BRAPA .....KEEPS THE HOLME FIRES McBURNING : WEST CAMBS SPECIAL

Saturday 18th April 2026

My new mentality is 'any county where I require more than 20 ticks is a disgrace'.

This brings me back to Cambridgeshire. A county teetering on the brink of acceptability with 21 ticks remaining. Let's get into 'em!

Back in 2018/19, I completed the whole damn county but have largely neglected it since. I had Martin Taylor, swift chauffeuring in his Waterbeach era to thank for much of it.

Seven years later, Dan M. is my new Cambs contact. St Ives based too which was handy for me today, but sadly he's busy with some sort of craft family barbecue. I don't remember details, but there were English boys with banjos.

'Who are ya, who are ya?!'

I was down hideously early, having originally booked the train with Kent, Sussex or Surrey in mind until Cambs popped into my brain and I thought 'hang on, I can jump off at Peterborough and cut out fackin' London altogether'.

Rare Kale Joseph outing

No train station at St Ives weirdly, because it feels like it should have one. So I change for nearby Huntingdon where I recently ticked their 'Spoons, then take a connecting bus. I bond with a pink lady not from Grease, or Greece, because some dork harridan is shouting into her phone Dom Joly style. 8:45am, give it a rest luv!

It had been grey and chilly on my June 2018 visit here to tick off the Nelson's Head, Oliver Cromwell and Royal Oak, but brilliant blue sunshine prevails today.

The tick I need is the 'Spoons so is obviously open already, but after last week's ten pint Sheff/Derby embarrassment, I didn't want to run the risk of overdoing it again. I find a cute twee backstreet coffee shop called The Commute Cafe where I'm treated very nicely.

Banana and choc chip cake too. "It is vegan you know" she warns me. "Don't worry, my sister is a vegan, it'll make her proud" I reply. But Sister BRAPA's general attitude to this breaking news is 'so fucking what?' which I kinda respect.

Pub time.

Having found Huntingdon and St Neots 'Spoonsies recently palatable, I was really disappointed in the Swan & Angel, St Ives (3391 / 6231). The barmaid couldn't have given less of a shit, the 'Surrey Nirvana' was dishwatery slop, the carpet full of crumbs and lice and fleas and is a washed out 6/10. Tables are sticky. Punters knuckle dragging and breakfasty with twilds running everywhere. The sort of 'Spoons the perennially online nobheads who never leave their homes, let alone go to said establishments, imagine them to be. 'Tis still nowhere near noon, when my second pub opens, but no way I was staying in this shithole a second longer.

So I hop aboard an early bus as far as Fen Drayton lakes. Ah yes, that guided bus way I remember from 2018. A feat of modern engineering. If Isambard Kingdom Brunel was still around, he'd be like 'bloody hell lads, why didn't I think of that? p.s. Up the bastard Robins!'

I sit on a bench, have a snack, pretend to watch some invisible wading birds in the reeds. I can hear a cuckoo so I bond with a Grandma about it. Then I try not to photobomb a nervous Chinese couple and walk slowly down a gravel track towards Fen Drayton village.

I'm no twitcher but by gum, that duck is a Pochard! The next one I need to 'tick' in my I-Spy bird book. And when you tick pubs, ticking anything becomes a mentality. Problem with bloody birds though, they move around too much. And apart from Folkestone and Andover micros, pubs generally tend to stay still.

25 pts too, the Worth Matravers of ducks. Now where can I see a Dunnock?

Fen Drayton is so 'chocolate box' you feel like an orange cream on the bottom layer of a box of Black Magic. A melting one at that. Annoyed I've worn such a chunky jacket, and too large to squash into my shoulder bag.

I'm across the way, perching by a stream, still waiting for 12 noon. An elderly posh congregation pitch themselves outside the front door, tsk.

Plenty of age and character present at the Three Tuns, Fen Drayton (3392 / 6232) though it is a glorified restaurant in sheep's clothing if we're being honest. Not that it cares a jot. I'm beaten to the bar by a 'frail' old lady with a tube in her face. Thought she was ill but obviously a tactic to get more ale inside her quicker #PubWoman. Her friend appears and they're all like "ooh young man, young maaaaan, we're in your way, sorry young maaan" like the randy wobbly old ladies off Harry Enfield and now I feel guilty for thinking unkind thoughts. The first ale I order, Snake Eyes, splutters and dies, but the Oakham Thunderhawk is the 'sensible' face of tropical NZ pales. Barmaid's are pleasant, but main man Mr Burrito ain't at all interested when I return my empty glass, say thank you and leave, his razorsharp 100% focus is on diners.

