John Tubb

A lifetime of being nourished on gin has made John Tubb a well preserved 97 year old.

The youngest son of my great grandfather, PC Joe Tubb; the village bobby, John spent a lot of his adolescence being arrested by his dad for minor misdemeanors and locked in the cell beneath the police house where his family lived.  

Today he  called me over and made me sit opposite him. He placed the cheese knife, blade up, on the table to my right and challenged me to an arm wrestle. The knife seemed less threatening today than it had done on previous John Tubb arm wrestling occasions 30 years ago when I was a skinny adolescent and John was an early retired fireman. 
I put my right elbow on the table and took his large right hand in mine.  His strength was still there.  He released my hand before it touched the knife, took 5 quid out of his pocket and handed it to me as he'd always done whenever I lost. 

He ordered me to refill our glasses then told me to look him in the eyes and do the same thing as him. Eyes locked, he took a drink, as did I, then another, then drained the glass.  I knew where this was going and followed him to the end when we both took a bite out of the glass, crunched it up in our mouths and swallowed it. 

Lizzie was cross with me, as I knew she would be.  John Tubb grinned, gave me a wink and slipped another fiver across the table.