Standing on the loading bay of Ridley's Brewery as the swallow flies in to feed its second lot of young, I wonder if, like us, this will be the last year that it has a chance of raising a family at Hartford End.
The old brewery is slowly dying, with staff leaving as their time here is over. The last four brews are being brewed this week, office staff are just going through the motions of work, a family is about to be broken, and I do not just mean the Ridley family, I mean the family of workers, because that is what we were.
All the employees at the brewery enjoyed their work. It was not the best paid work in the world but you had a sense of belonging and loyalty to the brewery. To name just a few of the long-serving staff: Billy Price and wife, 30 years' service; Nick Arnold, wife and daughter, 25 years' service; his father before him, Terry Cook, his whole life spent working for the brewery.
There are, of course, many more. Mind you, when I say that, there were only 60 people employed here, but it was a way of life that we all enjoyed, whether we were production or office based.
The thing that really gets to me is we were making a profit, we were not going bankrupt like so many companies that are taken over, even though one of our directors bought a company two years ago that has since been dragging us down.
We had a unique company a tower brewery that produces real ale. No disrespect to the microbreweries or to the Campaign for Real Ale, this was the way beer was really made from a copper to an open fermenting vessel, then after seven days of fermenting racked directly into the cask, with every cask unique in its contents. With no additives and yeast from each brew naturally entering the cask, I had a pride about our beers. Although not everyone's cup of tea we all knew that Ridley's beers were still produced like they were over 100 years ago.
I know that one part of the family will have no financial worries, but the other part all have to find new careers. Do not blame Greene King for this. They were one of the many our company was offered to, with total disregard for the employees. Whether this was greed or not, I do not know, but the loyalty given by all the workers was not even recognised. If only some thought had gone into making sure that the employees would be looked after in their redundancy, instead of having to defend themselves.
All I can say, to whom it may concern, is enjoy your money, but think of what you have lost friendship, loyalty, but most of all a sense of belonging to a family that would always have stuck by you through thick and thin.
The last-brew party is on 9 September, and then we say goodbye to Ridley's; goodbye to the swallows I hope you find a new home and goodbye Old Bob, you have a special place in my heart. And so ends a life of 40 years in the brewing industry, treasured and never to be repeated.
Jim Clark
7 Maple Drive
Witham
Essex
CM8 2LH
Just why do we need background music?
'It's difficult to understand why more operators haven't realised that customers simply do not want to listen to piped music every time they go to the pub. Thus wrote The PMA Team in his article on Wetherspoon's (Morning Advertiser 18 August), and I doubt whether a more important observation has been made about 'the pub experience (the subject of an article by Doug Clydesdale, managing director of Carlsberg UK, in the same edition).
I freely confess to being fit for inclusion in the television programme and book, Grumpy Old Men. But I've discovered that it's not just my antediluvian friends and I who object to this dreary sound totally lacking, as it is, in charm or merit of any sort.
I feel powerless against genuine background music; but when the sound comes out of the background into the foreground, I ask those around me whether they would object to my asking for the volume to be turned down. Not on one single occasion over a period of years has my request to the other customers been met with anything other than wholehearted approval except for the time when someone said, yes, he would object to the sound being turned down: he wanted it off.
I presume this repellent and intrusive noise doesn't come free. So could one of your tens of thousands of licensee readers, beset as they are by a tide of rising costs, or perhaps a senior manager of Mitchells & Butlers or some other managed pub operator, tell us all, what induces them to spend money on something that drives customers away? Seems a strange way to run a business.
JR Walters
87 Alleyn Park
London
SE21 8AA