It was suggested to me back in January that we should have a visit to a brewery as this year’s outing. And so the seed was planted, as they say.

After looking around and making tentative enquires for potential visits, we decided on Weston Cider Breweries at a place called Much Marcle in Herefordshire.

I made enquires as to costs and duration of tour and tasting, and then put this out to the social group for consideration. This was welcomed, and after a count up of interested persons, I went ahead and organised collection of monies to pay for the tour and tasting. The booking was made and monies paid, initially for 36 people. This number gradually increased to 41. However, due to one reason or another, final number on the day was 29.

We had to book a coach for this trip, and with great help from Leigh Tucker our coach organiser, this was done at a cost of £600. We are thankful to RMC for its kind donation of £250 towards the cost of the coach.

We then had to organise a schedule, this was done by the very competent Alan Davis who has organised this on several previous occasions. However, we did encounter problems, one being the driver’s hours, something which I had not even thought about!  Obviously this had to be addressed, consequently the schedule had to be redone. Owing to other tour decisions, the schedule was changed again (thank you Alan).

I then decided to look around and see what other venues people would be interested in.

After searching, I came up with a visit to a steam rally that was being held on the same weekend as Westons cider tour, and only half an hour away at a little place called Welland. This then went into our tour schedule.

To complete our day, I then enquired at a nearby pub in the lovely Upton on Severn called The Kings Head,to see if they would accommodate us in the evening, which they did! So, our day’s schedule was complete.

Timings were all done and people were waiting for the coach to arrive. Please bear in mind that our time slot at the brewery was 12.30. The coach’s first pick up point was 10 am, then travelling down towards Newport. I’m at my pick up stop waiting when I had a call from Alan, “Where is the ***** coach?” Apparently, the coach was waiting at a different location!! Anyway, after a couple of frantic phone calls the coach arrived a little later at the first pick up point. I’m happy to report that with everyone’s cooperation the coach completed all local pickups towards Newport. We then had to make a loop and go to Pontypool to collect two more choristers who were waiting for us. From this point we then travelled to Abergavenny to collect the final chorister, George Morgan, who was also waiting!

We then proceeded onwards towards our first port of call, Weston’s Brewery at Much Marcle.

Our thanks to our driver for the day “Rocky“, who was brilliant, and gelled with all. We arrived on time for our tour.

The tour was very interesting, and I’m sure we all learned a great deal about the cider-making process, from a selection of apple trees then harvesting through to pressing and storage and the blending process.  I was really surprised at the variety, and different strengths of alcohol they produce, the strongest being 8.5% down to 0.5%. The tour came to an end with the tasting, and this was most enjoyable as we were given a fair selection of the ciders they produce. Some were better than others as I’m sure you will agree. It’s a personal thing.

Cider tour done, so back on the coach for the half-hour jaunt to our second stop, the Steam Rally at Welland.

When making enquires about this venue, I asked about coach parking, “No problem, plenty of room“. Well, when we arrived, we must have been the only coach they had seen because we struggled to get parked. However, Rocky did us proud.

We also employed the services of our ticket negotiator, Cliff James, who did us proud and got the entrance fee dropped from £16 to £10. A fantastic result!

We made our way into the grounds of the steam show, many could not believe the size of the show ground and the vehicles, large and small. There were numerous other things to see, not just steam engines, but models of all kinds, including vintage cars and lorries, far too many to list here. Needless to say, we somehow congregated in the liquid refreshment area where we had several cups of “tea“, as you do! The time had then come to get back to our coach, a ten minute walk. On the coach then for the ten minute trip to Upton on Severn where we all met up in the pub for more “teas“!

This was a lovely location situated right on the River Severn. We all reminisced about our day and mixed with some locals who really enjoyed our enthusiasm about our day out.

We sang a few songs, which went down really well with locals and visitors alike .We were lucky in that the weather stayed kind to us.

At last, it was time to go home, this came around in a blink of an eye.

Rocky, our fantastic coach driver got all of us home in one piece and shall I say, well lubricated.

I would like to say a big thank you to everyone for their total cooperation on the day, making it a most enjoyable trip.

And once again to Rocky, who looked after us all so well.

Mike Sullivan: Baritone