Pudding Club

"The first rule of Pudding Club is: you do not talk about Pudding Club".

The men bowed their heads solemnly.

"The second rule of Pudding club is: You Do Not. Talk. About. Pudding Club".

The men were gathered in the cellar of a pub in Sussex. They were standing in a circle with their shirts off, looking sheepishly at one other. A bare-chested man, young and good looking, was in the middle of the circle, pontificating loudly.

"I've had enough of the modern world," he was saying. His eyes flashed with rage. "Fancy cars," he said. He looked directly at one man. "13.5 tog duvets."

He saved his disgust for the third item on his list. "No pudding."

The men in the circle nodded sagely. They were all about forty to fifty years old, and one thing united them: they did like a nice bit of pudding. They had nostalgic memories of boyhood, running home from evenings playing football in the street to find hot meals on chequered table cloths. Stronger than the memories of meals cooked by mother though, were the memories of traditional English puddings.

But times had changed. Mothers had been replaced by wives. And wives in the first decade of the twenty-first century had concerns beyond pudding.

"Healthy options," spat the man in the middle of the circle. "Weight watching, fresh fruit, bollocks" he continued, getting into his stride. "We're expected to kneel down to these false gods, sacrifice ourselves to magazines with stubbled, muscular hunks telling us how to look. Do any of you guys feel like hunks?"

There was no response, so he repeated the question louder: "DO YOU?"

The portly men in the circle mumbled to each other. There seemed to be a general agreement that they did not feel like hunks.

"Whatever happened to a man being free to pursue his own pleasure?" asked the man in the middle. "His own personal sweetness? A little sugar in his bowl? I'm not talking about doing anything wrong. I'm talking about apple crumble and custard. I'm talking about spotted dick and strawberry blancmange and Neapolitan ice cream and all the glorious puddings our mothers used to offer us. But where are they now? We've been made to live without. To involuntarily succumb to diets and lowering our sugar intake. To live our lives without pastry"

He looked as though he had a sour taste in his mouth, but the look faded in a second. He took a moment to survey the mood in the room. It was clear from their faces that the other men were on his side. He smiled with a hint of mischief and left dramatically through a side door.

In his absence the men started muttering again. "I do like a bit of cake," said David Hamfeld, proprietor of the local hardware store. The other men nodded in agreement. Paul Goodson, a quantity surveyor from Horsham, waxed lyrical about hot chocolate cake with hot chocolate sauce. "That's what I'm talking about!" he chortled. Tom Parks, the pompous, tubby village clergyman, agreed that there was nothing better than a nice slice of treacle tart.

The volume of the chattering increased gradually, but it drew to an abrupt stop when the younger man re-entered the room. He was carrying a large dish, and it smelled good.

"Gentlemen," he announced. "We have gathered here this evening for one reason, and one reason only. And that reason is pudding. Pure, honest pudding." He removed a cover from dish. "Tonight's pudding will be rhubarb crumble with double cream."

An old man named Reg distributed porcelain bowls and spoons to the attendant males. The men queued up and the young man, the leader, their hero and fighter for their cause, distributed the pudding in generous quantities. He laughed as he did so, and encouraged the men to come back for seconds.