The Abbot

Do you know that feeling of going somewhere every day and being so familiar with it that you don’t see something special or obvious – and then feeling delighted when you notice it? That’s what I want to do with my art.

I’ve been sketching in Newton Abbot again – this time on East Street and a historic pub called The Abbot.

Newton Abbot is a town of many pubs. This one was originally called The Jolly Sailor, but I’m sure I knew it as The Jolly Abbot. My boss, together with four of our staff used to go drinking in there during lunchtimes on a Friday. I say lunchtimes, but they left the office before 12:00 and came back after 2:00 and yet only managed to stay in there for half an hour according to their flexi-time recording sheets. It’s clearly a Tardis in there. Or it was fraud.

In 1864 it was the busiest hostelry in the town. I suspect that in 1994 things had changed. My boss would come back from the pub staggering, laughing about the pub. He recounted how my team would place an order for food and then watch as the licensee would pop across the road to M&S to buy the ingredients from their food department. The implication was that the pub was doing so badly that they couldn’t afford to have any stock of food. I think it’s possible my colleagues’ drinking kept the pub running. My boss certainly wasn’t fit to drive as he staggered back to the office and then raced off, late for every meeting, in his red Escort L lease car.

It’s now called The Abbot and I haven’t been in it yet. I might pop in for a quick pint, but I wonder whether that might still take over two hours.

Part of my Postcards from Newton Abbot series of postcard-sized ink and watercolour sketches.

Ink: Platinum brun sepia pigmented ink
Pen: Sailor Fude de Mannen fountain pen
Watercolour: Derwent Graphitint watercolours

More Postcards from Newton Abbot