The steam trains that run parallel to the hotel boundary wall aren’t popular with everyone, just 99%, as it is the most profitable private steam railway in the country. Mr. Jones, one of the other 1%, threatened legal action against us after his stay because of the trains.
He arrived with his sister to check into two available Dackombe Rooms; he wasn’t disabled, but wanted to be away from the main motorway A351 on which the hotel sits. These rooms are situated in the gardens about 80 yards from the main manor house.
He is an odd looking fellow with eyes too close together for my comfort, and only the bridge of his nose prevents a nasty accident. He wears an appalling rug that barely covers his baldness, to top it off, literally. It would help matters somewhat if there weren’t a colour change between his wisps and the toupee, the sort of anomaly that keeps the gaze wandering back to the “join.” His toupee does, at least, distract us from his breath, which smells much like cat litter. Somehow, I note in my mind, he and his sister who is no better to look at mean trouble.
Sure enough, like most first impressions, I’m right. He checks out a day early and gets charged a cancellation fee, which is standard business and hotelier practice; but his anger and attitude were as easy to remember, as his carpet.
The real entertainment started when I opened his hand written letter, penned in dark blue ink, the writing looked scratchy, maybe he used a quill to scribble the drivel. The post arrives with my third cappuccino:
“Far be it to educate your little brain but you should be aware of the flaws in your advertising.” That got my attention away from the memory of the man and onto the letter.
“The use of the word “ensuite” being used in connection the rooms you allocated me is at best erroneous but probably fraudulent.” He quotes from the Oxford Dictionary, “The definition of the word is, ‘a room containing a bath.’ My rooms had no bath, therefore, your advertisement in Alastair Sawdays Hotel Guide is factually incorrect in this regard.”
I had to chuckle, the room has the shower only “wet room” described by Sybling when taking the booking and, thankfully, noted it on the booking card. No mention was made about the necessity for a bath.
The Sawdays Guide always provides a good deal of positive editorial, and none of it is written by us, but by their writers after regular inspections of the Elizabethan manor. They complimented our special Dackombe rooms for the less able (or “not normally aspirated,” as Ted would say) with shower only ensuites. They also mention that they are situated in a quiet corner of the gardens. The hotel’s proximity to the quaint steam railway that runs along the hotel border wall is also noted with some applause.
His letter went on to repeat the comments he made when checking out:
“I was refused the chance to eat in my bedroom. Your à la Carte menu is only served in the restaurant.” This I already knew. We don’t offer this to any guest room, preferring to offer the higher standards of service and ambience in the dining room, which are expected by most. Trudging across a gravel car park with silver domed food, ice bucket, and a black peppermill is hardly the idea I had in mind when employing the best chefs and waiters I could ill-afford to prepare and serve the fare. “This severely reduced any possible enjoyment of the establishment you opportunistically call a quality hotel.”
His final point and his prime bone of contention is that the room is in close proximity to the railway. When booking, he had asked Sybling about whether the steam trains ran through the night, again something she noted on the booking card (having responded with a “No, the trains don’t run through the night”), along with his quote from the guide about wanting to be in a quiet corner of the grounds. “This room could hardly be quiet when a steam train whistled on its way into Corfe Castle station at exactly 11:17 p.m. (which I deem to be night time,) waking both my sister and I! I shall sue your sorry little hotel and drag your arse through court if you don’t repay me for the cancellation fee you levied when I checked out and for the night we stayed but never slept.”
I can almost not be bothered to fight, but resolve myself to a court hearing when contained in my reply are the following questions: “Why book a room with only a shower, if you ‘must have’ a bath? Why book a hotel that is fifty yards away from a railway line if you hate the sound of a steam engine whistle? Why book on an inclusive dinner, bed and breakfast package at a hotel that has a beautiful award-winning restaurant and then insist on eating in a bedroom the other side of the car park?”
Maybe more significantly, I left out my favourite…Why wear an Axminster carpet on your head that greatly differs in colour and style from what’s left of the hair you were born with?
My letter remains unanswered, the steam trains still don’t run through the night, and the carpets made locally in Axminster are still best laid on the floor
Saturday, July 18, 2009
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Guests with Shooters
Guests with Shooters
Just as I open the door of my manor house a guest rushes out holding a 12 bore shotgun, the barrel of which is dangerously close to my nostrils, once again both my sphincter and patience is put to the test, to the fullest extent.
“Oh, I am dreadfully sorry old bean, I never saw you coming,” he bleats with exemplary English, before pointing the business end away from my face.
“Jesus, shouldn’t that thing be in a case or a locked cabinet?”
“It’s okay, the safety is on.”
“Having both barrels of a gun pointing up your nose feels less than safe. How many times have I asked…last time I insisted even, that your guns are not assembled whilst on my property? If you were at home you’d have to have it in a locked gun cabinet with licence from the police to own a gun, but you come here, wander around with it, and then point the damn thing at me.”
