BRAPA in .... I'M YOUR NUMBER ONE FAN(COTT) : BACK IN BEAUTIFUL SOUTH BEDS

Thursday 19th February 2026

Beds. I wouldn't let it lie. And I don't do duvets. Once again, I find myself climbing the wooden stairs to Bedfordshire, the original BRAPA county and some might say the best. If you were a contrary bastard.

But I have a soft spot for it in much the same way you might have for the jaundice one-legged kid in the Sports Day egg and spoon race.

Stuck behind a freight train, we're late into King's Cross so my connection from St Pancake to Luton fails to make. Tarnation!

The next train would involve a 56 minute wait for the bus I want, and 56 minutes in Luton on a cold grey wet day without anything to do could feel like seven hours.

So I hop off the next train early at St Albans and decide to invoke my back up bus plan.

No ticks remain in CAMRA HQ's town of choice, and the Masham themed Micropub really did just sell coffee ....

It felt just like a Starbucks, which isn't a compliment. I go Espresso, thankfully without making as much of a spectacle of myself as I did in Wokingham a week ago. Everyone is young, perching and on laptops.

Bus time, bang on 1pm. The downside of the January rail sale is that only 9am+ trains from York give me the discount, hence I'm late on parade today.

I've failed to notice that this is the penultimate bus of the day (already!) so plans for a return to Snalbans via my Redbourn tick are in tatters. Re-think needed.

But for now, focus is on the uphill grimy trek to the village of Kensworth from a bus stop on the main road. Unpleasant, definitely wouldn't have attempted without a pavement!

Even after this first sign for the village, it takes ages until the pub appears .....

Looks inviting, and I'm pleased to tell you that the Farmers Boy, Kensworth (3270 / 6110) maintains a pubby aura in spite of its location. Central fireplace, bookcases, board games and fairly sensible seating - the bar is low in rural Beds, so that's enough for the win! A couple, bar-blocking, realise I'm trying to peer at the ales. The guy annoyingly tries to mimic my internal monologue. 'Oooh real ales, great! Oh Fullers, what a shame. Lol!' He made his other-half laugh anyway. What a dweeb. Barmaid has zero charisma. But I whip in the Wi-Fi code along with my pint of HSB, which is gloriously smooth. Easily today's best pint. I nearly spill it because the tables are so well varnished, it slides right across and I rush to catch it! After that, I prop it against a Dr Who Trivial Pursit wedge, in the absence of beermats which would've prevented all this carry on! There is a Dunstable bus due 14:55 (still a way off) so what if I could use today's Uber cheat to get myself all the way to pub two at Toddington? It won't be easy, out in the sticks, memories of Turvey. But it immediately pings up, 'Your driver is 2 minutes away'. 'WHAAAAT?'. 'Down it, down it, down it!'

Wedgy! That bloke was startled when I said 'hello' too.

Pubby for Beds

Yep, Georgiou was passing the end of the road when my call came in. I criticise him for being too quick and he rightly apologises.

The first Uber driver of 2026 not to have been to York. His UK explorations have so far been limited to the south of England, and now he's recently become Daddy Georgiou, future jaunts are on hold until the little one has got a bit older. Sorry, but these facts all add context to the day, kind of.

A first and only appearance since 1983 for the Griffin, Toddington (3271 / 6111) and yep, 'wildcard' entry covers it. A spartan airy interior with no customers but a proper old school landlady, who tells me she's got a thermal top on to stave off the chill (Winter Olympics on the TV ain't helping, though fully shutting the front door would probably help too). The Suffolk Mild drinks absolutely fine, and she gets back to her knitting - possibly a pair of woollen bottoms to match the thermal top? Inside it is traditional enough to make it a 'breath of fresh air' in Bedfordshire GBG terms, with good levels of colour, though it felt like a pub in terminal decline if I'm being brutally honest. A hi-vis elderly milkman eventually waddles in, I'm sure he was sat at the bar in Pavenham last week. Just like Shropshire, Beds has about twelve hardcore ale drinkers who rotate around the pubs daily, keeping them ticking over. But as an overall pub experience, this hadn't been memorable.

At the bus stop, Toddington starts to look familiar. Of course, I came here 11 years ago to tick the Oddfellows (which I can see from here) and the Cuckoo, which had a lovely warm private bathroom to wash my muddy legs in after a ridiculous wet walk from Eversholt which still gives me nightmares.

It is half term, and a scary Dad is waiting with his sickly tricycle wielding daughter. It has started raining again, but he's acting like guardian of the bus shelter and won't let me in. Then a happy boy with Down's Syndrome starts swirling around the village green singing 'Winter Wonderland', as four gangsta kids menacingly eat fried chicken.

Worse is to follow as I press the bell in good time to stop at The Fancott pub, nicely situated on the E bus route back towards Luton. But the driver doesn't stop!

"Oi mate, I pressed the bell!" I exclaim, leaping forward.

"Whhh .... whhaaa .... whh I can't stop here!" he replies.

"The Fancott? You missed the stop!"

"I'm not a taxi service. I can't just stop anywhere!"

"It's an actual stop"

"No stop here!"

