retiredmartin

January 2024. Hartlepool.

We checked into our Travelodge at 3pm, and set up Alfie, Baa Baa and Charlie (l-r) up with a nice view of the derelict car parks and marina.

Alfie and Charlie dreamed of escaping the harsh winters of Teesside (they have no sense of time) and emigrating to Chile. But then Mrs RM found the heating switch and they were fine.

I’d booked the Standard Room Plus. For an extra fiver you get free Wi-Fi (well, one of us did), free Kit Kats (well, one of us did), one of those Lavazza coffee pods machines (sadly, only 3 pods) and a top floor view.

The only thing missing was the service of a street urchin to look after our car for the night.

Mrs RM stole the Kit Kats and pressed on with her blog; I nipped out for a wander before tea.

In pub terms our trip was turning into a disaster, just one tick to complete Durham and I just wasn’t feeling that rail trip to Sunderland and beyond.

But I pushed myself towards one Hartlepool revisit, not the Rat Race (closed, obvs) or Hops & Cheese (too recent), but the actual Cameron’s Tap, now in the GBG under its fourth name as the Anchor.

At least here I could get a genuine Strongarm banker.

Excellent, just the one beer. Just the one customer, too (a Hampton and Richmond FC fan), but they’d only opened at 4, I guess.

Note the keg taps dominating, like a mini-Head of Steam.

Decent seating, quite pubby, great soundtrack,

I popped off for a nosey round the memorabilia,

And when I returned a few seconds later, this is what I found.

Look, it’s £3.20 for a well conditioned ruby ale (NBSS 3+). Perhaps a tad sour, you might say, but your “sour” is my “tart”, who’s to say. Stop complaining, it’s only beer.

But it’s no banker, is it ?

And then it struck me. You can only have bankers if you have custom. No point half pouring pints and sticking them in the fridge if no-one’s about to buy them and stick a flake in the foam to titillate their blog readers.

The only thing in the fridges were cans and bottles;

Blimey, Jane would have stayed there till Christmas.