No holding hands, it will lower the tone

THERE’S a pub I often walk past which is, shall we say, not the most salubrious place.

One of the windows has been broken for months, while the people who hang about outside are hardly the best-dressed in the world.

As they gather together for a cigarette, you see the usual collection of shaven heads and tattoos — and that’s just the women.

It is in no way a scene reminiscent of London’s fashion week, yet behind the nicotine-ingesting denim-clad throng — a sort of middle-aged Bash Street Kids — is a notice which declares: “no tracksuit bottoms”.

What difference this item of clothing would make to the establishment I have no idea, but the landlord clearly believes they would bring down the tone.

At the other end of the scale, there is a pub in Hyde which was once run by a man — we’ll call him Arthur, even though he’s long gone — who was the exact opposite of a genial host.

In his day the pub was littered with notices telling people not to drop cigarette ends on the floor, not to make a mess and, most importantly, not to hold hands.

Any form of physical contact was a mortal sin, and Arthur, who had a tinny microphone next to his seat, was known to tell off couples who breached the total exclusion zone.

“Stop that,” he’d boom at some unsuspecting couple who were holding hands.

Another of his foibles was to ban all manner of snacks, a fact a friend of mine named Albert discovered to his cost.

Bert arrived one evening, straight from work, and having ordered a pint, said: “I’ve had no tea, I’m peckish. A bag of crisps, please.”

“We’ve no crisps,” said Arthur. “We have mice.” “All right then,” replied Bert, “I’ll try a bag of mice”.

Arthur did not see the funny side and Bert was barred on the spot.

As for the prohibition of hand-holding, it must have been a Tameside thing because in another pub I frequented there was a notice in the gents saying: “Gentlemen and their young ladies are requested to refrain from petting in the public rooms.”

When I was a postman, I used to deliver to a sub-office which was festooned with notices. There were things like “do not let your children play, it annoys the other customers” and “do not stand too close to the people being served, they are conducting private business”.

And then, to top it all, “please enjoy your friendly post office”.