1/1 YORK’S longest serving landlord has died from Covid, just weeks before he was due to celebrate 40 years in charge of his village pub. Gordon Watkins, 71, and his former wife Lynn took over at the Ebor Inn in Bishopthorpe in March, 1981, and continued to run it ever since as Samuel Smith’s Brewery’s last tenant landlord. He was named landlord of the year in The Press Pub Awards 2009/10 and received an award from The Campaign for Real Ale to mark his long service. He was said to have launched York’s first pub quiz in the early 1980s and used to run a massive bonfire and fireworks display every November in the pub’s big beer garden.