East Midlands Pub Bans Royal Wedding

27 April 2011, 17:51 | Updated: 30 March 2016, 13:50

Billions of people around the world will watch as Prince William and Kate Middleton tie the knot on Friday, except in one pub in Derby, where bosses have banned anything royal wedding-related.

At the Alexandra Hotel in Derby, the words ``royal'' and ``wedding'' are banned, with customers ordered to donate to a ``swear box'' if they slip up.

The TV will be turned off, there is no bunting adorning the building, and even the pub brewery's specially-created ale Kiss Me Kate won't be served.

Landlords Ralf Edge and Anna Dyson, who are getting married themselves next year, said they decided to make the pub a royal wedding-free zone after hearing their customers complain about the royal wedding fever spreading across the country.

Miss Dyson, 33, said: ``We have a lot of male customers and a lot of them were coming in complaining about how much they had to listen to talk of the royal wedding.

``They came in after work saying, 'oh, this royal wedding, it's all anyone's talking about'. We hadn't really got any plans for the day anyway, so we decided to ban it. We've made this a safe haven for our customers so it's somewhere they can go without hearing, or seeing, or talking about it.''

And the plans have already gone down a storm: ``They're loving it, they have all said they'll be in on Friday. We're not going to have the telly on, we've got no bunting. It's just another normal day.''

Any customer who utters the words ``royal'' or ``wedding'' will be expected to donate #1 to the swearbox, with money raised going to the Nightingale Macmillan Unit at the Royal Derby Hospital, Miss Dyson said.

Kiss Me Kate - created by Castle Rock Brewery especially for the royal wedding -  is being taken off the pumps at the Alexandra Hotel on Friday. ``We have been serving Kiss Me Kate but we're not serving it on Friday,'' she added. ``We've also got bottles, but they won't be out either. If anyone comes in on Friday, they wouldn't even know there's a royal wedding.''

And despite their lack of enthusiasm for the royal nuptials, Miss Dyson said she and Mr Edge, 26, were very much looking forward to their own big day next July, adding: ``We're excited, just not about the royal wedding.''