WUTHERING HEIGHTS – EMILY, KATE, AND A PINT OF BLONDE WITCH

As the end of September approached, my irritation with missing out on a bit of a straggler in North Yorkshire on our Big Northern Tickathon increased, and Mrs RM agreed we’d go there as long as I drove and we had a Bradford curry on the way back. That last line alone will pique the interest of some of our American readers.

The Kings Arms in Sutton is between kinky Keighley and higgledy-piggledy Haworth, so I even threw in a nice walk on the Wuthering Heights made famous by Kate Bush. Mrs RM has joined the Sheffield Rock Choir, and this walk also gave her a perfect opportunity to get out of the Wednesday training session when no doubt they would have tacked “The Man With The Child In His Eyes“.

For some reason I took the long way through Bradford and the Queensbury road works, so by the time we’d parked up at the edge of Stanbury the clouds were already gathering.

And Mrs RM needed a comfort break.

Oh, look. A pub.

Perhaps Kate named her 1977 chart smash (another one !) after the pub; perhaps the other way round.

I remembered it from 2015, when my visit coincided with the hottest November day on record.

Always nice to revisit a blog you haven’t written about before, especially when it’s an unfussy village pub where the Soup of the Day is Tomato and Basil.

While Mrs RM had her comfort break, I bought her a pint of Landlord and ordered a couple of soups. As an Alpha Male I am decisive on such matters, and often wrong in consequence.

But I was right this time. A cool pint of Tim’s (NBSS 3) and soup and a roll was exactly what was in order pre-walk. Along with a soundtrack of Janis Joplin and Cat STevens.

Shame it was so quiet at lunchtime. Folk want craft in Haworth, I guess.

But then it started to fill up, and EVERYONE was drinking Moorhouses Blonde Witch.

Honest.

“What’ll you have, Sheila ?”

“I’ll have a Blonde Witch“

“Half ?“

“Pint !“

Mrs RM had found her soulmates, and I felt obliged to get her a pint (3.5, it had been pulled through, of course) to while I sulked over my diet coke.

Our soups were home-made and hot, but I felt a further pang of regret as the ladies read out the whole menu in the way that gentlefolk are wont to do, even when they’re clearly always going to have the fish and chips with mushy peas and a cheesey chip “cheebatta”.

“All the things that’s bad for you !” said Kate (not Bush). Or was it Emily ?

Another comfort break, and time to pretend you can walk it off on the moors in an hour.

Published by retiredmartin

Retired NHS, doing long walks around UK and the world to record the great bits. Focused on Good Beer Guide pubs and live music.

20 thoughts on “WUTHERING HEIGHTS – EMILY, KATE, AND A PINT OF BLONDE WITCH”

      1. I ran out of jealousy about three months ago; now we are in despair, but keep it coming! Makes us know we are alive. Reading those Stockport posts was like a corkscrew down my heart.

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      1. Well, if it’s in North Yorshire it can hardly be between Haworth and Keighley! A quick look at the map shows me it’s near Cowling, Glusburn, Cross Hills and Steeton, so probably disputed between West and North Yorkshire, to see which of them pays for the street lighting and which collects the business rates from the pubs.

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  4. I make that four pints for Mrs RM. Today I had a BIG fizzy IPA hop strangler in the local craft bar, followed by a similarly intense Citra at the Oakham Tap, before having a Dark Mild (aka comfort break) in the micropub…

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  5. I liked Haworth the only time I was there. It was in an October dusk, there was nobody about and it was a bit spooky, very much “in that unquiet earth”. I half expected Kate to leap out of an alley, all big eyes and swirly dancing. But she didn’t.

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