Its retrospective Wednesday here at RCWR (Ok, it was supposed to be Monday but who is keeping track?)
You've probably heard me go on a bit about a place called the Old Court Brewhouse (or the Courthouse) in Huddersfield. A place I used to work during the holidays when I were a wee youngster at University (for about 3 years I think). It was a cool kind of place, I have many fond memories of working and drinking and generally having some of the best times of my life in there.
Now the Courthouse used to have all kinds of customers. From alcoholics who would prop up the bar all day to Ralph Lauren wearing chavs. There were those who loved the variety of real ales, and those who loved the "Triple Spirits and Mixers for £1.99" all drinking together.
Triple Spirits and Mixers for £1.99 caused a lot of hangovers for lot of people in those days. The spirits were made up of sub standard cheap versions of other more reputable brands. I forget most of their names apart the 'Napoleon Brandy' which was solely consumed by one of my supposed supervisors: Mushy of
'The Dales Walk' fame. In fact come to think of it, most of the Dales Walk crew are recovering Courthouse alcoholics!
Anyway, thats aside from the point - there were a total of four disgusting cheap spirit knock offs for sale under this most fabulous deal in those days: the aforementioned Napoleon brandy; vodka; white rum; and whisky. It didn't really matter which one you ordered because they were all equally as foul, and anyhow it just tasted like pure industrial cleaner.
I may have mentioned that this stuff is pure hangover juice - well on the day I am about to tell you about (or to be precise the day after) sometime in 2000 I think I had the worst hangover of my entire life!
I was out in Huddersfield unusually during term time and therefore was not working at the Courthouse (during term time I worked at the Faversham in Leeds which some locals may know), so was on a regular night out to which I had brought my unfathomably large (and unfathomably idiotic) rugby playing housemate from Leeds Uni.
We went for a few beers (I think we hit up the College Arms, which as far as I am aware is the only place in Huddersfield that you can still get a pint for less than 2 quid), then moved on to a few places and were in the Courthouse by 11 o'clock or so, meeting up with The Nurse and his Mrs. We were little tipsy, we met up with some old members of staff an things were going fine. that is until...
Now one thing you probably have to understand about me at this point is that I find it very hard to refuse a dare. In fact I am not very good with peer pressure at all. Thats why when The Nurse put a drink of what looked like a long vodka and coke or something similar, and dared me to down it in one - I did it.
Unfortunately, the drink did not contain a vodka and coke. Oh no - The Nurse had rather kindly gone around all of the tables (which were emptying at this point) and collected up the dregs of all of the glasses that were left unfinished (as you can imagine, on '£1.99 for triple and mixer night' there were a lot of these!). It was one large cocktail of four extremely lethal knock off cheap spirits. I drank the lot, and I am proud to say - held it down. Thats when it started to go wrong.
Well, it didn't exactly go wrong at that point for me. The next thing I knew, I woke up in my bedroom at my parents house, full clothed (well thats a blessing at least) and with a headache which was something akin to the aftermath of a small nuclear explosion inside my skull.
I looked around. No housemate. He was supposed to be staying the night and I had no idea where he was. I noticed his mobile phone on the floor. And his housekeys for our place in Leeds. Whoops.
Meanwhile back in Leeds. The Housemate was awaking from a pretty terrible nights sleep. the last he had seen of the guy whose house he was meant to be staying at, was glimpses of him dancing away on his own in The Camel Club in Huddersfield before a fire alarm had gone off. Everyone had poured outside and he had lost sight of his companion. It was cold and he needed to get back. He had no idea where he lived, so the only way out of the cold winters night was to stump up the £50 taxi fee all of the way to Leeds. He looked around for an hour or so, but ended up getting the taxi.
Then came his next problem. He discovered he didn't have his keys. This was a problem for the house had fairly sturdy doors. He spent some time throwing an old tennis ball he found in the garden at the front windows in an attempt to rouse other sleeping housemates but to no avail. It turns out they thought it was drunks or burglars and got scared. Only one option - break down the back door! He got inside. Whoops he forgot that there was a locked internal door. He spent the night sleeping in the cold next to the chest freezer. We told the landlord somebody had tried to burgle us.
Later I made my way back to Leeds and made my apologies to my housemate, he was really mad. It had really been my fault that he had had to spend the night in the cold. I was ashamed but thought nothing of it.
A few days later I tried to withdraw some cash from the bank. I was shocked to find that there was £500 missing from my bank account, as a poor student that was a massive amount! I did some detective work and discovered that the £500 had gone missing at around 3am on the night in question. What happen there!
I still had my bank card so it hadn't been used by anyone else. The only thing I could think of is that somebody had forced me to take money out of my account and give it to them. A taxi driver or something!? I always hated taxi drivers! I had thoughts of trawling the Huddersfield ranks trying to find the guy that had done this to me.
I went to the police and had them looking at CCTV around the suspected ATMs. So far as I am aware they spent days looking through the tape (though it is just as likely that they didn't bother). They came back with nothing! I was distraught!
There was nothing else for it, I was a poor student and couldn't afford to live without that £500 so I had to take drastic action! I had to do what all students have to do sometimes. I had to call my Mum and admit what I had done and try to borrow some money...
Me: "Hi Mum, I've got a problem"
Mum: "Whats that?"
Me: "err... I've lost £500 out of my bank account ... I was a little drunk and I think that somebody stole it... sorry... could I borrow some money?"
Mum: "It good you called, I have been meaning to talk to you"
Me: "Why's that?"
Mum: "I found £480 on your bedside table the other day. I thought you were dealing in drugs"
Me: "!?"
I never did find out what really happened that night. All I know is that bastard of a taxi driver charged me £20 for a £12 fare!"
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