{"id":5847,"date":"2025-11-26T10:11:02","date_gmt":"2025-11-26T10:11:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/londondrinker.camra.org.uk\/wordpress\/?p=5847"},"modified":"2025-11-26T10:11:05","modified_gmt":"2025-11-26T10:11:05","slug":"letters-november-2025","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/londondrinker.camra.org.uk\/wordpress\/index.php\/2025\/11\/26\/letters-november-2025\/","title":{"rendered":"Letters November 2025"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

All readers \u2013 not just CAMRA members \u2013 are invited to submit letters for publication to London Drinker<\/em> but please remember that the letters column is intended for debate and constructive criticism.\u00a0 The editor reserves the right not to print any contributions that are otherwise.\u00a0 Please e-mail letters to ldnews.hedger@gmail.com<\/em>.\u00a0 Please state \u2018letter for publication\u2019 so as to avoid any misunderstandings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Memories of Mortlake<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Your article in the August\/September edition, \u2018Farewell to the Stag Brewery\u2019 (page 28) reminded me of a visit I made to Mortlake in 1975.  I had just become interested in real ale and had got a list of Young’s pubs from my local Young’s pub, the Britannia in Barking.  On one Friday lunchtime I was on a train passing through Mortlake, so I decided to get off and try the Young’s pub, the Jolly Gardeners.  When I got there, I found that most of the drinkers were actually Watney’s workers wearing Watney’s branded overalls.  At the time Paul Cook, who later went on to be the drummer in the punk rock group the Sex Pistols, was working as an apprentice electrician at the Stag Brewery so possibly was in the pub.  As a 135-er I know puts it, “Paul Cook worked for Watney’s, then he became a punk rock drummer.  I don’t know which is worse<\/em>.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Colin Price<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Editor\u2019s note: <\/em><\/strong>younger readers may not have heard of the \u2018135 Association\u2019.  For some time, there were 135 Young\u2019s pubs, give or take one or two.  As Colin says, the company produced a little three-fold list of its pubs called \u2018Real Draught Beer and Where to Find It\u2019<\/em>.  If within a year you had a drink in them all and had your list ticked, you were awarded a special tie and\/or a pin of ale.  Although chaired by John Young at one point, the Association itself was independent of the company.  It was wound up early this century although it is understood that there are still occasional reunions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

All readers \u2013 not just CAMRA members \u2013 are invited to submit letters for publication to London Drinker but please remember that the letters column is intended for debate and… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":434,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5847","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/londondrinker.camra.org.uk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5847","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/londondrinker.camra.org.uk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/londondrinker.camra.org.uk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/londondrinker.camra.org.uk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/londondrinker.camra.org.uk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5847"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/londondrinker.camra.org.uk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5847\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5848,"href":"https:\/\/londondrinker.camra.org.uk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5847\/revisions\/5848"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/londondrinker.camra.org.uk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/434"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/londondrinker.camra.org.uk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5847"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/londondrinker.camra.org.uk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5847"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/londondrinker.camra.org.uk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5847"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}