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“My mum was very Victorian, so 60 hours a week was nothing to me; when I had to do 80 hours a week it was just working a little bit harder. That’s what you have to do, you have to care for your business – it’s your baby and you look after it.”
industry’s demise, Sue says. “If people had their £20 spending money, they were buying a lottery ticket and staying in on a Saturday night and that was a big thing when it first came out. It hit the pubs because that spending money went on the ticket.” The recession, says Sue, “was like somebody suddenly turned the tap off. Thank God I did have another income.” Sue had started to get back on her feet again when in December 2013, the Whittington and the Wassand were among many Hull businesses hit by the Humber tidal surge. Because she had to shut for six months for flood repairs, all her trade went elsewhere. It was the first time she’d had to deal with insurers, and, until a friend mentioned it, she’d never been aware of “consequential loss”, which is where a business can claim against the secondary loss of property and equipment due to a
natural disaster or accident. “You’re against the insurance company but there’s nobody there that tells you how to deal with them, so that was a learning curve and something I hope I’ll never have to do again. But we dusted ourselves off and had a big revamp, put more bedrooms in the Railway, we’ve just done Four in a Bed and we’re up for the top pub in Yorkshire the White Rose Awards at Harrogate.” An Old Town grant helped Sue reopen the White Hart last year, with Broughbased Crafty Little Brewery taking on the lease, while Gill Ralph is running the Whittington, freeing Sue up to spend more time on property development as well as with her granddaughter. She’s active in the business community, being a member of For Entrepreneurs Only and Women in Business. “It was through talking to FEO that I decided to lease, and it’s nice to know
there’s people there you can talk to and give you advice, and listen to other inspiring stories of entrepreneurs.” What does she wish she knew when she started out? “What’s the old saying… turnover’s vanity, profit’s sanity. I don’t chase turnover now,” she says. “It’s a case of, is it making me money, and if it’s not… for example, we used to do outside catering, which, by the time we’d made all the effort, wasn’t really making that much money. I wished I’d learned that a long time ago, as well as delegating instead of trying to do everything – a lot of people are better at doing your job than you are!” And no matter what business you’re in, it’s all about communication, Sue adds. “If you’ve got bad communication in the workforce it just falls to bits.” And as much of her workforce has been with her for 30 years, I think that’s something to raise a glass to. l