Hugh's Hotel Life Stories

[⚅Hugh Wallington]

This thread has nothing to do with music, but I am posting these 'stories' here for anyone who is interested in what goes on in the background when running a small hotel.  This is in Weston-super-Mare, a seaside town running South of the Bristol Channel.  

Hotel Life 1
 
Running a small Hotel often has it's funny moments, and over the years we have had our fair share. No, this is not Fawlty Towers, but sometimes it very well could be. Most of our guests are perfectly ordinary folk, but we do get some funny ones. Like that lot in March who were Yamaha AR organ fanatics!
 
We first decided to get into the Hospitality trade in 1979. I was teaching at that time (Maths to "O" Level) and we thought it would be exciting to run our own business. Bronwyn had trained as a chef many years previously so with her culinary skills and my leanings towards the "office" side of things it seemed a perfect combination. Also, we had both had a dabble with DIY which is fairly essential if the place is going to be kept looking at its best. (ie. Bronwyn cuts and pastes the wallpaper, and I hang it!)
 
When we were looking for a property we should have guessed what was in store for us. The first small Hotel we looked at was decorated throughout with white emulsion. White emulsion on all the walls, white emulsion on the doors, on the skirting boards ... even the light switches! We envisaged some really nice wallpaper and matching bedspreads, but the comment was "Well, the guests come in with their cans and bottles of beer. They shake them up, then open them ... and spray the walls, doors etc. Then at the end of the season we get a scrubbing brush and dowse it all down, get the roller out with the pot of emulsion and just roll over everything ready for the next season." !!
 
Then another place. It was obviously the last morning of the lady being open and we had come to take a look around. She invited us in and asked if we would mind just waiting a minute while she carried out a "ritual" that she did at the end of every season. Her laundry bag was right up on the top floor. She balanced it on the edge of the first step and gave it a good kick. Then another, and then another. And as she came down the stairs she was muttering "That's the last one gone. That's the last one gone." She then said "Right, I feel better now!". By this time we were really wondering what we were letting ourselves in for!

There is a saying in the trade, "You get the guests you deserve!".

[⚅Graham UK]

Hugh. Thank you...there must be many many more stories.
Many years I had my sales hat on traveling all of the UK weekly selling into Retail Audio-Hi-Fi Accounts.
Early days I obtained a list of all Reps B&Bs where we were looked after very well.

All part of lifes experiences !!!

[✪aprilla]

I enjoyed reading this... hotels are hard work but behind the scenes in a hotel can be the funniest. They are all a little bit Faulty Towers I'd say, it's what made the program so fun to watch.

A relative owns a hotel, we've known it since it was being built and worked in it on/off as needed. If I ever think of times when I've laughed till I cried many will be from those times.

[⚅Hugh Wallington]

Graham and aprilla .. thank you for your feedback.

I got talking to another hotel owner at the top of the road and he was telling me that when they started they advertised, “Cook in attendance”.  I have seen that expression in some of the early Weston-super-Mare Holiday Guides, so asked him what it meant.
 
He told me that in 1940, at the time of World War 2, the government introduced food rationing which continued until 1954.  The purpose was to ensure that everyone had a fair share of food during a time of national shortage.  Every person was given a ration book with coupons, which had to be presented when buying rationed goods .. basic foodstuffs like bacon, butter, sugar, meat, fats, and cheese.  So the only way to provide any food in the hotel was to advertise ‘Cook in attendance’.  The guests brought their ration books with them and his wife would cook whatever it was they could get hold of.  Mind you, she was cooking for no more than six people so it was no trouble for her to do that.
 
Hotel Life 2
 
When we started running our hotel our son Peter was about 8yrs old, and he liked to get involved with everything that was going on. One morning a lady ordered a boiled egg, so Bronwyn put the egg into the pan ... and the egg split from top to bottom. So she put another one in. 

Wondering whether the lady would like her egg hard or soft boiled, she turned to our son and said, "Peter. Nip into the Dining Room and ask the lady how she would like her egg."
 
So he trots round and says, "Good Morning. And how would you like your egg this morning? Cracked or not cracked?"  !!

[⚅Hugh Wallington]

Hotelier at the top of the road.  His hotel was called Seascape, and underneath the sign, plain for all to see, it said PRIVATE HOTEL.  Now I had seen that in some of the old Weston-super-Mare Holiday Guides too, so asked him what was a ‘Private’ Hotel?  Remembering that I was asking this question in the days before mobile phones, his answer was quite significant.  A room in a PRIVATE HOTEL could only be booked over the phone.  So none of this Vacancies/No Vacancies hanging in the window and people coming up and ringing your doorbell asking for a room for the night.  None of the riffraff and people coming out of the pub late at night would be staying at your hotel .. it was a ‘Private’ Hotel.  All those staying would have booked in advance from home, or from an office.
 
Hotel Life 3
 
In those early days we didn't have coffee/tea trays in the rooms and people ordered an "early morning tea tray" which was brought to their room. One morning I carried a tea tray up to one of the bedrooms and knocked on the door. "Come in" called the lady occupant of the bedroom, so I opened the door and marched straight in ... to find the lady standing in the middle of the bedroom with absolutely nothing on at all! I don't know who was more embarrassed ... her or me! It appeared she had said "Coming", not "Come in"!!!

