The town centre pub run by a landlord who returned home to manage his local

This is the case for the Bird in Hand in Stafford, which has been under the stewardship of landlords Terry and Dee Cope for seven years since being refurbished and reopened by Black Country Ales in 2017.

For Terry, the pub has been a part of his life since he was a young man drinking there in the 1970s, a period he admitted was part of the chequered past for the pub on Victoria Square.

He remembers: "It has got a chequered history, if I'm honest, with most of us who went to college in Stafford drinking in there at some point during the 60s and 70s.

"It was frequented quite a lot by the RAF when they were based in Stafford, as well as the Chains pub as a Forces pub and it's had a chequered and tough time over the last 20 years, opening and closing."

Terry has been in the industry for 40 years after moving out of Stafford as a 17-year-old, going on to run pubs in London and the east of the country. But he jumped at the opportunity to return and take charge of his home town boozer.

He says that after he and Dee moved in, they began working to put their own touches to the pub.

He explains: "Black Country Ales bought the pub and when we heard that they were buying it, we applied within about a month and got the job, which was wonderful as it felt like coming home.

"I left home and worked in pubs across the south, so it was nice to come home and since we've taken over as managers, we've tried to put our mark on it.

"Being from Stafford, we knew a lot of people who had been brought up around here and we've been able to make our mark and use the opportunities we've been given, such as when the British Legion closed and we approached them and said they could use our pub."

The pub itself is a landmark within the town centre, covered in Tudor frames and visible in the area around the Crown Court and St Mary's Church.

It has a traditional feeling to it with a bar, a lounge and a snug, all with roaring fires going in them, as well as a function room for private hire, and shows its history as a Joules of Stone pub with the trademark cross visible in the outside door frames.

The pub is also disability-friendly, with level access to the pub, bar and snug from street level, as well as a movable ramp and worked hard to help its community during the Covid-19 pandemic, producing Sunday lunches during lockdown, as well as 160 Christmas lunches in 2020.

There was also a unique scheme run by the pub during the periods where pubs were able to reopen, with a referee-style system being used to ensure that those in attendance follow the rules and regulations around face coverings and social distancing.

The system involved a yellow card for a warning, then a red card for any further breaches of the rules, meaning the customer will be told to leave the premises and banned from coming back, something Mr Cope said had definitely caused a reaction.

He explains: "It did come back to bite us as times as we had people from America call us Covid cowboys and Covid mafia on the internet, but I think the scheme got the point across.

"We were able to keep going during Covid as we still did Sunday lunches and all those meals at Christmas, mostly to keep our sanity and keep us going as being locked in a building this size was very strange and not something I'd like to repeat."

The pub has become a vibrant and popular place for people to go for a drink since restrictions were lifted, with Mr Cole saying that the three Black Country ales were very popular and the pub was becoming a meeting place for lots of different groups.

He says: "We're classed as a real ale pub and we don't do shots or bombs or alchopops or anything like that, so we're commonly known for our real ales.

"We find that Sunday's are our most popular days, with the Royal British Legion using us for meetings, as well as SAFA and Royal Engineers, and we've now acquired three Rotary clubs for Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays.

"The Bradley's Finest Golden is probably the most popular drink as it just flies and is a good session drink, plus we have quirkier drinks such as Green Beers and Chocolate Stout.

"We're mostly wet-led these days, although we do a carvery every Sunday where you can get good home-cooked food, including beef and gammon, and we do food like burgers and steaks every day except Mondays, so that we can have a rest."

Mr Cole describes the pub as part of his life, special to him and a lot of people, even people who didn't live in Stafford anymore.

"There's a lot of people who have drunk here and grown up here.

"There was a gentleman who came in yesterday who had been in the RAF 30 years ago and had two parrots on his shoulder and when I spoke to him, he told me that he was passing through Stafford and wanted to come in to see the pub again as he had memories of it.

"It's like a full circle me coming back here and I think we've got a good crew here, some who have worked with me for over 10 years, and we put on a friendly pub for anyone who comes in."