WATCH YOUR LANGUAGE

ORGIES AND TRUMP

Your favorite world travelers haven’t been getting much further than Nantwich, Chesire in the United Kingdom lately and that’s quite okay. Family is involved of course and that makes it really easy to return here again and again. Yeah, I know, it’s a big world out there, and there is a lot to see, but Nantwich has become a second home and Janet has been kind enough to share her family with me.

Janet visits this little town, south of Liverpool and Manchester and a few miles east of Wales, about twice a year. Her daughter lives here now with her husband and young children. I don’t make it here quite as much, but I have become quite familiar with the town. I have been here enough that people are beginning to recognize me from the last visit.

The in-laws are wonderful and we adults go out often for a drink at the pubs.

NANTWICH

I’ve been here often enough to know lots of things about Nantwich. I know the town had been a center for salt cultivation dating from Roman times. I know that the people who live here are called “Dabbers” which may or may not have something to do with the tanning industry that once flourished here; it all depends on who you ask. I know a WWII American airman is revered here for putting the town before his own safety when he veered his troubled aircraft away from Nantwich and crashed in a nearby field and that there is a memorial to his brave sacrifice.I know there are several festivals and events in Nantwich that are well attended. There’s the Nantwich Cheese Awards, and The Worm Charming Championships (actually held just outside Nantwich in Willaston). There’s the Nantwich Jazz and Blues Festival and the Nantwich Food Festival. I know that the best fish and chips takeaway is found at Coral Reef on Pillory Street.

WHAT IS A DABBER?

INTERNATIONAL CHEESE AWARDS

WORM CHARMING CHAMPIONSHIPS

NANTWICH JAZZ AND BLUES FESTIVAL

NANTWICH FOOD FESTIVAL

THE HEART OF ENGLAND

Now, I am here like Janet to visit the kids. I love this precious family time in this lovely little town, but I have to admit I also look forward to going out to the pubs; although not necessarily for the beer, (I can’t keep up.) Pubs, short for public houses are the focal point of social life in England.  Men, women, children and dogs all gather at these drinking establishments for beer, cider, wine, sodas and food, games like darts and dominoes and pool. They gather at the pubs to watch games on the television. They pop in for a quick pint in the afternoon, or for an evening of 8 or 9. They go to free houses and tied houses. The free house pubs choose what beers they want to sell and the tied houses serve beer from a particular brewery. I’ve been to Nantwich so many times now that I’m a regular in a few of the pubs and this humble “Yank” is no longer a novelty. I’m just another patron.

In fact, just the other night at the Nantwich Club, located in the center of town right by the 14^th Century St. Mary’s church looming beautifully in the evening air, I was approached by an older woman who recognized me from the New Year’s celebration a couple of years ago as “the Yank”. She was waiting for a place at the dominoes table and she shook her shoulders as she sidled up to me and reminded me that on that night they got to “really rock and rolling.”  I feigned embarrassment and said, “Ah, jees….,” which she took to mean orgies. The rest of our time there she kept fawning over me. I may be a regular, but I still can’t speak the language properly. (I gotta work on my accent.) 

Indeed, many things are lost in translation, even though we are all speaking English, and over the years I’ve learned some “American” words that are commonplace are absolutely rude over here. The other day one of the kids was trying to climb on the front window sill of the house and I said his mom would get pissed if she caught him.... Janet said getting pissed means she's drinking. Well...I don't know if she needed a naughty boy as an excuse to start drinking, and I won’t go into the English interpretation of some other words, but you don’t really talk about “fanny” packs or “growlers” or “trumps” in polite company. 

Well, if you must know, “TRUMP” is the English word for fart.

St. Mary's Church, Nantwich

NANTWICH PUB CRAWL DAY #1

Team VFH visited family in northwest England over the Christmas holidays in Nantwich, Chesire, and as promised our time there brimmed with family and friends and featured hours of couch sitting and conversations, catching up with the in-laws and the kids, watching a lot of “Patrick TV” (Janet’s year old grandson) and plenty of trips to the area pubs. Before our departure for England Janet worried it would be a boring time for me, but I could not disagree more. Life is fleetingly short and days can be a blur and it was quite comforting to just let the days unfold for once. We often scurry about to get the most for our airfare, which for me was just over $1,000, but our pace in Nantwich was just perfect. There was some idle chatter about traveling to Chester, just to be tourists, but logistics got in the way and that destination thankfully dissipated. No, we basically hung around the Bereton Drive home of the in-laws, crawled our way to a number of pubs and began Sweet ’16 drinking and dancing at the Nantwich Club. As midnight loomed we all trundled out into the nearby square and listened to the bells of St. Mary’s Church chime in the New Year.

SHORT AND SWEET

I was in England for all of 6 days, with work constraints holding me back and I did not land until Monday. Janet was able to celebrate Christmas and Boxing Day with her extended family in England. Boxing Day is the day after the holiday and the day servants were traditionally finally able to celebrate the holiday with their family rather than waiting on their masters. Often the servants were sent home with boxes, containing gifts, bonuses and sometimes leftover foods… Now it’s really when all the after Christmas sales kick in, and a really great excuse to get drunk.

