St Helens

Four pubs from across England have been named as finalists for CAMRA's National Pub of the Year 2026.

Battling it out for the prestigious title are the Turk's Head in St. Helens, Merseyside, The Countryman's Inn in Hunton, North Yorkshire, The Cockpit in Chislehurst, London, and the Tamworth Tap in Staffordshire.

The Tamworth Tap is hoping to make history by winning the award for a record-breaking fourth time, while The Countryman's Inn and Cockpit are both first-time regional winners.

CAMRA says the four finalists have demonstrated just how important great pubs are to their local communities, despite the ongoing challenges facing the hospitality industry.

Or Perth

... was it St. Helens that did it three years in a row, but then they beat the Panthers 'cause the Panthers were shit and they came out here-

Yeah

... and rolled them fucking two or three times fucking-

It's like, how fucking shitty are you cunts? Like-

Yeah

... you can't even beat fucking St. Helens in your own country.

So why we gotta go there in the cold then? You know what I mean? Like...

Our next story is called Save the Baby.

One afternoon in January of 1978, a woman named Janet Whittle sprinted across a hospital parking lot in St Helens, England.

With her was her husband, Paul, who was clutching their three-month-old baby, Lisa, close to his chest.

As soon as they reached the hospital, the doors to the ER slid open, and Paul began yelling for a doctor because their baby, Lisa, was not breathing So just a few minutes ago, Janet had been at home in the nursery, and she had been feeding and burping Lisa, and then she had set Lisa down in the crib just for a minute while she went to the kitchen to, to wash up.

Americans were rightly impressed to learn that it was already 275 years old when Christopher Columbus discovered their continent, that it was older than Westminster Abbey, and that the son of Gráinne Whale, Mayo's pirate queen, was buried in its churchyard.

As the donations flowed in, including a weekly postal order to the value of two shillings and six pence from a devout old-age pensioner in St. Helens, Lancashire, the restoration works began in earnest.

Journalists from all four provinces, as well as reporters from Radio Tel Aviv Sharon and Life magazine in the US, descended on Balintubber to report on what was happening.

In 1965 alone, the Abbey, which was still a building site, received 20,000 visitors.