A Pint of Bitter: Anywhere but London…

Southwold

Strange: I spend most of my time in London, and will usually be writing London thoughts, dreamed up in London pubs; yet in this, my first piece for Anglotopia, nothing at all happens in London. The thoughts have been thought and the beer has been drunk elsewhere.

Lavenham, Suffolk

In Suffolk first, where I escaped in September with my girlfriend Francesca. Suffolk’s a lovely, varied county that looms surprisingly small in the English imagination. We stayed at Belchamp Walter, near Sudbury, a quiet corner of Suffolk, but with its attractions: we visited Gainsborough’s house in Sudbury itself, the place where the great 18th-century portraitist was brought up. His best work is elsewhere, notably at Tate Britain in London, but interesting early works are here as well as some later substantial paintings and temporary exhibitions. We spent another afternoon in Lavenham, a village with a incredible number of well-preserved early modern buildings in chocolate-box colours: yellow, pink and powder-blue. For some anglophiles, Lavenham is a dream of Ye Olde Englandde of longge aggoe. We found it a bit overly twee, to be honest, but  cream tea at the National Trust tea-room on the main square is good. Beer seemed rude, somehow, in Lavenham.

Fish and chips on Aldeburgh beach

From there to Aldeburgh and Southwold, two of the best coastal towns in England. Aldeburgh is the smaller, a town made famous by Benjamin Britten, who lived here for many years and  immortalised the area’s fishing culture in his opera Peter Grimes. I recommend the Cross Keys pub (good beer, a traditional, quiet atmosphere and an outside yard with a view of the sea) but the must-do Aldeburgh experience is fish and chips on the beach – queue around the corner at the fish shop on the High Street, and sit on the pebbles watching the sky turn dim to the sound of the North Sea. Southwold is a little bigger, and more seasidey: you’re more likely to see ice cream being consumed on its sandy beach, and men in shorts drinking summer ale on the green outside the Red Lion. Beer is especially important, as Southwold is home to Adnams’ brewery, perhaps the most successful of England’s brewers to retain a distinctly local identity. Southwold has definite quirks, though: the lighthouse is worth a visit, as is the amazing Sailor’s Reading Room, filled with salty memorabilia and photographs of old sea-dogs. You could do worse than finish your evening at the Lord Nelson, the centre of Southwold life, just behind the Reading Room.

The Lord Nelson, Southwold

The transition from summer to autumn is a marked in England by a series of ritual events: the last night of the Proms, the whimpering close of the cricket season and the political conference season. At Bournemouth, the Liberal Democrats seized attention by promising a “mansion tax” on houses worth more than a million pounds, a policy that would astonish most Americans with its popularity here. Labour were at Brighton, where Gordon Brown – now safe in his embattled leadership and sure to lead the party into the election next spring – surprised most observers by giving a slightly less laboured platform speech than usual, and by showing a little more inspiration. Brown is a compelling figure of tragic proportions. No one doubts his intellectual power and political strengths: Brown is like FDR mixed with LBJ, a towering, visionary party bully with deep commitments, nursing profound feuds. Can he possibly hold on to power next year? No one here thinks so except Brown himself. Labour is well behind in the polls, hovering round historic lows, and Brown seems a cursed figure, able to do nothing right. Don’t count him out completely, though. Brown’s sheer resilience should never be forgotten, and it will not be over until he’s dragged physically from his Downing Street bunker.

Away from the seaside, Conservatives gathered last week in Manchester. Their leader David Cameron shows few signs of euphoria – and wisely. Though universally expected to be Prime Minister next year, he does not inspire great enthusiasm among the public, who are more tired of  Labour government then they are thirsting for the Tories. Cameron and his shadow chancellor George Osborne took risks by revealing some of their plans to tackle Britain’s big debt and deficit – they will raise the state pension age to 66 more quickly than under current government plans, for instance. Gordon Brown now has something to attack – and he will. The Tories did, though, deftly retreated from their pledge to raise inheritance tax thresholds, a policy that would have helped the richest most. That pledge was perhaps their weakest point, and has been downgraded to an aspiration.

The Grandé Lounge at the Philharmonic, Liverpool

Francesca and I followed the Tories to Manchester – this weekend we spent Saturday among the crowds of shoppers in King Street and St. Ann’s Square. Recession? What recession? The stalls at the Manchester Food Festival seemed to be doing fine business. Sunday took us to Liverpool, and its amazing cathedrals at either end of Hope Street. The Anglican building is an amazing edifice, massive and staggering in its scale. The Catholic cathedral is a sixties affair, more interesting as a historical piece than in itself, perhaps, but a landmark of Liverpool nonetheless. Our last stop was Liverpool’s third cathedral – the Philharmonic, also on Hope Street, and one of England’s historic pubs. We sat in the absurdly named but fabulous Grandé Lounge at the back, drinking a toffee-flavoured Hallowe’en brew. This weekend at least, Autumn tasted fine in Liverpool.

I promise you relentless London, next time.