The Starving Rascal (2) - sign, 1 Brettell Lane, Amblecote, Stourbridge

Image: © P L Chadwick Taken: 23 Jun 2012

This pub used to be the Dudley Arms but in 1977 it changed its name to the present one. The name relates to an incident earlier in the 20th century when a tramp was turned away from the pub on a winter's night, after asking for shelter. He stayed on the doorstep and his frozen body was found the next morning. Quite why the pub wanted to "celebrate" this sad event by renaming itself in relation to the event is rather a mystery, except perhaps that at the time there was a fad for giving pubs unusual names and discarding ancient ones in the process. Why the poor man also got labelled a rascal is also unknown, but to anyone reading this in the distant future, it will tell you something about our society. The side of the sign shown in this photograph shows the tramp being turned away. Unusually the sign has different designs on the two sides. The other shows the tramp's ghost as quite understandably he has come back to haunt the place - poetic justice one might say. Image Image

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