Hitting your wallet

Here’s an effective debunking on the Adam Smith Institute blog of yet another report, this time from the Policy Exchange, claiming that increasing the price of alcoholic drinks would be the solution to all our ills. How many times does it have to be said that the UK already has some of the highest off-trade alcohol prices in Western Europe, so if we have more “problems” than France or Germany it is clear that price isn’t the major driving factor? Indeed, far from leading to a Chardonnay-sipping café culture, it’s highly likely that an across-the-board price increase would just tend to exacerbate many of the more negative aspects of our drinking culture.

The report also falls into the common trap of pointing the finger of blame at “strong drinks”, whereas in fact the average strength of beer consumed in the UK must be lower than in any other EU country apart from Ireland. As the posting says, if you look at the products that are heavily discounted in Tesco and ASDA, they’re all beers of low to medium strength. Indeed, it’s noticeable that the supermarkets never offer price promotions on super-strength lagers, and indeed the way they present them suggests they regard them as a product stocked grudgingly to cater for an ageing, downmarket customer base. Beers over 5% ABV represent a tiny section of the market split between the aforementioned super lagers and premium products such as Duvel and Old Tom which tend to be consumed responsibly by discerning drinkers.

If public policy is framed by people who haven’t got a clue what they’re talking about, it’s hardly surprising that nothing improves.

Out of condition

It’s a common myth that real ale is “flat”. In reality, although it doesn’t display obvious bubbles, this is far from the truth. There should be an appreciable amount of CO2 dissolved in the beer, which gives it an obvious “bite” known as “condition”. This is evident even in gravity-dispensed beers with little or no head. At times when beer is not being served, a hard spile should be put back in the cask to ensure that CO2 builds up and does not just escape to the atmosphere.

Beer that is completely flat and has lost all its condition is extremely unappealing. Although in my experience this isn’t a common fault, it is one of the most difficult to complain about. Beer that is blatantly cloudy will generally be changed with good grace, and a vinegary pint is usually obvious enough for a complaint to be upheld. But if it’s just dull, flat and tired, all you can generally do is vote with your feet and go elsewhere.

When this regularly happens in what has been a well-loved pub, it poses a particular dilemma, to which I really don’t know the answer. I have never managed a cellar and wouldn’t presume to tell someone else how to do it, but I do know poor beer when I come across it.

Why do old men drink lager?

In a pub yesterday, ticking over nicely, good mix of age groups and diners and drinkers, only one cask beer on, but it was in good nick and they do have guests at other times. Guy sitting at the bar, must have been at least 70, probably 75, with a pint of Carling. He’s old enough to remember when mild and bitter ruled the roost in British pubs, and must have been in early middle age when the lager revolution swept the country in the 1970s. So why on earth is he drinking it now?

I can fully understand the appeal of standard lager – it’s cold, refreshing, consistent and undemanding on the taste buds. I’m not one of those who thinks it’s vile muck, because it plainly isn’t. But it still baffles me why an old bloke should choose it as his standard tipple, especially given the inevitable deterioration of the personal hydraulic system which is likely to be adversely affected by ice-cold beer.

Electric dreams

It may be hard to believe today, but in the first decade of my drinking career, most of the cask beer in the North-West and the Midlands was served by electric, generally metered, dispense. It was well-nigh universal in Banks’s and Hanson’s pubs, and very much in the majority in the Greenalls, Robinson’s, Hydes, Home, Border* and Burtonwood estates. Plenty of Holts and Lees pubs had it too. Large numbers of Mitchells & Butlers pubs served cask beer from illuminated boxes indistinguishable from keg dispensers.

Now, it has pretty much entirely disappeared – my last sighting was of Robinson’s Unicorn in the Flying Dutchman in Stockport. I entirely understand the reasons why this has happened, that handpumps give a clear and unambiguous signal of the availability of cask beer in a way that electric meters can never do. But I can’t help feeling that we have lost a piece of tradition and a valuable element of diversity in the pub trade. And the old glass diaphragm pumps were, in my experience, just as good a guarantee of cask beer as handpumps.

Electric meters also had two significant advantages over handpumps – they minimised the influence of incompetent bar staff on how beer was served, and they dispensed full pints into oversize glasses. I continue to think it was a disgrace how many CAMRA branches, nominally committed to full measures, actively encouraged the replacement of meters by handpumps even though they knew at the same time that would lead to the replacement of oversize glasses by brim measures - a fact that may have given breweries a financial incentive to make the change.

* btw, anyone still remember Border Breweries nowadays?

