Bye, Bye B&B E-Book

Joan Campbell

• Herausgeber: Luath Press
• Kategorie: Sachliteratur, Reportagen, Biografien
• Serie: The Shieling
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 361

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2013

Beschreibung

Excitement builds as The Sheiling opens for its very last season. All's set for a great time with nothing to mar the horizon, despite Connie's retirement, Himself believing he's fully in charge, and Joan aching for the day she has nothing better to do than twiddle her thumbs in front of a blazing fire with a good book and contented cats. It doesn't turn out that way. BT sabotages the business. Connie is missed beyond measure and Himself has ideas well beyond his station while the cats do their utmost to destroy harmony by taking exception to certain guests. More laugh-out-loud tales from the pen of Joan Campbell, mixed with some sound advice about running, or staying in, a successful B&B. REVIEW: A great anecdotal collection of stories that peek behind the smiling facade of the woman running the best B&B in the North. LESLEY RIDDOCH on Heads on Pillows BACK COVER: Excitement builds as The Sheiling opens for its very last season... ... all's set for a great time with nothing to blot the horizon, despite Connie's retirement, Himself believing he's fully in charge, and Joan aching for the day she has nothing better to do than twiddle her thumbs in front of a blazing fire with a good book and contented cats. It doesn't turn out that way. BT sabotages the business. Connie is missed beyond measure and Himself has ideas well beyond his station while the cats do their utmost to destroy the harmony by taking exception to certain guests, and enforcing their belief that children, expecially the grandchildren, should not be allowed over The Sheiling doorstep. More laugh-out-loud tales from the pen of Joan Campbell mixed with some good advice for running, or staying at, a successful B& B.

Leseprobe

JOAN CAMPBELL and her husband, Hugh, now live at Stoneybraes, just up the hill from The Sheiling, the B&B business they ran for 40 years. Her novel,The Land Beyond The Green Fields, was published in 2007, followed by her first book on the joys of running a highland B&B,Heads on Pillows,published in 2009. Her son Neil with his partner, Katrina, and their children, Shane and Fallon, continue to live close by. In 2011, Joan was awarded an MBE for her work in tourism. She continues working with the Federation of Small Businesses on their Regional Committee, and sits on the board of the Highlands & Islands Tourism Awards. She recently stepped down from seven years of writing the popular column,Tourism MattersinThe Northern Timesand has given up her work with VisitScotland to move on to working with Cats Protection, insisting that cats will be easier to herd than people. Retirement for Joan still seems a long way off!

Bye Bye B&B

More from Behind the Scenes at a Highland B&B

JOAN CAMPBELL

LuathPress Limited

EDINBURGH

www.luath.co.uk

First published 2012

eBook 2013

ISBN (print): 978-1-908373-42-7

ISBN (eBook): 978-1-909912-05-2

The author’s right to be identified as author of this book under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 has been asserted.

© Joan Campbell 2012

Contents

Foreword

Introduction

CHAPTER 1 Setting Myself Free

CHAPTER 2 No More Bums In Beds

CHAPTER 3 As Green As I’m Cabbage Looking

CHAPTER 4 Egg On My Face

CHAPTER 5 An Inspector Calls

CHAPTER 6 The Camels Are Coming O-ho O-ho!

CHAPTER 7 Sabotaged By British Telecom

CHAPTER 8 Bitten By The Standardisation Bug

CHAPTER 9 The Haunted Room

CHAPTER 10 The Sound Of Silence

CHAPTER 11 And Another First!

CHAPTER 12 Things We Do For Our Guests

CHAPTER 13 So That’s It Then!

Epilogue

Heads on Pillows

Foreword

JOAN CAMPBELL KNOWS about the tourism industry in Scotland. She actually knows a great deal about the tourism industry in Scotland. She ran a successful B&B for 40 years, recently worked on designing a degree in tourism, was awarded the Scottish Silver Thistle for Outstanding Achievement, had several key roles within VisitScotland and the preceding Area Tourist Boards, wrote a monthly tourism column for the Scottish Provincial Press and has already written several books.

What then has she decided is the key factor in her success: the answer is both simple and complex – it’s always about people.

Whether it’s hosting a dinner for her favourite guests (the Gunnyeon family whose children she has watched over the years grow into adulthood and their own marriages), dealing with the many (oh, so many) idiosyncrasies’ of some guests or firing the enthusiasm of other tourism enterprises for embracing quality – Joan shows us that the tourism industry is always about people.

