Pubs of the Shire
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Pubs of the Shire
Anthony Heywood -3 times a Morris man
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Anthony Heywood is this episodes guest - a Morris man for 3 different Bedford sides over the years, which has led him to many pubs in many shires, including his alter ego Beaky the Bedford mascot. A current cycling project following the tracks of artist Bernard West gets Anthony reacquainted around all corners of Bedfordshire. This episode was recorded in the garden of the Bell at Odell, Bedfordshire. Contains mild language
Check out Hemlock, Red Cuthbert and Bedford Morris men on social media
A current cycling project following the tracks of artist Burnett West gets fancy reacquainted with all corners of Fetch there. This episode was recorded in the garden of the Bell pub in Odell. A 17th century fat pub. You say Odell. I say Odell. Let's call the whole thing or check out the wood pigeon, 17 minutes in. Contains mild language. The piece of music at the end is The Female Highway Man, a kind of proto rugby song sung by Led, another Bedford Morris man who is mentioned within the podcast.
SPEAKER_04Hello, we're here at the Bell at Odell, and it's a lovely summer evening. I'm here with Anthony Haywood, Bedford Morris man, and much more. Much more, Morris.
SPEAKER_06That's picking me up, isn't it? Yeah. So yeah, tell us a bit about yourself. Well, it's great to be here, Lloyd, and uh I'm absolutely uh staggered that you've invited me when you've had such an illustrious group of people that you know you've interviewed already, and to be following uh in the footsteps of Timmy Baron is is uh in you know the realm of our dreams. I'm not saying what sort of dreams. No, no. That's fantastic. Uh he's one of our heroes, actually. And uh also obviously uh Liz at the the the Welly. Yes um she didn't say anything about her experiences with Morrisman 20 years ago in dark winter evenings. Oh she's tried to have the therapy and erase them. Anyway, yeah, you want to know a bit about me. I was uh from Southport originally. Okay. I went way up north, but I moved to uh to Bedfordshire when I was twelve. Right. Arrived in Langford to the middle of a load of Brussels sprout fields, yeah. And thought, what am I doing here? So what am I doing in Bedfordshire? But anyway, I went to uh to Stratton, Stratton School in Biggled Swaite. Oh yeah. Um and I had sort of odd spells here and there in Italy and in London. Uh but basically I've been living in Bedford for about forty years and lived in a Palacea house. Uh Palacea Society house at uh that strange cult for about four years, just as they were changing from just as they were losing all the living members. That was an interesting thing.
SPEAKER_04So keeping the the shower nice for the the the second coming.
SPEAKER_06Well, yes, I think uh we we had a wing. We had we had we had a a West Wing, so you know you could have had the whole wing if you'd been wanted it.
SPEAKER_04So they went it was rented out as well.
SPEAKER_06It was rented, yeah. We were one of the last tenants under the the old regime, as it were. Um that's mine phone peeping, sorry about that. So anyway, you don't want to know too much about the job, mostly working in the environmental sector, that's a bit boring, but I did an MBA in uh in my nine in in my 30s, not the 1930s, not that old. So did an MBA which is hard work, it's quite a lot of stamina, you know, doing doing that, doing a degree when you've got children and you're trying to juggle your life and you're trying to juggle work and friends and so on. And that was three fairly intense years. So I've been doing that and sort of really hyped up, having done that, keeping the pace up. Um, I thought I've got to come down with something or other. Ballroom dancing. That's the answer. Ballroom dancing. So I signed up for uh evening class in Scharnbrook, yeah, and I think it was September. Uh already to go, a couple of days before, the uh the tutor said, and who are you bringing as your partner? Uh I thought, well, I can't bring the wife because there's nobody to look after the children. I thought the idea would be you'd learn doing it with different people.
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
SPEAKER_06No, if you've mr. Houston, you wouldn't remember him, but he danced with a mob. I'd have been happy doing that. So anyway, I thought, I've still got to do something, and I think I saw an ad, something like that, Bedford Morrisman, give it a try.
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
SPEAKER_06Went along, and um, and that was it. Yeah. Went along one evening. When was that, roughly? That was well, I could tell you exactly, but that's pretty anarchish. That would be 1997. So I'm just coming up to my 30th year. Right. So I've been uh full-time member for for quite a while, but since Covid I've gone back a bit and I'll just dance over the winter season. Yeah. So uh I'm sure as we get into the chat, then you can learn everything you wanted to know and and even more you didn't want to know or you tried to forget about Morris dancing.
SPEAKER_04So there's the Bedford Morris, and then there's the hemlock Morris. That's right.
SPEAKER_06It's the dark side, which is hemlock Morris, and then there's Red Cuthbert and sort of complicated stories of how they arrived. Okay. Um and everybody will tell you slight differences and so on, but you know, there was a there's why, you know, there was a question, why aren't any women dancing? Right. So I think Hemlock cable addressed that issue. Um and I think there was probably differences of opinions, right? Which is why Red Cuthbert emerged out of out of Hemlock. I think these days the sides all get on pretty well with each other. Yeah. And the great thing is it's a fantastic situation if you're interested. Yeah. Because there's something, you know, for everybody.
