THE bottle of beer won at the village fete, the prize for tossing the most bags of straw over a set of rugby goalposts, was not my first encounter with the juice of the barley.

Despite my father's Wesleyan-Methodist background, I had, for some inexplicable reason, been allowed a tumbler of bitter every Saturday night. And from a very young age, too it would be Six-Five Special, Dixon, Billy Cotton Band Show... and then a slug of the old jug.

There's worse and I'm not talking about Billy Cotton. For when Uncle George came round at about 8.30 in order to watch the Saturday night film George didn't possess a telly he would pull out his packet of Woodbines and ask no one in particular if the boy had started smoking yet.

Tut-tut. Nowadays, had these awful secrets become known, I imagine my parents would have been arrested by a snatch squad of social workers and charged with child abuse or something like that.

No, I was brought up in a house that allowed underage drinking and where every downstairs room was full of tobacco haze. So stick that in your pipe and smoke it. Hic.

Anyway, when I went up to the judges at the fete and collected my liquid prize, here was one happy 14-year-old. No sooner was the bottle in my hand, than someone obligingly removed the top, and then down the hatch it went. It was, after all, a blazing Saturday afternoon in June.

Later that day, I returned home and proudly told my father of my good fortune. To my great surprise, he wasn't best pleased and then lectured me at length on the perils of drink and how it had been the undoing of an ancestor or two. I suppose that's the problem with certain aspects of Methodism - secret drinking and all that.

PERSONALLY, I've never lost my taste for beer. Drinking it in moderation is a pleasant activity and as long as it takes place once the car keys have been left at home, it should not harm anyone.

Like cars and guns, drink never killed anybody. Only people kill people.

Such is my affection for that magic concoction of water, hops, malt and barley that on more than one occasion, I have hoped that there are pubs in the hereafter where Flowers Original is always on tap, piped up from a bottomless barrel.

A teetotal Heaven would be a bit of a letdown besides, there are a number of people I might meet who owe me a drink. Not all of them will be sweating downstairs.

However, at the moment, we are still concerned with the and of the living. And this is why Hereford MP Paul Keetch is so right to stand up for thirsty drinkers everywhere. As reported in the Evening News, he is cheesed-off about not having his pint glass filled to the top and has lodged an official protest.

He has seconded a Commons early day motion calling for Government action to make sure bartenders carry out their duties in full. Mr Keetch points to research conducted by the Campaign For Real Ale which reveals that 80 per cent of pints served in pubs are under measure some by up to 15 per cent.

Only 80 per cent? I would say that's a conservative estimate the vast majority of pubs are probably swindling their customers. I know use of the word swindle will have some landlords getting into a froth let's face it, there's plenty of it about but I am sick and tired of being given what the old-style printers would have called a bastard measure. That's not fruity language, by the way - ask any inky over 45 and he'll confirm the term.

In fairness, there are exceptions. My favourite watering hole is on the banks of the River Severn and when it comes to hospitality, ale and grub, mine host provides the best value in Worcestershire. File readers will know the hostelry. Clue tent.

As you know, every single Phillpott File is meticulously researched and this one is no exception. For decades, I have been amassing evidence regarding short measures. It has been, hard, unrelenting labour... a monumental task that has taken me far and wide, sometimes many miles from the bosom of my family. But it was a job that had to be completed.

Seriously though, incomplete pints are of major concern to anyone who likes a drink. I recently dropped into a Worcester pub where, apart from charging £2 for a pint of Banks's yes, you did hear correctly the teenage barmaid spilled the drink and wouldn't have topped it up had I not insisted.

What makes publicans think that we want to pay two quid for a measure that is seven-eighths beer and one-eighth air? We can enjoy all the air we want, and at the moment, it's available free to any one who wants some.

APART from that, it seems to be an offence to sell most items underweight, so why does this not apply to beer? And while we're at it, isn't it about time that wine was supplied as a standard measure? It seems to me that publicans just use a rule-of-thumb that can vary from small egg-cup to slightly larger egg-cup.

Wouldn't everybody benefit if all measures were standardised? Satisfied customers would want to return to pubs and that might, in turn, be good news for landlords as they saw their business perk-up.

I fully realise that the licensed trade is under the cosh at the moment because of the cross-Channel booze runs and Britain's ridiculous tax system, a legacy of the 17th Century Puritans' desire to make everyone's lives as miserable as possible.

But landlords are shooting themselves in the foot over short measures. In fairness, it's probably not intentional, more a case of inexperienced staff who don't realise how beer drinkers feel about their favourite tipple. It is, however, no excuse.

And should anyone wish to offer the riposte that I don't know what I'm talking about... well, that is one retort no one could imagine would be capable of holding water, let alone anything else.

For as I said, this week's offering is the product of extensive research. Years and years, in fact. It all started on that hot June day at the village fete when I won a bottle of beer and, despite parental disapproval, started the habit of a lifetime...

So cheers. Here's to Christmas and New Year's resolutions by certain people to make sure the festive tankard is most definitely filled right to the very top.