British Rail’s short experiment with travelling pubs (2020)

Re:British Rail’s short experiment with travelling pubs (2020) by ggm on Thursday February 09, 2023 @06:42PM (#34733390)

Tom Driberg, the MP mentioned in the article was a very very interesting character. And, was fond of a drop or two. So his objections were to the thing being faux mock-tudor (faux-mock because mock-tudor is a defined style, this was a fake of a fake) not that it existed at all, in my view.

He was a communist, a homosexual, he was a gossip columnist journalist, had reported in the spanish civil war and munich, Was accused by a right wing columnist as a soviet spy.. And still had time to complain about British Rail making a pub on wheels.

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Re:British Rail’s short experiment with travelling pubs (2020) by SoftAnnaLee on Thursday February 09, 2023 @06:53PM (#34733493)

I mean, from what I know about the gay communists, they love to complain about the misuse of trains.

Thanks for the highlight on the man though, he seems like somebody to read up on!

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Re:British Rail’s short experiment with travelling pubs (2020) by ggm on Thursday February 09, 2023 @07:14PM (#34733717)

The entire cohort of labour post war was fascinating. Soldier citizens, mixing with professional parliamentarians, social activists, renegade upper classes, soviet supports/opponents.. gays, you name it.

At one point, MI5 was bugging some of them (illegally) and they started using Yiddish as an attempted code to avoid being understood. I think their assumption this was "Navaho code-talker smart" was misplaced, there would be plenty of Yiddish speakers in the espiocrat community.

When I say "was a gossip columnist" I'm playing him down. He was the man behind the Daily Express's "William Hickey". He kind-of defined that decades voice.

This was the cohort who built the welfare state. Jokes aside, it was amazing what they achieved against the reaction from Churchill and his followers.

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