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
SPEAKER_06I'm the only person, so I believe, to have danced with all three sides to have been a member with all three sides. And I was gonna say something like it's a bit like having a wife and a couple of mistresses. But the wife might be listening to you. Oh, yeah. So I'll have to tell her that that's not that at all. No, it's not like that at all. It's not like that at all. Honestly, darling. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04So you you're not dancing for all where you are you dancing for all three.
SPEAKER_06I was dancing for all three at the same time. Not at the same time. Exactly the same time. Over the same time period, yeah. And the one thing I did with um Red Cough, which I really enjoyed, was being their fool.
SPEAKER_04Right.
SPEAKER_06So uh, you know, I came along and fancied being the fool. There was an incumbent fool in Bedford Morris man. I mean, people listening to this might they're all bloody fools. Not exactly right, but there are people who are officially designated fool fools, yeah. And they're they're sort of like the the link between the audience and the dancer, so yeah. They can go and have a bit of a chat, announce the thing, and yeah, and just do some random stuff. Yeah, that's which is set against the sort of precision, hopefully, sometimes of the of the Morris and the dancers. So you've got somebody being a bit of a a random character, yeah. A bit like the beast as well, you know.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, so there's a bit a bit of interaction and um a bit of an opportunity for tomfoolery, yeah. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_06So you can see why I was drawn to both of those ones. So that's so I've been the uh the beast, yeah. Beaky the eagle, yeah, with uh Bedford Morris for uh uh occasionally. Yeah, not sure where he is at the moment. No, probably uh lost a bit of his movement, you know, but we're all getting on a bit.
SPEAKER_04He's a he's quite old. He's quite old, yeah.
SPEAKER_06And he is an eagle, yeah. I think you've seen him, Lloyd. Yeah, black a black eagle. He's a big black character with uh quite a big great big head and a bit forbidding. Yes. Um does make children cry. Yeah, yeah. Not intentionally.
SPEAKER_00No, no.
SPEAKER_06And he's also a bit of a beggar because you can put money in his beak. Ah. And uh like all things Morris, it usually comes down to sort of beer or money. Yeah. Donation. Sooner or later. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04So he had a a wooden mechanical mouth for accepting coins, yeah.
SPEAKER_06That's right, so he could swallow. Yeah. And the money would fall down into a little sack of inside. Um and you could find all sorts of things that he had stuffed in his book. Oh, not just money, oh dear. Yeah. I I did have a funny experience, a couple of funny experiences with with Beaky. It was once we were Bedford Morris, we were doing a gig at um, I think it was a dentist, some sort of private party in Moulden. So not too far from the church, an old thatched house, a bit like the sort of age of the pub that we're here at the moment. And for some reason I got sort of I'm in character in the eagle, yeah, and I got distanced from the uh from the side, and I found myself down a sort of side passage. Yeah. And obviously, my my way was blocked by these by these rather unruly teenagers. And one of them said, the Coke bottle, had a Coke bottle. I said, Oh, I'm gonna stick it up his ass. So you can imagine my eagerness to make haste and to reunite with the mess with the rest of the side, and that is one of the things that not many people realise how you know the dangers that there are being uh Morris Beast.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, you're very vulnerable. Yeah, I mean the RSB being very happy, would they about that? Being violating an eagle.
SPEAKER_06Well I don't think I would have been.
SPEAKER_04No.
SPEAKER_06I mean the operator would be very happy. So I had a similar experience, a similar one, you know, I can't remember exactly where it was, but uh I was rescued by a jockey Morris man uh from a side in Birmingham. Same sort of thing, youth threatening to do unspeakable things to me. Obviously to them, I'm just a big black figure. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_04So the with a Morris is as well as playing around Bedford and Bedfordshire, you there were tours and so it took you to different counties and different pubs, I suppose.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, you're right. The sort of things that happen every year, or you know, different Morris sides host events. So there was one this weekend, I think, in in Bedford, Red Cup that had sides there, sort of just caught a couple of glimpses of them. So the you know, the sides will go along, dance in an area, socialise with the other sides. Sometimes they'll sleep over, sometimes Bedford Morris. Um overseas a few, so Bamberg we went to, yeah. The town that's twinned with Bedford. Yeah. I mean, we've got a bloody good deal of getting Bamberg. I don't know if you've been there.
SPEAKER_04No, it sounds nice.
