BY DAVID CAMPBELL
During my university years, I pulled pints in an era of glorious excess—women with backcombed hair sipping Piña Coladas, men clad in gold chains and polyester, shirts unbuttoned to mid-chest, swigging lager straight from the bottle. The air thrummed with disco, the dance floor a whirl of strobe lights and glittering mirrorballs. Later, I drank in proper working-men’s boozers—dim, fag-hazed rooms that reeked of stale ale, where the order was always a whiskey chaser dropped into a pint, a boilermaker, served in sturdy, dimpled mugs.
Then I discovered the pub.
The first time I stepped inside, I thought I’d wandered into someone’s front room. Oak-panelled walls, well-worn armchairs, little tables with numbers, a dartboard hung just so, and a chalkboard scribbled with the day’s offerings. The landlord—a term new to me—explained the drill: order at the bar, pay up front, and your ploughman’s would find you. No shouting over pounding bass, no elbowing for service. Just decency. He patiently taught me the art of the pulled pint, the distinction between best bitter and pale ale, and the weekly rituals—ukulele nights, quiz evenings, and, astonishingly, family nights. A pub where kids were welcome? Unheard of in the States.
I became a pub convert. In the Midlands, my encyclopaedic knowledge of Fawlty Towers and One Foot in the Grave (courtesy of late-night telly reruns) won the quiz. In Edinburgh, a mate and I embarked on a legendary crawl—Princes Street, past Waverley Station, up the Royal Mile, landing finally in a student pub where a West Virginia bluegrass band was playing. My brother went to WVU and had made me learn the fight song. Between sets, well-lubricated, I stood on a chair and belted it out. The room roared. Free pints appeared for the rest of the night.
In Ireland, a barman nodded at my Guinness and grinned. “Yank, eh?” He tapped the glass. “An Irishman takes his time—thirty sips, thirty rings. You’ve got five.”
Cheers, the American sitcom, promised a place “where everybody knows your name.” In Littlehampton, The New Inn delivers. James and Becky, the landlords, greet me by name. Lincoln, the pub dog, lumbers over for a scratch. The regulars jeer when I turn up in my Liverpool kit among the Brighton & Hove Albion faithful. In winter, the hearth glows during Sunday roasts; in summer, the beer garden hums with banter.
A pub isn’t just a place to drink. It’s a sanctuary, a debating chamber, a stage for the comedy of human connection. Here, pints are lingered over, the world’s woes are solved (or at least argued), and—if you’re lucky—you’ll remember it’s football, not soccer. For this Yank, it’s the closest thing to a home far from home.
Cheers.
David Campbell is an American who spends a lot of time in Littlehampton, West Sussex.