Chapter One - Celebrity Boots

“Where can I dry these?” she said in the sort of Rodean accent affected by television presenters when in the presence of their inferiors.

I gazed at ‘these’ and ‘these’ gazed back at me, soggily.

They were a pair of hiking boots, jolly hockey sticks sort of footgear, just the thing for tramping through the gorse and heather and the hillsides of the English countryside and coastline. Unfortunately, they seemed to have missed out on the gorse and heather. What they had collected, in large quantities, was some of our best Dorsetshire mud and sand, suitably mixed with ample percentage of the rain that had been falling steadily for the past few days. Actually, much of it had not been falling, since a howling gale had contrived to move a good deal of it horizontally.

The mixture oozed from the lace holes and upper works, descending onto my reception desk where it was forming artistic pools of what is known in the painting trade as yellow ochre or perhaps burnt umber.

Now this desk, hand crafted in solid Oak, had only recently been installed as our front desk for some 11,000 quid, a fair price for a bit of polished woodwork. The craftsman who had fixed it had eulogised on the sort of hard wear it would take over the years but, to my knowledge, he had never mentioned it as being a suitable place to dry a muddy pair of hiking boots, even with an odour celebritè.

The owner of the aforementioned boots was what passes these days for a celebrity of the television screen. She and a film crew had descended on us while they were making a film of a walk along the Jurassic coast. Although we only take two night bookings at weekends, they assured us that we would get an honourable mention in The Daily ‘Another Newspaper’ for our hospitality if we just put them up for one night.

It is a fact of life that hoteliers are held responsible for the weather and, this weekend was no exception. Guests faced with torrential downpours become moody, sullen and argumentative and no amount of Scrabble in front of a log fire can lift their spirits. TV personalities, forced to get on with filming in what appeared to be the monsoon season, having struggled in the teeth of a gale for the better part of the day, see no reason not to blame their host. And as the weather and hence the state of her boots was clearly my fault, it was, in her eyes, my duty to take care of the matter. There was a raindrop forming on the end of her nose and she was of a healthy pink hue from the wind.

“Not there, love” I said firmly and with a look of disdain. Almost reluctantly, given her glare, I removed them to a more suitable place to dehydrate, namely the boiler room.

I suppose TV personalities are used to having their every whim taken care of without question. Minions exit their presence backwards, bowing obsequiously, and my comment clearly came as a bit of a shock to her system. She certainly seemed taken aback and I felt sure that my television licence would be revoked forthwith as she stormed off, looking for a less irascible staff member, if not for boot drying, then licking.

Some fool once opined, “The customer is always right” Obviously, he had not been in the leisure hotel business.

But the rest of the evening went with a bit of a swing. There was an even bigger and better known television personality present who became the life and soul of the party over dinner. Like the captain of a cruise ship, I joined them at their table and contributed a few merry quips, only to be deflated on catching the eye of my lady of the boots. She seemed to be eyeing me with the sort of gaze that old hunters on safari had on spying a bit of likely game on the horizon, a narrowing of the eyes. And on hearing my voice, it changed to that of someone chewing on a wasp.

My aunt had flown in from America for a short stay and had an interesting conversation with the major television personality without revealing her relationship to the owner. He seemed extremely pleased with the hotel and the standard of service and, along with the rest of the crew, expressed his thanks before leaving. There was, however, one exception. My lady of the boots refused to have even eye contact with me despite her now having a toasty warm and dry pair, courtesy of me.

Some time later, we heard that, "that" newspaper was running the article on the event in which we would be featured.

I ordered ten copies from our local newsagent in anticipation, proudly mentioning that we would be featured. We were.

Unfortunately, my booted friend had penned the article. It read:
“Mortons House Hotel is a fine old building in the centre of Corfe Castle and was supervised on the night we stayed there by a man who clearly thought Fawlty Towers was a management training video”.

She went on to say nice things about the food, the beds and the staff, but ended by saying: “It’s just that Basil is not nearly as funny in real life”.

This did, of course, give rise to a good deal of mirth locally and amongst the staff, but as there’s no such thing as bad publicity it was no surprise that many new guests came to visit subsequently just for the experience and to test Basil.

It wasn’t the first time that I had been compared to Mr Fawlty, as is my wife, to Sybil. And it was certainly not the last.

When I left school for the last time in 1982, the then deputy head said that I would never amount to anything and be of no use to society whatsoever! But now I am being compared the great Basil Fawlty.

Diary note to self – Practice Goose-step.

“Basil Fawlty” - It’s something to live up to – and I’ve done my best ever since!