Closing time

SUR in English columnist Peter Edgerton lowered the shutter on his Shakespeare pub for the last time on Sunday, bringing to a close a decade of boundless fun and frivolity, not to mention the odd drama

Peter Edgerton

Malaga

Friday, 21 February 2025, 13:14

Crumbs, that was quite a ride. After nine-and-a-half years, the Shakespeare pub pulled the shutter down for the last time on Sunday, bringing to a close a decade of boundless fun and frivolity, not to mention the odd drama.

Let's see now. Well, we've witnessed two marriage proposals, one fight (they weren't connected), poetry, rugby, science talks, book presentations, Spain thwacking England in the 2024 Euro final, a mad neighbour (ex-customer) who suddenly took against us for no discernable reason and launched a long, vitriolic campaign of online abuse in our direction, songwriters, hundreds of pub quizzes, Gypsy Jazz, Irish sessions (music, not drinking. Although...), people fainting from time to time (not always when the bill arrived either), one-star reviews, five-star reviews, one-star customers, five-star customers, a short-lived spate of handbag thefts, a work inspection (passed with colours, though not necessarily of the flying variety), a Swedish pop star singing in the style of Louis Armstrong (me neither), Spanish actors, British actors, art exhibitions, photography exhibitions and, of course, random strangers making an exhibition of themselves.

Somehow, in amongst it all we managed to serve a few drinks and wash some glasses which, let's face it, was our primary function.

To think that in 2015, I had been weighing up the relative pros and cons of opening a bar or, alternatively, buying a camper van thingamajig and driving around the United States just for the hell of it. It was a close-run thing but I'm genuinely glad I plumped for the pub - it's been intense and, at times, infuriating but it's been real and it's created a community of like-minded souls in an increasingly atomised society. That must be a good thing. And, let's face it, the world didn't really need one more bloke faffing around on his travels which, to be blunt, would have been of no interest to anyone but him.

What to do next, that's the question. First a little holiday (no camper van included) and then it'll be time to have a crack at something else. These are the best of times when it feels like the possibilities are endless but it'll soon be the moment to make a concrete decision and plump for some hare-brained scheme or other. Should the next chapter be even half as vivid as owning the pub has been, that'll be a mighty blessing.

If you ever popped into the Shakespeare for half a lager - thank you. Without people popping in, it would have just been a solitary man standing in an empty room, dreaming of America.

www.peteredgerton.com

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