The Home Counties town that’s ‘too posh for Wetherspoons’ is kidding itself

Don’t worry, Marlow – an £8 pint-and-a-burger meal deal at the popular pub chain isn’t a Bat-signal for reprobates, it’s the one thing that can still bring us all together, says Ryan Coogan

Residents of Marlow in Buckinghamshire are incensed at the prospect of a Wetherspoons opening on the town’s posh high street (iStock/PA)

The UK doesn’t have much to be proud of at the moment. But even when things are at their bleakest, there’s one thing we can always rely on. Something that is uniquely British, always there when we need it, and never more than a five-minute bus journey away: Wetherspoons.

It seems that not everybody shares my unique brand of national pride, though. Residents of Marlow in Buckinghamshire are incensed at the prospect of a Wetherspoons being opened on the town’s posh high street, raging that the pub chain will attract the “wrong sort of people” to the idyllic Hot Fuzz fever dream that is their lives.

Oh, I’m sorry – you think you’re too good for Wetherspoons? You think you’re too good to spend less than a tenner on a burger and a pint, and enjoy it in the company of hungover students at 11am on a workday? You think you’re too good for a pub chain that doesn’t play music – or for “cocktails” that consist of one alcoholic spirit and six different concentrated fruit juices stirred in?

Well… you’re probably right. But that’s sort of the point of Wetherspoons, isn’t it? It’s a great leveller, like sickness or love or death. To act like you’re somehow “above” it is laughable.

We’re all “above” Wetherspoons, until we’re not. Until we’re on a night out, and we’re too tired to party but not tired enough to go home. Until we only have £6.53 left in our pocket, but still aren’t quite drunk enough to feel like the night was worth it. Until we really, really can’t be bothered with a Tinder date, but we already agreed and it’s too late to cancel.

The idea that the pub will attract the wrong people to Marlow is very funny, because it implies the existence of a scenario where somebody would travel to a Wetherspoons, instead of simply going to the one two minutes from their own house. It isn’t a Bat-signal for reprobates, urging them to come from far and wide and mess up your town. It’s just a slightly cheaper alternative to the Michelin star pub you already have there.

Listening to the residents, you’d think they were going to demolish a five-star restaurant and erect a pub called the Cock and Arson in its place. Don’t worry, guys, you’ll still have your boutiques and your bespoke coffee shops – an extra pub isn’t going to “spoil the demographic” of the town (let’s not speculate as to what that means).

Besides, every Wetherspoons is a little bit different. Maybe you guys can have the first ever respectable one. And you never know, if your town really isn’t “that kind of place”, I’m sure it won’t be there long for lack of business.

You should probably go in once, though – you know, just to check it out, make sure the right sort are in there. And better try one of those meal deals while you’re in there, just in case. I mean, they are very cheap, it’d be rude not to. Oh, look, they have Blue Moon on tap – I bet you weren’t expecting that. And for so much cheaper than it is across the street.

Oh no, it happened. You’ve become the “wrong sort of people”. But don’t worry though – most of us are.