SPEAKER_06It's a fantastic place, yeah. You know, it's like a UNESCO World Heritage Centre. I think we'd struggle to find anything that's World Heritage. Yeah, Eagle. Oh, maybe a few things. So we went there. Um also went to uh to to Germany and uh and Northern Ireland. Yeah. We had a fantastic trip over to Northern Ireland where we were dancing for for several days around different types of events and um the different communities that was fascinating, um, you know, seeing the differences in the communities. We went to Femana, which was you know quite some quite some place for uh for incidents. But um incidents. Yeah, there was one bit where we were where we had pachin, and um there was a fate, you know, a bit like a fate here. Yeah. Um that you we went went to a hall and there were some very kind ladies giving us beer and and sandwiches, and we looked up at the sort of at the notice board board or at the ceiling, and there were all these crosses to Catholic martyrs that had died, and uh so that was a bit of a sobering event. And then there was the other bit we ran out and we started doing some of our border dances. And there was a little old guy, and uh he'd looked at us and he said, I never knew there were so many ways to go mad. We were so we added to his list. Yeah. So when you're in at these different places, were there equivalent advanced troops you were sort of facing off with, or you know some yeah, usually when you go on a tour, usually you do. Sometimes it's not I'm just trying to think. The um well in Bamberg, there's a dance group that those that know will will correct my pronunciation of I think it's the Reagans that's something like that, but it's a folk dance group. Oh, okay. And they've got or had anyway their own um their own building out in the woods which could accommodate people, act a bit like a pub, really. Fantastic. Imagine that. Yeah, it sounds like that. Imagine maybe we should try and have one of those in Deptfordshire. Yeah, yeah. Somewhere in the countryside. Get some lottery funding for that, I reckon. Well, maybe maybe Universal Studios should have us as a sort of Morris world.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, representing yeah, yeah, supporting the folk, yeah.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, something with a local connection.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_06I think Universal Studios, yeah. We've got some great ideas. We're putting it out there.
SPEAKER_04So we don't want minions Morris dancing, no, or a troop of Spider-Man, we don't want that, but yeah. We don't have to cross-pollinate too much, but yeah, represent the local.
SPEAKER_06I think 90% of people are going to come from overseas, they'd love it.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, I think you're right. It's a good idea. Have you got a favourite beer or drink? I presume it's a beer. I thought of a few for that.
SPEAKER_06Yes. But I think somebody else has said this, but Wherry is a pretty good beer. Woodford Wherry, yes. Woodford Werry. Yes, yes. But one thing I did, Lloyd, when I was younger, I did have quite a few jobs around Bedfordshire in my youth. Right. And uh like most people in the Biggleswade area, I worked at the brewery in Gre Green King Brewery, yeah, which is now where the uh Asda supermarket is in the middle of Biggleswade. Ah and the Crown, which is the huge uh Weatherspoons pub, was much smaller affair, but it was the sort of nearest pub to um to the to the brewery.
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
SPEAKER_06Uh and in those days, we're talking sort of mid-1970s, Abbott was a very different beer to what it is now. Now it's all just you know, now it's all sort of pretty nice, isn't it? Really? It's not too bad. But in the old days, it should have come with a health warning. Proper put hairs on your chest. It was I think I've did a little bit of research, whether it's true or not, but I did see it was about six and a half percent. So, you know, as a sort of teenager drinking a couple of those and a couple of something else, that would be more or less it. Well, yeah. So you talk to people of a certain age and um they'd say I'd have probably have a soft spot for Abbott. So have you got a favourite particular brewery or well, yeah.
SPEAKER_04I mean the Woodford's one pretty good. Yeah, have you been to it? I no, I've not I don't think I've been to the brewery, no.
SPEAKER_06Well, this gives you a great trip. This is a great idea for a trip.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_06You get a boat on the Norfolk Broads, so which is pretty good anyway. That bit round where the brewery is, yeah. You uh tootle along to Salhouse Broads, which is beautiful broad, not a very big one. You can moor up there overnight, uh listen to all the birds and uh commune with nature. And then you can walk about a mile to the uh the fur and feather, which is the uh um and Woodbastwick, which is the uh Woodford Brewery's tap house. And that's fantastic. So that would come up well. Yeah. And then I've got another one that I just realised.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, I'm allowed to have a couple of things. Of course, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_06The other one I found out, uh I went to to Yorker a while back, had a fun time going around and discovered there's a there's a pub called the the House of Trembling Madness. I think I've got that right. Yeah. Have you heard of that?
SPEAKER_04I walked past it and was intrigued. It's a very good name.
SPEAKER_06It's a brilliant name for a pub. You've got to go in.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. Has it got kind of Viking connections or not really?
SPEAKER_06God knows. I mean, I had a few bees inside and that it was rainy, but it's the sort of pub which has got stuffed animals, you know, hundred-year-old stuffed animals, which is always a good sign. Yeah. My view, you know, don't touch this stuffed dog. Well, honky-eyed taxidermy. All those things. And they had um vocation, the brewery, which I think's not too far from there. Right. And they've produced all these um quite an interesting range of craft beers, but the stouts are pretty good. They're quite sort of subtle and uh well, and the whole content is, the tastes are quite sort of full on. Yeah. So uh they're quite entertaining. And I was looking uh at the latest offer. Yeah. They're trying to get me to buy a breakfast stout. Oh. That's an idea. Yeah. Well, yeah, I think you've got a bit of a problem if you hunger after a breakfast stout. So how do you market that?
SPEAKER_04Sausage in your stout, sir. Flavour wise, there's a lot of that nowadays, pairing up, yeah. I don't know. I mean, I tend to avoid a pint with my breakfast, but I guess it is a thing and Well maybe I'll try it. Yeah, well, you know, have a late lunch, brunch, and then we'll have a go. Yeah, no, I'm sure.
