I don’t doubt The Cavalier’s in bits at the latest round of news surrounding the pub – soon to be ex-pub by the sound of it
Looks like The Cavalier’s smile has faded and gone after all. Probably for good. I hear that Punch Taverns are about to flog it off to… are you ready for this? The Jehova’s Witnesses! Wikipedia, bless ‘em. describe the movement as ‘a millenarian restorationist Christian denomination with nontrinitarian beliefs’. Me? I describe them as a pain in the arse, banging my door, po-faced and preachifying, wanting to ‘talk about God’ and trying to flog their ill-produced literature. Now, while I recognise that this is no place to get involved in the ins and outs of near-fanatical alternative religious beliefs, I will say this… it’s not for nothing they’re viewed as the most persecuted group of Christians of the twentieth century, and if you want to find out more about this Brooklyn (New York) based organisation that believes that the end of the world really is nigh with Armageddon just around the corner – and from which the only survivors will be just 144,000 divinely-selected souls, Witnesses, of course – this is as good as it gets
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jehovas_Witnesses
So, as of St Georges Day – when, according to two well-placed sources yesterday it appears the deal might have been at least shaken on – it looks like the once-hallowed ground on which stood St Georges Tavern and its 1960s re-incarnation is on the brink of being turned into another ‘Kingdom Hall’. St George’d have a screaming fit. (Mind, given the Witnesses’ views on sex and relationships, they’re the ones who’ll be having a screaming fit once they see the array of johnny machines and performance-enhancing aids in the gents’!) Next phase, no doubt, will be a planning application to the City Council who will, if past performances are anything to go by, pass it through on a nod and that’ll be it. Of course, there’s the little matter of a reputed covenant that states that The Cavalier, opened 1968, must remain as a pub for 100 years – which gives it a potential lease of life of a fraction over 50 years – but I expect that’ll be conveniently got round/forgotten about/hushed-up as the drive to rid the City of all its pubs marches on. Punch Taverns, I’ve heard about selling your soul to the devil – and, given your present financial situation which is largely of your own making I would venture to suggest – I can see that desperate measures are called for. But to the Witnesses? Don’t send ‘em round to my house, that’s all I can say. They might learn two new words.
Bob Backenforth 