Since discovering the merits of lunchtime drinking (#lastblogreader), it feels timely to share an update on my day time drinking exploits. I should also note that as the new school term starts on Monday, this teacher promises to put her beer goggles back on ice and will remind herself that she has signed up to Dry January.

In my defence my latest pub crawl was edifying in an educational and historical way and so had pedagogical merit. What teacher would not want to sign up to The City of London Pub History Tour? What else would a teacher be doing in the Twixmas period other than marking books? The idea was admittedly born out of some particularly fine drinking at my son’s wedding (Did I not tell you that my son recently got married?) and when Himself and my Future Son in Law (did I not tell you that my daughter gets married at Easter?) suggest that we concoct our own historic pub tour, I readily agree, thinking that this will just involve downloading a map, enjoying some traditional bar snacks and engaging in some family banter.

It transpires that this ‘Tour’ is to become very competitive. For anyone who might like to subject their own family to this pastime, the selected pubs were as follows:

• The Blackfriar
• Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese
• Old Bank of England
• The Seven Stars
• Princess Louise
• Ye Olde Mitre

I become nervous when I am invited to a new whatsapp group containing a PDF of the route map and an implicit expectation that we each extol the virtues of our chosen pub once we had researched its history. I did not intend wasting any valuable time over Christmas researching my pub – ‘Old Bank of England’ – believing that ChatGBT would save the day, but noted that Himself seemed unduly preoccupied during the Morecambe & Wise Christmas Special and that there was a lot of printing going on in the background during the King’s Speech. The whatsapp group was also pinging away with suggestions for appropriate fancy dress and historical interest ratings.

On the day, lunchtime sees us starting at ‘The Blackfriar’ and I am soon fascinated to learn that the pub was built on the site of the Dominican Priory dissolved by Henry VIII when the church refused his divorce from Catherine of Aragon. I am distracted from this historical impact by the price of a glass of mulled wine and soon realise that this pub is hugely popular with American tourists who are lapping up plates of ye olde fishe and chips and listening in to our pub talk. My new Nephew in Law (did I not tell you that my niece got married?) does a great job advocating the importance of this weirdly shaped pub which sits on layers and layers of domestic and political history. We all raise an expensive glass to the successful completion of Round 1 in our Historical Pub Tour extravaganza.

My daughter then rallies to the challenge and takes us to one of the darkest pubs in London – ‘Ye Olde Cheese’. We wrestle other tourists out of the way and gather around to hear Favourite Daughter’s argument that this pub deserves to knock the ‘Black Friar’ off top spot because of its rich literary connections. As an English teacher who has been dragged away from her marking, FD has her mother bewitched at the mention of Dickens and Twain but throws in Samuel Johnson for good measure and still has the Great Fire of London and a stuffed parrot up her sleeve. Her talk is attracting so much interest from tourists in the pub that we throw a hat on the spit and sawdust floor and soon raise enough gold sovereign to stand another round of drinks.

Perhaps best to gloss over The Bank of England. In essence: great decor; rumoured to once store the Crown Jewels; for some random reason has a London Bus sitting in its beer garden and has a catacomb of tunnels below which allegedly allowed Sweeney Todd to butcher his victims and get his pie filling to his mistress’ pie shop in Hen & Chicken Lane. Thanks to ChatGBT I felt this last morsel would literally be my banker. Sadly, Himself decides to reveal the shallowness of my research to the assembled party by noting that the Demon Barber was in fact a fictional character although I had portrayed him as real. I wish I had done my homework properly. No second round of drinks in this pub.

We stand outside my future Son in Law’s (FSIL) pub – ‘The Seven Stars’ – for yet another group photo. As one of the instigators of this whole day, FSIL has left no stone unturned. He argues some tenuous link between the Netherlands football shirt he now reveals beneath his coat ( I have drunk so much red wine by this stage that I really cannot remember what the connection was although he explained it really well) and waxes lyrical about this historical legal pub and its quirky cabinet of curiosities. We become distracted when we learn that this pub is also a favourite of FSIL when he completes his fortnightly check-ins with his work team. We debate whether you should complete a 1:1 in such a quirky hostelry and whether his team are spoilt by such regular care and attention. We are also diverted by the archive of film posters, antique dumb waiter and checked table cloths. The pub is so popular that we have to stand outside to complete this debate. FSIL is not as cold as the rest of us for he basks in the glow of interest being shown in his talk from gathering tourists. We will not be surprised to hear of a sales pitch from FSIL to the London Tourist Board to market our brand of daytime drinking. We are too cold to totally engage at this point, but order a pot of pickled whelks to see us through to the next stop.

My niece comes over all theatrical outside ‘her’ pub: The eponymous ‘ Princess Louise’ named after Queen Vic’s favourite daughter. We stand for another group photo beneath the pub signage and a London taxi driver asks us to move aside so that his fare can take a photo of the pub without leaving the warmth of her cab. My niece advises the cab driver to wind down his window so that they too can soak up her sales pitch. This is a fine pub. It may have only a 5/10 historic interest rating on Trip Advisor, but my niece extols the virtues of its Victorian interior – particularly the island bar and ‘Snob Screens’ that separate the different class of drinker. By now I am into my second bag of Cheese & Onion in an attempt to soak up some alcohol and wonder if I should be segregated from the rest of the crew into a class of ‘lightweight drinker’

Finally, we reach Hatton Gardens, and despite Himself declaring that he is ‘totally pubbed out,’ he rallies to dramatise a theatrical piece of time travel before wielding individual maps of yore and showcasing surely the most hidden pub in London. Built in 1546 for the servants of the Bishops of Ely, the pub purports to have seen Elizabeth I dancing around its cherry tree maypole with Sir Christopher Hatton. I raise a glass to Old Liz, for cold though we are, we get to drink the best glass of Malbec in this Inn. Two Dutch tourists have stopped outside the entrance to the pub alley and ask if they can take our photo as a momento of their own historic tour. They had not originally intended to go inside this hostelry, but Himself has managed to whet their intrigue and they are encouraged to visit the ‘Snug’ and play a round of dominoes.

Outside, we rally to review our day. Sadly this is to be the only pub where we do not manage to wheedle a table, so we find ourself standing outside Ye Olde Mens Toilets in a beer garden with no Cherry Tree. I soon learn that there is yet to be a round of voting to choose the ‘best’ historic pub on our tour; we are each to pick a category and the winner of the most votes will get the inaugural Christmas lollipop which has been brought along to mark the occasion.

I think I am a good team player, but find myself broadsided by the randomness of selected categories:

• pub most likely to encourage debauched behaviour
• pub with the most random bar snack
• pub with the most intricate mosaic flooring
• pub with the best dead parrot

My fellow pubsters may be quite wobbly bob, but they are clearly much more competitive than I have given them credit for. I regret the lack of research on my own pub, so have to call in the following categories to be in with a chance of winning:

• pub most likely to have a bus in the beer garden
• pub with the best toilets

Himself was declared the winner – rightly so for he was the only contestant to share handouts, dramatise time travel and to increase surplus pub footfall. I did not want that Christmas lollipop anyway. Strangely I have not touched a drop of alcohol since completing this tour du vin. My drinking days may not make history but I am available for anyone in need of a bar snack recommendation.