The pub that changed me: We celebrated Christmas in July and suddenly every night was Saturday night'

"We gravitated towards the Blue Ball as teenagers, not because they served underage drinkers. They didn't. And we could only afford to drink lime and soda anyway. No, we loved this place because it had (drumroll) two bars. So we were not only cool enough to go down the pub (never to the pub, strictly down the pub or, better still, down the Blue), but we even had our own bar."

"Although airier was relative at this time in history. This was more than 10 years before the indoor smoking ban. So both bars featured a cheerful, unremarkable fug of Superkings (right) and Silk Cut (left). The two separate areas were rarely breached by the opposing sets of clientele. Although if you had a serious conversation to navigate (relationship break-up, friendship drama, episodes of parental opprobrium), it was understood that the proper place for a tete-a-tete was in the elderly area."

A teenager recalls growing up in a Somerset town where pubs clustered on the high street and the Blue Ball became a favored spot because it had two separate bars. One bar attracted older patrons; the other was brighter and dominated by teenage socializing amid pervasive indoor smoking. Serious, private conversations were typically held in the older bar. The narrator worked in the back kitchen as a washer-up to earn money for driving lessons, with the promise of learning barwork upon turning 18 in 1991. Rehearsals for bar service and landlord initiatives like Christmas in July punctuated the experience.

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