“Yes, of course, sorry again, Innkeeper.”
At certain times of the year, folk from the smoke descend on rural retreats dressed in tweed all with privately manicured accents and shoot their guns at wild birds and such. They have to stay somewhere befitting their status and often choose places like Mortons House Hotel. One group come twice a year in November and February.
The Featherstone party arrive with a dozen guns and as many gundogs one Autumn morning. Long before the sun rises to enlighten a beautiful blue sky, I venture into the manor after a sleepless night. I am not expecting to meet anybody, lest of all one holding a gun to my nose. Regular guests that have frequented the hotel for more than a decade come as a group and that spend a good deal of wonga can sometimes expect the rules to be stretched. My general manager knows this but also how I hate having shotguns in the hotel.
Today isn’t the first time I doubted the wisdom of turning a blind eye and not raising my blood pressure unduly by taking the group to task. During their last visit the whole group walks into a busy reception area after a day’s shooting, with muddy boots and guns slung over their shoulders. Mr. Featherstone eyes my frown and me as he marches over and dumps a brace of pheasant on the desk, blood, guts and feathers all over it.
“There you go Innkeeper, a little something for you and your good lady.” Clearly he doesn’t know much about Sybil. One, she is in her opinion much more highly ranked than good and, the other, is that there is no chance of her eating pheasant.
“Oh my goodness,” Mrs. Blue Rinse walks out of the Oak Room carrying her sherry and sets eyes on the shooter, the blood, and turns tail.
“Nothing to worry about madam,” the lead shooter shouts. “We are not loaded but the game on the menu here is fresh tonight!” Of course the group laugh, but me and the pheasants can’t see the funny side and another sherry is needed next door along with a Tenor Lady incontinence pad.
“Colin, I know you struggle with admonishing the Featherstone group because they are stalwart regulars of this place, but for fuck sake man, they scare the living daylights out of our other guests. Guests that pay the bills and your wages.”
“Okay, okay, I will have another chat with them later.”
“I want the guns broken down, barrels under the bed, and butts in their cars. Never should the two be in the hotel together or as an assembled gun, got it?”
“I will have a go when I decant their wine before dinner, which is when they pay the greatest attention to me.”
The GM is a more than decent chap but he will no doubt dilute my demands for his favourite punters who, I am sure, tip him very well. Colin would love to be one of those fellows in the deerstalker hat; he’d enjoy the whole eat, shoot, drink and be merry scenario, not to mention the chance of pointing a loaded gun up my nose.
I am none too certain exactly where the hotel stands on the legality of allowing our policy to be shot to bits by an Eton accent, but I pretend to be for Colin’s benefit.
The day passes with the utterly mundane chores that paperwork provide me, Sybil is quiet opposite, she is either accounting or shopping online; it is impossible to tell sometimes. Sybling is off getting her hair dyed, both sisters now need to hide a little greying at the gills and love the gossip that comes free at the upmarket salon in Poole. Ted has taken down an old iron rain gutter that is blocked; he is busy cleaning it up before repainting and fixing it back to the wall of the manor. Before leaving a little earlier than normal after lunch service, I replace a light bulb for Barb who is so vertically challenged even her steps won’t bring the lamp within her reach. I am due back in time to greet the shooters and those wanting a pre-dinner drink in the Oak Room that will be warmed by the huge fire.
I spend my afternoon at the driving range; I plan to have a rare game of golf with “the Major” and haven’t hit a ball in nearly a year. Arriving straight from the hotel I must look like I am in the wrong place, I take off my tie and hang my jacket up and have a warm up by swinging a club around. I’d be better placed in a bank looking like this. Other ball bashers seem unconcerned at my lack of dress sense though. After a couple of buckets of balls have been thinned, shanked, sliced, and hooked, I decide enough is enough. I reckon it best not to bet with the Major after this display.
A brief shower, change of shirt, and it is time to head back to work.
Colin approaches me, having returned to duty without a fresh shirt or apparently a shower. He has clearly dozed all afternoon mixed with plenty of X-box. “Boss, a bit of trouble in the bar, we let in a couple of men that could, at best be described as ‘oiks,’ not the usual upmarket folk you like, but they have been okay until just a moment ago.”
“What is the problem?” I ask.
“They are both sloshed and have gotten a bit abusive. I refused to serve them and now they are being threatening and profanity of the spoken word is rife.”
“Have you asked them to leave?”
“No, I hoped you would?”
“Colin, you’re the GM, just ask them to leave.”
I check the reservation diary, the restaurant bookings, and chat with reception about the afternoon shift. We are busy, the Featherstone’s occupy the Castle Room and we have twenty other diners in the main dining room. The Castle Room is already prepared, white wine chilling in buckets of ice, and the reds at room temperature awaiting the house sommelier (Colin) to decant them into crystal. As I raise my head from the bookings I smell the gentlemen before me.
