Let’s be honest: most of life’s records are held by people we’ll never meet, in fields we’ll never enter. Longest free solo on Mount Impossible, largest ball of lint, most spoons balanced on a human face. But then you stumble on stories that feel both strange and distinctly comforting—like the reign of Pauline Richards, a Taunton fixture who, by every reputable account, served up KFC for nearly half a century before her recent passing. It’s an oddly specific, quietly radical achievement—the kind that reveals as much about humanity as any gold medal.

A Drumstick Dynasty, 47 Years in the Making

Pauline’s decades at the Taunton KFC exceeded mere employment and drifted into the territory of local folklore. According to Somerset Live, she started in 1978 as a cleaner, motivated by a simple wish to help out a friend who’d just joined the restaurant. Her tenure spanned every role possible—from scrubbing floors to working the tills and eventually managing the operation. The Sun adds further detail, reporting not just her progression to manager, but the impressive estimate that she served some six million drumsticks during those years. She even watched her daughter and grandson join the ranks at the same store, making it a Richards family outpost in all but name.

Her robust sense of humor and knack for wrangling the unpredictability of the late-night takeaway crowd are the stuff of local legend. Somerset Live recounts stories shared by patrons: one recalled being banned by Pauline in the early 80s after violently protesting the removal of KFC ribs, and many remembered her “dry sense of humour when dealing with people who were a tad intoxicated.” Another resident reminisced about getting a “behave or no chicken” warning, a phrase that reportedly could snap teenagers into line on even the wildest of Taunton’s Friday nights. In an earlier piece, Bristol Live underscores these accounts with yet another memory—Pauline once handed out free gravy, but only in exchange for her signature “no nonsense” attitude.

Beyond the Counter: A Community’s Guardian

Pauline’s life, pieced together across tributes and recollections, presented a gentle subversion of the “service worker burnout” narrative. Far from simply clocking hours, she became something of a local institution. The Spud Shack, another Taunton restaurant, posted a heartfelt tribute quoted by Somerset Live, saying, “She will be very missed by everyone in Taunton. Pauline was very well known in the town for her dry sense of humour when dealing with people who were a tad intoxicated.” Calls for a statue in her honor, as Bristol Live highlights, have been floating around social media—equal parts tongue-in-cheek and genuinely affectionate.

KFC itself recognized her decades of service. The Sun quotes Kathryn York, the chain’s chief people officer, describing Pauline as “an important role model in her local community.” There’s a thread running through these tributes that ties together commitment, eccentricity, kindness, and just the right amount of stubbornness into something undeniably worth honoring.

In a detail highlighted by Somerset Live and echoed by The Sun, Pauline’s philosophy on retirement was practical and a touch defiant: “It all depends on what my body says. I have been lucky I keep well. I haven’t had much illness in my life.” It seems she took her cues less from retirement plans and more from day-to-day reality—probably not a bad approach for someone surrounded by the comfortingly predictable chaos of a busy fried chicken shop.

“Miss KFC,” a Local Legend (with Free Gravy)

Stitching together the smaller details paints a vivid portrait. As The Sun documents, Pauline became so much a part of the Taunton scene that late-night revelers specifically sought her out—at both her place of work and even at the local pub, where she confessed she “hadn’t bought a drink in the last two years.” Her public, it seems, paid back her patience one pint at a time. The calls for a statue, thoroughly chronicled by Bristol Live, seem less absurd once you learn how many generations she gently policed with a “no chicken” ultimatum.

These stories—free gravy here, a ban-for-life there, warnings to rowdy kids—aren’t just trivia for pub quizzes. Through consistent actions, Pauline became a kind of unofficial guardian for the Taunton night crowd. Bristol Live also notes, another patron remembered, “she left a legacy and will be remembered by many. AND she gave me a free gravy once! Bless her, we were a nightmare to her in our youth! She took no nonsense!” There’s a peculiarly British tenderness in these tough-love recollections: the understanding that rules—and the people who enforce them—are often what keep a community’s stories coherent.

The Peculiar Poetry of Everyday Legends

It’s easy to see Pauline’s story as an eccentric oddity—a curio about the world’s longest tenure at a KFC—but there’s understated magic in how the everyday, performed with dedication and humor, can become quietly mythic. Heartfelt tributes quoted in Somerset Live describe her as “a legend in her own time” and “a lovely lady.” Taunton Town Council, as reported in The Sun, went further still, offering condolences to her family and highlighting just how significant her presence had been.

Pauline, known for years as “Miss KFC,” achieved her record by simply showing up day after day, with roughly six million pieces of chicken to her name. As those memories float across Somerset—invocations of free gravy, tales of banned revelers, calls for statues and for “just one more warning”—it’s hard not to wonder: what unlikely record-holder is quietly working, right now, somewhere in your own orbit? And which small acts, repeated with care and a dash of well-placed irony, will someday turn out to have been legendary all along?