I have lived in Malvern for decades. I grew up here. I have family here. I have worked here nearly the whole of my decorating life. Living in one place for so long is becoming an increasingly rare experience for many due to modern work and house prices and availability.
But nonetheless, when you do grow up in one area for so long you get to know the place very well. It's history is your history.
It's because of this that I am saddened to hear of the closure of Oliver's Bar on Belle Vue. I knew it more as Monroe's (when I was a young buck in my salad days wearing typical 80s attire and . . . no, the recollection is just too eighties!)
I rarely visited it when it became Oliver's, but the odd occasions when I did I always had good fun: I remember one night after a local wedding at the Abbey Hotel when a few us journeyed up the hill for a few more drinks, one of our company (who I had never met before and have never seen since), found himself going through a chair after standing up on it. Later on he knocked over a table doing an impression of sorts. (It's OK - later in life I believe he became a police man, so where ever he is, I'm hopeful the citizens on his beat are sleeping safely).
In recent years I suppose Oliver's has been challenged by the Weatherspoons that has opened up in the Foley. The price of the drinks and the larger interior and the availability of food will no doubt have effected Oliver's foot fall, perhaps fatally.
Perhaps it's a symptom of the times we live in when small local businesses are being squeezed by chains. In Malvern alone we have Ask, Prezzos, Costa and Neros (and it might be that Oliver's real estate is turned into a restaurant come summer). Perhaps what our local businesses should do is to form a group and do what the canny residents have done in Crickhowell, where they have 'off-shored' much of the high street businesses to the Isle of Man and exploited the same tax loopholes that big companies enjoy (such as Neros, which reputedly, since 2008, has not paid corporation tax in the UK despite sales of £1.2 billion). It would level the playing field somewhat, and ultimately, if everyone starts to do it, the treasury will be forced to buck up their ideas and close artificial loopholes like this.
So, perhaps I should 'off shore' my brand and intellectual property to the middle of the Irish Sea and avoid paying taxes on my profits? I might be able to employ someone else with the extra savings on buy a new van. Who knows?