Why Pubs Matter More than Ever
And we must not let the cultural-soul of the UK wither. Guest-post from a local legend
Today, I’m delighted to be sharing my first guest post from a great friend of mine, Adam Nicoll. Adam is truly an ‘old soul’, and someone I hugely enjoy for his irreverent sense of humour and salty language.
He pulls no punches, debatewise, has a penchant for spraying robust opinions on radio phone-ins and along with our better halves, we frequently put the world to rights over drinks. Indeed the name of our 4-way whatsapp group remains ‘Nelson’ after our gammon fury some years back at the changing of a school house name from ‘Nelson’ to ‘Attenborough’ (ick). The subject of community-decline has been a recurrent theme in our conversations but whilst lots of people talk the talk, few walk that talk. Adam does… and for miles, as his post outlines.
Whilst a high-achieving C-level/ board player in global corporations, he is also a fierce family and community man with solid priorities. If I have any criticism of what follows it’s that he greatly understates the gargantuan task he undertook in rescuing his local village pub. He was a man on a mission to which he gave everything, including calls to breweries from mountain-tops during a shared family holiday.
The stunning value of what he created and continues to sustain as an intensive passion-project is evident to any visitor.
He is my antidoter of the week. The world needs more Adams.
“Only Connect” EM Forster, Howards End.
Over the last 25 years or so I can recall at least half a dozen occasions when leaders in the businesses I’ve operated in, have toyed with the notion of cancelling work socials, parties or culled the work canteen – ‘but people can walk to Greggs easily enough...’. Some have acted accordingly. When they’ve done so in the spirit of saving money or driving profit, they have ignored one fundamental truth. People like people. More than that, people need people to be happy. People only work because of people. Removing that social interaction and expecting a business to continue to operate at the same optimal rate, is like expecting an orgasm at a funeral. It’s possible but unlikely and a social car crash.
And it’s not just businesses which make such glaring mistakes. We’re all quite good at it for ourselves. We often don’t know what’s good for us. It never ceases to amaze me how people draw conclusions about their lot in life and then prescribe themselves the very medicine which is most contradictory to the diagnosis. Since COVID, this trend has found a fifth and sixth gear. Dare I say, it’s the younger generations who seem more susceptible to this pitfall and perhaps experience counts for something after all?
Here’s how a thought process may roll around the topic of remote working.
“People in the office are getting more opportunities than me. I didn’t get to go on that Parisian jolly but I’ve always wanted to see the Paris office. Maybe I wasn’t around when it was mooted around the water cooler? Jade got it. She would have been at the water cooler. She’s always in the office, sucking up to the bosses. Cow!”
It’s cold and the cost of living is ridiculous right now, especially heating bills. Now I’m WFH it costs at least £20 to heat this place for the day...but I suppose that’s cheaper than commuting…. even if the WiFi is terrible
I want to WFH to have more freedom and control over my destiny and workload. It saves me on commuting costs too and I’m in when Amazon parcels arrive. I got a couple of great books today. One to tackle my loneliness and one about anxiety. Great.
I wish I had a job where I felt I belonged to something bigger. There’s no sense of identity and community at this place. Why am I so unhappy?
What’s this survey from HR in my inbox? Oh, it’s asking me if I still want to work remotely or come back into the office 2 days a week!! WTF. I don’t like the tone of these questions. It’s like they’re FORCING me to come in or else. I’m ticking that box, ‘I prefer to work remotely 5 days a week’. That’ll teach ‘em for victimising me. HR arseholes.”...
Just as people have gained more freedom regarding when and where they work, their mental health has collapsed at an alarming rate. Up to 80% of workers report that remote working impacted their mental health negatively. Why? Well, it’s clear to many of us that it’s about connection. Isolate a rat in a lab from its pals for a few days and it shows signs of stress. We’re just the same. As EM Forster writes in his opening line of Howards End ‘Only Connect’.
Over the last several years the social glue of society has been dosed in a solvent, robbing us all of a cohesion which used to make us smile more, and love more. In 1990, one in five people in the UK met their spouse at work. Today’s figure can’t even be surveyed for fear that people would get sacked for completing the survey honestly...’work relationships!!!’...Ewwww, HR AND COMPUTER SAYS NO, CANCEL AND DETONATE ON SITE!
So that, finally, brings me to pubs, why they matter more now than ever, and why I’ve been asked to guest blog today.
