Sandbach is a small market town with a lot of pubs. Stones and pubs and cobbles are some of my earliest memories of the town. Cobbles and prams are not particularly harmonious if you happen to be the baby in the pram rolling over the cobbles but they do create a rather peculiar and interesting rhythm. When a top line melody of drunk singing to a distant jukebox works alongside the cobble vibrations then you have a sort of music, a music I am tempted, having thought of it to try and recreate.
I can’t very well get into talking about pubs and libations at this stage of my life however so let’s fast forward a few years from where we currently are.
Let’s visit just a few of the pubs in Sandbach sometime in the early 90’s.
The Lion (Large, football on, overly lit with a constant threat of violence)
The George (Youthful, safe, with occasional club nights & gigs upstairs)
The Lower Checker (Old, quirky, arty, good for a pint with the older generation)
The Market Tavern (Old men at bar, drug dealing underbelly of yoof)
The Black Bear (Thatched, Oasis on the Jukebox, full of my brothers’ mates)
The Military Arms (Views of the common, my other brother’s mates from Karate)
The Limes (Bowling green frontage, rooms available)
The Swan and Checker (Old Fashioned, run by my mates Mum and Dad)
The Wheatsheaf (Pleasant but slightly pretentious, full of teachers)
The Ring O’ Bells (Violent reputation)
The Old Hall (Most haunted, formal gardens)
I could go on, there are many more but you get the idea.
Sandbach was not a town with a lot going on. There were sports be played for the sporty. Bands to practice with for the musically aspirant in the church hall and an occasional youth club. There was also the Scouts and guides and the church. That was about it unless you wanted to hang around at the leisure centre. Then there were the pubs. The pubs, arguably the pulse of the town.
I think I started going to the pubs at about 15 years old. I was a late starter. A slightly nervous teen stepping int a new world that existed within the town I thought I already knew. Characters that were only ever seen at night, people that had no other presence in the town at any other time or any other place. Often these people could be fund specifically around one particular stool at the bar or one chosen table. There were codes to learn, etiquette to be mastered and rules to be broken.
My mate Dave was a couple of years older than me. He was and is a drummer. A cool guy in a post punk kinda way, a guiding light in the navigation of the Sandbach pubs star map. A fearless champion of the pint.
One night Dave drove us to Manchester to see a band called Helmet. He parked in a rather rough looking spot that he seemed very proud to know about. Free parking in the city centre was becoming had to find. We walked down the road to the gig only to find a hand written note saying CANCELLED. Hmm, ok that’s that then. We returned to the car a few minutes later to find the drivers side window smashed and the tape deck stereo gone, with only a gaping hole and some torn wires where once it had been not so long ago. After a rather uncomfortably cold and windy journey back to Sandbach we hit the George for consolation. Then then onto the Lion before last orders. By this point Dave had added shots to the pints and was revving up in an all to familiar way. By the time the bell rang Dave was none too pleased that the game was apparently over. That was until he discovered the magic of slops. Slops are the mixed media soup like liquid found within and beneath the metal or plastic things on bars that allow pints to overflow without getting the bar itself wet. They must have an actual name but I don’t know what it is. These shallow vessels could contain mixers, spirits, nuts, dust, elements of every pint served as well as any other liquids that passed over the bar in either direction. It occurred to Dave that he could pour this elixir into a glass and drink it. Circumnavigating the licensing laws and also free to boot. He polished off the lot of this strange and varying brew before we left to walk home. Dave vomited the whole way home but seemed on the whole to have enjoyed himself.
Newcastle Brown (drunk straight from the bottle), pints of Stella, Robinsons bitter, Carling Black Label, Fosters, Guinness, Kronenbourg and bottles of Becks and Budweiser were the most common drinks I can remember from that time. Very standard fair, not all bad but definitely lacking in the craft brewing variety of today. Real ales also featured heavily but it was sometime before I was to discover them. Cider I only remember in two litre bottle form available from Bargain Booze. They also stocked two litre bottles of bitter and lager too, cheaply priced and selling well.
Bargain Booze was the other side of drinking culture in Sandbach. Especially favoured by the younger teens and the skint.
Bargain Booze began in Sandbach before becoming the largest Off license chain in the country. It’s presence during my teens was ubiquitous, the park benches filled with people enjoying it’s wares. It also provided a cheap start to any weekend before going out to the pub. The off license offering more variety at cheaper prices than the pubs themselves.
It’s hard to imagine Sandbach without the pubs the of licenses and the associated culture. Most of the pubs I listed are still trading. I think they all have different landlords and landlady’s and some are almost unrecognisable from the way they were in the 90’s. I’m less familiar with them now and there are even more new places that have opened since that seem to be thriving whenever I visit. The old sweetshop is now a beer café and there are new glass fronted, beautifully decorated rooms to sit and drink in. Things are definitely looking up.
The Old Hall is a place I often like to return to when back in town. Dating from 1656 and a star episode of the programme Most Haunted in 2004. The legends of ghosts and things that go bump in the night have been associated with this pub for years, perhaps even for centuries. Beneath there are allegedly tunnels leading to st Mary’s church across the road and into the town. From wattle and daub origins to a stately manor house, coaching house, hotel and Inn this is a pace full of stories. A place with the ability to travel back through time, though various brews and libations and hundreds, no thousands of characters that have passed through this place. The same could be said of most of the pubs I have mentioned. One that has recently gone forever is The Limes. When I think of The Limes I think of my Grandad sat with a pint of ale watching the crown green bowling. A pub situated between two estates and some of the older streets in the town. It stood outside of the town centre but only a short walk away. It possessed its own microclimate and served its own community, although sadly times changed and it was recently demolished. The crown green overgrown and surrounded by rubble.
Now Sandbach has at least one microbrewery and the beer emporium sells brews from around the world from the finest breweries there are.
My nephew is 19 and drinks in some of the same places I used to, times have changed, tastes have moved on. This is definitely a big improvement from drinking slops.