- This topic has 8 replies, 3 voices, and was last updated 4 months, 1 week ago by
.
-
Posts
-
I do seem to have this habit of writing about disasters, so I thought it would make a nice change to write about something more cheerful. Something that is very much not a disaster.
Let me tell you about our local pub. Well, not literally, because there are a couple of pubs nearer our house, but it’s the one we go to, and has our loyalty.
The day we moved in here, over fourteen years ago now (my God!), we found a note from the vendor asking us to phone him to confirm we had our house insurance in place so he could cancel his. When I rang him the next morning I was expecting a brief exchange of details and politenesses lasting maybe a couple of minutes, but I had yet to learn about the ways of South Welsh people. The call turned into an extended chat lasting at least a quarter of an hour, in the course of which he recommended a ‘really good pub’ not far away called the Ancient Briton, and gave me directions.
By that evening the house was still in a fair approximation to a state of chaos, and after a long day of unpacking and humping things about it seemed a very good idea to give ourselves a break by having dinner out. Not knowing the area at all, we thought we might as well follow that recommendation. We found the pub easily enough, down in the Swansea Valley (as it’s always called rather than by the name of its river, the Tawe), fronting straight onto the main road to Brecon, about a mile inside the boundary of the Brecon Beacons National Park – or, as we’re supposed to say now, Bannau Brycheiniog (Bannay Bri-CHAI-niog, with a hard ch as in loch).
We liked it straight away. It was nothing fancy from the outside, but it looked trim and well cared-for, and it was on the edge of the village, surrounded by views of the valley slopes and distant mountains. Inside it was a similar story: nicely halfway between plain and pretentious, what I call ‘a pub-shaped pub’ – which is the kind I like. There was a wood fire. And the long row of hand-pumps on the bar was a sight to gladden the heart of anyone who, like me, likes cask-conditioned beer (‘real ale’). We enjoyed the meal, and the ambience, and thought we’d probably come back.
We did. At first it was only occasionally, but over the next few years our visits slowly snowballed until we were going nearly every Saturday night and could count ourselves as regulars. We grew rather fond of the place. There was that traditional pub atmosphere, increasingly hard to find these days. The average age of the clientele was such that we felt comfortably at home. And for me, there were always at least half-a-dozen real ales on tap. The only worry was that Gerald, the landlord – literally, because it was a free house, in the true sense of that often misused term, and he owned the place (as they say) lock stock and barrel – was already in his seventies. How long would it be before he decided to retire, and what would happen to the pub when he did?
Then came the pandemic, and lock-down. We live a quiet life here, and so it didn’t affect us as much as some, but we did miss our trips to the pub. Speaking for myself, it’s not just that I enjoy the occasional pint of ale. Though that quiet life suits me in many ways – I am not a very sociable person, and am quite happy in my own company – you can take things too far, and visiting the Ancient Briton is my way of keeping in touch with the rest of the human race, on my own terms. Indeed, those visits were the only regular social life we had, so we were looking forward to the time when we could go there again. Then one day, taking our lock-down stroll round the pond behind our house, we met another pub customer walking her dog. ‘Have you heard?’ she said. ‘Gerald’s sold the Ancient Briton.’
Uh-oh. I assumed that he’d got so fed up with the enforced closure and loss of earnings that he’d decided he’d had enough, but right then we were more concerned about how new a broom the new owners would be. Our acquaintance told us that they were a couple who lived locally, who knew and loved the pub, and had no intention of making any drastic changes. That sounded reassuring, but only time would tell.
If I had known then what I know now, that this was Nils and Emma’s first venture into running a pub, I might have been less reassured, though I would have had to salute their courage. They were taking on a business that, with nothing coming in to offset the overheads, was haemorrhaging money. They were going to need all the courage and determination they could muster.
Perhaps that was why I got the impression that Emma was looking a bit nervous the first time I saw her, standing behind the closed bottom half of the stable door in the Ancient Briton’s side entrance, the day the pub re-opened. Social distancing was still in force and we were not allowed inside the building, so we had to order our drinks at that door, go and sit in the garden, and wait for the staff to bring them out to us. It was a grey and miserable day, but that hadn’t stopped us from turning up a few minutes after opening time to show our support, becoming among the first half-dozen or so customers the new owners ever served. Well, you might call it enlightened self-interest. We wanted the place to stay open, didn’t we?