SPEAKER_06When the wife's not around.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, so have a go. So apart from yeah, boozy brunch. Um have you got a favourite pad snack or uh a meal in a pub?
SPEAKER_06Well, yeah, again, I was thinking about this, and the sort of quick response is of course, pickled eggs in the Wellington.
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
SPEAKER_06The Wellington have let everybody down badly by stopping serving uh pickled eggs. Yeah. You know, I'm sure there were millions of people all gasping for their pickled eggs after the Morris practice. A few gasping with relief that they're not there anymore. I think they could have just manned up and just I'm on team pickled eggs. But the other thing I was just thinking of is that um when I first started at the Morris, uh Bedford Morris, the after you'd finished of doing two hours of quite physical exercise, practicing, you know, it doesn't happen easily, you know. No, it might look easy, but it's hard work. And um you'd go to a pub to sort of you know replash with all the sort of essential uh salts and things that you find in beer. Yeah, yeah, rehydrate and sometimes. So is the pole hill arms was the first one, okay, and um sitting there having a little chat, and then uh the landlord comes out with all these big plates of chips and uh and buttered bread, so you know, to um pole hill arms, big shout out to them and then after that the the the pub of choice moved on to the um oh the three horseshoes in Reynold, which is uh which is very much a dead that's dead, yeah.
SPEAKER_04Unfortunately, I do recall it, I do recall it being a nice pub.
SPEAKER_06It was, and there was a couple that ran it very good, it kept very good miles on. And so um did the same thing, gave us chips and uh um you know buddy sandwiches.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_04And chip butty with melting melting butter on it.
SPEAKER_06Yeah. Suits you. I've got a couple of other things. Oh the other thing the other thing that I've got to put a shout in for a shout out for was the well he used to have Branston flavoured cheddars, which are nectar, but they stopped making them.
SPEAKER_04Oh, they're not in production.
SPEAKER_06So they're not gonna they're not in production anymore. Something similar, maybe.
SPEAKER_04Well maybe a mini cheddar and Liz could smear some Branston pickle on top, would that be too much? Here's fifty P. What song are you going to put on the jukebox? Or you can have three for a pound.
SPEAKER_06Well, if it's okay with you, the first thing I'd like to do is to uh let Liz have my money as long as she puts on her favourite Leonard Cohen song, which I think she was denigrating Leonard Cohen. Get the party started. So I'm assuming she'd say no to that. So I did have some other ones. I thought about Happy Talk by Captain Sensible.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, that big.
SPEAKER_06I was in a pub once after we just walked the Cleveland way, so again, 1980s, yeah, the Cleveland way. We're in pub in Scarborough and a load of it's quite a Larry pub, quite a working man's pub, I think we found ourselves in. And um somebody put that on the jukebox, and all these big, rough, tufty blokes all stopped and started singing along. That's nice we talk with Captain Sensinel. So that was a that's a nice memory. But I think the three that I've gone for, yeah. Uh I put Babara O'Reilly on, even though you know, by the Who. Yeah. Yeah, the Who, yeah. Even though it's been used to uh to appetise Monzo or whatever Monzo is, which is rather shocking. Yeah. But I put I put that on. Yeah. Um I just think that's sort of such an elemental, powerful. It goes on for about six minutes or something. So it's good value, that one. Yeah, I think the original went on for nearly half an hour, though apparently. Yeah. And then the another one that everybody loves and I'll probably have as one of my funeral songs, I think, which is Ring of Fire by Jodie Cash. Yeah. Everybody joins in with those trumpets, don't they?
SPEAKER_04Yeah, yeah. That's a good choice, yeah.
SPEAKER_06And then I thought something like a bit of a march band. And I mean we've just had the World Cup, haven't we? Where we were gallant runners-up or close to runners up again. Um but Bindaloo is pretty good, isn't it, as a marching song?
SPEAKER_04That's quite a good Yeah, that's got the old uh snare drum roly march thing.
SPEAKER_06I think I think the original, I'm just going back a bit further, Mouldy Old Doe by Lieutenant Pigeon. Yes. Again, that's got the advantage of even less words to remember.
SPEAKER_04Yes. It's just growling, isn't it? Well, it's just moldy old doe.
SPEAKER_06So I'd I'd have those three, and I think I think they'd have a cracking evening.
SPEAKER_04But that especially that Lieutenant Pigeon, Moldy Old Doe, that's uh what I'd imagine would be a on the jukebox at the time in a lot of places. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_06Everybody loves it, don't they?
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
SPEAKER_06Um and then to just sort of at the end of the evening, because I know I'm pushing it here. I know. But um I'm I've been I was a big fan of uh the Portsmouth Symphonia. Right. I don't know if you've heard of them, have you? No. Well it was these were this was an orchestra, basically anybody could join, and um anybody could play. And they did also Sprat Zarathusa. Right. Which is, you know, the uh uh it was a 2001 Space Odyssey that brilliant. So they all start off at the same time, yeah. But fairly soon they all are going at their own speed.
