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‘I shouted at the water but it didn’t seem to do much’

Two philosophical Leeds men enjoyed a pint while waist-deep in flood water after a river engulfed the beer garden in which they were sitting.

The flood water was only ankle deep when the men sat down to drink their pints, but was waist-deep before they finished (Photo: Twitter/@MarleyAJMageary)

Proving that there is precious little that will get in the way of a Yorkshireman and his pint, the pair were drinking in the beer garden of the Kirkstall Bridge Inn in Leeds when the river Aire burst its banks.

As the river water began flooding into the garden, they continued their supping, even as the water rose to waist height.

“The water came in pretty quickly and pretty heavily and once we realised, Steve [Holt, the pub’s owner] drove off to get some sandbags,” the pub manager John Kelly told BBC Newsbeat.

“I stood and shouted at the water but it didn’t seem to do much.

“It was remarkably cold. The first 15 minutes were a little bit uncomfortable but once we settled down it was surprisingly therapeutic.”

The incident when viral when a local resident posted the image on the right on Twitter with the message: “Can we all establish that the pub near where I live has flooded and there’s 2 guys drinking a pint like nouts wrong”. The message was retweeted more than 20,000 times.

Staff at the Kirkstall Bridge Inn appeared to take the deluge in good spirits, tweeting: “Get out of our beer garden you watery b*****d!” before reassuring customers that the pub was open as usual.


The men were eventually called indoors by “Steve’s missus”, Kelly said. Soon after, the beer garden became part of the river Aire.

Leeds men John Kelly and Steve Holt consider their options in the beer garden of Kirkstall Bridge Inn (Photo: Twitter/@Leedsbeer)

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