LTC's new chairman plans broader church

The Licensed Trade Charity is more than 200 years old and helping more people than ever. Phil Mellows meets newly-elected chairman Annette King, who aims to make sure it's going for another 200.

Annette King is recovering from attending the previous night's charity boxing tournament. Surprisingly, it was her first. Boxing has long been a fixture of the Licensed Trade Charity's (LTC) fund-raising calendar.

Not everyone finds the spectacle of two blokes beating each other up on top of a posh dinner particularly digestible, though, and King seems still to be in discomfort.

"A couple of them were really going for it, and the licensee in me came out. I wanted to go up to them and tell them to calm it down."

King laughs a landlady's laugh, rich and infectious. She's going to have to get used to the boxing since being elected chairman of the Licensed Trade Charity last month.

It was a close vote, apparently.

She stood on a platform of taking the LTC into new areas, beyond the membership, using new methods. Not entirely a modernising platform, perhaps, since King is very much rooted in a peculiarly old-fashioned licensed trade institution — the ladies' auxiliaries.

As a young(ish) reporter on the Morning Advertiser a quarter of a century ago, I quailed before the ladies' auxiliaries, then more numerous, as flotillas of them sailed across the floors of Licensed Victuallers Association (LVA) balls, to a man large, loud women in larger hats and louder frocks. They were the wives of LVA members. While the men did the trade protection politicking, the women, the auxiliaries, did the fund-raising. They were, after all, hard to turn down.

King's charity career began in the Mansfield Ladies' Auxiliary a couple of years after, as the granddaughter and daughter of licensees, she entered the trade in her own right.

"I could see the benefits straight away and wanted to do more. For me, being involved in the charity is part and parcel of being a licensee. The trade has been very good to me and my family and I like to put something back."

With husband Gary, and her mum and dad, she continues to run Boothy's, a private members' club in Mansfield, and helps out her brothers, Jeremy and Jason, who have pubs in the Nottinghamshire town.

"I'm luckier than licensees who have rent to pay, but we're always looking for more customers. It's hard times and a case of knuckling down. We've got darts and dominoes teams, pool, bingo, live entertainment Saturday and Sunday, and country & western nights. Anything to keep the doors open.

"It's like being part of a family. That's what I like about it. People come out for the company; they like to talk. My dad always watched Coronation Street, just so he could talk about it to the customers.

"I help my customers if they're poorly, take food to them if they can't come out. A lot of licensees do that. People don't know, though. We don't make a song and dance about it."

Charity in the pub​

There's something innately charitable about the trade, she believes. "For any charity, one of the first places they go is the pub, whether it's to put in a collection box or book a function."

The trade's own charities have slipped down the list of priorities over the years, though. It's hard for people to see licensees as being needy, and King appreciates that "for most licensees local causes must come first".

"All we want them to do is one thing a year for us, one raffle. There are a lot of pubs so it would make a big difference."

She also sees how practicalities make it hard for licensees to get involved in the LTC. "They don't have time now to go to meetings. If you go to a meeting you've got to pay someone to take your place.

"I don't think anyone benefits from 24-hour licensing. Pubs are open more hours and yet they employ fewer staff."

The decline of the LVAs and the auxiliaries is a double loss, not just for fund-raising, but the mutual support licensees used to enjoy.

"Customers don't want to hear your problems. Nobody thinks you can have a poor licensee. You're always well-dressed. You put your face on when you go downstairs

to the bar. Customers don't see

what's involved.

"You can't go out on a Saturday night like other people. You lose connection to the outside world. Licensees can feel very isolated, lonely.

"For couples it puts a big strain on a relationship. That's another reason why a ladies' auxiliary is good. You need to do things apart. You need your own time.

"Our auxiliary has 12 members and only four of them have a pub, but we still meet up. It's 12 friends who understand each other's problems. Your other friends don't appreciate what it's like. But you can tell your friends in the auxiliary that somebody keeps leaving the tap running in the toilets and they understand how annoying it is. Although I agree the name doesn't help. People think you're a nurse or something."

Change​

The LTC has had a busy couple of years. Where once 90% of the people it helped were retired, typically receiving £10 a week on a long-term basis, business failures mean that figure is now 50%, the other half mostly made up of short-term assistance.

"We've been getting more applications, but the striking thing is the change in the age range," says King. "There are a lot of younger people asking for help to get back on their feet. It's not that they're bad at business, as some would say. There are things you can't plan for, illness and accidents.

"And we've had the smoking ban. It isn't the only reason they're in trouble, but it was one of the straws, the last straw for many."

It's not only licensees on the LTC's books now, either. "We help everyone from the draymen who deliver the beer to the barstaff who serve it. As long as the licensed trade is their main occupation."

The core remains the retired licensee, though, 500 to 600 of them who, as well as cash, receive equally valuable regular home calls from the LTC's volunteer visitor programme, part-sponsored by Punch Taverns.

As chairman, King is out and about, too, spreading the word. Greene King has sponsored a car for her for the two years she's likely to be in the role.

"I want to do it region by region, meeting LVAs and pubwatches, to let them know we're here, let them see what we do. There's such a fast turn-over of licensees it's hard to keep in touch. I enjoy it, I feel it's worthwhile, that I'm achieving something. Our costs are paid for out of the subscriptions to the schools so every penny we make goes to beneficiaries. Not every charity can say that.

"If, at the end of my two years, more people are aware of us, and more people and corporates are helping us, it will be a big plus.

"We've been going 200 years and I want us to still be around in another 200 years. We'll still be needed!"

My kind of pub​

"It's a pub where people welcome you and are friendly, somewhere you're not anonymous and you can talk to people — I can't keep quiet for long!

"Usually I'm in my own business, but if I had to pick another pub to go to it would be the Old English Inn at Clay Cross. Alan and Mary James have been tenants of my mum and dad there for 20 years. It's a warm and friendly pub with no frills."

Key dates​

8226 1794 — Licensees found the Society of Licensed Victuallers, forerunner to the Licensed Trade Charity, which becomes the umbrella group for the Licensed Victuallers National Homes (LVNH), the Licensed Victuallers Schools (LVS), and a daily newspaper, the Morning Advertiser

• 1963 — The grandparents of Annette (then Booth) take a pub

• 1972 — Her parents Jeff and Jenny Booth take a pub in Mansfield

• 1983 — After leaving school Annette becomes a PA and works for the Ministry of Defence

• 1985 — Marries Gary King

• 1990 — With Gary, becomes licensee of the Sherwood Club in Newton, Derbyshire

• 1992 — Joins the LVNH while Jeff Booth is chairman

• 1993 — Joins Mansfield Ladies' Auxiliary

• 1994 — Becomes Auxiliary chairman, jo