Pulling pints, speaking to punters and raising thousands for an emergency lifeboat charity is all in a days work for one pub on the Isle of Sheppey.

Surrounded by water, the Island is home to a number of rescue teams, including volunteer based Sheerness RNLI, which rely on donations to keep their head above water.

That's why the work from The Admiral's Arm Micropub in raising just less than £24,000 in five years is appreciated so much by the charity.

However, the charity may not have seen anywhere near that much if it wasn't for a heart attack scare five years ago.

Based in Trafalgar Court, West Street, Queenborough the pub is run by Minster family Rachel Collier, who is also a serving RNLI volunteer, her husband Chris Collier and son Joe.

The family took over in 2016 after Chris, 62, suffered a suspected heart attack and he and his wife decided "life was too short".

They raised £20,000 in their first three years of business by hosting weekly quizzes, passing a yellow welly around to collect the money, bake sales, comedy nights.

The stellar amount has funded around 24 call outs for the lifeboat, with costs for a single trip ranging from the hundreds to £1,000 depending on weather conditions and the type of call out.

Or, it' the equivalent of funding the training for 17 volunteer crew members.

Along with the obvious charitable efforts the pub enforces a strict £1 fine for any person who makes a call on their mobile phone while inside the pub.

Landlady Rachel explained she joined the RNLI crew three years ago after beginning to raise money for them.

She said: "We've been raising money for them since 2016 and got a plaque after we raised £20,000 in three years."

'It was a life's too short moment...'

Rachel used to work at Kent County Council while Chris is a retired lorry driver.

The 44-year-old added: "We decided to open the pub as Chris had a suspected heart attack before 2016 and I hadn’t long lost my dad. So it was a “life’s too short moment“ really.

"Unfortunately due to the pandemic the fundraising has really slowed down as we have not been able to do so much, but now the pub is back up and running we can get back on track."

The award winning watering hole has previously won the CAMRA (Campaign for Real Ale) pub of the year for Kent and has been the has been the CAMRA Swale pub of the year for the past three years.

Speaking about the reason behind picking the charity Rachel said: "We originally picked it as we were setting up a business in a town with lots of links to the water but I since joined the crew myself.

"I have now been crew for about 3 years. The last couple of years the focus has been raising funds for the new boat, which arrived last month."

The RNLI's new £2.2million vessel - The Judith Copping Joyce - came to the Island in April to replace the all-weather Trent-class George and Ivy Swanson which has served Sheppey for the past 26 years.

It had been hoped the Shannon-class boat, named after the longest river in Ireland, would arrive before Christmas but the Covid lockdown scuppered the timetable.

Read more: All the latest news from Sheerness