Room for greater realism?

Last night I thought I would investigate BBC iPlayer (I'm not exactly what you would call an early adopter). I don't normally enjoy watching television - we haven't had one for about a decade now - but I was sure I would find something to look at on the iPad. I decided on Room at the Top - the much praised BBC 4 dramatisation of John Braine's angry young northern grittiness. Surprisingly, perhaps, I've not read the book, so didn't really know what to expect, other than the strong language and sex that the BBC kindly warned me about beforehand.

It wasn't that that shocked me however. Rather the scene that had me peturbed was the one in which a woman, in the 1950s, in Yorkshire, goes up to the bar of an old fashioned pub and orders a pint for herself as well as her male companion, and is served it without demur. In a London glass, what's more.

Someone who can remember, please tell me whether this would really have happened.