John Davy interviewed by Mark Bilbe, An Oral History of the Wine Trade, 2003-04, catalogue reference C1088/07. © British Library Board.

Transcript

We were entering into a phase where the brewers were beginning to set up their own, or had set up, their own wine and spirit departments and were tying their tenants, not just for beer, which had always been the situation, but were beginning to tie them for wines and spirits.  So a small company like ours was suddenly faced with the prospect of having pretty well all its wine and spirit business taken away from it.  My father was involved with this type of thing a little bit just towards the end of his life, and was obviously extremely upset about it all, because there were some instances where our relationship with the brewers had gone back forty or fifty years, always been free for wines and spirits, and it was a devastating prospect that this would just disappear.  You know, in spite of the fact that a tenant, theoretically, had a certain amount of latitude as to how he would run his business, the local brewery people would come along, they’d walk into a place, and I mean, for example, they’d say, right, you haven’t got enough Reid’s Stout showing on that shelf down there, and, we don’t like those bottles of wine you’ve got dominating the back counter.  Take them away please, and put up… whatever it might be.  You were expected, and the brewery demanded, that the whole of the business side of the premises reflected beer.  Obviously there were, well, you would have a few bottles of sherry around the place, and a few liqueurs, but apart from that, the entire emphasis of the business, you were obliged to lean towards beer.  And if you didn’t, the brewery would make their opinion strongly evident and you would be liable to be in difficulties.

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John Davy (Stranglehold of the brewers)

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