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18-11-2018, 10:07
Visit the Boak and Bailey's Beer Blog site (https://boakandbailey.com/2018/11/j-b-priestley-on-improved-pubs-in-the-midlands-1934/)
The passage below appears in*English Journey*by J.B. Priestley, published in 1934, and just reprinted in hardback by Great Northern Books (https://www.gnbooks.co.uk/product/english-journey-2018-limited-edition-hardback/), though we found our copy for £4 in the local Amnesty bookshop.A hundred pages in, it’s a fascinating, rather sour view of a land of cheap raincoats and glum hotel bars, but it’s impossible to write about England without at least acknowledging pubs, and the 1930s were an especially interesting time.
We’ve taken the liberty of inserting some extra paragraph breaks for reading on a screen:
Half-shaved, disillusioned once more, I caught the bus that runs between Coventry and Birmingham… We trundled along at no great pace down pleasant roads, decorated here and there by the presence of new gaudy pubs. These pubs are a marked feature of this Midlands landscape.
Some of them are admirably designed and built; others have been inspired by the idea of Merrie England, popular in the neighbourhood of Los Angeles. But whether comely or hideous, they must all have cost a pot of money, proving that the brewers… still have great confidence in their products.
At every place, however, I noticed that some attempt had been made to enlarge the usual attractions of the beer-house; some had bowling greens, some advertised their food, others their music. No doubt even more ambitious plans for amusement would have been put into force* if there had been no opposition from the teetotallers, those people who say they object to public-houses because you can do nothing in them but drink, but at the same time strenuously oppose the publicans who offer to give their customers anything but drink.
The trick is – and long has been – to make or keep the beer-house dull or disreputable, and then to point out how dull or disreputable it is. Is is rather as if the rest of us should compel teetotallers to wear their hair long and unwashed, and then should write pamphlets complaining of their dirty habits: “Look at their hair,” we should cry.
For more on inter-war improved pubs, with their bowling greens and tearooms, see chapter 2 of our*20th Century Pub (https://www.booksaboutbeer.com/products/20th-century-pub).
J.B. Priestley on Improved Pubs in the Midlands, 1934 (https://boakandbailey.com/2018/11/j-b-priestley-on-improved-pubs-in-the-midlands-1934/) originally posted at Boak & Bailey's Beer Blog (https://boakandbailey.com)
More... (https://boakandbailey.com/2018/11/j-b-priestley-on-improved-pubs-in-the-midlands-1934/)
The passage below appears in*English Journey*by J.B. Priestley, published in 1934, and just reprinted in hardback by Great Northern Books (https://www.gnbooks.co.uk/product/english-journey-2018-limited-edition-hardback/), though we found our copy for £4 in the local Amnesty bookshop.A hundred pages in, it’s a fascinating, rather sour view of a land of cheap raincoats and glum hotel bars, but it’s impossible to write about England without at least acknowledging pubs, and the 1930s were an especially interesting time.
We’ve taken the liberty of inserting some extra paragraph breaks for reading on a screen:
Half-shaved, disillusioned once more, I caught the bus that runs between Coventry and Birmingham… We trundled along at no great pace down pleasant roads, decorated here and there by the presence of new gaudy pubs. These pubs are a marked feature of this Midlands landscape.
Some of them are admirably designed and built; others have been inspired by the idea of Merrie England, popular in the neighbourhood of Los Angeles. But whether comely or hideous, they must all have cost a pot of money, proving that the brewers… still have great confidence in their products.
At every place, however, I noticed that some attempt had been made to enlarge the usual attractions of the beer-house; some had bowling greens, some advertised their food, others their music. No doubt even more ambitious plans for amusement would have been put into force* if there had been no opposition from the teetotallers, those people who say they object to public-houses because you can do nothing in them but drink, but at the same time strenuously oppose the publicans who offer to give their customers anything but drink.
The trick is – and long has been – to make or keep the beer-house dull or disreputable, and then to point out how dull or disreputable it is. Is is rather as if the rest of us should compel teetotallers to wear their hair long and unwashed, and then should write pamphlets complaining of their dirty habits: “Look at their hair,” we should cry.
For more on inter-war improved pubs, with their bowling greens and tearooms, see chapter 2 of our*20th Century Pub (https://www.booksaboutbeer.com/products/20th-century-pub).
J.B. Priestley on Improved Pubs in the Midlands, 1934 (https://boakandbailey.com/2018/11/j-b-priestley-on-improved-pubs-in-the-midlands-1934/) originally posted at Boak & Bailey's Beer Blog (https://boakandbailey.com)
More... (https://boakandbailey.com/2018/11/j-b-priestley-on-improved-pubs-in-the-midlands-1934/)