The Ladder Guys

The Ladder Guys

If I had to pinpoint the origins of The Ladder Guys I would say it all began on the shores of Kubu Island. But in the same way that Kubu Island handn’t seen water in over 10000 years, we were still about as many years away from actually being called The Ladder Guys.

But the dryness of that salt pan was akin to how we felt the night after we made our triumphant arrival at that most mystical of places. Our celebrations took us late into the night and involved a magnum of pinotage, a homemade curry and ended with us destroying one spotlight and parking the Hilux in a bush.

We still talk about that night. 

We didn’t know it at the time, but that night became the template that all other nights would follow. From then on, no braai was simply a braai; it was an event. The more guests we could invite, the better and above all else. We made sure we never turned down a shot of Jägermeister. 

Dad and I copied this recipe across Southern Africa until one night in a bar in Luderitz. 

A town that is as remote a place as you can find. Where you can still find streets with names like Wolmeranns and Goring.

A place where we were too afraid to camp for fear of being blown off the continent, and one of the only places you will ever find me eating oysters. So naturally, we headed to the pub. 

Now, I’m not sure at what point of us contributing heavily to the Christmas bonuses of the local bar staff we began chatting to the girls to our right. But I couldn’t escape the fact that they looked oddly familiar. 

“Stop me if I’m sounding ridiculous,” I began. 

Because even in my own head what I was about to say sounded absurd. 

“But are you two travelling around in a small white Ford?”

I could imagine the laughter this comment was going to cause their mates back in Germany. 

But instead, something strange happened. Firstly, they didn’t pick up their drinks and wander off. But then, after they had gathered their thoughts, and perhaps their English, they began to smile as indeed the penny had finally dropped. 

“You are The Ladder Guys,” the one eventually replied. 

If this isn’t making any sense, don’t worry. It took us a moment to get the reference. And we were the ones driving the bloody ladder.

Indeed, down the side of our Hilux was in fact a ladder. Not something you saw every day on a car, especially in Germany. 

But none of that mattered. Having crossed Africa from Vilanculous to Walvis Bay we had finally found our identity. It didn’t matter that we would henceforth be referred to after a common household climbing apparatus. 

If anything, we felt inspired to take it up a notch. So we did what anybody in our position would have done. We went to Poland. 

In every conceivable way nothing could have been more different to what we had experienced that first night in Kubu Island. 

I mean, wasn’t Poland renowned for radioactive cabbage and football gangs that roamed the streets after dark? Was it even safe to walk around at night? At least in Africa to keep the lions at bay all we had to do was keep the fires going.

And yet this seemed like just the challenge The Ladder Guys were after. 

We had to contend with craft beer? What even was that? It sounded like something the kids cooked up in kindergarten in between cutting their shapes and sticking them together. Turned out it tasted much the same as well. 

We had to contend with men from Potsdam with ponytails and even found an old Jewish Synagog that had been refurbished to serve copious amounts of beer. 

“Jeez, the beer in that synagogue was lekker,” I announced as we stumbled out in the early hours of the morning. 

Confident that no boy from the Eastern Cape had ever uttered those words. 

But all of that paled in comparison to the very first pub we hit up. The place looked as though it should have offered free tetanus injections on arrival and reminded me of my old University local. 

It was called Champs and the only reason I could hang out in such a place was because I was good friends with lads in the local aikido club, and that was their hangout. 

But without my aikido mates, the prospect of entering such a place seemed all the more exhilarating. We ordered 2 pints of Zywiec and cautiously took a seat at the bar counter. 

As one pint lead to two I felt myself slipping back into old ways. In hindsight, we should have never left that pub. As you already know what we thought of the craft brewery. And as nice as the converted synagogue was, and it was very, very nice. It never resonated with the core values of The Ladder Guys. 

So we did what we should have done right at the start of the night and returned to our original haunt. Only now, after a few pints, it proved surprisingly difficult to find. 

Krakow had been such a success that the following year we recruited some mates and decided it was time for Gozo to meet The Ladder Guys. Only this left me in two minds. You see I was living on Gozo at the time, and as much as I knew exactly what I wanted to do. There was indeed something I wanted to do even more.  

And that involved John the Baptist, yes, thee John the Baptist. 

A year earlier, my mate Captain Dean had invited me to a barbecue fundraiser. It was a great evening. We drank much cheap wine and then out of the blue, a garage door flung open a few doors down and out popped, you guessed it, a life-size statue of Jono himself. Along with a sheep, of course. 

This was certainly a first for me. But as cheap wine gave way to cheap rum, I couldn’t escape the idea of what would happen if we kidnapped cousin John and took him pub crawling with us?

