A TINY pub is aiming to bring back the art of conversation – by banning mobile phones.

Anyone wanting to check their smartphones at the Firkin Shed micropub in Bournemouth has to go outside with the cigarette smokers.

The alternative is to pay a £1 fine, with the revenue going to Dorset and Somerset Air Ambulance.

Landlord Paul Gray – who runs the place with daughters Ruby, 21, and Amber, 19 – said: “Anybody found using their phone will be fined £1 for the Air Ambulance.

“I don’t mind if someone wants to get their phone out and take a photo of their friends in the pub but when they start with Twitter, Facebook and all the rest of it, it destroys the art of conversation.

“I treat it with the same contempt as I treat smoking.”

Ruby added: “We need to encourage people to come in and have a chat rather than sitting down glued to your phone.”

The pub opened last week in part of the former Blockbuster DVD rental shop in Holdenhurst Road, Springbourne.

Behind the inauspicious frontage is a traditional pub with wooden fixtures. Paul – a fine arts graduate of the Arts University Bournemouth – did most of the fit-out himself, using furniture and timber saved from skips.

“I did a degree in fine arts. This is a piece of that – it’s one of my installations,” he said.

The pub serves only real ales and ciders, which come straight from the barrel and are ‘on’ for no more than three days at a time.

Paul said: “We’re the only pub in Bournemouth that doesn’t do lagers or spirits, probably the only pub in Dorset.”

Opening night last week was so busy that people were queuing outside.

Ruby said: “Friday night, we were so busy all night but it was the nicest atmosphere I’ve ever worked in.”