retiredmartin

August 2025. South Milford/Sherburn-in-Elmet.

It’s 4:20pm, an hour and a quarter till my train home, plenty of time for a fifth and last pint on the Sherburn/South Milford curated pub survey.

“Make sure you get the right side of the barrier” says a surprisingly sober Leon as we head past his home village’s UNESCO World Heritage dustbins,

on the way to the British Legion.

Not sure we qualify for entry, but a man who’s been to every Wetherspoons has seen more “action” than most veterans.

It looks the archetypal long social club, the only surprise a Theakston pump joining the Sam Smiths on the bar.

We plonk down on the table, note the 4:35 from Ayr marking an hour till my train,

and toss a coin to see who takes the Lightfoot back.

Leon does the honours, a second pint in an hour is returned, again with good grace by a lovely lady who tells us what’s in the cellar.

It’s not Bass.

The replacement is tasty (3), the soundtrack is that song about Maria McKee,

and I leave for the mile walk back to Sherburn in good spirits, the Great Wall of China having told me my takeaway will be ready in 10 minutes.

Reader, it wasn’t ready in 10 minutes. In fact, with 10 minutes till the train it’s still being painstakingly decanted into tin boxes.

And as the 5:35 train to Sheffield arrives, with me stranded (and breathless) the wrong side of the barrier, I find myself a) Drunk, b) without a clue how to get home and c) without a fork to eat my tea (NCTSS 2).

But, like the Southworths in Waterbeach last year, I improvise, even though there’s no card to form into the shape of a spoon.

And then I fall asleep in Bramley Park. It’s a good job the trains from South Milford run more frequently than the ones from Sherburn.