Calling Time at The Grey Horse

I walked through the back room of one of my favourite pubs yesterday. It's a room I've not seen empty before in nearly three decades of visiting. It's a room that is usually buzzing and pulsating with extremely noisy music and extremely sweaty people. The sound is buffered from the main bar by heavy swing doors with old fashioned etched glass panels and shiny brass handles. As you heave them open, a blast of music hits you like gas mark 9. A black-out curtain, that seems to promise the appearance of a magician's assistant in burlesque attire, hangs behind and you usually need to have your hand stamped with an indelible ink splodge to get further in. Along with a hangover the next morning, you'd have to do an impersonation of Lady Macbeth at your bathroom sink.

The stage looked undressed without the usual drum kit and over-sized amps. The air was still but suspended within it were memories of dancing and dangling off a boyfriend's arms, of shouting in friends' ears to be heard, and waiting ages to get served at the bar. Of standing up for so long your feet ached as you walked home, feeling slightly tipsy, with the bass line still throbbing in your ears. Of the shock of having the house lights turned back on and all the magic dissipating. Of standing in the street outside long after closing time chatting to friends, sharing jokes and stealing kisses.

The current bands have fluorescent flyers blu-tacked to the walls in the main bar. Favourite past bands have framed monochrome photographs hung higher up. I wondered how long it takes to make the transition.

We all still go at Christmas to do the dancing, drinking and achey thing. Now some of our children come too, the same age we all were when we first started going.

I suppose I know how long it takes to make the transition after all.

About thirty years.