From Kiss Me Quick hats to fridge magnets, snow globes to seaside statues - taking home a bit tat from your travels has long been a tradition for the British holidaymaker. Now the dodgy mementoes no longer need gather dust at the back of a wardrobe, with one historic Wolverhampton pub dedicating a shrine to tacky trinkets.
The novel idea has proved a big hit among customers who have been trying to outdo each other at the ever-expanding altar set up at The Combermere Arms in Chapel Ash with holiday souvenirs.
The bizarre things regulars have splashed their cash on include a squatting sumo wrestler toy, a cardboard box of squawking seagulls from France, a waving ‘lucky’ toy cat from Thailand and a spring-loaded skeleton from Dublin.
Wolverhampton South West MP Rob Marris has also made a contribution with a purple, enamelled horse he brought back from a trip to Liverpool.
The horse has taken pride of place among a host of other amusing items such as musical fridge magnets, fans and clocks.
Landlord Gavin Craig, pictured, and his wife Jaki took over the 137-year-old pub two years ago, and said they were mystified as to how the crazy collection started.
“I can’t even remember what was the first item of tat to arrive but it was so bad it had to go on display on the shelf above the fireplace in our front bar,” he said.
“It just caught on from there and since then the customers have been intent on outdoing each other to find the worst souvenir they can.
“We have had mementoes from all over the world and some of them are really quite bizarre. Some are really quite awful.”
The Combermere, which was a private house and then a doctor’s surgery before becoming a pub in 1869, is named after Sir Stapleton Cotton who fought alongside the Duke of Wellington at the Battle of Salamanca.
It has featured in the Good Beer Guide for seven years running and is famed among the nation’s beer drinkers for the lofty Small Leaf Lime tree which has been growing out of the gent’s toilet outside for more than 100 years.
By Victoria Nash
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