One in ten

More nonsense from the bansturbators today with them trying to claim that one in ten men are on the brink of alcoholism. Now you and I would define an alcoholic as someone who is physically or mentally dependent on alcohol, the sort of person who drinks a bottle of spirits or more each day and needs a stiff one before they can function in the morning. I’ve come across a few in my time – generally beer drinkers – but it simply beggars belief that they amount to one in ten of the male population or anything remotely close to that. Are one in ten male deaths attributable to chronic alcohol problems? I don’t think so.

And what does “on the brink of” mean anyway? Isn’t this really just another way of saying “one in ten men are drinking a bit more than us joyless Puritans are happy with”? It is a typical example of the Righteous ratcheting down the threshold of acceptability so what was once considered normal, or not far beyond normal, comes to be regarded as aberrant.

A pub with no beer?

Just a quick clarification - the poll to the left on "What do you drink if there's no cask beer?" allows multiple answers, although this isn't entirely obvious.

The life and soul of the drinking classes

There's a good – if somewhat elegiac – article here in the Times by Melanie Reid.

Pubs have been around since the 11th century but unstoppable 21st-century social forces - drink-driving legislation, the smoking ban, the internet, cheap supermarket booze - are killing them. Drinking, instead of being a public, moderate thing, is being done to extreme at home - and more people are dying of cirrhosis as a result. (At least when you drink yourself to death in a pub, you have a few laughs and lots of people come to your funeral.)

In tidying up society, making it neater, shinier, healthier and safer, something has been lost. I think it's called soul. Pubs are repositories of character and contact: messy, funny, traditional, politically incorrect places, which beat Facebook and YouTube for entertainment every time.

But the point must be made that the decline of pubs is due to a multiplicity of social changes and they cannot simply be legislated back into rude health. Even if the price of off-trade booze was doubled overnight, I doubt whether it would save more than a handful of pubs.

Upscale drinking

Throughout my drinking career there has been a generally understood principle that you start on the weaker drinks and work your way up to the strongest. So your evening tends to go Mild – Bitter – Special Bitter – Strong Ale. But does it need to work like that? Might it be a good idea to drink a pint of stronger beer early on, to maximise the alcohol kick, and then take the evening more easily on weaker beers? And it’s often been said that in Robinson's pubs, if arriving early, it's best to start on the bitter and only move on to mild once you're happy it's been pulled through.

Does this rule make sense, or is it just a superstition?

Punched out

For a number of years, I’ve held the view that the giant pub companies were ultimately unsustainable. This was not because of their financial position, but because they had no unique selling proposition. Ask Tim Martin why you should go in a Wetherspoon’s pub as opposed to a competitor, and he’ll have a ready answer. Likewise William Robinson of the eponymous family brewer. But ask Ted Tuppen why you should go in an Enterprise Inns pub and he’ll do a good impression of a fish.

Now, with the recession, the chickens are really coming home to roost, with Enterprise and especially Punch Taverns in an increasingly precarious financial position. Apparently the value of Punch’s debts now exceeds the total value of their property portfolio. In these circumstances, it’s not surprising that they’re engaged in a fire sale of their crown jewels to various family brewers. In the South-East, Fullers, Charles Wells and Adnams have benefited from this, and now in the North-West first Lees and now Robinson’s have bought tranches of pubs from Punch. It will be interesting to see which pubs Robinson’s get their hands on.

In the longer term, this is likely to lead to a major shift in the balance of power in the pub trade away from the pub companies as heirs of the former Big Six towards the family brewers, who were once derided as an anachronism. I wonder if the heirs of Home and Vaux now regret selling out.

Eight pointless things about myself

I have been tagged by Dick Puddlecote to come up with eight pointless things about myself. So here goes:

1. I am irritated by people who leave the tops off pens
   
2. The only professional football match I have ever attended was in 1971, when I saw Everton beat Southampton 8-0
   
3. I must get some varifocals next time I have my eyes tested, as I am struggling to read beer bottle labels with my glasses on
   
4. I can see a blue pyramid from my bedroom window - even when sober
   
5. When I was at university in Birmingham in the late 1970s, I once went all the way round the Number 11 Outer Circle bus route
   
6. I witnessed the final flight of the Vulcan bomber before its recent restoration
   
7. The beer I have almost certainly drunk most of in my life is Robinson’s Unicorn (formerly Best Bitter)
   
8. I enjoy the music of the Swedish pop duo Roxette

Not being a believer in chain letters I won't be passing the misery on to anyone else.

You could also try looking at this questionnaire, done when such things were all the rage in the newspapers.

Raising a glass at the Fox & Hounds

Rural communities across the country will welcome the news that the police are going to stop routine monitoring of hunts. This recognises that the ban on fox hunting is largely unenforceable and leaves the legislation effectively dead in the water.