“Why don’t you try and throw us out?” One drunk swaggers.
“We’d like to see you try.” The other offers with more slur. “We just want a quiet drink to celebrate but after a few, you want us out?”
“Gentlemen, by the looks of things you have celebrated well, it is in our opinion that we have offered you sufficient hospitality. As the owner and licensee I have the right to decline you service, and that is what I am doing, politely. Therefore, I think it best to ask you to move on and thank you for your custom.” There were words of too many syllables as the inebriated chaps conferred for a while.
“Fuck you! We want another drink.” The guy looks like a friendly drunk, a laughable one not a punching drunk; I figure he wants to be a nuisance. The front door opens and in trots a Black Labrador. One of the gundogs has darted in without the following owner stopping it, the tail wagging would normally have me in a tailspin, since dogs are strictly forbidden as guests or patrons. I have seen signs that the shooters overlook this policy, the odd patch of dog hair around the fireplace, the sight of a departing pouch when the owner sees me, that sort of thing. The lab is followed in by the first of the returning party, Mr. Featherstone himself.
The drunks demand another drink with more force and further obscenity.
“If you don’t serve us, we’ll help ourselves and there is fuck all you are going to do about it.”
I round the reception desk and put a supportive arm on the lead sprayer of abuse and start to guide him out.
“Get your pompous hands off me or I’ll whack you.”
“There won’t be any need for that; I suggest you leave now as you have been asked.”
Both barrels of a shiny gun rest on the shoulder of the drunk, who turns to meet them with his now chalky white complexion. Sobering up often takes time, but with a gun up your nose it speeds up big style. The troublesome and tipsy twosome depart without another word as the reception fills with gun toting guests.
“Thanks for that Mr. Featherstone,” is all I can say as I bend to pat the excited hound sat next to the gunman.
“No worries, glad to be of service; the sight of mine and a dozen or so guns did the trick, or then maybe it was my dog, Nigger eh?” He laughs and ascends the stairs with the dog, inappropriately named after the Labrador in the 1955 film The Dam Busters.
Mr. Featherstone may not err on the side of political correctness, but I am bloody glad his guns point in the right direction now. Needless to say, I am expected to overlook the weapons that accompany the group and turn a blind eye to Nigger the dog, too.
Just as I open the door of my manor house a guest rushes out holding a 12 bore shotgun, the barrel of which is dangerously close to my nostrils, once again both my sphincter and patience is put to the test, to the fullest extent.
“Oh, I am dreadfully sorry old bean, I never saw you coming,” he bleats with exemplary English, before pointing the business end away from my face.
“Jesus, shouldn’t that thing be in a case or a locked cabinet?”
“It’s okay, the safety is on.”
“Having both barrels of a gun pointing up your nose feels less than safe. How many times have I asked…last time I insisted even, that your guns are not assembled whilst on my property? If you were at home you’d have to have it in a locked gun cabinet with licence from the police to own a gun, but you come here, wander around with it, and then point the damn thing at me.”
“Yes, of course, sorry again, Innkeeper.”
At certain times of the year, folk from the smoke descend on rural retreats dressed in tweed all with privately manicured accents and shoot their guns at wild birds and such. They have to stay somewhere befitting their status and often choose places like Mortons House Hotel. One group come twice a year in November and February.
The Featherstone party arrive with a dozen guns and as many gundogs one Autumn morning. Long before the sun rises to enlighten a beautiful blue sky, I venture into the manor after a sleepless night. I am not expecting to meet anybody, lest of all one holding a gun to my nose. Regular guests that have frequented the hotel for more than a decade come as a group and that spend a good deal of wonga can sometimes expect the rules to be stretched. My general manager knows this but also how I hate having shotguns in the hotel.
Today isn’t the first time I doubted the wisdom of turning a blind eye and not raising my blood pressure unduly by taking the group to task. During their last visit the whole group walks into a busy reception area after a day’s shooting, with muddy boots and guns slung over their shoulders. Mr. Featherstone eyes my frown and me as he marches over and dumps a brace of pheasant on the desk, blood, guts and feathers all over it.
“There you go Innkeeper, a little something for you and your good lady.” Clearly he doesn’t know much about Sybil. One, she is in her opinion much more highly ranked than good and, the other, is that there is no chance of her eating pheasant.
“Oh my goodness,” Mrs. Blue Rinse walks out of the Oak Room carrying her sherry and sets eyes on the shooter, the blood, and turns tail.
“Nothing to worry about madam,” the lead shooter shouts. “We are not loaded but the game on the menu here is fresh tonight!” Of course the group laugh, but me and the pheasants can’t see the funny side and another sherry is needed next door along with a Tenor Lady incontinence pad.