Well,almostalways about people – her husband (‘Himself’), son Neil, his partner (and ‘daughter to borrow’) Katrina and her grandson and grand-daughter aren’t the only characters Joan invites us to get to know in this book: the marvellously named ‘Hobbit’ the cat, ‘Pooh’ (another cat), ‘Smudge’ (again, a cat – but in mitigation one who thinks they are a dog), the aptly named ‘Bronco’ the horse (who likes Tennant’s Special – sometimestoomuch), a succession of house rabbits and a flock of lambs are all vividly painted in against a backdrop of Scotland’s stunning scenery.

Tourism is one of Scotland’s most successful industries, providing over £4 billion Gross Value Added to the Scottish economy every year, with high levels of visitor satisfaction. The tourism related sector employs around 200,000 people in Scotland in 15,000 diverse businesses and many fragile communities are dependent upon the revenues generated by the visitor economy.

Scotland is competing against the rest of the world, in a global industry which is expected to grow from 1 billion international arrivals in 2012 to 1.8 billion by 2030. Scotland has stunning landscapes and scenery – both rural and urban, superb food and drink, world-class culture and heritage, activities, events and festivals that are world renown and our business tourism sector is securing prestigious conventions.

We couldn’t deliver these results without the hard work and dedication of the Scottish tourism industry and they have the on-going support of the Scottish Government to ensure that we are in the best shape to make the most of the major opportunities that are coming our way over the next few years. The key to success in tourism is placing the individual customer’s wish for a high quality, value for money and memorable experience at the heart of everything we do and ensuring it’s delivered by people who are not just skilled, but passionate about what they do.

As Joan reminds us here, so vividly and with such humour and grace under pressure, it’salwaysabout people.

Fergus EwingMSP

Minister for Energy, Enterprise and Tourism

Introduction

IN A REFLECTIVE MOOD, some years down the line from waving goodbye to the last paying guests who took their reluctant leave of the bed and breakfast I had run for the last 40 years, I had to have a bit of a think about my own attitude.

For the past few years I have been questioned with relentless regularity, ‘Do you miss your B&B?’ Now, if I answer, ‘Like a hole in the head,’ it would be much closer to the truth than, ‘I don’t know how I’m surviving it,’ but what would that imply? That I did it only for the money? That it was a drag? That the visitors to our country I sheltered under my roof for all those years were nothing but a demanding distraction from all the important things I wanted to do? Sounds dreadful, yet within those statements, there lies a grain of truth.

Of course I did it for the money, but that was not the main reason. And, boy, there sure were times when it was a drag. Hot sunny days when everyone else was at the beach, there I was slaving over a stove preparing a full dinner for a multitude of different tastes. As to distraction, one had to carefully plan even a quick nip to the loo, for fear of the inevitable interruption of person, phone, doorbell, animal, child, or conscientious housekeeper muttering fiendish threats that it was all right for some, disappearing just when they were needed. There were times when there was nowhere in the house to hide. And when found, the smile had to be plastered back on. Do I miss all that?

Yet, such glitches were the antithesis of everything The Sheiling became known for. The learning curve of care allowed my reputation to grow with the years and saw me eventually leave the running of the house to employees with abilities to grow that reputation while I took off on one or other of my ‘skives’. Skiving, as far as family was concerned, means leaving all the hard work to others and having a great time wandering about Scotland doing my thing then coming home exhausted due to excessive hospitality dished out by others while I am having a ball. Skiving for me is quite another story. Even the hard earned fun at times has an edge of hysteria, wondering, whether this is really happening!

But to get back to the inevitable question of whether I now miss my guests. I don’t. This seems to surprise some, shock others, and only those who have been there, done it with every fibre of their being, and moved on from it, understand that to hand over your home to the enjoyment of strangers, to slowly realise that in the relentless pursuit of ensuring you are meeting all the needs of your guests, your social life becomes a thing of the past, and your priorities are forced into a reassessment that leaves family a lot further down the pecking order than their wish list dictates. In other words, doing B&B successfully, building it up into a viable business rather than supporting a certain life-style, takes over your life.