It’s a pity that the sheer visibility of offences against the smoking ban, and the existence of self-appointed vigilantes keen to point out any infraction, mean that there is no chance of it withering on the vine in a similar way. But this news must give succour to opponents of bans of all kinds, that they are not necessarily a permanent fait accompli, and that even if not repealed they can eventually fade away if they lack public acceptance and the political will to enforce them.

I have heard reports of pubs in remote rural areas – just the kind of places likely to strongly support hunting – where customers are already cheerfully cocking a snook at the smoking ban.

It’s also interesting to hear Richard Brunstrom in his role as ACPO spokesman on rural affairs talking of priorities and proportionality in terms of enforcement of the hunting ban. This is widely at variance with his swivel-eyed, zero-tolerance approach to enforcement of motoring law, where many of the technical offences prosecuted could be regarded as equally trivial.

Words fail me...

In one of the most bizarre examples I’ve ever seen of failure to understand how markets and businesses work, equality campaigners have attacked Canterbury City Council because the city apparently is not gay enough. One of their main complaints is that the city lacks a gay bar, the nearest being 17 miles away in Margate. What that has to do with the council is completely beyond me, and quite rightly they responded “No council in the land would set up a bar – gay or otherwise. It would be seen as a colossal waste of taxpayers’ money.” The absence of a gay bar is due to simple lack of demand – if the demand was there, there would be one. And isn’t the whole concept of a gay bar a bit old hat nowadays? Surely things have moved on and fewer people feel the need to define everything they do in terms of their sexuality.

Lighting up Barnsley

There’s been plenty of comment on this story about the Barnsley licensee who has allowed supposedly legal indoor smoking in her pub by designating the tap room a “smoking research centre”. No doubt the local Gauleiter will be round before too long to close it down and drive all the customers away, but it does underline very clearly that there remains a substantial unmet demand for smoking in pubs.

New Model Pub

In recent weeks there have been a few examples of representatives of anti-alcohol groups such as Don Shenker of Alcohol Concern praising the “controlled drinking environment” of the traditional pub. Of course this is just weasel words, as in reality they are playing divide and rule with the drinks trade, and their underlying objective is to see, if not total prohibition, then a massive fall in alcohol consumption and the number of pubs, and an equally massive rise in the price of drink.

But you don’t have to scratch very far below the surface to appreciate that they don’t really have a clue what pubs are all about. Take, for example, this ludicrous call from so-called “alcohol expert” Dr Lynn Owens for pubs in Liverpool City Centre to be turned into cafés. This breezily ignores the basic economic principle that the market will provide the kind of outlets that people want. If there was a demand for cafés, there would be cafés. And what right has she, who has probably never run a business in her life, to seek to dictate what kind of businesses there should be? Perhaps next she’ll be demanding that tanning salons be replaced with wholefood shops.

There’s more evening food served in pubs now than at any time in living memory – just look in your local Wetherspoon’s – plus a huge rise in the number of restaurants in city centres. The world has changed, and in reality we have a lot more of that café culture than many give credit for.

These people just don’t get the idea of “going out for a drink”, and never will, and stories like this just serve to underline why there’s no point in trying to compromise or reason with them. They also seem to have no time for the concept of letting others live their lives as they see fit.

(h/t Dick Puddlecote)

Prohibition planet

More evidence that anti-drink campaigners inhabit a different world from the rest of us came in the comments here from Dr Petra Meier (sounds like a fun girl) that 50p/unit minimum pricing would only cost “moderate drinkers” £18 a year, which sounds like small beer. But how much is this so-called “moderate drinker” actually drinking? Turns out it’s 250 units a year, or less than five a week. That’s two pints or two glasses or wine a week, an amount that would be considered entirely safe for a pregnant women. In reality, in anyone’s book, that isn’t moderate drinking, it’s extremely light, even featherweight drinking.

Surely a moderate drinker should be defined as someone adhering to the official guidelines of 21-28 units a week, who would see their costs increase by between £75 and £105 a year, which doesn’t seem so trivial. Someone drinking 50 units a week – a level that still produces better health outcomes than total abstinence – would be paying £180 a year more. It’s very clear that, despite what the anti-drink lobby claim, minimum pricing would hit ordinary, responsible drinkers very hard in the pocket, and its impact would certainly not be confined to heavy boozers.

The UK already has some of the most expensive off-trade alcohol in Western Europe, and, if there was a direct link between price and alcohol problems, we wouldn’t have any alcohol problems. Clearly, these problems, such as they are (and the anti-drink lobby consistently exaggerate both their scale and severity) are not caused primarily by cheap drink, and therefore there is no guarantee that simply jacking up prices would do anything to solve them.

