The holidays have become a challenging time for me.

For many of us, especially those who haven’t been home for a long time, the festive season can be a period of introspection and often stir up emotions that we’ve been too busy, or too reluctant to deal with. However, after a week or so of eating and drinking, meeting up with friends and family, and exhausting your list of things to do, the endlessness of the day can often lead to a feeling of unease or anxiety, and it becomes an ideal time to reflect on the past twelve months—whether you want to or not.

This time last year I wrote my first essay for Pellicle. It was, like this, a self-reflective piece about the beginnings of the magazine, alongside my own struggles with mental health, imposter syndrome and a sense of belonging. Putting myself out there in such a way was one of the most difficult things I’d ever had to do, and I would love to tell you all how it immediately changed me for the better.

Unfortunately, it did not.

When I wrote that piece, I thought I was in a place where I had moved on from those struggles and had put those feelings behind me. It was, in many ways, wonderful to deal with those issues head-on, with openness, and honesty and the response I received from people was incredibly positive. Sadly, I think I was learning to run before I could walk, and I found myself overwhelmed by the attention. To make matters worse, my grandmother passed away a few days later—the second family loss in a few months—and due to the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, I was unable to travel back to Northern Ireland to be with my family.

Despite my often-uneasy feelings towards my home country, it was truly awful to feel so isolated to deal with my emotions alone. A seemingly never-ending lockdown teamed with my own debilitating health anxiety meant that even a hug felt out of the question. I felt hopeless. A few weeks later and I had, for the second time in my life, and what has become a theme to these pieces—a breakdown. I took time off work because I couldn’t function, and if it wasn’t for my own mother forcing me into phoning a doctor to request an emergency appointment, things could have gotten a whole lot darker.

Why am I telling you this, when ultimately this is meant to be—and will be, fear not—an article about finding your local during a pandemic? Well, I’m going to skip forward a little, in an attempt to lighten the mood slightly, and let you know that I am fine. In fact, I would go further and say that, right now, I’m feeling the best I’ve felt in years.

***

In some ways, 2021 was one of the worst years of my life, but it was also one of the best because for the first time in my life I took responsibility for my mental health, and put as much effort into getting better as I would in other areas of my life such as work or school. Instead of the passive methods I had taken in the past, this time I started to treat it as a job. I made a number of changes to my lifestyle—cut out caffeine and alcohol, started running, performed daily breathing exercises—and I am now, almost a year into a run of antidepressants, and anti-anxiety medication (which, full disclosure, I took before writing this because, oddly enough, putting these feelings down makes me feel a little on-edge.)

The one thing I did to help more than anything else was open up to my therapist properly. Before the breakdown, therapy for me was an excuse to vent about my week; it was all surface-level problems and didn’t really dig into the depths of my fears and what I now see as a problem with identity and acceptance of myself.

Looking back, I now feel I was rewarded for that hard work, and one of the things that I’ve gained the most from this last year, aside from the obvious—my health, a new relationship which has helped me get through this bin-fire of a year, a new home, and a better sense of who I am—is my local pub.

That’s the tedious connection. All this mental health chat to end with “isn’t the pub great?” feels a bit cheap in hindsight.

My point is that I believe that finding your local is not something you can actively try to achieve. In fact, I feel the very act of searching will only result in disappointment. To me, it came as no surprise that it was in this of all years that I stumbled upon my perfect pub. It was the year I moved into my first solo flat and met my partner, both of which were unplanned.

Just as it took me deleting dating apps to meet my girlfriend during a lockdown, it took my old landlord’s decision to sell to force me to make some life decisions I had been avoiding. Choosing to live alone for the first time was a crucial part of my recovery and a turning point in coming to grips with fully understanding who I am as an individual.

““Choosing to live alone for the first time was a crucial part of my recovery and a turning point in coming to grips with fully understanding who I am as an individual. “”

It’s important to mention two things at this point. The first is that I won’t be mentioning the name of the pub in question, as this isn’t a profile, nor is it a destination pub, nor is this piece really about the pub at all. You will all have your version of this pub somewhere, whether or not you’ve found it yet. In fact, to travel to this pub would defeat the purpose of the article, and so will henceforth refer to it as The Local.

