Barmaid retires after 53 years of pulling pints

A barmaid has pulled her final pint after more than half a century serving punters.

Sally Ward first jumped behind a bar on her 18th birthday, before embarking on something of a 53-year pub crawl, working at different venues in Essex.

The 71-year-old's working life has taken her to the King's Arms and The Dog and Duck in Stansted, the Three Colts in Buckhurst Hill, and the Three Bottles in Great Yeldham, before calling her last orders at The White Lion pub in Sible Hedingham.

"I loved it so much," she said. "I love the job. I love to be able to teach youngsters how to pour beer properly."

She had intended to retire on her 60th birthday, but the government raised the state pension age to 65 three weeks before.

Ward said village pubs were supported by "wonderful people", but she feared for their fate.

"People are taking on pubs without realising just the astronomical costs of running them," she said.

"That's a sad thing - to see so many beautiful pubs turned into houses or knocked down."

Figures produced for the industry in May said about two British pubs closed per day, - in England, Scotland and Wales - in the first quarter of 2026.

Ward told BBC Essex presenter Ben Fryer that she had pulled pints for some famous faces, including comedian Mike Reid and singer Nick Kershaw.

She also recalled cooking lunch for her "idol" snooker player Ronnie O'Sullivan, when he wandered into one of her pubs in 2010.

"He was such a nice man," she recalled.

"I didn't pour him a pint, I poured him a coke because he didn't drink alcohol.

"[He had] ham, egg and chips and he came into the kitchen and told me exactly the size... he went 'I want it like that. I want that thickness'."

Despite retiring, she said some old habits were dying hard.

"If I see a table with glasses on, my automatic thing is to go and pick them up and put them on [the bar]. Why? I don't know," she said.

In more than five decades, she swore she had never treated herself to a drink behind the bar.

"That's the golden rule of a good barmaid," she insisted.

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