Saturday 23 March 2013. I wasn't due to touch the guitar for a few hours yet, but as we left the hotel bedroom to go for breakfast I gave it a reassuring pat.
Breakfast was buffet style interspersed with grunts as various Billy weekenders staggered bleary eyed into the dining room and exchanged early morning coughs and greetings. The Hind at Wellingborough puts on a good breakfast and the staff were kept busy refilling tea and coffee jugs which we used to sustain ourselves whilst the teaspoons were put to good use propping eyelids back...
The hotel car park as seen from our bedroom. It would once have been stables and Peter and Shelagh had a room onto the courtyard and had to trot (sorry couldn't resist that!) through the snow to get to breakfast. We got oats (coats!!! Stop it with the horse thing!!!) and ventured out, the women doing boring things like shopping whilst we chaps trudged through the snow to have a look at the church.
All Hallows, Wellingborough, dates from the late 1200s though almost everything in sight is from the 1500s. Following the Restoration of King Charles II the minister, Thomas Andrews, was forced to leave presumably for refusing to take the oath after the Act of Uniformity. Soldiers in the town would often plague him and there was even a (foiled) plot to stab him in his bed and local Quakers would heckle him during sermons. Altogether not a happy time.
Statue of the Madonna with child in a niche over the south door. The porch contains some nice carvings.
We met up with Fran, Jeannie and Shelagh in Costa Coffee. I used to enjoy having coffee served in cups with saucers - it meant you could rest more than once in a morning but current portion sizes make that a hazardous undertaking following the disappearance of so many public conveniences...
Then we braved the shopping precinct for a while. Here's a sign of the times. We were a little too late to catch many bargains as there wasn't much left that was worth spending money on. Set that against the fact that the only place where a bomb fell on Wellingborough was the future site of MacDonalds - if we were too late, Hitler should have left it another 65 years or so... Sorry MacDonalds, but I still think fondly of Wimpy - and even more fondly of burgers stacked on a griddle surrounded by fried onions, where the only things to go with them on the bun were tomato sauce or mustard. Salad, pah...
We braved the shops for as long as was decent and proper, then went off to look for somewhere to go for an early evening meal before the evening gigfest started back at the Hind Hotel. It quickly became obvious that no one eats before 6:00pm in Wellingborough and if they do then they do it at the Hind Hotel...
However we did find Ye Golden Lion where Ye Ancient David had Peter and I stand for a photograph, ignoring our plaintive cries of the need for sustenance and the coldness of the nethers due to draughts up the trousers...
There is something immensely reassuring and calming about an old pub with dark low ceilings and wooden beams - even more so if it has a pretty barmaid!
"Are you CAMRA members?" she asked as we made individual choices from the row of pumps. No... drinking should never be taken too seriously!
David is perhaps a CAMERA member - he took this one of Peter and my good self even before taking a sip...
I waited a good few slurps before returning the favour! Mine is the darker beer on the left - another thing I bemoan is the loss of dark mild beers to the 70s giddy rush towards lager. Bass Charrington's Best Mild was a thing of beauty, almost as dark as Guinness and with a creamy head that graced many a moustache...
We complimented the landlady and the pretty barmaid as we left and the landlady showed us the minstrel's gallery in another part of the pub. As minstrels ourselves we appreciate things like that, but now we must get back to the Hind and sort out some food before it's time to minst ourselves at the Billy Fury weekend's main event. Next!
