THE Cornwall publican who has installed an electric fence in front of his bar seems to have cracked the social distancing problem. The Star Inn, in St Just, is so small that, once people started drinking, they were completely ignoring the rules. To remind them to keep their distance, Jonny McFadden erected a barrier between his clientele and the gantry. It is, he says, “just a normal electric fence that you would find in a field”. Whether it is switched on is for customers to find out for themselves. So far, he says, the fear factor has worked. What next – cattle prods for those stepping out of line, or collies to round them up come closing time?

This drastic remedy would probably not meet with Health and Safety approval, yet Mr McFadden might have hit on a winning tactic, as the pubs reopen. “People are like sheep,” he said, explaining the fence’s effectiveness. He’ll doubtless be proved right in another sense, as folk start flocking to The Star Inn to experience his unique brand of PR.

McFadden reminds me of a former landlady of Tibbie Shiels’ Inn, on the banks of St Mary’s Loch. This famous watering hole, in the depths of the borders, used to be the haunt of writers like James Hogg and Sir Walter Scott. One broiling summer’s day my husband, having trekked what felt like the entire Southern Upland Way, finally reached its doors. Sun-baked and sweaty, he entered the bar like a bedouin falling upon an oasis, and with the last of his strength ordered a pint of beer. The publican – dressed like a dentist of old, in a white lab coat – wordlessly poured his drink and shoved it towards him. When he began babbling his gratitude, and describing the arduousness of his passage over the hills, she cut him short. “Nobody told you to do it,” she said.

The British tradition of outrageously hostile hospitality stretches back long before Basil Fawlty. It seems some of us don’t merely tolerate curmudgeons behind the taps but actively enjoy being insulted. The title of Norman Balon’s memoir of his years as a Soho publican – You’re Barred, You Bastards – sums it up. Balon was celebrated as London’s grumpiest landlord, treasured for his unaccommodating persona. The Coach and Horses, over which he presided irascibly for 60-plus years, was the haunt of the writer Jeffrey Barnard. His Low Life column in The Spectator was a droll but tragic depiction of a man whose every waking thought led to the next tipple. When Keith Waterhouse turned the column into the play Jeffrey Barnard is Unwell, he immortalised Balon as well as Barnard. These days, I see that The Coach and Horses claims to be the first London pub to offer vegan meals. For a brief spell it even enjoyed a nudist licence. What Balon would have thought about this development would likely be unprintable.

Over the years I’ve spent more hours in pubs than I care to remember, but while the occasional off-taking quip is amusing, serious rudeness makes me head elsewhere. Willie Ross, of the Oxford Bar in Edinburgh, was in a class of his own when it came to abrasiveness. Photos show him presiding over his fiefdom, with a face like a hanging judge and a fag in his mouth. Described as instilling “something close to a sense of terror” in customers, he apparently wouldn’t serve the English or women. Food was also verboten. Legend has it that when one hapless customer, a QC, asked if he could see the menu, Ross took him by the arm and led him out into the street. Pointing up at the pub’s signboard, he said, “Where does it say f***ing restaurant?”.

No fan of the Edinburgh Festival and its luvvies, he once put up a sign saying, “Closed due to Festival.” When I first visited, however, the Oxford Bar was under new management, and far more inviting. By this time Ian Rankin had placed it on the tourist map as Inspector Rebus’s local. The countless sightseers who troop into this literary landmark would have got a taste of an altogether grimmer Scotland had Ross still been in charge.

The real-ale pub where I used to live was the ideal establishment. The owner had a wicked sense of humour, and tolerated peculiarities on both sides of the bar. On St Patrick’s Day he’d offer a two-for-three deal on all drinks. Other than crisps and peanuts, food was not available, no matter how hard we pleaded. He did, however, allow taxi drivers to bring in their slow cooker after a morning shift, and ladle out chilli con carne while they played cards. In the early evenings, one bloke would bring in a cheese board, and invite everyone to pile in. A mountaineering bicyclist often arrived smelling of woodsmoke and handed out tinfoil parcels of delicious trout, cured in his garden shed. Another old-timer used to produce leeks from his allotment, which he passed beneath the bar in paper bags, like smugglers’ contraband. When one night I was cornered by a man who could bore for an hour without drawing breath, the landlord paraded around the crowded room, waving a white flag to summon a rescue party.

In an era where the customer comes first, the days of martinets like Ross or the lady of the loch are numbered. I can’t say I’m altogether sorry. Yet although a good bartender’s manner is part of what draws people back, they can’t be bland or dull. It’s a demanding job, and a touch of authority and steel is essential. People capable of handling humanity at its most outspoken, vocal and occasionally insufferable, are rarely nature’s sweet sherry. I like to think of those with the saltiest personalities as an acquired flavour, like a peaty Islay malt. Ideally, a publican sits midway between the two: a New Zealand sauvignon, perhaps, or dry G&T.

It’s a job I certainly couldn’t handle, especially in a busy city centre. My husband recalls that our wedding ceremony in a Glasgow registrar’s office took less time than ordering a drink in the Horseshoe bar. I remember joining him there one evening, when two women arrived and asked for two white wines. “Small, medium or large?” asked the impeccably polite bartender. “Bottles,” they replied.

Our columns are a platform for writers to express their opinions. They do not necessarily represent the views of The Herald.