The history of us in the pub
Sometimes history is all about stories
A hot summer’s day a couple of years ago I was walking along a Suffolk country road, my ultimate destination the White Horse in the hamlet of Edwardstone. A benign, benevolent day, the kind of day whose trinity of genial sunshine, becalmed countryside and the prospect of a pint at the end of the journey put me in a contemplative mood. Happy, even. What did I see? A handful of converted barns, one of which had a flagpole bearing the Welsh flag; big open fields from where hedgerows had long been ripped up; a clutter of nettles, wild flowers and brambles on the verge, above which the occasional butterfly flittered and skittered. Meanwhile a gentle breeze sighed and ruffled through the trees that occasionally lined the road.
Arcadia perhaps and then there was a remembrance of armageddon. Just before the hamlet I came to a fork in the road and a First World War stone memorial stood where the roads converged on a railed patch of grass. There were names on the monument, those who never came back, some without a known grave, and I wondered if there was a deliberation in siting it on a fork in the road. Could it be that this handful of men, these unlucky few, whose names were recorded, if they had taken another fork in the road of life perhaps their futures would have been different? History has a habit of playing tricks on us mere humans and we also don’t seem to recall the past that well.
The White Horse was old, early 19th century, red brick in its structure, farmhouse-like even, but it had always served beer throughout its long life. Inside it was an elemental space of bare brick, wooden beams and settles, stone floor tiling and a wood burner, silent and unlit for the summer season. There was a fair selection of framed photos on the wall, many from between the wars or even earlier, but all of them telling the story of those who once lived in Edwardstone, telling part of the history of the hamlet, for history sometimes is just all about stories.
A teacher sat smiling in the middle of a group of schoolchildren, possibly from the early 1930s, while another school photo came from perhaps the start of the 20th century and the teacher here, a woman like the other one, this time stood to the side of her charges. Other photos featured darts and football teams and men working in the fields during harvest, while a recess in the wall held various darts cups and trophies beneath which a green baize bar billiards table reached out into the room like an itinerant preacher. Here in this pub was the history of those who used to frequent it and were now all gone, but some not forgotten, as the co-owner Tom told me, pointing at one man in a darts team from the 1930s, ‘see this guy here, some of his family come in here and his grandson just celebrated his 52nd birthday’. This was the pub keeping alive the memories of men and women whose names, unless carved on a war memorial, could so easily be forgotten. This was the pub as a living embodiment of history.
There was much to think of after I left the White Horse, especially when it came to history. The war memorial told the story of the devastation caused by the First World War, while the photos in the pub were a reminder of how countryside communities organised themselves and used the pub as more than just a beer house (which it had once been described as when put up for sale in 1849). Pubs, whether in the countryside, town or city, have a habit of telling the history of this country. Take the Grapes in Limehouse, which Charles Dickens used as a model for the Six Jolly Fellowship-Porters in Our Mutual Friend — this had been a witness to London’s tumultuous history since the 16th century, or the Eagle in Cambridge where the ceiling of one room is covered with graffiti left by RAF airmen in the Second World War, many of whom never saw home again but their names and efforts live on.
Our pubs can be at the heart of this country’s history; they can be living mementoes or companion pieces to the events that shaped the country, whether it was the coming of the Romans, the bloody events of the War of the Roses or just the bohemian and boozy exploits of Fitzrovia, where the ghosts of the likes of Dylan Thomas, Julian MacLaren-Ross and George Orwell still linger on in pubs such as the Newman Arms. Then there is the splendour of pubs like Adelphi in Leeds or the Philharmonic in Liverpool, which explain the history of Victorian pubs and that era’s drive towards respectability and using such things as snob screens to keep the hoi polloi at bar. Industrial decline? How about the Coopers Tavern in Burton upon Trent? This was once part of the mighty Bass empire and acted as a sampling room for the brewery, where brewers came to check that the beers they brewed were ready to be sent out throughout the country. Bass is long gone and Burton’s streets resound with the ghosts of its past, but the Coopers is a history lesson as well as an exceptional pub. There are also pubs, such as the Sun in Clun, close to the once restless Welsh border and Offa’s Dyke, which were built long after momentous events happened nearby, but remain touched by the history and the sensibilities of the surrounding landscape, while there are pubs which have become homes for communities that found themselves unwelcome in other pubs and tell the history of modern Britain. Both the history of this country and of those who went to the pub can be discovered when you pop out for a pint as I found on that kindly summer’s day and that is something that will have me thinking and writing on for yet some time.
Shameless plug: my latest book A Pub For All Seasons has had some great reviews in the press and is available from all good bookshops and online (Headline).