Fragment 30: The Life & Times of a Social Experiment
Thinking about one of the greatest hoteliers of all time.
Imagine you have a battery of Kodak Carousel slide projectors: a minimum of three but often many more. Perhaps three stacks of three apiece. Perhaps ten times that number.
All of these slide projectors precisely set up and aligned for back projection behind a cinema-size screen so that, singly and together, the images can be sequenced and combined to provide striking, almost moving imagery.
The speed of individual slide changes varies, from a snap change to a slow cross-fade, all of it controlled by pulses on the quarter-inch tape that drives the whole presentation forward.
Also on the tape is the sound track. The bigger and meatier the better. Voice. SFX. Music. Big dynamic range. Volume turned up to a rock stadium 11.
These presentations were terrific: the power to mesmerize an audience for ten or fifteen minutes or more.
Unless, of course, a slide jammed in the gate of a projector and threw the whole damn thing out of whack. But, no … come on … that was a rarity.
In the late-1970s and through the 1980s we did some great AV presentations, initially for Trusthouse Forte (THF) Hotels, both individually and as a group: for example, a presentation to the bosses of the UK Football League, all 92 of them at the time, to promote THF Hotels as team accommodation and event venues.
One occasion that stands out in my memory was a 1980s example - the ‘This Is Your Life’ presentation that we put together when the general manager of the Hyde Park Hotel (now the Mandarin Oriental Hyde Park) moved to Grosvenor House (now the JW Marriott Grosvenor House London).
This was particularly special because the general manager in question was one of the greatest hotel managers of the twentieth or any other century - Willy Bauer.
(The image of Willy Bauer at the top of this post is from a March 2016 article in Boutique Hotelier. Copyright: Boutique Hotelier.)
Back in the ‘80s when he made the move to Grosvenor House, there was the need for some sort of announcement-cum-welcome event. John Doff (see previous fragment) and I came up with the idea of a ‘This Is Your Life’ theme. With the help of THF’s own management company, we were able to get Michael Aspel (one of the actual presenters of the programme on British TV) to be our presenter. We then researched, wrote and produced the presentation.
The event was to take place in the Great Room at Grosvenor House, a banqueting room with a capacity for two thousand people. However, this event was to be rather more exclusive - just two hundred guests. Twenty tables in square formation in the middle of the room might have felt ‘lost’ in the available space so we overcame the problem by using ambient sound to create the sense of a full house.
On the day, the guests assembled at the Hyde Park Hotel for an initial drink and were then transported from Knightsbridge to Park Lane in a fleet of London double-decker buses.
I’m relieved to say it all went well. None of the Kodak Carousel projectors jammed!
A final memory, for now anyway, of Willy.
One evening, after a meeting, I was heading back home to Chiswick when I decided I needed a comfort break. I was near the Hyde Park Hotel so parked my car, went in and used the facilities. As I recall, it was about 10.00 pm. I was back in the hotel foyer and heading for the exit when a figure appeared from a side room. It was Willy. He signalled to me and I crossed the foyer to join him.
“Have you got five minutes? Can you help me out?”
“Of course,” I said.
I followed him back to the Loggia which was off to the side of the foyer. At the door was a tall, well-built man. A sort of giant, actually: the kind of chap you’d instinctively want to be on your side if any trouble broke out.
“He’s fine. He’s one of us,” said Willy, or words to that effect. This seemed to satisfy the giant, and Willy and I went on through the doorway.
The Loggia was a long, narrow room dominated by a large dining table, around which were probably thirty to forty chairs. But only one of those seats was occupied, the one at the head of the table at the farthest point from the doorway. A woman sat there, flanked by yet another giant standing alongside her.
It was Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother - the mother of the late Queen Elizabeth II. This was a bit of a shock. You stop somewhere for a pee and find yourself being introduced to The Queen Mother. Anyway, I was invited to take a seat and offered a glass of port. This was living!
The Queen Mum was having a really nice time. She had just presided over a regimental dinner, a task that she obviously loved for a group of men that she obviously adored. And, now, she just wanted to sit and chat for a few minutes.
She clearly adored Willy, too. But he needed a break - perhaps for something to do with the running of the hotel or perhaps it was just that he needed, as I had done, to pop to the washroom.
Whatever the reason, I was left for a few minutes with her to chat. Yikes! What on earth to talk about?
The topic that seemingly effortlessly emerged was … ice cream. Ice cream had formed some part of the pudding that had just been eaten and The Queen Mum was very impressed with it.
I knew, from work that we had done creating a brochure for the hotel, of the Hyde Park Hotel chef who created the ice creams, and I knew that these wonderful bombes and other creations were frequently supplied to the royal palaces. So, The Queen Mother and I had a chat about the wonders of fine ice cream in general and the superb creations of the Hyde Park Hotel chef in particular.
Willy reappeared a few minutes later and the conversation was brought to a close, the two giants gently coaxing a - how shall we say? - slightly tipsy Queen Mother to permit them to accompany her to her waiting limousine.
After the Hyde Park Hotel and Grosvenor House, Willy went on to breathe new life into the Savoy Hotel, then headed up Wentworth golf course, was chairman of AB Hotels, and continued to promote the hotel sector and several charities right up until the time of his death, aged 84, in March 2022.
I regard it as one of the privileges of my life to have known him and worked with him.
Thanks for reading.
I do like these stories of yours :-)