Alessandro Corsellini

Alessandro Corsellini, a third generation pipe maker and smoker, started his pipe smoking career at the age of 17. Later, and in 1965, he founded Italy's first and oldest pipe club, "Club della Pipa" (Club of the Pipe), and a year later, he resumed his family's pipe smoking tradition. As a smoker, Alessandro is very well known not only in Italy, but also in Europe and in the world at large for his many achievement and world records in pipe smoking contests. He took part in his first pipe smoking contest in 1967, and in 1969 and 1972 he came out the winner of the European Championship. In in fact, in his first such event of 1969 he set an astounding world record, with a time of 3 hours, 3 minutes and 45 second; that was the first time someone managed to keep his three grams of tobacco lit and going beyond the 3-hour barrier. From 1972 to 1998, Alessandro won the Italian Championship 6 times, and his club team won it 12 times, from 1970 to 2000. His club team won the World Championship in 1985 (Paris), 1989 (Turin), 1997 (Budapest), and 1999 (Brno). Alessandro's hobby of the heart remains pipe making and smoking. He has a wide collection of pipes, and he still prefers natural, English mixtures, with Latakia. Besides pipes, he collects antique pocket watches and motorcycles. He loves animals very much and seizes every possible opportunity to enjoy nature and its charm. Such activities are best enjoyed in the company of his wife, two children and his grandson.

Yul Brynner

Yul Brynner was a Russian-born actor of stage and film, best known for his portrayal of the King of Siam in the Rodgers & Hammerstein musical The King and I on both stage and screen, as well as Rameses II in the 1956 Cecil B. DeMille film The Ten Commandments and as Chris Adams in The Magnificent Seven.

He was noted for his deep, rich voice and for his shaven head, which he kept as a personal trademark after adopting it in his role in The King and I.

He was born Yuliy Borisovich Brynner in Vladivostok, Far Eastern Republic. His father, Boris Brynner, was a mining engineer of Swiss and Mongolian ancestry and his mother Marusya was a housewife.

Brynner exaggerated his background and early life for the press, claiming that he was born Taidje Khan of part-Mongol parentage, on the Russian island of Sakhalin. A biography published by his son Rock Brynner in 1989 clarified these issues.

He claimed to be a quarter Romany and in 1983 was elected to the position of Honorary President of the Roma, an office that he kept until he died. He also infrequently referred to himself as Julius Briner. In addition to his work as a performer, Brynner was an active photographer, and wrote two books.

After Boris Brynner abandoned his family, his mother took Yul and his sister, Vera Bryner, to Harbin, China, where they attended a school run by the YMCA, and in 1934 she took them to Paris.

During World War II, Brynner worked as a French speaking radio announcer and commentator for the U.S. Office of War Information, broadcasting propaganda to occupied France.

Brynner's best-known role was that of King Mongkut of Siam in the Broadway production of Rodgers and Hammerstein's musical The King and I which he played 4,626 times on stage over the span of his career. He appeared in the original production and subsequent touring productions, as well as a 1977 Broadway revival, and another Broadway revival in 1985. He also appeared in the film version for which he won an Academy Award as Best Actor, and in a short-lived TV version (Anna and the King) on CBS in 1972. Brynner is one of only nine people who have won both a Tony Award and an Academy Award for the same role.

He made an immediate impact upon launching his film career in 1956, appearing not only in The King and I that year, but also in major roles in The Ten Commandments with Charlton Heston and Anastasia with Ingrid Bergman. Brynner, at 5'10", was reportedly concerned about being overshadowed by Charlton Heston's physical presence in the film The Ten Commandments and prepared with an intensive weight-lifting program.

He later starred in such films as the Biblical epic Solomon and Sheba (1959), The Magnificent Seven (1960), and Kings of the Sun (1963). He co-starred with Marlon Brando in Morituri; Katharine Hepburn in The Madwoman of Chaillot and William Shatner in a film version of The Brothers Karamazov (1958). He starred with Barbara Bouchet in Death Rage, 1976. Among his final feature film appearances were in Michael Crichton's Westworld (1973) and its sequel Futureworld (1976). Brynner also appeared in drag in an unbilled role in the Peter Sellers comedy The Magic Christian (1969).

In addition to his work as a performer, Brynner was an active photographer, and wrote two books. His daughter Victoria put together Yul Brynner: Photographer a collection of his photographs of family, friends, and fellow actors, as well as those he took while serving as a UN special consultant on refugees. Brynner wrote Bring Forth the Children: A Journey to the Forgotten People of Europe and the Middle East (1960) and The Yul Brynner Cookbook: Food Fit for the King and You.

A student of music from childhood, Brynner was an accomplished guitarist and singer. In his early period in Europe he often played and sang gypsy songs in Parisian nightclubs with Aliosha Dimitrievitch. He sang some of those same songs in the film The Brothers Karamazov. In 1967, he and Dimitrievitch released a record album, The Gypsy and I: Yul Brynner Sings Gypsy Songs.


