Interview
“We’d find ourselves
in a situation where
Cheryl could be in
Minehead and me
in Liverpool – it just
wasn’t doable for us
any more.”
shouldn’t knock them because we had
some tremendous fun there”.
Once they were formally an ‘item’ they
were due to perform in panto together at
the Hawth Theatre in Crawley, although
this never came together and when they
had to go off again to separate jobs, they
realised that something had to change.
“We’d find ourselves in a situation where
Cheryl could be in Minehead and me in
Liverpool – it just wasn’t doable for us any
more” he says.
New horizons
The solution they came up with was to
sign up for a manager training scheme
being run by the Whitbread Brewery and
switch their career to one that they could
do together.
And that was why February 4, 1991 is
etched in Andy’s memory as the date he
finally ‘hung up his drumsticks’ – at least
professionally - after a touring gig with
the Rocky Horror Show at the Naples
Opera House. Shortly afterwards, he and
Cheryl had applied to Whitbread and were
Andy and his family in
South Africa, 2016
setting out on a whole new life
“I’d drunk plenty of beer in my time, and
thought that would be good experience
for the job” he jokes, “but Cheryl didn’t
even know that beer came in brown and
yellow, so it was a bit of a baptism of fire
when we got into the intensive training”.
However, they clearly took to the trade
and quickly made their mark in the
brewery’s Solent Inns Division, winning
an Egon Ronay plaque at The Bugle and
then effectively turning around the ailing
Luzborough. Andy is keen to stress that
it’s been a strong double act, and with
characteristic irony he quips: “Cheryl is no
chef and in fact she could even burn tea –
but she turned into an amazing manager.”
During that time the Greenwoods also
had their first two children – Tom being
born at The Bugle in 1993 and Katie at
The Luzborough in 1994.
So when they arrived at The Folly, it was
with two pre-schoolers in tow and a huge
act to follow in terms of running the pub.
Their success at developing the pub as
a go-to venue for good food and great
entertainment kept them there for six
and a half years – but when the pub was
taken over by the Laurel Pub Company in
2002 with a focus on more liquor-based
trading, they reckoned it was time to
consider a move – especially as by then
they had a third child, Anna, born in 1999.
Time out
They were approached with an offer they
couldn’t refuse, to re-vitalise a Beefeater
Inn in Harlow, Essex as a Premier Travel
Inn. “It was a wrench for us leaving the
Island” Andy recalls, “but financially it
was a great offer, and whoever said that
money doesn’t matter was lying, because
it does!”
It didn’t take long for him and Cheryl to
realise, though, that it simply wasn’t for
them.
“It wasn’t great there with a young
family, especially after being in a lovely
environment like the Isle of Wight”
he says. “We also had much more
responsibility, with 104 staff – and I only
wanted to run a pub.”
The best thing about the year they spent
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