Whatever happened to...

Beer mats on butts?

Time was every brand was lined up on the butts of dinghy botherers in the bar at Grafham water, we all thought they were very strange.

Don't see them much now, why is that I wonder, the Mrs refuse to sew them on for you these days is it?

Sorry Griff, don't get it ? Beer mats are card ?

Not that sort of beer mat. These were larger things, akin to tea towels. The idea was to make the unsophisticated waterproofs of those days less prone to ripping and less skiddy on the boat. Think they're called bar towels these days.
https://www.pub-paraphernalia.com/barware/bar-towels/bar-towels.html

Every bar had them, you used it to wipe the bottom of your pint before taking it to the table they were everywhere no doubt dodgy dinghyists nicked them, I'm not even sure what they sewed them to, but it was some sort of 'badge of honour' shorts maybe, then the shorts over the wetsuit, (and they call kiters out for doing that these days). This particular memory dates back to '78. So I wonder what happened, they started jailing dinghyists ? Or they just stopped replacing them in sailing clubs.

Pubs still use them , they just don’t put them on the bar anymore.