A well-respected publican who spent 26 years pulling pints and providing a listening ear for customers has died aged 84.

Father-of-two Ken Coggins passed away on April 2 in the house he was born in, The Croft, in Headington, Oxford.

He and his late wife Ruby were well known in Oxford for running the Coach and Horses in St Clements.

Son Roy, 56, said: "Dad was very well respected and well-liked, and always there to listen to people."

Mr Coggins was the first child born to Dorothy and Sidney on April 24, 1921.

He spent his childhood in Oxford with his siblings George, Jim and Jean.

Mr Coggins left St Andrews School in Headington when he was 14 to become a builder, before he was called up to join the army for the Second World War, aged 18.

After the war he went back to the building trade and worked on university buildings as a stonemason for Benfield and Loxley.

It was during this time Mr Coggins started dating his future wife Ruby.

The pair first met as teenagers when he played for the Quarry Nomads football team, which was run by her father Ernest Blackford. They married in St Clements Church in August 1948, and Roy was born a year later in October.

Their daughter Margaret, now 50, was born in May 1955.

In 1959, Mr and Mrs Coggins took over the licence of the Coach and Horses, which they ran together until 1984.

The pub was featured in the Oxford Mail's Memory Lane pages in January, with photographs of punters setting off on a 'Jolly Boys outing'.

During retirement, the Coggins devoted their spare time to their four grandchildren Mark, Laura, Tom and Tim.

The funeral was held on Tuesday.