SPOONS CURRY NIGHT IN HAVERFORDWEST

My last night in Wales, and Duncan met Baa Baa Toure for the first time. It was emotional.

Haverfordwest is a great place to be emotional in (NGPTBEISS 3.5+).

Duncan, who’s just broke his blog silence by welcoming the new GBG, had done all the Guide pubs for 3,788 miles around, so it was a case of “Which pub has been surveyed in the last decade, appears to have a handpump, and doesn’t shut at 7.30 ?”.

And ISN’T a Conservative Club.

Actually, we started on home turf, our decent if ambitiously priced Mariner Hotel filling up at the new Golden Hour of 7pm with Doom Bar drinkers.

Writing up these posts from old notes nearly a quarter of a year after the event runs the risk of things that made sense at the time sounding dodgy now. Who is “Adam of Aberystwyth”? More pressingly, was “Barefoot German rogue on the sack” a seasonal or regular beer ?

We set off, me stopping every 30 seconds to record a site at which Wesley preached. I could tick those.

I then made Duncan walk a mile further south than I said it was to the Glen, a perfectly adequate suburban dining pub with, perhaps, more for children than tickers,

though the Double Dragon (or was it Barefoot German rogue on the sack) another solid 3. Good to see the good folk of Pembrokeshire dressing up to go out.

There then followed a convoluted zig zag route to the Belle Vue, which had locked the front door so Duncan had to phone them so we could gain entrance via a hidden back door or something.

After that effort you expect Sarah Hughes on gravity, or Doom Bar. It was Madri or nothing. I loved it.

Which left the Farmers, which I’d declared one of the ten best pubs in the world earlier that evening.

He loved it. They all chatted to us, they played Duncan’s 3rd favourite Abba track,

And as we left a bloke who’d drunk more than us stopped us at the door.

“Remember !”

“Remember what ?”

“Remember you’re a Womble”

This is why we go to pubs, rather than drinking cans of sour pumpkin DIPA in our underpants.

Sadly, we’d forgotten that Spoons curries are garbage.

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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 “SPOONS CURRY NIGHT IN HAVERFORDWEST”

  1. Sadly I remember that night well including the meaning of your cryptic notes (but can’t disclose on a public forum). The Farmers was the most memorable pub of the night. Fortunately you don’t mention your request to have Sarah Brightman and the other one sing to you on Rousay.

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  2. That Abba video, appears to have been shot at the same time as that for the far better known track, “The Day Before You Came.” Same station, same train, same mysterious stranger, and Agnetha is even wearing the same raincoat.

    Andante Andante, is a new one on me, so apologies to Duncan.

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      1. Difficult to believe that the band were on a tight budget. Perhaps the local railway station was considered “atmospheric,” or perhaps you are telling porkies, as Wikipedia states the sequences for “The Day Before You Came”were shot at Tumba station and the Årstabron bridge, in southern Stockholm!

        I spent several hours, traveling by train to Haverfordwest, as a student, back in the mid 70’s. I was on my way, with several others, to attend a Marine Biology course, at Dale Fort Field Studies Centre. Unfortunately, there was no time for a pint in the town, as a minibus was waiting outside the station, to transport us to Dale.

        The Griffin Inn, at Dale, was well worth a visit, even though the warden in charge of the field studies centre, warned us against drinking in there – we surmised he’d had a falling out with the landlord. Keg Worthington Bitter, back then, and something of a gastro-pub now, according to What Pub.

        Gorgeous scenery, some fantastic storm beaches nearby, plus the obligatory “wall-to-wall” sunshine!” Check out the local vicinity, now that you are no longer bound to the “Guide.”

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  4. “The Day Before You Came” is definitely a classic. Deep fried “stuff” served with chips in a basket, was also a classic back in the 70’s, it was even considered the height of sophistication in the part of Kent I come from.

    Surprised it lasted through to the late 90’s though, especially in “posh” Pembrokeshire.

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