Having said that, I had a wonderful time working in the kitchen. There was a great team spirit. One of the young girls asked where ham came from. Mark quickly piped up,
“It comes from an animal called a ham.”
This was accepted without question. He added that it gets its name from the noise it makes and he demonstrated by making a very deep resounding,
“Hammmm hammmm.”
He sounded like a panellist from that old show Call My Bluff. His bluff was not called by the girl in question and for months afterwards the sound of this mythical beast was heard every time anyone put a ham sandwich into a toasting machine. It took the poor girl quite a while to live that one down.
Our scones had always been an attraction for our visitors but they were not the only choice on the menu. Our toasties were made to be as tasty as the best we had ever had elsewhere. Top of the requirements was good quality cheese with an excellent flavour. I spent a number of days over one summer in my role of quality inspector randomly choosing and eating a cheese toasty, ensuring the right quantity of cheese was in the right type of bread and that it was toasted to the right level. By the end of the season the offering was perfect and my waistband was wider. Some of our season ticket holders came back drawn by our toasties along with our other culinary delights.
A new member joined our catering team. She was in her twenties, slim and attractive and had excellent interpersonal skills. She did a splendid job for a few years. She also developed a passion for our cheese toasties, she had them for lunch every day. I was reminded of Renée Zellweger. Apparently the actress drank a pint of beer and ate a pizza each day to hit her target weight for her role in the film Bridget Jones’s Diary. Our waitress had no such role but she loved her toasted sandwich lunches to the point that she bought her own toasty machine and ingredients so she could eat the same toasties on her day off. Her weight began to balloon. She finally left. We all thought she had been to a clinic for her addiction to cheese toasties. Our imagination ran wild.
We fantasised about her standing up in the circle and saying,” My name is Sandy and I am a cheese toasty addict. It all began at Crook Hall…’
Anyway, she had left and I do hope she has regained the pleasure of an occasional cheese toasty and a weight she is happy with.
One of the skills I really appreciate in the kitchen is creativity. For five years we served a soup of the day. It was always carrot and coriander which was delicious but took a long time to make. One day there was an incredible run on the soup. Everyone seemed to want a bowl even though it was a warm day. The fickleness of customers knows no bounds. There was a sudden desperate need to find some more soup. We did not have enough time to make another batch. Speed was imperative. I was frantically pulling cans from our kitchen cupboards, waving them at Nicola and asking,“Can you do anything with this?”
She rejected the tuna in brine, the baked beans and sausages, the chilli beans. Then I struck gold. Some tins of tomatoes hiding in the back of the cupboard. Had we any basil? We looked through the spice cupboard finding all sorts of old favourites used once and then forgotten. Then I remembered we had some basil in the greenhouse. Oh, and the order was given to bring an onion and some garlic from the vegetable patch.
Nicola ended up making some lovely tomato and basil soup and that was the move away from carrot and coriander being served every day. Now we serve a wide range of soups and one of the favourites is tomato and basil, based on a recipe Nicola invented under extreme pressure. Genius.
* * *
We are keen to welcome people with mobility issues and we are happy to push their wheelchairs. The historical layout provides many challenges, especially the steep slope at the entrance to the gardens which makes even the physically fit puff a little. I found out that the land falls 300 metres from the railway line to the river. No wonder that Durham is sometimes described as the city of hills.
The oldest person to visit was 105 and she used a wheelchair. I pushed her round all the accessible areas and she and her daughter had a thoroughly enjoyable time.
Another wheelchair user was a young man who I would have believed to be Paralympian given the speed with which he shot around the gardens; no help was requested and no help was needed.
On one occasion, I remember taking over the wheelchair pushing duties from a husband who was struggling. His rather large wife feebly told me that she was very ill. I pushed, shoved and sweated and finally got our infirm visitor up to the seating area just outside the office and then I was off to see to some other issue. On returning I found that the chair was empty. I looked around for the missing invalid, only to be told that she had gone for a walk around the garden. Eventually, I found her wandering unaided around the Medieval Hall. Hmmmm. Was it a miracle? I felt as if I was in a scene from Little Britain.
10
Building For The Future
We attended a local council meeting where we listened to the head of tourism referring to Crook Hall as a great place for children’s events. This was a pivotal moment for our business. I remember returning home that night and discussing the implications of this point with Maggie.
We agreed that if we wanted to grow our business then we needed to be seen as more than just a venue for children’s events. If we continued with such a narrow focus then we were open to competition from many similar operations who cater solely for children. We had to stand out from the crowd. We had to clearly identify what made Crook Hall different. Our buildings and gardens are our unique selling point. The Hall and Gardens are the things which cannot be replicated. There are plenty of excellent children’s activity centres in the North East but only one Medieval Hall surrounded by gardens.
