retiredmartin

April 2025. Ely.

It’s two nights a week in Cambridge to chat to Dad about grandsons and VE Day (today’s topics) in his care home, so I might yet get enough blog material to do one of those “Town Pub Guides” that I sort of promised at the start of the year (but have been to busy to do).

Ely has some appeal for a proper comprehensive guide; quite a mix of pubs and I can park the campervan in the shadow of the cathedral for free.

Mrs RM urged me out on the town for a late pint I didn’t really want after that Big Day Out in Leicestershire.

I say “late”, but it was barely 8:45pm as we passed that majestic Cathedral and stared at an open Fountain.

A great looking pub with very longstanding landlord, but despite being opposite where the Cathedral coaches park it’s only open 5-9 during the week and an hour longer Saturday.

I’d been attempting a revisit since taking Kentish Paul here 8 years ago, when Mr Bailey noted “the pub’s clientele was young and mainly female in nature“.

In 2017 it had been packed with young professionals; tonight it was just us, and two lovely young folk behind the bar with some odd connection to Hull, and that stuffed fish that’s older than the pub.

It was a quarter to nine, had we really arrived at last orders ?

Nope, just eerily quiet, though whether there had been a run on the pumps earlier was hard to gauge.

“We’ve had a pub crawl and a group of French tourists but it’s quieter now” says the chap, while the lass threatens to serenade us with Stevie Wonder, which makes a change from the Eurythmics.

I err on the side of caution and stick to keg Mosaic while Mrs RM bravely tries the lone cask, a Wainwright Amber that is (almost disappointingly) pretty good.

It was in the Fountain in 2001 that I sat taking in the events of 9/11 while looking after two toddlers, a surreal day. The pub hasn’t changed at all since then, still that fish, those photos of the Kings School alumni, and some old skool seating modelled by Mrs RM.

I didn’t recognise the dentist’s chair, mind.

Why would you everything else the same for 30 years and add a dentist’s chair ?