IT WAS a Cumbrian scheme that changed the face of pub culture in the UK forever.

Museum exhibitions have been devoted to the Carlisle and District State Management scheme – and historians have spoken of its importance.

Now the spotlight has been turned on a treasure trove of items and memorabilia linked to the heyday of state management, brought in to address drunkenness during the war effort, at a north Cumbrian hotel.

Years after the scheme came to an end, 18 original crates still line the shelves of the Graham Arms Hotel’s spirit and wine store.

Owner Paul Brown is sitting on a sizeable collection that also includes beer mats, a wholesale price list and assets sale book that have been kept in the hotel over the years.

He has a State Management menu – typed up by his wife decades ago when she worked at the Longtown establishment– and a receipt from a Mr and Mrs Smith, who stayed in room 15, on May 24, 1964, to celebrate their golden anniversary, having stayed in the same room during the state management years five decades earlier.

The hand-crafted wooden crates – which are in daily use – are thought to date back to the early years of the scheme, which nationalised pubs and hotels in the area.

Paul, who has owned the hotel for 13 years, is not sure on the exact age of the crates.

But he believes they could be as old as a century due to their orange markings, which differ from the scheme’s later blue and white coloured theme.

He explained that the building itself still holds some of the qualities left behind by the scheme, including the bar, which was tiled in blue and white colours before it was later boarded over.

“They are only simple things but what’s the chance of a beer mat surviving?” he said.

“A lot of it would have been thrown out over the years because once the state management scheme folded and the big breweries came in and took over, why would anybody want to keep this stuff? I think it’s just through good luck, more than anything else, that stuff like this has survived.”

Paul recently shared the photo on the Facebook group called Longtown Through the Years to show people with links to the town. Since then he shared it on the Graham Arms Hotel page and has already been offered £100 for one of the crates.

But he insists none of it is for sale.

“It came with the hotel, it will go with the hotel because it’s part of local history, which is important to keep,” he said.

“I was born in Longtown, me and my wife live in Longtown, we’ve got three children and 12 grandchildren living in the town.

“We’re fiercely loyal locals and it’s really important that all this stuff is kept for future generations, which is why it will stay here.”

In 1916 the State Management Scheme was introduced to help tackle an out-of-control drinking scene during the war, largely involving workers at the huge munitions factory built at Gretna. The state took control and public houses were purchased, with rules imposed to regulate drinking and create a model system.

It has been credited with transforming pub layouts, introducing bar meals and games and making inns more women-friendly.

Paul, 62, is of the opinion that supermarkets are turning the country into a nation of secret drinkers.

He recalls the State Management days where the only place you could buy a beer was in the pub or an off-license attached to a pub.

He remembers great times drinking in the Graham Arms as an 18-year-old man.

He said: “As time goes by people get more and more nostalgic about things.

“It finished in 1973 so there is still loads of people around who can remember it. You remember it with fondness. You got really good beer at cheap prices.”

Paul, who runs the business with his wife Pauline and daughter and son-in-law Vikki and David MacGregor, is keen to hear from anyone who can shed some light on the age of the crates.

Solway at war: Page 8