Britain’s best educated licensee is put through the third degree

IF not quite doctor’s orders then through a certain moral obligation, we have been for a couple in the region’s newest micropub.

The phenomenon is recent, a happy reworking of the adage about good stuff and little bundles.

The principal difference in this pint-size paradise is that landlord Phil Thompson is the doctor in question.

He has a BA, a masters’ degree and now a PhD, decided at 44 that a lot of learning might be a dangerous thing and converted a tiny former housing office into a bar.

These days, the most difficult academic decision he has to make is whether to stock pickled eggs. He still hasn’t weighed up all the arguments.

Dr Phil’s Real Ale House opened two weeks ago in Roman Road, Linthorpe, Middlesbrough, next to a tattoo parlour biblically called The Mark of Cain. At a pretty big push it seats 23. Befitting Britain’s bestqualified landlord, the apostrophe’s in the right place.

There’s no music, no television, no bar and definitely no lager. A small bookcase holds a pile of Private Eye back copies, some paperbacks, cards, dominoes and a poker set.

On the wall there’s an aphorism defining democracy as two idiots outvoting a genius, in the netty there’s a quote from Homer Simpson. “Beer is the cause of and the solution to all of life’s problems,” it says.

PHIL’S a Hartlepool lad, worked for Durham County Council until the cuts bit, wrote a 75,000-word doctoral thesis on scrutiny in local government.

“Thrill a minute,” he says.

He travelled daily by train to the University of Northumbria in Newcastle.

The Rat Race, another micropub, is squeezed onto Hartlepool railway station.

“I’d look in for a pint on the way home, loved the place, put on a lot of weight. When I mentioned to my wife that I might open something similar she was delighted. She thought I mightn’t drink as much.”

He searched Stockton and central Middlesbrough for suitable premises before settling on Linthorpe. So far, single-handed, he’s working seven days a week.

The Northern Echo: MINI-MARVEL: Dr Phil and his ale house
Dr Phil and his ale house

So why should an educated sort of a feller want to open a pub at a time when so many others are closing them? “It’s our savings, but they were growing at 0.1 per cent a year. I didn’t have a job and I’ve created one.

My wife and daughter have been very supportive. My daughter’s just qualified for university, too. I needed to make some money.”

It’s open from noon to 8pm Monday to Thursday, noon to 9pm on Fridays and noon to 3pm on Sundays. So far, business has been pretty good.

For Dr Phil, things are starting to look quite healthy.