ONE of the things we were envied for the world over was the British pub.

Other countries tried to copy it, and we exported it. But we killed it here through a misplaced sense of business.

It was the tight licensing laws that made it unique. We, old and young, were all out at the same time, having a night or Sunday lunch together.

The entire country went mellow at the same time. Pubs were full at the same time with plenty of people, plenty of atmosphere and licensees who knew you as well as you knew them.

But licensees and the brewers all thought: "Oh! if we could stay open a bit longer, people will stay longer." Wrong!

Customers just came out later. But that was not the only effect - it separated the customers.

Older ones, finding the pubs empty early in the evening, started drinking at home. Why not? There was nothing going on in town.

The younger ones, wanting to be 'in at the death', came out later. So pubs started catering just for the kids - music, lights, etc, and we end up with a "two-night" evening economy and with a town and its pubs as dead as a doornail until 9 or 9.30pm.

Pubs open all day? Great! Well, why aren't they?

Sunday lunch, the great bastion of the British Sunday? Gone.

Long hours, bigger overheads, doormen (because the social mix and its levelling effect has gone), all mean dearer products.

Night clubs are not pubs - they are dance halls and will continue to be.

Preston is busy in the early evenings, bustling even. Why?

It hasn't, as yet, embarked on the late licences.

Makes you think doesn't it?

Who benefits from late licences? Licensees? No - they have longer hours and bigger overheads for the same money.

The police? I think not.

Breweries? Yes - from home drinking. That's where the growth is.

MARGO CARMICHAEL-GRIMSHAW, Never Never Land, Market Street Lane, Blackburn.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.