Three score years & ten

When you’re in your twenties, you can’t even contemplate what it must be like to reach the grand old age of 70, apart from thinking that it’s positively ancient! The same applies when you reach the ages of 30 and 40. By the time you notch up your half century, you start giving creeping old age a bit of thought, but not a lot though, and even when you reach 60, the thought of surviving another decade doesn't register that highly on your clock.

And yet, here I am today, seventy years young, and apart from a little slower, slightly stiffer, plus and a few more minor aches and pains, nothing much is different. I’ve had to renew my UK driving licence, which was a change, as the previous one was a rather dog-eared, folding paper one – a legacy of not having changed my address these past 30 years, but then there are the other benefits – most of which have kicked in over the 4-5 years leading up to the big seven-O.

Free NHS prescriptions, free travel on UK buses (with certain time restrictions), reduced-price rail travel, and whilst that does involve purchasing a rail card, I’ve already re-couped the price of that. No National Insurance contributions, deducted from my wages each month, either. I was going to add free eye sight tests, but that benefit is down to an existing eye condition.

So, on balance, it’s all good, with my Bus Pass coming out way on top. It’s a benefit I take advantage of most weeks, even if it’s just taking the bus back from a trip into Tonbridge. Before anyone says I ought to walk, I do rely on shank’s pony to reach the town centre, it’s just that the walk back, involves a steep climb in order to reach Bailey Towers. Free bus travel comes into its own when planning pub trips out to rural areas, and this has fast become my favourite means of accessing those hard-to-reach rural gems, without risking my driving licence, my own safety, and that of other road users.

Seventy years, translates to 52 years of legally permitted beer drinking, although as with many of my contemporaries there were a couple of years preceding my 18^th birthday, when the odd pint or two was quaffed in pubs where the licensee was either unaware of my age, or turned a blind eye- Nelson fashion. There have been numerous changes on both the beer and pub scenes, and whilst not all of them have been for the better, the choice of different beers, and the increase in both range and styles, has been phenomenal. Spoilt for choice, is certainly an understatement, and yet, in a perverse sort of way there is a nostalgic longing for the pubs of yesteryear.

Two-bar pubs, offering a choice of public or saloon bars, and sometimes even more. Most pubs tied to the owning brewer – back in the day when breweries cared about their tied estates, and the people (mainly tenant licensees) who lived and worked in them. Sensible prices, that meant affordable beers, and brews with character, that still tasted of malt and hops. Many more pubs too, as looking bad it’s sad to recall how many we’ve lost over the years. The joy, and sheer excitement of travelling to a different area of the country where you knew, even without publications like the Good Beer Guide to direct you, that there would be a different local brew to become acquainted with and, depending on the area, quite often several.

It isn’t all doom and gloom though, as on the plus side, drinkers have at last been treated as adults. The fact that a piece of legislation, introduced during the Great War, to stop munitions workers enjoying a mid - afternoon pint, was allowed to last so long, is a sad indictment of not just our political system, but also of the straight-laced puritan morals, of certain parts of society. For example, having to wait until 7pm on a Sunday evening, for pubs to re-open, following on from a paltry two-hour lunchtime session, the same day, seems absurd now, yet UK drinkers endured this for the best part of 50 years.

Also, on the plus side, the enormous explosion in the number of small and often local breweries, is something very few drinkers would have envisaged, back in 1973, when I had my first legal pint. Sadly, I can’t remember the time or the place, although I suspect it would have been in the Honest Miller, which was the pub in the small, Kent village of Brook, where I spent my teenage years. I also suspect that it was my father, who bought me that pint, despite him not being a beer drinker, or a pub man. (Footnote, the Honest Miller re-opened as a community-run pub, in July last year, after closing in 2020, and falling into disrepair. It is currently only open Thurs-Sat, whilst the renovation work continues).

The influence of CAMRA, and the huge role the organisation played in saving traditional cask ale, is also something that would have been hard to imagine, 52 years ago, and I’m immensely proud of my time as a member of one of the most successful consumer groups, ever, along with the numerous pub surveys I undertook, the branch newsletters I help write, as well as edit, the beer festivals that saw me and numerous other volunteers, serve pint after pint of tasty and characterful, local ales to an appreciative public.

I still think that CAMRA’s proudest achievement was enabling beer drinkers all over the globe to discover and embrace, their own local beers styles, to run beer festivals, and eventually open breweries of their own, committed to promoting local beers and local brewing traditions. I’ve been grateful to have experienced some of this for myself through visits to countries such as Belgium, Czechia and Germany, with their own proud brewing traditions. 

I've also come across similar scenarios in countries such as the USA, Ireland and many other European countries, who have followed CAMRA’s example, as well as some of their neighbours, by resurrecting some of their own indigenous beers and brewing styles. It is now, virtually impossible to travel anywhere in the beer-drinking world, and not find a beer with character and appeal, which above all else is satisfying and enjoyable.

This brings me on to the many friends and acquaintances, I have met along the way, the people I have shared a few beers with, chewed the cud with, in a pub or bar somewhere along the line, or whose company I have enjoyed on days out, trips abroad or whilst walking a long-distance footpath or two. It is people who, at the end of the day, make these occasions so special. Beer, in its many different varieties, acts as the social lubricant for these events, and they in turn enhance the whole beer, pub and walking experience.

I ought, also to mention, that I’ve enjoyed a long and varied career, that began following my graduation in 1976, from the University of Salford, and which took me into the fields of wine & spirits, water treatment, veterinary pharmaceuticals, organic peroxides & powder grinding, and then finally, for the best part of 20 years, Medical Devices, in the form of dental materials. 

 Sandwiched in between, was a five-year period of running my own, off-licence, specialising in cask ales to drink at home, along with bottled beers from both home and abroad. The late Brian Johnston titled his autobiography, “It’s Been a Lot of Fun,” and on the whole, it certainly has. 

Special mention too, should be made of my family who have supported and put up with me over the years, especially Eileen, my wife of nearly 40 years, plus of course son Matthew who has turned out to be an all round good fellow, and a son to be proud of. Last, but by no means least, I would like to thank all friends and other family members who have helped along the way, regardless of the assistance rendered, or whether it was just a case of them being there, that propelled me along the way, on my journey through life, and for getting me to this stage. Thank-you all, I couldn't have got here without you!