Hello,
It's bedtime story time, are we all tucked in?
Once upon a time, I was waiting for the No7 bus to Sewall Highway, at the Lower Ford St bus stop adjacent to the Canterbury Arms & Foresters pubs..
You can't go to sleep yet!
It was around 9pm, on a wet, soggy Sunday evening. I was returning home, after I had played piano for our chapel youth group.
I was sheltering in the entrance of the Foresters, when a gent emerged to go into his home, next door to the pub.
"You can't stay there in this rain, come inside", he said so friendly. I explained that I'm only fifteen. He then pulled me in, introduced me to the lady in charge. I explained that I was waiting for the No7 bus. She told me to sit here, where I could see it emerging from Priory St, so that I wouldn't miss it, & furnished me with a glass of lemonade.
I will never forget that kindness.
When I got home, mum asked where on earth had I been, I was smelling like an ashtray.
That was the first time that I can remember ever being in a proper pub, legitimately.
That act of kindness from both of those individuals, shaped me. I know it now as an act of 'Common Grace', my mum used to call it.
Hope you liked that.
Lights off now when you've drunk your cocoa.
ps. The advent of time & my memory, it might have been the Foresters, not the Canterbury Arms. I had alighted from the old No3 at the Alex cinema & walked passed part of the Singer factory, so I would have picked the driest place to stand, where I could see the bus coming along Ford St.