It was completely out of the blue and had no input from me, which in a world where you often have to pay to win an award is refreshingly honest. I’m especially pleased with it as in the 40 plus years I’ve been in the pub business no one has given me an award for design despite the fact that I have been the principal designer on 22 of my own pubs and a contributor to a further 3. My own family and staff, who generally consider me to be a bit of a curmudgeonly ne'er-do-well, certainly don’t think of me as a designer and suspected it must have been some sort of mistake.
I think that part of the reason for this rather uncharitable thought process is that my pubs do not look designed. I love shabby-chic or, to put it another way, I like my pubs to feel as if they have always been there and that they have just faded a little as the years have passed. They don’t look as if they’ve been changed, except to people who knew what they looked like before. I remember talking to an old guy when we opened The Old Harker’s Arms in Chester, previously a dark warehouse basement and never before a pub, who swore blind he’d drunk in it as boy.
Of course it is true that I’m not a trained designer, I don’t have a CAD system, a library of material samples or mood boards, I’m just someone who likes to make spaces comfortable. I work directly with the architectural technicians, the builders and a whole raft of tradesman to get what I want. I often reflect on my Grandfather’s thoughts “the Brunning’s are good with buildings” and suspect that this is mostly what it is, a natural instinct to make spaces comfortable.
So what do I do to make these buildings feel right? From the early days I’ve been a great fan of reclaimed materials. Not just wood and stone, although a lot of that, but also reclaimed architectural antiques - doors, windows, cornicing, panelling, mouldings and carvings. If it can’t be reclaimed then I like it to be natural materials of the same ilk. I like to make busy walls using pictures, bookcases and panelling. I like lots of interesting chairs and tables. I like hard floors with old rugs. I want bars to be good places to sit and drink beer for both boys and girls. People like to see bottles on the back bar, so clean and simple wooden shelving is best. It’s not rocket science, it’s not even really designing, it’s more an understanding of what elements need to come together to make customers feel at ease. I think this is why CAMRA like the Druid. It’s their sort of pub too.
I’ve had a bit of a love-hate relationship with CAMRA since I started seriously using pubs in the early 1970’s. I’ve always loved decent British cask beer so of course I was strongly in favour of this organisation, that stopped it going down the swanny. And it really was going down the swanny. When I became a publican myself in 1981 I was less sure of them. I had things to do to make pubs better and there was resistance from a, by now, more influential CAMRA. They completely dismissed any beer that was delivered by top pressure, including lager. It’s true that in Britain we had some truly horrible pasteurised and carbonated beers (we’re talking Watney’s Red Barrel and Whitbread Tankard days) that needed to be routed out before they got a hold but in the rest of Europe there were some good ones. We needed enlightenment and guidance, not dictatorship. They also had some very weird members who felt they knew better (how are you Clive, haven’t seen you for a while) and others who thought that any improvement or alteration to a pub was a betrayal. Perhaps worst of all they did not like food in pubs. I remember being told by one member that the smell of food upset his enjoyment of beer and I know he was voicing a widely held CAMRA view. As the years have gone by they have modified their position, food is now acceptable, even top pressure beer has won approval and these design awards (there are others for modern conversions) paint just that picture.
In many ways CAMRA has done its job. Beer HAS been saved and the beer scene in the UK is now thriving, so it has to adapt to survive. It’s now looking at the pub itself, where I think it is less certain of its footing. It dabbled in this world when it owned and ran Midsummer Leisure many years ago. I suspect it proved to be more of a burden than a blessing. Still, it’s a thriving organisation with 150,000 odd members, maybe more, of true beer and pub loving people which is very heartening. Indeed I have enjoyed the company of many of them all my adult life.
So, thank you CAMRA for the recognition. Perhaps now that we have both mellowed with the passing of time we should put aside our differences and I should bring myself to actually join.
Cheers,
Jerry
June 2025