Three times in the past month, I’ve been in a pub at the tail-end of the lunchtime session, and a group of young mothers has wheeled in a procession of prams, buggies and pushchairs containing their offspring. Needless to say, my heart sank, and the inevitable chorus of howling and wailing was soon in evidence. A very good reason not to stay for another. It was also noticeable that on at least one occasion they sat and nattered for at least a quarter of an hour before anyone ordered anything from the bar. The old-style publicans would have chucked people out for that. I know for a fact of one licensee who barred a school of women for not putting enough money across the bar.
Oh how are pubs fallen when it comes to this. In the old days, there would have been a cosy fug of smoke and the bar would have been full of blokes perusing the racing pages prior to nipping in to the bookies’. Nowadays, it seems pubs are so desperate they have to act as unpaid social clubs.
