The next, The Freeholders, was a strange old place. It was full of very drunk patrons and was arranged in such a way that even with only 20 people in the pub, it was almost impossible to sit or stand anywhere without intruding on others.
At this juncture, I should point out that Godalming/Farncombe run a "name and shame" policy whereby they display names and pictures of people banned from the pubs and they tend to get banned from all the pubs in the vicinity. With this in mind, maybe we shouldn't have been surprised when the landlady announced to the whole pub that "for the sake of quelling malicious gossip", that she had banned a girl the week before for "completely inappropriate" behaviour. We didn't get to find out what she'd done! Certainly one of the patrons playing pool seemed to have a "completely inappropriate" low cut top for playing pool!
Before we left, an elderly gentleman came in, caught my eye and tipped his hat with an "Evenin' Guv" greeting. Classic - I haven't had that happen to me for 20 years or so! What a bizarre place.
Anyway - the gig. Standard fare from Mr Lynton. He's now in his late 60's, but delivers a quality show with his excellent band. Lots of Blues and Rock covers in the style of Chuck Berry and contemporaries and a few of the bands own gems. Throw in a couple of amusing anecdotes and it makes for a fun evening, although the 2hr journey home wasn't much fun. Just resisted the temptation to lock-in the female smoker who was in the train toilet for 45 mins - I was deterred by the overhead camera.
