Pubs

If I ever moved house, a really important consideration would be whether there was a good pub nearby. We have just come back from the Dolphin, the best pub in the world, and although it was foul weather, – sleety rain, what did it matter? We had been in the pub for a few pints of Otter – which is a mighty fine beer, and in pleasant company… to wit, the landlord, Mark and landlady Nicky.

When I was a child, my dad (who had been brought up in the Portland Arms, a Cambridge pub) went to his local, the Spring. On our first date, my now husband and I went to a fabulous pub, the Old Sair which brewed its own beer. I’ve written before about pubs, they are an important feature of my life!

In my latest novel, Radwinter – available from tomorrow on Amazon, pubs also play a part. The main character Thomas and his brother John start going to a quiz night at a pub, the Lark, and Thomas, in his quest to find where his family came from finds that the Lark has figured in his family history. He also comes across another pub, important in his search, the India Inn. Neither pub is based on any real establishment I have ever visited – although there is a pub in Oldham called The Lark which I used to visit when I lived there.

Pubs are quintessentially English – in the rest of the United Kingdom there are many pubs, and many good pubs, but none are like the ones in England.