In the same interview in which he denounced social networking sites (in fact, desperately lonely teenagers who make friends online are vastly more likely to keep up those friendships, because they are so grateful to have found anyone), Archbishop Vincent Nichols much more sensibly bemoans the decline of traditional pubs. Who says that Catholicism is un-English? Even His Grace’s Merseyside (albeit Crosby, darling) variety.
In his words, “There are pubs where people have their corner and they’re a bit eccentric, but they’re welcomed. If they don’t turn up, someone will go and see what’s happened.” There is also the importance of socialising the young, in practice late-teenage boys especially, around the full range of age groups rather than their own alone. Included in this, but no means exhausting it, is teaching them to drink in a socially acceptable. But it must be stressed that there is far, far more to it than that.
Part of the loss of traditional pubs has been, and is, the loss of traditional pub names. These, like street names and church dedications among so very many other things, are monuments to local history, and key parts both of local, and thus also of wider national culture. Even leaving aside the endlessly fascinating quirky one-offs, it matters enormously that the pub in a given place is called The Red Lion, or The White Horse, or a whole host of other things. As it does which king or which queen is depicted on the pub sign of The King’s Head here or The Queen’s Head there. There is a reason for it.
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Twenty years ago the Tories tried to break up the brewers' monopoly - only to allow for the PubCo monopoly.
ReplyDeleteThis has led to the growth of what's known in the trade as "high-volume vertical drinking establishments" - no more family-friendly pubs. Out with the old fellows supping a pint or two, in with the kids getting smashed on spirits.
My own local has gone this way. And to encourage lone drinking - a low-cost booze shop, magnet for antisocial behaviour and criminality.
That's progress of a sort, isn't it?
Of a sort, indeed.
ReplyDeleteBritain's pubs have always been more than just places to buy a drink - they have been community centres for centuries, providing early employment exchanges and rudimentary banking services.
ReplyDeleteTheir signs have been inspired by royalty, religion, love and heroes and they're a pictorial history along the High St if you know how to interpret them.
Long may they continue
Elaine Saunders
Author – A Book About Pub Names
It’s A Book About….blog
Long, long, indeed.
ReplyDeleteWho says that Catholicism is un-English?
ReplyDeleteWho says that the English are Catholics?
Come to that, who says that Vin is a Catholic?
The Pope.
ReplyDelete