retiredmartin

September 2026. Royal Tunbridge Wells.

You can’t stay at the in-laws in (virtual) pub desert Southborough and not pop in to Tunbridge Wells, and I spent an hour on Sunday evening avoiding folk wanting to tell me Phil Foden had been sent off in the Manchester derby.

The Pantiles seemed a tranquil place to avoid football, the 420 year old Chalybeate Spring (pronounced ka-lee-bee-at) proving the superiority of gravity dispense.

It was at this moment that a small cheer alerted me to a perfectly good, non-controversial goal scored by the 10 men of Manchester proper,

and I realised I’d have to find a pub not showing the last half hour of the game.

Cue, the Duke of York.

This was one of Mrs RM’s haunts as a teenager with a Saturday job in British Home Stores, when (she tells me) that pubs in smart town pubs were less gentified than they are now.

It’s a bit quiet for a late Summer Sunday, the youth of 2026 with washboard stomachs sipping continental lager*, though there’s enough Untappd check-ins for the ESB to tell me that’s the way to go.

And it’s pretty GOOD, cool and rich, though once you’ve had ESB in the Parcel Yard or the Victoria anything else will tend to disappoint.

40 years after Mrs RM left the Pantiles for Paddington (Eastbourne Terrace), the Duke of York is still a pubs for the kids; Oasis follows The Clash follows The Stone Roses.

And at the end of a perfect run of nostalgia, the whistle has blown at Old Trafford.

*_{Actually, where IS Jubel made ?}