OH PUB LANDLORD WARNS DAILY MAIL DRINKERS
A leading OH made a splash when he wrote to the letters page of a national newspaper.
John Armstrong, landlord of a pub just off the M3, created headlines in the Daily Mail by warning of fears that Britain risks being left with no decent pubs.
The paper made John’s wake-up call into a page lead, complete with a picture and a three-deck headline urging readers:
‘Don’t let it be
last orders for
your local pub’.
The letter blames the rising cost of living for leaving his customers at John’s White Horse in Ampfield with insufficient money for a pie and a pint.
Sociable John has spent 51 years in the hospitality business. He is frequently at OH Club events, as well as organising dinners for former Allhallows classmates at his 16th-century Hampshire inn, just south of Winchester.
In the Daily Mail letter, published on June 5th, he wrote: “My pub is in an affluent area, not far from where the Prime Minister was brought up, but even the seemingly rich are struggling to pay bills and are not going out.”
John reckons lifestyle changes have also hit business. “People working from home don’t drive past the pub at the end of the working day, so the traditional six o’clock trade is dead. Expense account lunches are long gone.”
At Allhallows 1962-67, John was made head of Baker and head of the CCF.
His letter to the Mail concludes: “There are fears that we risk losing the Great British pub, but I’m determined we will survive.”