“Colin, I know you struggle with admonishing the Featherstone group because they are stalwart regulars of this place, but for fuck sake man, they scare the living daylights out of our other guests. Guests that pay the bills and your wages.”
“Okay, okay, I will have another chat with them later.”
“I want the guns broken down, barrels under the bed, and butts in their cars. Never should the two be in the hotel together or as an assembled gun, got it?”
“I will have a go when I decant their wine before dinner, which is when they pay the greatest attention to me.”
The GM is a more than decent chap but he will no doubt dilute my demands for his favourite punters who, I am sure, tip him very well. Colin would love to be one of those fellows in the deerstalker hat; he’d enjoy the whole eat, shoot, drink and be merry scenario, not to mention the chance of pointing a loaded gun up my nose.
I am none too certain exactly where the hotel stands on the legality of allowing our policy to be shot to bits by an Eton accent, but I pretend to be for Colin’s benefit.
The day passes with the utterly mundane chores that paperwork provide me, Sybil is quiet opposite, she is either accounting or shopping online; it is impossible to tell sometimes. Sybling is off getting her hair dyed, both sisters now need to hide a little greying at the gills and love the gossip that comes free at the upmarket salon in Poole. Ted has taken down an old iron rain gutter that is blocked; he is busy cleaning it up before repainting and fixing it back to the wall of the manor. Before leaving a little earlier than normal after lunch service, I replace a light bulb for Barb who is so vertically challenged even her steps won’t bring the lamp within her reach. I am due back in time to greet the shooters and those wanting a pre-dinner drink in the Oak Room that will be warmed by the huge fire.
I spend my afternoon at the driving range; I plan to have a rare game of golf with “the Major” and haven’t hit a ball in nearly a year. Arriving straight from the hotel I must look like I am in the wrong place, I take off my tie and hang my jacket up and have a warm up by swinging a club around. I’d be better placed in a bank looking like this. Other ball bashers seem unconcerned at my lack of dress sense though. After a couple of buckets of balls have been thinned, shanked, sliced, and hooked, I decide enough is enough. I reckon it best not to bet with the Major after this display.
A brief shower, change of shirt, and it is time to head back to work.
Colin approaches me, having returned to duty without a fresh shirt or apparently a shower. He has clearly dozed all afternoon mixed with plenty of X-box. “Boss, a bit of trouble in the bar, we let in a couple of men that could, at best be described as ‘oiks,’ not the usual upmarket folk you like, but they have been okay until just a moment ago.”
“What is the problem?” I ask.
“They are both sloshed and have gotten a bit abusive. I refused to serve them and now they are being threatening and profanity of the spoken word is rife.”
“Have you asked them to leave?”
“No, I hoped you would?”
“Colin, you’re the GM, just ask them to leave.”
I check the reservation diary, the restaurant bookings, and chat with reception about the afternoon shift. We are busy, the Featherstone’s occupy the Castle Room and we have twenty other diners in the main dining room. The Castle Room is already prepared, white wine chilling in buckets of ice, and the reds at room temperature awaiting the house sommelier (Colin) to decant them into crystal. As I raise my head from the bookings I smell the gentlemen before me.
“Why don’t you try and throw us out?” One drunk swaggers.
“We’d like to see you try.” The other offers with more slur. “We just want a quiet drink to celebrate but after a few, you want us out?”
“Gentlemen, by the looks of things you have celebrated well, it is in our opinion that we have offered you sufficient hospitality. As the owner and licensee I have the right to decline you service, and that is what I am doing, politely. Therefore, I think it best to ask you to move on and thank you for your custom.” There were words of too many syllables as the inebriated chaps conferred for a while.
“Fuck you! We want another drink.” The guy looks like a friendly drunk, a laughable one not a punching drunk; I figure he wants to be a nuisance. The front door opens and in trots a Black Labrador. One of the gundogs has darted in without the following owner stopping it, the tail wagging would normally have me in a tailspin, since dogs are strictly forbidden as guests or patrons. I have seen signs that the shooters overlook this policy, the odd patch of dog hair around the fireplace, the sight of a departing pouch when the owner sees me, that sort of thing. The lab is followed in by the first of the returning party, Mr. Featherstone himself.
The drunks demand another drink with more force and further obscenity.
“If you don’t serve us, we’ll help ourselves and there is fuck all you are going to do about it.”
I round the reception desk and put a supportive arm on the lead sprayer of abuse and start to guide him out.
“Get your pompous hands off me or I’ll whack you.”
“There won’t be any need for that; I suggest you leave now as you have been asked.”
Both barrels of a shiny gun rest on the shoulder of the drunk, who turns to meet them with his now chalky white complexion. Sobering up often takes time, but with a gun up your nose it speeds up big style. The troublesome and tipsy twosome depart without another word as the reception fills with gun toting guests.
