{"id":1843,"date":"2021-07-26T20:22:37","date_gmt":"2021-07-26T20:22:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/londondrinker.camra.org.uk\/wordpress\/?p=1843"},"modified":"2021-07-28T08:33:00","modified_gmt":"2021-07-28T08:33:00","slug":"letters-august-september-2021","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/londondrinker.camra.org.uk\/wordpress\/index.php\/2021\/07\/26\/letters-august-september-2021\/","title":{"rendered":"Letters – August\/September 2021"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

All readers \u2013 not just CAMRA members \u2013 are invited to submit letters for publication to London Drinker but please remember that the letters column is intended for debate and constructive criticism. The editor reserves the right not to print any contributions that are otherwise. Please e-mail letters to: ldnews.hedger@gmail.com<\/a>. Please state \u2018letter for publication\u2019 so as to avoid any misunderstandings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

MEMORIES OF THE VIPER<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I am one of your readers that does indeed appreciate your report of the development of the Viper in Mill Green. It reminds me that I knew it as a Truman\u2019s pub and we would always go for their pubs in preference to Gray\u2019s or Ridley\u2019s pubs, one of those being the Cricketers just up the road. Later, one of the Gray family broke with tradition and took an interest in brewing and improved their ales enormously. Unfortunately the need for investment in their estate to follow up on this meant that they were swallowed up by Greene King. Ridley\u2019s went the same way after experimenting with all sorts of eccentricities. I recall something called Tolly Cobbold that tasted like treacle during their dying days before Greene King got them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Earlier, Truman\u2019s enthusiasm for keg led to us adolescent reprobates moving on to other pubs. The Green Man in Edney Common wasn\u2019t saved from the keg plague and has recently been converted into a house. Then we moved to the Newney Green pub that Truman\u2019s called the Prince of Wales but we all knew as either the Drum & Monkey or the Kickin\u2019 Dickey. Mrs Porter served from stillages behind a bar that was the bottom half of the back door from the parlour to the lean to. It is now a restaurant, which makes the Viper\u2019s new landlord\u2019s reported commitment to keeping it as a pub encouraging.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Viper was famous as being the only pub of that name in the country and displayed letters from American airmen who had served at nearby Willingale airfield during the Second World War, addressed to \u2018The Viper, England\u2019. And one of my current round of locals is the Camel in Bethnal Green which also claims to be the only pub of that name in the country and What Pub? lists it as the only one. So it all comes round again\u2026
Nik Wood<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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All readers \u2013 not just CAMRA members \u2013 are invited to submit letters for publication to London Drinker but please remember that the letters column is intended for debate and… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":434,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1843","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-letters"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/londondrinker.camra.org.uk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1843","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/londondrinker.camra.org.uk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/londondrinker.camra.org.uk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/londondrinker.camra.org.uk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/londondrinker.camra.org.uk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1843"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/londondrinker.camra.org.uk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1843\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1972,"href":"https:\/\/londondrinker.camra.org.uk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1843\/revisions\/1972"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/londondrinker.camra.org.uk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/434"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/londondrinker.camra.org.uk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1843"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/londondrinker.camra.org.uk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1843"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/londondrinker.camra.org.uk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1843"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}