A DUKINFIELD pub has a new member of staff after a 70-year-old regular was taken on.
Terry Cox was given a shift at The Lodge after speaking to new landlady Natalie Barry about how going there gets him out of the house.
And he impressed so much on his first night, he has been given a weekly two-hour shift and a staff shirt!
“Terry only lives locally and the pub is his regular haunt,” said Natalie, who has been at the pub for six weeks.
“He’s in every night and he’d been asking for a couple of weeks, ‘Do you need any help on the bar? I’m just sat at home doing nothing all day.’
“So I asked him one day, ‘What are you doing on Tuesday?’ He replied, ‘Nothing, why?’ So I said, ‘Do you fancy doing a shift for us?’
“And he did really, really well. He said after his first shift it was the happiest he’d been in ages.”
Terry’s first night saw a packed house as it coincided with Manchester City’s 5-0 Champions League last 16 win over Sporting Lisbon.
But Natalie recalled how he took to his new job like a duck to water.
She added: “Honestly, I wasn’t expecting much but he was really, really good. He surprised us.
“We had football on and pub quiz league, so it was quite a busy night. My idea was that I was going to shadow him on the bar.
“But it was so busy I couldn’t do that. However, he just got on with it and did it himself. He did the till, poured ales and pints and did spirits.
“Not at one point did he need my help. I was really, really shocked by it. I couldn’t believe how good he was.”
Terry did so well on his first night, he is now on the staff rota, with Natalie paying his wages out of her own pocket.
She told The Correspondent: “I said to him, ‘You can work every Tuesday night from now on.’ He was made up.
“I haven’t a staff budget but I paid him myself. It’ll come out of my pocket in future but I don’t mind doing that.
“We handed him a shirt with says ‘staff’ on the back. He was just made up. It’s such a nice thing for an old man to feel happy once a week.
“And honestly, he’s fabulous at the job!”
He’s 70 not dead. Jesus the tone of this report makes my skin crawl with the pure patronising tone.
Hi Tez, Pottsy here in Conwy, good to see you are well, hope you are still having lots of laughs mate.