A Sad Loss To Common Sense - & Drinkers

Like any industry containing true family firms, the brewery industry has it's share of characters. Slightly eccentric in many ways maybe, but they all have the kind of passion you just don't get from accountants, lawyers & marketing men. John Young, of the once Wandsworth based brewery Youngs, passed away last year, on the day that the last beer was brewed on the site that Youngs started at hundreds of years back. John Young fought through the 1960's & early 1970's to keep the family firm brewing real ale, against all advice. But time proved him right, although external forces eventually forced a move to Bedford, partly through the threat of a compulsory purchase order. After all, flats & shops are a better thing than jobs, heritage, pride and tradition.

But this month, June 2007, saw the loss of two more, maybe the last two, genuine characters. I have never met either, but I can't help but admire them for their strong, passionate, and finally correct, convictions.

The first, Claude Arkell, died in early June. Claude ran the Donnington Brewery in Gloucestershire, where water power is the main driving source of the brewery. Traditional is probably therefore a weak word to describe Donnington (especially given its misuse by the marketing cowboys of today). Claude was renowned for many things, most notably his refusal to allow women into the brewery (it was 'No Place For A Woman'), and his apparent insistence on visiting any landlord that wanted to sell his beer. The latter is understandable, the former perhaps not. But nonetheless Donnington remained a distinctive, and often highly regarded brewery. The brewery is now passing into the hands of another branch of the Arkells family, the owners of the Swindon based Arkells Brewery. And Donningtons future independence is apparently assured. And too right - it should be no other way.

The second loss is George Bateman, of the better known , but otherwise equally renowned, Batemans Brewery in Lincolnshire. George Bateman is renowned for his stance in the 1980's when, almost single-handedly he stood against his siblings by refusing to sell the family brewery. In the end he (and common sense) won the day, and the brewery remained a family firm. At numerous times since, so it is said, 'Mr George' was advised by various 'experts' that it was all over, and he should sell up quick. His response was to find new experts, time after time, until he found some that agreed with him, and accepted his determination to carry on. The firm is now run by his son, Stuart Bateman, and long may it continue.

In both cases they are traditional family firms, who put the product, and why they are brewing it, above the whims of a few 'experts'. Experts, who, no doubt have got their knowledge through a few books, and not through being at the sharp end. Experts who see pound signs, and continued high growth as the only indicators of success. Experts who have no doubt helped play a part in the continued loss of the soul & values of this nation.

Sometimes we need to realise that staying still is a good thing, and that business is not always just about staying ahead of the competition. Sometimes it involves standing up for what you believe, honouring the companies founding principals - and accepting that we can't all be the size of General Motors.

God rest you both, Claude Arkell & George Bateman. And God help us all if you were the last of your kind.