THE pub sign is one of the treasured glories of rural England. In a recent poll conducted by the Campaign to Protect Rural England, it emerged as the favourite icon, beating red post-boxes, spires, stiles and corner shops. But it is under serious threat. Bill Bryson, travel writer and president of the aforementioned campaign, has condemned the “profusion of bland corporate makeovers” which are replacing traditional exteriors and interiors as big chains take over independent houses. Only a small proportion of the big chains are still ordering individually painted signs.
The pub sign has a long history. King Richard II made it compulsory by a Royal Act of 1393 for inns to have signs so that the mainly illiterate masses could identify them; some cynics suggested it also made it easier for Richard to organise the collection of taxes. Was he to know that the popular nicknames of his parents, the Black Prince and the Fair Maid of Kent, would grace many a pub sign over the centuries? Now they and all the other signs from the Rising Sun to the Moon and Sixpence have lost their royal protection. Under the 2003 Licensing Act there is no requirement on a publican in Britain to apply for approval to change the name of a licensed premises.
Those stern defenders of the English way of life, the readers of the Daily Telegraph, have thundered against the more outrageous changes. One relates that in Stourbridge in the county of Worcestershire the Fish Inn, with its medieval connection to a fish pond, has become the Ruby Cantonese; and the Woolpack Inn, with its equally medieval connection to the sheep trade, is now Heroes. The paper itself laments that the traditional pub signs which “chequer the land like heraldic emblems” are now among the great host of endangered species. It recalls how G.K. Chesterton had a fruitless search one day for an inn called the Dull Man at Greenwich, where he had an important meeting. Only on his return home did he find he should have gone to the Green Man at Dulwich.
In my own wanderings across England’s green and pleasant land I once turned off the Great North Road (now the A1) in search of a country pub for a lunchtime pint and sandwich. In Rutlandshire there was a sign pointing to Jackson Stops, so I reasoned there must be a pub near an estate agent’s office.
When I entered the hamlet there was indeed an olde worlde pub – and it was called Jackson Stops. Inside I asked about the name and the landlady told me it had originally been the Red Lion. Years earlier it had been put up for sale but it had taken months to find a buyer. The locals took to calling it Jackson Stops after the auctioneer’s sign and the name stuck. “We get a lot of American visitors because there were several Yankee airfields round here during war,” the landlady said. “We tell them it’s called after a highwayman named Jackson who used to stop here. It’s a bit more romantic.”
Humour, of course, is part of pub life. In the Peak District in Derbyshire I came across a tavern called The Quiet Woman. The sign bore a painting of a decapitated woman. Then there was The Who’d ‘a’ Thought It, depicting a pig with wings suspended in mid-air. And there is bound to be at least one Slug and Lettuce along the road.
Pubs in Ireland have not the same tradition of external signing. They are usually called after the family that owns them. Those that do forsake the family archives tend to go for names of bland modernity. While many Irish pubs are over-sized, soulless drinking palaces, some do have their charms and eccentricities. One of my locals in Dublin once barred a man for being a bore. On appeal he was restored to the bar on condition that he did not talk to anybody.
In another, the publican kept a ledger in which were recorded the names of regular customers. It was produced around Christmastide and as the traditional solitary free drink was provided, a tick was entered against the name of the recipient in case the cardinal error was made of providing another gratuitous pint.
The central role of the pub in Irish life, particularly in rural areas, was highlighted by the Mayo politician and lawyer, the late Patrick Lindsay, in his autobiography Memories (Blackwater Press 1992). Paddy was Minister for the Gaeltacht in the inter-party government which lost office in the general election of 1957.
He accompanied the outgoing Taoiseach, John A. Costello, and the Minister for Agriculture, James Dillon, on the journey to Áras an Uachtaráin to surrender their seals of office to the President, Sean T. O’Kelly. Driving down the quays in the ministerial car, they passed the Irish House, a grandly decorated pub. Dillon commented on the figurines on the pub and then added: “You know, I was never in a public house in my life except my own in Ballaghaderreen, which I sold.”
Costello said he was in a public house only once in his life, in Terenure, and was nearly choked by a bottle of orange.
Paddy was appalled by what he had heard and declared: “****, I now know why we are going in this direction today and why we were out of touch with the people. For we were out of touch. The public house is the countryman’s club where everything is discussed and where contacts are made. And here was a prime minister of an agricultural country, in a public house only once in his life and the Minister for Agriculture, who was responsible for brewing and distilling, had never been in a public house except for his own. How could we be going in any other direction?”