One of our challenges has always been to make Crook Hall a place which attracts visitors all year round. With a tourist attraction based around a garden we had to think very carefully as to how to extend the season. When it rained or the weather was poor we still needed visitors. We knew the answer lay in making the indoor space more interesting and offering more pre-bookable events. This would mean people would visit irrespective of the weather.
Our first plan was to expand our very popular family Christmas events. We decided to open in the early evening for carols, mince pies, mulled wine and a visit to Father Christmas. This was aimed at adults who would enjoy seeing the Hall and Gardens decorated for Christmas, but who did not necessarily have children to bring. We first marketed it as ‘An Adult's Christmas’ but quickly changed this title when we received some very strange phone calls!
Caller; “I would like to book a ticket for your adult Christmas.”
Maggie; “Certainly, which evening would you prefer?”
Caller; “What would you suggest? Are some of the evenings raunchier than others?”
Maggie; “I beg your pardon!”
Once the misunderstanding about the title had been cleared up the event was a huge success, with some of our older guests visiting Father Christmas for the first time in their lives.
The following summer we turned our attention to our afternoon teas. We had begun to serve these in the gardens but as they grew in popularity we found we needed more indoor seating when the weather was poor. Nicola, our dynamic new manager, suggested using our private drawing room as an alternative seating area on rainy days. This was destined to be a phenomenal success.
The beautiful room had views across the gardens to the castle and Cathedral. What a superb alternative to sitting in the gardens. It was possibly one of the best views in Durham. It was the view which had blown us away on our first visit to the Hall. Nicola persuaded us to move our living quarters to the second floor and leave the whole of the first floor to our visitors. She was convinced we would fill the rooms with afternoon tea bookings. She was to be proved correct. Moreover, we were able to extend the serving of afternoon teas throughout the year.
At the same time w
e were looking to recruit some permanent professional staff to support Nicola in running the business. The days of ourselves, helped by a team of students running the place, were over.
* * *
By 2014, we realised that our catering facilities could not cope with the increasing numbers of visitors. The demand for afternoon teas was rocketing and our domestic kitchen lacked the space to continue to provide a quality job. We began to have serious service problems. On some Sundays we were serving over fifty afternoon teas and upwards of 200 other people were wanting refreshments from our café. We were pushing the limits of our capacity.
In addition we had an entrance shed which, while quirky, did not reflect the quality of what we were offering. The shed had no heating or lighting. We were now open all year round. The autumn and winter shifts could prove to be very cold and wet for the person working at the entrance. This was usually Dorothy, one of Maggie’s friends, who volunteers with us. She was stoic, turning up in her ski gear, and bringing hot water bottles and blankets to help her through the long cold afternoons. If I expressed concerns about the cold to Dorothy, she would assure me that there was no such thing as poor weather just poor clothing. What a trooper!
We hatched a plan to provide a heater and lighting in the shed but after numerous discussions our plan evolved into a visitor centre with an apartment above. Mission Creep. I had interviewed a number of potential architects, but few really understood what we wanted. We finally offered the architectural brief to a young woman from Hexham.
The apartment was essential to the scheme. We had to generate some cash to help to pay for the loan. As we were privately owned I knew that there would be no grants or lottery funding available to help with the scheme. We were on our own. The loan was huge and, unlike other schemes we had embarked upon, this investment was desirable but not essential.
Lyndsey, our architect, was totally in tune with us. She created and designed a truly remarkable building, a building of its time which represented our green credentials but also reflected the wood, stone and brick materials which already existed in the fabric of Crook Hall. The high pitched roof and the outdoor space was all in keeping with the experience of visiting the Hall and Gardens.
As one of our young staff remarked, “It is totally modern but with a Crook Hall twist.”
I was not surprised when it won two awards from the Royal Institute of British Architects.
Lindsay managed the project within budget and within the tight timescale. The ground was broken in the September and we were serving the first customers by the beginning of April the following year.
The only organisation not to meet the deadline was Openreach. What a disaster they were. We had dug all the trenches for the utilities to be connected including the telephones. All the connections were to be well hidden in order to emphasise the straight clear lines of the building.
The Openreach engineer arrived on the allotted day and, after much humming and harring, informed us that he was the wrong engineer and BT would get back to us.
We waited and waited and despite many phone calls we continued to wait. Once the build was complete and the concrete and paving in place, they turned up unannounced. They informed us that we needed to dig a trench. We told them that we had just filled in the trench that we had dug for them five weeks earlier. They suggested that their preferred option was to bring in an overhead line. The lead engineer said the overhead cable would be fine; it could be attached to the apex of the building and tracked down the middle of the gable end. I thought he was joking then I saw his face and realised he was deadly serious. I looked at him in total disbelief. We had worked so hard with the architect and builders in making a building which was attractive and with clean lines. This man wanted to put a line right through it. Unbelievable.
I sent him packing. He left with his cable between his legs.
