Richard Hamer

This is an article I wrote for the Bradford Camra magazine Tyke Taverner back in summer 2008. A fair amount has happened to the town’s pubs since then so I guess an update is due at some point.

An Otley Crawl, by Richard Hamer.

It’s been a few years since Tyke Taverner venture into Otley, which is one of those towns synonymous with pubs; currently numbering 15 in the town centre alone and all serving hand pulled beer. However, our trip starts a few miles away at the recently rebuilt stone slab-by-stone slab Dyneley Arms, at the top of Pool Bank. Read more…

I think it’s pretty fair to say that when we first start drinking our first quaff is usually – for men at least – some kind of beer. That first taste is not always a pleasant one; bitter is called bitter for a reason, but nonetheless we persevere and before we know it our taste buds yearn for more.

So you’ve got your taste for beer, and for many this is seen as a rite of passage from a being a teen to becoming a man, but for some reason all this can change for many people when they reach 30.

For some unaccountable reason a lot of the male population suddenly decide that beer is not for them, it has to be wine and before they can say sommelier, or even spell it, they are reading the wine columns in the weekend broadsheets and pestering the young assistant in their local off-licence for this or that bottle. Read more…

If Carlsberg made walking jackets… they certainly wouldn’t make the North Face Venture.

According to the marketing material this £95 jacket is a “highly technical, rainwear piece, engineered to withstand wilderness storms and styled for everyday use. It is made from Hyvent DT, a waterproof, breathable fabric with an interior tactile microdot print. Separates fabric from skin and channels moisture away”.

Sure it’s nicely styled and well made, but even with pit zips you’ll sweat like a mod in his parka trying to look cool on Brighton beach in July. Read more…

From the Independent, 8 June 2005.

At lunchtime, the Otley branch of HSBC is a hive of activity. On the pavement outside, a writer stands with a carrier bag which is bulging with copies of his latest novel. He’s attempting to engage with a Londoner in his mid-30s, who is fidgeting uncomfortably under close questioning.

“Hello. Would you like a book?”
“No, you’re alright, mate.”
“It’s free.”
“No, seriously, I don’t want it.”
“I wrote it. Go on, you might like it.”
“I don’t really read books, so it would a bit of a waste of time.”
“You could sell it on eBay and buy beer instead.”
“Nah, you’re alright, no thanks.”
“You sure? Do you know anyone else who reads books?”
“No.”
“Oh. What, no-one?”

Read more…

When I lived in Cambridge at the tail end of the 1990s I only had to work every other Friday on account of working late the rest of the week, or at least Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday; and having to be in the office one-in-every four weekends.

Having every other Friday off meant:

1. Being able to drink heavily on Thursday without having a hangover at work the next day. However, that’s not strictly true. My last few months in Cambridge were spent in a shared house with two other guys, one of whom I worked with – which is how I got to know there was a spare room going, and it proved a pretty good way of car sharing. It just so happened though, that these alternate Friday weren’t synched which mean that if I was working my workmate wouldn’t be able to go drinking in Cambridge on the Thursday evening; and vice versa. As if! It’s fair to say that whoever had to go to work on the Friday would make lots of noise around the house in the morning; but if you were lucky enough to be the one not working, lots of noise didn’t matter; the duvet could shield that quite nicely, thank you.
2. You got to have a really long weekend, with Friday being a novelty as most people would be working, and if you had to do some shopping you’d miss out on the bun fight that is Saturday. Read more…

Once upon a time there’s was a  little old town in the west (Yorkshire, that is) by the name of Otley. Not only was it the birthplace of Thomas Chippendale, Mike Tindall and the Wharfedale Printing Machine (which revolutionised the printing industry), but it was said to have more pubs per head of population than anywhere else in England. Of course, that all depended on who you believed, especially as there doesn’t seem to be a Guinness World Record on it.

One thing that is certain, even now, is that Otley does have a lot of pubs for its size. And if we go back to summer 2006, there were 15 pubs within the town centre, (two on the fringes) as well as four bars, a working mens’ club, the Labour Club, RAOB Club, the Conservative Club and the Catholic Club. Phew, I bet you’re thirsty after taking all that in?

Then it all started to change but before that, here’s a little story. Read more…