Puzzle Poets is still charging onwards, and although we have been in our home from home in the Blind Pig with its Stairway to Heaven as Greg called it, there is a move afoot to buy the Puzzle Hall Inn as a Community Pub with share options. At the moment it is owned by a property Company who hoped to turn it into flats, but an offer has been put in, and fingers are crossed.
The roof is being stolen and fires in the field next door threaten it, but our gallant little pub is very much wanted by the alternative and dissatisfied community which wanders disconsolately from the Shepherd's Rest to the Turk's Head, drifting inappropriately into Wetherspoons, and finding solace in remote corners of the Hogs Head which is a micro brewery and opening just as the Puzzle closed, swept up most of the staff.
We hope people will look out for the Share option and oversubscribe to it. Not only do we have to meet the price of the building , but a vast amount will be needed to refurbish and rescue the vandalised roof and the unsteady cellar wall.
I wondered whether any other poetry nights have gone into this community pubs lark. Making the case for the unique nature of the Puzzle Hall Inn, I am struck by how valuable community is in these fragmented days.
Anyone out there who has been through this please share. I know there are a lot of Community pubs, but are there Poetry groups taking part in any?