Former pub landlord shares memories of ‘Inn at the Top’

Britain’s highest pub, in a remote part of the Yorkshire Dales, was wild, windswept and riddled with rats – although the scenery was breath-taking.

“It reminded me of The Slaughtered Lamb, the pub in the film An American Werewolf in London,” Mr Hanson told yesterday’s Yorkshire Post Literary Lunch. “My wife and I agreed that only a madman would take the job. Six days later we found ourselves behind the bar.”

The Inn at the Top is the story of their tenure as, with no experience of running a pub, they worked to turn it into a success. Licensing laws were stricter in the 1970s but, being 20 miles from the nearest police station and only reachable via winding lanes, the inn did not have to worry too much.

“The police were pretty reluctant to make the journey,” recalled Mr Hanson. “We were the only pub to be raided by prior appointment.”

Also speaking was novelist and poet Mary Sheepshanks. Wild Writing Granny is her autobiography, describing her childhood at Eton where her father was a housemaster, and her life as the wife of Sunningdale School’s headmaster.

The third speaker was Hilary Heilbron, a barrister who has written her mother’s biography – Rose Heilbron: The Story of England’s First Woman Queen’s Counsel and Judge.

She said: “She had the most enormous amount of energy and she also had tremendous humility and warmth. She used her fame as a platform to encourage other women to succeed.”