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Well we were the nearest pub to the local cop shop and the cops on the six to two shift used to come in after their shift for the afternoon lock in and we always did a brisk trade.
Then one afternoon, I was on my own behind the bar and through the back door came a Chief Inspector, in uniform with a Sergeant, neither of whom I hadn’t seen before – I bricit thinking "sh1t we’ve been rumbled"
He must have seen the look of sheer panic on my face and he luckily took pity on me and told me they were just joining the guys for a beer.
The police are usually the last ones to worry about when you have lock-ins – indeed they are usually the first to join in.
Nice reminiscence, Paul – the Alma in Scarborough, all of a minute’s walk from the police station, enjoyed exactly the same sort of relationship with the fuzz during my time in the town.
gc
Jeremy Grayson. Son of immigrant. Adoptive father of two. Metadata librarian. Freelance point-to-point / horse racing writer, analyst and commentator wonk. Loves music, buses, cats, the BBC Micro, ale. Advocate of CBT, PACE and therapeutic parenting. Aspergers.
No wish or need to add to it other than point out that this regret at the perceived passing of the traditional pub and its associated culture is nothing new
And let’s hope that all this is a correction, Drone and not an extinction. I bet everyone here on the forum has a story, like paul and aaron, an intimate, funny, informative, knowledgeable, eye-opening and enlightening story about a pub and the times they’ve spent there. And the world is all the better for the stories.
Like the young uns in the park I mentioned last night (thanks for the kind words all), the world today seems to be all about the viscera and less about the brain. But maybe all this talk about the pub is making me nostalgic for the old days.
Very good points Max. Not the usual wishy washy sandal wearing stuff
Pubs have become far too ghettoised into age and even class groupings.
Clive, I’ve got to get to Sandown, Brighton, Great Leighs, Folkestone and Kempton AW (though II’ve seen the turf track), for course hopping purposes.
If the Monday Club ever met again down your way, I’l be the one wearing the Michael Foot issue donkey jacket and Che Guevara t-shirt.
Thanks anyway. Incidentally, people in my real life often disagree with my views – even in the voluntary sector – but I’ve got an unusual degree of support for the view that pubs brought the generations together and now the generations appear more ghettoised than ever. If the pub as a community centre is disappearing, this can only get worse.
If we can all see it, how come the powers that be cant?
dave jay
I can’t argue with you because you can’t see through that haze of cigarette smoke in front of you
I outlined 3 reasons why the pub trade is slowing down and you ignored all 3 – 4 years on in Ireland and pub trade is still on the slide but nobody, and I mean nobody, blames the smoking ban any more.
Dave jay,
You don’t seem to understand that when debating a point with someone,you usually listen as well as speak (or write, as the case may be)
Interesting thread with some good points raised.
I’ve never liked pubs that much and don’t you think people today have so many other things to do though?
Wall to wall television and internet, who wants to be bothered with going to a pub?As a young adult in the 1970’s/80’s, and from a London perspective, I remember them more as pick up places, knocking shops, along with Karaoke singers and awful drag acts to mask the fumbling and necking going on.
Now, young men can watch Babe stations on the t.v. so why bother with the local pub crumpet? The country pub tended to be snooty and aloof, perhaps less so today.
So we all see it differently.Earlier still, my village pub was used as a cache for the contraband, later distributed to a few village residents. Cigarettes, Alcohol and Watches I remember mostly as being the desired goods and the pub was at the centre of the goings on there. Woodbines were 2s 6d [that’s 2 and 6] in the shops and could be had a good deal cheaper down the old ‘King’s Arms’….
Most of us village children were always terrified of the local bobby knocking on the door.
I am referring here to a few old world pubs in small hamlets and villages along the Helford River in Cornwall, near Frenchman’s Creek of du Maurier fame, still involved in some kind of smuggling as late as the 1960’s although it was shipped in via other routes.
Pubs, historically, always been at the centre of all this I think, in that region.Dave jay,
You don’t seem to understand that when debating a point with someone,you usually listen as well as speak (or write, as the case may be)
I understand how a debate works. What you don’t seem to understand is that rather than come out and say someone is a guesser or an apologist, it’s sometimes more tactful to provoke them to further debate and quantify their position with some facts. One could then come to hold a different view to one currently holds and be a better person for it, enlightened, as they say.
Dave jay,
You don’t seem to understand that when debating a point with someone,you usually listen as well as speak (or write, as the case may be)
I understand how a debate works. What you don’t seem to understand is that rather than come out and say someone is a guesser or an apologist, it’s sometimes more tactful to provoke them to further debate and quantify their position with some facts. One could then come to hold a different view to one currently holds and be a better person for it, enlightened, as they say.
I think David Brady and his points have shown who is enlightened on this thread, and perhaps who isn’t.
If the Monday Club ever met again down your way, I’l be the one wearing the Michael Foot issue donkey jacket and Che Guevara t-shirt.
Not THE Monday club surely? Enoch Powell and all that? Not for me…
As for the dress code…
Everyone has to get to Sandown at some time. Even commies
Smoking out the myths of the ban
http://www.dublinpubs.ie/story.asp?id=50
Number of Pub Drinkers increased since smoking ban
http://www.ijms.ie/Portals/_IJMS/Docume … Clancy.pdf
Pub and restaurant workers are up to 40% healthier since smoking ban
http://www.dublinpubscene.com/thepubs/pubnews.html
Dave Jay
I can no more prove that the smoking ban isn’t affecting pubs any more than you can show me proof that it is – just because 40 pubs a week are closing doesn’t mean that the reason is because punters can no longer smoke in them. What was the figure for weekly closures before the smoking ban was introduced? The economic downturn has to be factored in here as well obviously.
I’m not saying that the smoking ban hasn’t had an effect on the number of people drinking in pubs in Ireland, but it has less of an effect than the 3 points I mentioned earlier, the big one being the fact that drink-driving is now seen as completely unacceptable in Ireland, whereas 5-10 years ago it was generally accepted as naughty but OK.
This has affected pubs in rural areas more so than urban areas, so an elderly farmer who lives out the country cannot now go for a few pints in the evening and drive home so he stays in instead. Some pubs are providing transport for these customers but inevitably, there will still be a fall-off in numbers frequenting pubs, especially in rural areas.
I’m a non-smoker but I go to the pub less now than I did 5 years ago – this has more to do with the cost of a night out and the fact that we (my wife and I) would rather go for a meal followed by 3-4 drinks in the local afterwards rather than sit getting pissed-up all night on a Friday night.
Other non-direct factors are also affecting the pub scene – the rise in violence in Ireland would be one, whereby the alcohol-fuelled violent tendencies of a large number of young men (and women) wouldn’t entice me to a local pub any more.
I think the pubs that are shutting down are mainly those that can’t get planning permission for a smoking area. I’m not impressed with those links DB, medical research and ‘come drinking in dublin’ web-pages could hardly be passed off as evidence.
The question still remains, is there a place for the pub in the brave new world? I think not.
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A picture of me and my friend have been put up in pubs across the coast for " taking large sums of money out the fruit machine " is their anything I can do under the data protection act?
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