When beer was 10p a pint
In the pub, Gus and Phil tell me how it used to be.
"Back when we were students, you got a full grant and you could live on it," they say.
This is back in 69, 70, 71 or thereabouts.
Phil says: "I ended up with £12 a week. Three pound covered rent, three pound covered food, so I had six pound a week for booze. And beer was 10p a pint in those days."
Turns out that while they've only known each other here for a few months, Phil and Gus both frequented the same cider house in Exeter when they were students, years ago. They share names of old friends. They probably pissed side-by-side in the same stinking pub toilet, 30 years ago or more.
"If you could stand it, you drank 'Natch' - Taunton Natural Dry. Amazing stuff, it had a world-altering effect," says Phil wistfully.
"We called the Natch drinkers 'natch-heads'," adds Gus. "You knew who they were. They walked out of the pub at the end of the evening and just fell over - boom - like that." He slaps his hand on the table.
"It gave you godawful hangovers, terrible headaches," says Phil. "But then by about four or five in the afternoon you'd start to feel better, and by God you'd be back down the pub that night to do it all over again. Bloody madness."
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