October 2023. Long Eaton. Derbyshire.
One of the joys of rail travel, and there aren’t many when you’re standing on a backed Trans Pennine rattler, is the hurried planning for a quick connection to your next pub.
Imagine the sheer joy on the way back from Matlock last Monday, with only an empty Carling can hurtling closer to its spiritual home at Burton, when I realised that the train would continue beyond Derby and stop at Long Eaton*,
where a miraculous Monday micro opener awaited me. Just enough time to add a return from Derby to Long Eaton before the train arrived at the home of Bass.
Rowells Drinking Emporium is the annual newbie on the mysterious border of Notts and Derby, just below the Brian Clough way.
Slightly annoyingly, the Bird Hide, another newbie the next stop up past the sewage works, was closed on a Monday. Even for me.
Never mind, two (2) GBG ticks on a Monday is riches indeed, especially when you’re no longer that bothered about doing the Guide.
And Rowells is a cluttered treasure, reminiscent of the tat-filled gems in Kimberley, Ilkeston and Syston, which come to think of are all East Mids micros.
Actually, like that Roots place, it’s hard to be sure this wasn’t an antiques shop.
I can imagine one of those Bargain Hunt teams with a Gerald and Jane on it coming here and paying over the odds for privacy screens and Laurel and Hardy pepper pots and going home with £4.50.
£4.50 was the price of a flat pint of Castle Rock Screech Owl, which seemed a little steep for a “not posh” Nottingham suburb, but it’s 5.5%, cool and rich and gorgeous, rising from NBSS 3.5 to 4.
It may have helped the chap in front asked for one as well. I called out to the young lass in the barrel room (?) “and one for me please” to save her time.
“She can’t hear you” said her mate. They were both friendly and chatty.
I spent two minutes debating the best/worst place to sit,
before realising I’d only got 3 minutes to finish my pint if I was going to squeeze in a Chinese takeaway before the train (direct to Sheffield #WINNING).
It’s 1978 here, so you get the Sex Pistols Genesis just as they go pop.
I am CERTAIN the two young barmaids don’t get to choose the soundtrack here, which is why hospitality staff should always join a union.
Oh, and here’s the live entertainment you’ve just missed because I’m so tardy with these blogs.
They’ll be back. I might, too. It’s great.
*As long as I haven’t mixed up my Long and Little Eatons. Always a risk.
retiredmartin 
that really was the song where they split their audience wasn’t it? Funny to look back on that.
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I’m too young, Dave. I remember Abacab in 81 being the one when they went from earnest rock to clunky pop as far as the NME was concerned.
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I owned house in Long Eaton 1977 – 1992.
But I Threw It All Away
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Incidentally that Trent College is where Bruce Robinson’s friend Viv Macerrol – the actual Withnail – went
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*MacKerrell, even.
Sorry, Viv.
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I used to have a bit of a soft spot for Genesis back in the day but Follow You Follow Me was the one that killed them for me. Still went to see them at the Liverpool Empire on the Duke tour but that was just for the old stuff, which to be fair, they played quite a lot of.
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I’ve never listened to any Genesis record pre-Duke and hardly anything after that either. They weren’t out of bounds to a 15 year brought up on Joy Division and Saxon and, er, BA Robertson. It was also said their 70s LPs were poorly recorded and mastered compared to, say, Pink Floyd.
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Possibly the very early Genesis albums such as Trespass, Nursery Crime, and Foxtrot were poorly recorded, but the slightly later output – Selling England by the Pound, and Trick of the Tail, were masterpieces.
I never cared much for the Lamb Lies Down on Broadway, but following the departure of Steve Hackett, the group unashamedly aimed themselves at the Top 40 market, and the rest, as they say, is history.
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I used the Lumo train when visiting Newcastle 3 weeks ago, and for the late Sunday morning service to Edinburgh I got an entire carriage to myself.
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It’s weird isn’t it ? Trains are either madly crushed or empty. It’s almost like the rail companies can’t plan trains or something crazy like that.
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The one I got down the day before at a similar time was packed. Are trains like pubs now, almost impossible to predict when they will or won’t be busy?
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On the Manchester to Sheff train now, 1.30, again massively overcrowded. No obvious reason, not football crowds, 2 trains an hour. 3 ticket inspectors attempting to make way down train, even though we’ve all been through ticket barriers already.
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On a usually very quiet line I couldn’t understand why the 5.33pm from Stone to Stafford yesterday was so busy.
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50th anniversary of something in Stone I believe.
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Yes indeed, with the Lymestone not drinking well but the Bridge probably the highlight of the day.
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and “Half term. Got kids” on opening a quarter hour late as possibly the quote of the day.
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Personally, I blame the government, and their botched privatisation for the chaos on the nation’s railways. Ben Elton sums up the mess, beautifully here.
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