Lepers banned from Durham pub ‘for wearing bells’

Members of The Medieval Leper Reenactment Society were humiliated today after being banned from a Durham pub for ringing their bells.

Jim Neville, the pub’s landlord, initially refused the group entry on the grounds that if more than two of the group rung their bells at once he would need a live music licence. “We were devastated”, explained group member Mike Hume, “Dave just went to pieces. And when I tried to offer the landlord the hand of friendship he just tossed it in the bin”.

In the past it was compulsory for lepers to wear noise-making apparatus to warn communities of their presence. The use of bells dropped off gradually over the centuries; in some cases quite suddenly.

“The whole group were very angry at first but we just about managed to hold ourselves together during negotiations,” continued Mr Hume. “Initially we suggested that we could quietly break up into smaller clumps, but the bar staff all looked disgusted at the idea.”

Mr Neville eventually allowed the lepers to stay, as long as they left their bells outside and kept their fingers out of the bar snacks. “We agreed to embrace them, once we’d located some rubber gloves and a bottle of detergent.”

The lepers are used to being treated badly. “People can be very cruel about our hobby. Sure, some people don’t like the sound of our bells or our outlandish costumes but that’s no excuse to treat us like Morris dancers.”

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