Pub landlord Peewee Hunt has called last orders on his renowned Trowbridge bar Peewee’s after 30 years in business.

The bar, in Church Street, was failing to balance its books and Mr Hunt finally closed its doors for the last time on Friday.

The 66-year-old blamed its demise on increasing pressure from cheap alcohol bought at supermarkets, the smoking ban of 2007 and the recession, which has left more people drinking at home before they head out into town.

Mr Hunt said: “It is a sign of the times. We just weren’t making enough money to carry on.

“People are coming out later at the weekends and you can get alcohol from supermarkets for such a low price that it is hard for independent pubs and bars to compete.

“This has been a couple of years in the making but it has been getting worse and worse. I warned the customers two or three months ago about the way it was heading and I said that it was a case of ‘use it or lose it’.

“It’s obviously very sad because a lot of people had fond memories of Peewee’s.”

Peewee’s originally opened at the site of what is now Domino’s pizza takeaway in Castle Street and ran for 19 years. Mr Hunt said: “I stumbled across it by chance because I was walking past and the owner at the time was putting his rubbish out when we got talking. Before I knew it I had been invited in and I’d agreed to pay for a £3,000 lease for 19 years as I had some savings.

“I returned home to my wife to say I’d bought the shopping – and a pub as well.

“It was bizarre because if it had been a minute earlier or later we would never have met and I would never have thought about opening the bar.”

The fortunes of the bar changed when the smoking ban was introduced. A turnover of £5,000 per week soon dropped to less than £4,000 and the decline continued until its eventual demise.

Mr Hunt may have closed this chapter on his life as a pub landlord, but he has opened another chapter after finishing penning his first book about his time as a boy signalman, serving with the HMS Ark Royal in 1961 as a 16-year-old.

He hopes that the book, which has the working title of The Virgin Sailor, will become a success. Meanwhile, Mr Hunt has already started writing his second book about the life and times of 30 years behind the bar at Peewee’s.

He said: “I am also thinking of having a Peewee’s reunion for all the people that knew and loved it. Even up until last week before we closed, I had the children of some of my original customers coming in. Their parents had met in the pub, got married and had children.

“It’s marvellous to think just how important Peewee’s has been to so many people.”