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“This is an elegant hotel! Room service has an unlisted number.”

Henny Youngman

It had been the intention – on our recent tour of the UK – that with the arrival of The Girl upon those shores we would reside for a week with my brother in the small town in Surrey in which he and I (and our sister) had grown up. As a result of the rule of ‘the best laid plans‘, however, things did not turn out quite as expected.

In preparation for our visit my brother had decided that his bathroom needed to be remodeled (he designs kitchens and suchlike for a living) and he had accordingly set things in motion. Unfortunately, as a result of the late delivery of some essential components and because of an unusual interpretation of the laws of time on the part of his builder, the project had not been completed at the point at which we knocked upon his front door (actually he met us outside but that is not quite such a satisfyingly dramatic scenario!).

No matter! Being the splendidly resourceful (not to mention massively generous) chap that he is he had taken the precaution of booking us (at his expense – thank you!) into a rather splendid hotel not a stone’s throw from his abode. As things turned out this was actually considerably to our advantage, as we were able to entertain in the hotel reception rooms a number of those who we wished to see during our stay but to whom for one reason or other we had not been able to arrange visits.

What my brother did not know when he booked the hotel was that this historic institution – built in the 1850s on the site of one of Henry VIII’s palaces – was itself undergoing renovations. This made for a rather lovely but somewhat unusual interlude – though one that undoubtedly enhanced this part of our extended trek.

I knew the hotel from my childhood. The grounds behind the building sweep down to a long lake called the Broadwater. When I were a nipper the hotel used to host there a firework display for Guy Fawkes night – November 5th. After the show we would repair to the somewhat tatty atrium at the front of the building to partake of (presumably non-alcoholic) beverages.

The hotel was extensively and beautifully restored during the 1980s (under new ownership) and the atrium became a go-to destination (papers clutched firmly in hand) for Sunday brunch. They did a jolly spiffing club sandwich as I recall. On one such Sunday at the start of November in 1991 we convened there for brunch the day after Australia had beaten England in the Rugby World Cup final at Twickenham. It rapidly became apparent that the hotel had been chosen as the Aussies London base for the final – and even more apparent (as they gathered gingerly in the lobby) that they had celebrated the event heartily and abundantly well into the night.

Well – the old place is due another renovation now and is in the process of receiving one. Parts of the building have already been finished (we naturally had a room in this part) but much of the rest of it is still in the hands of trades-persons of all manner of varieties. As a result it is still pretty lightly booked and thus rather spookily empty. A wander around the grounds – also in need of a fair bit of TLC – gave me the slightly odd feeling of having wandered into some post-war Stephen Poliakoff drama. I kept expecting to be approached by a mysterious contact and inducted into some strange mission.

Maybe I just expect all of my life to be like that!