Colin & Heather Lang

Colin & Heather Lang

May 5th 2015 marks Colin and Heather Lang’s ten-year anniversary as landlords of the Ship Inn, Kingswear. The pub’s perennial, thriving atmosphere is a testament to the success of their efforts over the past decade. “I might be blowing my own trumpet a little bit,” says Colin, “But we’ve done countless functions since we’ve been here and I don’t think we’ve messed up a single one. When you’ve got a lot of people that you know, coming in and enjoying themselves, it makes it easy to do.”

Given their panache for running the pub, it may surprise many that the Ship Inn is actually the first and only pub Colin and Heather have ever been in charge of.  “We were born and bred in Brixham,” says Heather. “We’ve known each other since we were three and we’ve now been together for over fifty years.”

“Heather wouldn’t let me run a pub when the kids were growing up in Brixham,” says Colin. “So I worked as a sales promotion manager for EMI for ten years. I was a professional port diver before then, diving for salvage in Torbay and doing the moorings. The local boatman Ernie Lister employed me. Heather owned her own hairdressing shop in Brixham and worked there.”

In 1997, Colin and Heather decided to up sticks and make the move over the hill to Kingswear. “Luke, our grandson, was a baby when we first came here,” recalls Heather. “We were going through a bit of a hard time in Brixham. It had changed and didn’t feel the same. Friends of ours had moved to Kingswear a few years before – they said how good it was and how it was like Brixham used to be.”

“We both got jobs at the Naval College,” says Colin. “Heather was the hotel supervisor and I was a general dog’s body up there for a few months. Then I came back over the river and worked in the Royal Dart Pub behind the bar for a while before Tony Wellsprings, and then Les Gresty, took me on at The Ship.”

Two years later, Les Gresty retired and the opportunity came for the couple to take the reins. A consortium of four Kingswearians came together to help Colin and Heather raise the money to buy the pub – and they have been running it ever since. “Perhaps not always perfectly,” laughs Colin, “But relatively successfully. It’s probably one of the nicest little pubs in the area. There are very few of this type of pub left – without music and modern fittings.

“Someone on TripAdvisor described the pub as ‘shabby and chic’. I thought ‘No – there’s nothing chic about it! Let’s just stick with shabby.’”

“We’ve tried to keep it traditional,” says Heather. “It was two bars originally. We took the wall down between the two. The back bar was hardly ever used, but the front bar was completely the opposite. On Sunday lunchtimes you were drinking in rotation. It was jammed! Those were the days before the smoking ban. The place was thick with fog. You could barely breathe, never mind see.”

“When the smoking ban began we thought now is our chance to take down the wall,” says Colin. “It desperately needed it. But we were always careful to try and keep its shabbiness. When we knocked through I was so worried about affecting the character of the place. When we finally took the last stone out of the wall you could feel the atmosphere sucking from one bar into the other. It’s amazing how much difference it made. But I think we managed to retain the character.”

For Colin and Heather, managing and maintaining the Ship Inn in a manner appropriate to its traditional character has proved to be an immensely time-consuming endeavour. “It’s not a job,” says Colin, “And anybody who takes it on as a job shouldn’t be doing it. It is a way of life. I know that sounds old fashioned but it’s the truth. There is always something that keeps us here. Your social life becomes the bar. All our friends come down and drink here and this is where we spend time with them.”

“The hardest part about it is the nature of running a pub has changed,” says Heather. “It’s very regulated. You have to be on the top of it all the time. You can’t let it slip. Food is now a major part of the operation. Without the restaurant this place wouldn’t exist.”

Yet despite the trials and tribulations of the job, the simple rewards of their efforts have meant Colin and Heather have never had reason to regret their original decision to take the pub over. “We thoroughly enjoy this lifestyle,” says Colin. “If you didn’t enjoy it, you couldn’t do it. The best part is when it’s working really well and everybody is here and enjoying themselves.

“We have quizzes here; the badminton bunch have their dinners here, as do the OAPs. Everybody knows everybody. When the fires are going in the winter and it’s cold outside, the place produces its own atmosphere.

“It’s very locally orientated. But by local we don’t just mean people from the village. People from the marina come down every weekend, there are lots of holiday homes and many new people have moved down here too. According to the local estate agent, people have even bought houses down here because they like the pub!”

With their ten-year anniversary rapidly approaching, Colin and Heather are preparing a series of events next summer to celebrate their decade at The Ship and to give something back to everyone who has supported them. “We haven’t finalised it but we’re planning on doing a huge 10th anniversary party for the locals,” says Colin. “There will be plenty of food and booze. It’s our way of thanking the locals, and the original investors will be at the party too.

“We’re also thinking of repeating the mussel event we did with Mitch Tonks this year as it was so popular – people are already asking if they can book their spot for next year!”

“We’re also going to make a special anniversary t-shirt next year,” adds Heather. “Everyone seems to love them. Half of Barbados seems to be walking round with Ship Inn t-shirts on!”

“Keep your eye on the website (theshipinnkingswear.co.uk/) for details of the anniversary events,” says Colin. “This is such a beautiful pub and we love looking after it now as much as we did on our first day here. Hopefully, the celebrations next year will reflect just how much we have enjoyed ourselves.”

First published By The Dart December 2014

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