DEMOLITION

When you were young, there was this pub. It was the nearest one to you. Though you rarely went in, having been put off by a solo Stella and JD session one Monday afternoon, you walked past it twice every day on your way to and from work. It's not like you exactly liked the place, but it was familiar.

Eventually you moved away, and didn't pass through that area for four years.  On that occasion, going down your old road on the bus, you looked to the left and noticed something.

The pub wasn't there.

Turns out it was flattened by it's new owners eight months previously, despite a 400-strong campaign to keep it open.  You ponder that Monday afternoon in 1999 where you necked lager alone and wonder if any of those 400 people used the place much.  From passing their houses daily, you remember they were all quite happy sitting on plastic garden furniture on the pavement while drinking cans of Carlsberg,  The pub, apart from football games and Friday nights, stayed resolutely quiet,

Sure, the place was a bit tatty, and the landlord grumpy, but the rooms were spacious and the drinks were cheap enough. They stayed away anyway.  And they weren't going anywhere else, as this was the third local pub that had closed in the last five years.

Staring at the blue metal screens that were fencing off the demolition site, you wondered why people said they were sad the day the pub was demolished.  Had it been viable, it would still be there.

A lot of people don't deserve nice things.  Or even mediocre ones.