October 2026. Manchester.
From Romiley I take the picturesque route through Reddish Vale to Manchester, where I’m getting pre-funeral hair cut from Matt.
Dad’s funeral is all-consuming, and on Friday afternoon I’m still waiting for the Medical Examiner to call to confirm cause of death so I can register the death.
That call comes as I pass the Celebrity Traitors (never watched it) mural on the wall behind the Hare & Hounds, where I stand for 20 minutes briefing my sister and blocking the view of Claudia Winkelman for irritated tourists.
Right, where’s somewhere quiet I can go on the Cambridgeshire Council Registry website ?
It’s 4pm, the Golden Hour, so possibly not the best bet,
but I find a small table next to the bar. Virtually everyone is my age, but there’s groups as well as solo drinkers, and seating to suit.
Note the lovely flowers, as well as the range of drinks,
Lovely young staff too, who ask me if I have a Holt collector card (yes I have !) and tell me it applies even though it’s not a Holt pub.
But it IS one of the best places drink their extraordinary bitter (£3.40, value fans), as well as make registry office bookings.
Superb pub love the way they charge 20p a pint more on on Friday or Saturday (or did anyway). Always a great pint of bitter.
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Didn’t know that, Tony !
Very consistent, and also very cheery. It wasn’t always a GBG regular, mind.
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“A wise choice” is what Hayden, owner of Stafford’s best pub through the ’90s, would so often tell customers on ordering one of his guest beers.
And those three words are what came to mind on reading your title here, the Hare and Hounds in my opinion being the best pub in the best beer city.
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“Best beer city” ? Now, that’s an argument !
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Lovely piece, Martin. Great pub, and a marvellous memory of dealing with an potentially depressing moment.
On my last visit to Manchester’s best pub I scored the Joseph Holt Bitter “Excellent”, and went back for another. Which was poured from the other barrel of the same beer, so I scored it “Excellent” twice.
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It was sweet to see you had the red “I love you” roses there at this particularly time. I cannot ever recall seeing fresh flowers in a pub.
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Celebrity Traitors (never watched it)
Good man
blocking the view of Claudia Winkelman for irritated tourists.
Very good man
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Mrs RM and I seem to have stopped watching TV completely. The county cricket justifies the BBC licence fee !
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The only thing I currently tune into live on BBC (or any channel for that matter) to watch is The Reluctant Vampire – a delightful and very funny adaptation of a children’s novel of the same name by Eric and Gary Morecambe.
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I am currently watching/rewatching the episodes of Rumpole of the Bailey. Very amusing and somewhat historical with an excellent cast.
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I didn’t have a TV until I got married, or a car to drive.
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Are the flowers in Hare & Hounds real though? The ones outside are certainly plastic ones from what I remember.
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Plastic outside, real inside !
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Ah, my militant green-thumbed wife would have marked it down from a Very Good to Good on that basis!
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You have to make an appointment to register a death? When my dad died, I seem to remember just turning up with a fistful of forms from the Coroner’s Officer, hanging about for a bit and walking out with some death certificates. I’d rather have hung about in a decent pub though.
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