Former policeman is new landlord at Charmouth pub

A FORMER policeman is the new landlord of The Royal Oak pub in Charmouth.

Richard Grundy and his wife, Sue, were attracted to the pub because of Palmers Brewery's family feel.

"We wanted to go into a family set-up because we're a family set-up ourselves," he said.

Richard and Sue, a former conference and banqueting manager for hotels, have moved to Dorset from Aldershot with their daughter Catherine, 19, who's been mixing catering college with work in 5-star hotels.

They plan to keep The Royal Oak at the centre of village life for locals, visitors and numerous sports teams. Sue has just one reservation.

Sue said: "I think the tradition of The Royal Oak Christmas Day swim is just fantastic, and I'm more than happy to go down to the beach with hot toddies and welcome people out of the sea - but I certainly won't be going into the sea myself!"

New events will include charitable functions to raise money for Help for Heroes, as Richard and Sue have two sons in the Armed Forces.

They spent six months searching for a pub across the south of England, before choosing to go with Palmers.

Richard said: "We particularly liked this area, and Palmers is a close-knit family set-up."

Sue said: "Everybody that we've met so far at Palmers, they all seem to be happy and work closely together, from the people that pick up the telephone to the people that deliver our beer.

"We even went shopping the other day and a Palmers dray lorry went by and beeped. It's just a friendly feeling from the whole of the team.

"We thought if the brewery has that feel about it, then it's going to come onto us and we're obviously going to give that to the customers as well."

Richard and Sue met before he joined the police.

Sue said: "It's something we've always talked about. We met in the pub that his parents had in the village of Shrewton in Wiltshire, and we worked a bit behind the bar together then.