Two Peculiarities about Pubs

There are two important peculiarities about pubs. One is that they have strictly limited hours of opening, which vary in length in different areas, each local government authority having power to fix its own "licensing hours" as they are called. Roughly one may expect to find a pub open between 11.30 a. m. and 2.30 p. m. and again from about 5.30 p. m. until 10.30 p. m. but it is best not to try to be more accurate than to say that it is almost impossible to get strong drink in England in the early morning, in the middle of the afternoon, or at midnight or later.

The second peculiarity is that most pubs are divided into v at least two separated bars: the public bar and the saloon bar. The English take their snobbishness with them even - when they go out for a drink and whereas the poorest customers go into the public bar, everyone with any claim to respectability goes into the saloon bar. The differences between the two are that the saloon bar is less uncomfortable, it has chairs and linoleum, whereas the public bar will have wooden benches and perhaps a floor sprinkled with sawdust, and the beer costs a penny or two more in the saloon bar than in the public bar.

(Pattern of England by C. E. Eckersley and L. C. B. Seaman)