For Roberts & Webb it was every month for nearly a year at a small pub/restaurant in the Cheshire countryside, which shall remain nameless.

Mr Webb and I were engaged to present a folk night on the first Monday of every month (other Mondays featured, Rock, Country and something else I can't recall).

The general idea was 'after your meal, why not stay on and enjoy the entertainment?'

Fine in theory.

In practice people finished their meals and hightailed it out of the place at a high rate of knots, leaving us to perform to an almost empty restaurant and the pub's regulars, situated in the bar at the other side of the eating area.

It wasn't really a 'disaster'. as such but it was rather dispiriting. We took our own 'crowd' along and from time to time a diffident regular would cross the No Man's Land between us and the bar and ask for a song, so it wasn't a complete waste of time.

But there was never a feeling of being 'part of' the place. We were getting paid reasonable money, so we just treated the whole thing as
a paid rehearsal and carried on going until we were told we were no longer needed.

This co-incided with a change of management, so we left with dignity and pride intact and transferred operations to The Blue Bell at Smallwood, where we've been ever since.