The Gold Cape
Puking and punch ups in Wetherspoons.
The Gold Cape is a Wetherspoons pub in Mold, North Wales. It is is named after the ‘The Mold Gold Cape’, an early bronze-age ceremonial garment made from solid gold that was dug up not far from here back in the 1830s. That golden cape is now in the British Museum. It is considered to be a piece of great importance to Britain’s ancient history. Around here though, all there is left to remember it by is this Wetherspoons and an electronic cigarette shop across the street called ‘The Gold Vape’.
Some people think that all Wetherspoons are the same. In many ways they are incorrect. For starters, every single one of the 850 plus Wetherspoons establishments in the UK has an individually designed carpet that is unique to that venue. One thing they all have in common, however, is the absorbent cat litter that the staff lay down on those unique carpets to soak up the vomit of their puking patrons.
An expulsion of this very sort has just occurred before me. I didn’t see it happen, and due to the patterning on the carpet in here, in all Wetherspoons in fact, it’s actually quite hard to spot. The staff know though, they have a sixth sense for this sort of thing, and a disgusted barman is currently sprinkling sick pellets on the affected area. For some reason I can’t help but look. It's fascinating. They glow blue. Like tiny gems.
The field where the original Gold Cape was found is called ‘Bryn yr Ellyllon’, which roughly translates as ‘The Hill of the Goblins’ or ‘Goblin Hill’. I’ve never been there but I have seen many goblins in this Wetherspoons over the years. Hideous mythological characters with tracksuits and tribal neck tattoos. I’ve even witnessed some of them brawling with reckless abandon, right there by the fruit machine. I notice the bar manager tonight is wearing a body camera. That’s probably how those youtube videos get made.
The American comedian Steve Martin once wrote a bluegrass song that referenced ‘The Gold Cape’. I’m guessing he was referring to the bronze age artefact in the British Museum rather than the Wetherspoons in Mold but we can’t be sure. I believe that Steve Martin, who has appeared in numerous Hollywood blockbusters such as ‘Father of the Bride’ and ‘Father of the Bride Part 3’, might actually enjoy the kind of physical comedy you find in here.
On one occasion, I was sitting alone by the front window trying to read a mouldy Dickens book purchased from a charity shop in town. I spied a young couple staring at me. After some deliberation, they left the pub and disappeared round the corner. The girl then ran up to the window and exposed her breasts to me, before sprinting off down Wrexham Road. Next the guy appeared, his trousers around his ankles, arse forward, shuffling like a crab. He pushed his flabby buttocks against the glass, inches from my face.
The original Welsh name for Mold is Yr Wyddgrug, which means ‘The Mound of the Tomb’. The original name for Wetherspoons was ‘Martin’s’, after the founder Tim Martin, who, to my knowledge, has not appeared in any of the ‘Father of the Bride’ films. The name was later changed by Tim Martin to ‘Wetherspoons’ in reference to a teacher of his who said he would never amount to anything. My teachers were almost exclusively encouraging of me, and look how that has turned out.
Not the entire Gold Cape ended up in the British museum. Some of the fragments of it were divvied up by the workman who found it while they were digging up gravel to fill a ditch. This is my favourite part of the story, the fact that in 1833 some lads with shovels found a work of art that was 4000 years old and thought ‘We better hand this in, but we are taking a cut for ourselves.’
I wonder what they did with the gold they pinched. They probably spent it in a pub. A pub just like this.
The Gold Cape. 8-8a, Wrexham Street, Mold CH7 1ES