Chapter 7:

The girls were with Alan in his attic, rummaging through old files and documents, until eventually they came across and old document titled: 'The Woolpack: Owners and Landlords.' There were about five or six pages worth of names, and alongside them the job that they did with the pub, and the duration that they had done it for. These were not recent files, and the latest name given was that of Alan himself, who was Landlord of The Woolpack between 1991 and 1999. These pages were not in order, and it took them a while to figure out which was the first page, but when they did, they found what the girls had expected all along. The pub was first owned by a Mr Maxwell McIntyre. Tina's Great Grandad.

'So did you know any of my Grandparents, or even Great Grandparents?' Tina asked Alan excitedly.

'No, no, no.' Alan replied, 'I only moved here in 1982, Shadrach didn't move until 2000. He had family here though, and obviously knew and kept in touch with your Grandad.'

'Ok, ok, slow down.' Tina was struggling to take all of this in. 'Why did my Great Grandad sell the pub and move to Manchester? If he worked hard to get it up and running, then why did he just sell up and move?' Tina was greatly confused, and it never crossed her mind that the pub might not actually have been solved, and this seemed to be the case.

'Doesn't look like the pub was even sold in the first place.' Katy commented. 'Look at this:' Katy pointed to a part of the document which said: 'Taken over by…' It did not actually say who it was taken over by, I mean, it might have done at first, but the ink was too smudged in places to be able to tell what it said.

'Looks like your Grandad just walked out on the place.' Sophie piped up.

'Um, GREAT Grandad.' Tina corrected her. 'And anyway, he wouldn't have walked out without good reason. McIntyres don't do that.'

'Well this one clearly did.' Victoria felt like saying, but she decided to keep it zipped.

'Even so,' Said Alan. 'If The Woolpack was never officially signed from your Great Grandad to the next person who took it over, then nobody had any right to sign it to anybody else.'

'You know what this means T?' Katy said excitedly. 'It means that The Woolpack is yours!'

Tina looked at Alan hopefully.

'Well, it seems that someone has a bit of family tree searching to do.' Alan began. 'But yes, if this is definitely your family, and it is looking that way with all the name links and things, then yes, if you are the eldest in your family then you are the rightful owner of The Woolpack.'