[⚅Hugh Wallington]

Hotels have always had ‘Stars’ to indicate the facilities they had to offer, awarded by the AA and the RAC.  The Tourist Board then came up with this brilliant idea to grade the smaller places .. but based on hospitality rather than facilities.  Our sector ended up with ‘Diamonds’ .. not ‘Stars’.
 
The Queenswood Hotel (opposite us) had 3 Stars, indicating that the majority of their rooms had en-suite bathrooms.  They did have one room with ‘Private Bathroom’, which meant that although the bathroom was exclusively for that room, to get to it you had to cross a corridor .. so not ‘en-suite’.  They also had a Bar, and a Restaurant; and staff to help run everything smoothly.  But no lift.
 
We were awarded ‘4 Diamonds’.  So we were a ‘Diamond Hotel’, and the Queenswood opposite was a ‘Starred Hotel’.  Different criteria, and the public soon knew what to expect from the accommodation they booked.
 
Our Dining Room was too small to have a breakfast where guests could help themselves, so I would ask the guests what they wanted from the Menu and pass this information on to Bronwyn through the hatch into the kitchen.  She would put it up and cook whatever they had ordered, pass it through the hatch .. and I would take it to their table.
 
Hotel Life 4
 
We have a family staying this week (and yes, it has rained nearly every day! ... but not the day the Red Arrows came). Little girl, Emma, aged about 6yrs ... at breakfast I asked her if she would like some orange juice.
 
"Yes" she said.
 
"Yes what?" said her father.
 
"Yes please" says Emma.
 
And again later ... "Would you like some more toast?"
 
"Yes".
 
"Yes what?" from her father.
 
"Yes please" says Emma.
 
And again ... "Have you finished with your plate?"
 
"Yes" says Emma.
 
"Yes what?" says her father.
 
"Yes please" says Emma.
 
Oh well!

[✪aprilla]

Ahhh so sweet!

[⚅Hugh Wallington]

Hotel Life 5
 
When our son Peter was about 12yrs old he used to like to help us "do the breakfast" during the School Holidays. So he would come into the Dining Room and say, "Don't want you in here, Dad. Go in the kitchen and help Mum do the cooking. I'll take the orders and call them through the hatch." So he did, and I would put the Corn Flakes or Rice Crispies or whatever into the bowls and pass them through for him to give to the hotel guests.
 
Then this one week we had staying a Mum and Dad with four older girls aged 14yrs to 19yrs ... so that meant six cereals to remember, and I wondered how he would cope. Well, I could hear through the hatch ... "Muesli"; "Shreddies"; "Rice Crispies"; "Weetabix"; Corn Flakes"; All Bran". All different! Would he remember them all? And then suddenly the first girl said, "I've changed my mind. I won't have Muesli, I'll have Weetabix". Then the second; " ... and I've changed my mind. I'll have Corn Flakes instead of Shreddies." And so on, until all six had ordered something different.
 
Well, Peter came round to the kitchen saying, "Dad. I don't know what these people want! You had better go round and sort it out!". So I went round, and the family were in hysterics! They apologised but said they just had to do it to him!
 
Peter was cross, and said, "I'm not having that happen to me again!". So after breakfast he got out my saw and made some "clip boards" from an old piece of hardboard, and put a "bulldog clip" at the top. Which we have used ever since!
 
But we got on with the family very well, and that Easter they invited our two to stay with them in London, and took them round the Tower of London and a few other "touristy" things. So all was forgiven!

[⚅Hugh Wallington]

I think the below must have been before the days of the SatNav on mobiles.

Hotel Life 6
 
One of our ladies was lost this week. Went out for a walk with her dog before breakfast and had no idea how to get back to us, so she rang me from her mobile. This reminded me of how difficult it is to find our hotel, and the ingenious ways some people devise to find us. Like the couple who arrived in a taxi. But they weren't in the taxi! Oh no! They had hired a taxi all right, and paid him ... to show them the way while they followed him in their car!
 
And then there was the day that the patrol car arrived with sirens blaring. Curtains up the road were twitching as the police stopped right outside our house ... and there was a car following behind. The driver got out, spoke to the driver of the patrol car and came up the steps to our front door. Well yes, they couldn't find us either, so decided to ask at the police station. A patrol car was just about to leave, so they offered to do a detour and escort them to our front door. And had the sirens blaring at the end just for fun!
 

[♔Chello]

I think the below must have been before the days of the SatNav on mobiles.

Hotel Life 6
 
One of our ladies was lost this week. Went out for a walk with her dog before breakfast and had no idea how to get back to us, so she rang me from her mobile. This reminded me of how difficult it is to find our hotel, and the ingenious ways some people devise to find us. Like the couple who arrived in a taxi. But they weren't in the taxi! Oh no! They had hired a taxi all right, and paid him ... to show them the way while they followed him in their car!
 
And then there was the day that the patrol car arrived with sirens blaring. Curtains up the road were twitching as the police stopped right outside our house ... and there was a car following behind. The driver got out, spoke to the driver of the patrol car and came up the steps to our front door. Well yes, they couldn't find us either, so decided to ask at the police station. A patrol car was just about to leave, so they offered to do a detour and escort them to our front door. And had the sirens blaring at the end just for fun!
 

⚅Hugh


These two stories show the difference between Norway and the UK:
In Norway the people are slaves to the police, and in the UK the police are slaves to the people..!




Stories continued on Page 2 ...