Let’s be positive in 2024 and make things happen
I was thinking that the last year has been pretty good compared with some of the ones we have had recently. Pub closures have been limited with the Lattice House, Crown and Mitre and White Hart in Lynn reopening after a period of closure.
The Black Horse at Castle Rising seems to be doing well, the Nelson at Clenchwarton is back to being a popular village pub, Tilney Buck is looking lively, the Winch has been spruced up, presumably ahead of reopening, and the Blue Bell at Stoke Ferry has had a solid year and is fulfilling its role as a community hub.
All is well in the world of pubs and beer then? Well, apparently not. I received a message from a couple of our members who have been active in the past, attending meetings and distributing our magazine Norfolk Nips, that they were resigning from the campaign. No reason was given other than our support for the community takeover of the Blue Bell. Perhaps we did not do enough, was my first thought. Advice, publicity, nominations for awards, baking cakes and on a personal level buying shares. True, we were not there every day doing the hard labour like numerous others, but I feel that we did our bit.
Reflecting on this, I realised that the former members in question had to my knowledge never attended any of the Blue Bell events and it dawned on me that the reason for their resignation was the fact the CAMRA got involved in helping to save a village pub at all. I guess that there is some village politics going on of which I am unaware. Should CAMRA have stayed out if it? No way. I would like to think we would support any campaign to help save a local pub, and indeed I was one of the people who purchased shares in the abortive bid to buy the White Hart at Foulden which featured our former members in the group organising the bid. Unfortunately, this failed, and my money was returned in full.
That is useful as it may well go towards the campaigns to save the Crown and Anchor in St Germans or the Windmill at Necton. Lots has been happening with the St Germans group and I have been publicising their efforts in my regular email to members. This elicited a response from another recipient to the effect that it is a waste of time as lots of people want their pub to be saved but then will not come to support it when it is open.
I suppose I could have taken this to heart and given up promoting the good work that is being done by the community groups, but instead I asked where his evidence was, as according to the national CAMRA website, there are over 150 community-owned pubs in the country and none have ever gone broke. After some toing and froing, it transpired that his local is not a pub, has not had a meeting in which a community buyout was proposed and is still open.
However, I do accept that it can be hard to galvanise the local population to support a pub or club, so I offered some suggestions which may help. Through the WEA, we run a discussion group once a month which is not in a pub but could be. Our book group draws over a dozen to the Stuart House and many of us stay for food and beer afterwards. I offered to run a quiz which has worked well at Ferry Lane. Let 2024 be the year to be positive and make things happen.