Classic, Basic, Unspoilt

About twenty-five years ago, maybe more, a friend told me about a list entitled ‘The Classic, Basic, Unspoilt Pubs of Great Britan’. Its compiler was identified only as ‘RWC’ and it circulated usually in the form of a faded photocopied typewritten sheet. A note explained the author had indeed visited all of the pubs (and more, that did not make the list) to assess their suitability. There was perhaps discernible a South East of England leaning: the very few in the North did not look like the whole picture, and the same could perhaps be said of the South West. But the list was a keen-sighted idea, conscientiously and unobtrusively carried out. 

The Times, evidently rather bewildered, once called it “an obscure list”, but it soon became something of a word-of-mouth success. Real ale and indeed real pub scholars liked the idea, and some went in quest of the chosen inns, or tried to find one that might satisfy the somewhat strict and confessedly idiosyncratic criteria. The idea of the Classic, Basic, Unspoilt Pub was in one way quite simple, being one of those things that you know when you see it, but the essential point was that the pub was just a pub: it was not a restaurant, an amusement arcade, a creche, a games room, or a discotheque.

Usually, the reason for its preservation thus was the stolid determination of the publican not to have any truck with innovation. They were often run by veteran and somewhat formidable landladies much respected by loyal locals. The name behind the list was later revealed to be Rodney Wolfe Coe of Ashford, Kent, and he also seems to have deprecated the internet, which was why originally his list was just known as a paper copy passed about by hand (though scans by others of at least one edition are now online).

New editions of the list came out every so often, but the number on the list began to dwindle as these old pubs were being closed or ‘improved’. When I first saw a copy there were perhaps about 30, later there were about 20, and the last I saw, some years later, had only 11. At some point, I read, there were so few that RWC stopped compiling the list.

I went with my friend P.J. Beveridge to find some of them, rather in the spirit of Jocelyn Brooke searching for The Dog at Clambercrown in his 1955 book of that name. On one occasion we simply couldn’t find the pub we were looking for, despite spiralling around its supposed location, and felt that we were pretty much in Brooke’s story. With The Eagle at Skerne, in the East Riding of Yorkshire, we found it all right, but it was closed. Staring in gave the impression that it had been unchanged for perhaps forty years, with a rudimentary black fireplace, fading wallpaper, red vinyl-topped tables and an air of someone’s front room, with no bar visible. We asked a boy from next door, who happened to emerge, if it ever opened and he looked puzzled. “It doesn’t open, it’s just, kind of like, there,” he said, a remark that seemed oddly profound, as if the mere manifestation of the pub ought to be enough. Alas, soon enough, it wasn’t there, as a pub: and nor were almost all the others.

No doubt this affection, even yearning, for the essential pub, is mixed up with nostalgia for a time that never was. And of course, there is something to be said for the other side. If you are out in the country, it is heartening and cheery to find a pub that serves food. Certain sorts of jukebox playing the pop songs of yesteryear, can also be enjoyable, recalling the soundtrack of our youth. Gentrification can bring a pleasanter, more commodious, if perhaps more anonymous, offering. Even so, the idea of celebrating the pub at its simplest was well worthwhile.

It occurred to me that the ‘Classic, Basic, Unspoilt’ principle could be applied to other things. Museums, for instance, which to qualify would consist simply of obscure objects in glass cases in hushed rooms with creaking floorboards. There would be no audio-visual ‘experiences’ or souvenirs, just a few faded monographs and postcards. Ancient monuments too: these would have as few signs as possible, preferably brief and enigmatic, in a classic font. There would be an admissions kiosk looking like a garden hut, with paper tickets on a roll, and no shop offering heritage chutney. I can imagine the same approach devoted to cafes, gardens, record shops, stationery shops, haberdasheries and other delights.

When some book-collectors talk wistfully about the bookshops of yesteryear, they no doubt have, in their mind’s eye, a certain sort of bookshop which might be thought of as the equivalent of the ‘Classic, Basic, Unspoilt Pub’. Of course, what makes the essential pub is not the same as what is needed for the essential bookshop, but the principle is clear.

Just as the pub list compiler felt it necessary to explain that his choices must all serve real ale, so must the bookshop have proper second-hand books, not remainders or new books, still less souvenirs, gifts or greetings cards. The basic pub has only chairs, tables, stools and a counter, and not much else: the bookshop would simply have shelves and a desk, though stepladders or stools, and possibly a chair or two might be acceptable. However, whereas the classic pub might have at best two or three beers on offer, the classic bookshop would of course be overbrimming with stock, all or most of it uncatalogued, so that finds might be made. The pub arbiter, I think, did not countenance recorded music, wireless or television: ideally, the bookshop should prefer silence or low murmurings. Like the pubs, in the classic bookshop the proprietor would be taciturn, if not brusque. Are there such bookshops still? Certainly: I can think of some, and they seem to have survived in numbers rather better than pubs, but maybe they too are gradually giving way to modernity. Perhaps a Classic, Basic, Unspoilt Bookshops list is needed. 

(Mark Valentine)

Image: The sign for the Sun Inn, Leintwardine, Herefordshire, one of the original Classic, Basic, Unspoilt pubs