Author Topic: disappearing pubs,  (Read 1521 times)

Alfred

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disappearing pubs,
« on: Jun 14, 2018, 08:27:21 AM »

Over the past seventy years or so it seems when i was young there was a pub almost on every street corner particularly in London, and it was usual to see the brewery shire horses and carts laden with numerous hog head beer barrels,


so coming back to the pubs them selves what with many of us including ,myself going to restaurants
or simply buying what i want from the supermarkets, many of whom now have a large display of beer, wines , and spirits available and in vary sizes too,


how ever the atmosphere drinking in a pub was shall i say intoxicating seeing men playing cribbage , some one else either a man or a lady playing the piano. or even a piano accordion, and the heady atmosphere that all pubs seemed to have , not counting the off licence,


Q; Do you miss going to the pub particularly on a Saturday night, which for many then was the highlight of the week end,.. or are you happy simply to drink at home, what memories do you recall of those days, and will you tell us about them,

Phil

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Re: Disappearing Pubs.
« Reply #1 on: Jun 14, 2018, 08:29:49 AM »
Not to the slightest degree do I miss pubs.

Am I happy to drink at home?

Well being 100% teetotal the answer has to be "no".
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GrumpyOldFart

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Re: disappearing pubs,
« Reply #2 on: Jun 14, 2018, 08:47:22 AM »
Q; Do you miss going to the pub particularly on a Saturday night, which for many then was the highlight of the week end,.. or are you happy simply to drink at home, what memories do you recall of those days, and will you tell us about them,


Two outstanding old pubs in my village, both within a few minutes walk. Roaring fires in the winter, great landlords, real beer and friendly locals.


Good traditional pubs in a small vibrant community are as rare as hens’ teeth nowadays and these two are the main reason I retired here.

Bee

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Re: disappearing pubs,
« Reply #3 on: Jun 14, 2018, 09:15:06 AM »
I was born in a public house that my parents were landlord and landlady of, during the war years and  for a time after the war there were naval ships anchored up the river from where I lived, a lot of the naval lads used to come into my parents pub and I can remember them sitting in the back room where the piano was and having a good old sing song, I used to go in the back room when they were there and usually ended up sitting on one of their laps. :)


When I was 5 or 6 we moved from that pub into another one and then when I was 9 my parents gave up the pub trade and we then moved to a flat.


Although a lot of the pubs have closed now and many have been turned into private dwellings we still have a lot of nice pubs in my area to visit but none with the piano and good old sing song.
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Floydian

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Re: disappearing pubs,
« Reply #4 on: Jun 14, 2018, 09:46:41 AM »
Yep. Good old sing song. That'll do it for me.
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sparky

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Re: disappearing pubs,
« Reply #5 on: Jun 14, 2018, 10:58:32 AM »
Alf. Yes as you say, a pub on nearly every corner in London years ago, and if there was not a good old sing song going on in most of them, on a Friday and  Sat night, it was unusual, The death knoll for pubs in general, was the TV, in the past, there was little to do at home in the evenings for people other than maybe read, or listen to limited Radio programmes, that's if the batteries were still holding up. so going to the pub for so many including my Grandparents, was an escape, and a way of mixing with friends and relative, who in those days lived only short distances away.

Raven

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Re: disappearing pubs,
« Reply #6 on: Jun 14, 2018, 11:33:58 AM »
Our Village Local is a Hotel with a Lounge Bar and a Public Bar. On a Saturday evening we head out for dinner then meet up with friends in the Public Bar of the Hotel. I only drink orange juice as I'm Tee Total but I'd miss our Saturday evenings like mad if it was stopped..

Traveller

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Re: disappearing pubs,
« Reply #7 on: Jun 14, 2018, 11:44:50 AM »
About 12 years ago, our local brewery "George Gale & Co", closed - sold out to Fuller's of London.  End of an era as it consistently produced one of England's finest ales - HSB (Horndean Special Bitter).  Not sure if the adjacent pub (my local) the "Ship & Bell" is still there.  It seemed an inappropriate name since Horndean was inland, but allegedly  it was a stopping off point for shipwrights and  chandlers on the way to and from Portsmouth.

We never went out on Saturday nights, but would often go for a lunchtime drink at one of the country pubs near us - The Bird in Hand,  The Coach & Horses, The Victoria, The Farmer etc..  Ah, happy days.

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zoony

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Re: disappearing pubs,
« Reply #8 on: Jun 14, 2018, 12:12:53 PM »
  The pub which has been my local since well before I was born has been closed for almost a year now and has a very sad air to it with graffiti slowly growing up the face of it like ivy and a large FOR SALE sign portending it's end as a hostelry and rebirth as some sort of housing.
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prestbury

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Re: disappearing pubs,
« Reply #9 on: Jun 14, 2018, 04:12:36 PM »
Pubs have been under pressure from other sources since the 1970's and 1980's which has not helped with their downturn, culminating with the 1989 'beer orders' from the government of the day, which decided that all major breweries owned far too many tenanted houses and must be broken up along with the release of tie for the purchase of virtually any product sold with the exception of draught ale and lager, bringing along the formation of pub co's such as Punch and Enterprise (property companies well disguised at the time).

This brought about the style of current 25 year leasehold packages that along with competition from other sources made running a profitable pub by a large number of leaseholders (formerly tenants) was unsustainable.

Johned

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Re: disappearing pubs,
« Reply #10 on: Jun 15, 2018, 09:54:45 PM »
In my long lost youth, in our little town of 12,000 souls, we had fifty-eight pubs and five breweries.  Now we are down to a mere handful and all the breweries have gone.  The breweries owned the houses and it was customary for the landlord to have a full time job and take over from his spouse in the evening whence she had opened from midday until closing at three.  As lads we would oft set out of an evening, to partake of half a pint in as many houses as possible but you could never progress very far before the sins of Bacchus overtook you!  We had a pub just down the road from our school and in my last year when I was seventeen and enjoyed a free period from midday to one p.m, a few of us, all hefty lads, would adjourn there for a casual pint.  The masters must have known where we were but chose to ignore this lapse, doubtless thinking at the end of term they will be gone for good and out of our hair!  Oh, where have all the years gone?