Brian Streatfield 1938 – 2014

I was having a nice pint of Uley Bitter at the The Red Lion pub in Arlingham, Gloucestershire, when my mate Streaters walked in with his two dogs; he gave me a nod and a wink and said to the landlord, “if you give us a free pint of beer each, I’ll show you something totally amazing that you’ve never seen before!”

“Okay, but it’d better be bloody good or you’re paying,” said the landlord.

Streaters reaches down and lifts up Fred, one of his dachshunds, and he plops Fred on the bar. Immediately Fred scampers along the bar at high speed, jumps off the end, performs an elegant mid-air somersault and lands on a table. He then pulls out a ukulele an proceeds to play it beautifully. The landlord says, “Bloody Hell! That’s unbelievable! Have a beer.”

As soon as Streaters and I finish our beers he says to the landlord, “if I show you another amazing trick, that you’ve never seen before, will you give us another free pint?”

“Yeah, if it’s as amazing as the last one, why not?”

So Streaters reaches into his Barbour jacket and pulls out a small green toad. He puts the toad on the bar and the toad begins to sing with an angelic female voice. We are all absolutely amazed, and the landlord brings us each another pint.

Anyway, we’re sitting at the bar talking, laughing, supping our beers and listening to the fuckin’ toad, and this bloke rushes over and says, “Jesus H. Christ! A singing toad! I’ll give you five hundred quid for him.”

Streaters immediately says, “done mate!” shakes his hand and hands him the toad. As the bloke is walking away, the landlord sidles over to us and says, “Streaters, that was a singing toad for God’s sake, you must be mad, why sell it for just five hundred quid? It must be worth millions!”

Streaters said, “Ha ha, don’t worry. Fred’s also a ventriloquist.”

~

A Celebration of The Life of Brian. Brian ‘Streaters’ Streatfield, born 4th October 1938 – 25th July 2014. He was like an Uncle to me, he was a dear, dear friend and I loved him very much.

This series of ‘Pub Jokes’ marked Streaters is my little tribute to a man who loved a pint in a good pub; he was also the bloke that I loved to have a pint with, and I’ll miss him forever. Rest in peace you old ‘B’