Rainy day blues, and trouble in publand

With a four-day weekend opening up in front of me, the question of what to do and where to go, once again raises its head. I shall be giving that question a lot of thought, over the next few days, but ahead of any trips out, the question of what to write about in the meantime also springs to mind. Before attempting to answer that question, the one constant at the moment is the never-ending rain. We’re over six weeks into the new year now, and I don’t think that a day has passed where there hasn’t been any rain. Instead, the downpours have been pretty incessant, and it’s the sort of weather that would have led to my dear old dad making one of his quips about having to plant rice in the garden, because that would be the only thing capable of withstanding the permanently wet conditions!

Rainfall is obviously part of the natural cycle, although it normally occurs in more measured quantities. For me, it is not so much a case of wanting to get out in the garden, even though there are some things that require my attention, but my main gripe is that excessive rain has an adverse effect on our cross-country footpath network, making many of them impassable, at worst, or slippery and excessively muddy at best.

Some intrepid individuals are still managing to get out into the countryside, and whilst some of them come across as foolhardy, or even reckless, other appear not to care, and throw all caution to the wind. James Pavlou, the intrepid individual behind the Walk Tonbridge website, is one such character, and is the person putting all of us armchair walking enthusiasts to shame. James’s website, which he originally set up during lock-down, sets out a couple of dozen walks, in and around Tonbridge, as well as including several audio recordings featuring older residents of the town, looking back at what Tonbridge used to be like. Looking at some of his postings on social media, he comes across as someone who rarely lets the weather interfere with his outdoor activities, so maybe I should allow him to shame me into going out, no matter what conditions are like underfoot.

These consideration aside, there’s no getting away from some of the other stories that are dominating the news, at the moment. One of the biggest news item is that many pubs are feeling the pinch, or worse, particularly when the belt tightening and associated money troubles, turn into abject closure. The causes of pubs going out of business are nowhere near as simple as some commentators would have us believe and are normally down to a combination of many varied factors, rather than, as certain newspapers, would like us to believe, are the fault of Rachel from Accounts!

I wouldn’t like to name them all, and I’d be pushed to identify more than a handful, but if I were a betting person I’d say changing demographics play a key role, along with changes in both society and peoples’ behavioural patterns. Put bluntly, people don’t go to pubs in the same numbers, or as frequently, as they once did. I know this from looking back at my own behaviour, because 40 years ago, it was quite common for me to wander a few hundred yards down the road, and enjoy several pints of beer, in the local pub. This was quite normal behaviour and was something that was repeated on most nights. It may have been a hangover (not literally), from my student days, when most evenings were spent in the pub, but back in the early 80’s, it seemed quite normal behaviour.

On top of enjoying a drink, most evenings, lunchtime drinking was still quite common, even though it wasn’t actively encouraged in the workplace. Those were the days when a boozy lunchtime session, (two or three pints), especially on a Friday, marked the unofficial end of the working week. Beer prices were also relatively cheaper than they are today, so for someone who enjoyed a few pints, such behaviour didn’t exactly break the bank.

The other main changes have been those involving the pub industry itself, and here, I’m afraid, the self-proclaimed beer drinker’s champion, CAMRA, the Campaign for Real Ale, has a lot to answer for. I don’t want to dwell too much on the effects of the 1989 Beer Orders, apart from saying that a well-meaning attempt to improve consumer choice and encourage more competition into the pub trade, had the opposite effect. 

There are a lot of different threads leading into this story, so rather than attempt to explain what happened, this link, from the Morning Advertiser, details both the thinking behind the legislation, and how it ended up going horribly wrong. CAMRA’s fault, was its naivety in whole-heartedly welcoming the changes because of the supposed boost that it offered to cask ale, whilst conveniently ignoring the considerable downsides, associated with this deal. (For the record, I was one of the many CAMRA members who thought the Beer Orders were a good thing, at the time!) Failing to anticipate the inevitable fall-out, led to many pub owners – individuals, or pub-owning companies, being saddled with enormous amount of debt, as the traditional low-cost, pub-tie, disappeared, allowing market forces to dictate both rent and drink prices.

Finally, I must mention the sad news that I saw on Chris Dyson’s excellent, Real Ale, Real Music website. In an article about legendary Keighley brewer, Timothy Taylor, Chris describes how the company has been divesting itself of pubs within their traditional Yorkshire heartland, and with particular respect to some of their more rural outlets. He mentions three specific rural pubs in Calderdale, which were well-established Taylor’s pubs back in the 1970's, when he first came across the brewery. They were all in attractive rural settings, with two of them within a mile of each other in the parish of Wadsworth.

Chris goes into some detail about all three pubs, but I’m going to reserve mention for just one of them, namely the Hare & Hounds at Lane Ends, high in the Pennines above the town of Hebden Bridge. I visited the pub in 1976, back in my student days at Salford University, and at the time thought it was one of the most wonderful pubs I had ever visited. Chris had also been to this pub, probably around the same time as my visit. He described how it proudly served the full range of Taylors' beers, including their premium bitter, Landlord. At the time, the Hare & Hounds was one of only three pubs - all tied houses - who were allowed by the brewery to serve the beer – a fact which seems incredible these days!

I wrote about visiting the Hare & Hounds, in an early blog post, and whilst you can read that piece here, it’s worth recounting it for the sake of continuity. Back then, one of my housemates was a keen cyclist, as well as an intrepid pub explorer, and on one of this trips he’d discovered the Hare & Hounds, a marvellous Timothy Taylor’s pub, high up in the Pennines. Fired up with enthusiasm, the pair of us, along with a group of fellow students, borrowed the Student Union van for the evening. We’d persuaded a non-beer drinking, fellow student to be our driver for the evening, and armed with a map, set off for the Hare & Hounds.

It was quite a drive across the Pennines from Greater Manchester, but as it was a June evening we arrived at our destination whilst it was still light. I can still remember our driver parking the bus in the bottom car park to the left of the pub and then walking up with the rest of us to the entrance. We were rewarded with an unspoilt, stone-built pub, enhanced by its rural location set amongst some striking Pennine scenery. To a country boy like myself, who’d been stuck amongst the grime of urban 1970’s Manchester, both pub and location, were heaven sent. We enjoyed an excellent evening at the pub, especially as the licensee didn't seem at all bothered about closing time. It was rather late by the time we left, and we were all a little bit the worse for drink!

Chris’s experience of the Hare & Hounds appears to match my own, but sadly he reports that this marvellous old, rural has now closed. He describes how, over the years whilst still being a mecca for Taylor’s drinkers, the pub became more food-focussed and gradually lost its way and its customers. This was despite an attempt at providing overnight accommodation. I had sometimes dreamt of making a return visit to the Hare & Hounds but now  that such an experience will not be possible. These closures serve as a stark reminder of the effects of the changes that have affected the pub industry, over the past four decades, and now, more than ever it really is a case of “use it or lose it” when it comes to our cherished pub stock.