Around November 2007, after four years running a successful village pub restaurant in Holyport, Berkshire we suddenly found ourselves marooned in an archipelago of rocks and hard places: the smoking ban; Wetherspoons' 99p pints; the manacles of the beer tie; ridiculously cheap supermarket drink; escalating beer duty rises; celebrity chef competition; costly licensing legislation; fuel and utility price rises; the health lobby; the bind weed of red tape, local council intransigence; the credit crunch and changing social drinking patterns all conspired against us to kill the business. The White Hart, Holyport

 

These factors were set against the looming storm clouds of   the World's first global recession possibly depression. Reports of banks and businesses collapsing everywhere and 42 pubs a week in England closing for good hit the news almost daily. Like groundhog day we became inert to the unfolding drama as the dwindling handful of disenchanted regulars supped idly by. Soup of the day sir?

 

For us, trade declined by over 50% in a few short months and in August 2008 we loaded what few possessions we had left onto the horse and cart and headed west, young man, to Germansweek, Devon. 

 

So here we are rehabilitated and ready to go, into the new age of austerity 

 

                                    Richard & Karen Heath - March 2009

 

** Update August 2009 - we are now in Bude, Cornwall. -->--> Barton Meadows

** Update February 2010 - we are now in Widemouth Bay, Cornwall - nomads that we are