Thursday 14 April 2016

Definition of a public bar

This is one for Boak & Bailey. The simple definition of a public bar in 1950.

"But the laugh of the day came when Mr. Eric Hallas, outside manager for Offiler's Brewery, Ltd., was asked to define a public bar. His technical explanation obviously still left the justices slightly puzzled, so the Clerk (Mr. H. Wilfrid Skinner) helped out.

"Is it not the difference between spittoons and no spittoons?" he asked.

"Exactly," agreed Mr. Hallas."
Derby Daily Telegraph - Friday 23 June 1950, page 4.

I wonder when that changed? I can't ever remember seeing a spittoon in a pub. And I always used to hang around in the public bar.

2 comments:

Chap said...

I can remember spittoons in the saloon on the Isle of Man ferries sailing out of Liverpool in the late 1950s and early 1960s, and my parents telling me that it was a disgusting habit!

BryanB said...

He didn't say which was which. If you were in the public, maybe that means it was the saloon that had spitoons - after all, the public had sawdust to spit in, no? (-: