Page 4 - Club Rockley

and the Book- keeper, Mrs Pat Durant were both very good at their jobs, and very nice people too. During the week Mr. Wilkes was kind enough to take me to lunch a couple of times to the “Flying Fish Club” on the first floor at the top end of Broad Street, overlooking the Careenage near to Nelson’s column, a lively spot for lunch, where the vivacious Hilda Wardrop held sway. Towards the end of the week my new friend Norman invited Jenny and myself to his home in ‘The Pine’ where he was having a Barbeque Supper party on that Saturday evening, and we accepted like a shot! It would be interesting to meet Norman’s friends and neighbors!
When we arrived at the appointed hour at Norman’s home in St Margaret’s Drive, in ‘The Pine’, I was a little surprised that we were the first guest’s to arrive but Norman greeted us like old friends and his wife Janet immediately took Jenny off to show her around the house and garden whilst Norman quickly got me a cold beer from the fridge in his kitchen and went off somewhere to finish his preparations. I went out onto the lawn and noticed that a rather plump and jolly looking chap, wearing a Chef’s hat, was setting up the barbecue; getting the coals going and so on. I wandered down and wished him “Good evening”to which he responded “Good evening young fellow you sound like an Englishman on an expatriate contract, where are you from?”
“I’m from Harrogate in Yorkshire” I replied and he said “Well I never! how is The Squinting Cat these days?” I was completely flabbergasted; the old English style pub called ‘The Squinting Cat” was, at that time and by some distance, the most popular pub in the entire Harrogate area.
It was actually just out of town, in quite an up market area known as Pannal Ash, quite near to a Boy’s boarding school, in fact a well known Public School called ‘Ashville College’. “How on earth do you know The Squinting Cat” I gasped.
“I was a war time volunteer” he responded
“I joined the RAF to fight the Nazis: Ashville College had been taken over by the RAF as a training centre for volunteers from the British Commonwealth; I was there for quite a while”
“Well,” I said,“that’s certainly very near to The Squinting Cat, it’s within easy walking distance across a couple of fields, I think”
“It certainly is” he said.
“At the welcoming lecture by the Principal of the College we were told