“Thanks for that Mr. Featherstone,” is all I can say as I bend to pat the excited hound sat next to the gunman.
“No worries, glad to be of service; the sight of mine and a dozen or so guns did the trick, or then maybe it was my dog, Nigger eh?” He laughs and ascends the stairs with the dog, inappropriately named after the Labrador in the 1955 film The Dam Busters.
Mr. Featherstone may not err on the side of political correctness, but I am bloody glad his guns point in the right direction now. Needless to say, I am expected to overlook the weapons that accompany the group and turn a blind eye to Nigger the dog, too.
Thursday, March 12, 2009
Great Expectations from the Noble People
Pip, the Charles Dickens character, had them and he was finally disappointed. And no matter how hard we try, it is the same for some of our guests. Like astrology, it’s all in the stars and the number of these held by your hotel is all important to some.
When you see a Bentley roll into your car park and the driver clamber out dressed in a tweed jacket plus fours and a shooting hat that casts a shadow on the nose that has sniffed at to many ports, if the number of stars on your door is less than five, it’s a fair bet that things may not go as well as you hoped. The man walks toward the manor with a decidedly dodgy gait like his legs were bent around a barrel. He is so bow-legged it maybe possible to drive a car between them I think to myself.
Knowing we were two short of the sort of number these people obviously expected, I leapt into action to try and remedy this unfortunate omission by carting their luggage for them. It wasn’t actually voluntary.
“Get my bags from the car and take them to my room.” He thrusts the keys into my chest with no please, thank you, or smile. Dr Nobles’ tone is an imperious one. I think, “Oh, Lord,” before reminding myself that he isn’t one, despite acting like landed gentry. I have little time to hope they’ve booked one of the suites and it is too late to pray before more precise instructions follow from Mrs. Noble.
“Put the suitcases on stands, so we can unload them with ease and place the vanity cases in the bathroom.”
This all seems a possibility, until she adds, “Run me a hot bath and put your bath robes on the bed, ready for me.”
“Madam, how hot would you like your bath?” I ask, but I want to say, “Don’t call me Butler, Andy will suffice.”
I have never been asked to run a bath for a guest before and hope she wouldn’t want me to scrub her back like a lady in waiting might. The lady waiting for a wash didn’t answer, instead shooed me away.
As I can’t find a Manuél, I take care of the requests personally while the couple take tea under the saucy scenes carved by the fireplace. I stride around like one of their butlers must have to, much like Basil Fawlty did for “Lord Melbury.”
Maybe the doctor’s tone is a little more than condescending, but as I have heard worse, I decide to try and acquiesce to his requests wherever possible. He reminds me of a character from a children’s book, but who? Mrs. Noble can exfoliate her own back with her tone; if she makes me do it, it’d be with a cheese grater.
I venture into the Oak Room, where I see the couple enjoying our Dorset Cream Tea.
“I have done as you asked with the exception of the robes.” I explain that we have no robes to offer, at which – apparently horror struck – they both stand up and leave the room and their tea to get cold. A room without robes is, I suppose, a unique sight for them.
“Show us the room.”
At reception I can show how much I have progressed from porter to butler and, now, receptionist. I grab the key and head towards the stairs.
“I will take the elevator. Where is it?” Dr. Noble asks.
I am forced to apologise to the doctor for this oversight on the part of the original builder who, four hundred years ago, had so lamentably cut corners by not having had one installed. He had, however, provided them with seventeen steps and a hand carved staircase – although this innovation does not arouse any deal of enthusiasm.
“Never heard of anything like it,” Dr. Nobles says. “All good hotels have lifts and bathrobes. What kind of place is this?”
“We run a three star hotel, albeit one that recently won Small Hotel of the Year.” But, I repeat, “We have just three stars.”
I wonder why I sound sorry. I begin to feel and wonder whether I have been transported directly into one of John Cleese’s intros to the episode that started with the re-arranged hotel sign that read “Flowery Twats.”
Once we have climbed the stairs and are inside the recently refurbished “Character” bedroom, the couple confer.
“This all seems in order dearest, shall we stay?”
I look on in bewilderment. I never realised that was a doubt until now.
“You should see the bathroom first,” I say.
I knew this would be a steamy visit. The bath I had run was scalding hot.
“While my husband checks the cleanliness of the ensuite, you can light the fire.”
My mind races to stop a sarcastic answer coming from the hole between my nose and my chin.
“The fireplace is an original but is laid only for show. I am sorry, we cannot light it,” I say. My explanation has her glaring back in disbelief.
“I only reserved this room because of the fireplace, and now I can’t light it?”
It doesn’t seem to help when I point out that it is hard to conform to this century’s fire regulations by lighting fires within guest bedrooms.
