TRUE STORIES FROM A BED & BREAKFAST HOST. I grew up in a B&B since the age of 4, after 20 plus years of having a constant stream of strangers come through the front door. You pick up a story or two....
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In the early days, we used to have groups of builders staying with us. My home was not stylish enough to attract the clients that I have now and the price bracket was also limited.
There was one group in particular that came via an old friend of mine – Gerry. Gerry's son Mark and his business partner Graham ran a building company and they brought two others to stay with them on and off.
It was great fun – they would come down on their motorbikes – huge big red machines that they would leave in the hallway and my boys would sit on them pretending to race each other.
They used to arrive on a Monday evening and stay until Thursday night, occasionally staying for the weekend. When they did you could see the transformation – gone were the dirty work clothes covered in all sorts of muck and out came the Valentino shirts, designer jeans, and shoes. They were a good-looking bunch of Chippendales who would go out on a Friday and Saturday night with a toothbrush. When I asked them in my naivety what it was for they responded with smiles in their Yorkshire accents "Just in case, Sal!".
We had a business graduate staying at the time. She was a lovely girl who came from Cologne and would be out all day studying then on her return she would disappear to her room. She reminded me of an old-fashioned milk-maid, buxom, rosy-cheeked and pigtailed.
However, when the builders arrived home around 9pm, she would suddenly appear like a shadow, without fail, in the hallway, the kitchen or garden depending on where they were.
One evening, when everyone was sitting around the table she announced with glee that it was her birthday at the weekend.
The guys decided to get her a card, and one that I have never seen the likes of since. I only found out about it as she showed Pat (our handyman) and had been asking him what it meant.
The front cover read as follows:
A Shag
.. on the inside was transcribed...
To a carpenter, a Shag is a type of pile
To a tobacconist, a type of tobacco
To a bird watcher, a type of bird.
And underneath the printed text, the builders had written...
And to you a remote possibility...
Regards,
The Chippendales
The poor girl was the last one in on the joke and was rather pensive when reading it for the second and third time.
She came back to stay at Parklands many years later, so I was glad to see that our resident Yorkshire Chippendales hadn't put her off England or B&B's!