That being the case, and having only one life, a successful B&B business is more of a vocation, into which I pulled all the elements of life I enjoyed. And at the heart of that enjoyment lay the most important component of all: serving people. I had to work with people, so closing the door on the final guest could not mean I had to stop working with people. This continued in ways I would never have dreamed possible. That I should spend three of the last few years working with academics delivering skills in tourism that saw me dip the knee to royalty and have an MBE pinned on my quaking lapel was beyond belief. That I should become the Federation of Small Businesses tourism representative for Scotland, with a workload at times taking up every hour of my day, and most days of my week, while as a volunteer to the FSB cause, no pennies were added to a depleting bank balance crying out in neglect now that paying guests are a thing of the past, was surprising. That I should be roped back into boards and committees I skipped happily out of when the door closed on the guest house was beyond rational thought. Well, that’s what my family hinted at. Now that I was an MBE and no longer had the direct approach of a mother who did not suffer fools gladly, statements like, ‘Are you mad?’ are consigned to memory. What a pity. Such direct confrontations, despite being mostly ignored, could at times make me think.

All this activity allowed me to continue on the path of working with people while we could have our home to ourselves. Himself, that man of indisputable loyalty who shared my life, was wrapped up in the joys of never having to face another scary guest, and I was wallowing in the knowledge that come the first day of April 2008, my traditional opening day of each new season, we had none to answer to but ourselves. No fevered rushing about spending a fortune to maintain expectations of both our guests and VisitScotland advisors. No nightmares of having a house full of people while every conceivable catastrophe lurked round every corner. After 40 years of such anxiety, the beckoning freedom was heady stuff.

So how come, in the ensuing years that saw us prepare The Sheiling for its inevitable sale, did I take on a workload surpassing anything to do with running a B&B? Despite being in the throes of designing and building a new home to meet our needs, our expectations, our desire to welcome friends and family and re-establish the social niceties of life that had sunk into obscurity, why was I enmeshing myself in an involvement with people again? I wasn’t stupid, well, not so stupid that I didn’t know the downside of what I was taking on.

There would be anxiety, angst, and trepidation in equal measure with laughter, great craic, and so much fun; life really continued much as before but at an even faster pace. The accommodation diary changed to a well-stuffed appointments diary. The small office opening off the kitchen at The Sheiling eventually changed into a spacious room at Stoneybraes, our new home just up the hill, within sight of The Sheiling and its garden. Our cats took tremendous exception to relocating to a gravel pit where the digging is hard and the mice are few.

The ‘big cat’, who was in actuality the smallest of the three, continued to discipline her children while letting us know her opinion of the move. Her kittens, then all of 12 years old, took to cuffing each other at every opportunity, eventually changing a warm and loving friendship into a bitter rivalry for attention that brings no change as the years roll on, not even when their mother taught us all a lesson by going into The Sheiling garden and dying there. She always did know how to grab attention.

This brings me to my last and most puzzling question of the lot. Why, after dedicating my life to working with people, am I sitting here looking at a good luck card that came with a beautiful bouquet of flowers from the Director of Quality and Standards at VisitScotland, wishing me luck in my new life working with cats?

Probably because I am determined to drag myself out of every committee, board and other involvement within tourism, but knowing how easily influenced I can be by the lure of ‘if you have time would you help out with…?’ I intend filling that space with work of a different calibre.

So, in an act of sabotage to any such threats to my determination to lay tourism aside, I made the sudden, and I have no doubt barmy, decision that I would offer my services to my favourite charity, Cats Protection, but not as a behind-the-desk administrator having to meet and debate and deal with people. Instead, I will be dealing with cats. I will be dealing with a different breed to some of the cats I’ve met in tourism, myself being only recently referred to as ‘the cat among the pigeons’ when thanked after some rather sticky negotiations when delivering an event in my home counties of Sutherland and Caithness.

In May of this year, at my final meeting with VisitScotland, I stood down, saying I had at last seen the light and I was tying up all my spare time to work with cats, because I had come to the inevitable conclusion that cats are much easier to herd than people.

What follows is the story of the last year in my life at The Sheiling, with all its animals and its people, much of it written as it happened, the rest reflections brought on during that eventful time. It was a special year. The frisson of excitement that came from knowing we were going into our last season at The Sheiling was tempered by the enormity of what we were actually undertaking. Closing down an established business with its established income. Would we survive financially? Would we get a buyer? And most daunting of all, would we have the new home we dreamed of fit for occupation when we did get a buyer for the guest house? Visions of being homeless did not sit well on our anxious shoulders.

