Epic crawl that stresses pubs' vital role

Happy Hours – A Great British Pub Diary. Mike Critchley. Scratching Shed, £14.99

It’s the pub crawl of the century, in fact two centuries. For more than 40 years Mike Critchley has been touring pubs throughout these islands and recording his thoughts in small blue notebooks.

Since he turned 18, Mike has visited some 1,900 inns and taverns. He has seen some memorable and historic architecture, heard some remarkable stories and folk lore and supped some fine pints -- and clocked up some hideous hangovers.

He tells good stories as he’s a journalist by trade. He’s spent 25 years on the St Helens Star as well as a stint on the Birmingham Mail. His work as a sports writer – mainly rugby league – has taken him far and wide, including London when the Twickenham toffs allowed the northern version of the oval ball game to be played on their hallowed turf.

Mike’s book serves a brilliant purpose at this terrible time when one pub a day is closing. Publicans are driven to pull down the shutters as a result of the heavy burdens dropped on their drooping shoulders by a thoughtless government.

He stresses just how vital pubs are to local communities, offering a warm welcome, good conversation and a chance to make new friends as well as serving the finest draught beer.

The book runs from1984 to the present day, a period that has seen tumultuous changes in pub life. When Mike started out on his bibulous crusade, pubs had to close at 2.30 or 3pm and stay shut until the early evening. There were even tighter restrictions on the Sabbath. He’s correct to record that restrictions on licensed hours were lifted first in Scotland. I recall drinking in a pub in Edinburgh’s Grassmarket at two in the morning when such neck lubrication was strictly verboten south of the border.

Then in 1988 came the greatest shake-up in modern pub history when the government’s licensing act allowed pubs to open from 11am to 11pm, with late night extensions in some areas. Far from being the end of civilisation, as argued by some of the wilder tabloids, the law saw the end of the late night swill, followed by punch-ups and what Billy Connolly memorably dubbed Technicolored yawns.

Mike covers in detail the impact of the Covid pandemic and the lockdowns that did so much damage to pubs that were forced to close or offer limited pavement service. He has a good laugh at the debate over whether a Scotch egg constituted a “full meal” when Rishi Sunak lifted some of the restrictions.

As a fellow journo, I have also traversed the country and supped in a number of Mike’s chosen pubs. One dear to both of us is the Olde Cheshire Cheese down an alley off Fleet Street, once the heart of the national newspaper industry.

When I worked on “the Street of Shame”, journos and printers or inkies would form a disorderly queue outside a hostelry known to Dickens and Dr Sam Johnson and drink it dry of Pedigree. Why Marston’s sold this London gem to the misery guts at Sam Smith’s beggars belief.

The 40 years covered by Mike have seen major changes in the social structure of society. Back in the 1980s many pubs were divided into the saloon or lounge for respectable folk while rough necks like Mike and me had to make do with the public bar or the vault.  Now most of those restrictions have gone and we can all sup in one happy crowd, barristers rubbing shoulders with bricklayers.

Based in the North-west, Mike has been a regular visitor to the vast array of great pubs in Liverpool. They include Ye Cracke, where John Lennon supped when he was at the nearby art college, the Roscoe Head – one of CAMRA’s Famous Five pubs that has been in all editions of the Good Beer Guide, where the indefatigable Carol Ross beat off a giant pub company to buy and run the family inn – and Ma Egerton’s next to the Empire Theatre. It’s claimed Frank Sinatra had to be dragged from the pub to return for the second half of his gig, saying Ma’s served the best pint of Draught Guinness he’d ever tasted.

Mike is equally well schooled in the great pubs of Manchester and Leeds, with such gems as the Marble Arch,with its infamous sloping floor, the Peveril of the Peak and Britons Protection. Leeds offers, among many, the Adelphi, Scarborough and the elegant Whitelocks.

Thanks to his stint on the Birmingham Mail, Mike also got to know the pubs of the Second City well. He records great drinking times in the Crown, Bartons Arms, the Shakespeare, the Old Contemptibles and the Old Joint Stock.

There’s nostalgia by the bucket load for pubs that are no longer with us and once great beers that have disappeared down the sluice. Greenall Whitley, long gone. Ansell’s Dark Mild – there was a beer that made you salivate as did proper cask Boddington’s and Tetley’s. The last named is still around but goodness only knows where Carlsberg Britvic is having it brewed following its tour of destruction of breweries.

Over the years, Mike has met up with old mates and made new friends. He’s listened to great music, some of it from bands that started life in pubs and went on to celebrity status.

He also got married and became a father. When he and his wife Kate visit a town, Kate goes off to the dress shops or the theatre while Mike heads for the local pubs: surely the perfect relationship.

This is a treasure trove of a book that will be enjoyed by all beer and pub lovers. My only surprise is that Mike has not been to two Cities of Ale, Norwich and St Albans, the latter my place of domicile. If he’d like a tour I’d be happy to show him round. I’ll even buy him a new notebook.

 •Pictured above, the Peveril of the Peak in Manchester and the Roscoe Head in Liverpool.