WHEN Simon Calder, former host of the BBC’s The Travel Show, visited Scotland recently, he was less than impressed. Trains on the West Highland Line or between Inverness and Kyle of Lochalsh might pass through landscapes to make filmmakers’ hearts swell, but the far-from-plush carriages were more suited to an office commute than a journey of three hours and more.
And then there was the service he encountered. He, his wife and mother-in-law arrived in a Kelso cafe at 16.35, ready for tea and cakes, only to be told that no hot drinks were served after half past four. At breakfast in his hotel, white toast arrived when he had ordered brown. When he pointed this out, the “very stern” waitress replied: “That’s not what it says on my chitty.”
Calder has other gripes, all reasonable, which he will share next week at a meeting of hospitality industry leaders in Glasgow. But in the meantime, let us return to the Borders. There’s no denying that in winter, when four o’clock arrives the general feeling is, “you’ll have had your tea”. In those cafes where the envelope is pushed to dusk and beyond, there is often a vigorous disinfecting of tables, on which chairs are then placed, that does not encourage you to linger. In the wings a plugged-in vacuum cleaner hungrily eyes the crumbs at your feet.
Calder has every right to complain about what seems a churlish clock-watching. In the long term it probably damages the cafe far more than its customers. Yet surely travelling is all about discovery. We visit other places – they need not be in a different time zone – precisely in order to have new experiences, not to be met with exactly the same coffee shops, menus, opening hours and customs as back home. In rural areas, you quickly learn to adapt to the timetable. Obviously people passing through cannot be expected to know that the witching hour arrives far earlier here than in the city; and businesses chasing every last penny would do well to be more elastic if they are feeling the pinch. Even if they’re thriving, it’s possible to bend the rules. Yet, as you would think to yourself when travelling around Tibet or Tuscany, when in Rome (or Roxburghshire)... and pride yourself on adapting.
As for the surly waitress in Calder’s hotel, that is not a Scottish specialty. I’ve met curmudgeonly waiters, hoteliers and receptionists in Worcestershire, Cumbria and Belfast – not to mention London – just as often as here. So too in Europe, North America, and beyond. The reason these individuals lodge in the memory is because, wherever you go these days, they are rare. Almost without exception since leaving the central belt for the Borders, I have been charmed by the service and friendliness. As was a friend from Perthshire who recently came to stay. By contrast, in an Italian seaside town last autumn, I was with friends, two of whom were aged. We were lamentably treated in an up-market restaurant. The maitre d’ turned us away without so much as offering the invalid among us a chair while she caught her breath, before heading back out into the rain. So much for Italy’s supposedly superior welcome.
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Had Calder been spoken to in a Manhattan hotel as brusquely as in Scotland, would he have bristled? Undoubtedly, but New York’s reputation for rudeness is legendary, and in an odd way part of its brief. This is not to excuse the treatment he received here, but to put it into a wider context. Our hospitality sector really does not deserve to be singled out for a few bitter lemons in the bowl.
I was, of course, delighted to hear of the Indian businessman who met with such poor service and amenities in the Highlands on a walking trip last year that he has bought three hotels in the area, “to show them how it should be done”. His initiative is inspiring.
Nobody is saying that our hotels, B&Bs, restaurants and cafes are universally excellent, or that they should be exempt from criticism. What is clear, though, is how dramatically improved this sector is in the last 20 years. From Wick to Wigtown there has been a collectively raised consciousness of the standards needed to satisfy visitors. Some places are still a little shabby, but with each season they get better. Those that don’t are doomed. One such is the Argyllshire hotel where my husband stayed last winter. Guests were offered tea-lights over which to warm their hands when the broken central heating – two days and counting by this point – proved resistant to repair.
Few of us now are prepared to put up with freezing rooms, spartan facilities, or antediluvian decor. But even as there is still undoubtedly room for improvement – show me a country where that is not true – nobody can deny the character and personality you’ll find in Scotland, which is truly distinctive. This varies region to region, like the weather and the scenery, and it’s what makes us tick. Every pearl has its gritty heart, and we are no different.
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