The Castle, Edinburgh, Scotland
I have to admit when I asked where in the world my readers wanted me to blog about (Cambodia, Vietnam, Bangladesh etc.) I was surprised when they suggested Huddersfield, Stoke- on- Trent and Chester! A friend from Chester who kindly fact checked that Blog for me commented on what an amazing memory I had to remember everyone’s names from 1985! Brian also commented on how amazing it was that I was still in touch with Nadya, my first girlfriend at 16, some 45 years later. The other person to proof read the Chester Blog was the daughter of the Bars Supervisor there, Debbie (nee Goss, now Fernandez). Her mum used to bring her to work on Sundays when she was about 13, and I used to get her to help me set up the Curzon room for the Children’s entertainment (video and Magician) . Frank Harvey, the Manager, also often sent his daughter, Lisa over to help. A while back Lisa, who is now a doctor I believe, called me to see if I could come to a surprise party for her dad.
When I left Chester in 1986 to move to
Worcester I promised to write to Debbie and now, 35 years later, we are still
in touch! Debbie is now married to a Chef, and they have a 16-year-old
daughter, Jancis, and between them they run one of the tea rooms in Chester,
another restaurant in Barmouth, Wales, where they live “above the shop” and
they have a property they rent out for holiday lets. Her mum, Joyce, has
retired to Spain!
My lovely car at Nether Craig near Blair Gowrie in 2009
As I was
searching my laptop for some photos of Chester, I found these photos taken on
my many visits to Scotland (work and vacation) and thought you might like to
see them. I still have many friends in Scotland including a lovely lady who I
worked with in Little Chef back in 1986 – after I left Chester, who was then
called Pat Luxmore. She married a wonderful Carpenter called Pete Channon and
they moved to Nether Craig (near Blair Gowrie) where they bought a Caravan Park.
They have since retired but I spent many a (drunken) night there back in the
day! We are still in touch and I always get a Christmas card with Highland cattle
and snow which my Bahraini friends love!
Their log cabin where I stayed back in 2009- see my old Nokia 6210!
Back in 2009
I handed in my notice at Campus Veolia and my boss there told me I would have
to work it (3 months). The guy who planned our Training courses arranged for me
to do a 3-month UK tour to say farewell to all my friends before I headed off
to Bahrain, at Veolia’s expense. One of the places I was training was for VWS
Westgarth in East Kilbride, Scotland. I still remember saying goodbye to their
HR person, Kirstie, and she asked where I was off to.
“Some little
island in the Gulf” I replied
“Bahrain?”
she said!
It turned
out whilst Kirstie was born in Scotland she moved to Bahrain , aged 5, where her mother worked, She and her sister went to St.
Christopher’s school! What a small world! So, for the last 12
years Kirstie and I have exchanged postcards and emails with all the places she grew
up in Bahrain. She also sent pictures of her kids in the snow, their posh glamping and so
on!
Kirstie's latest Glamping photo
The team at Westgarth were a great bunch and I ran many courses there over the years, from Health and Safety to Appraisal skills and Situational Leadership. They had another office in Gloucester so many of the Executive team that I trained flew up and down with me and we stayed in the same Premier Inn and had many dinners together.
One of Pat and Pete's wonderful log cabins, where I used to stay
If I drove up, I would do courses on Thursday and Friday, go and stay at Nether Craig with Pat, Pete and the family, and then run more courses the following week before the long journey south. On a couple of occasions, by strange coincidence, the courses coincided with local beer festivals! My other great memory of VWS is they had a PIE CHART in the office kitchen and it showed who had a birthday on what date. Their tradition was that whoever had a birthday had to buy steak pies for everyone in the building, including the visiting trainer from the Campus!
As well as
the courses at East Kilbride Mark arranged courses for Dalkia in Edinburgh and
Glasgow, and even at the Veolia contract in Aberdeen! The Area Manager for
Dalkia in Scotland was a great guy called Doug Noon. He attended many of my
courses and as he travelled so much, he knew a lot of great restaurants and
drinking houses, and would always suggest somewhere new for me to try on each
trip.
One of the many Ian Rankin books waiting for me in Palawan
My brother had
worked extensively in Scotland in years gone by and I tried to visit as many of
the places that he worked as I could. When he “retired” to look after our dad
in 2000 he shared the names of many of his favourite authors with me. And so it
was I too fell in love with Inspector Rebus and friends (by Ian Rankin, set
mainly in Edinburgh) and the books of Michael
Connelly, and Michael Dibdin ( from his time in Italy)
I found this picture of Little Chef Dundee on this amazing site:
One
final Scottish memory was that back in our Little Chef days (1986- 1996) we had
to do mystery diner visits. As I had a national role, I was expected to visit
two restaurants in each of 10 sections (including Scotland) a year. Can you
believe I got paid to drive thousands of miles across the UK eating breakfast,
lunch and dinner and completing a checklist ( “was your drink served in 2
minutes?”)
Another Scottish little Chef that I visited often was at Dumbarton
One
year I mentioned to my brother that I had to drive to Scotland eating en route
so he asked if he could come along and visit some old friends in Dundee. As I
had arranged to work with the Training officer for Scotland that week, I
dropped my brother off on the way up and then went to do my work. Finally I drove back south, picking my brother up in Dundee and we drove back to Worcester where I
lived.I think he took the train back to Brighton or wherever he lived
then. On the way I played the Ken Blanchard Situational Leadership tapes that Mark Johns kindly purchased for me. By the end of the trip my brother was, like me, a Little Chef Mystery diner and SL11 Expert!
My Guru, who I met in London, Ken Blanchard
When I was planning my departure for Bahrain I checked my bucket list and another long term friend, Jane Frost who I worked with back in 1992 at Little Chef ( 30 years ago) decided we should have one last Hogmanay ( Scottish New year) together in Edinburgh. On 30 December 2009 we both headed up to Scotland in separate cars. By then Jane worked for Road Chef so had to visit some of their sites to dispense some Christmas cheer on the way. I think I managed to arrange to run a course in Edinburgh so Veolia again paid for my petrol and accommodation. We had booked a hotel in Edinburgh but as the owners only had a few bookings they decided to close the hotel and go abroad for New Year . They phoned to tell me the bad news a few days before New Year’s Eve! The good news is they also rented out some houses and they put is in one of them, stocked with food, and with a Chinese take away next door. It was on the free bus route to Princess Street, in the shadows of Edinburgh castle. We wrapped up well.
Princess Street in Edinburgh
Doug Noon recommended an excellent Chinese restaurant in a side street half way down Princess Street and we watched the band Madness as the headline act followed by the countdown to new year and the fireworks from the castle ramparts. It was an unforgettable night and, being Scotland, the celebrations went on for a few days. It snowed on our last day there and as the car park for the house was on a slope I could not leave (well that was my story and I am sticking with it. I finally found this pic of my snowed in car in another blog!
My car in the snow outside our New Year's eve holiday let
My thanks to Pat, Kirstie and Jane for their input and photos. Please note this blog was completely written without the aid of Wikipedia! Maybe one day I will return to Scotland, I had so many happy times there.
Interior shot of the cozy log cabin from Pat Channon
Until then my special thanks to all my friends there and I ask you all to stay safe and warm as the temperatures drop and send me lots of snowy pictures by email!
Ingat Palagi, Kita Kits
The British Kabayan , now back in Bahrain!
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Hello, I am The British Kabayan! Feel free to read my stories.
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