The very last thing Britain wants is ‘Sober October’

It’s a few 5 minute stroll to my native pub. It’s set in Oxford, by the river, and since I stay in a (barely) retro a part of town, you possibly can usually get a desk there, even on the weekend.

The welcome is heat, the pints are chilly, and the décor is eclectic. It’s a spot the place I at all times really feel snug, even when I typically wince at how a lot the costs have gone up. And it now serves an all-vegetarian menu, too, which takes a little bit of getting used to.

However over the previous few weeks, as a result of west Oxford is an impeccably right-on spot, I’ve seen that the queue on the bar is a bit much less busy, and that the hummus and pita isn’t fairly flying out like common. And the rationale for this, alas, is that we’re within the midst of probably the most joyless occasions recognized to man: ‘sober October’. As a result of the Puritans who management public well being have determined that ‘Dry January’ is not sufficient to guard the nation’s well being.

No, as a substitute the libertines and carousers who make up the nice British public have to be informed that they want a minimum of two months off a yr: so, within the midst of the rising drab, chilly evenings, for those who go to the Punter – my beloved native – or wherever else, it’s a gin-less gin and tonic, an alcohol-free beer, or a really sober shandy for you.

Too many pubs are closing. It’s terrible to see one more boozer giving technique to luxurious flats, or being became some identikit chain restaurant. Figures reveal that within the preliminary half of this yr, 383 pubs closed, the equal of two every single day. In 2022 alone, 386 such venues ceased to exist. The issue is that we’ve all been conditioned to imagine that the pub is not important to the neighborhood; certainly, with all the federal government well being warnings about extreme consuming, even getting into one’s native appears a harmful act, the sort of factor that is perhaps taken down towards you in a court docket of regulation. And each week, a dozen or so pubs disappear, and landlords lose their livelihoods. 

This isn’t a lot regrettable as completely fallacious. The pub has at all times been on the coronary heart of each neighborhood that it serves, and has carried out for hundreds of years. We’re not even speaking concerning the fancier finish of the market, the la-la gastropubs, which have been disappearing for some time. And a solitary pint stays one in every of life’s best pleasures, particularly if taken with a newspaper or a superb ebook. An hour or two’s leisure for lower than the worth of a cinema or theatre ticket? Effectively, I’ll join that in a trice.

The pub has at all times positioned a vitally vital function in English tradition. From Falstaff on the Boar’s Head Inn in Eastcheap to The Spaniard’s Inn by Hampstead – the place everybody from Dickens to the ever-thirsty Byron popped in to quench what should have been a formidable urge for food, given its distance from central London.

London has been on the centre of the nation’s love of boozers, however there are limitless numbers of deservedly reputed locations all through Britain, from Ye Olde Jerusalem Inn in Nottingham, seemingly the oldest pub in England, in-built 1189, to 1 my very own favourites, Edinburgh’s perennially fashionable Café Royal – a favorite of the novelist Ian Rankin. And one of many joys of those locations is that you just’re by no means fairly certain who you’re going to satisfy once you pop in, from the nice and good to the barking mad. Lengthy might it proceed.

Sober October shouldn’t be such a nasty factor. However a minimum of observe abstinence within the pub, and order a non-alcoholic beer, or spirit. In any other case, one in every of our nice traditions would possibly vanish, and who on earth needs that?