John Walsh: Last orders for the pub?

"There is nothing which has yet been contrived by man," wrote Samuel Johnson, "by which so much happiness is produced, as by a good tavern or inn." It's a sentiment endorsed by millions of British men and women down the centuries. The pub is the social nexus of village life, a retreat from urban stress, a forum of wit and self-projection, a blissful site of relaxation and flirtation and a more popular arena of public celebration than church or meeting-house. Life would be unthinkable without the Tabard Inn, the Mermaid Tavern, the Star and Garter, the Queen's Elm. Are they really doomed to extinction?

The signs are bad: last year, 1,400 pubs folded a dishcloth over the pumps for the last time. In town and country, four or five are calling time for the last time every day. We may blame the smoking ban, the rise in the cost of barley, the lowering of supermarket beer prices, tighter drink-driving laws: all may have convinced millions of thirsty Britons they'd be happier drinking (and smoking) at home.

But mostly it's the introduction of a healthy atmosphere that scuppered pubs. With cigarette sales dropping, and patrons dwindling, the only way forward for today's pub is to bring in menus and napery and convert it to a gastropub. The result is that old-style drinkers have been gradually edged out – literally outside, in the case of smokers. Pubs have lost the crucial quality of snugness, that comfort zone in which drinks and smokes, humour and buying rounds guarantees a rolling conviviality with its own internal motor and frequent refuelling stops. Nobody feels right boozing amid cutlery and balsamic vinegar.

George Orwell once described his favourite pub, The Moon Under Water: a place of solid Victorian ugliness, real fires, a florid ceiling stained with nicotine, staff who know your name, real ale served in old-fashioned pint mugs, and no sign of radios, pianos or other distractions from conversation. In fact, he was des-cribing his ideal pub. The Moon Under Water didn't actually exist. And now, evidently – one weeps to accept the fact – it never will.

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