7th December 2022.
I’d planned it all so well.
No new GBG ticks in Stafford, but a genuine Guide newbie in Tamworth on the way home.
There’s multiple rail routes to Stafford from Sheffield, and about 44 different fare combinations depending on whether you dare stop in Uttoxeter and whether you’re old or not.
I’d had to stare at the “Welcome to Tamworth” sign for 34 minutes that morning,
leaving the station only briefly to admire the sign pointing the way to Jewson car park,
but returning at 5pm I had a full hour to explore the town for the first time in years. Oh look, it’s the pig which gave Tamworth its name;
Walk to the end of the pedestrianised area from the station and pass a decent representation of UK pubs in late 2022.
Your Stonegate, your Craft Union, your Spoons, your Joules,
(with ornate Banks’s windows),
your upmarket micro-cum-brewery tap, and your smart new self-styled “ambient pub”.
Yes, the Old Bank House really does describe itself as “ambient”, which sounds more Brian Eno than Julian Cope.
I head for the wide open door;
but this turns out to be the entrance to Retro Graphix, neither ambient or ale house.
The Old Bank House, next door, remains closed.
I check Facebook again. Oh.
retiredmartin 
When I lived in Stoke as a student in the early nineties, there was a spate of incidents in which passengers fell out of railway carriage doors onto the tracks in a so-called Tamworth Triangle around the town. Local wags claimed that it was because no one could face going there.
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Yes, and those “incidents” meant door locks being fitted to the 125s which were on both routes through the town.
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High time you were awarded an honorary ‘Staff’ diploma for services to the pub trade.
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Never really thought of Saint Julian as ambient. Or is that just a synonym for weirdly wonderful these days?
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What a shame, will you be returning any time soon? If so I’d love to buy you a pint or do you no longer mix with us mere mortals now that you’re famous?!!
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Well, I would have been at the Old Bank House this very afternoon but the trains seem to peter out.
If you message me on Twitter I’ll catch up when I might make it (on return from Brum).
I am getting fed up of folk who want to touch Baa Baa Toure !
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Twitter?!! I’m only slightly more advanced than pigeon post Martin !! I guess if you respond say to this post I’ll get an email notification which I’ll pick up straightaway. I work at least one day a week in Brum so there are numerous opportunities should you wish for me to touch Baa Baa Toure….assuming that’s not a euphemism 🤣
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Not many years ago there were three Bank House pubs in my branch area, in Stafford ( opposite the Vine ), Hixon and Uttoxeter.
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