Trouble pubs need a strong licensee to take them on and turn them round, as Phil Mellows discovered.
How do you measure the success of your pub business? Is it the amount of profit you make? Your annual turnover? Or maybe it's the way those smiling customers keep coming back for more. At the Nag's Head in the Farnley district of Leeds, tenant Gillian Smyth counts the falling number of death threats.
"I still get threats to my life, but it's only from a small minority - two people compared to two dozen," she says.
While a statistician might be impressed by the 90 per cent decline in a little over a year, an average human being might consider nil death threats to be an absolute precondition for carrying on with the pub at all.
But this is a success story with a difference. On Christmas Day a gang armed with baseball bats put in 13 windows at the pub. This was a disappointment. The cost of replacing the glass all but wiped out the extra festive take. But Gillian is a part of the place and won't walk away from her loyal customers.
"I first worked here behind the bar when I was 18, that's 22 years on and off," she said. "I've always used the pub and I watched it going down hill. Even when it was bad here it was the pub where my husband and I would meet our friends - then go off somewhere else."
When Gillian decided to take on the tenancy, back in November 2002, the pub was part of the Pennant Inns group, she had a steady job in retail with Next and was bringing up three kids.
"But I love the people here and I wanted to do it for the people of Farnley," she said. "We are all a family here, close-knit. It can be unnerving, the kind of things that happen, but I really believe there are 10 good people around here for every bad, and I know them, their parents, their children. I've got a passion for the place.
"It was a difficult time at first," she admitted. "The trade was non-existent. People were coming in and intimidating the good people. It summed it up one Friday when I saw a couple of unsavoury characters beating up a girl right here where we're sitting.
"It's not the drink. It was all about drugs, taking them and dealing them. It was gang warfare and previous tenants used to let them run the pub, let themselves be told when to open and close."
There were other obstacles. "The pub was derelict upstairs. My mum cried when she saw it. I couldn't bring my children here at first."
So how do you start to turn around a pub like that? The first thing you need is the support of your landlord. Heritage Pub Company, which took over Pennant last April, saw that Gillian had the potential to make it work and invested in a refurb for the bar - and the upstairs accommodation.
It not only gave the place some decent decor but introduced security measures - seven CCTV cameras inside and out and decorative grills on the windows, plus soundproofing to enable the pub to go for a public entertainment licence.
"The clientele appreciates it and everyone feels safer," said Gillian.
The next thing you need is a firm hand behind the bar. The bad elements had to be told they weren't welcome before the good people started to return to the Nag's. In that, Gillian had the support of her husband John, who used to run his own business but now works at the pub.
As she points out, you can't expect staff to refuse to serve people, and the Smyths (pictured) need to be on duty all the while the pub is open.
"John is my calming force," said Gillian. "People respect him but I can get away with things he can't. They think twice before they sling a punch at a woman."
The third element of support has come from the locals, the people she thinks of as her extended family, who have returned to drinking at the Nag's and given her a chance.
"They're not just customers. Everyone is involved in the pub. The local people take a lot of credit for what's happened here.
"I gave myself four years when I came here," said Gillian. "And I've achieved more than I thought I would ever do."
The pubco says...
Gillian Smyth's man from the pubco is Heritage business development manager Bob Gray.
"Thanks to the work Gillian has put in, the Nag's Head is getting back to what community pubs were 20 years ago," he said.
He believes the pub was a victim of the instability in the industry caused by pubs moving from ownership by brewers to pubcos and creating a succession of "revolving door tenants".
"No one could get a grip on the pub," he says. "It takes a special kind of person. If you are vulnerable and you back down, you've no chance. If you are violent yourself it only escalates the problem. "You've got to be able to talk people out of the pub - and then not give in to the threats afterwards.
"People can have a feel for a pub - that's the X-factor. They will be prepared to work at it and get what they want.
"We'll always support a good licensee like that, and do anything that needs to be done."
A total triumph
It's difficult to believe that only 10 years ago the Wendover was an infamous drugs haven that attracted regular shootings and stabbings and was eventually shut down by the police.
Yet in 2003 it won the Union Pub Company's Community Pub of the Year title - a sign of what can be achieved against the odds and a fitting tribute to tenants Aileen and John Beasley.
The couple lived near the pub in Wythenshawe, Manchester, and were part of the campaign to get it closed.
The shutters were down for a whole year before Aileen and John took it over themselves. In the first three months they received threats, to themselves and even their grandchildren. Doorstaff were on duty every session, morning and evening.
But they gritted their teeth and persisted, cleaning up its tarnished image by being caring and genuine and creating a real local.
The pub has since been on various TV programmes featuring its amazing transformation, including World in Action.