Dr. Noble has by now inspected the bathroom and says, “It’s too small to be of any use at all. I’m sorry, Darling, but this establishment falls wells below the standards we expect and I don’t want to stay another minute.”
“I agree darling, let’s leave,” she says.
Basil backs quietly out of the room when the penny drops and after pulling the plug from the bathtub, the doctor in the tweeds reminds me of Toad, from Wind in the Willows.
They catch me again at the reception desk. I try explaining the hotel policy for late cancellation, and inform them there will be a charge of 75% of the total booking. I choose not to leave this to the receptionist, thinking I might appear more determined. After all, we have provided everything a guest should expect from a three-star hotel, and more. Indeed, we were not offered a fourth star at the last inspection only because we have no lift and our staff are not predominantly uniformed and wearing name badges. But our quality score and grading are far higher than a standard four-star hotel. Also, we don’t have a chef on duty 24 hours a day to provide food service.
In our brochure, the room has not been described as having a fireplace, nor do we offer bathrobes as a complimentary inclusion. The bathroom and décor are completely new, clean, and of ample size (according to the AA and the Tourist Board), and even the courtesy products are posh Molton Brown. The room is clean, the flowers fresh and the cookies are warm – they aren’t booked into Toad Hall. I wonder whether Dr. Noble is a re-incarnation Mr. Toad himself at his most obnoxious.
I stand my ground in front of the angry Nobles because, in the time that they have been there, we have turned away several potential guests, as the hotel is full. I simply cannot accept the loss of revenue when we have kept our side of the contract and, anyway, Sybil would have my guts for garters. I would rather face an angry toad – even one wearing plus fours – than her, warts and all.
Failing to live up to unrealistic expectations is not a reason to allow a cancellation. As the luggage is brought down from the room and taken to the boot of the Bentley, a large group of guests arrive at the hotel to check in. Walking in to reception to witness Basil arguing with an irate aristocratic amphibian is not the first impression I like to give – and, worse, I am giving Mr. Toad my all. Somehow, the upper classes are able to utter four-letter expletives and seem less rude than normal people. He announces he won’t pay, and leaves clutching his bill.
I am far from calm, but I explain to the newly-arrived guests as best I can what had happened. I debit Mr Toad’s credit card, hands shaking with anger, and send him a receipt.
He follows with a great deal of correspondence, but the bank and Tourist Board support me. Eventually, Dr. Noble gives in. If you pay for a Volkswagen, don’t expect to drive home in a Mercedes-Benz or, perhaps, a Bentley, but then Toad preferred a horse drawn carriage with a silly hooter.
“Poop, poop,” cries a triumphant Basil.
When you see a Bentley roll into your car park and the driver clamber out dressed in a tweed jacket plus fours and a shooting hat that casts a shadow on the nose that has sniffed at to many ports, if the number of stars on your door is less than five, it’s a fair bet that things may not go as well as you hoped. The man walks toward the manor with a decidedly dodgy gait like his legs were bent around a barrel. He is so bow-legged it maybe possible to drive a car between them I think to myself.
Knowing we were two short of the sort of number these people obviously expected, I leapt into action to try and remedy this unfortunate omission by carting their luggage for them. It wasn’t actually voluntary.
“Get my bags from the car and take them to my room.” He thrusts the keys into my chest with no please, thank you, or smile. Dr Nobles’ tone is an imperious one. I think, “Oh, Lord,” before reminding myself that he isn’t one, despite acting like landed gentry. I have little time to hope they’ve booked one of the suites and it is too late to pray before more precise instructions follow from Mrs. Noble.
“Put the suitcases on stands, so we can unload them with ease and place the vanity cases in the bathroom.”
This all seems a possibility, until she adds, “Run me a hot bath and put your bath robes on the bed, ready for me.”
“Madam, how hot would you like your bath?” I ask, but I want to say, “Don’t call me Butler, Andy will suffice.”
I have never been asked to run a bath for a guest before and hope she wouldn’t want me to scrub her back like a lady in waiting might. The lady waiting for a wash didn’t answer, instead shooed me away.
As I can’t find a Manuél, I take care of the requests personally while the couple take tea under the saucy scenes carved by the fireplace. I stride around like one of their butlers must have to, much like Basil Fawlty did for “Lord Melbury.”
Maybe the doctor’s tone is a little more than condescending, but as I have heard worse, I decide to try and acquiesce to his requests wherever possible. He reminds me of a character from a children’s book, but who? Mrs. Noble can exfoliate her own back with her tone; if she makes me do it, it’d be with a cheese grater.
I venture into the Oak Room, where I see the couple enjoying our Dorset Cream Tea.
“I have done as you asked with the exception of the robes.” I explain that we have no robes to offer, at which – apparently horror struck – they both stand up and leave the room and their tea to get cold. A room without robes is, I suppose, a unique sight for them.
“Show us the room.”