It would have been too much to expect things to stay exactly the same as they had been under Gerald, and they didn’t. Nils and Emma took advantage of lock-down to have the place re-decorated. Innovations outside followed, one by one: more tables in the garden, a trailer selling ‘street food’ at weekends, an open-sided marquee thing they call the pabell (it’s simply Welsh for tent), presumably to encourage people to patronise that trailer when the weather was less than ideal.
More fundamentally, a shift in emphasis became evident, towards the food trade. Dishes on the menu became more ambitious and exotic – though you can still have pub staples like steaks, fish and chips and steak and ale pie. Locally sourced ingredients were emphasised. The word ‘gastropub’ was bandied about.
If this impinged a bit – though not as much as in some pubs I’ve been in – on the traditional pub atmosphere I could hardly begrudge them that. These days there is more profit for a publican in food than there is in drink. Who was I to complain, if the changes they’d made brought in more trade to make sure the pub I enjoy so much stayed open?
And they have. In these times when pubs are closing up and down the country – I can call to mind at least half-a-dozen within a few miles of our house that have closed in recent years – the Ancient Briton is thriving. At weekends diners overflow from the restaurant to book every table in the bar, save for one big table in the corner which is permanently reserved for the regulars and bears a sign saying so. On summer Saturday afternoons when there are events in the garden such as live music or food festivals – another innovation – the place heaves. Nils and Emma are obviously doing something right. They have met the challenge of their first foray into the licensed trade, in difficult circumstances, with verve and imagination and commitment, and made a roaring success of it. Emma no longer looks nervous, and we no longer have any worries that the pub is going to close any time soon.
Chapeau, as they say in France. I take my hat off to them.
One pleasing change is that we are on much more friendly terms with Nils and Emma than we were with the previous owner. Perhaps our popping up within minutes of the pub re-opening, and our regularity ever since, created a good impression. We nearly always get a warm welcome when we walk in. And our autistic son, who loves going to pubs (especially this one) even though he only drinks lemonade, has become a sort of pub mascot. Heaven help any stranger who takes exception to any oddities in his behaviour – though, thankfully, that hasn’t happened.
As we were taking our leave in the early hours of New Year’s Day this year Nils, who was showing the effects of an evening spent enthusiastically joining in with the New Year’s Eve party spirit, flung his arm about my shoulders. ‘Your custom means a lot to me,’ he said. ‘I really mean that.’
Well, it’s not as if we’re in there every night of the week, or we’re big spenders when we are there. We only have one drink, because it’s four miles from our house and I have to drive home. But if that’s what he thinks I’m happy to go along with it. And they do say that drunk people tell the truth.
Oh for a decent pub nearby. There used to be a decent pub only a few hundred yards away from me. It was always The George as it stood by a roundabout on Worthing’s George V Avenue. A couple of years ago it was acquired by the Toby Carvery group. I see that they claim to serve real ale now, but I did try to beers they offered a few times and I wasn’t impressed. The names were unfamiliar and I don’t remember them now, but none of them were like a decent well-rounded bitter. In fact, one was so bad it reminded me of the awful keg bitters of the 70s.
I was hopeful when a micro-pub opened around the corner, selling beer from a linked micro-brewery. And yes, they have three beers, all good. Sadly it’s also packed with ex-Ibiza holiday makers and reform voters. Then a second micro-pub opened just 50 yards further on. Again, decent beer, but clientele cut from the same cloth.
So, I’m happy for you with your local. I hope you can hang on to it.
Actually there was a bit of a wobbly phase on the ale front for the first year or two of the new regime, while Nils, who is not himself a real ale drinker, was finding out by trial and error what would sell. There was a heavy emphasis on those light golden bitters that are fashionable these days, but are not much to my taste (unless it’s hot weather and I’m very thirsty), and a shortage, occasionally total, of ‘decent, well-rounded bitters.’ But things have improved until recently, oh joy, he has started selling Bass. In this, at least, my tastes are very traditional, and Bass is probably my favourite ale – as it was my father’s.
Nils explained to me that he has a deal with whoever makes Bass these days whereby as long as he keeps selling the stuff they will maintain his handpumps – all of them, not just the Bass one – for free. So it looks like the future is pretty secure for my favourite ale at the Ancient Briton.
Sounds glorious.
Just had a short break in France where nearly all the draft beer is lager style, with the exception of a few unpleasantly-sweet dark beers. To be fair, some of the lighter ones are drinkable, especially if it’s a hot day – which it usually is.
All this talk of real ale reminds me of that magical moment when you enter a plain-looking pub and spot proper pumps with badges that promise Bass, or Fullers, or maybe something not yet tried.