Little did I know that by the time we moved towards that dream, we would hit a downturn in selling houses, a huge rise in building costs and a collapse in banking that saw investments melt and anxiety chip away at the corner stone of my optimism. Friends began to meet me with, ‘It’s a bad time to be selling,’ rather than the familiar, ‘Have you people in tonight?’

Not having second sight, I was completely unaware of the sleepless nights to come as I gleefully set about filling my rooms during that final season. There was nothing to warn that come July, I would be looking at empty beds, courtesy of BT, turning my best intentions into tantrums that would have done credit to any two year old.

It’s a blessing that to compensate for that downside, we had many good times. Towards the end of the season we were able to accommodate for an entire weekend our favourite family, the Gunnyeons, as they took over the house, the children now adults with their partners, the atmosphere reminding us of the days when various couples booked in at the same time each year for dinner, bed and breakfast. The warmth and excitement of looking after such convivial people was the real reason to get involved with the precarious business of serving the holidaying public.

So why am I now pulling away from any work that involves tourism and people when I had given it a lifetime’s service? My detractors say with incredulous scepticism, ‘She says she’s going to work with cats. Did you ever hear the likes!’

The reason to get away from tourism is easily enough explained. I see myself as being no longer qualified, no longer earning my crust from the coalface of tourism. So why should I see fit to sit on boards and committees debating the policies that affect those who are dependent upon the economies of scale that sees tourism at the forefront of Scotland’s earning power? My very first argument on the very first board I sat on was, why should staff who have never run a business in their lives have so much power over owners faced with the difficulties of commercialism?

After closing The Sheiling, being employed for three years in the business of building a degree in tourism and hospitality was a great excuse to get back into the heart of all that makes tourism tick. When that contract came to its natural end in September 2011 after the degree was validated, I began the long, slow process of getting back my life.

With a desire to continue doing some voluntary work, why cats rather than people? It’s not because they don’t answer back, believe me. A swift scratch from an indignant cat can sting far longer than the retort of a colleague when your view is questioned. A dear friend, young enough to be my granddaughter, has as big a passion for cats as I have and we’re going to go into this together. What lies ahead is an open book, but this book you are about to read is a tale of a different kind, the reality of taking paying guests into your home, the highs and the lows of that last year, tales of looking back at past debacles, getting it together with the animals and people that are woven into the complexities of a road I did not chose to travel when I was inveigled into those first tentative steps.

Would I have had it different? Not for one minute. It is what made me what I am.

‘The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others’ Mahatma Gandhi 1869–1948.

I wonder if ‘others’ includes cats!

Joan Campbell

18 June 2012

1

Setting Myself Free

IF I DIDN’T ANSWER the phone it would go on to the answer service, I thought as I sat there idly, chin resting in both my hands, elbows propped on an incredibly tidy desk, computer pushed aside. I stared, wondering at the intensity of the ringing; a strident demand, when all else in my life was grinding to an ignominious halt. And this time, for sure, it wasn’t my fault!

Languidly, with little interest in the needs of the caller I reached out a hand. Instead of my usual perky, ‘The Sheiling, how may I help you?’ I drawled a disinterested ‘What?’

‘Aaoow. Good Morning,’ came the cultured sound of a woman of breeding. Straightening my back, just a little, but still not that bothered, I refrained from replying, ‘Says who!’ To have responded in agreement was quite beyond my present state. It wasn’t a good morning. Nor had any morning, afternoon, or evening been good for weeks now. Circumstances beyond my control, I insisted to anyone who would listen, though most people were avoiding me. The few friends I had left, members of the family who put up with my capriciousness, and the cats, especially the cats, all circumnavigating to best effect.

‘Can I help you?’ I managed, remembering I was supposed to be a stalwart of the hospitality industry, or had been up until I breezed into the final few months of running what had been termed one of Scotland’s quality B&Bs. ‘Aaoow,’ came the disembodied voice, sounding just like one of the cats trying to convince me that their needs were greater than mine. ‘Have you a free room available for the 7th and 8th of September?’

My head lifted out of my hand and with an arch of the eyebrows I moved the phone in front of my eyes to have a bit of a stare at it. What next! ‘Hellaow! Are you still there? For myself and my husband. An en suite room. Free for the 7th and 8th September?’

‘No! Definitely not, I do not have a free room,’ I said with considerable dignity, but emphatically.