Brynner died of lung cancer on October 10, 1985 in New York City.

Knowing he was dying of cancer, Brynner starred in a run of farewell performances of his most famous role, The King and I, on Broadway from January 7 to June 30, 1985, opposite Mary Beth Peil. He received the 1985 Special Tony award honoring his 4,525 performances in The King and I.

Throughout his life, Brynner was often seen with a cigarette in his hand. In January 1985, nine months before his death, he gave an interview on Good Morning America, expressing his desire to make an anti-smoking commercial. A clip from that interview was made into just such a public service announcement by the American Cancer Society, and released after his death; it includes the warning "Now that I'm gone, I tell you, don't smoke." This advertisement is now featured in the Body Worlds exhibition.

Donald Findlay

Donald Findlay is a well-known senior advocate and Queen's Counsel in Scotland. He has also held positions as a vice chairman of Rangers Football Club and twice Rector of the University of St Andrews.

He is well known for a distinctive style of dress and manner, particularly the smoking of a pipe, as well as his staunch support for Unionism in Scotland and the Conservative Party.

Donald Findlay was born on the March 17, 1951 in Cowdenbeath, Fife. He was subsequently educated at Harris Academy in Dundee, and later at the University of Dundee and at the University of Glasgow. His academic links with the University of St Andrews (of which Dundee was once part) saw him elected as Lord Rector in 1993 and again in 1996. After his retirement from this position, he took the position of Chancellor of the University's Strafford Club.

A combination of high-profile controversies, acute legal skills and a well-cultivated image has generated Findlay a lot of coverage in the Scottish press in recent years and he now has one of the highest legal profiles in Scotland and widely considered to be Scotland's premier criminal law advocate. He took silk, becoming a Queen's Counsel in 1988, but his behavior has been censured by the Faculty of Advocates on more than one occasion. He has served as a defense lawyer in many high-profile murder cases including Jodi Jones, Mark Scott and the Kriss Donald murder trials. He represented Peter Tobin, the murderer of Angelika Kluk in the so-called "body in the church" case.

He is also a noted after-dinner speaker and in 1997 was a high profile campaigner on behalf of the Think Twice campaign which supported a double-no vote in the Scottish devolution referendum.

Lost in translation

From time to time I have had snacks or meals in pubs that gave the impression they had been prepared by people who had got the recipe via a garbled phone message translated from a foreign language, and had never actually experienced the dish in question.

Yesterday I ordered a Cheeseburger in a Good Beer Guide listed pub that shall remain nameless. OK, I know it’s not haute cuisine, but I fancied a hot snack and that was the best option on the menu. What I received was an open, cold buttered roll, with a dry Westlers-type burger on it, covered with a heap of grated cheese. Nothing remotely like any real-life cheeseburger I have ever encountered – have they never actually crossed the threshold of McDonald’s or Burger King? I would have been better (and more cheaply) fed with a McD’s Extra Value Quarter Pounder.

Similarly, a few years back, at what was supposedly a smart hotel, I ordered a chicken tikka baguette as a bar snack. I expected it to contain some tender, succulent pieces of chicken tikka, but in fact the contents were an unpleasant slurry of generic curry. It was utterly inedible. Likewise the “steak barm cake” which, instead of containing a thin slice of grilled steak, had pieces of the kind of steak you might find in a steak pie, complete with gravy.

And on two occasions – once in the now-closed Setter Dog on the Cat & Fiddle road – I have ordered a “chicken curry” only to be served with something seemingly out of a 1950s recipe book that was so bland and creamy that it would make the average Korma seem fiery, not to mention containing unpalatable, rubbery chunks of chicken.

I have no expectations of fine dining in ordinary pubs, but the people who put together the menus really should take a reality check.

Location, location

Something that has always been difficult to fathom out is the precise dynamics of why some pubs succeed and others fail. Obviously being run well is a major factor, but it can’t be denied that location does play a significant part too. For example, I posted here about the Junction in Mottram, which wasn’t helped by the fact it stood in the midst of a permanent all-day traffic jam.

One of the most common misconceptions is that the presence of numerous houses nearby guarantees trade for a pub, when in fact one of the categories of pub that has seen most closures is stand-alone estate pubs, often leaving vast residential areas without any pubs at all. On the other hand, pubs often seem to thrive in clusters – for example, the centres of Didsbury and Chorlton have significantly more pubs and bars than they did twenty years ago. Another type of location which has seen a major attrition of pubs is just off town centres, where they are caught in a kind of limbo between the shopping area and where people actually live, and may well in the past have depended on trade from local businesses which is no longer what it was.

