9 minute read
My Local
Wor th their weight in gold
Pubs are supporting their communities up and down the British Isles, writes Laura Hadland
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Our attention was focused on the
staggering levels of child poverty in the UK at the end of 2020. Word spread like wildfire across social media, fuelled by the passion and personal experience of Premier League footballer Marcus Rashford. We were all forcibly reminded that in one of the richest countries in the world, an estimated 2.5 million children were going hungry during the holidays when they did not have access to free school meals.
The surprising army that sprang up to support Marcus and give real, practical help to hungry families were our pubs. Up and down the land, publicans collected donations for food banks and offered free meals to kids and their families. Not just for the school holidays, but in many cases for much longer after they had returned to the classroom. Two years on, many schemes, or their legacies, are still burning brightly.
Despite their businesses having suffered the harshest financial conditions in living memory thanks to lockdown restrictions, many within the on-trade chose to put the wellbeing of others first. I wanted to find out more about how pubs are playing important, and often unexpected, roles in our communities up and down the British Isles.
The Alexandra, a Young’s pub in Wimbledon, is held up by many as a shining example of a local that actively seeks to support its community. Prior to lockdown, it already held Meet up Mondays, with free tea and coffee,
Above and right: The free Christmas Day lunch at the Alex helps those who would otherwise be alone
sandwiches, a raffle and bingo at lunchtime to help combat loneliness.
The free Christmas Day lunch at the Alex is also the stuff of legend, providing a warm welcome to people who would otherwise spend the day alone. One commentator described them as “the heart of their part of Wimbledon”.
The Grainstore Brewery Tap in
Oakham hosts a monthly Armed Forces & Veterans Breakfast Club. It’s part of a national scheme to bring people with shared experiences together in a relaxed and sociable environment. The Oakham club was set up by Tracey and Mark Taylor. Ex-Army chef Mark found his own transition to civvy life very hard and was inspired to take positive action when a close friend and colleague sadly took his own life.
The taphouse gives them a venue and heavily subsidised breakfast, essentially at cost price. Some guests are unemployed, elderly or struggling with mental health issues. Others have settled well into new civilian careers. However, they all come together at the tap to provide mutual support in an informal setting. They don’t have to arrive on time, and they can leave whenever they want to. “For some of the guys and gals, especially the older ones,” Megan from the Grainstore says, “it can be their only time out during the month.”
Alex Hylton runs the Salmon pub in Leicester city centre. I stopped by during
a books and bakes sale to raise money for Project Breakfast Club, its 2022 fundraising project. The aim of the project is to raise £3,000 to put on a breakfast club at Lancaster Academy High School in South Leicester. Here, one in three children lives in a home that is under or just about meeting the definition of the poverty line. Those children often miss out on breakfast, which affects their ability to learn and how they grow and develop.
“We’d been looking for a way to return the support and the generosity that the pub had received from the community during the pandemic,” Alex told me. He’s been organising a stream of activities, including tapas nights and among hospitality workers. Spending so much time with people puts publicans in a unique position to understand the problems faced by local residents.
live music events where bands gave up their fee for the cause. The Aqua Ladies of Nuffield Health gym have got in on the act to raise some funds, and one customer even volunteered to do a skydive. “People have really embraced the idea,” Alex says. “We’ll keep doing it as long as the school needs the money.”
I asked Alex why a pub should go to all this trouble and his answer was: “I don’t know really, it just seems like the right thing to do.” This imperative to do the right thing is very common
“I get very misty-eyed and romantic
about pubs,” Alex continues. “It really humbled me when people came and spent £100 on takeaway beer during lockdown that they could have got for half the price at the supermarket. They wanted the pub to survive. So now we want them to know that they mean something to us. We want to be the focal point for everyone to come together and build something better.”
The Salmon is not the only one working to make a difference.
Above: At least half the performances at Upstairs at The Western are artistically led by women or non-binary talent
The Oakes Barn in Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, uses the strapline ‘a communityspirited free house’ because adding value for its guests is embedded within the DNA of its business. Its befriending service checks in regularly on members, reaching out a hand of friendship to people who don’t have anyone else.