‘Aaoow, itisthe end of August and I suppose you are very busy.’ I didn’t bother saying no to that as well. ‘Do you have a free room for the following week? We are quite flexible, you know, and we did so want to stay with you. Such a good recommendation. We would take a twin or a double, so long as it’s en suite,’ the voice persisted.

‘No, I can’t give you that,’ this time tempering my tone by adding a brisk ‘Sorry!’

‘Aaoow! My goodness. When is your first free night, then?’

Really! First a free room. Now a free night.

‘Sorry, we can’t give you that.’

‘You have no availability at all?”

‘Oh. Yes, we have availability, tonight, as a matter of fact.’ I was very positive about that.

‘Yes, my dear, but I did mean after the 7th of September.’ You could hear patience being stretched as the realisation dawned that she could be dealing with the monkey and not the organ grinder. Obviously, she would ask for the proprietor if this got out of hand. I always had the undisputed position oftheProprietor but I had not been the Organ Grinder for the last 10 years, not since the man Himself, that quiet man of resolute intentions I married when I was still a child and easily influenced, retired from his job as a Rigger on a North Sea oil rig and started to tell me how to run my business of 30 years standing, inveigling himself into the position of Top Dog whilst I scurried about, like a scalded cat; although now nobody in this household scurried about at all.

‘We have availability, right through to the end of the season,’ I assured, not certain whether to be happy or as deeply concerned as I should be about that fact. It was only in the last few days I had entered into this ‘who cares’ attitude, and isn’t attitude everything in the tourism industry? You’ll soon appreciate that if you stick with me. It would be nice if you did, with everyone else melting into the safety of the other side of the road. Even the cats, mice firmly gripped between dripping teeth, take a quick detour upon sight of me and the mouse is never seen again, whereas up to this latest catastrophe in my life I was given first choice of this precious gift. I had to be quick with the Pooh, a flicker of no-thank-you and it was down her throat before I could change my mind. The Hobbit, when a mouse was offered which was not often, he being a rabbiter, was much more of a gentleman and made a few prodding ‘oh-surely-you-can-manage-this-little-morsel’ gestures before delicately removing the carcass to some private corner to enjoy, a sanctimonious look of, ‘well, I did offer,’ on his handsomely striped face.

‘Aow,’ I was reminded by my cat-like enquirer on the other end of the line, ‘Excuse me, but I understood you to say you did not have a room available on the 7th and 8th.’ The voice went from puzzlement to irritability in the one sharp sentence.

‘Ah, there was me thinking you were looking for a free room when all you wanted was availability. You see, we stopped giving rooms away free years ago, when word got around. Everybody, even a horse, wanted to get a free room for the night…’

‘Aaoow,’ she interrupted, hesitant now, not sure if she should be following this through. ‘We don’t have a horse, just the two of us, if that makes any difference.’ We did once board a rather large horse in our stables whilst it accompanied its rider on a Land’s End to John O’ Groats trail. Free board often sought, was mostly given, to charity walkers, so why not a charitable horse?

The despair in my caller’s voice brought me back to reality. Why was I doing this, being deliberately obtuse to this innocent woman? My only excuse was being driven mad by the boredom of having little to do, not since BT spirited away my email address, key to all my advertising and marketing material, through which I took much of my business. They took weeks to sort it out, never admitting to selling the account as I suggested, just mislaying it and sharing part-blame with Yahoo, the bad boy who did it and then ran away, leaving them with the pieces to pick up. I was in pieces, I can tell you that, after a few exchanges with the Indian call centre, and, if you want to know more about that fiasco, fast-track to Chapter 6, ‘Sabotaged by British Telecom’, sub-titled, ‘How to make lasting relationships with the enemy whilst doubting your sanity’.

I sat up properly this time and put on my broadest smile – smiles do carry into the voice our ‘how to win friends and influence people’ advisors tell us – adopting my warmest, most welcoming voice, efficiency sparking off my new-found squared shoulders, I said, ‘Would you like me to make a reservation in one of our nicest en suite rooms, overlooking Melvich Bay for the nights of the 7th and 8th of September?’ I was convinced she would no longer want the room, and I would never have to answer for my irascibility.

‘Aow, yes we would, but my dear, do tell your mother that I shall telephone back this evening to confirm the booking and have the pleasure of speaking with Mrs Campbell herself.’ Many moons ago, before I became entrapped in this life of servitude, I was often taken for the daughter of the household when I was more in the mode of a young girl, with my long dark hair, swinging 60s clothes and fashionably skinny frame. But that was then, and this was now, and while the years had caught up with me, unfortunately the sense to stop taking the piss when things were heading for dire straits had not.

