The pubs of Borth

 

Well there's no point in beating around the bush here - The Railway Inn is fucking shit. Utterly nondescript. It's mostly patronised by people who own caravans in the vicinity. The impression I have of these people from my visits is that they quite like having a caravan in Wales, but they would much prefer that there was a beach in Dudley. The one thing you can absolutely guarantee about these cunts is that at some point in their lives they have all been into a pub in Wales where the second they stepped in through the door, everyone started speaking Welsh. 

 

 

Because the world revolves around them.

There's not much more to say about The Railway except that it was forgettable, and that we were sat at a table overlooked by a photograph of one of my drinking companion’s ancestors in an Edwardian era Borth football XI. This is Wales after all.

I would also like to add at this stage that had I chosen to spend all of my bank holiday weekends and subsequent retirement in, e.g.Suriname, I like to believe that I wouldn't spend all of those holidays and Autumn years constantly moaning about how completely fucking shit Suriname is and how uselessly backwards the Surinamese and their entire culture are. Honestly, I wish they'd just build an artificial reef and a wave machine on the canal in fucking Smethwick. 

We had one pint. We felt obliged. There are only three pubs in Borth after all, and it would be churlish to dodge one of them. Happily, we departed for a superior establishment, but that's a low bar. 

The town(?) of Borth is one long street halfway up Cardigan Bay. Although the street is only a few metres from the pounding waves of the Irish sea at high tide, you'll never see it. The sea wall which looms over the town from the west looks like it was built by Rommel, and gives the town(?) a distinctly subterranean feel. The land that the street is built on was reclaimed from the marshes when the railway came to Aberystwyth, which makes it a very new development by Welsh standards. Perhaps this is why it feels so alien. It's not a coincidence that several episodes of the Cymru-noir drama series Hinterland were set in Borth. There's something deeply unsettling about a place in Wales built around straight lines.

Our next pub certainly had its quirks. Enough quirks for it to provide the inspiration for a murder location in a regional detective drama at least, except that it might be considered so eccentric that viewers would be unable to suspend their disbelief. From the main street we stepped down through the front door - we may well have been below sea-level - and the place was like a funeral parlour. Deserted, silent, and cold as a morgue. Us four were the only patrons. It was as if we were gatecrashing Prince Philip's funeral. 

This was The Friendship, one of my favourite pubs of all time, and certainly the best name for a pub imaginable. The pub is a single room, with a fireplace (as yet unlit) on one side, and a small bar in one corner. All around the edge of the room are beautiful old cracked red leather benches, with a decent amount of padding, set in ancient, dark, decoratively carved wood. Placing your weight upon one of these benches would have the effect of releasing the fragrance of not only the leather and wood, but over one hundred years of tobacco smoke and spilt beer. And it was glorious. Something which can never, ever be reproduced in a modern pub.

The silence in The Friendship was deafening, and despite the unavoidable chill in the air it was possible to feel the warmth of the ambience - it came from the walls. Maybe it's the sub-aqua situation that gives such an altered outlook on the universe upon entering? I recall the great philosopher Wilko Johnson saying something similar about Canvey Island.

But there's a few other things about The Friendship that make it stand out from the crowd and give it a special place in my heart. Firstly there's the name. The Friendship. How could you possibly not love that? It appeals to the most idealistic interpretation of the institution of The Pub. A literal public house where everybody is welcomed with open arms. A conviviality and bonhomie are implied and then fostered, as they should be. Great characters from all walks of life. The most inbred country squire to the bloke who collects the dog shit for the tanneries, all are treated as equals here. Inside these four walls bonds will be formed which will dissolve the moment that one is forced to embrace the constantly chilly, damp, salty lash which stings the eyes as it skates across the pebbles from the heart of Cantre Gwaelod, and ditches itself into the depressed High Street of Borth.

 

I must confess that The Friendship does break my rule of open plan pubs being bad, but the layout does create four distinct 'zones' at least. Besides, it's small enough for it to not really matter. The entire pub is still the same size as an average room in one of the many run-of-the-mill former coaching inns owned by the big corporations who we know are all just quietly praying for an electrical fire so they can build a load of flats.

The pints of Evan Evans began flowing, and the pub started to get busier. Every time I went to the bar to collect a fresh ale and catch a bit of the Scarlets game on a tiny telly in the corner, I would turn around and a few more patrons would be shaking the saltwater from their coats and hats at the door. The fire was lit, a couple of aloof cats would wander through (aloof is the factory setting for cats), and the room came alive. We were having a good time. My male companions were suitably thrilled that there was an entire Dylan Thomas scrawled on the gents toilet walls in marker pen - the discussion around which was enough to briefly distract us from the arrival and disrobing of our newest guests. Not a single one of us noticed that they were all dressed as pirates - directly in front of us in the middle of the room - and without any introduction, ceremony, or explanation launched into a medley of sea shanties. 

Nobody else seemed to think this the least bit odd, which is probably because this was an organised event which had been advertised locally, but I prefer to believe this is just the sort of run-of-the-mill occurrence that can only happen at The Friendship without anyone batting an eyelid. Confused and amused glances were exchanged between us, but quickly we came to realise that this was happening and we would just have to accept it.

Years later I would discover that the Borth sea shanty troop was forced to disband due to some sort of love triangle/shagging situation. I was once told by a man in a pub that Drunken Sailor was a song about being unable to achieve/maintain an erection. If only the members of the choir had followed this example, perhaps they'd still be together.

 Sadly, there was one more pub in Borth to tick off, The Victoria Inn.  

 

 

It won't surprise you to learn that it isn't a patch on The Friendship. How could it possibly be? It did serve a nice pint of Mantle and there is one extremely redeeming feature. The beer garden is actually Borth beach. In the late evening sunshine at the end of a balmy summer's day there is scarcely a better spot to relax with a beer and watch the sun go down behind the waves. But this was not to be that day. It had already been dark for some hours, and the drizzle was by now attacking me from every angle possible, plus a few more. So we sat inside a much too brightly lit bar all quite strongly regretting that we had been foolish enough to leave The Friendship. There was one silver cloud. One of my arm-bending chums had a completely self-imposed tradition of always buying a bottle of champagne to share at The Vic. I think he's from a very different background to most of us, so we were hardly going to tell him to put his money away.

Before long we were running for the train home. Borth is an unusual place, short on charms compared to almost every other town on Cardigan bay. But a sunset beer at The Vic is worth enjoying if you're nearby. I'm not sure if The Friendship is still going. I desperately hope so. The world needs more places like that. And if it's not, then in many years time people will insist that I have simply imagined it. But I know it was there, like Cantre Gwaelod beneath the waves. And that's Beer-aeth.