Well, you know where this is going. Pubs are connection. They are community. They are not just where culture flows, they are that culture.
It may be too antiquated a cliche to say that pubs are a part of the fabric of society; and perhaps too exclusive and rural-biased to reference that the holy trinity of a village community was once a village shop, a Church and a thriving village pub. Those days have long gone, but I can’t help but quote Hilaire Belloc
“Change your hearts or you lose your inns and you will deserve to have lost them. But when you have lost your Inns, drown your empty selves, for you will have lost the last of England.”
I’m sure some readers won’t dare to relate to this, think it jingoistic, have vomited and already started playing Fortnite with a repeat offender in Wisconsin who they’ll never actually meet, like, love or loathe. But, whatever your religious viewpoint or ideology, pubs matter. They matter to towns and villages and to all countries where they comprise a significant cultural impact. And now, more than ever.
Places to connect in person are disappearing at an alarming rate. If they were a pink footed goose, there would be a Chris Packham-led appeal on BBC9 at 8pm every weekday asking people to dig deeper. Community centres are in short supply and underfunded, church attendance has been on the wane for decades, working men’s clubs have vanished, newsagents going, village shops vanishing, even bookmakers have disappeared and youth clubs have gone the way of the dodo. And yes, people will argue that coffee shops have plugged the gap and society has just moved in a different direction from the boozer. Well I’d say walk into a coffee shop and count how many people are alone, working on a laptop or scrolling on a mobile. How many people are actually connecting in the way that they might in a pub...
All this, and in a world where 9 million people in the UK alone describe themselves as ‘lonely’ or ‘very lonely’. Is it any wonder, when you can’t even guarantee speaking to someone in a shop at the bloody till. It drives me mental when I see an elderly person struggling with self-checkout. Well done, Lord Saintrose, you’ve saved a bob or two with your miserly automation but made everyone’s lives more stressful. You’ve outsourced a chunk of your ‘service’ to the people actually paying for your product - those who are most vulnerable in society and who may only get out once or twice a week to speak to someone in real life (since their other half died and their kids moved away). You’ve cast them into a digital oblivion of covid-infecting screen swiping.... Arrrghghhghgh. Shame on you.
We know the loneliness diagnosis, and yet we prescribe solutions which bring more of the same misery. Madness.
Back to pubs. There aren’t many left. Under 39,000 actually. In 1990, there were 63,500. My village pub was under threat a couple of years ago and I decided to stand up for it. I stood on a pub table a few times in actual real life, and then did more of the same virtually on Facebook to generate noise to save the thing; eventually got some funding from a generous chap who ‘got it’; and shamed the conglomerate who owned the pub on radio enough to convince them it was easier to sell it to a community inspired bid. Almost a year down the line and the pub is open, refurbished, viable and thriving.
But it’s in the conversations I hear in the pub where the real victory lies. People discussing break-ups, their latest diagnosis or prognosis, their children’s victories and challenges. People moaning about their boss in a safe place, airing their woes about the world and occasionally their politics. People decompressing from a day at work with a pint on the way home or a game of darts. Without a pub, many of these conversations would have no natural home. They wouldn’t happen at all. They’d be inner talk at best. Inner chat which may eat away at us, pushing happiness further and further away, isolating us from others. Emotions bottled up with no release.
Worse still, we may put these thoughts on social media instead, to be misinterpreted, driving anger northwards, and polarising society ever more.
So, a pub isn’t about alcohol, it’s about much more than that. It’s our collective happiness that’s in the balance. They’re as important as that.
You’d think Governments would appreciate that and recognise the psychological value to those who use them, the hole in society they fill and suture. Without wishing to get political - as all parties have a poor record in this regard - sadly the recent budget is likely to see our pub count drop another 5,000 during this term; still fewer places to meet, love and laugh.
A continued erosion of what is natural for people to do. Only connect.
Belloc’s words bear repeating:
“...when you have lost your Inns, drown your empty selves, for you will have lost the last of England.”
Mine’s a pint.
Fractional CMO in hospitality | People and Culture leader | Pub-lover
The pint’s on me, Adam. Cheers to you.
(And if you liked this, you might also enjoy my ‘In Defence of Rebels and Booze’ post)
Unreal post - thank you.
I think there is something in alcohol dependency rising as pubs close. So the governement can't make the argument that they need to tax alcohol to bring down dependency.
I am off the pub x
The first thing your dad did after picking me up from Heathrow was to stop at a pub and introduce me to England. 1977.