BRAPA in .... I BEG YOUR ARDEN, ACCRINGTON NEVER PROMISED ME A ROSE GARDEN

Thursday 15th February 2024

Including Christmas and Red Leicester which survived Rotherham away!

The magic of my Todmorden debut, on a replacement bus Sunday back in January 2014, is yet to be beaten.

On that day as I walked to the Staff of Life pub, birds of prey shriek, torrents of water cascade down the valley around me, there's even the threat of alien abduction! Everyone I encounter has a flat cap and wellies and says 'ey up', and I then end up in a pub called the Polished Knob after a visit to a very pink bottle shop. I promise I'm not making this up.

'Never go back' they say. Alan Buckley, Dr Clive Gibbons, Fleetwood Mac, Dennis Lloyd, can all testify.

Pub ticking doesn't allow such luxuries.

Don't get me wrong, Tod is a 'nice' place, but I preferred its former East Lancs village pie munching, ferret punching self rather than this current (Tod)modern incense stick smelling, crystal selling Hebden Bridge wannabe.

Maybe my heart wasn't really in it. After all, The Pub, Todmorden (2647 / 4808 ) is only a required tick because it has moved into larger premises in 2022. Three small cottages joined together? It lacks the slimy dank inner wall / multi levelled character of the original, and I wasn't even too impressed by that. The barmaid is only present physically, the ale an unnoteworthy pale, the aesthetic is bland. There's a man up a ladder fixing a door on the way out, and that is honestly how exciting it got.

But cheer up chickens! Only one West Yorkshire tick left which I'd hope to do two days later.

And in even more pleasant news, Accrington was on the horizon, a town that never disappoints. "The most Lancashire town ever!" to quote Daddy BRAPA in 2017. Unlike Tod, it felt reassuringly unaltered. Pub looks nice too. A mobility scooter and defib presence is no surprise.

Arden Inn, Accrington (2648 / 4809)

Barman is temporarily AWOL so I'm forced to nestle alongside a bulbous nosed Irishman with a jaunty hat and a taste for stout, and an excitingly haired tattoo Strongbow pint can drinker. It is half term, and a giant family arrive thirsty for Madri and Fruit Shoots, so I have to make myself visible to ensure I'm served first. Titanic Cherry Porter, very cherry, very Titanic, my heart will go on, as Celine sang after visiting an East Lancs pub with a defib. In a cute lounge room, in the shadow of St George Cross and demonic Elvis prints, my peace is shattered when the Madri Familam discover the olde worlde comfort in here. To keep the kids interested, the parents tell them "it's just like Harry Potter in here isn't it?" Kids don't look convinced, and neither am I, no Leaky Cauldron, that's more the Alehouse in Reading. But pub of the day, and my first alphabetical tick in Lancs.

After sheltering from the rain in the giant Tesco canteen without buying anything and contemplating the true meaning of life, it was time to take the train to Burnley. Not sure I've ever seen the sun out in Burnley, or the ground dry, but I'm sure it has happened.

Buoyed to see one of my old football favourites, Inn on the Wharf, back open (would be lovely if they could get Ministry of Ale back too), I slip slide into the heart of town for my third tick .....

Boot Inn, Burnley (2649 / 4810)

This former Thwaites chunkster, now a 'Spoons, is about 30/70 in the Thwaites/Spoons ratio. I assume the sorry carpet is a Thw. throwback, it needs ripping up and a Timbo special laying if I'm being truly dispassionate, but (in Linda Barker voice) it works really really well with the tiling around the bar. Makes you smile. As does £2.13 for a Theakston's Old Peculiar with a Mudgie voucher. The clientele is a classic mixture of soggy shoppers, after work hi-vizzers, bored half termers and elderly wanderers, not from Bolton. Superb.

Finally, my outlier, and so impressed was I by last Thursday's Ormskirk Ubering, I ring for another as the rain is pissy, buses hourly and traffic rush-houry.

Due to roadworks, our man Mohammed has me running the Burnley streets to get around the cordon (not James, that'd take forever) but then he rings me to say "good news and bad news, I've actually got to your original pick up point so you'll have to come back!" So I run back around.

Dear reader, I'm still waiting for the good news.

Anyway, nice guy, explains he's more of an Oldham chap which explain much, good BRAPA chat, and he drops me off at the pub and bugger me it is virtually next door to that micropub I did when Daddy BRAPA moved our seat and belongings when I went to the loo to try and make me think I was going mad! What a joker.

Old Bridge Inn, Barrowford (2650 / 4811)

If I could have my time again, I'd forgo a bit of extra personal space and sit in central bar area with my Moorhouses Premier Bitter, and almost certainly get chatting to the locals. My zillion toilet trips told me this was a top East Lancs hospitality destination, so many smiles, admiration for my new fluffy cardigan perhaps? But in sitting in the back room, I cut myself off from humanity and didn't really give the pub a chance to shine. It wasn't old or heritagey enough to 'speak for itself'. The barmaid sounds Scottish when she's outside, Lancastrian when talking to the locals. One couple eyeball Colin from a distance, then pull out their own (vastly inferior) mascot, glancing over like "how do you like them apples, BRAPA?" The playlist is, hopefully intentionally, water based - 'Don't Go Chasing Waterfalls', 'River of Dreams', 'Why Does it Always Rain on Me?' Decent place which I should've made more of.

Competition for Colin, but what even is it?

Join me later this week for more tales from the North West. I'm probably unavailable tomorrow and Tues but I'm going to cancel #ThirstyThursday this week so I can catch up and be nicely organised before my first official BRAPA holiday of 2024. Stay tuned!

Si