The Cat and Fiddle

The Archers
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Me again!

I’ve been trawling the internet to do more research for my article. I’ve come across the fact there was a rival pub to the Bull: The Cat and Fiddle.

I understand this is defunct now and turned into flats, is that right?

But does anyone remember if they served Shires there?

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I think the Cat and Fiddle was in Darrington the neighbouring village and cricket rival to Ambridge where the Archers is set

I do not know if they were a rival brewery’s tied house or not

I hope Fanta will be more help

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Since the landlord of the Cat played for and was even the captain of the Ambridge team I think it unlikely that he lived in Darrington. It was local enough for Eddie to shift there whenever he got banned from the Bull, and Kate to work there and be utterly unreliable. But like the garage, it was never put onto a map of the area as far as I know.

Nothing whatever comes to mind about the beer they served, though.

It’s possible that there are people with longer memories than mine whom you could ask:

There is a board called Mustardland or Peet’s which has been going for a while, at Mustardland - Mustardland They might be helpful. And you won’t have to join the board, because it accepts Guest posts.

umra also has long-memoried people at it. Not sure how easy it is to post there, but they are at https://uk.media.radio.archers.narkive.com/

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uk.media.radio.archers is a USENET newsgroup; that site is just a read-only archive of it. Full access to USENET makes some minor technical demands of the user (see https://www.eternal-september.org/ for a decent free option).

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Wasn’t The Cat and Fiddle they used to joke about on the old BBC messageboard, that it clearly had legs as it wandered about the county in similar fashion to Ambridge’s ambulatory spare bedroom?

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Sounds likely. There were occasional clues, but they were incompatible.

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I think the Cat and Fiddle was run by a gay couple, much to Sid Perks disgust.

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Sean Myerson and Peter Surnameless.

Sid’s disgust at the time didn’t seem to be all to do with homosexuality that we heard, and everything to do with Sean being his rival in the matter of cricket; I think the homophobia was grafted on later.

Meanwhile, the Cat and Fiddle: I have come across word of an interview with Vanessa Whitburn in which she said the Cat was “opposite the garage on the turning onto the (I forget the road number, started with 199)”, which would make it outside the village somewhere because all the roads through the village have no numbers on the map. My guess would be the A1992, which runs from Borchester to Hollerton west of the village, though Sean went off to play for Darrington after he gave up the captaincy of Ambridge, and I can’t see that as being a place he’d have been accepted to play for them if he didn’t live on the Darrington side of the village, ie to the east.

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Sean and somebody?

ETA: not only uninformative but also slow off the mark…

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Wasn’t VW’s forte being uninformative and a bit behind normal folk?

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