Conington should be walkable from Fen Drayton. But it isn't for one simple reason, no one has thought to build either an overpass or underpass across the Huntingdon Road dual carriageway. Grrr.

I'd found a local service called Tiger on Demand, as much 'community bus' as taxi if you've ever been paddleless-up-the-creek enough to request such things.

I decide, totally irrationally, that my degree of success with this Tiger service would determine Hull City's joy at home to Birmingham today. A 'must win' in our bid to hold onto a playoff place with Derby, Norwich, Wrexham and Southampton breathing down our necks (probably literally in the case of those latter bastards) and our form seriously slipping.

So when Tiger is totally AWOL here in Fen Drayton, I''m thinking 'uh oh'. As usual, Uber saves the day, arriving in SIX minutes and at a decent cost too. They really are the only ones you can rely on.

Fantastic approach over the little troll infested footbridge, the garden is awash with folk enjoying the sun. They've got no taste because once inside White Swan, Conington (3393 / 6233), it is an excellent unspoilt inn and just about our pub of the day. The bar is low like a village store or a Western. Ghost Ship comes straight from the barrel. I sense it is a family run affair, Mummy Swan has popped at least three daughters out of her, whom she now proudly presides over as they either serve customers or blink cutely at potential diners from around corners. The Harry Enfield theme continues, as the two Old Gits who've obviously been drinking here for 200 years sneer and scowl at everything including me, hilariously distracting the barmaids from their work. "Sophie, Sophie, they've found this creature in Australia, a cat bird. Half cat, half bird. Sophie, are you listening?" was the highlight, Sophie trying to serve three people at the time. Suddenly, Conington's inaccessibility was something to celebrate. Highly doubtful the pub would feel so uniquely remote if it was joined up to civilisation. But how to get out of here? Uber the obvious answer, but one more go at this Tiger thing. By jove , it's only bloody worked this time! £2 to equally remote Graveley. Bazinga! Bodes well for Hull City, hopefully. Daddy Swan makes a late cameo, just in time to pull me a bonus half from their only handpull. A 'red dot' tick, and I could fully see why.

The other old git was in the loo at this point

I mosey on outside a couple of minutes early to wait for this Tiger on Demand, which now I think about it sounds like a subscription channel where you pay £14 to watch us at Portman Road on a dodgy stream in mid November cos you can't be arsed to go. Still, Jenny's fish & chips and the craft cans will be nice.

'I hope this bloody big minibus moves so that my taxi can get in and out' I'm thinking. At which moment, he opens the door as says 'Simon is it?' Well I'm astonished, and continue to tell the poor driver how astonished I am in two minute intervals all the way to Graveley. Feel like royalty. 'And I can do the same into Godmanchester too can I?' I ask on the way out, which he confirms to be true.

Hold that thought.

'He used to give me roses .....'

Another red dotter in a sleepy village, but the Three Horseshoes, Graveley (3394 / 6234) doesn't float my boat in anything like the same way as the White Swan. Detention centre outside, overly modernised within, yet clinging on to the spirit of olde worlde village life. The few locals who are in are very 'carpet, arse and stale cigarette smoke' but truth is it is empty in comparison to Conington. Owner with the twisty beard is a good guy, and sees me photographing their vintage Coca-Cola vending machine. Easily the pub's most interesting feature. He explains he lived over in that US of A for many years, and he brought this back with him, it dates from 1952. He opens it up to show me the inner workings so I do a bit of polite cooing, like a dove. The Gents loos are full of old American road signs too. The Great Eastern pale drinks a touch too chalky for my liking. The eggs were a bit pricey. And Tonda Eckhart is giving a talk in the village church the following Friday.

But my problems were wider (free) ranging than eggs and spies as the 'Tiger on Demand' is now unavailable. The map on the App shows the area it covers, and whilst we have coverage in Conington and Godmanchester, nothing doing here! But it dropped me off here, and the driver promised me, waaah.

But I should know by now, if it seems too good to be true in BRAPA, that's because it probably is. And it doesn't bode well for Hull City either, if my superstitions are to be believed. Watch this space .....

To rub salt into the wound, Uber costs a bomb despite the short distance involved. So I try another back up option, the rarely used Veezu. MUCH BETTER, phew!

Halfway down to Godmanchester, our driver casually recalls a chat he'd had with a local Godmanchester lady two or three days ago, the pub in question seems unexpectedly shut. Uh oh. I tell him not to drive off until I know. Even better, he says he'll get out of the car and help me check .....

SHUT PUB ALERT! Black Bull, Godmanchester. And nothing online. A note has since been put on the CAMRA website (but not their own Facebook or website tsk) to say it closed end Feb, expected to re-open 23rd May. Not sure if that's happened. Pretty shoddy behaviour anyway.