The second thing to note is that the pub in question is not even my closest pub. I actually have to walk across the road from another pub, on an adjacent corner, which is almost identical to The Local in size and shape.

This realisation, over many solo visits to this pub, was the very reason I wanted to write about the local—the lowercase local, not my Local, but your local, and all of our locals—in the first place. Because the local isn’t simply the pub that is geographically nearest to you, although it very may well be. I believe the local is a question of self-identity and shared respect between staff and customers, customers and each other, and the relationship between everyone and the space that surrounds them.

In my 31 years, I’ve lived at almost twenty different addresses, and in recent years, next to many pubs, but none of them has been my local. That’s not to say I’ve not lived next to any nice bars or pubs, but stepping inside them I didn’t get the feeling that I belonged there.

***

Growing up in Northern Ireland was a strange experience and one which I felt put me at a social disadvantage when I moved here to attend Edinburgh University. Within the first few weeks I was quickly made aware that there were many aspects of my pre-university life that differed from those lived by my peers. In freshers week, their stories reminded me of watching an episode of (00’s Channel 4 series) Skins. This felt so far removed from my life in the countryside, listening to records alone, or trying to beat myself at darts in the garage. I felt like they all were so much more well-rounded and confident in their own skin than I was.

One of the things that people like to think about when they imagine the British countryside is the pub, but to me, this is not something that is shared across all four nations. Going to the pub was simply not a part of my childhood. Stories of me sitting in the corner with a packet of crisps while my parents chatted to friends are few and far between. The pubs of my childhood were darkly lit, occupied by the smell of smoke and toxic masculinity.

These weren’t friendly places with gardens, or quaint games like you see on a trip to the English countryside. There were no frothy pints of cask ale, no Sunday roasts or scotch eggs. To me, the pub was a sad building on the edge of town, close enough to the bookies to commute between. The only windows were frosted or barred-shut. To say it was unwelcoming would be polite. I only ever saw the insides of these places when waiting outside in the car and was instructed to go and fetch my dad. The pubs of Eastenders and Cheers I would see on the TV felt like another world. It was no wonder that pubs would for me represent an air of intimidation, and intrigue, for years to come.

In the years immediately before university, in the North Coast of Northern Ireland, it wasn’t pubs I was being dragged to with friends, it was nightclubs, and the sort of bars which appeared to be a restaurant by day but inexplicably had a dancing area in the corner.

The one time we did go somewhere resembling a pub, was when I had just turned 18. A group of friends and I went to a place in the countryside, in an area that was distinctly less red, white, and blue than what I was used to, despite living a mere 20 miles away. This is what it was like growing up on the North Coast. According to a 2011 census, the district of Causeway Coast and Glens was reported to be roughly 40% Catholic, and 55% Protestant with the remaining 5% being classified as “other.” What these figures don’t show is how segregated these communities can be, but if you were to drive across even a small section of the country you would see the religious followings of an area change rapidly, indicated by flags, painted curbs and murals.

My memory of that night is hazy but I recall that there were tractors parked outside. I probably had a bottle or two of Magners cider and we listened to the regulars sing. It was only when it turned midnight that I realised that they were singing rebel songs—the subtly of a chorus of “Ooh! Ah! Up the ‘Ra!” must have been the giveaway.

““The pubs of my childhood were darkly lit, occupied by the smell of smoke and toxic masculinity.””

This part of our culture had become so normalised to us it didn’t feel like that big of a deal. I’m not going to get further into politics in this space, as there are already far too many stories of people on either side of the community—for that is the language we have grown up speaking—walking into the wrong pub and not having it end up as an interesting anecdote. To me, pubs should be about community and feeling welcome, not about division, what “yer da” does for a living, or if your name is Owen with an O or Eoghan with a GH.

A few years later, now living in Edinburgh, my new flatmates and I decided to be spontaneous and go to a different area of the city to try out some new pubs. Instead of turning right into town, we ventured the other direction towards Haymarket. The first venue was perfectly acceptable with nothing particularly interesting to report from my recollection of that night, but the second venue holds a special place in my heart as the only place I’ve been called a homophobic slur.

It’s important to mention here, that at the time, I identified as heterosexual (I now prefer pan/bi.) Although the man who called us this, like it was a scene in Withnail & I, didn’t directly hurt me, it was telling of the sort of environment we had just arrived in, and I could not wait to leave. I’ve never stepped foot in that place since.