At reception I can show how much I have progressed from porter to butler and, now, receptionist. I grab the key and head towards the stairs.
“I will take the elevator. Where is it?” Dr. Noble asks.
I am forced to apologise to the doctor for this oversight on the part of the original builder who, four hundred years ago, had so lamentably cut corners by not having had one installed. He had, however, provided them with seventeen steps and a hand carved staircase – although this innovation does not arouse any deal of enthusiasm.
“Never heard of anything like it,” Dr. Nobles says. “All good hotels have lifts and bathrobes. What kind of place is this?”
“We run a three star hotel, albeit one that recently won Small Hotel of the Year.” But, I repeat, “We have just three stars.”
I wonder why I sound sorry. I begin to feel and wonder whether I have been transported directly into one of John Cleese’s intros to the episode that started with the re-arranged hotel sign that read “Flowery Twats.”
Once we have climbed the stairs and are inside the recently refurbished “Character” bedroom, the couple confer.
“This all seems in order dearest, shall we stay?”
I look on in bewilderment. I never realised that was a doubt until now.
“You should see the bathroom first,” I say.
I knew this would be a steamy visit. The bath I had run was scalding hot.
“While my husband checks the cleanliness of the ensuite, you can light the fire.”
My mind races to stop a sarcastic answer coming from the hole between my nose and my chin.
“The fireplace is an original but is laid only for show. I am sorry, we cannot light it,” I say. My explanation has her glaring back in disbelief.
“I only reserved this room because of the fireplace, and now I can’t light it?”
It doesn’t seem to help when I point out that it is hard to conform to this century’s fire regulations by lighting fires within guest bedrooms.
Dr. Noble has by now inspected the bathroom and says, “It’s too small to be of any use at all. I’m sorry, Darling, but this establishment falls wells below the standards we expect and I don’t want to stay another minute.”
“I agree darling, let’s leave,” she says.
Basil backs quietly out of the room when the penny drops and after pulling the plug from the bathtub, the doctor in the tweeds reminds me of Toad, from Wind in the Willows.
They catch me again at the reception desk. I try explaining the hotel policy for late cancellation, and inform them there will be a charge of 75% of the total booking. I choose not to leave this to the receptionist, thinking I might appear more determined. After all, we have provided everything a guest should expect from a three-star hotel, and more. Indeed, we were not offered a fourth star at the last inspection only because we have no lift and our staff are not predominantly uniformed and wearing name badges. But our quality score and grading are far higher than a standard four-star hotel. Also, we don’t have a chef on duty 24 hours a day to provide food service.
In our brochure, the room has not been described as having a fireplace, nor do we offer bathrobes as a complimentary inclusion. The bathroom and décor are completely new, clean, and of ample size (according to the AA and the Tourist Board), and even the courtesy products are posh Molton Brown. The room is clean, the flowers fresh and the cookies are warm – they aren’t booked into Toad Hall. I wonder whether Dr. Noble is a re-incarnation Mr. Toad himself at his most obnoxious.
I stand my ground in front of the angry Nobles because, in the time that they have been there, we have turned away several potential guests, as the hotel is full. I simply cannot accept the loss of revenue when we have kept our side of the contract and, anyway, Sybil would have my guts for garters. I would rather face an angry toad – even one wearing plus fours – than her, warts and all.
Failing to live up to unrealistic expectations is not a reason to allow a cancellation. As the luggage is brought down from the room and taken to the boot of the Bentley, a large group of guests arrive at the hotel to check in. Walking in to reception to witness Basil arguing with an irate aristocratic amphibian is not the first impression I like to give – and, worse, I am giving Mr. Toad my all. Somehow, the upper classes are able to utter four-letter expletives and seem less rude than normal people. He announces he won’t pay, and leaves clutching his bill.
I am far from calm, but I explain to the newly-arrived guests as best I can what had happened. I debit Mr Toad’s credit card, hands shaking with anger, and send him a receipt.
He follows with a great deal of correspondence, but the bank and Tourist Board support me. Eventually, Dr. Noble gives in. If you pay for a Volkswagen, don’t expect to drive home in a Mercedes-Benz or, perhaps, a Bentley, but then Toad preferred a horse drawn carriage with a silly hooter.
“Poop, poop,” cries a triumphant Basil.
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
Meet the Cast of InnSanity
Living the life of an hotelier in southern England sets the stage for a rather unique life, and if I add in that I've often been likened to the infamous Basil Fawlty from the Fawlty Towers series, once by a former BBC TV newscaster in the national press.
My blog and book, InnSanity – Keeping Inn with Basil Fawlty: The Confessions of an Hotelier, delves into the trials, tribulations, and triumphs of being an hotelier. I am married to Ally, herein referred to as Sybil, and her sister Bev is Sybling. Ted has much more to offer than Manuel but is equally short. Together we owned and ran a sixteenth century manor house hotel in Dorset. The hotel was lovingly converted into a 21 bedroom hotel and fine dining restaurant, holding two AA rosettes. The hotel is accessible to all.
