retiredmartin

November 2023. Spondon. Derby.

The night was still young, but at 4.30pm I’d already ticked the two Derby Guide pubs I needed, which is like getting the two Iranian full backs in your Panini World Cup 1978 sticker pack. Just a Snooker Club in New Mills to finish the county, and I refuse to believe New Mills is in Derbyshire.

Too early to go to bed; the Chinese takeaway wouldn’t be open yet for a start.

Let’s have a look at Spondon’s unheralded pubs.

Three in three minutes walk from the Hoptimist, and the White Swan looked the most inviting.

Now, I normally put folk who go in pubs, see no handpumps and walk out in the category “Real Ale Twats”, so I’m ashamed to say I did this now. I’m also slightly worried that, having given Derby CAMRA my survey results, that I may have missed a barrel of Bass in the cellar. I doubt it.

Next door, the Prince of Wales looked another solid local,

and the presence of Dancing Duck “Ay Up” on the bar suggests real ale interest not reciprocated by the locals, whose ears pricked up when the pleasant barperson asked me “Ave you got a CAMRA card ?”. Just like Peter the Apostle, I denied CAMRA.

“There ya go sweetheart” said our hero, and I would have felt a Real Ale Twat to take back a struggling half, so tipped it in the urinal.

Lovely pub, though.

As was the last one, the Vernon Arms the busiest in the Golden Hour.

The pub drama here came when a pub man we shall call “Martin” attempted to pay with duff coinage.

“Dunno what that is” said the landlady, and while to me it looked like a quid, I guess it could have come from anywhere in the Balkans. The police weren’t called.

The Pedi was good enough (3), the Hi Vis man read the Daily Star, I read the adverts.

“There ya go darlin” said the landlady, but not to me. You have to earn that right.

I’d earned the right to a Chinese when I got back to Willington, Crispy beef and Singapore rice NCSS 3.5, diet coke 50p.

We were asleep by 7.