I wrote this article some time ago, when I had returned from Mexico in the summer of 2010, to find the pub I used to work in closed-for-good. The pub was the beating heart of a very localised community, and I was very sad to see it go. Unfortunately decent drinking holes continue to disappear.
Public Ouste
Following my leave of
university last year, I decided to put my pretty successful history degree
temporarily to one side and begin looking for bar work. The kind of work that
you never have to take home with you, where you can forget about the pressure
of writing dissertations and the only interviews occur across the bar when
you’re serving white wine spritzers. Of course, having jostled for endless
hours in university libraries to find the last copy of an essential journal,
and having wrestled with two dissertations to see me through to my final exams
to finish a campaign of blood and gore (I’m referring to my study on the
Mexican Revolution) bar work was not a job I intended to do forever. But after
gathering the cash (in hand) and enjoying a fantastic time in southern Mexico,
I returned not to the lively joking and banter of the Deptford Arms and its
artistically decorated exterior, but to the plastic green and yellow of another
tacky bookmaker’s dominating the high street, and so my temporary bubble had
burst.
This was a big loss for me,
but undoubtedly a bigger loss for many of the locals. And not just the locals
of the Deptford Arms but other locals in other regions across the country,
because it symbolises an epidemic of failing profits and closing pubs which
have stood to serve as public houses for the people of Britain. The statistics
of the BBPA claim that in July 2009 52 pubs were closing per week, reducing
jobs by 24000 per year, at a huge cost to the treasury in the form of unemployment
benefits. Apparently this was the steepest rate of decline in the business
since records began in 1990.
So who or what can be blamed
for my post-travelling blues? Perhaps the higher taxes on alcohol our
New-Labour led government introduced. With the help of the media the
‘Binge-Britain’ campaign was launched attempting to turn the quieter members of
our community against ‘lager louts’ and ‘alcoholic’ adolescents. We became
familiar with images of Newcastle
city centre on the razz and tanked-up scouser birds. Of course this wouldn’t be
the first time alcohol has been publicly attacked. The great gin scare of 1720
linked the popularity of gin and its popular taverns where it was drunk to
increased violent crime and death rates. A government licence scheme costing
retailers twenty pounds was introduced, to be repealed later by Lord Walpole
following the pressure of vested interest groups. This is the kind of history
you can read on the walls of good pubs, such as the Walpole pub in New Cross. All good pubs have
a history intertwined with the experiences of local people, and a story to
tell, which is why it feels like a large part of popular British history has
been lost with every converted bookie’s.
Of course many pubs are lost
to money hungry bars, eager to turnover customers quicker than an angry
landlord in Bermondsey, but in the sense of getting punters in and out without
having them hang around too long if they’re not paying. When a pub is bought
out to become a new trendy looking bar, have a large restaurant section dropped
in or to introduce a café-style slant, often the old punters and local
customers aren’t happy and reject the business. The places make a profit, as
the BBPA states Café style, gastro and trendy-bar style pubs are much more
resilient. But when the old locality is lost, so is the easy going atmosphere
that was based on friendship and familiarity rather than wallets. Again, this
has a parallel with the historical work of Peter Clark, who mentions the rise
of commercialism in 1750 threatening taverns and inns leading to many attempted
changes to coffee shops. Innkeepers were said to exploit French fashions to try
and stay in business. These days commercial chain pubs are ever more present,
which have tied-trade business models.
All classic, good local pubs
have a history and a story to tell which probably doesn’t compare to the
countless stories which would have been told inside. One day two aging rockers
told me over the bar about the time Squeeze played overlooking the garden of
the Deptford Arms, and how one poor punk lay on the floor following a riot. The
vibe in the pub could often be tense, but it was always real. It suited a
cash-in-hand economy, in a place where you’d serve customers catching you off
guard, taking orders in proper cockney one minute and yar-man patois the next.
I really miss some of these characters that wonder around living their day to
day lives and relied on our place as the centre of a community. So the next
time I’m out, I reckon I’ll be drinking one for the D’Arms, and dreaming that
one day she’ll be back. Even if it’s in the rambling tales of old Mickey the
Fish.