retiredmartin

October 2023. Newmillerdam. Wakefield.

I tried desperately to come up with a blogpost using the Elvis classic as inspiration,

but since none of you (except fellow ticker Eddie) knows Newmillerdam it’s wasted effort.

My life of perpetual travel began the year after marrying Mrs RM; before that we’d hardly left Letchworth and Cambridge but in 1993 we started spending every weekend hitting the motorway at 5 and heading north to places like Wakefield.

30 years ago, before the internet and colour, you just drove round at 8pm looking for hotels like St Pierre on Barnsley Road and asking at the reception (straight out of Alan Partridge) how much a room was.

In 1993 it was £40, and it took 25 years and Covid to push our budget above that level.

We loved Newmillerdam then, and it’s still a gem. A tranquil lake,

family trail,

and of course ducks.

I got soaked, but at least I got soaked after the pub, and the coffee and welcome in the Boathouse cafe (I was asked if I had any allergies when I ordered my Americano) half way round was sensational.

As is the Bass in the Fox & Hounds.

Now, I can be fairly certain we visited this pub opposite the lake 30 years ago, but I’d never seen a Good Beer Guide then, let alone started ticking it (I was ticking the 92 League grounds), so if I had a pint at all I reckon it was Caffrey’s.

But I bet the pub hasn’t changed a lot,

and the beer range (Speckled Hen was being pulled) is solidly late 90s.

The guvnor at the Fox & Hounds had just posted on the National Bass Day Facebook (they’re not all weirdos, folks) to announce the arrival of your favourite beer, and I could get a pre-emptive tick (it’s not in the Guide yet) on the bus route back from Crigglestone. Fantastic planning.

OK, it’s not a proper Bass clip, and it wasn’t a Bass glass either, but both of those were on the way (see here). The Wickingman was thrilled with the update from a bit of a Bass desert.

But it was great, cool and chewy (NBSS 3.5) and I looked sympathetically at the two Old Boys who’d turned down the Bass in favour of lesser beer.

But those two friends, and a group of Prosecco ladies (“Helllo gurrrrls“), and a soundtrack of Hall & Oates, made the pub feel cheery and homely on a miserable wet day.

And if I find a better fish & chips this year I’ll keep it to myself,

NBSS 3.5 beer, NF&CSS 4 fish and chips, 5* service.