How Britain sobered up

The people of these islands have long been famous for their drinking. A Frenchman writing in the 12th century described the various races of Europe: ‘The French were proud and womanish; the Germans furious and obscene; the Lombards greedy, malicious, and cowardly; and the English were drunkards and had tails.’ By 1751, at the height of the gin craze that William Hogarth immortalised in ‘Gin Lane’, the English were drinking on average the equivalent of 20 bottles of gin per person per year. But Britain is losing its taste for alcohol. Around a quarter of 16- to 24-year-olds don’t drink at all.

It’s a far cry from when I was a teenager in the 1980s. We would sit in the park smoking and drinking, waiting until we looked old enough to go to the pub. In one recent study of young Britons, seven out of ten said that the reason they didn’t drink is because they have so many other ways to be entertained.