Maureen Batty is about to become the first woman Governer in

Two hundred and ten years of history will be laying heavily on Maureen Batty's shoulders when she steps through the Savoy Hotel's elegant portals next Wednesday morning.

As she says cheerfully: "It's going to be quite a day!"

Actually, it's going to be quite a year.

For Maureen, landlady of one of England's classic picture-postcard hostelries, will be sworn in as the first-ever woman Governor of the Society of Licensed Victuallers, founded in 1793.

She'll hold the post for the next 12 months.

A little surprisingly, perhaps, this vivacious figure admits to the possibility of a sleepless night beforehand.

"I'll be nervous, I know I will," she confesses.

"However people think of me, I'm actually always pretty nervous on occasions like this."

Of course, there hasn't ever been an occasion quite like this one.

Even for Maureen, who has been on the SLV's London and Home Counties Committee since 1985 and was chairman of the trade charity's National Fundraising Committee five years ago, it's bound to be a daunting experience.

Luckily, she knows the score ­ or perhaps more importantly, she knows how much time and energy she'll need to put in as she attempts to live up the highest honour the charity can confer.

After all, her husband Ray ­ with whom she has run the White Horse Inn at Woolstone, Oxford-shire, for the past 16 years ­ was SLV Governor in 1992.

A special fundraising target this year is to net nearly £3m for the Licensed Victuallers School in Ascot, Berkshire ­ and much of that has already been pledged.

Brake Bros is putting its name, and its money, behind a new building for the LVS that will house sixth-form accommodation together with a Scottish Courage-funded library, costing £100,000, and an internet cafe.

"I'm absolutely confident we'll do it.

But I also know I am only as good as the exceptionally professional and dedicated team I'm lucky enough to have around me," she says.

As well as the SLV's full-time secretariat, Maureen will also be able to count on the redoubtable Paul Davies, as the Scottish Courage executive assumes the Presidency for the third time, and, uniquely, the second year in succession (Foster's lager is his sponsoring brand).

Maureen's fellow landlady, Gloria McCardle, takes on the key role as chairman of the Regional Co-ordinating Committee.

Once the ceremonials are over at the Savoy, Maureen's first official function will give her particular pleasure.

"Dear old Arkells has agreed to sponsor my first event a few days after I'm sworn in, and I'm delighted with that," she says.

The Wiltshire brewer and pub operator, based a few miles west of her pub in Swindon, has been supplying the White Horse with its ale brands from the word go, and is a regular supporter of Maureen's formidable fundraising efforts over the years.

Maureen has unquestionably been one of the SLV's most effective cheerleaders, and is widely respected for her devotion to the cause.

"She's unstoppable," says a colleague.

"A whirlwind, yes, but one who knows where she's going."

Apart from the school, the SLV will be looking to continue its other charitable work.

During an average year it gives out around £1m on a number of fronts, such as regular allowances to around 500 sick and elderly people to help with things like topping up state pensions, or single grants to help someone through a particular crisis.

And apart from the welfare side, the SLV offers a package of benefits such as free legal advice and debt counselling.

It's the LVS that is Maureen's particular pride and joy.

"If I could get 100 more licensees interested in getting their kids into Ascot, that would give me as much pleasure as raising the financial target we've set ourselves," she states.

"It saddens me that more do not, and that's a particular crusade of mine.

"We have superb facilities there, with a waiting list nowadays for the sixth form."

She speaks from experience.

Each of her three children went to the LVS.

Born 58 years ago in Belfast to a Catholic mother and Protestant father, Maureen was raised in the Catholic faith ­ even though she describes her father as "an Orangeman through and through".

She was brought up in Fermanagh, and, thankfully, didnot experience "the Troubles".

Although her own family was always in work, she witnessed poverty at first hand.

It was a defining moment in her life.

"I remember when I was at school, we always had enough to eat, but some of the children around me did not.

I used to give away the contents of my lunchbox to the poorer kids, and my parents wondered why I was so thin.

"It made a deep impression on me.

A good education is the start in life to which every child is entitled, and that's why I suppose I'm obsessive about it," she says.

Appropriately, the LVS has reached an important milestone ­ it's in the middle of celebrating its 200th anniversary.

The school was founded in February 1803 in Kennington, south London, before moving to Slough for a lengthy period and then to a gloriously panoramic slice of Royal Berkshire, a mile or so up the road from the Queen's own racecourse ­ its modern home.

Maureen, who has spent 22 years in the business, knows better than most how far the trade charities have travelled in two centuries.

"A woman trustee?

Never.

A woman Governor?

You must be joking!"

Yet she's achieved both.

The SLV's rules were changed in 1999 after a root-and-branch reform that saw women accepted on to the once male-only executive board of trustees.

But SLV chief executive Colin Wheeler is insistent Maureen Batty is no token choice.

"Yes, we've changed the rules, and yes, we can now have a woman Governor.

"But Maureen has got there because she's earned it, not because she's female," he says.