retiredmartin

September 2023. Doncaster.

So much to love in Doncaster, a town that will always have a special place in Mrs RM’s and my heart due to, er, a £20 motel next to Hyde Park cemetery.

In truth, Donny isn’t that great, and although the new cultural quarter is a gem,

and the street art much-improved,

there’s a lot of squalor behind the handsome centre,

and more visible drug-taking than I’ve seen in any UK town, and of course the Beer Guide takes you to some rough places (here, for instance).

So it would be easy to take pictures of boarded-up buildings and piles of toilet rolls,

but that’s not me at all. Just look at the contrast between these two sides of the road.

There’s a touch of Bradford about the town, but it lacks the colour, and the curry. But just outside Frenchgate’s TK Maxx is a contender for “best place to fill your tummy quickly in Yorkshire”.

Sterling Foods hot food counter (top) is as good as Leeds Indoor Market, and the ladies there are the cheeriest in Donny.

“What’s S & P ?” I ask, hoping for something more exotic than “Salt and pepper, love“.

But I’d already committed the £2.50 to the Chinese chicken balls (NCCBSS 3.5), enjoyed next to what I assume to be the mining memorial.

Either that or the shrunken heads of beer tickers who’d asked for a top-up on their Tetley in the Salutation.

Every time I visit, and it’s not that often with so little churn in the Guide pubs, I remember that Doncaster has its unique grandeur. Why, only last week the actual King and Queen had been here to survey pubs for GBG24 cheer on Desert Hero in the St Leger. I’d watched it with my Dad.

So in the High Street you get the Georgian glory of the Manor House,

though the ancient building across the road is a bit scarred by proximity to Buzz Mobile.

The best restaurants in town looked to be Polish, though Grubo Nadziane Pierogi may struggle to get in the GBG next year with their cask offer;

Several of the GBG entries weren’t open yet, so I toyed with a last pint in the ever reliable Tut’n’Shive,

before realising my best chance of a really daft beer was actually on the station platform I needed to be on in half an hour.

So, just for a change, sense kicked in.