SPEAKER_04Out of sync, yeah.
SPEAKER_06And so it's one of those ones which I've listened to it, Lloyd. Right. Turn it up loud and see see how long it will be before somebody shouts at you.
SPEAKER_04And it just goes slot off, everyone goes on to their own dice. They do finish as well, but they come back in together. No, no, no, they just finish at different times.
SPEAKER_06But it is dramatic, so it's very meaningful.
SPEAKER_04Very um intriguing.
SPEAKER_06It was put together, or we I don't know if it's put together, it was encouraged by Brian Eno. So, you know, it's one of those intellectual exercises as well. Yes, people that can't play music. No, it was the social experiment thing.
SPEAKER_04That reminds me that yeah, the the Space Odyssey, yeah, the theme tune. I it was one Christmas I we had a I think it was an L SE cheese board, whatever make it was, and it I had a selection of cheeses, and that was the theme music I came into the room with it on yeah, and it worked really well. You didn't you didn't just throw them up in the air and slightly. No, they didn't start floating off, no, no, it sort of stopped out. Put it on the table and just got on with it. Oh right. But no, it was a good uh in intro for a cheese board. Yeah, it sounds brilliant. Yeah, not to be feasible.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, I think you could do that with other things as well, can't you?
SPEAKER_04Add a bit of theatre to yes, romantic moments. Yeah. Took pity on me, yeah. Yeah. But is there a a a great band you've seen in a pub, either local or famous or well I've struggled with with that.
SPEAKER_06And um, I mean it it it wasn't a pub, but it was a youth club. Right. Uh the the Lays in Lechreth, I don't think you've ever heard it was a music venue. I only went there once or twice and remember it as being very, very small. And um again, late 70s, went there with a with a friend, yeah, and we were going to see this Italian band called Le Orm. And apparently they were the they were like an Emerson Lake in Palmer, so a really big sort of progressive rock band. Yeah, and they had banks of synthesizers, keyboards, and things squeezed into this youth club, and there was just three of them. Yeah, and the audience I don't think the audience was in double figures, but and this was a band that had been used to filling stager uh in Italy. Yeah, and they ended up there, and then they come to sort of nine gobless denizens of of uh that sort of area, and that was that's still memorable, obviously. Yeah, they did a great set, yeah.
SPEAKER_04Loved it. Clapped hard to make up for the lack of numbers. Clapped hard, moved around, yeah, yeah, moved around, look interested.
SPEAKER_06Thumbs up, brilliant, but then I I heard that uh I think Tim Barrett said about all the Apre Morris stuff, which is when you know people start having uh a song, and yeah, that's the best thing. That's the best time, really, when you get good Apre Morris. I'm not a singer, uh I'm not a dancer, not a musician really, the bit of uh bit of a sort of hanger on. But yeah, I think uh Les, who's uh who's in France now, but he's got some good songs, Yarmouth Town, and a big shout out for Tim Durant when he's singing Lady Chapley's Lover. Oh he's so used to sing that, which is always a bit of a sort of racy number.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, it sounds racy, yeah.
SPEAKER_06Very racy, so you know, one for the audience. Uh they wonder what's good.
SPEAKER_04Well, they're more folk, obviously, but um slightly reminiscent of rugby songs.
SPEAKER_06But not without being on you know Yeah, without being sort of too too crude, but just all sort of you know naughty, suggestive.
SPEAKER_04And uh there was a the female highway man, I seem to remember.
SPEAKER_06Yes, uh well that was the early encouragement of cross-dressing. But I don't just an aside, are you aware that uh Tim is uh Britain's got talent winner?
unknownNo.
SPEAKER_04I knew he was in the short list or in the running. He won't.
SPEAKER_06I've only got a one, so congratulations to him. Yeah, well done. And the famous chorus one, I mean, what the fantastic thing to uh to do. I think he's got uh beer from Jeremy Clarkson probably for life. Oh right. Well in this case, probably Cider. Yeah. Well I hope he has anyway.
SPEAKER_04Well I'll watch it back on a computer and uh put a link on the info.
SPEAKER_05You'll find it.
SPEAKER_04Because I don't really watch that sort of telly Saturday night TV, but um yeah, I'll look it up, make a point. Yeah. Ah, I didn't know that. That's well, congrats to him.
SPEAKER_06You're gonna ask about Best Pub or Bar on Holiday.
SPEAKER_04Yes.
SPEAKER_06Oh, I thought you could ask me that. Yeah. Well, I think this is uh I think this is okay, this one. Um for my 60th, um I uh I wanted to go to the Caribbean because my ambition was to be a bit like Dudley Moore in 10 or something like that. It's one of those sorts of films where he's standing in the Caribbean drinking. Yeah. I thought, oh what I want to do my 60th, is I want to stand in the Caribbean, yeah, and I want to drink a rum punch.
