Remembering legendary St Leonards pub landlord from the ‘Doom and Gloom’

Dave, who left us last weekend, aged 68, after being diagnosed with stage four cancer last autumn, was also a man with a kind heart who cared deeply about the local community.

The idea of a traditional pub landlord - mine host - has become somewhat blurred these days. Pubs are more likely to have managers.

But for nearly three decades Dave was very much the landlord of the Horse and Groom in Mercatoria, St Leonards, which is affectionately known by locals and regulars as The Doom and Gloom.

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Erica Smith, a regular at the pub summed it up best when she wrote: “I’ll never forget the day I first walked in to the Horse and Groom. It felt like coming home. Brown wood, padded red velvet upholstery, the smell of Harveys ale and the lovely quietness that only comes from very old carpet and the company of people who would rather concentrate on their drink than talk loudly to each other on top of over-amplified music.”

The Doom was a place to read and dream on late autumn and winter afternoons, a bolt hole, a sanctuary. I loved the place because there is nowhere else like it in Hastings and St Leonards. Those who rubbed shoulders in the Doom included dustmen and surgeons. Company directors would chat amiably with local plasterers. One of the regulars is a pianist who played at the Savoy in London. On the walls were paintings and photographs of former regulars who have passed away. The pub inspired that sort of loyalty.

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Dave used to joke about me being an Old Town refugee. “Come down here to enjoy a real pub have you?” He did run it like a ‘real’ pub too. Beer prices were highly competitive and he once proudly gave me a tour of his beer cellar, which was immaculate.

Knowing I was a journalist, Dave wouldn’t hesitate to tell me what I should be writing about. Dave was, how can we put it, slightly obsessive. Things had to be in their place and he had a compulsion to straighten out carefully arranged beer mats on the tables if they had shifted out of place, often leaning across talking drinkers to do so. Rearranging beer mats at crazy angles to wind up Dave became something of a pub sport with regulars at the Doom.

The pub was popular with the artistic community. Andrew Kotting, arguably the best contemporary film maker in the UK, often used to drop in and infuriate Dave by asking to see the sushi menu (the Doom’s food offering consists of cheese or ham rolls under a glass dome or peanuts and crisps - proper old style). Dave had something of a reputation for barring people he didn’t take to - once famously banning someone for having ‘the wrong sort of laugh.”

I, and the regulars at the Doom, knew the prognosis was bad, but in my heart I was willing Dave to come through. He might just be curmudgeonly enough to see off cancer, I told myself. Sadly it was not to be. Early indications that the pub will continue to be run in the same spirit as Dave wanted are positive. I really hope so. In a time when there is almost too much change to keep up with, Dave was an anchor for traditional values and continuity.

Thank you Dave, for all the memories and running a very special pub. He’ll be straightening out beer mats on the tables of heaven and no doubt banning a few people from its pearly gates too.

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