THE RANDLE REPORT

GRAND HOTEL (Summer 1968)

When my plan to work away fell through, I returned to find Rick had moved out of Dolphin Crescent to make his way in the world, and had placed his solid experience as a kitchen porter at the service of Torquay’s Grand Hotel.

I met him when his morning shift ended, and we caught up on our respective adventures as we walked into Torquay.

Hardly anyone we knew had ever tasted wine at that time, but suddenly they’d all been on Spanish package holidays and you couldn’t move for it. Regent Wine Stores, Saccone and Speed, off-licences were escaping from the pubs and turning up in high streets all over the country.

We decided we’d better celebrate our reunion by buying a bottle of Spanish plonk with ten bob of Rick’s hard-earned and drinking it on a park bench, in the manner of winos.

Although Rick had often tried to lead me into temptation, as he had succeeded in doing with smoking, I hardly drank in those days. I was more Coca Cola with the occasional Woodpecker cider. So half a bottle of tinto was a bit more than the system was ready for.

Rick guided me to Avenue Road and his room at Maracville, one of Torquay’s substantial Victorian villas that had been guest house, B&B, and was now ‘rooms’. Rick’s room at that time was upstairs overlooking the garden. He opened a window and spoke to his landlady (Hettie?), who was hanging washing out down below. I joined him at the window to make myself known at the precise point that my innards decided to reject the denomenacion de origen. She would not forget me in a hurry.

Rick had landed on his feet at Maracville. His room was a good size, and he had already personalised it with posters and reproductions of paintings. Visitors were greeted with the last words of Erik Satie: ‘Ah, the bastards!’

The 'Velvet Gentleman' - French composer Erik Satie.

The residents all seemed to be interesting and creative people, including and especially Mick Jacques and John Briggs, soon to be guitarist and drummer respectively of local blues group, Sleepy Dog. 

Mick had fetched up in Torquay when he set out from his native Yorkshire on foot with a guitar and lived on his wits. He would go on to great things, graduating from local bands to the London scene and eventually joining the hugely successful Curved Air with Sonja Krystyna and Darrell Way. He now keeps horses somewhere in the Dordogne.

Rick jamming with Mick Jacques at Maracville.

I would be needing work, so the obvious thing was for Rick to recommend me to the Grand Hotel. My dad was working at Battery Maintenance opposite the old school, so was able to drop me into work in the mornings.

The kitchen of the Grand was ruled by a chef known as ‘Mad Louie’. He was a brisk military type with similarities to Fulton McKay’s character in Porridge, especially a sort of supercilious expression and a belief that he was superior to every other life form. He was buoyed up in this by the traditional deferences shown to chefs by those wishing to get on in the catering world. Rick and I had no such wish, so were never likely to be listed among his favourite people

He had always a flock of fawning comis chefs about him to say, ‘yes, chef; no chef,’ etc., and had just finished demonstrating some culinary principle to them when he recognised my existence.

‘Fetch a bucket of water and a brush and clean my table,’ he instructed me.

With the aid of Ernie, the pot-washer, I secured the tools for the job and began dipping the brush in the hot water and scrubbing the wooden table.

‘Not like that,’ shrieked the mad one. ‘none of your namby-pamby arsing about.’ And he took the bucket and poured some of its contents onto the surface of the table, causing a mild flood. ‘Like this, man. Put your back into it.’

I took the bucket from him and hurled the remainder of the contents at the table, soaking him from the knees down in the process.

At lunch, I met Danny Bumper. I never worked out what purpose he served. He wasn’t in the kitchen with us, but it is a big hotel and he must have had his uses. I think he’d been there forever, and that his ‘surname’ came from his white plimsolls. Danny was not entirely right in the head.

A typical lunchtime would start with gentle Ernie imparting some piece of information: ‘I see there was somebody drowned in the River Dart th’other day.

At which, Danny would bang his knife and fork down on the table and declare: ‘I don’t know how you can sit there and tell me such lies!’

Apart from the teams of comis chefs, Ernie the pot washer and Mad Louie, there was what I think was a sous-chef, who was probably Hungarian. Like Louie and all other chefs I’ve worked with he swore like a trooper, but was much funnier. ‘What you have done my fucking pot, fucking asshole idiot?’ And there was David, who was from a disabled workshop. He would patrol around the kitchen, mopping or sweeping as called for. Whenever he put down his mop or broom, somebody would take it and put it somewhere else, so he spent as much time on patrol looking for them as he did performing a useful service.

When the sous-chef finished with a cooking pot, he would indicate to one of us to remove it for washing. As Ernie leaned over his sink, we would come behind him and drop the pot into his washing up water from a great height, soaking him and everything in range.

We didn’t have any direct contact with the customers at the Grand. The orders would come via a tannoy and be delivered to the waiting staff by dumb waiter. The sous-chef would advise the waiting staff when food was ready by switching on the tannoy and making the announcement.

Louie treated us the same way he treated the comis chefs, as the lowest form of animal life. We refused to rise to his rudeness, disparagement and foul language.

As at Addisons, we were prepared to work hard, but things came to a head when we had both had enough of being effed and blinded at by both him and the sous-chef. As they continued to pour out streams of invective, we switched on the tannoy to the public area and prepared to be fired.

(Extract from my forthcoming memoir: GOLDEN PLAYGROUND; Summers of Love on the English Riviera.)