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
SPEAKER_06So uh my birthday is 1st of January. Ah same time every year. So it's always New Year's Day, yeah. And uh on this one it would be quite a funny evening. We'd had a good party on the uh on the ship, and we we arrived the next day in St. Martin and uh lovely beach, yeah, great beach, and then we found went gravitated to the end because usually the crowds fit out, don't they? Once you walk five minutes from any some big place, then you find you know beach lounges and things like that. And there was a really good bar at the end called Honky Tonks. Uh so I went to this bar and uh the the uh the bloke the barman he was wired, he was wired. He'd been up all night because of New Year's Eve, and he was still working the next day and he'd not stopped. So he was a skinny bloke. Yeah, he was on his lots of energy. He's on his lots of energy. I said, Can I can I have a can I have a rum punch, please? Yeah, yeah. And he already got it to me. I said, Oh, thank you. You know, I've been looking forward to this so much because I'm 60 today, and all I want to do is have a rum punch and sit in the carabin. He just looked at me and out of pity to have another one the house. So uh late and but we carried on, we stayed there the whole day. So where was that? From what time was that? That was that in the morning, yeah. So yeah, probably about eleven o'clock in the morning. We had to leave sort of late afternoon. Wow. And we ended up with a few more people from the ship, and he ended up staying there, and everybody else left, and it was just the sort of half a dozen of us plus him, and he was bringing out what we later found out, fireball shots, which is this liqueur that the whiskey-based liqueur that yeah, all the young people drink.
SPEAKER_04All the young'uns, yeah.
SPEAKER_06I'd never heard of it, no, but um got back on the ship, uh, thought I'll just have a quick lie down, and that was it for the day, the rest of the day. Yeah, so that was fantastic. Sounds excellent. Yeah, that's it. So I can recommend that Ponky Tonks bar if you if it still exists.
SPEAKER_04I'll look it up, see if it still exists.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, there'll be another one.
SPEAKER_04I like the sound of it. It just made me think of uh like Deaf in Paradise, that sort of thing.
SPEAKER_06Well, it's very much like that. Yeah, there's some great ones in the Caribbean, often the bars of you know their sort of little shacks or their little stalls, and there's this early youth who mix you up some very, very, very, very powerful drink.
SPEAKER_04I suppose the rum's a bit more rummy there.
SPEAKER_06You could fool yourself that you know you're having well, yeah, you're having a piece of fruit.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_06Oh, and the other one recent one experience was the Philharmonic Dining Room, which is a grade one listed pub in Liverpool. Uh yes. And it's the one which is like a a Victorian dream. It's a fantastic place. You find this ladies queuing up outside the men's loos because they want to see the rivals that are all marbled and tiled and fantastic.
SPEAKER_04It's like obviously listed, isn't it?
SPEAKER_06And um grade one, yeah.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, yeah. I think um Kevin McLeod was on a TV programme recently and he he went there and had a look around, obviously, because it was so um opulent, I suppose. Yeah. Sounds great.
SPEAKER_06Recommended.
SPEAKER_04Yes, I shall make a trip there.
SPEAKER_06Long time to go there.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, I must admit I've not been to Liverpool before, so it's on my list and I shall go there if I go there.
SPEAKER_06Did you know it's famous for the Beatles?
SPEAKER_04Oh, is it?
SPEAKER_06I'll tell you now. Everybody everything else is uh everything else is is beat it's all Beatle oriented. But you can have a great few days and some great great pubs and bars and things around there. We went to uh uh we went to the basement of the Mersey Tunnel. Oh, you think that sounds interesting, possibly. But we had a really good evening. You have to think, well you have to remember is all scouts as a uh they're comedians at heart.
SPEAKER_04Have you ever seen a ghost in a pub?
SPEAKER_06My wife gave me a joke and she said, and what I should say to that is no, but I've seen lots of spirits. Uh I don't think anybody said that to you yet. Yeah, you can have that one.
SPEAKER_04Very good.
SPEAKER_06So she said that. Yeah. But no, I've not. No. But I've got a photograph of somebody who looks like they've seen a ghost in the pub, and I just thought I'd bring this too.
SPEAKER_04Oh my gosh! Uh what harrowed face, yeah.
SPEAKER_06Do you want me to describe what it is that we're looking at?
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_06Well, it's a picture of you, Lloyd, in your youth dressed up in Morris kit. I'm halted by my past. And you're halted. And you halted, you did a you posed for a picture of an exhibition which is entitled Only a Stranger Can Bring Good Luck. Only a Known Man Can Hang. I mean, it's a bit heavy, wasn't it? V, yeah. And uh that was that exhibition was the 12th of April to the 31st of May 2008. Gosh, that late.
SPEAKER_04I I look like uh the youth has put a Coca-Cola bottle somewhere.
SPEAKER_06It looks like you've been threatened with one, maybe. Yeah, and you you also look like you've um just come off your paper rounds.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, true. In for context, I'll have to post that image now, I suppose.
SPEAKER_06Have you got it?
SPEAKER_04I think it's somewhere in the somewhere in the loft of the. I must admit I forgot about that, so um I should remind everyone about yeah, yeah. I think you know, rather than uh yeah, do it in older age, I I got it I got it done then, so uh got ahead of myself.
SPEAKER_06Well anyway, that's my ghost one.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, that's that spooked me out, yeah. Um so have you got a favourite uh current pub or a pub um recently?
