Is it last orders at the Inn on the Square?

Crying shame that's all I can say. Well not quite.  Tuesday night me, Charlie Street and old Stokey turned up outside the Inn on the Square, Golden lion tap, Mugfords whatever you call it, to find that it was all shut up. We'd gone down there to have a bit of a darts practice as we have a mind to get the old legendary team back together again, the Tangerine Dreamers who latterly morphed into the Ebberley Archers as we were playing out of the Ebberley Arms back then. Knowing that the GLT had quite a good board, although the oche is a bit skew-whiff, and an electronic scoreboard so you don't have to do any sums we arranged  to head down over there with our new darts which I bought over at Lidls last Thursday, quality German tooling at superb prices. I am obviously not spending out too much at this juncture, I'll bide me time and see if we can get back to a competitive standard before popping in to Apex Sports and investing in state of the art arrows. The other advantage with the GLT was that in the week there's hardly anyone in the place so as we are trying to keep this operation hush hush, under wraps so to speak, we could have a couple of games of mickey mouse without being seen. I do pop in there from time to time as I like to sit in the window and have a good old gawp at what's occurring on the square. Apart from the odd dipso coach tripper, who has regretted signing up to the Shearing's  Charity Shops of Barnstaple excursion and has taken themselves off for a quick pint, before heading back to 'Combe and the Dilkhusa Grand for supper, the place is often empty, especially at this time of year. I've heard it does tend to get busy at holiday times when the youngsters and students come home. Presently though, I always wonder how it manages to stay open. It obviously doesn't.
So there we were stood outside, arrows in hand wondering where to go next  when Wes Twardo walked past with his son and daughter in law. Wes looked a bit sheepish, he'd been found out. He was supposed to be coming along to the darts practice but cried off saying he felt a bit poorly.  Anyway he said he was going to Lilico's. Lilico's blimey!  I tagged along. Why not seeing as I'd never been in the place. I never thought it was for us sort of old boys, those who don't quite brush up that well even at the best of times and who don't tend to stand on ceremony.  Stokey and Charlie Street shuffled back up to the Marshals for a pint of Steradent as Wes's boy insisted that was all they served up there.
Tell you the truth turned out it not too bad in there, a young crowd but they all seemed very welcoming. As they don't sell draught cider  I opted for a glass of San Miquel.  Me and Wes took ourselves off and sat in the corner of the window and looked out on the Square. From what we could gather no one seemed to know what was going on at the GLT. Of course after a few pints of export continental lager Wes and I began to reminisce. We remembered that back in the day, when it was Mugford's Golden Lion Tap we used to go in there quite a bit for a pint of Devenish ale or a firkin of the unbranded cloudy cider poured from a gurt barrel propped up on the bar. This was before it was all opened out and refurbished in the 80's and the Mugford's name was dropped. I remember two small front bars one of which looked like someone's front room and a games room out back. There were other rooms as the place was a regular warren of locked rooms, store rooms and other vestibules. Upstairs they had a grand, mirrored, etched glass paneled meeting room. Looking back the place would have probably fared better if they'd stuck to the original design especially in these straightened times. While we were yacking on, I remembered Pearl the barmaid who had a heart of gold and had never quite forgotten the time years before when she was the apple of the eye of a few of the GI's based down at Raleigh Meadow. A local forces sweetheart was Pearl, the Rita Hayworth of Yeo Vale. She was always dressed up to the nines, garishly made up and I vividly recall her often modeling a luridly coloured floral jumpsuit.

The Satans Slaves - well known local hard nuts

 Another couple of pints prompted us to remember the gleaming rows of motorbikes that would be lined up outside every Sunday afternoon as the pub became the meeting place for the local road rats. At the time I had a James 90 lovely old British bike but only a moped compared to the machines lined up on the pavement. All sorts of classic British bikes. At lunch closing time they would tear off up the A377 to Eggesford Forest where often as not they had a dust up with the Satan Slaves who rode up from Exeter to head them off. They would invariably retreat in the face of their much feared and infamous adversaries, turning back up in Barum in dribs and drabs throughout the afternoon. After parking their bikes up once more outside Mugford's and contenting themselves comparing machines,  doing burn ups along the Strand or Taw Vale and recounting exaggerated tales of derrin' do from that afternoon's run down the Taw valley.
We watched all these comings and goings with increasing amusement from Divito's Ice Cream Parlour front window. It was then we realised why the aspect out upon which we were gawping looked so familiar we'd found ourselves that very evening sitting in that exact same spot. Lilico's is on the site of Divito's. Although apart from the view you wouldn't know it. I thought Divito's was where we sat, Wes thought it was on the other side by the bar.The current layout of the place is obviously the original one and at some point way back when someone divided the place into smaller premises, Divito's occupying one of them. But despite of us going outside and trying to figure out the exact location of DiVito's I said in one window he said the other and we also to pressed the staff into providing an answer but they looked at us as if we were crazed and maybe regretted letting us in the place, we just couldn't see eye to eye on the matter.  I reckon I'm right. So as soon as possible I'm off down to the library to do a bit of research in one of the many books of old photos they have down there. Anyway we agreed to disagree and finished up the evening discussing an idea of writing a a book together on the history of Barnstaple as told through it's pubs or maybe something entitled, 'The Disappearing Pubs of Barum'. Now that is definitely something to look into.