots have gone.

The drugs have gone.

Unfortunately most of the customers have gone.

It is Ground Zero and it is scary.

There was a succession of local chavs but as I am 6'3" and 19 stone, there has not been any confrontation.

I now watch the seemingly endless stream of idiots trying it on.

Tap Man. He has an assortment of taps, metal objects, a Barbie doll and a withered arm that is actually quite functional.

A man who stares through the window each night but never comes in.

Odd people in woolly hats who talk to themselves.

Frail Old Bert who casually approaches every new visitor with the innocent line "Are you local?" and then, regardless of their response, launches into a 20 minute resume of his life complete with medals, photos and love poems from his, now dead, wife.

But then the real characters emerge. People who make it worthwhile opening for.

There is an unusually high incidence of infidelity here. There is a fondness for excessive drinking. It is an interesting combination.

Guineafowl was thrown out on Christmas Eve when his partner found errant entries on his credit card statement.

He has an interesting pedigree. Once his partner's child reaches eight months he finds himself in a compromising position. Then he moves on.

There is ribald humour here. The CSA sent him a Christmas card this year.

I had forgotten how hard it is starting a pub from scratch. This blog is my map out of the swamp.