Miles Kington: Are you a novelist stuck in the past? I can help you

The cleverest notice I ever saw in a pub was a handwritten sign, which said: "We have been invited to join Les Routiers, but we have refused to pay the exorbitant signing-on fee."

At one stroke the pub had conferred on itself the honour of having been enrolled in a famous outfit, and the common sense of not getting involved in a commercial set-up. It was the equivalent of letting it be known that you have been offered a knighthood, and turned it down.

One of the silliest notices I ever saw in a pub window was, by coincidence, stuck up in the same pub. It said: "We are in The Good Pub Guide 1981." Nothing wrong with that, in the abstract. However, the year in which I spotted it was about 2000, and the fact that there was no testimonial later than 1981 was tantamount to saying that in the past 19 years they had been dropped from The Good Pub Guide every year and could not think how to get back into it. It was like being given a knighthood and then having it taken away again.

Mark you, I have little right to complain about outdated claims in pub windows, as I find it very hard to throw away old guides, and on my shelves you will find not only old pub and hotel guides going back 25 years, but also lists of Spanish paradors stretching back just as far. Woe betide anyone who tries to plan his holiday using the 1988 Good Hotel Guide. After all, even when it came out, it was out of date. When we merrily leap on the brand new Good Pub Guide 2008 we will tend to forget that it was researched and written in 2007 at the latest, and is already a year behind. My wife and I stayed at a B&B in Normandy recommended by Alastair Sawday for the gloriously warm household presided over by the mère de famille and her collection of amazing knick-knacks. By the time we got there the old lady had died and a somewhat morose son-in-law had taken over. We still enjoyed it, but you could tell that the new regime was determined to root out all signs of conviviality.

So why do you see all those 1981 guides still on sale in second-hand bookshops? Who on earth would want to go rooting around for details of British hotels in the 1960s and 1970s?

Novelists, perhaps.

Sebastian Faulkes doing his new novel set in the 1970s, looking for authentic hotel detail.

Or Ian McEwan, even.

I can visualise Ian McEwan hesitantly entering a second-hand bookshop, and being asked the usual second-hand bookshop question: "Are you looking for something special, sir?"

"Well," says McEwan tentatively, shyly even. "I'm writing a novel about sexual incompatibility in a newly married couple..."

"And you're looking for textbooks on dysfunctional sexual behaviour?"

"Well, not really. I was looking for information on Chesil Beach."

"Chesil Beach?"

"That's where I'm setting the novel. The great thing about Chesil Beach is that it never really changes, so you don't have to do much research. But I need to know the kind of pubs and hotels they might have visited in Dorset in 1961..."

"1961? Are you in luck! It so happens we have a magnificent collection of pub and hotel guides of that very year!"

"That very year?"

"Of every year, sir! We can supply you with accommodation details for an unhappy couple to stay in for any year you like! Look, here behind the old Egon Ronays and the Michelin Guides."

And with trembling fingers, hardly able to believe his luck, he digs out the old AA Guides - Good Hotel Guides - Where to Stay in Britain guides which have been sitting there for 30 years, waiting for a good home to come along...

But you don't have to go to second-hand bookshops. If you are a questing novelist, desperate for details of guesthouses and hotels of yesteryear, I think I may be able to help you. Just send me a note of the years you are interested in, and I will send you a list of the available material.

It's all priced very reasonably.

Also out-of-date Ordnance Survey maps, town guides, railway timetables, etc etc etc.

Plenty available.

We look forward to hearing from you.

More from Miles Kington