Today is the third anniversary of the day we definitely knew we would need to close the hotel. It didn’t take a government pronouncement; it had been creeping up behind us for weeks. It was like a death - and, for us in hospitality, this is not hyperbole. Something familiar, that gave us meaning, validation and, bottom line, financial security, was suddenly absent. Like the death of a loved one, there was no safety net and no guidance on how to cope in those early weeks.

The thing that gave us strength was simply that to stop work, to stop seeing our colleagues (let alone you) and to stop earning enough for rent, mortgage, food: cutting back was the right thing to do. It was necessary because everyone was in the same boat - OK? We could share the pain, share the weirdness, even (eventually) make jokes about it. Try and make some little capital out of having the fanciest mask, getting the hair clippers out at home, doing yoga to kill the hours. We got our zoom filters fixed, maybe bought some bright lipstick and a pair of Birkenstock Arizonas.

Over the next two years, I was toggle-switch-woman. OFF: bang, let’s work out what’s this furlough and write letters for staff whose landlords won’t reduce the rent. Can we protect our hourly staff also? ON: Rule of Six, you say? Who’s in which family bubble? No; you can’t have two tables of six  ‘quite close together’ for your birthday party, sorry! OFF: off-Licence service only? How hilarious, of course, here’s our “jam-jar-cocktails” take out menu: £250 invested in jam-jars, branded paper bags and portable garnish. Total return = £140 thanks solely to ‘the woman-with-the-good-trousers’ (you know who you are) who still worked solo in town and collected on the way home. ON: Christmas was coming and we were told the tinsel would be out of the attic. We were able to slip in a couple of weddings (max 13 guests, you say: yes, this did include B&G but not registrars or kids). Christmas came and our socially distanced tables seemed quite magical, given the circumstances - remember; this was still 2020, before the novelty wore off. Then came another lockdown. WTF oh well, I guess Jan/Feb are pretty quiet anyway. ON: oh look, we’re now allowed customers outside, how hilarious to mock up aspirational clothed tables in the hotel garden, as though we were in a rustic Tuscan paradise. Weather? Never mind! We have umbrellas, hot water bottles, it’s all so much fun. Phew: summer 2021 came along with ‘only’ social distancing. But by now, WFH was a Thing, and Exeter Uni cancelled its graduation ceremonies. Never mind: with no guidance making any sense, and frankly alarming scares that would kill any vestige of hope for hospitality if we blinked, we did what we could do to settle the jitters. ON: Windows - open. Sanitiser - we’re all over it. Masks - on staff yes, but what was the rule for guests? Dunno; it seems political; when do we interfere? QR codes and performative hygiene (which was reassuring, if not any more than doing in public what we have always done in private) did not make for a relaxed environment. Fortunately, aviation and travel generally was having even more of a kicking, so we won on the hill of least possible risk: with the world en route to Cornwall to get fleeced, we were a friendly staging post. OFF: With public confidence having the pants scared off it*, business was vaporised overnight in December 2021, by which time I felt a lot older. 

Just at that time we started to see pictures of Downing Street staffers, and the PM, enjoying wine and cheese and more in a variety of fairly unprepossessing and institutional (but note, institutional) locations. Were they, actually, indulging in ‘hospitality’? Frankly, the drabness of the locations and the lack of attractiveness of the people involved would have made anyone scroll on if it hadn’t….wait….hadn’t been illegal at the time. Was it illegal? Am I going to hear (this week) that it was ’just’ guidance? How did my business have to comply at the expense of my staff and customers if it wasn’t essential in some way? Am I going to hear (this coming Wednesday, actually) that the then PM had the best interest of the country at heart when he boosted morale amongst the troops? That he felt the national interest was best served by keeping a positive spirit in Downing Street, and the time-honoured means of doing that was to get them all pissed weekly. I mean, even at best, lockdowns permitting, team SH does that only once a year.

I think an analysis of what lockdown has done to my business, and hospitality generally, deserves more thought than this. The landscape has changed; at one end its cruder and expectations are lower. At the other it’s more demanding and rewards are there, but the product is going to be scrutinised more closely than ever before. It’s best if you, the professional, get in there first with your microscope and marker pen. For sure, there doesn’t seem to be the casual joy of going out for the sake of it, anymore. The legacy of lockdown is that people have learned to mistrust people they don’t know, personally and politically. How soon we can get beyond that is something the Covid Enquiry must focus on, for the sake of humanity and hospitality. 

*TM WhatsCock