The chefs are the “men in white coats,” because the only thing missing from their uniforms are buckles at the cuffs of their white tunics to tie their hands behind their backs when they flip. Usually, one of the main cast goes with them. They work in the 'snake pit' or kitchen.
The restaurant team come from all corners of the globe and there are always a number of budding Manuels who speak only French or Spanish to 'smooth' the diners experience. The waiters are often calm and professional looking, highly trained and sometimes motivated; however, the duck on the surface of the pond looking cool is often paddling like fury to keep afloat.
The housekeeping staff are headed by our “Perfectly Maid’”...Barbara, or just Barb. She does so much more than keep the building and the rooms presentable and is as much a tourist attraction as any...it is essential to meet her if you stay. She is three score years and more than ten, but paddles faster than those a third her age...formidable and irreplaceable.
The pressure cooker of an industry cooks a daily broth of fun, frivolity and, sometimes, fury. The point of the book is to accurately depict my life trying to serve the thousands who came to sample the fare, the area, the building, and the cast. The hotel is set in the heart of the Isle of Purbeck, surrounded by all that is great about the green and pleasant land. The Jurassic coastline, historic buildings and Castles, not to mention Thomas Hardy and Enid Blyton...endless opportunities await anyone interested in seeing it.
Enter the customers, some come with a mindset to enjoy. It maybe the food, the building, the area, or maybe Basil and his supporting team. Then there are those who would happily turn in to finger clicking demons who made our life hell. The highs are like a drug and I need a regular fix, the lows have turned me prematurely grey and hunting for a psychiatrist..."There is enough material there for a book," one once remarked in Fawlty Towers.
Anyone who has seen Fawlty Towers will be aware of how things went some three decades ago in the fictional hotel in Torquay Devon. Hotel Babylon gave a more modern take...but the real life happenings will unfold here, as they did over eight years, and hopefully, once published, will sell in bundles. It is enough to earn a hotelier money, make him happy but, in the end, hunt for that padded cell.
I hope you enjoy what will follow now that you know the players.
~Andy Hageman
My blog and book, InnSanity – Keeping Inn with Basil Fawlty: The Confessions of an Hotelier, delves into the trials, tribulations, and triumphs of being an hotelier. I am married to Ally, herein referred to as Sybil, and her sister Bev is Sybling. Ted has much more to offer than Manuel but is equally short. Together we owned and ran a sixteenth century manor house hotel in Dorset. The hotel was lovingly converted into a 21 bedroom hotel and fine dining restaurant, holding two AA rosettes. The hotel is accessible to all.
The chefs are the “men in white coats,” because the only thing missing from their uniforms are buckles at the cuffs of their white tunics to tie their hands behind their backs when they flip. Usually, one of the main cast goes with them. They work in the 'snake pit' or kitchen.
The restaurant team come from all corners of the globe and there are always a number of budding Manuels who speak only French or Spanish to 'smooth' the diners experience. The waiters are often calm and professional looking, highly trained and sometimes motivated; however, the duck on the surface of the pond looking cool is often paddling like fury to keep afloat.
The housekeeping staff are headed by our “Perfectly Maid’”...Barbara, or just Barb. She does so much more than keep the building and the rooms presentable and is as much a tourist attraction as any...it is essential to meet her if you stay. She is three score years and more than ten, but paddles faster than those a third her age...formidable and irreplaceable.
The pressure cooker of an industry cooks a daily broth of fun, frivolity and, sometimes, fury. The point of the book is to accurately depict my life trying to serve the thousands who came to sample the fare, the area, the building, and the cast. The hotel is set in the heart of the Isle of Purbeck, surrounded by all that is great about the green and pleasant land. The Jurassic coastline, historic buildings and Castles, not to mention Thomas Hardy and Enid Blyton...endless opportunities await anyone interested in seeing it.
Enter the customers, some come with a mindset to enjoy. It maybe the food, the building, the area, or maybe Basil and his supporting team. Then there are those who would happily turn in to finger clicking demons who made our life hell. The highs are like a drug and I need a regular fix, the lows have turned me prematurely grey and hunting for a psychiatrist..."There is enough material there for a book," one once remarked in Fawlty Towers.
Anyone who has seen Fawlty Towers will be aware of how things went some three decades ago in the fictional hotel in Torquay Devon. Hotel Babylon gave a more modern take...but the real life happenings will unfold here, as they did over eight years, and hopefully, once published, will sell in bundles. It is enough to earn a hotelier money, make him happy but, in the end, hunt for that padded cell.
I hope you enjoy what will follow now that you know the players.
~Andy Hageman
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
