The Lyndhurst

And so back to The Lyndhurst, possibly the most inconsistent of all Reading pubs thanks to its avaricious big pubco owner.

At its heart it is a local and my mate G had just the previous week met up with his cadre of ex Microsoft colleagues for a massive reunion there which seemed to go quite well.

But at a time when after work drinks is but a past memory beyond such reunions, it is local drinkers who keep pubs like The Lyndhurst going, and the East Reading enclave known as 'The Village' is spoilt with three 'locals'.

This is, unfortunately, a Stonegate pub. Part of the same debt ridden group as the Slug & Lettuce and Yates et al. Which explains the turnover in landlords which thankfully seems to have stabilised with the current incumbents.

Somewhat ironically, we were in The Lyndhurst for Sunday lunch before going on around the corner to The Retreat for its 150th birthday celebration (which is quite an achievement for a boozer these days, albeit a few centuries behind reading’s oldest pub, The Rising Sun).

As many of you will know, beyond the odd pickled egg, The Retreat never has and never will do food. It is, and always will be, a local boozer, so we opted to dine at The Lyndhurst before an afternoon of more drink, music and conviviality.

It is extraordinary that The Retreat, The Lyndhurst and The Elgin (on and off) are able to exist within a few hundred yards of each other. Especially when there is a Spoons a few hundred yards away on Kings Road. Good for them, and long may it continue.

So, here we are. Back at The Lyndhurst once more for more than a drink.

Sometimes when you meet an old friend you can reminisce but you realise that things just aren't the same. Your shared love of Deep Purple and Ginny in class 5B isn't there any longer - and so it is with pubs and restaurants. Many of us have fond memories of the scotch egg and Korean burger and the great Sunday lunches when Sheldon and Dishon ran the pub (where are they now ?). They were always going to be a tough act to follow.

The pub went through unpopular owners and the current g'vnors seem to want to be broader not deeper, which is fair enough.

We walked into the decisive round of Formula 1 on the screens (they have Sky and TNT). A Brit went round and round in circles faster than anyone else and won a championship, apparently. I have long lost any fleeting interest I had in that 'sport', so we found a table away from the two large screens and caught up with G’s latest exploits and travel (Milan, where I once had a business, gave us somewhere to compare notes following his recent visit).

There were families and a couple enjoying a Sunday lunch and the place was full, if not heaving.

The newish owners seem to be making a good go of things, although I cannot see how they can be generating more revenue for their rapacious owners than the previous displaced incumbents did.

The food was adequate to good - G and I went for the turkey meal, it being December. My family, being Frenchish have a Capon on Christmas Day, which leaves me bereft. I love the massive dry meat from a turkey - more for its tradition than anything else, I suspect - so I jumped at this opportunity to make up for lost Christmas meals…

Here, the meat was carved from a block, the gravy was pleasant, the carrots and parsnips honeyed, sprouts shaved, Yorkshire pud a bit dry and disappointing, toasties barely roasted, stuffing OK and a nice pig in its blanket...

We bumped into my neighbour Liz and she joined us, having the chicken roast which seemed equally decent. Liz comes here for lunch every Sunday after church and I must admit that I will probably become more of a regular when a Sunday roast calls, rather than traipse across town to The Rising Sun.

Service was stretched but competent and friendly. It just all seemed like a step down from what used to be here and all three of us were somewhat sentimental for those bygone days of our past. But times move on, and The Lyndhurst is open and thriving and we can only be grateful for that these days. Shamefully, I have stopped really going out to any local pubs recently, but enjoying my Sunday lunch in good company with a decent Double Barrel Plum, I realised that I am the problem and, contrary I suspect to many of you, undertook to make January a month to support our local boozers.

Indeed, it is time for all of us to support our local pubs and accept them for what they are and what they are trying to do - give us a convivial place to meet and mingle with friends and our local community. If you don’t drink, go for a coffee, or a soft drink and a burger. If we don’t use them, we will lose them…

On that note we continued our mini pub crawl around the corner where The Retreat was heaving with a Beatles cover band playing in the corner. So here’s a personal thanks to Brian and Di and everyone who keeps our locals going in the face of endless challenges.