September 2023. Platform 3, Doncaster Station.
Half an hour till the train (advance ticket, fixed time) back to Sheff, just time for a half in the Draughtsman. I would have gone in the green-tiled Leopard for the first time in 20 years, but it looked a little too quiet. Obviously if I’d visited I could have changed that, but it’s too late now.
No sign of the Draughtsman on Google Maps (June 2015 edition) which shows how new it was when I visited in 2018.
Let’s be honest, station bars are rarely classics, but Simon likes it, and the last time I was on Donny station was during the horrific month of December 2020 when the town had been relegated to Covid Tier 3 and all the pubs were shut. Just writing that last line brings me out in a cold sweat. Anyhow, I owed it a second visit.
There’s plastic barriers between customer and staff now, which is either Covid Chic or a reflection on how rough the Doncaster transport interchange is.
The beer (Chin Chin, again) is OK; tasty but not at its crispest (NBSS 3); the Draughtsman itself is remarkably pubby, as well as ornate.
The sort of mixed crowd you hope for at a railway pub, loads of chat between staff and punters, and a soundtrack going from Queen to Kirsty.
I realise there’s six (6) minutes till the train and get a half of the Thornbridge chocolate porter (whatever) I should have had first. Always decant your half into a pint glass, folks.
And then I see the train outside the door, and leap through the open door.
This is the moment, as the doors shut, I realise I’m very slightly p****d and bound to have left something in the pub, but luckily I’ve packed light and I even find the phone lead in my back pocket.
I swear that is the very same phone lead I bought in Donny the first time I visited the Draughtsman. Spooky.
retiredmartin 
Many years ago, travelling from Swindon to Leeds, I was on a Cross Country that seemed to have excessive dwells in each station.
Drinking en route, of course, I got to Derby and saw it’d be a 20 minute dwell.
Suitcase no guitar in hand, I went to seek a pub. Suitcase heavy, so I found a nicely hidden spot behind a bush to leave it while I went for beer a distance on.
Came out of the pub none the wiser as to where I’d put it. Trains were still looking slow as f, so got a cab to Leeds. Maybe under £100 back then.
Someone somewhere has a load of my favourite t-shirts.
Did I say I was pissed?
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We’ve all been there. I shan’t ask what you were doing with a suitcase full of t-shirts ;-0
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Spinko, I have never-ending dreams just like that.
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Great to see and listen to the late Kirsty MacColl, looking lovelier than ever. Sorely missed, but not forgotten.
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Well said, Paul.
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Indeed Paul.
I heard that quite recently, in a Tesco of all places, a great development from Ray Davies’ oft-overlooked genius.
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We all miss Kirsty. Remember her version of Miss Otis Regrets with the Pipes and Drums of the Irish Guards, absolutely superb.
Am temporarily absent from my Shetland exile and am in the Kingdom of Fife. The Ship in Anstruther has a solitary Deuchars pump but no one is drinking it so I stick to Neck Oil which is perfectly acceptable.
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So we have a bar which Brapa recommends, and a plastic barrier between said bar and the customers? Coincidence?
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No coincidence.
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Putting up the video for Kirsty MacColl’s version of Days is just pure clickbait for us Mingers: “Ooh, ooh Sir. I know where that was filmed!”
It worked!
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