Every now and again, I can get carried away whilst writing. Perhaps it’s the novelist in me wishing to be entertaining and flamboyant. The problem with it is that, when writing non-fiction, facts must be adhered to. Feelings are going to be present, but feelings simply mustn’t be communicated as facts if they aren’t.

I posted an article entitled The Death of the Local Boozer whereupon I communicated a lot of personal opinions about a number of local pub closures over the last ten years or so. The article was written to express my concerns solely about that.

However, I brought my favoured local, Old Ball, into the mix; a pub that hasn’t closed down. I spoke of my fears that it soon would close down and communicated some second-hand information I’d been made privy to that, in fact, wasn’t factual. I used a lot of definite language within, e.g. when Old Ball closes down, as opposed to speculative language, e.g. if Old Ball closes down. I was wrong to do this.

Old Ball is not closing down. That was entirely the wrong message for me to convey. I allowed my personal fears of my favourite local’s closure to come across as something that was a certainty. I deeply regret doing so as Old Ball is under stable management and it turns out that the information I have been fed is incorrect.

I want to apologise to Davina, the landlady at Old Ball, to her staff, and to all the regular patrons for any issues that my article might have caused. I also apologise to those who read the article and were led to believe something that wasn’t true. It was unprofessional of me and I shall make a concerted effort to be more thoughtful in any future posts.

There was one thing I said in the post, however, that I stand by: if you live locally to Old Ball then you should definitely stop by whenever you can for a drink. It is, in my opinion, the best pub in the Broadoak area. My dad isn’t easy to please and he’s been a regular there for over twenty years so, by that yardstick alone, they must do something right!

I have a lot to learn as an article writer, as Death of the Local Boozer clearly showed. The aim is to learn from this experience and become a better writer as a result. You can definitely expect better from this point onwards.

Death of the Local Boozer has since been removed from my blog feed with the intention of a more appropriate rewrite in the near future.