Letter: The excellent special report by Elizabeth Joyce on the pub crisis (Express and Star June 25) touched on a few fond and not so fond memories.

Although I was born and brought up in the Black Country; over the years, due to my former career, I have lived in various parts of the United Kingdom.

I can honestly say that Black Country boozers take some beating.

My late mother’s father – Thomas William Brooks was licensee for three pubs in the Bilston and Bradley area: the now demolished Hand and Keys at Bilston; the George and Dragon in Wootton Square; and the Bricklayers Arms, many years ago now transformed into a smart dwelling house.

I can recall as a child how my late mother and grandfather used to complain how their masters – a well known Wolverhampton brewery – were ruthless in their method of operation as business managers and even then selfish in their salary or rent demands for tenants.

As a 10-year-old, I distinctly recall that when my grandmother died, there was a pathetic offer of condolence from the brewery, in the form of a bunch of flowers sent to the funeral and no hint of a personal management visit or support to my grandfather.

In your feature, I looked at the photograph of the Old Bush Inn at Bradley Lane, Bilston; not a million miles from my late parent’s home and haulage yard in the sixties and seventies.

A pub in those days bursting at the seems and not just on a Friday and Saturday night.

Today it seems that the only means of survival in the trade is to dwell on the profits that can still be just about made on good food.

The death knell is quite simply not just the smoking ban or the fact that community socialising has broken down; it is fact that it is cheaper and far more cost effective to drink and mix at home with friends, with beer and wine purchased from the supermarket or back street off licence.

The pub licensees are the victim of not only external factors but also from a brewery industry that over decades has been totally infected with greed and looking after their fat cat shareholders.

Barry A Mason, Bull Meadow Lane, Wombourne.