Time to make a snap decision. Despite the expense, I ask him to drive me on to Holme.

My rationale. Awkward tick. Cuts out the St Ives / Huntingdon middle man. On the way back to Peterborough where I need to be for my train home and have two further ticks. Yes, I could sort of justify it. Furthermore Hull City are winning. I tell Mr Veezu. He pretends to be happy. Maybe everything would turn out okay after all?

Like the best possible type of sinking ship, Admiral Wells, Holme (3395 / 6235) pushes White Swan Conington quite hard for the BRAPA pub of the day award. A red dotter, we shouldn't be surprised, in fact back in 2018/19 RetiredMartin offered to post-emptively drive me here but I was too pissed, probably cos he'd been feeding me Bateman's XXXB in Great Staughton #NeverForget I enter the back way and some kitchen dude sticks his head through a window to greet me, a good start. This is the lowest pub below sea-level in the UK, and having done the highest (the inept Tan Hill Inn), it means I've completed a classic double. A classy pub , 'Scottish hotel bar' in style, with a pink/purple-tinged softness about its interior and the ominous ticking of a grandfather clock. The Blind Sooty on the bar is Harry Corbett era, Little Cousin Scampi hadn't even been born. Even the beer is purple tinged, Nelson's Revenge by Woodforde's. A real throat burner but very satisfying like Fullers ESB. The pub surprisingly fills up with thirtysomethings with bad Essex accents. Where'd they all come from? Just when I'm feeling happy again, Birmingham City equalise. Of course they bloody do! 1-1 full time, and yep, I guess it did mirror my experience with the 'Tiger on Demand' service! I'd brought this on myself. We really are trying to eff up our previously unassailable playoff position.

Mauled by the Sooty

Peterborough time! I'd considered a walk to the nearest bus stop but the road looked like walking on the moon, so another damn Uber. Today had become too expensive after cheap beginnings.

Still, on the plus side, I had two ticks just north of centre and tonnes of time before my late York train. Seven tick day + a shut pub too would mean great progress and give more of a sense of 'value for money'.

Bloody 'ell. Ruddy Duck, Peakirk (3396 / 6236) is a bit 'extra' innit? It shouldn't really have caught me off guard but the day had been quite genteel up until now. But I've ticked in Peterborough and its environs so many times by now, I should know what to expect. Mainly, blokes in three quarter length shorts with forearm navy tattoos who like to have a good southern shout, fart on your balls and laugh with the assurity of a Black Vulture with a 50-a-day habit. The womenfolk are what sets Peakirk aside, making the blokes look like shrinking violets. No, Karen doesn't want a facking pudding! The plus side for me (it had been a long day already and the beer was kicking in) was that the sheer pissedness of all around was actually a sobering experience for me, literally! My loud sneezing fit actually helps me to blend in. I tell Kale Joseph to keep his head down. The Derby Dancing Duck drinks nicely. Visit in July when they're hosting a birthday party called 'Making Plans for Nigel' Great tune!

I can't justify more taxi expense, Peakirk isn't exactly teeming with buses, so a long walk it is to the more familiar 'burb of Werrington .....

I suddenly realise just how dehydrated I am, and decide that when I reach the pub, I will order a pint of lemonade alongside my ale just like in Portslade after we stayed up on the last day of the season versus Pompey'.

When I reach the Butcher's Arms, Werrington, Peterborough (3397 / 6237) and the first beer I see is 'Lemonade Stand' by Tiny Rebel, I'm like 'what kind of weirdly specific coincidence is this?' I tell the barmaid and she says "Well you don't need a lemonade now, lolz" but in truth, it wasn't a particularly thirst slaking beer so that was a pity. I'm surprised to find it a Micropub because of the name, soft furnishings and free bar bhajis put it in 'above average' category. The locals are reluctanct to engage despite a shared hope that Spurs will go down as Brighton score right at the end. Most are lapsed Hammers so fair enough. I ask the awkward Emo (sitting with silent Daddy Emo whom 'they' support as they've distanced themselves from Spurs/ West Ham chatter). Answer is Man City so I probe no further. Then I realise the bus I need is the last bus of the day so get supping my dry lemonadey beer.

I did manage a quick half in the Oakham Brewery Tap before the journey norf. She gave me a pint against my wishes obviously knowing my reputation, I didn't say anything but drank half of it and hid the rest behind a menu. And I managed to avoid York Tap too. SEE, I did learn some lessons from last week!

Join me next time for an insanely high quality Thursday in Worcestershire.

Keep it pub, Si