A real disappointment.
We had an alternative phone from Vodafone within twenty-four hours but getting wi-fi took longer and was fraught with difficulties. However, it is now in place and all without the ‘help’ of Openreach. Thank goodness.
Apart from this, the build was a great success and we were all delighted. The holiday apartment is very popular and is booked up for most of the year. I am so pleased I did not follow the advice of many people who suggested we could put four student units into the space. That might have made us more money but the holiday let fits our business.
* * *
The new café, The Garden Gate, has not been without its teething problems. The business had taken a new direction. We did not realise that dealing with a visitor who was viewing the Hall and Gardens and wanted a quick drink or a bite to eat was quite different to those who were coming with a primary need to visit a café. This took some adjustment on our part.
We had imagined that people would pop in for coffee and cake but found that lots of customers wanted lunch. There was very little preparation space and it was a real challenge for the team. We reorganised the workspace and put in some extra shelving. These days the staff work wonders, whipping up delicious soups, sandwiches and mezes as well as the cakes and scones for which we are famous. I do not know how they do it.
I was particularly excited about my plan for the background music in the café. I wanted to play vinyl on my inherited Ferguson radiogram. The radiogram had been bought by my parents when they were newly married and had been in their RAF married quarters all round the world. Now it was back in the North East, less than five miles from Spennymoor where it was originally manufactured. I was also keen to start with the first record I had ever owned. So the first cafetiere coffee served in The Garden Gate was accompanied by strains of Marianne Faithful singing ‘Summer Nights’. She was singing about magic, little cafés, romance. Perfect.
I loved it but both the cafetieres and the music proved to be equally unpopular with the visitors. We replaced the cafetieres with a coffee machine and my cherished radiogram with a CD player. Well, if I have learnt anything in these twenty years it is you just have to follow the market. Good coffee? Good music? The arbiter is the customer not a grumpy old man who listens to old music on old record players. Never mind. I clearly know what I like as I return to my flat with my cafetiere coffee and my turntable, and, in the safety of my retreat, forget the customer and sing along to my music. Perfect.
* * *
Nicola started using jam jars for our soft drinks and water. Evidently it was the new trend and we were already using them for cocktails at some of our weddings. Maggie and I thought it was a dreadful idea but what do we know? Nicola often has to press us to add a modern twist or adjust to a new trend.
Maggie asked a few customers what they thought of this jam jar idea. A well-spoken elderly visitor from the south expressed some reservations but added sympathetically,“Never mind. I know you are poor in the north.”
* * *
At the same time this project was going on we had our favourite builders, Derek and Dan Petrie, making some changes in the main building. They were assisting us in our move up to the third floor of the Georgian house. Our new, smaller living space was ideal for the two of us. Even this did not come without its trials and tribulations. A ceiling collapse, rotten floorboards to repair and wood wormed beams to treat.
The ceiling collapse led us to have to clear a good deal of rubbish out of the windows on the third floor. We were throwing rubble, plaster and wood out into the gardens. We had one of our staff members help. The person we chose to help was a well-built Durham undergraduate who hailed from the south. Language proved to be a barrier. In this case one of the builders gave out an instruction to our undergraduate in a dialect our student had never heard before.
“Gan o’er er and hoy oot the clart and tat.”
Our Durham student lowered his head closer to the smaller guy who had given this command and said very slowly and clearly, “I am sorry but
I do not understand a word that you have spoken.”
I was there to offer a quick translation.
“He has asked you to go over to the window and throw the rubbish out into the garden.”
He nodded and was onto the task immediately thinking it best to ask no more questions. I wish he had asked a few clarifying questions because his view of rubbish was somewhat different than mine. Fortunately I was just in time to stop him from throwing a very heavy radiator out of the window. If it had landed on the guy working below in the gardens it would have killed him.
By the end of the shift these two ‘foreigners’ had developed a mutual respect for each other but communication between them was carried out in a very tentative manner.
This story had echoes of our daughter Amanda’s first weeks at Bristol University where some fellow students could not understand her North East accent and asked her which country she came from.
There certainly is a north-south divide.
* * *
In the Georgian house smoke from the chimneys was causing problems. We had open fires on every floor as we believed coal fires added to the ambience of the place. The loft was full of smoke, and on some days it was seeping out into the bedrooms.
Our first step was to plaster the internal gable end of the attic where we thought the smoke was coming from. This failed to resolve the problem. Although the attic became smoke free, smoke was now appearing in all the top rooms. We then tried blocking up the fireplace on the top floor. This cleared that room but sent the smoke down two floors into the dining room. We therefore had the dining room flue lined. A success. The dining room was now smoke free for the first time in years. I was delighted until I saw the smoke bellowing down the stairs from the first floor drawing room. Back to the drawing board.
Blood, Sweat and Scones Page 13