SPEAKER_06Um yeah, all of mine is that's all right, just rattle through them. Well, obviously the best one is the welly. Yeah. Are you going to interview anybody that doesn't say the welly? Probably not, unless they're from out of town, yeah. Then I might, yeah. Well that's only because they don't know, but once if you take the anyway, yeah. So the welly, yes, we love it. And uh great hosts for uh for various Morris events that uh that happen mostly in the winter.
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
SPEAKER_06Um I like the Crown in um in Wellington. Um I was gonna talk to you about my other little project of cycling around Bedfordshire. Okay, you can do visiting sketch sites as both Bernard West. Yeah, did sketches for the um of Bedfordshire for the Bedfordshire magazine for 50 years. Every quarter he would produce a sketch, a bit of a pithy com comment, and uh they'd be produced in in the Bedfordshire magazine, and I've got uh a compilation of his sketches. He did them from 1947 to 98. So during Covid I thought what would be a good thing. Yeah, uh let's go and visit all these places.
SPEAKER_04So you followed his footsteps or bicycles?
SPEAKER_06Well, on bike, yeah. So it's all Bedfordshire, yeah. So probably I've cycled a few thousand miles around Bedfordshire.
SPEAKER_04You've you've documented the mileage or roughly.
SPEAKER_06Just estimate, but I would say I mean several things. There's a lot of countryside, there's a lot of great places to uh to visit and to to cherish and to preserve, and um you know, there's a there's a lot of lovely loveliness. Yeah, I think that's why everybody says you have to sort of scratch a bit under the surface of bed picture, but it's not as bad as you think, and it's not it's hillier than you think for a flat county. Definitely, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_04It people I don't know, it's almost got a reputation for being flat, but it's nothing like the Fen. It's definitely got hills. Chellington Hills.
SPEAKER_06That's right.
SPEAKER_04Like the Andes.
SPEAKER_06Well, you need oxygen almost, but almost, yeah. Yes, yeah.
SPEAKER_04So that's that's taken out of the city.
SPEAKER_06So that was the Well that was at Crown Willington. The reason I've left right there is that that was one of Bernard's West's favourite pubs. He lived just up the road from there. Yeah. And he's buried in um Willington churchyard. Okay. Uh and he produced sketches, and I've been lucky enough to get a couple of his originals. Ah, lovely. Which have got pride of place. Yeah, yeah. And the other thing on my wall, well I remember, is sketches by David Sims.
unknownOh.
SPEAKER_06Bits of Kempston.
SPEAKER_04It's all linking together.
SPEAKER_06It's all linking together, yeah.
SPEAKER_04But he's yeah, obviously a big uh Kempston uh font.
SPEAKER_06What an amount of knowledge he has for that though.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, and he's a good artist as well, which I he keeps under his hat. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_06Well, that's an interesting place to keep. It is, yeah.
SPEAKER_04So the crown, is it so yeah. Am I right in saying it's sort of 19th century? Yes, it's another sort of Victorian one.
SPEAKER_06I remember the fireplace being quite nice, but not not like a good landlord in there, works and got a good community feel to it, and uh Betlen Boris men go there on their Wednesdays quite quite often. Right, yeah. The other one, big shout out for is Stone Jug and Clophill. Ah, yeah. And that is a proper green sand bar built of green sand.
SPEAKER_04Has that one got a bar or not got a bar?
SPEAKER_06There's the cock at Broom.
SPEAKER_04Yes.
SPEAKER_06And at which I lived again in my in my youth, my wasted youth, I lived a couple of doors away from it. Uh at my memory then back then it didn't have all the rooms at the back. Right. It just had the two rooms at the front, one of which was the uh the the Skittles. Right, lovely. And so that's a challenge to be playing Skittles and to drink uh at the same time as somebody else's throwing Skittles and um but limited space. Limited space, yeah.
SPEAKER_04Is it is is the table still there, do you know? Yeah, it is.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, I took some Canadian friends, you know, made out that this is all that the English people do. Drink beer and throw cheeses at skittles. Oh excellent. And then the other one that uh is the Green Man have quite taken to is the Green Man in Ever Short.
SPEAKER_04Ah, yeah.
SPEAKER_06And this is another link linking things together. The um the the landlady is Candice, who was the great British make-off winner in Hedfordshire. And one of her sort of signature bakes was the King Bill. She did something of the King Bill because she'd been there, yes, lived in there with her parents as a child.
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
SPEAKER_06And point of detail, she made a piece of green jelly to be the sticky sticky car sticky carpet in one of the bars.
SPEAKER_05Oh, right. Brilliant.
SPEAKER_06Fantastic. So if you want to have a chat with Candice, she's there, well, sometimes there.
SPEAKER_04Well, I've heard it's a nice pub anyway, and I didn't realise she was, you know, the the main person there.
SPEAKER_06Um it's brilliant for cycling, a brilliant cycling pub. Yeah. You know, the the countryside around there and that bit of woven picture. It's beautiful.
