City Comment: Hamish Champ
Was Alan Bowes, executive chairman of the now collapsed London & Edinburgh Inns, the master of spin or merely an industry figure just doing his best and maligned by his critics?
Judging by The Publican's postbag last week there are plenty of people out there who take the former view. While Bowes has been unavailable for comment since his company went into administration, his colleague Gerry O'Boyle has been at pains to stress that the chairman had received many messages of support during this difficult time for the company. In the light of what we've heard over the past few days it seems hard to credit this, but there it is. Managers and tenants at the group's hotels and pubs, together with their staff, meanwhile face either an uncertain future or already know they don't have one at the company.
And, as this article was posted, the few staff still working at the group's headquarters in Kent are wondering when it will be their turn to be shown the door by the administrators. It is likely to be sooner rather than later.
Many of us who've knocked back enough pints of Young's over the years - and reached for the Nurofen the next day - will share the high regard in which the late John Young was held.
Industry figures have rightly paid credit to his belief in upholding the heritage and traditional values of his beer, his brewery and the industry at large. That he died the day before brewing ended at the Ram Brewery in Wandsworth suggests, poetically, he couldn't bear to be around when finally production moved to Charles Wells' operation in Bedford.
Meanwhile, shares in Young's rose nearly eight per cent as his death sparked speculation that Young & Co plc, now just a pub operator, was ripe for a takeover. As the saying has it, life goes on...
