Real Ale, Real Music

A brand new area for me as we headed way down south and visited Southampton and Eastleigh where we came across some excellent beers and pubs in and amongst taking in some rather uninspiring football.... Last weekend I went what was probably the greatest distance I'd ever undertaken to watch FC Halifax Town, although it wasn't the longest journey in terms of time, that being an FA Cup tie many years ago at Ipswich where we had to endure an interminable return journey after a 3-1 defeat through the vast expanses of rural East Anglia where the train never climbed above the pace of an asthmatic snail attempting to climb the Matterhorn. For this trip, we'd left Halifax at 10.40, arrived in London just before 2, and then caught a train from Waterloo to Southampton Airport Parkway, from where we got a taxi to the Travelodge in Eastleigh, ironically right opposite the railway station, our home for the next 18 hours or so. It had just gone 4.30, and with FC Halifax Town's  telev...

I had been in Rochdale on a fleeting visit only last week en route to watch FC Halifax Town away at Oldham, but having been made aware of a few new establishments in the town selling real ale I decided to take the opportunity of a free Sunday and make a quick return.... I was later catching the train than I'd planned from Halifax, but fortunately it is only half an hour to Rochdale on the fastest trains, and with a regular connecting tram services even on a Sunday it doesn't take long at all to get to the heart of Rochdale town centre. Whilst the approach down Drake Street with its forlorn and rundown look with boarded up premises in and amongst the takeaways, vape shops, and Polski Skleps doesn't look promising at all, as you arrive at the tram terminus things start to brighten up. In fact, I think it is no exaggeration to say that one of the finest open urban spaces in the country is the area around Rochdale's newly refurbished town hall. After several years shuttere...

Another piece from the Midlands, this time featuring Shrewsbury where I stayed for a couple of nights the other week. I had been here a few times before, but with it having been a few years ago, I was curious as to what the pub scene was like these days.... Shrewsbury is one of my favourite towns in England. Not only does it have some cracking pubs, it has an incredible history and is also home to some stunning buildings, whilst its setting in and around a loop of the River Severn gives it, like Durham and its similar relationship with the River Wear, something of the feel of an island, a place apart that moves along in its own individual, time-honoured way. The local poet A.E. Houseman wrote of the town in his famous poem A Shropshire Lad: " High the vanes of Shrewsbury gleam, Islanded in Severn stream, The bridges from the steepled crest, Cross the water east to west"   Shrewsbury certainly has a rich history, with Anglo-Saxon roots, whilst the Romans had a settlement close...

I was away last week, visiting one of my favourite parts of the country. And whilst there, I had a day out exploring a couple of attractive small towns and discovered a number of excellent pubs in both....     "Edrychwch arno. Dwed e. Didoli." * I was travelling on a Transport for Wales train between Shrewsbury and Leominster and yet another dual-language train announcement was playing over the tannoy. I'd become somewhat acclimatised to these having travelled down from Manchester to Shrewsbury the previous day, also on a TfW train. And so there would be a lilting gentleman's accent announcing in Welsh that this train was bound for  Caerdydd Canolog and would be calling at such stations as  Llwydlo and Y Fenny , which would be then be repeated in English by a voice that sounded very much like Nessa from Gavin & Stacey , and although I have been unable to confirm that this was definitely the case, I am sure my ears were hearing correctly! We were passing through ...