Feeling welcome in a space is paramount to having a nice time. As someone who comes from a place of white, cis-male, middle class privilege, it was only in the last year or so that I started to appreciate this fact, because, barring the few exceptions above, my life had been pretty kind to me. In fact, the only time I’ve been a victim of potential abuse, I didn’t even identify as queer.

***

I’ve always thought of myself as different to those around me like my interests didn’t align with my peers. If I was to follow the life set out for me by the society I grew up in, I would be married by now; I would have a nice house in the suburbs and a couple of kids. I wouldn’t be writing introspective articles about my life because I would probably have other responsibilities. But here I am, living alone in my flat in Leith, surrounded by all of my oddness. And it’s here in Leith that I found my local. A local which is filled to the brim with oddity, from the decor to the customers.

The pub itself is situated on the corner of a side street off Leith Walk. The building is painted in a faded sky blue but in reality, it’s more window than it is wall and at night the street is illuminated by the soft lighting from within. It reminds me of the painting Nighthawks by Edward Hopper, but you’re as likely to find an elderly man in a suit in here as you are someone in a tracksuit, such is the welcoming nature of the place.

Inside, the bar is surrounded by a number of canary yellow circular and oblong tables suitable for smaller or larger groups. There are fish tanks at either side of the bar, and above you is yet more sky blue on the ceiling, next to cotton wool clouds, and a recreation of the Battle of Britain taking place using toy planes. The whole bar is decorated with miscellany and oddities in a way which at first can appear random and disorientating but over time you learn that each piece—from the Town Called Bastard film poster, to the gorilla in the backroom wearing a hard hat—is incredibly curated.

““Feeling welcome in a space is paramount to having a nice time.””

Crucially, The Local is not a beer bar. It is a bar which sells beer, and good beer at that. German lagers occupy one of the two fridges behind the bar, while the taps are tied with all your usual options. I’m sure there are other drinks, but I’ve never cared to ask. A typical evening will see me move from a strong Helles lager like the Spezial Hell from Andechs, and then sensibly my choices will get progressively weaker ending at Augustiner Hell. Occasionally I will order a pack or three of Scampi Fries, and it’s all washed down with the best soundtrack available at any bar around—and I’ll die on that hill.

Depending on who is working the bar, music can range from Japanese ambient composer Hiroshi Yoshimura to an entire album from Californian oddballs Primus—although Tango in the Night by Fleetwood Mac seems to be a constant.

One of my favourite aspects of the pub is the layout and the acoustics, which not only allow for the bartender’s incredible playlists to be heard but allow for great conversations amongst friends, or with strangers. Recently, my Friday after-work routine has been to head to The Local, occupy a small table by myself and try to read a book. I say try as most evenings, I will end up engaged in conversations with other regulars or visitors, leading to some of the best pub experiences I’ve ever had. All during the shitstorm that was 2021.

***

In 1946 George Orwell wrote about his ideal pub for The Evening Standard, which among other things had “draught stout, open fires, cheap meals, a garden, motherly barmaids and no radio.” The pub—which by the end of the essay it transpires Orwell fabricated—was called The Moon Under Water, and has become a marker of a romanticised view of what perfection is.

Before discovering The Local, if you were to ask me to give a description of my ideal pub, I can almost guarantee that it would not look, nor sound like what is now firmly my favourite pub. In an idealised version of the world, there might be a great lager on tap, and I might actually get the correct glass for my glass rather than a wheat beer glass for a lager, but I don’t care. In fact, I like the fact that I get treated like anyone else, not as a brewer. I like that good beer is served and appreciated within the four walls of this pub, but the beer, nor the wine, nor the pickled eggs, aren’t the reason that people go there.

Read the reviews and they will talk about the quirky decor, the nice staff, and the music, but nobody is complaining about the lack of a Cabernet Sauvignon by the glass or pale ale on draught. Maybe it’s because I’m a jaded brewer but I’m now at the stage of my life where I don’t need much to satisfy. In fact, over the last year, a lot of things I never really understood have started to make sense to me.

It’s a cliché but some things really only do make sense within the context of growing older.

Header illustration painted live at The Local by James Albon on January 2nd 2022.

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