Thankfully, he half pulls into a layby a few yards down to drop me off. I don't say thanks. Thankfully, there is a grass verge of sorts back to the pub so I don't get run over. The situaton hadn't been helped by a white van man who looks like Kunt from Kunt and the Gang beeping the bus when he stops.

In fairness to the utter prick of a driver, I cannot see a physical bus stop outside the pub. Obscured by the flora and fauna above, two mother hens are outside smoking so I tell them my predicament. They aren't local but they are both clucky, lovely and sympathetic, and encourage me to ask the staff. Or starf, as they pronounce it here. But Fancott Arms. Fancott (3272 / 6112) is an abysmal pub. Staff not only don't know, but are so unhelpful and offhand it has me thinking nostalgic thoughts of Three Cranes Turvey once again. The beer is a mess too. Tbf, the main lady thinks it 'might've gone' and her colleagues tells her it went two days ago, so the pumpclip probably needed turning around before now! A GBG debutant, but obviously not a new pub. As RetiredMartin says, it sometimes feels like these low achieving pubs get eventually included as a sort of 'long service award'. I see a man with a head shaped like a Birds Eye potato waffle going for a TT Landlord so I decide that's a safer option. It is passable. You might say waffly versatile. Borne out of frustration of staff attitudes, I tell main landlady this might be my last ever pint the way things are going, which at least gets a snort. I don't trust the next hourly bus to stop here, so ring today's second Uber, ugh. I've sat near the mother hens out of reassurance, and they reckon Leagrave or Harlington station might make most sense from here, and they are correct. The pub ain't an unpleasant to sit in, with warmth and comfort, but most things about it were dreadful.

Note the stripy Sheffield Wednesday arm of one of our mother hens

The following day, I decided to contact CentreBus who run the E service to ask If The Fancott IS indeed a stop, and promptly received this reply from Joanne ......

VINDICATION. Yer getting sacked in the morning!

Not really, I just want him educated and told not to do it again. I bet no one has pressed the bell for that stop in about five years. I mentioned the lack of physical bus stop, but she says I'd have to take that up with the local council, but I'm too tired for that shite. But it made me feel better.

The Harlington train takes me all the way back to London, I'd seen enough of Beds. And fate had twice denied me waiting time in Luton! And the way today had panned out, I still had plenty of time to do another tick, two if things went really well.

I cross the road back into King's Cross station, refuse to be seduced by the Parcel Yard this early, and head back up north a couple of stops to Potters Bar for a Herts tick.

'Tis an annoyingly long walk when you compare it to the Admiral Byng Wetherspoons I did a few years back, and I waste more valuable time by expecting it to be one of the dark shop units in the precinct by the BP garage. But if I'd just open my eyes and spin around, I'd see that it's a proper chunky old pub on t'other side!

With a name so dull that it'd have the West Lancs Micropub naming committee creaming their knickers, Cask & Stillage, Potters Bar (3273 / 6113) is a revelation. The pub today needed. Loud, dark, brash, and with a banging playlist of country music hits. A landscape gardener who looks like a dangerous Dave Angel .... "Carried away (and drowned at the water feature) by a moonlight shadow". "YEEEHAH!" screams the bloke opposite as the final bars of Johnny Cash 'I Walk the Line' play. And he looked like the most well behaved person in here too. He asks if he's blocking my view of Forest v Fenerbache in the Intertoto cup or some shite, so I say no, and two giant ladies grab the remote control, and settle down to mute 'Last of the Summer Wine' as John Denver plays. Alongside a Burning Sky that looked like lime green piss under the pub lighting, but tasted delicious, it had been a return to pub form after earlier dodgy Beds. Don Williams recalls a gypsy woman, but I don't have time to linger to find out more if I want to make pub five.

I scoot back down the long main road at such a pace, not only do I get the train earlier than I'd originally calculated, but TWO trains earlier. New Barnet ain't far, and the pub was mere yards from the station, my most ironically named pub of 2026 so far ......

"I'm probably getting sacked in the morning" grumbles the barman to anyone who'll listen but me, and I wonder if the Builders Arms, New Barnet (3274 / 6114) current upheaval is responsible, or perhaps Greene King have caught him with his cock in the cookie jar. I'm assuming it is a GK pub cos all that is on is GK IPA and a Six Nations guest called Scrumdown. I choose the latter, utter floppy babby slop. Well kept utter floppy babby slop, but still utter floppy babby slop. The Will Carling, Princess Di and Mr Blobby orgy of ales. For all the frosted panes and sidestreet intimacy (albeit done in 'North London' with plastic flowers and no beermats), this ain't a pub experience to capture my imagination and I'm holding that pint at least 60% responsible.

Again, I catch an earlier train than planned. So there was even time for a swift ESB back in the Parcel Yard having swerved it last Saturday.

Up to £7.15 now, it had been holding on at £7 for quite a while. It tasted like glorious poison and a drunk Penfold faceplanted the inside of the toilet door having complained about how long his order for five pints of Guinness was taking.

And that was that. More decent progress in difficult parts of middle England, and speaking of which, it was about to get more difficult 36 hours later as I headed back to North Warwickshire.

I'll tell you about that on Wednesday, and remember in the meantime, keep it pub.

Si