Jeremy Clarke Jeremy Clarke

Getting deliberately and totally drunk in Watchet

issue 11 May 2013

Next morning, Sunday, up early. I must have been the only person at the Butlins music festival minus a hangover. Day three, and I was yet to hear a live musical note or get myself an altered consciousness. I walked into town along the promenade feeling ever so noble. Perhaps I might go to church, I thought, and underline my great goodness. I savoured an image of my new pals, hands on hips, indignantly saying to me, ‘So where were you last night?’ And my answering, ‘I had an early night.’ And them saying, ‘And today? Where were you today?’ And me saying simply, ‘Church.’

The sea was flat and grey. Other festival-goers, cold and crapulent, were slouching grimly into town, as though on a forced march. The promenade ran out near a quaint old railway station. I was surprised to see one. I’d imagined that the hills of Exmoor were a barrier to every line of communication except the unbelievably stoney, winding road that had brought me here.

I crossed the road to see if it was still functioning. The booking office was a homely, pre-Beeching affair, smelling of fresh paint and coal smoke. A loud whistle. A train was about to leave. A steam train. ‘Don’t worry about a ticket,’ said a man in a peaked cap with an unguarded, unhurried, perhaps pre-Beeching air. ‘Buy one on the train. No need to hurry!’ he called after me, as I broke into an anxious trot past the second-hand bookstall.

I climbed aboard and passed through the train as far as the buffet. The carriages smelled of dust and smoke. The few passengers on either side seemed to be of a type: mild, elderly, quietly ecstatic. The buffet was a fully stocked bar, with upside-down gin, vodka and whisky bottles, big ones, on prominently displayed optics. The counter was manned by a woman who looked as if she’d seen everything. I was terribly tempted by these magnificent spirit bottles, but it was 10.15 a.m., and I’m not Nigel Farage, peace be upon him.

I chose coffee and asked her where we were going. Bishops Lydeard, she said, an hour and a quarter away, with eight stops in between. I asked her whether she had any suggestions as to where I might get off. ‘Watchet’s nice,’ she said. So I went there.

Watchet, it turned out, is a tiny, ancient fishing port shielded from the outside world by the Quantock hills. The train stopped next to the harbour. I stepped down into dazzling sunlight and the crying of gulls. A noticeable absence of motor vehicles and the calmness of a quiet Sunday morning added to my strong impression of going further and further back in time. Thirty yards from the station was a tourist information office in what must once have been a fisherman’s cottage. The door was open. The man inside was standing among the racks of brochures and leaflets rolling a fag. He betrayed no emotion when I asked him about the times of the church services in Watchet. There was a handy ecumenical leaflet. Quickly scanning it, I saw I’d missed them all.

‘Where can I get a drink, then?’ I said, caving in suddenly. He led me outside and pointed to the doorway of a club not 20 yards away. ‘In there’s not bad,’ he said. ‘You’ll have to sign the visitors’ book. It opens at 12.’ He raised a flame to his fag and I got out one of mine and accepted his light. It was a peaceful, sunny spot and very pleasant to be standing there with this non-judgmental tourist information officer, smoking, chatting in a desultory manner, and gazing out over the sea at the opposite shore. I asked a further question, about whether Watchet was the Matchet of Evelyn Waugh’s Men at Arms. He knew the book. He knew it well. But he rather thought not. We smoked on. Then, risking losing what little confidence in my intelligence that he might have had, I said, ‘And what is that coastline over there? Is it Wales?’ I was quite correct, he said. Wales.

And then I went and ate ham, egg and chips in a tearoom that reminded me strongly of the one in Walmington-on-Sea where Captain Mainwaring goes for his lunch. And then I went to the little museum and put a quid in the wooden box beside the door. And by then it was midday. I went to the club, signed myself in, and got deliberately and totally drunk. I missed every train back to Butlins but the last. I went again to the buffet. ‘How was Watchet?’ said the woman behind the counter. ‘Fantashtic!’ I said. When I got back to the festival, however, and rejoined my new pals, they were having such a lovely time that I don’t think I was even missed.

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