Episode 1 Calling Time

The Welsh Liam mullered, that traditional haven, that oasis of

light in the gloom, is under a three-pronged attack, from the

smoking ban, the recession and cheap supermarket drink. This

series is about to die hard battle to keep these pubs alive. Over the

past year, we have followed some of those on the front line, from city

centre I think to a country village inns. The triumphs and the mishaps,

the jubilation and the tears. way you look, there's pubs boarded

up, and you just hope yours is not going to be the next one. All of

them have the same goal, to keep their locals from calling time. In

this episode, can a much-loved Swansea local survive against the

odds? This pub used to be packed to the rafters. It is somewhere to go

and meet your friends, and it is going, slowly but surely. One woman

put her life savings on the line to resurrect a derelict pub. With the

first Welsh pub dating back 900 years, the pub has been integral

part of our fabric ever since. It has survived Cromwell's puritans,

the Sunday opening ban and the temperance movement, but nothing

has prepared the industry for the struggle of the last 10 years.

Wales is currently losing seven pubs a week, that's one every day.

As early as next year, one in eight UK pubs will be bankrupt. A once

thriving industry is facing a Hundreds of pubs regularly go under

the hammer at auctions across Wales, where they can be snapped up for as

little as �20,000. Some people see opportunity. At this auction in

Cardiff, Tina is an investor hoping to grab a bargain. For only �40,000,

she has snapped up the Gateway in the town of Porth. The pub has been

empty since its owners went bankrupt six years ago. Tina will

be spending another �20,000 on renovation. It is like a maze, so

many little doors and little rooms. But it soon dawns on her that

�50,000 might not be enough. This has got to be ripped out,

completely and utterly gutted. The floor has got to come up, so

basically we will be left with the shell. The electrics has got to be

renewed, the emergency lighting has got to be renewed. This is a mess.

It is just peeling off. They left everything to do. My God, look at

that. What it says in the specification is not always what it

is. It did not say that there was stuff here that you have got to

clean and get out. Six years it hasn't been opened, and this is

what is left. It was a thriving pub once upon a time. This is going to

cost me an arm and a leg. Bye-bye, money. For the past 15 years, Tina

earned her living in Spain, a karaoke bar in a coastal town,

renowned for its wild party atmosphere, mainly due to Tina's

effervescent personality. And she has got no intention of leaving the

party atmosphere in Spain. These are some things I brought over from

Spain. I have got a candyfloss machine that I had in one of my

bras in Spain. In this one we had alcoholic beverages, blue, orange,

pineapple. I have got absolutely tons and tons of pictures. That's a

Favourite one, even though it's broken. 40 miles away, on the

outskirts of central Swansea, this pub on Carmarthen Road has been

serving generations of regulars for more than a century. Until recently,

the manufacturing industry was the main employer in the area, but one

by one, all of the factories have closed, and the pub has felt the

effect. It has been a long time since it was this busy, but tonight

is a night for celebrations and farewells.

# Floating around in ecstasy, so don't stop me now!

# Don't stop me, I'm having a good time... Landlord Ron has been

pulling pints here for 30 years, but tonight is different from any

other. Can you or shut up? This is a farewell party to Rob Harris.

This is only a quarter of the people that used to come here. We

are saying goodbye to a true friend, not the landlord. It is also the

dying trade of the local pub. the last 10 years, business has

slowly declined, forcing Ron reluctantly to take early

retirement. It is a familiar story for Ron and his wife. A lot of our

friends are licensees, and they have all left the business, all of

them. I think Ron is the last one to go. All of my friends are out,

finished. For the last 12 months, I have been paying a lot of money to

keep it afloat. It does hurt when you're taking money out of your

pension to keep it going, which I have done for the last 18 months or

so. The brewery has been unable to find a tenant to take over from Ron.

Instead, it is putting the pub up for auction. It will remain closed,

and its dwindling number of regulars will be without a local.

You see it on television, the rivers return, that pub is always

packed. That's a load of rubbish. You do not get backstreet pubs like

that anymore. If somebody is going to take the sober, I don't know,

but it will never be the same again. Who wants to buy a pub nowadays?

long as we all stick together. Pubs are dying. You go up into the

valleys, all died. They have gone the same way. The art of going out

in the evening for a drink with friends who you only see in the pub

has died. That is the way it is. This will probably be the last

chance for the punters to savour the atmosphere here. It is also the

last chance for Ron to call last Altogether, for he's a jolly good

With the future of that pub in the balance, over in Porth, Tina has

set herself an ambitious deadline, to get the pub up and running in

just three short months. I'm a bit excited and mixed up at the moment.