I could imagine him propped up at the bar with a cigarette between his fingers in a position resembling the royal wave. I felt that Jono would appreciate one last night of debauchery with the boys after centuries of sanctimony.

It would be legendary. Right up until we woke up in Sicily with no recollection of what happened the night before. Etna would be erupting, the airports would be closed and we would be wanted by the police, the mafia and most worryingly of all, the Catholic Church.

It would be the perfect sequel to “The Hangover” and a true feather in The Ladder Guys’ cap. 

However, going toe to toe with the police, the mafia and the Church, which in these parts are really all the same thing. Seemed slightly risky. So instead, we took up residence in the Castle Bar under the citadel. It was a great night, even with Silvio the barman steadily overcharging us, but it would have been a damn sight better had we been in the company of the imortal John the Baptist. 

The whole incident left me wondering, what was there left for us to do? Would we simply keep travelling the world sampling the local lager? Which is still very much on the cards.

Or was it not time to make our pilgrimage to the spiritual home of the pub? And indeed the actual home of the Irish pub? 

I think it was.

So when the opportunity arose, you guessed it. The Ladder Guys were on their way to Dublin. And to begin with, at least. Things were not going well. 

Our train had been waylaid by a herd of horses on the track. The rain was lashing down, as it tends to do, and like so many of our stories before, we were still suffering a modicum of discomfort following one too many ales the night before. 

So it came as no surprise that on completion of our token cultural obligation, we went in search of a bang-up carvery and a pint. 

Actually thats not true. 

We went looking for what I could only imagine was going to be a disappointing burger and chips. So you can imagine our delight when we found ourselves seated in Sinnotts Bar staring down a bang-up roast beef lunch. 

Things were looking up. In fact things were definitely looking up. This was just what we needed to correct our slowly capsizing ship. Our first pint was in the bag and now it was time to meet some locals. And by locals, I mean pretty much anyone drinking a Guinness. 

John Kehoes was just the place to meet some locals. And it was a good thing we had left our criteria purposefully vague as the locals in question turned out to be Canadian.

They had arrived in Dublin earlier that morning and instead of doing the sensible thing of checking into their hotel. They headed straight to the pub, with their luggage, I might add. It must have been many hours since they had arrived as he was struggling to balance while his wife looked suitably embarrassed.

Mr Mounted Brigade looked as though he had been taking the famous ‘cutting the G challenge’ rather seriously. And by the looks of him, he was losing. Badly. 

This was just what The Ladder Guys had come for.  

The pub was tiny. We propped ourselves up at the bar and availed ourselves of pint #2. 

“You know what,” I announced as though I was about to run for president.

“I finally feel like I am getting in the mood!”

I think we both were.

Pint #3 went down far too easily at the Long Room and by the time we sat down at Grogans Bar for pint #4 I had to ask…

“So what exactly is this ‘cutting the G challenge?’”

It was explained to me that a real Guinness drinker could sink the top of his ale to the middle of the G on the Guinness logo… in a single first sip. 

‘That was quite a challenge,’ I thought to myself as I had a go. 

The result was dismal. But the vibe in Grogans was great! It felt like a home away from home in the middle of Dublin City. A thought made abundantly clear at the sight of an elderly gentleman dressed in his bohemian ensemble and red velvet hat.

He had ordered a pot of tea and was making his way through The Times.

“I feel we may have lost our way a little in Central and Southern Europe, but here in Dublin, I feel like we are back.”

It was hard to tear ourselves away from Grogans but we were glad that we did. Because unbeknownst to us, we had saved the best for last.

The Palace bar was located in what some would consider the Holy Grail of pub districts. Temple Bar. And contrary to what its name suggested, The Palace Bar was by no means palatial. In fact, it was tiny inside.  

It felt like someone had squeezed a pub into an antechamber at Westminster Abbey. It was wood-panelled and you could smell the history. There was art on the walls of the tiny lounge at the back and a skylight that flooded the room with whatever natural light you were lucky enough to find in Dublin. 

The place was jam-packed, which only made it seem smaller and even more intimate. The mood was buzzing. I managed to secure us pint #5 while Dad squeezed us onto a tiny table in the back that we shared with a Swiss couple.

We discussed our travels and our plans. And the more we struggled to understand their German accent the more I was transported right back to where it started all those years ago.  

Everything had changed since that faithful night in Luderitz. And yet at the same time, nothing had changed at all. The Ladder Guys had found their way home. 

“Do you think it’s time for another pint?”

“Pint #6? I think so!”