If you are going to be a publican then one thing you have to learn is how not to antagonise your patrons. One place you can always buy a Remembrance Day Poppy in the UK is in a pub – not though if your publican is Bernice Walsh. New owner of the establishment, Bernice Walsh of ‘The Windmill’ in Weald, Kent, told former RAF serviceman David Marchant that people could go and buy poppies ‘somewhere else’ when he asked her permission to leave a poppy tray in her pub. Mr Marchant, who is a local parish councillor and school governor, said the whole village was shocked and upset at the decision.
Villagers are so angry with this woman’s decision that they are boycotting a pub after she pointedly refused to allow a Poppy collection tray on her bar. Villager Graham Hendry said he was appalled at Miss Walsh’s decision and said he and many of his pals were boycotting the pub until the poppy tray was allowed.
A villager, who did not want to be named, said: ‘It’s a shame because people in the village want to support her, but she keeps rubbing people up the wrong way. We need a pub – it was closed for six months and then she came and everyone was really pleased about it, but immediately she banned dogs and it’s a village pub and people like to take their dogs in so it’s upset an awful lot of people.’
Ms Walsh needs to know that these people are her bread and butter – you do what keeps your customers happy even if it means putting plastic knobs on the restroom doors that make it easier for elderly patrons to open them. I suspect there is a more sinister side to all of this; Ms Walsh is originally from Co. Mayo in Ireland – many Irish refuse to wear or buy the poppy as they see it as a British ‘thing’. It certainly is the case here in Northern Ireland. I suggest Ms Walsh maybe return to Co. Mayo and be stubborn about it where she’d have some support.
Sounds like ‘The Windmill’ shall be up for sale in the near future…
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I live in the area and know the pub well. The Royal British Legion chap wanted the poppy tray sited on the edge of the narrow bar where although quite prominent – it keeps getting knocked over by customers. (Customers get drunk in pubs funny that!). The landlady said it could be sited alongside the other charity boxes which she has on display. She did not refuse to have the poppy tray. The Legion fellow got in a huff as he felt he should be the one to decide the location of the collection.
The landlady has no problems having a poppy collection but probably gets fed-up picking it up of the floor when it’s sited in the wrong place!
Our local paper the Sevenoaks Chronicle is now getting a lot of stick from the public for having printed the story without properly researching it and felt that the remote “Irish connection” (landlady’s country of origin) would be enough to sell the story to the potentially racist minded. Seem’s to have worked! Customers who know the pub will continue to use it without question – though some (like me) won’t be buying the Sevenoaks Chronicle again!!
What you have written should be appearing in the national papers so that the confusion should be cleared up. I don’t understand the ‘racist’ element as Irish is a nationality not a race – but I can see how people put it down to her being irish and refusing to sell the poppies even though that was not the case according to what you say.
I hope it all ends well for everyone concerned.
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