Mention of plain-looking pubs reminds me of another pub with a heart-warming story, the Hope in Carshalton, near where I used to live and even nearer to where I grew up. In appearance a nondescript 1930s local, it was going to close down until a bunch of its customers got together and bought the lease, and then a few years later the pub outright. Not the first nor the only ‘community pub,’ but the Hope has since become renowned for its beer, repeatedly winning CAMRA’s London Pub of the Year and specialising in the products of small breweries from the South-East of England. One poster on TripAdvisor witnessed an incident when someone asked if they sold Guinness, to be told, ‘We don’t deal with those capitalist bastards.’ On a personal note, the cellarman is a long-time friend of my daughter – I remember him as a rather shy, nervous teenage boy.
The owners have determinedly retained the atmosphere of a traditional local, with no music nor TV as they believe pubs should be for conversation. The last time I was in there I had the pleasure of sinking a pint of a beer whose name alone makes it worth trying. From the Surrey Hills Brewery in Dorking, it’s called Shere Drop – Shere being a village in, yes, the Surrey Hills, between Dorking and Guildford. I think that arch-punster, Roger McGough, would have approved. And yes, it is a pretty decent pint.
Also the last time I was there, the staff were wearing t-shirts with the legend ‘Veni, vidi, bibi’ (I came, I saw, I drank).
Sounds like your sort of pub, Ath?
Pretty much, these days.
Most of the pubs I’ve loved are long closed now. The Railway Hotel in Newbury where I first tasted Morland bitter at the grand old age of 15 (just). At 12p per pint even I could afford it. Then there was the Cambridge in Cambridge Circus. To be fair, the beer was dreadful – so bad that I drank bottled lager mainly – but the atmosphere was spot on. I think the Cambridge is still there and I’m told it serves decent beers now, but that’s after an IRA bombing and a refit by Nicholson’s Pubs. And the bar I frequented, upstairs, is the restaurant or something similar. Then there was the Bevois Town Hotel (pronounced Bee-Vuss) in Southampton. That was VERY plain, with little difference between the lounge and public bar. It was a Marstons pub, not to be confused with the interesting beers with that name today. The bitter was “ok” but their bottled light ale was a revelation: full of flavour. So for all the years I went there it it was, landlord already reaching for glass, ‘Evening Will, light and bitter?’
The Railway went when “Swampy” Hooper lost his protest against the A34 Newbury bypass. It’s part road and part Halfords now.
The Cambridge is still there, but not the one I knew.
The Bevois Town Hotel, one of those curious pubs that was just there at the end of a residential road, was absorbed as (about) three houses.
I feel I’ve short-changed a few others, but these were the regulars, the locals, the ones I felt at home having my drink.
I have little nostalgia for the pubs of my earlier days, mainly because the pubs in Sutton, where I spent most of my life, were, and are, a pretty sorry lot. But there is one pub I remember with a certain affection.
Watling Street, which becomes the Edgware Road, that arterial road that runs in a straight line through North-West London, starts near Mansion House as a narrow lane. Here stands a pub called Ye Olde Watling, where I used to go some lunchtimes when I first worked for what was then London Transport, in an office nearby.
It’s a seventeenth century building – beams, small-paned windows, the lot – reputed to have been built by Christopher Wren. Quite atmospheric. The clientele, by and large, weren’t my sort of people – I was never cut out to be a city gent – but ah, the beer. The guvnor was a comparatively young South African, but he had nothing to learn about keeping and serving good ale. The Bass was superb: this is where I first really got my taste for the stuff. I was rather sorry when there was a re-organisation in LT buses and I had to move to another office. On my last day at the old office I informed the guvnor of my high opinion of his Bass and stood him a drink. He seemed quite pleased.
It’s still there, and is now a Nicholson’s pub – I believe it was tied to Bass Charrington (as was) when I knew it, but I felt no need for variety when I enjoyed that one beer so much. I can’t speak for the beer now though. I haven’t been in there since 1979.
In the few months since I wrote this blog about ‘our’ pub, the Ancient Briton has won – count them – four awards:
Welsh Pub of the Year;
Welsh Eatery of the Year;
Welsh Gastropub of the Year;
First Place, Welsh Good Food Awards.
As I said before, it seems that the owners, Nils and Emma, are doing something right.
It so happens that we have a table booked for tonight. No particular reason, just because we can, and to relieve those post-festive-season blues.
On a more sombre note, we’ve just learned that the previous landlord, Gerald, died on Christmas Eve. He would have been well into his eighties.
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.