A Beer With My Dad At Ye Olde Greene Manne

A Memory of Batchworth Heath.

In the distance you can see Ye Olde Greene Manne pub on Batchworth Heath. My Dad and I sat in the pub garden and drank beer one hot summer's day in 1965 and my mum took a photo of us together which I treasure as a lovely memory. Can you believe we were wearing tweed sports jackets, coloured shirts and ties on a hot day! I suppose that was fashionable then. I just wish the old beer prices were still in fashion; as I recall it was one shilling and ten pence for a pint of bitter. Mind you Watney's Red Barrel and Inde Coope's Double Diamond were all you could get locally in those days. The quality and choice of beer have both gone up dramatically over the last 40 years but so have the prices. Sadly my Dad died in his mid 60's so I had very few opportunities to visit pubs with him but this visit to Batchworth Heath sticks in my memory as a very jolly occasion for us both even though at that time I was a bit of a shy 20 year old! Since then I have returned to the pub on numerous occasions and look forward to taking my own son and granddaughter there in the future. On some recent visits I have visited with the Whitethorn Morris Dancers as I often play my accordian for them. These days there is a crowded car park and a busy main road outside so it seems quite unlike either this view or my memories of the lovely pub garden back in 1965!