Tom Ash

Age

in his early fifties

Role

Landlord of the Bell & Sluice

Landlord since

2003

Where to find him

behind the bar, weekdays from five

Tom Ash keeps a tidy cellar and a chaotic upstairs. He has been at the Bell & Sluice for twenty-three years, and at the bar for longer than that, in various capacities. He knows everyone’s business because everyone comes into his pub.

He reads Mr Waraich’s letters aloud, on slow evenings, and is widely held to do them better than the Gazette does. He is on good terms with the Town Crier, fond of the vicar, and respectfully wary of the Drainage Committee Chair.

On the pub

The Bell & Sluice is a seventeenth-century building with a 1991 renovation. The renovation, like all renovations, was louder than it needed to be. Tom does not speak about it in detail. The cellar is, he says, “all right now”.

On the parish

Tom was born in Aingersby and moved to Morrowfen when he took the lease. He has not moved away. His daughter is preparing for her A-Levels, which is the main thing on his mind at the moment.

The Bell & Sluice is profiled at Places.