True stories: Peter Fryar: Publican in Severn Stoke, Worcestershire

Peter Fryar has been the landlord of the Rose and Crown in Severn Stoke, Worcestershire for over three years. During this time he and his wife Diane have had to deal with their pub flooding several times; here is his story.

You know when you come and live on a flood plain there is an element of risk but the frequency and depth of the water has increased year on year. The changing weather pattern has come as a bit of a surprise so as a village we are trying to get a wall or bund built around the bottom end of the village to try and protect the twenty houses, the Church and Village Hall. Insurance is getting either expensive or impossible. The pub doesn’t officially have insurance anymore. The company withdrew after last year’s flood but luckily the brewery we are tied to on the lease are covering us for the flood damage and we have been able to get business insurance; which was a relief after several weeks with no insurance.

When the water comes it, strangely, actually comes the longest way round, we’re about three quarters of a mile from the river. When it comes up the lane slowly towards us, what we don’t know is where it is going to stop.

When the water came in on Christmas Day 2012 our last customers had to borrow wellies from the neighbours to get across the road. And then in 2013 it came in to a depth of four feet. It’s quite difficult and emotional at first. You’re very busy to start with as you’re trying to empty all the furniture into the back room and put a flood gate on the dining room door. However, we now know that when the water reaches higher than 5.4 metres above the normal river level we can’t protect from it, so we have a plan B. This involves, with the help of family and friends, using tractors and big trailers to totally evacuate everything into a nearby farmer’s barn. The local farmers have been really good and the customers have been very supportive.

The water is usually in from ten days to a fortnight. Once it’s in we have to wait for the river level to drop so that the sluice gates can open, then the flood waters can start to go down. This is not a nice period as the pub is dank and damp and it rises up the walls of which there is still evidence now with salting. It can take ten months for the walls to dry out. Then there’s the period just after where you have to scrub to get the silt out and disinfect everything. You then you have to get a professional company in to disinfect the public areas as you need them to supply you with a certificate to say that it has been disinfected to the correct standard.

I would say the grimmest time is the first couple of days with all the emotions and then the cleaning up operation. If the flood’s not too bad you can get up and going again pretty quickly the day after you’ve disinfected. If it’s a bigger flood, like last year, we were out of action for eight week in the main bar and 12 weeks in the dining room. All the pipes to the bar had to be replaced and the cellar had to be redone. I can tell you stories of the customers standing on planks laid on top of bricks when it was actually flooded at the bar so that they can get back in and have a drink. There are funny and nice sides to it. The support you get from villagers, with offers of accommodation and a genuine willingness to come and clean. The community is important. The pub will long outlast us, we’re just a small segment in its 500 year history. The pub is important to the village. It is the centre of the village. We want the pub to be strong and go on not for the good of the pub but for the good of the village.

On the lighter side of things, one year we had a flood survivors’ party and everyone came in flood related costumes with prizes for the most creative. One lady had made an entire deep sea divers outfit from paper-mache!

Interview with Peter Fryar – Publican The Rose and Crown, Severn Stoke, Worcestershire.