Oooh, aren’t people angry today ? Mrs RM is so angry she’s thrown out all my old IndyMan glasses. You can read more about that on MumsNet.
In 1970, when people were angry about important things like Sir Alf’s substitutions against the Germans, my Dad entered a competition to see who could drive the furthest on a single gallon of petrol in Cambridge.
Being 1970, the car would have been a Ford Anglia that cost five guineas. He finished third before conking out near the St Radegund.
50 years on, Mrs RM and me are seeing how long we can go on a single bladder.
About three hours, I reckon; enough for an afternoon in Eynesbury.
You know it’s a suburb of St. Neots, surely ?
An odd choice, prompted by my latest programme discovery;
You may be surprised to see them rubbing noses (at a 2m distance) with the giants of Norwich, Tottenham and Holbeach. But football fortunes ebb and wain. Wiki tells me;
“The ground’s record attendance of 5,000 was set for a friendly match against Fulham in 1955, a game during which Stanley Matthews played for Eynesbury.”
As a famous teetotaler, the Bass and Worthington at the Blue Ball were clearly not the reason for Sir Stan’s trip to Hunts. I guess it was the roller ring.
The roller ring is no more, so the retiredmartin tourist trail starts in the Tesco car park and takes you a two mile rollercoaster along the Ouse Valley into St Neots.
OK, not really a rollercoaster, more a leisurely swan boat of a trip, with plenty of opportunity to overhear conversations like;
“Are they allowed to fish there ?”
and
“Wonder how much those flats go for ?”
On the approach into St Neots proper I spy a monument to the famed BRAPA visit of 2018 when he had some toilet issues (sound familiar ?).
The memorial service for BRAPA’s liver took place in St Mary’s.
Plenty of St Neots pubs in the Guide in recent years, a couple in Eynesbury a decade ago.
The Chequers is the “British Restaurant”,
the Hare & Hounds the “pub the cyclist parks at to eat his lunch”
and the Cambridgeshire Hunter is the ancient HQ of the Eynesbury Rovers Supporters Club.
All solid but unspectacular, like Huntingdonshire.
Though I bet the Royal Antediluvian Order of Buffaloes (top) had some tales to tell at the Hare & Hounds.
retiredmartin 
I’m sure Stafford Paul will remember local brewers, Paine’s of St Neots, even though their beers weren’t exactly what you’d call classics!
For a while, before they were bought out – can’t remember who by, they introduced a strong beer called EG, the letters standing either for Eynesbury Giant, or Extra Gravity.
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Paine’s had a (dull) advert in the programme, and I’ve seen their livery on a few pubs round there.
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T’other Paul,
Yes, I first drank Paines on 19th April 1974 at the Kings Head in St Neots and remember them bringing out EG, officially Eynesbury Giant I think, before being lost, with only about two dozen pubs, to Tolly Cobbold in the 1980s. .
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I seem to remember that a large chunk of Paine’s business was the production malt extract for the burgeoning home brewing market.
Their beers weren’t particularly well regarded and, according to a friend who had a work colleague from St Neots, the head brewer was nicknamed “Mr Pastry” because of the amount of adjuncts he added to the mash tun.
I only ever came across Paine’s beers at beer festivals, so can’t really comment one way or the other. 🙂
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Actually, Paul, that makes sense. Sure I’ve seen Paine’s name in home brewing stores (not that I approve of home brewing, you understand).
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“the Bass and Worthington at the Blue Ball” – and the “Wells & Winch Fine Beers” puts it before 1961 when that Biggleswade brewery was taken over by Greene King.
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