SPEAKER_04There's a lot of those the scenes and of the villages, they don't really change, do they? Quite often. The little villages around there, not really. Yeah, yeah. Are the are the savory and main courses good, or is it just speciality desserts because of the well you'd think so, wouldn't you?
SPEAKER_06I've only ever been on a bike. Right. All I can say is that the cheese toast is made out of Swiss cheese. Ooh. And I would go there later on, actually. Yeah, wow. I haven't had my tea, so maybe check in there on the way back.
SPEAKER_04Cheese toasty, that's a good call. You're selling that venue to me. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_06Well, it's a classy venue.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, jelly pub carpet on cakes and uh gooey cheese. And it's a beautiful setting.
SPEAKER_06I sat outside the Green Man the day after the Queen had died, and you're looking out of the church, and the church was going, and again it was another quintessential moment where we're having our beer and salt vinegar crisps. Sorry, John Betaman. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04Excellent.
SPEAKER_06Yeah.
SPEAKER_04And it's a good name as well, Green Man.
SPEAKER_06The Green Man.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_06You're gonna ask me about Faith Dead pub.
SPEAKER_04Am I?
SPEAKER_06Well, you might do.
SPEAKER_04What's your favourite?
SPEAKER_06Dead pub? Oh, I haven't thought about that one, but I'll just look at my list. Okay. Which goes on half the side. Well, the first thing to say is there's too many, isn't there? There's too many. With all these pubs that I think of that are good and are going. It's the half moon. Yes. Which David Sims was uh indicating might be coming back and some guys.
SPEAKER_04Well, half moon.
SPEAKER_06Uh the checkers in Yeldon.
SPEAKER_04Yes, I remember that.
SPEAKER_06We used to go in there on the way to see Rushton and Diamonds. Could you could do two dead football teams? Yeah, yeah. Because we used to go and see Rushton.
SPEAKER_04A worthy team, yeah.
SPEAKER_06So that was a handy stop for having lunch, you know, with me son and went with a friend. This boy as well.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. Because that was like a rebuilt pub, wasn't it? So it was barely modern, but I think that was an old thatched cottage.
SPEAKER_06It was also memorabilia about the US bases, you know, the the the foot the um yeah bases.
SPEAKER_04The timing.
SPEAKER_06I don't I don't think it's a US one, is it?
SPEAKER_04So it goes plain.
SPEAKER_06It's not a drone.
SPEAKER_04No, no, oh well. Yeah, good timing. So yeah.
SPEAKER_06I've got those. There's the uh the swan in Radwell, another lovely pub. Yes, very good nice fish and chips, as I remember.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, I think they had a an eccentric um it may have been French uh chef lady who I heard sort of would throw cutlery and things, probably at the husband. Uh yeah.
SPEAKER_06Well there's the other one which is which is sad, which is the Jackson Wood and Louis um rest in peace. He was he could cook like an angel, but he's had very troubled, yeah, and what a sad a sad thing that was. Yeah. Slate Sarms box end always looks like it's about to be reopened, but yeah it's been looking like that for a few years now.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, it's in suspended animation, it's been done up, but it's paused, isn't it? So it must be re-run out of money or something, yeah.
SPEAKER_06Inclination.
SPEAKER_04Fingers crossed that all.
SPEAKER_06Maybe they're waiting for Universal Studios.
SPEAKER_04Maybe, yeah, probably, yeah.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_06Maybe everything is.
SPEAKER_04Well, I I heard they were going to add some accommodate or utilise accommodation uh for people that go to Box End, but that's all I that's what I heard, but I don't know. The Box End Park, the water park, but yeah, whether that's true or not.
SPEAKER_06But so it might be a kind of that would be nice. Yeah. Um and I guess my old hunting ground when I was a youth would be the wrestlers in Langford. Don't remember much apart from the drinking. Right.
SPEAKER_04Sounds good.
SPEAKER_06It's always good fun.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, excellent.
SPEAKER_06Always good fun.
SPEAKER_04I never knew that one, yeah. But I think I know more of it.
SPEAKER_06There were four. I live near the boots. Right. Well, I think there's only two now, aren't there? That broken.
SPEAKER_04I think there's a two. I I might be getting multiple. There's a curry house there, which was probably one of the pubs.
SPEAKER_06But um then it's happened to quite a few really, isn't it?
SPEAKER_04Yeah, if they're not become if they don't become houses then yeah. Become restaurants, yeah. I think I'm sorry, I'm using it.
SPEAKER_06Thank you very much for the question to do this.
SPEAKER_01Okay, thanks for listening. You can follow Hemlock, Red Cuthbert, and Bedford Morris men on social media. And don't forget to like and follow Pubs of the Shire wherever you get your podcasts from. Uh plus Dead Pubs of Bedfordshire on Facebook and Instagram. Thank you. Bye.
SPEAKER_03What happened next time to be yes? To the female highway man.
SPEAKER_02To the female highway.
unknownTo the female man.
SPEAKER_03She's hanging likewise a jacking red. She's taken off a velvet tight and line upon the bed. A true loving amazement. It's changed all easy. Love enough, my bad stats. I'm not a made up. But when much as we did find out, we now need to.