It’s been up a bit and it’s been down a bit, but it’s not been out, and now a fresh breath of air is flowing through the Duke of Wellington 

“Well, my ex-husband died in April, not this year, last year. Six months later, I collapsed beyond the bar, had a heart attack, which scared my children. I’ve got son and a daughter who are grown up. They lost their dad, and six months later, I thought they were losing me. So this is my compromise. 

I’m sitting in the Welly and Cheryl West, the new-ish landlord – landlady? landperson?? – is telling me her story. It’s a bit of a story. 

“I’ve been running pubs for over 20 years, pubs and nightclubs. Pulled my first pint when I was 17 which is, I was working it out this morning, is… a long time ago.” 

A long time and a lot of bars ago. We go into Cheryl’s story, a story that takes us from Islington in London to Northampton to Chingford to Luton to London again, taking on pubs, clubs and a Caribbean restaurant. “Then after 12 years, I decided I wanted to get out of London, so I joined a pub management company as a holder…”

What’s a holder?

“You go around, holding pubs, covering pubs until a full-time manager moves in.” Fair to say, Cheryl knows hospitality. And since April, she’s been holding The Welly. 

“I didn’t really know Brighton much but I’d only heard good things. I’d seen this place and it was a smaller place, which I needed after the heart attack, and it’s by the coast which I love and… ”. A lot of boxes ticked. “Yes, there were a lot of signs pointing in this direction. Also, there’s no food involved. Doing food in a pub is really hard work and since Covid, it’s much harder. Since Covid, everything is much harder”.

Did it matter, I wondered, that there were so many good pubs within a stone’s throw?      

“No, not really. We all support each other and we’ve all got different strengths, we’re all known for different things. And we’ve always been known as a sports pub and we’ve got the pool table which is very popular and the pool team’s doing very well, but we all get on very well. I talk to Hatt from The Eddy a lot and when I first came here, Mark (Reed, from The Eddy) was one of the first people to come in and say “Hello”. If one of us is short of something, gas for example, we’ll just pop into our neighbours and borrow it”. 

Talking of neighbours… not everyone has been so happy. “I’m struggling with music here to be honest. I love live music. But since I’ve been here, I’ve put on three events on a DJ night. I had to do karaoke nights, the last one being Saturday. Every time we’ve put on music events, there have been complaints.” 

I’ve never really understood why anyone would move next to a pub and then complain about the noise. But then maybe some people just like complaining. 

I grew up around music, reggae mainly, that’s my genre. Old school reggae.”

Old school reggae? We’re going to get on just fine. Who are we talking? John Holt?  

“John Holt, yes. Carol Thompson’s a friend. Janet Kay’s a friend, too”. 

Janet Kay? Oh, get Janet Kay down. We can all come and sing along to “Silly Games”. That would get the upset neighbours properly, a gaggle of happy punters trying  to reach those high notes. Cheryl’s not so sure. “I don’t understand it. The music stops really early…” 

So a few grumpy neighbours aside… “It’s going really well. I thought coming down here would be like semi-retirement, and it was supposed to be my compromise with my children. My son wants me to retire. But I’m not ready yet”.