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I WAS one of the foolish brigade who welcomed the change to this country's drinking laws a few years ago. We heralded it as a giant step towards a new freer, more libertarian age.

I have to admit I am now convinced I got it wrong. I still believe though the licensing times, which restricted drinking hours in our pubs, were quite daft. If I recall correctly, you could only drink in a pub from around 11am to 2.30pm and to 5.30pm to 11pm.

Bewildered tourists used to turn up at our inns mid-afternoon looking for a half a pint of shandy, only to be told it was against the law to serve them.

In some areas, pubs were forced to close at 10.30pm, so you had the ridiculous spectacle of drinkers rushing to their cars to get to a pub in another borough that kept open until 11pm.

But, it was so very British. So very quaint and absurd, and now it's been swept away. That should have been a good thing, but it's meant the smaller pubs cannot cope with the longer hours, while giant soulless chain drinking establishments have sprung up in their place.

If you drive around High Wycombe, you'd probably be amazed by the number of historic pubs that have closed. Instead, we have large theme pubs which major on food.

The old backstreet local is struggling to keep up as a precious part of our culture dies out.

In a few years time, High Wycombe will look like a part of north America. You will have giant retail parks, massive superstores and colossal food pubs. This is all well and good, but the great British pub - for all of its faults - was a piece of heritage that kept this country different from the others.

So if you still have a backstreet pub near you, please use it and cherish it.

Otherwise the only real bitter we'll have left soon is the bitter taste in our mouths when our culture disappears.

12:22pm Friday 22nd February 2008

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