“It was a moment of madness when I decided to get a pub,” laughs Jodie Kidd.

The locals in Kirdford, West Sussex, must certainly have thought so too when Kidd, a former model and socialite, swept in eight years ago. With no experience in the industry, never having worked in hospitality before, and the pub already facing closure, few could have anticipated the turnaround she made within the Half Moon.

“It was going to become houses,” she fumes. “This beautiful 16th-century coaching inn could have been lost forever, and that would have stripped the heart out of this village.

“I have lived rurally for most of my life, and in these little villages the pub is the epicentre of village life,” says Kidd. “They are community centres. Pubs are places where friendships are formed, relationships happen, families meet – they are such important places for the community.”

Having become a champion for the pub industry during the turbulent days of Covid and the ensuing cost of living crisis, Kidd recently hit the road to meet other landlords for a new podcast, Three Landlords Walk into a Bar. Created with Heineken SmartDispense, she and Merlin Griffiths (the bartender from Channel 4’s First Dates) interview the landlords of some of Britain’s most popular boozers to find out what sets a great pub apart.