And neither is it a given that having a prominent site helps a pub, when many in that category have closed (such as the White Lion in Withington) while others well off the beaten track prosper.

I have also often heard people struggling to understand how pubs can succeed that are difficult to reach by public transport, when many obviously do without being the regular haunt of lawbreakers.

Maybe a problem with understanding why pubs succeed or fail is that everyone tends to assume that other people’s patterns of pubgoing are much the same as their own, whereas in fact they will in many cases be radically different.

Lies, damn lies...

There was an interesting exchange of letters in this week’s Times. On Monday, Professor Ian Gilmore, one of our leading anti-drink bansturbators, wrote the following:

Carol Midgley suggests that “Middle England” drinkers are unlikely to die from overconsumption of alcohol.

A recent University of Southampton study of liver ward patients found all but one with alcohol-related liver problems were daily or very frequent drinkers as opposed to binge drinkers. One quarter were drinking 40 units or fewer a week — this is roughly equivalent to half a bottle of wine on five nights a week. Put simply, Middle England drinkers are ending up on liver wards by regularly consuming what some might consider moderate levels of alcohol.

The dubiousness of his “half a bottle of wine” figure was rapidly pointed out by two correspondents, including David Ryder of Middleton who said:

Professor Gilmore’s wine would need to be at least 24 per cent alcohol content. Could the professor inform me as to where I could obtain this heady vintage?

And then Gilmore was taken to task by no less than Professor David J. Hand, the President of the Royal Statistical Society, for the “error of the transposed conditional”:

The premise shows that if one is a liver-ward patient then the probability of being a daily or frequent drinker is very high. But it says little directly about the probability of being on a liver ward, if one is a daily or frequent drinker — which is surely what one is interested in.

A further point is that, while it might be true that a quarter of liver ward patients were drinking 40 units or less (although I doubt this, as heavy drinkers habitually understate their own consumption), what proportion of those who drink 40 units or less end up on liver wards? I suspect it is extremely low. It would also be interesting to know how it compared with, say, the proportion of regular steak eaters who suffer heart attacks. Let us know the risks so we can judge for ourselves, and if you never take a risk, you never do anything.

Alan Christopher Deere

Alan Christopher "Al" Deere was a New Zealand Spitfire pilot in the Battle of Britain and author of Nine Lives.

Deere was born in Westport but his family moved to Wanganui where he grew up in a semi-rural environment and attended Marist Brothers' School and Wanganui Technical College. At the age of eight he saw an aircraft fly overhead and sprinted to see it land on a nearby beach. The pilot allowed him to sit in the cockpit and Deere determined to become a pilot.

After a school career dominated by success in sports, representing his school in rugby, cricket and boxing, Deere spent two years as a law clerk. Encouraged by his family doctor to follow his chosen career, Deere persuaded his mother to sign the under 21 application for entry into the Royal Air Force. He passed selection under Wing Commander R A Cochrane in April 1937 and sailed for England on the Rangitane in September, but was admitted to hospital with high blood pressure.

Deere began flying training on 28 October 1937, at the De Havilland Flying School at White Waltham, the No 13 Elementary and Reserve Flying Training School.

On 9 January 1938 he was granted a short service commission as acting Flying Officer and started initial officer training at RAF Uxbridge. He was selected for the RAF boxing team to tour South Africa, but flight training took priority and he was posted to 6 Flight Training School on 22 January. The aircraft he was to have travelled in crashed at Bulawayo with the loss of all on board.

Deere was promoted to Flying Officer on 28 October, and temporarily posted to No. 74 Squadron RAF on 20 August, before joining No. 54 Squadron RAF in September where he was joined by Colin Gray, who was to become New Zealand's top scoring pilot of World War II. Both squadrons operated Gloster Gladiators, the RAF's last biplane fighter.

Until May 1940, the squadron remained in England, tasked with home defense, having converted to Supermarine Spitfire Mk 1s at the beginning of 1940. Deere was enraptured of the Spitfire, like most pilots, describing it as "the most beautiful and easy aircraft to fly." He was later given a chance to fly a captured Bf 109, and found the Spitfire superior:

"In my written report on the combat I stated that in my opinion the Spitfire was superior overall to the Me 109, except in the initial climb and dive; however this was an opinion contrary to the belief of the so-called experts. Their judgement was of course based on intelligence assessments and the performance of the 109 in combat with the Hurricane in France. In fact, the Hurricane, though vastly more manoeuvrable than either the Spitfire or the Me 109, was so sadly lacking in speed and rate of climb, that its too-short combat experience against the 109 was not a valid yardstick for comparison. The Spitfire, however, possessed these two attributes to such a degree that, coupled with a better rate of turn than the Me 109, it had the edge overall in combat. There may have been scepticism by some about my claim for the Spitfire, but I had no doubts on the score; nor did my fellow pilots in 54 Squadron",(the Bf109 was called Me 109 by contemporary Allied pilots).

