Blackburn town centre brewery, Daniel Thwaites, was invaded by travellers over the Spring Bank holiday weekend.
Several parched itinerants, on their way to Appleby for the annual horse fair, said they were desperate for a pint of Original Bitter. But they couldn’t find a pub in Blackburn town centre which sold it.
They thought it would be a good idea to start searching for nearby pubs around the brewery itself, so decided to park their caravans, cars and other vehicles on Thwaites’ car park. Their first choice at looking for a pint was Uncle Tom’s Cabin, for obvious reasons, but they found it wasn’t being used as a pub any more. Their luck was tried around the other side of the brewery, at the Veteran, but this pub had been closed down too.
Things were starting to get desperate when they next found the Fleece Inn boarded up. And the last straw, which broke the Shire horse’s back, was finding out Daniel’s was now a training centre. Out of sheer desperation the travellers decided to invade Star Brewery and try and get in touch with a bloke called Crafty Dan, whose name they liked and they had heard was based somewhere inside.
But it wasn’t to be for these travellers this bank holiday weekend. Crafty Dan was nowhere to be found and neither were the famous dray horses, who they had also wanted to meet – with their jam jars at the ready. After all, they were on their way to a horse fair and it wasn’t just the system they wanted to milk.
And so these travellers had to settle for a night in their caravans watching telly, having to settle for cocoa and Horlicks. They proved they couldn’t manage to organise their own piss-up in this brewery. These unhappy wanderers were told Thwaites do still have outlets in Blackburn town centre and they could get a pint of Original in the Sun. But they declined this offer, saying they had heard this pub might be a bit too rough for them.
Thwaites, quite rightly, are angry about what happened to their brewery over the bank holiday weekend. Taking away people’s jobs and livelihoods is very unfair and drinkers should be given the opportunity to enjoy beer in their local pub.
On the bright side, at least we now know not all of Thwaites’ licenced premises have a restrictive covenant in place.