Pubs are disappearing at a rate of knots, and that comes as no surprise really when one things of the sea change in attitudes to drinking and even smoking.

In the ‘good old days’ pubs kept pies in glass cases and never seemed to have any sell by date. There was probably so much salt in them that they may well have been preserved for years. In years to come someone will dig out the site of an old pub and will find a glass case complete with pork pie. It will be examined and dissected by future archeologists and deemed to be fit for human consumtion as long as it is washed down with a beer of the same era. It will have on it the DNA of the landlady who put it there before the place was demolished to make way for a mobile phone shop, which has also now been demolished.

I found this drawing this afternoon when doing one of my periodic clearouts, which never really become clearouts because I can’t bring myself to clear out drawings. It was one of many, this one never got into the book, about “Some Missing Persons”, a book that my dear departed friend Gordon wrote about people and types that seem to be gradually disappearing. It was a good book but did not do as well as it deserved. Such is life. Perhaps someone will find a copy in many years to come and deem it to be the great work of truth that it is. They will then go out and celebrate with a “beer-style” beverage and a vegetable-style “pork pie” savoury, poor sods.