Pole Fair Pub Crawl 2022 (Pt.1)

If you’re reading this now, and not before the event, which would be... err, before I actually wrote it, it’s obviously way too late to follow my lead and indulge in your own jamboree Corby Pole Fair Pub Crawl. Sorry guys, what can I say. June 3rd! It wasn't exactly a secret! All is not lost though. I would strongly advise that you keep this post on file, preferably backed-up on Audio Cassette or the Cloud or some such, because like rural Northants buses, there will almost certainly be another one along in 20 years time. In which case you'll be very well prepared.

Corby De Janeiro

Seriously though, how much can Corby Village and its marvellous pubs and club change in that time! The Doom Bar in the Cardigan Arms will likely be in easy swallow pill form by then obvs’ (no more than 6 a day, after meals, some side effects likely), but there’s little doubt that the Football will still be on the 120" Holo-Telly, and the shiny Corby Pub Servo-Bots will be as friendly and efficient as their (sadly obsolete) human counterparts, and they'll press your trousers for you. Just don't miss it next time, yes!

So, a once-in-twenty year pub crawl has got to be a pretty awesome one yes! Well this is Corby, you should know by now that awesome comes as standard. Because Pole Fair isn’t just ‘one’ of Corby’s big days out, it's 'the' Corby big day out! Historic, unique, reassuringly similar, slightly repetitive, though in a thoroughly nice way.

First though, let's get the big disappointments of the day out of the way. The tradition of Skittling for a Pig harks back to the early days of Village Fetes and Fairs. A kind of Meat Raffle if you like, from the days when owning and fattening your own succulent Piglet was regarded as something of a tasty working class status symbol. But try as I might I just couldn't track down this years Pole Fair Pork Playoff! It seems the event has snuffled underground, only open to a hardcore of in-the-know skittling locals. The swine!

The Skittles wasn't the only disappointment on the day. The long hoped for reopening of the Village Inn had sadly failed to materialise. This meant there were just the two (2) pubs, and a bonus club to visit in the village itself, a potentially shocking under-supply of beer on the face of it. Tomasz Schafernaker was forecasting queues. Heavy persistent queues building from all directions to give even longer queues in the afternoon. An early start seemed the sensible option...

Tradition dictates that dignitaries are borne aloft so as to beat the queues at the village pubs!

Not nearly as early as some folk though, with pubs opening at the crack of 6am for the all-important Proclamation, which was an hour or so too early for me. I'll catch it next time...

First major queue of the day was into the village itself (above), not a queue you'll see every day. Now I absolutely loathe queueing with a passion, and yet... It was actually a pleasure to shuffle along in this one, a delight to see so many people taking such a keen interest in Corby's ancient traditions, and ridiculously early opening hours.

A £1 toll for entry seemed entirely fair to me, particularly as it came with a lovely programme of events and a highly collectable Pole Fair 2022 ticket. These are changing hands on eBay for upwards of 35p now, but could go higher (or indeed lower)! The non-fungible token of the ticket collectors world I predict. Nevertheless, I'm hanging onto mine, the youngsters will be amazed when they see genuine paper in 2042 ("How do you turn it on?").

Queue? What queue!...

It seemed busy enough at 11am, though as it happens it really wasn't! Straight to the first pub of the day for a late breakfast refresher. The last time I was in the White Hart it was a Guinness and the promise of local cask from nearby Kettering. The first shock was that Rutland Morris had yet again beaten me to the bar by a clear hanky-length. Every single time! How the hell do they do it! As Pole Fair raged around the village, the locals of the White Hart clung limpet-like to their usual tables, eyed the growing bar queue nervously, and steadfastly watched the Cricket unfold on the telly. Just another Saturday afternoon...

Now I was relying on the White Hart to provide one of the only local real ales of the day, but it seems their dalliance with the cask has come to an untimely end for now. There was however some excited jingling coming from the Morris Men, "Try the Jute mate, it's really good". Oh lordy! The White Hart has only gone and gone Craft!...

Craft Jute Session IPA from Salt Brewery in London, nr Corby to be precise, a quantum leap forward in beeriness that moves Corby up to just above Nottingham, slightly below Manchester, in the 100 Beer Town's To Try Before You Die league table. So proud!

It is a nice beer too, typically super-refreshing hazy new world style IPA, pitched at entirely the correct 'sessionable' strength of 4.2% required for a 10.30am pint. By the time I returned for my next beer the queue had swollen alarmingly (left), and the Jute had just ran out awaiting a fresh barrel/keg/bag to come on. A good sign! Hopefully it'll continue selling like the clappers and I'll have another safe beery harbour in Corby village.

I went for a look around St John's Church, a rare opportunity to nosey around inside and learn about Corby’s equivalent of the Stone of Scone, (also available in the Church Hall, with Jam), the mighty Parliament Stone wot nobody seems to have heard of, more of which later. All very interesting but there was no bar to be found and I was running out of Jute, so onwards to the Cardigan Arms, at which point the random bumping into friends and acquaintances started in earnest.

Jim and Anne are ex-Corby, and old hands at the Pole Fair. I think Jim said this was his 6th, maybe 7th Pole Fair, I can't honestly remember. They knew the importance of joining a queue good and early, which they promptly did, a very long and slow moving one that snaked into the Cardigan's front Bar. I left them to it for a while and considered joining the queue for Scotch Pies at Hadden Butchers across the road (right). A Samba Band struck up and Creative Dance broke out nearby. I noticed that Jim had moved maybe a yard further forward toward the entrance at best. This wasn't going to get your trusty pub blogger watered. Time to track down the much anticipated Fly by Bar, which up to now I'd seen absolutely no sign of. Working on a reliable tipoff from another acquaintance from Market Harborough, I left the crush of the village and headed to the crush of West Glebe Park...

pt.2 coming quite soon. Meanwhile, see if you can join the dots and discover what the Village Inn was originally called...