‘Who shall I say called?’ I asked in my little-girl voice, hoping if the booking came about, I could pass off Katrina, who knew a thing or two about taking the piss. I don’t have a daughter, but I do have one to borrow, to love, and to treat just as my dreams had told me a daughter should be treated, in those long gone days when I believed one would appear under the gooseberry bush after delivering a fine son and thinking ‘I’m not doing that again!’ Happily, that fine son found Katrina, his partner of many years, delivering up to us between them, one grandson, one granddaughter and one dog, as well as a fluctuating number of fish. I’m inclined to overfeed the fish when they’re left in my care, which probably accounts for the fluctuation. The whole bundle brings into our lives barrow-loads of fun and laughter, plenty to worry about as we share the bad times along with the good, Katrina as ready to dig me out of a hole as I am ready to do a bit of spade work for her, before our usual capitulation of asking Neil to dig us both out before his father cottons on to our latest disaster. Your usual family, except that Himself calls our little family, ‘that tribe over the road’. What they call us, we have yet to find out. But someone will tell us. They always do, in small communities.

The cultured voice of my caller brought my thoughts back with a bump. ‘Lady MacInlay. Just tell Mrs Campbell that Lady MacInlay will call back to reserve the room.’ My eyes popped. Aaahh! Trust me, in the mood to wind someone up, I had to go for the top echelons of society. In this trade we like to add to our reputations by believing we can play host to the best in the land, and no amount of untoward behaviour will disavow us of the belief a title accompanies that select best! Many years ago, when I first started to shift walls instead of furniture, to meet my growing ambitions of where I wanted to be in five years time, as the business planners espouse, we had just completed a huge renovation when we played host to a Lord and his Lady. They’d been supposed to stay at Melvich Hotel in its years of catering to the undisputed toffs as they fished the salmon out of the Halladale River, and were sent courtesy of the Hotel’s Manageress who had over-stretched herself in the belief she had a room more than she actually possessed. Been there, done that, so I gladly accepted the booking, not finding out I had the aristocracy on my hands until the day of arrival, when I did a double-take at their car. I didn’t even have the curtains up in the new dining room! But my guests proved themselves delightful, her Ladyship sitting with me one companionable morning, discussing this that and the next as we pushed curtain hooks into heavy demanding material, eventually standing back to admire the finished results with agreeable nods of satisfaction. I bet she felt much more one of us than I one of them. I could just hear her as she slipped into the Bentley that fine morning, boasting, ‘I’ve never had to do that before!’

And here I was, blowing the next opportunity to end my career of 40 years with yet another Lady, although, when they did actually arrive, she was accompanied by a Knight rather than a Peer of the Realm. Little did I know then I would be invited to join him in the ranks of those called by Her Majesty to be appointed a member of the Civil Division of our most Excellent Order of the British Empire. I, of course, as an Ordinary Member; a sword in the hand of Her Majesty may well have proved too tempting so close to a head that had taken the mickey out of her beloved son and heir. I speak of a newspaper article dubbed ‘The Prince and the Flying Crown’ another of my unfortunate experiences in life at the hand of fate, involving HRH The Prince of Wales which I had the temerity to immortalise in print. But as it happened, it was the Prince himself who endowed me with the Honour, and he and I had a bit of a giggle, prompting Katrina to demand why he had spent longer with me than with those worthy others, and why was he laughing at me. ‘With, dear child, with,’ I replied with an air of mystery. Such conversations, never to be repeated to ordinary members of the public, were nevertheless sufficient to put me off my quickly rehearsed stroke, after a handsome Palace lackey had put us through our paces before the presentation. Piece of cake, I thought, but such an entertaining confab was enough for me to forget my three steps backwards and the final curtsey before I skedaddled. So, that sword could still be hanging over my head!

Still, I was inordinately proud to have under my roof a man who dedicated himself to ‘the cause of good and the fight against evil and injustice’. My eventual Honour did not require such a singing up to, which is as well, because had I his auspicious ear of an evening, I could have told him about plenty of goings on of injustice in the tourism industry!

