A PUB regular of 27 years has gone one step further by becoming its landlady.

Jackie Rawstron started going in the Whitakers Arms in Accrington when she got a job in the kitchen as a 17-year-old.

The pub was a regular haunt for her dad, who also used to work there doing odd jobs.

The Whitakers Arms went on to play a major part in Mrs Rawstron’s life, as it is where she met her husband, Raymond, 61, and it almost became the birthplace of her first daughter, Rebecca.

Mrs Rawstron, 44, said: “I met Ray on New Year’s Eve 20 years ago.

“Our first daughter, Rebecca, was almost born here as well, as I had just finished working on a Sunday when I went into labour.”

Rebecca, 23, a legal secretary at Roebucks in Blackburn, helps out with shifts in the bar and her sister, Natasha, 20, a law student in Leeds, also does shifts in the kitchen when she returns home.

Mrs Rawstron said she was delighted to have taken over the lease of the pub.

She said: “The Whitakers Arms has been a big part of my life. We live right across the road and I have lived in Huncoat all my life.

“It is really nice to have the pub. We first looked into it 18 months ago but someone else was already quite a way down the line of getting it.

“But they pulled out and we went straight to the brewery.

“The opportunity just dropped into our laps and we thought ‘why not give it a go?’.”

Mrs Rawstron is a qualified solicitor and had no experience of running a pub, but she said that hadn’t held her back. She said: “It hasn’t been without its issues but it is good because I know all the regulars.

“I used to sit on the other side of the bar so I am familiar with them and a lot have commented on how friendly the place feels because of that.”

Mrs Rawstron said she was looking to build on the pub’s daytime trade, with an emphasis on funerals as the cemetery was just across the road.

She has also introduced a second guest ale pump and wants to build on the food side of the business.