A teenager believed to be the youngest landlady in Kent is preparing to celebrate her first Christmas behind the bar after years of growing up in pubs.

Freya Shephard took over the First & Last in Bower Place, Maidstone, in October after working just three shifts at the boozer.

The 19-year-old, who got her licence a year ago, is planning to spend her first Christmas in charge by opening the pub for an extra hour on Christmas day.

She explained: “The punters told me it is usually open until 2pm but I felt that was a bit of a rush for them so I’ve extended it until 3pm.”

The teenager, who grew up in Penenden Heath, was always destined to end up behind the bar after a lifetime of spending time helping her grandad, Martin Reddington, at his London pub.

“When I was tiny we used to spend a lot of time visiting my grandad who owned The Huntsman and Hounds,” she said.

“I used to be in charge of turning all the coke cans around to face the right way behind the bar, but I wasn’t allowed behind there when the punters arrived.

“Then I just jumped up and down on the chairs and annoyed everyone.”

Freya has happy memories of the festive period spent at her grandad’s pub with her cousins and has a bucket list dream of buying it back one day.

She said: “When he passed away it was taken over by someone else I would like to buy it back one day, but it’s not really financially realistic.”

The former Cornwallis Academy pupil spent a lot of her childhood in pubs waiting for her parents to finish socialising.

“There was many a time I fell asleep under my dad’s jacket waiting to go home,” she said.

As well as helping her grandad, Freya worked in pubs since she was 15, first waitressing and then working as a supervisor at The Cherry Tree in Tonbridge Road.

After taking a job as supervisor at the First & Last it was on only her third shift when she heard the pub was looking for a new landlady.

“I was just in the right place at the right time,” she said.

Since taking over, Freya says she has reintroduced old favourites into the pub such as roast potatoes on a Sunday, poker nights, meat raffles, darts, and band nights.

She is about to introduce Vinyl Club once a month, where people can bring along their own music collections to share.

“It’s a nice thing for people to do and it gets people talking,” she explained.

Freya believes the best thing about being a landlady is mixing with the punters.

“I’ve always been told I’m an old head on young shoulders,” she said. “I just seem to get on with an older group of people.

“You have to like the people you are pulling pints for. I’m the real face of the pub. I get stuck in and do all but two of the shifts.

“It’s a small pub. It’s very homely. I know exactly who’s going to come in at what time and on what day and where they are going to sit. There are no dramas. It’s just a lovely village pub.”