I'm just trying to think what I need all together just to start it

off. While her budget might be limited, her imagination knows no

bounds. And like to stampede with a personality which will be different

from any other pub. Wow! That is something else, boys. I'm looking

forward to doing something with it so that when they come in, they

go... Pursue what they call different! Some people might not

like what I do with it. You can use your imagination. And then to try

doing most things, but some things I will have to pay somebody to do.

I will try to do everything that I possibly can. It is always awkward

with these long poles. What do you think of this, then, safety-first?

You have got to have it! A bit bigger than this, because I will

need to move. This is the future of my life for the next seven months,

this, this and this. But this isn't Tina's first business venture in

the Valleys. She has a colourful history as a business trailblazer.

This Indian restaurant was once the first American diner in the Valleys.

This is where I first started. It was a sweet shop, but at turned it

into an American diner, the first one in the Valleys. You could hear

people walking past, and I used to be thinking, no job, American diner.

After that came a chain of American -- of unisex hair salons, but once

again, it did not all goes smoothly. Because it had unisex, people said,

we do not want a sex shop in Tonypandy. I said, it is not, it is

a hair salon for men and women, the first in the Valleys. I have always

had mishaps in the Valleys, I don't think anything is smooth for me.

Next, she chose to open a bar in Spain. That was really a different

sort of life. For 14 years, I was in Spain. Even though the money was

there, and the people were OK, something happened to me, something

was missing. I passed this hippy than with flowers on it, and it

just said, one life, live it. It just goes over and over in my mind.

You have only got one life, and you have got to live it. I made up my

mind, I said, I'm going to come back home. I think you always come

back to your roots, and my roots are here, definitely, I wanted to

come back to the Rhondda. 14 years later, Tina's making a fresh start

in business and in life, but how would she fair this time around? 25

miles from Porth is the prosperous town of Caerleon. Until recently,

Caerleon was home to 17 pubs, frequently full of locals, students

and people fleeing Newport in search of a good night out. But

Caerleon has felt the decline of the pub trade harder than most

communities, and landlady Lorraine has seen half her competition

disappear. I think originally when I came here there were 17 pubs for

the catchment area. Everybody was busy in those days. There wasn't a

quiet pub in Caerleon. It would be a choice of, where will we go

tonight? They were good days, very good days. Increasingly, more and

more of Caerleon's public houses have been transformed for other

uses. Right here, up to what used to be a pub called the King's Arms,

which is now an Indian curry house. Their Sunday lunches always had a

good reputation. It is sad to see the change of use, but obviously it

is better to have the pub open and trading as something, because the

minute they're shut up, they just fall to reckon going. -- to rack

and ruin. I drove through here the other evening, I did not see a soul.

The pubs were open, there was nobody in them. The Angel is

supposed to be having a change of use to a retail outlet. The gold

Croft is now a bistro, more than eating house, as opposed to a

drinking pub. And the one down the bottom, that was a pub, and is now

a fish-and-chip shop or kebab house. And we pull up just outside this

The rain and her husband Ian took over the White Hart in 2006. --

Lorraine. She now runs the bar with the help of over 10 part-time staff

but is struggling to keep the business afloat. When I first

started you would easily be packed out every Friday and Saturday night.

Now it is not as busy, the week day trade has near enough gone. Bank

Holiday Sunday, when I started working here you could not move,

you were out of glasses, we had extra staff on, now it is just like

a normal Friday and Saturday night. The people who come in so that they

love coming in here because it is traditional, it is proper, if there

is sumps -- such a thing as a proper pub. I have but a lot of

work into it and this was going to be my retirement pot but sadly my

husband has passed away. This was our retirement pub. With the rain

barely breaking even, she has given herself the summer to turn the

business around. -- Lorraine. At the Mile End it is the morning

after the pub closed its doors and have run and the regulars have come

to collect the remains of their memories, the trinkets of better

days. Believe it or not, that was me. You would not recognise me,

would you? We had four bar staff on at any time in those days. Today I

can do it with one and myself. We are not used to seeing these bare

walls. You can see where all of the pictures have been. They have all

gone. Everybody has taken their memento from the pub. -- a memento.

