It was with some distress that I learned last week that my local is in trouble and there are scheming, unpleasant, scumbag developers looking to get hold of the site and …………. turn it into retirement flats – genius.
Its funny, because we are so used to hearing in the news and trade press about pubs closing by the bucket load, (about 5 a day on average and 35,000 since 2005) that we have become immune to it by now, its not even news anymore – its a non story. That is of course until it happens to you and it’s your local, then it’s a cause for a real feeling of loss, a bereavement, another of lifes landmarks slips away.
The particular pub in question, the Saracens Head, (the “Sarries”) is not especially notable – it’s over a 100 years old, used to be a coaching inn complete with their own stables and is currently what I heard the manager refer to it recently as “community sports bar” – I think that means it’s a local which shows the footy a lot.
However, locally, it is a landmark and it has a history that I’m a part of – I used to drink their with my Grandfather, I’ve drunk in their with my son, my daughter, my partner, friends, colleagues, I’ve been out with one of the barmaids, I’ve played snooker with my uncles there, I’ve spent Christmas lunches in their with my Dad, it was where I nervously tried to work up some dutch courage with a couple of liveners before I got married, it is the venue where I witnessed over the course of a long end of season Saturday, my old rugby teacher, drinking 32 pints of Boddingtons, and its where I nip in for a quick snifter when I’m waiting for the nearby Chinese restaurant to cook our takeaway.
It may get a reprieve and there is some hope that in the short term its future is safe, but the plight of British pubs is well documented and they have not suffered just from consumer lifestyle changes (although clearly that has not helped) but relentless changes in legislation from successive Governments who have intervened with policy changes that were ill thought out and misconceived.
In our age of Big Society, we are slowly dismantling the very fabric of our society – the pub. The pub has been the centre of our communities for generations and where people come to meet and socialise, relax, meet people, catch up on local tittle-tattle and events. Half the villages in England, now have no pub. It’s not a new concern, George Orwell wrote an "obituary" of the pub on Feb. 9, 1946, entitled "Moon under water" for the Evening Standard, so the demise has been going on for more than sixty years.
Now we promote a drink at home culture, the supermarkets have been wholly responsible for the massive increase in wine drinking at the expense of beer and also undercutting the price of beer, so now we don’t have that highly sought after café culture – we have home drinking culture, unchecked, unsupervised and unmanaged.
I’m a believer in the concept of the Big Society, less state intervention, people doing things for themselves, volunteering, contributing, putting something back into their community – it’s a great concept, so why let or pubs die and fade away so ingloriously? Why tax them out of existence with a duty ten times higher than Germanys? Why is there smoking and non smoking areas not allowed? And why let Pubcos, who run 40% of British pubs, take so little responsibility for the fate, success and longevity of these ”little pods of British humanity” – as the local post offices, the churches, the local shops and lastly our pubs all slip away, so does the concept of Big Society with it, shame on us !
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