retiredmartin

June 2024. Huddersfield.

Between those weekends in Waterbeach, midweek trips to tick the Balkans, and the odd day the cruel Mrs RM makes me stay in Sheffield on laundry/garden (ugh) duties, there’s not much time to actually do new GBG entries. Which doesn’t bother me too much, I have completed once, but I’d like to see a bit of the UK beyond Lancashire and the Marches.

Tuesday was a typical day. It just felt too far to drive the campervan into Northumberland or Mid Wales for a single night, knowing I had to be back the following lunchtime.

So I walked down to Sheffield station at 11 and jumped on the first train about to depart.

And ended up (after an astonishingly bumpy 81 minute trip) in Huddersfield, for the first time since a memorable Old Codgers trip in 2019.

You remember 2019 ? The time Dick Southworth stacked those Magic Rock glasses.

No new entries in years, and Slubbers dead; Huddersfield’s slight demise seemed to coincide with Halifax’s rise.

Time to reassess the town and its pubs, immortalised on this little Huddopoly board.

You’re greeted by scaffolding and youthful art.

I think that’s supposed to be the Old Codgers after a 6th pint back in 2019.

What an impressive station entrance.

I had no plan, whatsoever (bar catching the pre-booked train home in 3 hours time), but the grandeur of the Head of Steam made that Stop No.1, however strong the lure of a Sam Smiths pub.

Outside we had a heatwave; inside was positively chilly. Or perhaps I’m getting old. Anyhow, how do they afford such aggressive air conditioning for a dozen punters ?

And how do they afford a dozen cask pumps !

I’d picked a quiet Tuesday lunchtime during a heatwave with no “CAMRA outing” trade; a great test of the health of Hudders pubs. The only other customer was on Aspalls.

And to top it all, I pick a pint of the weirdly named Barley-Quin from a North-east micro called Tooth and Claw (me neither),

which unnecessary research reveals is a Cameron’s offshoot.

But given those circumstances, it’s really pretty good (NBSS 3), enjoyed on proper seating,

with a soundtrack of ELO and The Police and some great Bill Tidy cartoons.

Oh, and a you-know-what.

And by the time I leave there’s a healthy array of local gentlefolk, all in couples, popping in to while away the afternoon to an accompaniment of Seventies pop. And it makes perfect sense.