Tribute to a legend

Today I’m going to break tradition and write a blog that every single reader (all 2 of you) will agree with from top to bottom. It won’t be controversial or aggressive or funny for the sake of it. It makes me feel dirty just writing like this.

No, today I’m paying tribute to a legend. I found out earlier this week that Mark “Larry Landlord” Heron from our local pub was killed in a motorbike crash earlier this year. Having not frequented the pub for some time the news came as a bolt from the blue. This is my small tribute to the man with the 70’s laugh.

I’m not going to pretend I was a friend or that I knew him inside out, but in the (numerous) late nights we spent at his bar we became very friendly with him and found him to be a warm, funny man. He had a laugh you could plane a doorframe with, and he never had a smile off his face. Many is the time that he would say “I’ve got a joke” and you’d have to get the calendar out to work out when you were likely to be able to return to work, such was the length and intricacy of even the simplest joke. The punchline “And two were brown” will forever be with me, but I’m buggered if I can remember any of the joke.

He and his wife Judy kept the pub as family-orientated as possible, which was quite an achievement given the amount of specialists who frequented it. We were always made to feel welcome, and despite being outsiders were never treated as such by them.

Perhaps his finest moment came when a friend of mine (you know who you are) had recently been in Scotland, and as a result had a pocketful of Jock notes. He bought a round and handed over a twenty. Larry took one look at it before ripping it up and throwing it on the floor. My mate squealed like a girl at the sight, only to be greeted by Larry’s enormous laugh seconds later as he stuck it back together and put it in the till. To this day that’s the greatest practical joke I’ve ever seen played – simple but perfectly executed.

His wake was unsurprisingly heavily attended, and I’m a little sad that I didn’t go (I obviously had no idea). I bet it was a proper shindig worthy of him. His wife and daughter have subsequently sold the pubs and moved away, and I don’t blame them. For a man as well known in the village, there must have been reminders of him everywhere.

In conclusion I can say only this: He was a Leeds fan, yet I liked him. God rest you Larry.