There are also a huge number of creative pursuits supported at the venue. This includes ukelele playing, knitting, beginner’s French, origami and even a print group meeting regularly at the pub.
The Oakes Barn’s tireless fundraising supports local charities like the St Nicholas Hospice. The staff collectively completed a virtual walk from Land’s End to John O’Groats in 2021, raising more than £1,000.
In my opinion, pubs are integral to
community building within modern Britain. This isn’t just because of their charity fundraising and active support for people who need food and companionship. Many play a vital role in fostering creativity and the arts locally. This goes far beyond simply providing wall space to showcase local artists, although that in itself is a welcome resource. At a time when local authority spending on the arts and social spaces is at an all-time low thanks to central government cuts, this is a unique resource.
The Paxton in Gipsy Hill, South London, has set out to support its local creative communities across fashion, music, art, dance, design and wellbeing. One of just three Greene King pubs to now be free of tie, its aim is to make art more accessible. A programme of interactive fine art and light installations called Sky Art was born out of a response to lockdown, putting tent projections outdoors when customers weren’t allowed inside. It has become an integral part of what it does.
The Paxton is a constant work in progress, giving local residents a blank canvas to work with. Its activities are diverse and numerous: classical recitals during Saturday brunches in the garden, kids’ theatre workshops and even ballet in the boozer. The Paxton’s CEO, Alan Grant, said: “We are focused on serving all our communities. It’s about laying down roots and listening.”
It’s encouraging to know that this kind of activity makes solid business sense
Clockwise from top: Alex Hylton of the Salmon; the Salmon raises money for a breakfast club at a nearby school; local beers; volunteer Carole Baker-Allen
because, hopefully, it will become more common. Focusing his attention on what people want has paid dividends for Alan’s business. “We have built a loyal local audience across the whole week,” he says. “This has allowed us to open on a Monday and Tuesday when all the other hospitality businesses on our street choose to close. Creativity and creative programming in our pub is a key factor in the resilience of the business in these challenging times.”
Back in Leicester, I talked to Alison Dunne, one of the directors of Upstairs at The Western. It is a pub-based, 42-seat theatre that started on the first floor of the Western pub in 2013. It became a community interest company in 2019. It stages high-quality theatre and comedy performances with at least 50 per cent of the pieces being artistically led by female or non-binary talent. It also nurtures local creative work. It is the only pub theatre in Leicester and offers a different, more intimate theatre experience compared to larger venues or more conventional commercial operations.
The schedule includes high-quality
touring shows on Fridays. Wednesdays are dedicated to local work that needs a platform and pieces in development. The theatre also supports the thriving local comedy improv scene – a big thing in Leicester, as the home of the oldest comedy festival in the UK. Covid-19 emergency funding from Arts Council England meant visiting artists have received 100 per cent of the box office takings, which made a massive difference when live performers suffered such hardship due to lockdown.
The pub has changed ownership, recently joining the Everards family. The brewery gave Upstairs at The Western funding to help strengthen community ties after the pandemic. It put on crafting sessions, art walks and a free ticket scheme to encourage local people to make use of the facility.
Just like the arts programming at the Paxton, Upstairs at The Western brings new people into the pub as well as offering additional experiences to existing customers. A festive season show for families over Christmas 2021, Roti Moon brought more than 300 people into the building, most of whom had not visited before. Thanks to the warm welcome they received, many have already returned to make use of the pub, its café and to enjoy more theatre at Upstairs at The Western.
There is no excuse for children going hungry in the fifth-richest country in the world. It is disheartening that in some areas access to the arts is so limited. We are lucky to have caring publicans who keep their ears to the ground and understand their communities. We can be proud that the UK’s pubs, quietly and without fanfare, do so much to foster the altruism and creativity that makes life worth living.
Laura Hadland is a food and drink writer, and author of 50 Years of CAMRA. She writes about beer, among other things, on her blog
