Pub Closures

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.