I remember the California pub well - It was built in the "Roadhouse" style popular in the 20s and 30s, although technically too small to be a proper roadhouse. It had plenty of parking places (for the time) and originally had a large beer garden at the back. When it was built the area was still semi-rural so it would have attracted folk taking their cars out for a spin in the country. I remember it had an off-licence entrance on the Alwold Road side of the Pub. The tall brick pillar outside it was topped by a big plaster "cornucopia" of fruit - grapes the size of footballs, oranges the size of beach balls. The Pillar came tumbling down on the afternoon of Friday 28th June 1968 when a tornado swept through. It took the roofs off two of the shops in the parade opposite (to this day you can still see the different style of roof tiles used to replace them). The tornado went down Alwold Road, bending street lamps and doing more damage. It swept over the Castle ruins and Paganal junior school thankfully doing no damage - the kids (I was one of them) had just come in from the playground after our afternoon break. The tornado then followed the Bourne Brook and touched down again briefly in one of the car parks at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital, doing some damage to cars. I got a good look at the remains of the pillar and its fruit strewn along the road on my way back from school. The tornado only got a passing reference in the local paper and a brief mention on the local TV news the following day. At the time I don't remember anyone calling it a "Tornado", it was called a "Whirlwind" by us kids. As someone has already mentioned, the pub was later rebranded as "Whispers" (I seem to remember it had a rather garish neon sign) before being pulled down and replaced by the current BP filling station. A KFC is opposite it.