AN AMATEUR ERROR IN EAST HOATHLY

January 2026. East Hoathly. East Sussex.

We’ve finally shut down our caravan in Rye Harbour (Home 3) afer an extended winter stay. The water pipes had frozen over Christmas, but thankfully hadn’t burst. Sheffield gets the snow; Rye gets the bitter chill.

Mrs RM was anxious that I completed those tricky South-Eastern GBG chapters before we escaped to the grim North. Kent’s lone tiddler was up near the in-laws, East Sussex’s remaining tick appeared to be between Hailsham and Uckfield, which is a mystery to me.

Ah, homebrew,

shoud be fun.

But what of East Hoathly (with Halland, irritatingly). Population 1,600, birthplace of the Genesis keyboardist, Wiki tells us;

“A Decca Navigator transmitter station was located here, one of four that formed the English Chain 5B. Designated the Green station, with a base frequency of 127.500 kHz“. I’ll test you later.

I guess “quiet” sums it up,

the sort of place with an red phone box packed with vinyl albums and discarded Watchtowers,

and a village pub that seems to hold the entire village on Sunday afternoon.

OK, some of them are there for Old School puddings,

but there’s a quaint little drinking area facing the bar and that magnificent old Harvey’s pump.

As I take a first taste of another marvellously chewy Sussex Best (NBSS 4.5) I notice those CAMRA awards on the wall,

and when I have to nip out to take a phone call I notice, with an odd sense of horror, that the King’s Head is a GBG regular.

So I simply must have been before. Unless I lied about completing the GBG.

That night, I consult the 14,382 rows of GBG spreadsheet, and there she is,

AFTER Eastbourne in the Retired Martin alphabet. But not in CAMRA’s.

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Published by retiredmartin

Retired NHS, doing long walks around UK and the world to record the great bits. Focused on Good Beer Guide pubs and live music.

16 thoughts on “AN AMATEUR ERROR IN EAST HOATHLY”

  4. “The water pipes had frozen over Christmas, but thankfully hadn’t burst. Sheffield gets the snow; Rye gets the bitter chill.”

    And, what does home 3 get?

    “East Sussex’s remaining tick appeared to be between Hailsham and Uckfield, which is a mystery to me.”

    How some of the names of towns or villages over there came about is a mystery to me!

    “Ah, homebrew, … shoud be fun.”

    I dunno. I quite like how they got their name. 😎

    ““A Decca Navigator transmitter station was located here, one of four that formed the English Chain 5B. Designated the Green station, with a base frequency of 127.500 kHz“. I’ll test you later.”

    A bit before my time. But I did do a bit of something similar in the military, when I wasn’t eavesdropping on the Russians.

    “I guess “quiet” sums it up,”

    (looks down)
    Yikes!

    “and a village pub that seems to hold the entire village on Sunday afternoon.”

    (slow golf clap)

    “but there’s a quaint little drinking area facing the bar and that magnificent old Harvey’s pump.”

    (looks down)
    Nice! And I guess the other 3 are the ‘rotating 1648’ beers.

    “As I take a first taste of another marvellously chewy Sussex Best (NBSS 4.5) I notice those CAMRA awards on the wall,”

    Oh-oh.

    “and when I have to nip out to take a phone call I notice, with an odd sense of horror, that the King’s Head is a GBG regular.”

    Quelle horreur!

    “That night, I consult the 14,382 rows of GBG spreadsheet, and there she is,”

    Ctrl-F is your friend.

    “AFTER Eastbourne in the Retired Martin alphabet. But not in CAMRA’s.”

    They just have to be different to stand out, I guess. 😉

    Cheers

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  6. I would have had to bin those Watchtowers on the off chance some soul took them to read, so beginning a cult deception. On the positive, very happy to see real flowers on the pub table.

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      1. I think they may have changed their approach, not seen that in a while. I take one on occasion just to see what bs they are coming out with. They change the words of the bible to fit what they want, just awful.

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