retiredmartin

August 2023. Godalming.

You can learn a lot by looking at a Retired Martin Ordnance Survey extract.

Godalming looks particularly alluring, doesn’t it ? Hills, National Trust river navigations, Lammas Lands, a Ladygarden and the birthplace (at Charterhouse school) of Genesis.

OK, scrub that last bit. Never did get Genesis, something to do with poorly their ’70s LPs were engineered.

Very few GBG entries here over the decades, and we’ll see two that have graced the Guide shortly, so the new one comes as a surprise, even to the locals.

The Richmond Arms continues a long line of new GBG entries that seem a bit “plain” to the beer bore obsessed with micros and tasters, which of course is why I loved it. Has BRAPA been yet ?

The “dog roast” tells you almost as much about a pub

as the unchanging (and immaculate) interior,

and the unchanging (and immaculate) beer range.

Youngs Ordinary to me, but never “ordinary”, as Mr Young himself would have said.

Actually, tasty but not the last word in richness but a solid NBSS 3 for that and Mrs RM’s tribute.

A lady suddenly claps her hands and shouts “got it”, probably the Godalming Guardian crossword. Elsewhere the banter is mainly about rugby. Union, obviously.

“Get off me nuts !” I write. I assume Mrs RM said that, but can’t be sure.

As symphony in red, rather than brown,

and a hint at an exciting musical evening,

but the actual soundtrack is “Sad Girl Pop“.

Which as you’ll know is Retired Martin’s favoured musical style.

One chap says he’s just been “doing pubs up north“. When interrogated, he admits this is “somewhere near Leicester“.

I don’t give him good odds on completing the GBG, or even the Surrey chapter.