On 23 May 1940, during the closing phases of the Battle of France, Deere and Pilot Officer J. Allen flew Spitfires escorting Flight Lieutenant James Leathart across the channel in a Miles Magister to rescue 74 Squadron’s commanding officer, who had made a forced landing. In sight of Leathart and White, Deere claimed his first combat victories, shooting down two Messerschmitt Bf 109s. Later the same day he shot down a third Bf 109.

On 24 May he added a Bf 110 over Dunkirk and on the 26th claimed two more in the same area.

On 28 May Deere was shot down by a Dornier Do17 he was attacking near Dunkirk. He was knocked unconscious when making a forced landing on a Belgian beach. Rescued by a soldier, Deere made his way on foot to Oost-Dunkerke where his head injuries were dressed. He hitched a ride on a British Army lorry to Dunkirk, and (after receiving some criticism from soldiers about the effectiveness of the RAF’s fighter cover), boarded a boat to Dover from where he took a train back to London, 19 hours after taking off from Hornchurch with his squadron.

Together with Leathart and Allen, Deere was awarded the DFC on 12 June 1940. The medal was presented at Hornchurch by King George VI on 27 June. The Citation read:

"During May, 1940, this officer has, in company with his squadron, taken part in numerous offensive patrols over Northern France, and has been engaged in seven combats often against superior numbers of the enemy. In the course of these engagements he has personally shot down five enemy aircraft and assisted in the destruction of others. On one occasion, in company with a second aircraft, he escorted a trainer aircraft to Calais Marck aerodrome, for the purpose of rescuing a squadron commander who had been shot down there. The trainer aircraft was attacked by twelve Messerschmitt 109s whilst taking off at Calais, but Pilot Officer Deere, with the other pilot, immediately attacked, with the result that three enemy aircraft were shot down, and a further three severely damaged. Throughout these engagements this officer has displayed courage and determination in his attacks on the enemy." London Gazette – 14 June 1940.

No 54 Squadron took part in the defense of channel shipping against Luftwaffe attacks designed to draw out and destroy Fighter Command.

On 9 July Deere shot down a Bf 109 over the channel, but then collided head on with a Bf 109 of 4 Staffel Jagdgeschwader 51 flown by Oberfeldwebel Johann Illner. The propeller blades of Deere's spitfire "Kiwi" were bent backwards, the engine disabled, and much of the fin and rudder lost. Nevertheless, he managed to glide back to the coast near Manston where his forced landing in a paddock ended against a stone wall.

The colour scheme of this aircraft (P9398, KL-B, named, like all Deere's aircraft, "Kiwi"), was accurately recorded and in consequence it has been a favourite with modellers and manufacturers. The remains of this aircraft have recently been excavated and are to be rebuilt.

After Adler Tag on 11 August he shot down a Bf 109, two more plus a Bf 110 the next day, and on the 15th added another Bf 109 over the Channel. However he was then trapped in an unequal dogfight with Bf 109s which attempted to block his return to England. Deere made the coast but was forced to bail out at low altitude, and was admitted to Victoria Hospital with minor injuries. He discharged himself the following day. Deere was shot down again on the 28 August - this time by a Spitfire - but parachuted to safety. A frustrating combat on the 30th saw him claim a probable Do 17.

The following day the Luftwaffe raided Hornchurch. Deere led a section of three Spitfires which attempted to take off during the raid. A bomb destroyed all three aircraft. Deere's Spitfire was blown on its back, trapping him. Pilot Officer Eric Edsall, though badly injured when his own Spitfire had been destroyed, crawled to Deere’s aircraft and freed him. Seeing Edsall’s injuries, Deere then carried his rescuer to the sick bay.

Deere was critical of the lack of training given to new pilots:

"We were desperately short of pilots.[...] We were getting pilots who had not been on Spitfires because there were no conversion units at that time. They came straight to a squadron from their training establishments. Some of them did have a few hours on the Hurricanes, a monoplane experience, but not on the Spitfire. For example, we got two young New Zealanders into my flight. Chatting to them I found they'd been six weeks at sea coming over. They were trained on some very outdated aircraft, I can't remember, out in NZ. One of the pilots had taken them up to see the handling and brief them on the Spitfire. Then they'd go off for one solo flight and circuit, then they were into battle. The answer of course is that they didn't last. Those two lasted two trips and they both finished up in Dover hospital. One was pulled out of the Channel. One landed by parachute."
Such was the toll on men of 54 Squadron that on 3 September, before the peak of the battle, the squadron was withdrawn from 11 group and moved to the northern airfield at Catterick to rest and recover.

