MyShout

As the trade goes through major changes Stephen Oliver believes pubs should make the most of the future

"Pass us the 'ammer on yer way past, mate". I was out in trade recently and the air was full of the sounds of spring. Banging, sawing, drilling. "Nah, not that one, the bloody sledgehammer's what I want. I'm knocking this wall down, not tickling it."

It was a time of transformation, of seeing pubs emerging from their dusty chrysalises, gleaming with new paint, new ideas, new promise. This year we've decided to spend more than ever before on capital projects, some to help our pubs cope with the smoking ban, but much more to help them face up to the challenge of ever-more demanding consumers.

If you've watched Life on Mars on TV those 1970s scenes evoke some vivid memories - if you're old enough. There are dodgy haircuts and even dodgier motors, great tunes and policemen still on the beat, but from a different, very un-PC era. A glass of Liebfraumilch was the height of sophistication then, a Snowball was daring and lager drinkers had suspicious moustaches and sheepskin coats. But the pubs, oh, the pubs. What might be seen as curiously retro now was the norm then. Peeling wallpaper, scruffy seats, flat lighting, functional bars and a range of drinks that wouldn't fill a Sun crossword. As for food? Nary a curly ham sandwich or a pork pie.

The Ford Cortina our TV hero drives is a collectable classic now, a museum piece. So too are unreconstructed pubs, the ones carved by generations of customers and licensees and oozing character garnered over ages.

But the grotty boozer of 1973 is being swept away now by our changing lifestyles and expectations. If not yet, then the smoking ban surely will deal it the coup de grace, as it will with dinosaur-like working men's clubs unwilling to face change.

In just one day out I visited eight pubs where we're joining forces with entrepreneurial licensees to create a new pub offering. At the same time our builders were on site at dozens of other pubs, getting them ready for spring.

The sense of energy and excitement was palpable. As always, just before re-opening, the feeling of organised chaos is overwhelming. "It'll be all right on the night" is the mantra you hear everywhere, and usually it is, given the drive and the passion of the teams involved.

This scene is being repeated up and down the land, with Britain's pub industry investing more in the country's pubs now than in previous years.

We should raise a glass to the dedicated builders, sparkies, plumbers and surveyors who make it happen, and to the licensees who put their own money in cash or rent into making the pub, their pub, the place to be - and show the supermarkets and corner shops where to get off, because the 21st-century public house is not about cheap booze but high retail standards, food, families and social responsibility. Light years away from Mars.