The Tiger Inn received lots of publicity this week following a report into how important pubs are to local communities and villages, the Tiger was used as a shining example. The journalist Harry Wallop of the Daily Telegraph (15.10.14) took the story further saying the Tiger Inn ticked a lot of boxes that made up George Orwell’s 1946 ideal pub. His list is below, but why don’t you come and stay or have a meal and let us know if The Tiger ticks the boxes that makes up your perfect pub.
The two stories and a good picture of the Tiger, can be found at:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/foodanddrink/pubs/11161984/The-perfect-pub-is-there-one-left-in-Britain.html
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/countryside/11159499/Pubs-keeping-English-villages-alive-study.html
George Orwell’s ideal pub
In 1946, George Orwell, the novelist and essayist, wrote an article for the Evening Standard about his ideal pub – the fictional Moon Under Water.
For him the pub would have the following 10 attributes:
- On a side street, to keep out the drunks or “rowdies”.
- Most of the customers are regulars and “go there for conversation as much as for the beer”.
- Its look is uncompromisingly Victorian – “everything has the solid, comfortable ugliness of the 19th century” – and there is a log fire in winter.
- A dining room upstairs, where you can get a good solid lunch. Only snacks are served in the evening.
- Downstairs there is a public bar, a saloon bar and a ladies’ bar.
- No radio, no piano. It is always quiet enough to talk.
- The barmaids know the customers’ names and call them “dear”, but never “ducky”.
- It sells tobacco, stamps and even aspirin.
- The beer (including a “soft, creamy stout”) is always served in a glass with a handle. Ideally, a pewter or china pot.
- There is a garden, with a slide and swings for children. It is “puritanical nonsense” to ban children.
He wrote, at the end of the piece, that he had only ever found a pub with eight of the 10 features.