We didn’t attract enough customers and it slowly dawned on me that the publican is not the customer – it was me who had to eject unruly patrons and make tough decisions
My accountant once gave me two pieces of business advice: don’t run anything with your family and don’t run a pub. So I decided to run a pub with my family. I had always loved pubs, even before I was old enough to drink. I earned my first money in them, as a very bad pianist, and found them friendly, sociable and very relaxed about my blindness. They are also, incidentally, great places to navigate if you can’t see, as you can steer yourself by sound: fruit and games machines whirring; a busy till; the frothing of pints being pulled; old Roger pontificating from his usual seat. For decades, I’d found them great places to make and meet friends, develop ideas and unwind and I began to harbour the ambition to run a pub myself one day.
So when the owners of a pub I often frequented invited me to go in with them on the lease of another, I didn’t hesitate. My children had all gravitated towards the hospitality trade and it seemed like the perfect family venture.
