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From the
https://www.kentonline.co.uk By Chris Hunter, 19 November 2022.
How 'magic cow' followed landlord from Welsh mountains to The Railway Tavern in Longfield.
Don't touch the cow, or it will bring you bad luck, but look into its
eyes, smile and make a wish – and your wish might just come true.
At least that's what a guy at a Welsh bar told publicans Brad and Maria
Read, who have just installed the life-size fibreglass cow outside their
new pub – The Railway Tavern in Longfield.
Brad Read, landlord of the Railway Tavern in Longfield, with the lucky,
or cursed, cow. Image: Brad Read.
With opening day set for Friday, Brad took time out of the manic week of
preparation to reflect on the strange course of events that brought the
bewitched bovine into his possession.
It all began, as all the best stories do, with a newspaper clipping
about a pub with a goat.
"It was weird," said Brad, 59. "My accountant showed me a story from a
newspaper clipping he'd kept for years about a couple who'd taken on a
pub in East London.
"The pub was failing – it was having a terrible time. One time the guy
went out and got a goat for the garden and thought it might bring in
some extra people – but nothing happened.
"One morning he got up and looked outside and there was the goat, dyed
completely purple. And then people started coming to see the purple goat
– the local newspaper got it out and it started thriving, and he kept it
up – he kept dying the goat.
Brad and Maria Read outside The Railway Tavern in Longfield before the
refurbishment. Picture: Star Pubs & Bars.
"One evening two people were in the bar and laughing and admitted they'd
done it. They'd come in and treated it as a military operation and dyed
the goat. He bought them all a pint and said 'Look, you've turned it
around'."
So far, so weird – and so cow-less. But of course, lucky or cursed
cattle are a rare sight around the margins of the M25, and it wasn't
until Brad and Maria travelled into the mystic mountains of Snowdonia
that they first encountered the haunted herbivore.
"We went on holiday to Wales and went into this pub where there was a
cow in the garden," said Brad.
"According to Welsh folklore if you touch the cow it brings you bad
luck, however if you stand there and look in its eyes, and smile and
think of a wish, your wish could come true.
"That's what they told me in the bar, but I think the guy in the bar
made it up. I Googled it and there's no trace of it, but I liked the
story."
Exactly how much ancient folklore can build up around a fibreglass cow
is a matter for debate – but dubious or not, the story took on a
dramatic and strange twist when the cow somehow managed to follow Brad
back to England a year later.
"My full-time job was working for a storage company – and what turned up
in our storage facility, but this cow," he explained. "A year after
that, the people that owned it said 'We don't want it anymore - just
chuck it in the skip'."
But with the story of the purple goat still lingering in his mind, Brad
decided to bring the cow back to his pub in Halstead and told everyone
the story of its lucky charms.
Since then, the fibreglass beast has been a regular fixture at The Cock
Inn, and one former punter even claimed to have won a pub raffle after
staring into its eyes and making a wish to win.
But now it's the lucky folk of Longfield, plus visitors of course, who
will get to try out the cow's charms after it was moved to The Railway
Tavern last week.
And they'll get to try out more than that – Brad explained they are
hoping the pub will offer a range of entertainment – including singer
Lee Jones from The Voice, who is due to sing at the pub on December 17 –
and a unique menu.
He added: "We want to make it something for everyone in the community –
we're looking at quiz nights, we want to get a darts team, sports TV,
and entertainment on Saturday evening. We want it to be warm friendly
and welcoming as possible.
"The food will be Spanish tapas and gourmet burgers, with the potential
to add more in the future.
"The reason we chose to do that is most pubs just do the same thing –
fish n' chips, lasagne, pie and mash – but there's not many that do
tapas.
"It goes down well if people are having a drink and watching football.
We like to use local suppliers as much as possible too, and we're using
the butcher across the road for our meat."
That last point might seem a risky move – or moooove for all those who
have been waiting for that pun – considering the proximity of a
capricious cow prone to taking offence at the slightest touch.
Brad will just have to smile, look into her eyes, and hope that his
Welsh friend is not too fussed about the demise of her English brethren.
And if things go wrong he'll just have to start serving vegan burgers
instead – but that would be udderly ridiculous. |
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