The Old Men and the Pub

They are five men in their 70s who could drink for England. They don’t care what they say or who they say it to. They are up for a fight – verbal or physical. Abuse and ridicule are their modes of exchange – with each other and with perfect strangers. They have been workmates, friends and drinking partners for 50 years. Now, in old age, they have broken all their moorings, no longer caring even whether they live or die, though they know they would like to go out with a bang.



Their marathon pub-crawl begins at noon in the Slug and Lettuce in the City. During the afternoon hours of heavy drinking and rowdyism, lurching from pub to wine bar to pub, the sensational ending of what the old geezers themselves sense must be their last booze-up closes in on them inexorably.



While the men argue, reminisce, joke, complain, drink, brawl, their equally feisty, opinionated wives are lunching together, more sedately, elsewhere in London. Until late in the afternoon, they remain blissfully unaware of the gruesome and shocking finale beginning to engulf their husbands, one which will soon draw them in but leave them unscathed to the task of summing up.

Christopher Best spent most of his working life in the city. Beginning in insurance at age fifteen, he was a naïve Eastender who had never seen a bowler hat in the flesh until his first day at work. By the end of his career, he was working for financial magazines, editing and writing them. On early retirement, he took to writing fiction. His first novel was written for children but with enough meat in it to engage adults - 'kidult' work.