I read in the papers the other day that yet another of these so called scientific investigations has concluded that the heaviest drinkers per capita in Britain today are not the young binge drinking chavs and slatterns that infest the centres of our towns and cities each Friday night to produce a torrid maelstrom of violence and vomit. No, it is apparently those of us aged 55 or over. For a moment I was astonished but then a further moment’s reflection revealed that this was yet another statement of the bleeedin’ obvious which so many of these barmy over funded pieces of research throws up. As a member of this age group I could have saved them the trouble and confirmed that this was entirely predictable; the point is why?

Well, quite apart from the even more bleedin’ obvious reason, namely: can you blame us in view of the blundering incompetence we now have to deal on an every day basis in virtually every walk of life, incompetence that would have been completely unacceptable when we were in positions of responsibility; I believe that there is another and more interesting reason.

Those aged 55 today would have been eighteen in 1971. Now the Seventies were a strange and peculiar decade for a number of reasons. For a start the Nation’s fashion sense seemed to have deserted it and I challenge any of us of that age not to have somewhere a photograph of ourselves dressed in the most outlandish of rigs.

However, what I particularly remember about that time was that drinking was not just tolerated but actively condoned and encouraged. But, and here is the crucial point, it was not the mindless binge drinking that pervades today’s youth. The Seventies was the apotheosis of real ale appreciation and the beginning of Britain’s love affair with wine; the preferred tipple, apparently, of today’s so called hard drinking oldies. Ghastly chemical concoctions such as Watneys Red Barrel or Truman’s so called Best Bitter were rejected in favour of such famous brews as Youngs, Theakstons and Marstons; brews that are now themselves disappearing due to the popularity of the repulsive over strength Eurofizz that is causing so much mayhem in our towns and cities today.

There was also what I would call a reasoned and proportional attitude to drink driving. In those days the breathalyser was never seen as a reason not to go out for an evening especially to a fine and welcoming pub deep in the countryside. As a result such hostelries flourished and the excitement of evading capture livened up many a drive home. Even if you were caught it was generally regarded by friends and colleagues as; “there but for the grace of God go I etc” and employers would never have made it the subject of disciplinary proceedings unless one’s job actually depended upon having a clean licence.

So much of the legislation passed since then and the change of attitudes engendered by our Nanny state has been to regard such behaviour as dangerously irresponsible and prejudicial to public health and well being yet I cannot recall that a visit to the centre of one of our finest market towns on a Friday evening would have been blighted by the disgusting sights and displays that now keeps our constabulary so busy and our A&E departments so full.

All my contemporaries are the same; to us heaven is a bar in a country pub with a roaring fire and the winter weather doing its worst outside. Everyone has taken their witty pills and it always some else’s round. Yes, we drink a lot but we do so as gentlemen and to remain gentlemen. We do not see that as a vice and if more of today’s youth could have the opportunity of doing the same we might all be the better for it.