TIED AND FREE HOUSES 

As Boxing Day fell on a Saturday, the following Monday was the “bank holiday” and the “official” closing of everything….except the pubs. After I had a quick nap we embarked on our sojourn through to some of the favorites of our hosts. Janet had already gone out on Boxing Day, but was up for the challenge. … of course.

 

THE TALBOT

Our first stop was The Talbot Bar and Grill on Beam Street under the pretense to see a football/soccer game, but also to drink. The Talbot serves food and has musical acts and  mostly serves Marston’s Beers.

I’m not sure if The Talbot is “tied” to Marston's beer, meaning it was a public house or “pub” required to carry a particular brew, whether it was owned directly by the brewery and managed or mortgaged through the brewery or just a free house. It is too complicated for me to ponder such things for what is for me a difficult libation to quaff.

MARSTON'S BEER, UK

THE TALBOT NANTWICH 

BITTER ABOUT BITTERS

Served usually in 20 oz pints and weaker alcohol content and flavor than the current U.S. rage of hoppy IPAs bitters are good, for one. But, when you’re out on a pub crawl, especially on a long weekend holiday like this, you have to make a show of it. Truthfully though I could never drink like our hosts no matter what, but the filling, low alcohol bitters usually served gives me a bloated feeling more than a buzz. So I nursed the pint given to me and happily paid the next round.

A DABBER’S PARADISE

Despite all this carping on my part about the beer I thoroughly enjoy going out to the pubs in Nantwich. The atmosphere is pleasant and the company is great and I get to experience a Dabber’s life while out and about.

Like the whole bit about tied and free pubs the meaning behind Dabber is equally complicated. Suffice it to say that anyone born in Nantwich is a Dabber, whatever the hell that means, but being a Dabber-by-proxy is fun if not expansive.

To read about the complicated and convoluted history of the Dabber name, here is a great little article.

WHAT IS A DABBER? 

If you are interested in becoming a Dabber-by-proxy by managing a pub or mortgaging the property with a "soft loan" from the company; many of the main breweries have properties for your own franchise if not in Nantwich then somewhere in England. Here are current Marston opportunities:

MARSTON'S PUBS FOR SALE 

PROPER AND POSH

Well the game at The Talbot was an illegal feed and was buffering too slowly so we moved on to the recently renovated Vine on Hospital Street. It was crowded with a whole different selection of beer. I believe it once was a “tied” house, but is now “free”. The game was on a big screen though one had to feint and weave to catch a glimpse. One thing I noticed about crowded rooms in England is that the participants are very tactile, a trait somewhat unnerving at first for this “don’t-invade-my-personal-space” New Yorker, where another person can get within an eyelash of you, as long as they don’t touch! Colin, our host, clapped me on the back at one point while at the Vine and said this was a proper pub.

THE VINE NANTWICH

Later we trundled across the River Weaver to Welsh Row and The Chesire Cat, a posh bar, restaurant and inn. It was labeled as such by Colin. A former disco with weaving corridors and an open outdoor garden in the middle, the Chesire Cat had a lot of women inside. Many of the ladies were related to our hosts. Everyone remembered me from the kids’ wedding in 2011, though I just smiled broadly with every hello to cover up my faulty memory. The place was relatively empty of men, especially when compared to the crowd at the Vine. It was like the “he-man women haters club” was meeting there. 

THE CHESIRE CAT

Regardless, the “Cat” is set in a charming 17^th century building featuring the magpie design of many buildings in town.

We drank some more beer, but I couldn’t tell what it was and at this point I was drinking whatever they handed me.

THE CHESIRE CAT NANTWICH

Almost directly across Welsh Row from the Cat is the Black Lion and yet another place to drink. Julie’s father used to sing at the Black Lion years ago and we HAD to go. I had to kind of get pushed in because my belly got stuck in the door jamb, but I’m glad we stopped here. Very charming and cozy, the Black Lion is one of the oldest pubs in Nantwich, dating from 1664 and offered Weetwood Beers which included some ales as well as a number of “guest” beers. Deviating from the bitters was very acceptable to me. Our little group settled in at a table near a roaring fire and smiled contently. It was a really great stop.

THE BLACK LION 

BEERS AT THE BLACK LION

WEETWOOD ALES UK 

MUNCHIES

Differences in customs and cultures notwithstanding you have to eat, especially if you’ve been drinking! I remember fondly some street side suspect hamburger kiosk in Sarajevo while working the Olympics there. The “Big Mec” burgers were topped with yoghurt… I think. …

The Nantwich equivalent is Coral Reef, a takeaway fish and chips restaurant on Pillory Street. Brightly lighted and greasy smelling and serving up the best fish and chips and “proper” mushy peas! We’ve been there before and I was quite happy we ended our night with a cache of grub from this place.  

Now, everything in Nantwich is kind of near everything else in Nantwich. It’s not much more than a 10-15 minute jaunt from one end of town to the other, or if you’re like Colin 5-10 minutes… he does walk fast. We ended the night around the kitchen table devouring our still hot fish and chips and life just seemed like a Dabber’s Paradise.