My eminent guests’ desire to find another place just as happily suiting them as The Sheiling, despite the downright impudent behaviour of the daughter of the house, whom they never met, gave me a small window of opportunity to cast a little teasing revenge against some of the injustices I had suffered in the past.

A colleague, in the area where the good Sir Knight and his Lady wanted to be next, had stuck her nose in the air so often at many hospitable accommodations, including my own, with so much self-satisfied disdain, I knew she would jump at the chance to boast a Sir and his Lady breakfasting under her superior care. Knowing full well she was already booked, I rang with the enquiry. Her dismay at being unable to accept this bounty, and my assurances not to be so concerned, I would get them into the house of her biggest rival, was worth all the digs and subtle insults cast in my direction before I realised that there are some people you are better off without. Such fun did not often come my way and I still smile at the memory. It doesn’t take a lot to please me, despite what BT say.

And that was just the start of setting myself free from the hectic world of B&B, waving a gleeful goodbye, never realising for one minute that what I would be stepping into next put B&B in the shade when it came to demands and sleepless nights!

2

No More Bums In Beds

THE MINUTE WORD got about that this was my very last season, I was faced with genuine concern rather than the expected agreement, it was about time I took the plunge.

‘What on earth will you do with yourself now?’ A puzzled look on the face of a colleague showed she genuinely worried for my future. In fact, the look said, what future!

All my life I was used to getting looks, looks with a sceptical edge to them because of what I was doing, what I had done, or what I was rumoured to have done. That last was a look and a half, worst was usually reserved for what I should have done, but most were for what I was about to do. Walking the straight and narrow of other people’s expectations proved well nigh impossible, as well as boringly restrictive, so I took the liberty of pleasing myself to a degree, a very small degree really. Just sufficient to raise brows and initiate the look, when you live in a small community, with a big memory.

Questions over the prospect of me having nothing to do might have been genuine concern over forthcoming hours and days, culminating in weeks and months of idleness. For surely, having reached an accumulation of years, allowing some kind of discretion, none would actually credit me with running amok. It was difficult to believe that the same people who were now concerned I would wither on the vine of having nothing to do were the very ones who had, years ago, happily informed enquirers as to my position in life, ‘Oh, Joan’s not doing anything now. She just does bed and breakfast!’

If you readHeads on Pillowsyou’ll know my reaction to that appraisal. Suffice to say, it was not kindly. So what now? Here I am, gazing longingly into the prospect of retirement, 40 years down the line from that tentative start of luring people, like a speculative spider with an eclectic taste in flies, into my parlour. Loving it and hating it in equal measure, this job gave the impression you did little but haul in cash, cash with no outlet other than your back pocket. In effect a job more demanding than any in the hospitality industry and just as cash guzzling. So much depended upon that vital barometer to success… attitude.

‘Attitude! Attitude! There’s nothing wrong withmyattitude, I can tell you.’ Arms akimbo, face red as a turkey cock denied his wicked way with swift-of-foot hens, I lambasted the figure in front of me. ‘It is you who has the attitude problem. I’m ab-so-lute-ly affronted! In fact, I should remove you from my doorstep forthwith. Coming here, implying my prices are a rip off! Thecheekof it!’

With an attitude straight out of Fawlty Towers, I had waited over 30 years to give vent to unbridled outrage, stemming from the days when visitors often arrived with the domineering notion they could berate you on your own doorstep before having a clue what your hospitality, or indeed your home, had to offer. Politely, and smiling like a two-faced crocodile, you told them where to go – to find somewhere more suited to their purse – while you seethed inside. And it all boiled over into a vent for those long suppressed feelings.

Backing away from me, my would-be guest gasped, ‘I never meant to offend. I just thought £170 per person for a double room, without facilities, and no breakfast, may be a wee bit excessive. Probably not though,’ he added as he fled. But not back to his car, just to the corner of the room, accompanied by a round of applause. For this is not a scene from my chequered career as a B&B wifie; it became for a time, the new way of delivering encouragement to proprietors of hospitality businesses. Advising them not to revert to attitude when faced with the many contretemps that will arise, when prospective customers arrive unexpectedly on the doorstep, or the reception desk, in a belligerent frame of mind.

