The 'Queen Caroline' pub was inspired by a watering hole in Leicester called the 'The Princess Charlotte'. This later became 'The Charlotte' a celebrated venue on the indie 'toilet circuit', playing host to such future legends as Pulp, Radiohead and Blur. I never got the chance to revisit The Charlotte and never will either, as it sadly closed its doors for the last time in 2010 to be 'developed' into student flats.
Anyway, hope you enjoy this short extract from the story. It's a first draft and needs a lot of editing - but see what you think.
Leyford on a Monday evening was like a Wild West ghost town, with October leaves and crisp bags that drifted sadly about. The Art Centre was closed and silent, but a skewed poster on the door informed us that ‘Soul Scream’ would be playing live at the Queen Caroline in Stafford – coach leaves at 7.00pm. We sat down on the wall and Ant chucked us each a fag, he made a grand gesture of lighting them with his new Zippo lighter, and nearly burnt his fingers for his efforts. Matt looked thoughtful as he took a drag of his ciggy, then he turned to me with a wry smile.
‘Hope you don’t mind, Jamie mate, but as you and Emily are no longer an item – you don’t mind if I have a crack at her.’I felt a sharp wrench inside. Yes I mind, and well you bloody know it .
‘Not at all, good luck to you.’
‘That’s cool, cause I’ve already asked her out!’
Ant must have noticed my lack of enthusiasm, as he added his own eloquent two penn’orth, ‘Jamie’s just miffed that he never got the chance to get into her knickers.’
A four letter retort sprang to mind but I said nothing.
‘Never mind Jamie, perhaps you’ll have more luck with these Goth chicks.’
I’d recently listened to a new Bon Jovi song called ‘Blood on Blood’ about kids being friends for ever and all that. I thought it could have been written about me, Ant and Matt, only now I wasn’t so sure - we’d turned sixteen and something had changed.
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