Publican profile: The pick of the bunch

Publican Profile is the first in a series of features on the remarkable people behind the bars of Britain's pubs, starting with Yvonne Cleminson, licensee of the Cherry Tree in Surrey. By Tom Sandham.

Yvonne Cleminson is a remarkable licensee. Running a pub is more than enough of a challenge for most pub couples, yet Yvonne was alone at the helm of the Cherry Tree for more than 20 years while single-handedly raising her three children.

Thanks to an understanding bank manager in the early days, and no small amount of hard work, she has transformed the pub into the focal point of its community in Rowledge, Surrey.

Then five years ago she lost one of her daughters to the rare but fatal Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome. Emma was only 33 when she died of a brain haemorrhage bought on by the incurable disease that weakens muscles and bone joints and wastes the skin. The family was unaware she had the disease and it killed her without warning, leaving Yvonne's grandson Jay without his mother.

When some may have faltered under the strain of a tragic loss, Yvonne battled on. Even when she was given the news that Jay had inherited the disease she would not be stopped and the ordeal inspired her to work tirelessly for charity, raising money which has so far totalled an amazing £45,000.

And as if she didn't have enough on her plate this licensee extraordinaire even finds time to write. She is now the proud author of an incredible 273 poems, which are soon to be published.

Yvonne is undoubtedly an inspiration and her pub company, Greene King Pub Partners, last week presented her with a lifetime achievement award. "I keep the trophy behind the bar, it was brilliant to receive it," says Yvonne. "Greene King has been good to me and has always been generous with contributions when I'm involved in fundraising activities. I wasn't expecting it at all but it's certainly nice after all the years I've spent in the trade."

Yvonne fell into the trade almost accidentally after her husband suffered a debilitating back injury. He had expected the work in pubs to be a manageable career move with the condition, so Yvonne went along with it and they moved into the Cannon in Aldershot, Hampshire. But they didn't settle there and soon took on the lease at the Cherry Tree in the idyllic village of Rowledge.

Yvonne immediately felt at home and even after her husband walked out on the family she stayed at the pub and set about making the establishment something to be proud of. "It wasn't easy to carry on alone bringing up three children," she says. "But I had the support of the bank when things were tight and built trade by giving the pub and gardens a refurbishment and creating more of a farmhouse atmosphere with a cheery feeling."

To earn recognition as a community pub you have to do more than simply run a business, and if you want to keep people coming back they need to feel it is an extension of the home. Yvonne was well aware of this, so she decided she would not only run a tight ship, she would also put her heart and soul into the job.

She developed relationships with local sports teams including a pub veteran football side, Cherry Tree Athletic, which will play in the Surrey Veterans cup final on May 8, and also the Rowledge Cricket Club, where she is now president.

The Cherry Tree is a small pub which generates most of its sales through drinks but serves food as well. One of its most endearing features is its setting. Rowledge is a picturesque village in rural Surrey and the pub has three separate garden areas, including one for children and one with a fantastic pond, partly designed by Yvonne.

"In my time here I've seen children crawling on the carpet grow into the staff who help me in the bar," she explains. "That's one of the things I will always treasure, during these 25 years I've had these people around me who have shared the highs and lows - they are as much friends and family as they are customers."

At the time she took on the pub it was owned by Courage. It was then bought by Morlands and then by current owner Greene King.

Greene King recently launched a programme to offer on-the-job training for potential licensees with long-serving experts, the idea being to open the applicants' eyes to what the job is really like. Yvonne was a natural choice as a trainer. "It's very much a tougher job to come into these days," she points out. "It's not enough for people to have the skills, they really have to have the enthusiasm to go for it.

"I had my first couple in to train with me recently and at one point I had to warn them how difficult it can be. It's impossible to be happy all day every day, and sometimes you have to get on with it regardless of how you feel."

Perhaps not surprisingly, out of the 25 years it is the current climate in the trade that Yvonne has found to be the most testing. She has obviously seen lots of changes but she has never known the business to be as bogged down in red tape and legislation as it is now.

"I'm up to speed on the new Licensing Act and I have to be," she said. "I'm very frightened about the prospect of power being in the hands of residents. We have lost a lot of protection from the magistrates' bench and if licensees are not prepared they could find they start losing their businesses. All it will take is a number of complaints about the simplest things. Bearing in mind I've had a complaint about the smell of Sunday dinner during my time here, it's easy to see how problems will start."

Needless to say she has seen the price of beer rise in her time but it is the Sky television fee that really angers her. "Sky TV is my biggest bugbear and I can't see how they get away with charging such astronomical prices. I have a small pub so there's no way I could recoup the cost of their monthly bill in sales and we have definitely lost trade because of it," Yvonne says.

"It's sad the way everything has moved from terrestrial television so that we feel forced to buy into it, but I simply can't afford it. Even some of my regulars go elsewhere for the football and it can be tough to pull them back in."

Meanwhile, when it comes to the challenges facing licensees over the issue of responsible drinking, she is far from surprised by the pressure the government is now putting on them.

"In all my time in this business the responsibility for drunk and disorderly behaviour has fallen at the feet of licensees, it might not be fair but it never changes," she comments. "If everyone thought back to when they were too young to drink in pubs, most would remember drinking at a younger age elsewhere - this is really not a new problem. This 'binge-drinking' has been around for years and a lot of the problems come from 14 to 17-year-olds who buy cheap drink from supermarkets and then drink it in parks. They need to be given something to do and people need to stop blaming pubs for the problem."

But all the changes and challenges in the trade pale into insignificance when compared with the tragedy Yvonne faced when she lost her daughter. She had been involved in charity events before but Emma's death inspired Yvonne to raise funds for the incurable disease which killed her daughter and which her grandson has inherited. She put up a "Charity Tree" mural on the wall of her pub which people can still sponsor and added a "Friendship Tree" to the inside of the pub that people from all over the world have left written messages on.

"We've held charity football and golf matches, we've even had ex-Tottenham Hotspur players Martin Chivers and Pat Jennings getting involved," Yvonne says. "It takes a lot of organising but I've always had help from the community because they like to give something back to the pub, it's very important to them. And I don't do it for the recognition of something like the Greene King award, I do it so that people like my grandson