‘Is it time to call time on children in pubs?’

A couple of weeks back, I found myself in the hulking Wetherspoon pub in Ramsgate on a Saturday afternoon. And there’s lots to like about it. Given its enormous scale, there’s ample seating and the outside, roof-top seating area, on a sunny day, is something of a joy to behold.

As you sup your cheap-as-chips beer, or nibble on cheap-as-beer chips, you can look out over the blue sea, the sandy beach or the town’s beautiful marina, depending on your angle. All very nice. But, on a weekend, there is one issue.



The number of children. And it is far from alone. If they were sat quietly engaged in lively chat with their family, that’s one thing.

When they’re running around or desperate (quite understandably) to be on the beach rather than sat at a table with adults, it is, in my opinion, something quite different. When they are sat listening to some excruciatingly loud kids’ show on a phone or tablet they (and their parents) should be shown the door. Don’t get me wrong, they weren’t running riot – but the mood inside the place is changed as a consequence.

It morphs from pub to creche. When I was young, I don’t remember ever setting foot inside a pub. If we ever ventured to one – and we rarely did - we’d sit in the garden while my parents went and bought us a lemonade.

What lurked behind the windows remained something of a tantalising mystery. They were sacred spaces for adults. And adults only.

The only hint you ever got of what lay within was the scent of stale beer and cigarette smoke which drifted out of the doors and windows. Naturally, they made you count down the days until you at least looked old enough to go into one unaccompanied. You wanted to see what the fuss was all about.

You wanted to feel grown up. But at some point, that changed. Today, things appear to be quite different.

There’s no mystery anymore. Pretty much from birth, it seems, you can now enter a pub and soak up the atmosphere. All of which – it must be said – is a good thing in many ways.

Creating more family-friendly environments means they morph from dingey dives into well-lit, inviting places to spend time. But it does come at a cost. Namely, as an adult, being able to escape to child-free spaces.

I don’t have an issue with kids being in the outside areas – but lurking within a pub’s hallowed space is an intrusion too far. And I know this is not a new phenomenon. It may, potentially, also be why young adults are no longer visiting the pub in the numbers in which they once did.

Once upon a time, it was something of a rite of passage entering a pub for the first time – even if it was just for a soft drink. You felt like you’d earned it through the passing of years. Now everyone is familiar with the interior of one from a tender age.

Nor, one imagines, do teenagers want to go into a space in which children are lurking. That is, after all, what they are seeking to be disassociated with. What’s the solution? Well, clearly, there isn’t one.

Families are, after all, just as entitled to use these spaces as everyone else. But for us oldies, sometimes I hark back to simpler times. But I do ponder whether we should call time on children in pubs.

.