Pinchbeck

I had a strange day yesterday. Dave and I accompanied a friend to Surfleet, near Spalding, so that she could look for graves belonging to her ancestors. We went to Surfleet church grave yard but found nothing.

We then decided to go to the next village, Pinchbeck.

Now we have to go back to 1971, the first day of decimalisation in this country, and the first day in a new job for Dave and I. We became trainee pub landlords. We started our training with a four month residential period at the Wild Life in Lincoln and then we started on a year long period of relief management before we would be offered our own pub.

The first pub we managed as relief landlords was the Bull at Pinchbeck. It was a bed and breakfast pub, hard work but enjoyable. We have never been back since we left after that relief period.

So, back to Pinchbeck church. We walked all around the graveyard but couldn't find any names to help June. However, I stumbled across an obelisk with names etched into all four sides of it. In the grave was a man called John Yarrad, his 'relict' Ann Yarrad, both aged in their seventies, and their three sons, Thomas aged 23, William aged 22 and John aged 29. All three of the sons died before their parents and I knew I had found my next book.

I took pictures so that I could do research and then we decided to go and have a drink at the Bull before heading back to Sheffield. It hadn't changed at all and it was a real journey into our past life!

While we were in the pub June typed John Yarrad into Google and he was the first landlord of the Bull at Pinchbeck.

Spooky?