Little and large

The licensee of the Park Hotel in William Street is known as 'half-pint' among regulars and needs a foot stool to change the optics.

Bev, who weighs just over five and a half stone, has to stand on tip toes to see over the beer pumps and the glasses sit on special low shelves.

Now, after challenging another landlord to the title live on the TV show Big Breakfast last week, Bev is to appear in the 2001 edition of the Guinness Book of Records.

Egged on by regulars, Bev contacted programme makers Planet 24 after she spotted a four foot eleven landlord claiming he was the shortest in Britain.

"A lot of my customers saw him and told me I should set the record straight," she explained.

The next morning Bev was whisked off to the London studio to meet officials from the Guinness Book of Records.

"I beat him hands down and I still had my sandals on," she said.

Bev will have to complete a special form before the record becomes official but her measurements have already been taken.

"It looks like I probably am the shortest landlady in Britain," she said.

Bev has managed the town centre bar with her partner Alan Warren for three-and-a-half years.

The couple have grown used to jibes and jokes from their lively clientele.

Bev said: "The favourite one is 'half-pint' but I also get people pretending they can't see me behind the bar.

"Some customers say they better order half pints because I don't look as if I could hold a full pint."

Now Bev and Alan are planning a double celebration to mark the week's event and Halloween.

"It is also a way of thanking all the regulars for their support. Since all this happened the atmosphere in the bar has been brilliant.

"I have really enjoyed every second and it was great to meet Johnny Vaughan he's hilarious."

A spokeswoman for the Guinness Book of Records said that the category for shortest landlady will be a new listing for 2001.

"We have 45,000 records in the database at the moment and we constantly get requests for new categories such as this," she said. "It is quite a quirky record and I'm sure it will take some beating."

The shortest living woman would barely reach Bev's waist though Madge Bester, 47, from South Africa is two foot two inches tall.

Everyone is invited to attend the Halloween party at the Park Hotel tonight. Entrance is free and there will be a disco.

Green-fingered Henry Sarnowski had quite a Halloween surprise when he dug up a pumpkin which was about half his body weight.

Henry has become prolific at producing the pulpy fruit over the last 30 years and appeared in the Advertiser 11 years ago showing off his 63lb effort alongside his son Ziggy's 39lb specimen.

But at 84lbs, this year's product of his Broome Manor Farm allotment is his most impressive yet.

However, the 75-year-old from Hythe Road, Old Town, will not be carving up the giant pumpkin to create a scary Halloween lantern.

His wife Helen will instead use it to cook up a good few months' supply of her favourite recipe home-made pumpkin and tomato soup.

He has given a smaller 30lb pumpkin to his grandchildren, Alexander and Timothy, to be used for a lantern and should have enough left over for other relatives and friends.

Henry was dumbfounded when he uprooted the giant pumpkin and said it took two people to lift it into his car to take home.

"It's an amazing size and perfectly formed," he said. "I didn't do anything special to grow it I just used fish, blood and bone fertiliser and plenty of water. It is 100 per cent organic.

"I grow them every year, partly for fun to give them to my grandchildren and partly because Helen makes such a lovely soup.

"I've often grown large ones in the past but this beats the lot I think we'll be having plenty of soup for the rest of the year now."

The former Pressed Steel worker has tended the allotment for 40 years but only started growing pumpkins after his children asked him to. Now he reckons he knows almost all there is to know about the fruit.

"They do take up a lot of space and they like a good, rich soil with plenty of manure and water," he explained.

"Really, the ones I grow are a bit too big for Helen's liking, but I like to make them bigger each year for fun."

His talents do not seem to transfer to his other fruit and vegetables on his plot though.

"I grow leeks, cauliflowers, brussel sprouts, radishes you name it, I grow it. But they all grow to normal sizes and I've actually had real trouble growing swedes. I think it just depends on the soil."

Henry's pumpkin pales in stature compared to one man's prized fruit grown in Pennsylvania, USA.

According to the Guinness Book of Records, Gerry Checkon's pumpkin was the biggest ever grown, weighing in at a whopping 1,131lbs.

The current UK record was achieved last year when John Handbury, from Derbyshire, dug up an 816lb specimen.