'ALE AND 'EARTY fellow needed to chew the fat over a pint or two with elderly gent, £7 an hour and all expenses paid.

It sounds too good to be true.

Loving son Mike Hammond advertised in a New Forest post office for a drinking pal for his elderly father, who has missed popping down the pub with a neighbour.

Widower Jack Hammond moved from his Barton-on-Sea home to St Peter's Road, Bournemouth, three years ago.

Then last November, at the age of 88 he moved to Forest Edge Rest Home at Cadnam to be nearer his family.

But there is only one other male resident and he has a farming background, while Mr Hammond was an electrical engineer with the city in his heart.

With nothing in common, he decided he wasn't to be a pub partner at the Compass Inn in Winsor.

Jack, a wartime radar technician, said: "It's a bit difficult at this age to come out to a pub. I don't want to be a nuisance. It was a bit upsetting when I had to leave as I had left all my friends back home.

"I'd like to go down the pub a couple of times a week. But it's got to be with somebody who is not too bombastic and enjoys a nice pint."

So son Mike, 56, a chef at Woodpeckers Rest Nursing Home in Brockenhurst, decided an advert in Bartley Post Office window might provide the answer to his dad's problem.

Mike said: "It's the company he misses more than anything. He's not a big drinker. He just likes the socialising and atmosphere. His motto in life was always Everything in moderation'."

"We've had about 10 people who have come forward now. Some, I don't think, are going to be appropriate, some are going to be too young.

"The youngest was 16 and the eldest 78 and the rest aged in between; a real cross-section."

Mike is going to speak to them all by telephone and then he and his nurse wife Liz will meet up with those who make the shortlist.

"We're going to try and choose somebody who is going to be right for my dad.

"Then we'll take him to meet dad and involve dad in the final decision. Because, at the end of the day, it's for him.

"It must be the most perfect job, getting paid to go to the pub.

"But it's not as simple as all that because dad needs help with getting out of the car, and so on."

Director of Age Concern Hampshire, Chris Perry, said: This kind of problem is quite common as it is easy to become isolated at this age due to bereavement or from people moving away.

"But this man needs to be commended for using his initiative for putting an advert in the window."