For Crown and Country

The Morning Advertiser has teamed up with Imperial Tobacco to find the UK's most characterful licensee. NIGEL HUDDLESTON meets ex-Army man Alan Percival who is now at the helm of the Crown

If they ever bring back guess-the-profession game show What's My Line?, Alan Percival would be a prime contender to fool the celebrity panel. He's lean, healthy, young-looking and casually dressed in black jeans, trainers and rugby top. A fitness instructor perhaps; or maybe an outward-bound worker; but they'd struggle to pin him down as a pub landlord.

Percival is chatty and good company but without the overbearing studied bonhomie that is sometimes a substitute for personality in some pub owners. He's modest about his success over 15 years as leaseholder at the Crown Inn in Old Oxted High Street in Surrey.

"A lot of people say they've had a good night and it's a brilliant pub," he says, "but I always feel a little bit embarrassed by it."

He shouldn't be after a long stint creating a pub for all occasions and all types of people. The Crown is a family-friendly pub that does food, but where you can still go for a drink, and be part of the drinking community or just blend into the background.

Percival landed at the Crown following a brief time in pub management after leaving the Army in 1984, the end of an eight-year stint as a ski instructor with the Royal Signals.

He still skis and cycles whenever he can, which accounts for his physique. A passion for Crystal Palace accounts for any worry lines. "You're always optimistic as a Palace supporter," he says.

Perhaps one reason for his longevity at the pub is that it's leased from a hands-off private individual ­ "I see him twice a year maybe" ­ which means no ties or supply contracts.

"I'm not a big lover of large chain pubs," says Percival. "If you walk in, they're probably decorated as what an American imagines a typical English pub should look like, but it's nothing personal to that pub. It's like a Changing Rooms makeover job. Nothing reflects on the people who work there, and the manager will probably have moved on in a couple of years.

"I don't think you get the same interaction as when the licensee has a personal interest in the business. You need to be the sort of character the customer enjoys and that will depend on the type of pub you run."

Percival admits to becoming steadily more hands-free as the years go by, with four full-time staff, including a manager, covering a lot of the day-to-day running.

"I do get lots of free time," he says. "I'm not tied to it 24/7. I like planning special events andfunctions, but I still enjoy coming to work when it has the buzz. We've got a lot of really nicecustomers; it's good fun and I like talking topeople. That's the best thing about running a pub."

The worst thing, he suggests, can be the stresses and strains of a married couple running a pub together. His marriage broke up after a few years in the pub business, and he's pleased that current partner Sue has no direct involvement in running the pub. The couple live in a house two miles away.

"It's good because it means I can get away," says Percival. "I think the hardest thing is a husband-and-wife couple running a business. You could say it's the long hours, but I think that could apply to any business. With a pub, however, you're together all the time and there are a lot of conflicts going on."

These days, the professional conflict is limited to staff relations, but these are generally good he insists, although he suggests his staff may find him "frustrating" at times because of the high standards he demands and his attention to detail.

"Maybe it comes from having a military background," he says. "When I go to other pubs I'm always looking at what they're doing and picking up on things. Here, I always like the brasses to be cleaned and the bar to be well-presented. If I go to other pubs and see it's not like that I wonder what the beer lines are going to be like or the kitchen."

The way staff present themselves is important too. "If you're doing a good job behind the bar the customers pick up on it and the atmosphere generates from that. If you've got someone miserable behind the bar the customers will feel that."

You suspect that doesn't happen at the Crown too often.