I read all this, the names of the old pubs (of a certain sort) and the memory inducing photos, and recall the pubs that I used to watch my parents, or my friends' parents go and drink in from time to time. (I'm probably thinking of the Jack-in-a-box at Hacky here).
My memory of them is that all the blokes in them (Dad included) were for-ever 40 years old, sideboards and slicked back hair (or bald - god bless you, Dad), with wives in a smart dress and hand bag, sometimes with glasses, always with lipstick, babycham and a wise look on their faces. It taught me pubs were a place for mature and sensible, orderly and calm people to have a couple of beers, chat and a smoke before returning home to kick out the baby-sitter with an extra shilling for putting up with me.
What happened to change everything so that pubs became the haunt of noisy, boisterous, charver-chasing, smart-arse, fancy-assed tossers like me with cocky, full-of-it, in-control, style changing girlfriends or table-smashing, puke-chucking, fag-burning, fart-brawling mates? How come we turned them all into the kind of place you could only ever like if you'd swallowed 8 pints of shit beer or had your arse groped by an ugly bint with a cackle like a smacked-up hyena?
Where did it all go wrong?
And why do I love em still?