ABSTRACT
Unexperienced, unacquainted with beer retailing and unaware of skills needed for dispensing unpasteurised beers, new recruits symbolised new post-war publicans. Indeed, the chief prerequisite for many now entering beer retailing was simply adequate finances, certainly nothing demanding either experience or knowledge. Here again, El Dorado’s glamour entranced gullible outsiders into believing that running the pub was as Liverpudlian urchins “knew as everyone did that a pub was an easy touch.” As the stigma of running pubs diminished, individuals with higher social status increasingly entered licensed victualling. New types of interwar publicans represented a second career choice launched in middle age without first acquiring skills through inheritance, trade connections or sporting ties as previously. Entering from non-traditional backgrounds, with comfortable middle-class status, such men had earned much money, displayed considerable talent and acquired enviable reputations in their chosen fields, only then becoming enamoured of innkeeping as an occupation.