This was ‘Pride & Passion’, who counted among their friends Muriel Grey, Nick Nairn and Pete Irvine, delivering the innovative idea of amusing with short sketches to prove actions speak louder than words when lessons must be learned. Set up with the backing of the then Scottish Executive to encourage good practice within the hospitality industry, it took them a few years to hit on this novel and potent assimilation of how bad service could affect any business when proprietors, managers, staff, even the resident cat if inclined to haughtiness, cared little for the comfort and expectations of their guests. A team of actors were commissioned, at considerable cost, to set the scene, with interaction from participating trade members on how to behave badly, and how to behave impeccably, using exactly the same words in each sketch, but with different body language incorporating lots of attitude accompanying the words. We were encouraged to join in, and of course it all got too much for me and I couldn’t resist a bit of an adlibbing tirade!

Apart from that indulgent display, the lesson was cleverly accomplished and proved that attitude was key to success, or disaster, dependent upon word emphasis, facial expression and body language. Not what you say but the way in which you say it!

‘Pride & Passion’s’ inaugural performance with players was within reach, a mere 80 mile round trip to the town of Wick, a reasonable drive in comparison with some distances considered to be well within my radius. So I enticed the local college to send along students from their hospitality courses. Having a seat on the board, I had my own passion for seeing these young people make the successful transition from student to tourism industry worker.

It was a risk. They could have seen it as a glorious skive, this generation so encouraged to tell it as it is, could well have given me a black mark by saying it was a load of old rubbish. But they thought it a memorable lesson, and participated with enthusiasm, raising my expectation that some of them may well be in there for the long haul, not just a gap filler to abandon when the going got tough. We were all given T-shirts with the ‘Pride & Passion’logo prominently displayed across the front. Mine lay in the car for days until one sunny morning I activated a chain of events that saw a complete reprint of all ‘Pride & Passion’ products.

T-shirts were never my thing but with the sun up and shining, heading towards the garage back door to pick up fruit for breakfast from ‘the shed’ as Connie, my one-time helpmate and friend, christened our well-stocked garage, I glanced at the pristine T-shirt abandoned on the back seat of the car.

I tried on the garment, which being white, nicely matched my jeans with its blue printed logo, ‘Pride & Passion’, on the front and PASS IT ONin bold capitals across the back. The man I married, Himself, now firmly ensconced in my kitchen having retired from the oil rigs some years ago, believing himself to be my Managing Director, had to keep an eye on me. Who kept that eye on me all the years I built up the business was in the remit of the village gossips until I became a boring workaholic, but since Himself threw in his lot by insisting if Connie’s ill health stopped her coming back, then he, and not some scary new person, would take over. ‘You actually mean, you’ll replace Connie. Become a member of my staff?’ I scoffed at the very thought of it.

‘You know perfectly well I can’t replace Connie, but when you were ill, Connie and I were a great team. I can’t work with anyone else and if she’s not coming back, you can have a bash at replacing Connie and I’ll do all the sorting out. I’m not working with anyone else,’ he warned and meant it. Not that anyone else could easily be found within the walk-to-work quiet area we lived in, and I knew he meant it. When I was off skiving, as they loved to call my dedicated volunteer work on the various boards and committees for tourism I served upon, he had become part of the mainstay of the household. It was Connie or him.

I dashed to the phone. ‘Connie, are you absolutely sure that your back is killing you? Himself won’t work with anyone else but you.’

‘Well,’ came the smiling reply – I could tell she was amused – ‘that’s nice to know, but I can’t do it any more. So much to do at home now, and I know fine, you’ll get on grand.’ It was no use. It was going to be Himself or nothing, and already he had his eye on the top job – meaning we would have a solid think about doing some things at least, his way. I suddenly found myself with a boss, something I had ditched with great glee when waving goodbye to my days as a slightly whackie, but never whackie-backie, secretary. We did not require the use of artificial stimuli to conjure up ways of making our days pass very quickly, skimming the edges of never quite caring if we were secure in our positions for the following day. Such was our lack of respect for the jobs we held, they being plentiful and we, the skilled workforce, being the scarcer commodity.

So there I was, the morning of the downfall of my only venture into wearing a T-shirt, doing the job allocated, cutting up the fresh fruit for breakfast whilst the boss administered to the porridge, when that strange feeling came over me that I was being watched. A couple of furtive glances confirmed my suspicions and I caught a familiar disapproving look cast in my direction.

Eventually, compelled to turn round and face my accuser, I gave an exasperated, ‘What? What is it? What have I done now?’

Sighing the sigh of the hard-put-upon, he patiently replied, ‘You’re not going to wear that in front of the guests, are you?’