Most of the locals in my pub are farmers, but a lot of people round here keep a few sheep – not just the farmers.
It’s common land on Titterstone Clee and you need turn-out rights. I’ve got turn-out rights, but I don’t want any sheep. I see enough in the car park, bloody things. They crap everywhere, people get it on their shoes, and they walk into the pub here and get it on the carpet.
This pub’s called ‘The Kremlin’ because when we first come here in the late 80s, we used to get Radio Moscow coming through the jukebox when there wasn’t any music playing. We also got it on the telephone and the television, beamed off the radio mast on top of the hill – because from here to the Urals there’s no high ground. It was quite spooky. Then they moved the mast to the other side of the hill and we don’t get it any more.
The Kremlin used to be the quarrymaster’s house, so I believe, before it was a pub, but it has been a pub for about 100 years. It was designed for the quarry workers and the local farmers, and it’s still a working men’s pub, definitely. We still have the darts, dominoes and quoits teams in the bar. But in the summer we also get a lot of people from Birmingham and the Black Country who come to look at the views.
Clee Hill people definitely think of themselves as different from Ludlow down the hill. There always used to be a rivalry. Clee Hill lads would go down to Ludlow and there’d be fights, and Ludlow lads would come up to Clee Hill when there was a dance at the village hall, and they’d be going through the windows. It’s not been as bad since we come here, but it used to be pretty rough. They still have trouble at the football club discos here sometimes.
Everyone knows everyone in Clee Hill. Everyone knows everyone’s family and everyone’s business. They’re all inter-related. You’ve got to be careful what you say to people, it’s ‘Oh, he’s my uncle’ or ‘He’s my cousin’.
Most of them would never move off Clee Hill. It’s amazing. Me and my wife have moved all over the country, and I’ve never been anywhere where there are so many people that have never lived anywhere else – and don’t want to live anywhere else. I don’t know why, they are just Clee Hill born and bred. Not just old people, but young people in their 30s as well.
I don’t think you’ll see the locals going up and looking at the old quarry remains too much. But we get a lot of walkers who come in here and say, ‘How do we get to the Three-Forked Pole?’ – and all that sort of thing. So the history brings people round here, that’s for sure.
This is the second highest pub in England at 1,400 feet, after the Tan Hill Inn in the Pennines. Sometimes we get cloud all down below in the valley, and it’s like looking out over the sea – it’s beautiful. It can also be foggy as hell up here for days on end and it’s horrible then. That’s the worst part about Clee Hill. Drizzly rain and fog, it’s horrible.