The Talbot Inn - Mells

Ahhh, The Talbot Inn, Mells. Spit, sawdust, cloudy cider and beer-battered fighting men. Scampi and chips served in a basket, warm Butcombe and the ammonioid stench of outside ‘piss against the wall’ toilets. Football, pool, skittles, darts and shove’apenny gladiators proudly competing at the very pinnacle of work-stained, inter-village man-stuff. Weekly pay cheques nonchalantly wagered on single blind hands of three card brag, followed of course by the inevitable crunch of flat-broke knuckle on already broken nose. They were great days.

The main bar and adjacent pool-room were the beating and bleeding heart of The Talbot. It was passionate, hierarchical, sticky, incestuous, protective, warm, hostile, vital and inspirational. Legends drank there, both men and boys. The Oxford Bar on the other hand, was the painfully pretentious posh bar. Men with strange accents, tweed waistcoats, big newspapers and semi-important cigars would discuss Scotch, rugby and each other while their wives nattered, conspired and ordered supper politely. The Scampi came on a plate in The Oxford Bar. The Snug Bar sat uncomfortably between the two and served the lost, the lonely and the transient, in a basket beside the fire. They smelt of soft drugs, oil paint, newsprint and garlic. We would go there occasionally for a taste of obscurity and tales of far away places and past glories. They didn’t eat Scampi in The Snug Bar.

Forty years on and my, how things have changed! Only The Oxford Bar remains for the thirst-quenchers and post-pugilists, everywhere else is wall-to-wall dining tables for those without mortgages. It has all been very tastefully done of course, formulaic and predictable as if straight from the ‘How to market a Gastro-pub’ free downloadable handbook, with everything perfectly dotted, crossed, primped, pruned and plumped.

I’d been invited to lunch there with a very special mortgage-free friend, as a birthday treat. Mells was sparkling in the mid-July sunshine, and every available parking space, from Vobster to Great Elm, was double-parked with uninspiring and mind-numbingly dull German things. And the streets were fluid with a fashion show of pink shorts, deck shoes, upturned-collar polo shirts, flimsy floral dresses, bra-less sandals and San Tropez spray-tans – while bare-footed, ice-cream smothered, feral children wreaked havoc on the weak and vulnerable.

Walking in through the Talbot’s arched and cobbled entrance, it became immediately clear that any nostalgic connections to its glorious past had been deliberately and efficiently deleted. Other than the dog hanging over the arch, it had been stripped, sanitised and anonymised. Most of the fighting men were dead and the lost and lonely were online. The toilets still stank of piss but now has a heater and soap. The cigars were even less important and the strange accents were on the other side of the bar. There was however, one tiny and tenuous connection remaining; we were welcomed by our ‘host’ with an exquisitely west-country accented “Ello me luvvlies!” That felt good.

We decided to share a starter and went for the Brixham Crab Mac & Cheese. It was predictably under seasoned and the macaroni was so over-cooked it had the texture of a soggy Farley’s Rusk. We rummaged around amongst the stodgy pasta in search of any kind of crab evidence and found nothing more than some micro-plastic sized specs of crustaceous crumb. It was Mac & Cheese with essence of crab that had been sat stewing in a warm oven since the previous Tuesday.

Mains for us both were to be roast beef, Lyons Hill Farm rare breed topside to be precise. And it was stunning. A mountainous pile of perfectly pink, well hung and aged slabs of medium-rare cow protein that was melt-in-the-mouth tender and delicious. It was accompanied by some equally spectacular red cabbage, unbelievably raw greens, squidgy and anaemic carrots, some cauliflower slop, yorkies and the worst fucking roast potatoes I have ever cried over. If they weren’t re-heated leftovers from the day before, then they were re-heated leftovers from the day before that. Sinful. A little extra gravy, horseradish and mustard are available upon request.

We gave up on the desserts, just read the menu and guessed the rest. No doubt it would have been tooth-curlingly sweet and deliciously, instagrammably, sickly. We settled our bill and as we strolled out through the hallowed archway I took a final glance over my shoulder, cracked a half smile, enjoyed what once was, and accepted what now is. The cider-soaked fighting footballers and fried-fish in baskets should rightly remain in nostalgic, hungover history. It’s just such a shame that the stories, characters and rose-tinted memories have been scrubbed away and painted over in Farrow and Ball Tik-Tok grey.