Britain's alcohol problem: Our green and drunken land

But if the health prognosis was worrying Ms Withers, 67, she wasn't letting it show. "We were talking about cutting down this morning, but I said 'Why? We're nearly dead anyway'."

Her show of defiance was greeted with a roar of approval from fellow customers whiling away the early afternoon in this timber-beamed 14th-century coaching inn. "I'm cutting down," says the pub manager, Danny O'Leary, to more laughter. "I've given up drinking between drinks."

It is estimated the 26.4 per cent of people in Runnymede – one in four of the local population – are consuming alcohol in a hazardous fashion. The area ranked alongside other gin and Jag hot spots such as Harrogate inYorkshire, Surrey Heath and Guildford at the top of the table. The team of researchers found that while regular "everyday" drinkers predominated in wealthy areas, it was people in the industrial cities and towns of the North-west – Manchester, Liverpool and Rochdale – who were doing themselves most harm.


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