in memory of roly

many of you who have been to the restaurant over the six years that we have been open may have seen a portly gentleman enter towards the end of an evening, come down to the kitchen for a little sample of the food and a chat; that gentleman was roly. when we first took over the place the first face that we saw was roly. he had thingummyjigs opposite, an Aladdin's cave of goods that could not be accessed because he could not stop buyimg stock and seemed reluctant to open that often to sell the stock that he had. when woolworths shut he bought binbags full of sweets and I've no idea what became of them, maybe stuffed in a corner. our first conversation was about how much we'd charge him for a mug of tea and I think that we settled on 50p but that soon became free. over the six years that we knew him, he struggled with his health and on Thursday evening he told us how he'd collapsed in Asda a couple of days before and had been taken to hospital where they'd found a problem with his heart. he was on drugs for it and we assumed that the bottle and sponge that he was carrying in a plastic bag had something to do with that but, typical roly, he'd brought in some stain for our two banquet tables, and he set about sorting the tables before service. roly delivered gas most of the time and he died while doing that on Friday morning. we'll miss you roly, wayne, tony, Leanne, mel, jay and kelly