Thomas Forster, 34, recently published his short story collection titled The Old Man earlier this year, a project born in Colchester during his studies and time working at The Playhouse.
Mr Forster said: “I worked at The Playhouse on Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights while studying for my master’s degree.
“It is an extremely busy pub, and you encounter people from every walk of life.
“However, my interest has always been in the quieter people, the outcasts and, in some cases, the downright miserable.
“The Old Man is an amalgamation of those different characters. Once you get deeper into his story, you begin to understand why he is the way he is.”
“The Playhouse was a brilliant source of inspiration and also the beginning of my career with Wetherspoon.”
Mr Forster, who now works as a shift manager at The Star in Hoddesdon, began writing the collection while working in hospitality and studying philosophy at The University of Essex.
He said those years, spent moving between university life and late-night pub shifts, shaped his desire to explore the inner world of a character often overlooked: the solitary older man quietly nursing a drink in the pub.
“Balancing everything was very difficult at times.
“Studying for a master’s degree is tough because you do not receive the same maintenance support, so I had to continue working to keep myself afloat.
Mr Forster often wrote during the day before starting evening shifts, finding it easier than coming home after work to write late at night.
The Old Man is not just a work of fiction but also a personal tribute.
Mr Forster said: “A few years ago, I unfortunately lost my best friend following a battle with addiction and depression.
“He was extremely talented at using dark humour, often as a way of coping with the darkness inside himself.
“I combined some of the more difficult parts of his personality with my understanding of psychoanalysis and the familiar stereotype of the rude, grumpy British man.
“That mixture became The Old Man.”
The Old Man includes eight stories about that character—a blend of pub regulars and Colchester personalities, brought together in a single fictional voice.
The stories start with blunt observations and dark humour but gradually delve into deeper themes of grief, loneliness, addiction, and psychological collapse and suicidal thinking.
Mr Forster said: “With The Old Man, I wrote the first short story a couple of years ago as an experiment.
“His voice was partly inspired by Charles Bukowski, who was an incredibly gifted writer and whose work often explored alcoholism, isolation and the darker sides of life.”
The book was recently featured in the summer/autumn edition of Wetherspoon News.
Mr Forster said the feature meant a great deal.
“I love The Old Man’s story, so I’m over the moon that more people now have the opportunity to read it.”
His first book, The Master and the Slave: A Philosophical Journey, used Nietzsche’s idea of master-slave morality as the basis for a fictional narrative.
Mr Forster said he plans to keep writing and publishing in the future and is travelling around Southeast Asia with his girlfriend for three months from September.
He said: “The Old Man allows the reader inside his consciousness and exposes all of his thoughts, including the thoughts most people would never admit to having.
“I hope readers find him strangely relatable, despite the fact that he can be a little horrible.
“It is an emotional journey where the reader’s feelings towards him gradually change.
“More than anything, it gives a voice to the grumpy old man sitting in the corner of the pub whom everybody recognises, but nobody truly knows.”