Terence Rattigan’s Separate Tables, which is playing at the Crescent Theatre from 2nd – 9th July, is set in the Beauregard Private Hotel, Bournemouth. Astonishingly, Liz Plumpton who takes on the role of Anne Shankland in the play, told me that her grandparents actually owned and ran a similar hotel in the same town, and in the same period that the play is set! Liz persuaded her father to contribute the following piece on the subject.
“In the late 1950′s my parents bought a hotel, called Langton Hall, near Durley Chine in Bournemouth which they ran for nearly 20 years as a family business. In the summer holidays it would accommodate families and hold about 60 guests, but winters were much quieter, and there were about a dozen permanently resident guests – “the residents” – who lived in the hotel all year round. Most were widowed ladies and most were approaching old age, with sufficient money to live in a hotel and treat it as their home. They must have known the menus off by heart, and would always know when there was a change of chef.
I only recall 3 male residents, one of whom was very old and extremely grumpy and left a huge estate when he died, while the others were a Colonel Watson and a younger man who was apparently his nephew.
The residents were often solitary figures, and maintained a respectable distance from one another, able to eat separately at their own designated tables in the dining room throughout the quiet periods, and thus rarely conversing at meal times. Their chosen newspaper (mostly the Daily Telegraph or Daily Express) would be placed over the back of their dining-room chair for their arrival at breakfast time. Table-sharing arrangements had to be diplomatically negotiated with them when the hotel was busy.
Occasionally the arrival of new younger resident such as Colonel Watson’s nephew would cause a minor stir, but generally I don’t recall any strong or close friendships between residents, and mutual dislike was easier to notice. The only TV in the hotel was in the “TV lounge” where they would sometimes argue with each other about which of the 2 available channels to watch, BBC or ITV. As kids we used to sit on the floor of the TV lounge and hope that our preference would win.
Some lived at the hotel for many years, and had to be gently persuaded to move out when they needed personal care as well as a place to live. One or two even died there in their sleep – found by the chambermaid taking them a tray of early morning tea. The sight of coffins leaving the hotel by the front door – however infrequent – was unsettling for newly-arrived guests and their families.
The hotel no longer exists.”
Nigel Plumpton
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