The White Swan, Twickenham

Let me start by saying I can confident that I'm probably the new owners' target audience - just the sort of person they're hoping to attract to the newly refurbished pub. Well, they really got it wrong.

A few weeks ago, the bartender told me that the refurbishment was done to, "make more people feel comfortable" and that, "the owners felt the previous decor would make people feel excluded." I've never once attended New Year's or the Raft Race hosted by the White Swan, and I can't say I know any of the regulars at the pub, either. I'm not even British, and most of the time I'm living abroad.

However, I have loved visiting the pub for many reasons. Upon entering the White Swan after a sojourn away, I always felt there was a sense of community and camaraderie amongst regulars and strangers alike who share their love of the place, warts and all. I now feel exactly what the owners supposedly wanted to avoid.

What they have done is wiped away all the evidence of years of friendships, courtships, dalliances, and sense of identity by removing the very relics that made the White Swan unique, stripping the floors of their character, and sanitising the place.

A zebra cannot change its stripes. The over-designed arrangement of wine bottles in threes behind the bar was a thin veil to suggest a posh-ness that is, well, just not the White Swan's soul. I had to laugh when visiting the loo to find that there was no toilet roll or hand soap. That's the White Swan I remember!

My partner and I joked this evening that we wished we could buy the White Swan to return it to its former glory. Perhaps the owners will consider so we can all return to a place we love?

15 Jul 2010 17:40