Hilaire Belloc

Updated June 2021

A mention for Hilaire Belloc, GA President in 1915 in a letter in the i newspaper earlier in the week on the risk of pubs closing due to the latest lockdown:

"When you have lost your inns drown your empty selves for you will have lost the last of England."

This article from a Sussex newspaper, where Belloc based himself in later life provides more detail on this quote (and whether Belloc actually said it), and Belloc's love of English pubs.

I like this description from the article:

His highest praise for Sussex inns was contained in his book “The Four Men: A Farrago” in which he recounts a memorable journey made across the county in the company of three delightfully eccentric companions - “Grizzlebeard”, “The Poet” and “The Sailor”. For three days and nights they largely subsist on Sussex beer as they make their way from Robertsbridge in the east to West Harting on the other side of the county, taking in Heathfield, Uckfield, Ardingly, Ashurst and Amberley en route. At one point Belloc is horrorstruck to observe a grumpy old man drinking tea in beer’s inner sanctum: the bar of an old inn.

A fuller version of the quote:

From the towns all inns have been driven; from the villages most … Change your hearts, or you will lose your inns, and you will have deserved to have lost them. But when you have lost your inns, drown your empty selves – for you will have lost the last of England.”

Image: Alan Parkinson, shared under CC licensed

He was also featured in my local village newsletter in June 2021