The Rise and Fall

Yesterday morning I had to go to a meeting on Commercial Road in Tower Hamlets (actually at the building I used to work at), and as I was walking from Shadwell (having gotten off the DLR) to the office at about 10.30am I passed a pub (the Hungerford Arms) which was open and had several people seated at the bar drinking.

And amongst other things I thought to myself how great would it be to be in the pub at 10.30am on such a nice day.

But, equally, I also thought to myself: Richard Taps, don’t even think about it fella. Not in this place.

As one online reviewer put it:

“This is a scary pub and I would not wish to be there alone particularly after benefit cheque cashing day. We went there for a few pints before hitting the Lahore Kebab restaurant (great) as it seemed to be the nearest pub. We felt we were in the mid west and the banjos would be coming out soon. Care do not sit on the seats; they have stains that you do not want to think about. The Hungerford Arms is the worst pub I have ever had to go in, I thought I was going to get attacked before I reached the bar. The Hungerford Arms is, in my opinion, full of scumbags. “

I’m sure that like me, most of you think that you can get a pretty good immediate feel for a pub – even just from walking past - and that’s precisely the impression I got.

And it’s really quite sad to see pubs go that way, but I can absolutely understand why it’s the way it is.

In the East End real locals pubs are almost entirely a thing of the past. On my journey into Liverpool Street in the morning, from Hackney Downwards onwards, you see closed pub after closed pub; and walking around Whitechapel, Mile End and Newham it’s even worse. All you see are beautiful old corner pub buildings which are now shops and restaurants, have just been boarded up and left for dead, or worse, are just piles of broken rubble.

These were places which were once the beating hearts of local communities. These were places just as dear to their regulars as the Taps is to us. Their friendships as lasting, their laughter as genuine, and their drinking as professional. They were places where people celebrated birthdays and christenings and weddings.

And now they’re gone.

And that’s mainly because of the vast change in the demographics of the local populations. I’ve really got no interest in arguing the relative merits of the causes and outcomes of those changes (which is to say that I have no interest in discussing it here. Come and see me in the Steve Perryman suite and we’ll have at it), except to recognise that they have been demographically and structurally vast and profound. It’s simply not a stretch to say that walking around Tower Hamlets you could just as easily be in Bangladesh or Somalia.

Which obviously are cultures and countries which generally don’t drink and which to whom the very concept of the pub as a community hub is an alien one.

[Which gives lie to the myth which Eastenders – the television programme that is – propagates that it’s any  reflection of any kind of modern East End life, rather than an overblown homily to something which disappeared 30 years ago]

I make no judgements. It just is what it is.

Which is why I understand why those local pubs in the East End (and to be clear I’m obviously not talking about Hoxton and Shoreditch – which in their own ways have to shoulder as much of the blame for the demise of East End pubs – as does demographic change) which are still just barely hanging on, are so aggressively insular, defensive, and well frankly, racist.

It’s not a good thing, but there is a kind of inevitability to it.

Anyway, that’s just something I’ve been thinking about.