Enthusiasm in bucketloads fires a special village pub's success

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a day ago

I come across a lot of enthusiastic people while writing this column but the ebullient Neil Hay, who owns and runs the Colvile Arms, in Lullington, takes enthusiasm to a new level, in a good way. Neil is a proper evangelist on the subject of pubs, although he came to the trade late, almost by accident.
Having done so, over eight years, he's turned the Colvile Arms into a multi-award-winning pub and a quintessential village local, proving, too, that such a place doesn't always have to serve meals to thrive. The Burton & South Derbyshire branch of Camra have named the Colvile their 'out of town' pub of the year for a remarkable eight years running and Neil, rightly hugely proud of this, has an embroidered cushion for each of those awards in the pub's snug. That is just one example of the attention to detail he brings to every aspect of the job.
So, how did it come about? It's a nice story, which began in Australia, where Neil met his wife, Becks, who is from Grangewood, just up the road from Lullington: 'We were both travelling,' he says. 'We met, then we came home from Australia as friends and met up again 10 years later at a party in London – we didn't know each other was going to be there.
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"We got together, going back and forward from London to here and eventually one of us had to move. I decided I wanted to. I felt that this was real life, a far cry from what I saw in Soho when I woke up – now I was seeing sheep and talking to people, which is great.'
Neil worked in the pub as a barman for a few months after relocating – and then came the chance to buy the lease from the Goff family, who had been running it for some years: 'They said, look we're leaving, would you like to take this on? And I took one minute to say yes! I'd like to try and convey that, actually, it is a wonderful living, a wonderful way of working that you can be proud of – and it's the hardest I've ever worked in my life.
'If I had 24 more hours in a day, there's more I could do. There's always something to do, whether it be looking after the car park, the garden, the building itself. It's a full-on thing, but it's fantastic. I'd worked in hospitality, I'd worked for Ted Baker in retail, I've worked in sales and in hotels. What they have in common is customer service.
'I think that is getting lost in this country a little bit and that going above and beyond in a place that maybe people wouldn't expect it makes such a difference. If you go to the Savoy you expect it, if you go the Ritz you expect it but why shouldn't the farmer down the road get the same experience? I don't mean the quality of the produce necessarily, I mean the way they're made to feel.'
I have, honestly, four times as much stuff from Neil on this subject than I can fit on a page but, hopefully, we're distilling what he's about and why this pub works. Here's more… 'I think the pub is a British institution, a place that people feel safe,' he says. "It's not just now about getting drunk or going for a beer – we sell more non-alcoholic stuff than alcoholic. People come here to socialise, to meet friends; they might just need a place to go to talk to somebody. I'm an agony uncle as well as a landlord!
'It's not just come in, buy, take away, sit down, drink, see you later. You can do that anywhere. They say people aren't so bothered about going out. Well, let's give them a reason to. We need to make people feel like, well, that's somewhere I want to go. I want to go there because I feel great there.'
Neil never presumed to know it all, so he went to speak to people who've been in the trade longer: 'You've got to be prepared to learn and my challenge was that, yeah, there were many times when I sat with my head in my hands at the end of a shift going, what the hell am I doing?
'Why is my beer not as good as somebody else's? Why am I quiet tonight? My first six months were very difficult. I didn't know what I was doing and I went to other pubs. Some weren't willing to talk to me because they saw us as rivals and that's a shame but some were and I'm really glad I went because they helped me with so much, especially the cellar stuff.
'Good support from your friends and family really helps too and I'm lucky enough to have that. There's no manual for running a pub and the best way to do it is to work with each other.'
The Colvile is neatly divided into several comfortable rooms, so games players are separate from people who want a quieter evening, while the garden is exceptional. Beer comes almost exclusively from local brewers, as Neil believes it should. While they don't do food, beyond bar snacks, street food vendors are invited along and there are plenty of events and promotions – that side of things is sorted out in the background by Becks. And somehow, the couple are also fitting in raising three children, Josephine (7), Harrison (6) and Cameron (4).
'Becks has been wonderful because she's managed to stay within the business but not being the landlady,' says Neil. 'She's not the face of it, she's put that down to me, but she is so important to what we've done, mainly due to the fact she's let me do it! And the staff are great. They make me look a hell of a lot better than I actually am and I'm very grateful to them.'
Neil's enthusiasm is very infectious. The Colvile Arms really is a special place. Give it a go if you've not before.
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