5th December 2022.
My marathon* pub ticking day continued on t’tram toward Bury, but I jumped off at Radcliffe.
As Will Hawkes astutely remarked in our interview, ticking the GBG forces you to visit places where others fear to tread. Dear reader, I had never been to Radcliffe before, and my visit to the New Inn would force me to walk half an hour through the heart of suburban Bury.
Nearly 30,000 souls live in Radcliffe, says Wiki, which seems improbable as you hit a small and deserted central shopping centre at dusk.
Ah ! There’s a pub.
It’s keg, but I need a wee.
Google promises “charismatic locals“.
Google has little to say about the draught, but Marston’s Smooth picks itself, doesn’t it ?
Only one taker for the Japan v Croatia thriller,
possibly because this was a pub for relentless banter, none of which involved black pudding so enough of your Bury cliches.
A warm pub in every sense, and the keg Smooth (£2.80 a pint) was cool and tasty (NKMSSS 3.5).
But due to antiquated CAMRA rules keg boozers will never get in the GBG until the old guard retires, and I dutifully set off up the B6292 to tick the cask.
*Marathon, Radcliffe, wee stop. See the effort that goes into these posts JUST FOR YOU.
retiredmartin 
Any relation to Simon?
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We are all Simon.
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I really don’t want to see how you prove that.
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Radcliffe does have something of a reputation as “the land that time forgot”. The town centre (as you will know) is actually the bit right at the bottom of your map extract.
I worked for a while in the late 90s in a paper mill at Little Lever just up the road.
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See also : Farnworth (that’s Bolton I assume).
A real cask desert, though there’s a micro bar in the shopping centre that sounds interesting but obviously that was closed !
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Thanks for pointing out the Paula reference. I normally get your refs, especially the music ones, but that one would have totally passed me by.
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Hey, it’s Christmas. We all deserve a bit of help.
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I’m guessing that whoever wrote charismatic locals had their tongue in their cheek -like saying an area is cosmopolitan when it us just downright dangerous
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“Charismatic” is the new “friendly, really”.
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As in “edgy”, ie full of prostitutes and drug dealers. Avoid at all costs.
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Then there’s “vibrant”…
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