My grandparents used to drink here, and it is all gone. There will not

be much left tonight because everybody is coming and picking it

up. I am glad it is not being left to be thrown out and destroyed.

These people have a lot of memories of it. It is like a ghost town now.

I will miss it after all of these years. I don't know what I am going

There we are. The last time, my love. Farewell, Mile End. End of an

era. Are you OK? Yes. Goodbye. fate of the Mile End will be

decided at auction in three weeks' time but, for one, his time as

landlord is finally over. -- father Ron. Eight weeks into her fast

turnaround renovation project, Tina is rapidly running out of ideas. Is

her lifeline turning into a death trap? Thank God for the build-up.

He picked me up. I will show you the floor. This is where I fell

through. Over the years, with the leakage from the urinals, the floor

is just rotten. It is the acid in the urine. It is more work. Plenty

to do. As always, Tina sees the funny side. I was going, Help, help,

but obviously I am OK now. With each day of work, Tina has seen

escalating costs. At the pub is eating up her �50,000 and she has

been forced to rethink how grand designs. -- her grand design.

will start putting money into the top floor and the kitchen. I don't

want to run if I can't walk. The ceiling is coming down here as well.

Today is auction day and the last chance to save the Mile End Park.

With the guide price of �160,000, if it does not reach it, it will

probably never open its doors again. It needs an investor with Tina's

guts. The Mile End in Swansea, a terraced property. Just under half

an acre out the back. Star May at 125. -- start me. 100, then. Do Y C

100 anywhere? 100. At 110. 20 if you like. At 120. Are you all done?

Not sold. You have not quite met the reserves. Another Welsh pub

In car Leon, Lorraine is fighting hard to save the White Hart from a

similar fate. I have tried to keep the kitchen open, paying for

somebody to worker there, and nobody is coming in. We are paying

out wages and it is just not happening any more and we have

decided that we have to close our kitchen. All but is left is for the

rain to say goodbye to her cook, Amanda. -- Lorraine. This is the

final day of cooking. Everything is cleared away. Very sad. Thank you,

Amanda. No problem. A very sad day. 20 odd years. Seeing landlords come

and go. It is just sad, really. What can you do? But at least we

went out on a good note with the environmental health. Four points

out of five for our kitchen. It is your livelihood, your home, your

business, everything. 24/7. It is all going away. Sign of the times.

And everywhere you look there is pubs and boarded up, and you just

hope that yours will not be the next one. But who knows? Back in

Porth, Tina's self-imposed three- month deadline has run out, as has

her �50,000. The earth is the big fat one. A lot of people have been

asking when it is opening. I can't ever give a straight answer because

I don't know myself. What is around the corner? Hopefully not an

electric shock. To cover her costs, Tina has returned to her a karaoke

band -- bar in Spain. But now she needs a music licence. It has to be

so that next door can't hear the music in this venue. Lift off. I

hope I can do it right. There is no sound for some reason. I am going

to phone Scott, a DJ in Spain. The box from the computer goes into

the electric. Hang on. Mark! Thank you. I have left to the box

that I need in Spain, so it is not going to happen. I know where it is,

it is on the floor. The following morning, Tina heads for Cardiff

airport and a flight to Spain. not looking forward to going to

Spain. People probably think I have one hell of a good life but I

really don't want to leave Wales mack and go back to Spain. On the

other hand, I might have to go year after year until the recession is

over. 0 will probably be in a Zimmer Frame by then. While she

head backs to Spain, the gateway will be in limbo until the leaves

of autumn begin to fall. The Mile End has been boarded up for weeks

but wrong can't resist one final visit. -- wrong. -- and Ron.

boarded up. I don't like to see it like this. Not after all the years

I spent here. But it is time. Sad. Despite the loss of the Mile End,

rum and the regulars have managed to preserve a part of what it meant

to them. Three or four times they are here in the conservatory and

they chat and have a glass of beer or whatever. They miss the

camaraderie of the pub so instead I can't picture everybody

thoroughly enjoying themselves at a Tesco off-licence counter. It

doesn't make sense to me. To me, the younger generation don't have

the fun we used to have. Irrespective of the pub you go to,

you might have the same people, but it will never be the same as what

Next week, teenager returns to yet another catastrophe. Sorry, I will

be there now. Lorraine calls in the cavalry in the form of a pub

consultant. The chances of survival are bleak. And a struggling City