Publican drinks pint in waist-deep water

A video showing a Worcestershire pub owner sipping a pint of Guinness in flood water up to his waist following Storm Henk has gone viral on social media.

Andrew Goodall, publican at the Rose and Crown in Severn Stoke in the Malvern Hills, Worcestershire, took to social media to post a video of himself drinking a pint at a table outside his pub while water swirled around him.

The severe flooding caused by excessive rain during Storm Henk in January 2024 is the third time the pub has been waterlogged in the last 12 months and Goodall hopes the video will urge local government to give pubs and businesses more help in safeguarding against such costly disasters.

Goodall said that in releasing the video he aims to highlight “the ongoing issues we have… and the importance for the Environment Agency to appoint a contractor to complete the bund to start safeguarding our community, business, and homes.”

The 30-second video clip pans out to the street on which the Rose & Crown sits, much of which is submerged in water, as Goodall calmly says:

“Good afternoon. Welcome to the Rose and Crown riverside view, and probably the best Guinness in the country.”

The pub owner’s legs are completely under water as he enjoys his pint, with just his top half showing above the flood waters.

@andrewgoodall1♬ original sound – Andrew Goodall

Not good enough

It comes after Labour leader Keir Starmer said he would favour manning a Task Resilience Taskforce were he in power.

“I just don’t think it’s good enough for the government to come in after the event again…get ahead of this with a taskforce,” Starmer wrote on X (formerly Twitter).

Storm Henk saw 1.4 inches of rain fall on some parts of the country when it hit during the first week of the year.

More than 550 flood warnings and alerts were issued for England and Wales, and the Environment Agency said about 450 properties had been flooded.

The Boat Inn in Shropshire was also badly impacted during the storm, with photos showing the water level reaching half way up its front windows. Pub landlord Mario Thomas said the property had been flooded since 31 December and it “got worse and worse” until the water level rose significantly during Storm Henk on Thursday 4 January.

“I knew it was going to flood but I didn’t think it was going to be so severe,” he said.

In November, a Norfolk pub landlord was filmed using a canoe to transport deliveries to work. Coldham Hall, an inn on the bank of the River Yare, has experienced increasingly worse floods over the last seven years, said landlord Harry Linden.

“Winter is hard at Coldham Hall, we’re a small family run pub and love this place. So it’s sad to see the pub empty, when it should be filled with happy faces and beer,” Linden posted in a statement to the pub’s clientele on Instagram.