Old Ship Inn welcomes a waitress back (8)
I believe the answer is:
indiaman
'old ship' is the definition.
'indiaman' can be an answer for 'ship'. I am unsure of the 'old' bit.
'inn welcomes a waitress back' is the wordplay.
'welcomes' means one lot of letters goes inside another (in sense of 'invites in').
'waitress' becomes 'maid' (I am not sure about this - if you are sure you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'back' says the letters should be written backwards.
'a'+'maid'='amaid'
'amaid' backwards is 'diama'.
'inn' enclosing 'diama' is 'INDIAMAN'.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for indiaman that I've seen before include "Large vessel" , "Former trading ship" , "Old trader" .)