Barry: Post Office did its bit...

Jan 7 2009 by Barry Gibson, Huddersfield Daily Examiner

MY thanks to Eric Martin of Marsden who got in touch this week to put me right about stamps.

You may recall that in last week’s column I said that Royal Mail should bring out a special set of stamps celebrating pub signs.

Eric sent me a photocopy of an Examiner article from August 2003 showing exactly that – a special set of stamps celebrating pub signs.

The piece includes a picture of Bruce Travis, the newly-installed landlord of the Station Tavern on St George’s Square, with a giant version of one of the stamps.

Along with The Station, there were stamps of Black Swan, The Cross Keys, The Mayflower and The Barley Sheaf. So, my apologies to the postal bosses, who have already done their bit to help Britain’s ailing boozers.

Looking at that Examiner piece from five years ago, it’s interesting to see there were around 50,000 pubs back in 2003. How many are there today?

Considerably fewer it would seem, with pubs closing at a rate of four a day due to a combination of cheap supermarket drink and the smoking ban.

We’ve all seen the sad sight of boarded-up pubs around Huddersfield and the Campaign for Real Ale has predicted that 7,500 pubs will go to the wall between now and 2012.

The Royal Mail may have done their bit but others – like the Government and Kirklees Council – also need to help, or else the great British boozer could become history.