George Orwell was right. Hidden away on quiet streets can be found some of the finest pubs around. It was true in Orwell’s day just as much as it is today.

“My favourite public-house, the Moon Under Water, is only two minutes from a bus stop, but it is on a side-street, and drunks and rowdies never seem to find their way there, even on a Saturday night,” he wrote in a piece for the Evening Standard in 1946.

“Its clientele, though fairly large, consists mostly of ‘regulars’ who occupy the same chair every evening and are there for conversation as much as for the beer”.

While the pub he described didn’t actually exist (he was making the point that traditional and much loved boozers were disappearing), the Standard article did set out many of the key elements of a good pub.

In the Moon Under Water it was “always quiet enough to talk”, while “the barmaids know most of their customers by name, and take a personal interest in everyone” and they served draught stout. But the “great surprise” was the large beer garden, with “plane trees, under which there are little green tables with iron chairs round them” and “swings and a chute for the children”.

Sound familiar?

Much of what Orwell wrote about pubs I consider important for drinking holes today.

For me, they need to offer great beers from the finest independent breweries around. If you feel like you’ve walked into a beer festival, then the pub has done its job properly.

And the staff should be friendly and will probably be on first name terms with the regulars perching on stools along the bar. Yes, pubs should offer food (Orwell though wanted little more than sandwiches), but not if that means that tables need to be booked in advance.

I like places that have an eclectic range of tables and chairs, where there’s a log fire burning to keep you warm on those cold winter nights and perhaps even a pub dog. It’s the simple things that make pubs special and places that people want to go, despite the distractions of modern life.

Sadly, many pubs have closed down in recent years and the statistics published by CAMRA have made for depressing reading. When it’s the last pub in a village that’s shutting or one of only a few remaining in a town then residents can really lose out.

But it seems there is a glimmer of hope for the pub from the next generation of publicans. New research published by Barclays reveals the number of pub landlords aged between 25 and 34 has risen by a quarter over the past three years (analysis of 8,000 of their business customers suggests that people from that age group own 15% of the country’s pubs).

CAMRA applauds the arrival of this “fresh blood,” with Neil Walker from the organisation commenting: “Increasingly, we’re seeing young people showing an interest in real ale and craft beer, which has already led to a boom in growth for microbreweries in the UK, and as such we should view this increase in the number of young licensees as a positive sign for the future of pubs”.

George Orwell would be proud of the fine efforts of these youngsters to keep the great British pub alive.