Was just a little too late to deny me my right to free milk when I was at Woodnewton Infants in the late ‘60s and I grew up with stronger bones for it. Moving swiftly on from Bovine Colostrum based drinks enhanced by strawberry Nesquik to alcohol and the start of the weekend, yes, my global audience, it’s Thursday night. Now we were all keen to partake in a cheeky pint as a teen and in 1983 you could get a cheeky for under a quid. The lads and I would walk for about 45 minutes to get to a pub where the landlord would serve you a pint for 72p and a packet of salt and vinegar crisps for 18p. l will do the math. You could get a round in for less than a deep-sea diver and have a good night out at the Sondes on an Ayrton Senna. Fast forward 42 years and you cannot get a pint and a packet of crisps for a tenner, let alone, 2 feckin rounds.
Sondes Arms, Rockingham Castle and Iron Maiden.
The watering hole of choice for my teenage years was the Sondes Arms, a village pub in Rockingham. Walking there was a great laugh but entering that winner & loser was like a scene from American Werewolf in London when the two sceptic backpackers stroll in from the Yorkshire Moors into The Slaughtered Lamb.
Rockingham is a beautiful, many say idyllic, rural village overlooked by an 11th century castle that has stood since the Iron Age, used by the Saxons and the Normans, no not Norman !!! the feckin Normans from the Medieval period. Anyway, the castle is steeped in history and sits proudly on top of Rockingham hill, which by the way is a feckin steep hill. Now four teenagers full of larger and crisps had to walk home after last orders, in the dark, often raining, up that very steep feckin hill, ignoring the scenery, fortifications, thatched cottages and wildlife because the only short cut was across Royal land where the Game Keepers would fire at you with salt pellets for fun – I’m not joking, my best mate was hit in the Aristotle (Aris for short) with one and according to him its feckin sore. So, we would normally take the long, scenic way home unless it was raining, which it inevitable was, so you would run the gauntlet of game keepers taking pot shots at you for laughs and giggles – happy days!!
We had to run up that hill for cross country when I was in Lodge Park – feckin steep!!!
Anyway, the Sondes Arms was the pub in Rockingham overlooked by the castle and in that castle, there was the normal medieval paraphernalia like armor, deer heads, fireplaces and of course a dungeon – oh yeah people a feckin dungeon. One of those places you didn’t want to be invited to as it was full of weird pain-orientated contraptions designed with the sole purpose of encouraging you to reflect on your bad decisions in a slow and enlightening journey of discovery. Some called it a dungeon, giving a Game of Thrones vibe, others called it a torture chamber giving that Joffrey Baratheon kind of feel, but the locals called it a tourist attraction.
Well, when my daughter was 7 and my Mum in her 80s and I thought it would be a good idea to show them the castles gardens. Perfectly manicured floral displays that brought joy to visitors casually strolling amongst the flower beds breathing in the bouquets of summer. Then some numpty had a great idea to take his innocent daughter and elderly mother to visit the castle dungeon, which by the way has a Joffrey feel to it. My Mum did not understand the joint and was confused due to the early signs of dementia and my daughter did not find my unicorn backstory very funny. Regardless of the emotional state of my family, what Rockingham castle’s dungeon does find room for in its torture chamber is an Iron Maiden.
No, I’m not talking about the cast iron cabinet with a hinged front and a spiked covered interior designed to make your incarceration as uncomfortable as possible but the band Iron Maiden you numpties!!!
Before I move off topic and dispite its macabre appearence the Iron Maidens’ existence before the 19th century was not documented. But there are reports of Nabis an ancient Spartan tyrant, using a similar device around 200BC. Not quite sure of the inventor’s name so we will call him Eddie (think about it people). Eddie was employed by Nabis to create a wooden oven like chest that had iron spikes for the purpose of extortion and murder. Ironically his Iron Maiden was used on Nabis himself during his imprisonment and execution in 847, not quite sure what happened to Eddie though.
I do not have a Scoobie Doo what the collective noun is for a load of Eddies – any suggestions my global audience.
Iron Maiden is a heavy metal band from Leyton in East London and in 1975 who’s original front man was Paul Mario Day. Now Paul, the original lead singer of Iron Maiden no less, played in my back garden for my wife’s 50th here in Newy. Sadly, Paul passed away from cancer recently, but I have had the pleasure to hear his voice rock some Australian classics as well as Run to the Hills and Aces High. As it happens, and I kid you not, when I was a student in London my mate used to cut the grass of a pensioner to help her out, who turned out to be Adrian Smith’s grandmother who gave us free tickets to the Somewhere in Time tour date at the Hammersmith on Saturday 8th November 1986 – I shit you not my global audience.
In 2024 Iron Maiden did a reboot of that tour called The Future Past World Tour and I got tickets for the Qudos Bank Areana here in Sydney on Friday 13th September. So my global audience it is with great pleasure I give you Iron Maidan playing IRON MAIDEN
And my favorite TROOPER
Still on an Iron Maiden theme, my daughter was born on the 6th of June 2006 and is proud to be born on the Day of the Beast and I at every opportunity I play Number of the Beast but they didn’t play it on that tour, so the next best thing was CAN I PLAY WITH MADNESS
With that I bid you farewellso be safe and for pity’s sake look after each other as there is a lot of cray shit going on in the world at the moment – SAVVY.
Badger & Batbottom 