A Bar to his DFC was awarded on 6 September 1940. The Citation read:

"Since the outbreak of war this officer has personally destroyed eleven, and probably one other, enemy aircraft, and assisted in the destruction of two more. In addition to the skill and gallantry he has shown in leading his flight, and in many instances his squadron, Flight Lieutenant Deere has displayed conspicuous bravery and determination in pressing home his attacks against superior numbers of enemy aircraft, often pursuing them across the Channel in order to shoot them down. As a leader he shows outstanding dash and determination." London Gazette – 6 September 1940.

[edit] Squadron Leader, America
While training new replacement pilots in January 1941, Deere collided with one of them, losing most of his tail to the Sergeant pilot's propellor. When bailing out, Deere was trapped against part of his aircraft, and his damaged parachute failed to fully open. Deere landed in an area of open sewerage which broke much of his fall. As a result of this incident he was rested from active flying, but promoted to Acting Squadron Leader and tasked as Operations Room Controller at Catterick. An unusual honour was having his portrait painted by official war artist Cuthbert Orde that February.

On 7 May 1941 he was posted to Ayr as Flight Commander of No. 602 Squadron RAF. On 5 June he suffered engine failure over the North Sea and glided back to another forced landing on the coast, crawling out the small side door after the Spitfire flipped on to its back, destroying the canopy and temporarily trapping him. At the end of July he took over as Squadron commander of 602 Squadron, and on 1 August it moved back to Kenley. On the same day he shot down another Bf 109. On the 10th he was scrambled to investigate a single enemy aircraft flying westwards but could not locate the machine and abandoned the search after being told the aircraft had crashed near Glasgow, so missing the chance to shoot down Rudolf Hess' Bf 110. (See: Rudolf Hess landing for further details.)

In January 1942 he was sent on a lecturing and public relations trip to America teaching American pilots fighter tactics learnt in the Battle of Britain.

Deere returned to action on 1 May, taking command of a Royal Canadian Air Force squadron, No. 403 Squadron RCAF, at North Weald. In August he went on a course at RAF Staff College and was subsequently posted to Headquarters 13 Group on staff duties.

He engineered a return to operations, somewhat unofficially, as a supernumerary with No. 611 Squadron RAF at Biggin Hill. He shot down an Fw 190 soon after, but wrote of his great respect for the type and its pilots.

He was given command of the Kenley fighter wing, but this was changed at the last minute to keep him as Wing Leader at Biggin Hill. While there, Deere was awarded the DSO, the citation reading: "This officer has displayed exceptional qualities of skill, which have played a large part in the successes of formations he has led. His fearlessness, tenacity and unswerving devotion to duty have inspired all with whom he has flown. Wing Commander Deere has destroyed 18 enemy aircraft." London Gazette – 4 June 1943.

Deere led 121 sorties during his six months as Wing Leader, and added another four claims to his total.

On 15 September 1943 he went to Sutton Bridge to command the Fighter Wing of the Central Gunnery School. He received a staff job in March 1944 at 11 Group but at the request of General Valin, abandoned this to take commanded of the Free French fighter wing, leading it over the beaches on D-Day, and subsequently in its pilots' return to France. When the fighter wing moved further into Europe, he was posted to HQ 84 Group Control Centre as Wing Commander Plans until July 1945 when he became Station Commander at Biggin Hill. He was awarded the OBE on 1 June 1945.

At the end of the war Deere was given command of the Polish P-51 Mustang Wing at Andrews Field, Essex, presiding over its disbandment in October, before becoming Commanding Officer at Duxford. Deere received a permanent commission in August 1945, and was promoted to Squadron Leader on 26 March 1946. In 1947 he was on the staff of AHQ Malta, subsequently joining the headquarters of 61 group before becoming Operations Officer, North-Eastern Sector, RAF Linton-on-Ouse.

Alan Deere was promoted to Wing Commander on 1 July 1951, and became Commanding Officer of RAF North Weald the following year. In 1955 he was on the directing staff of the RAF Staff College. He was promoted to Group Captain on 1 January 1958. He was Aide-de-camp to the Queen in 1962, and was appointed Assistant Commandant of the RAF College in 1963. Promoted to Air Commodore on 1 July 1964, Deere took command of (East Anglian) Sector.

On 30 January 1965 he was given the signal honour of leading fellow Battle of Britain fighter pilots in the main funeral cortege for Winston Churchill. In 1966 he commanded No. 1 School of Technical Training at Halton. He was consulted for the movie "Battle of Britain".

Alan Deere retired from the Royal Air Force on 12 December 1977. He died on 21 September 1995 aged 77 years.