CHAPTER THREE All Kinds of People!

CHAPTER THREE
All Kinds of People!


Some people pass through your life and you never even notice them. There are others who make such an impact you wouldn’t want to forget them. Every way of life has its characters and I certainly met my fair share in the ten months I spent in Almunicar.
Mrs. Facetty was ninety-five years old but she didn’t look a day over sixty. She was the original party animal. Always, laughing and joking. If there were music playing she would be dancing. But with her we made one mistake. During the welcome meeting David made a very brave announcement. With great pride, he informed all the guests that if they had a problem we could sort it out. Not too serious you’re probably thinking, but not always practical and, definitely, not always possible. Mrs Facetty became our first supreme example of this.
She told everyone that she was a Russian princess and that she had once been a trapeze artiste in the State Russian Circus. If that was the case she should have definitely have had a head for heights. Mrs. F’s problem was that she didn’t like her room. It was too high and she wasn’t getting enough oxygen. Not really a problem, just go to reception and get her a change. This I did personally. I even showed her the new room. “Darrlling, it’s beautiful. Thank you so verrry much!” She always spoke with that Russian lilt that no one could tell whether it was fake or not. Another job well done, I congratulated myself as I walked down the corridor.
That was day two of her month’s stay. Next morning I was sitting at the Rep’s Desk when up she waltzed again. “I don’t like my room! It’s too near the lift!! Too noisy!! Bad for my migrrraine!” “OK, Mrs. F, Let’s go and see what we can do.” Ten minutes later I’m showing her and asking, “How’s this one?” “Perfecto, Darrling! You’rre an angel!” Another happy customer. Two days later, just as I was thinking all was well with the world she’s back again.
“I DON’T LIKE MY ROOM!! It’s too far from the lift!! I can’t walk that far!!” Yet again, a very resigned looking manager just handed me a key and gave me that the look that only a Spaniard can give. Yet again I got that Russian accent of thanks and a reassurance that she was happy. You might think that was the end of it but you’d be wrong. A week later I was summoned to a very angry Manager’s office where I encountered what can only be described as a volcano about to erupt. “Get HER out of my hotel!!!” He roared almost popping at the temples. It didn’t really take much intelligence to work out whom he meant. Yes, you’ve guessed it, Mrs. F.
I stood there hoping he would calm down. Senor Gomes was not the best of communicators when he was upset. They don’t have a phrase book for a mix of Catalan, English and anger. Eventually we compromised. Mrs. F could stay but I had to tell her. NO MORE ROOM CHANGES! That was going to be easier said than done. But, at least, she could stay. How would I have explained to an ex-Russian trapeze artiste that she was out on the street?
So that was Mrs. Facetty. I didn’t see her for the rest of her stay, not until that is, her departure day. As she was checking in at the airport I summoned up the courage to approach her. “Where have you been Mrs. F? I haven’t seen you around.” She just looked at me and smiled. At least I think it was a smile. “I’VE BEEN AVOIDING YOU!”
The hotel was on a part of Spanish coastline known as Costa Tropical. Turn right at Malaga airport and keep on going for an hour. The scenery was amazing and only two hours drive away lay the beautiful City of Grenada. The Alhambra Palace is one of the wonders of the world and the majority of guests had this as a “must to visit.” This is fine if you’re walking fit but the problem was we had quite a few guests in wheelchairs. This meant that we had to put a ban on anyone who wasn’t capable of coping with the cobbles and steps at the Palace. This didn’t put them off.
I didn’t realize how devious older people could be sometimes. Garth usually guided the excursions. He would arrive at the hotel some mornings to meet the coach and, there before him, stood a line of wheelchairs. All waiting for their dreamed of day at the Alhambra. How can you tell someone they can’t go when it has been their dream of a lifetime?
The Alhambra Palace caused problems for me as well. Sometimes, if we had more than one coach, I would guide the second. This I loved as it gave me the chance to show off the local knowledge I had learnt in such a short time.
Anyway on this particular occasion I was in charge of a group of forty-five pensioners from a social club in Liverpool. We had already had
problems when they had complained that the local flea market didn’t speak English. “The hotel show’s not as good as the Las Vegas one’s we see on the TV, is it Billy?”
Well, on the way to Granada they insisted on a beer stop. OK, but it took me an hour to get them back on the bus. Once at the Palace everyone is told to stay together, follow the umbrella and only stop for photos when the official guide stops. The place is always packed so stragglers are easily lost. Even with this, most people are amazed at the immensity and sheer beauty of the place. Not my Liverpudlians. On arriving at the exit gate we found we were exactly forty-five short. I went back in to search but to no avail. It was an hour and a half later that we came across them, sitting at a pavement bar sipping San Miguel’s. “We thought we’d wait for you here.” was all I got.
Anyone who has visited Granada will know that the Generalife Gardens are next to the Palace. I thought I had heard it all when one of my Scousers commented, “Who wants to visit a garden owned by the General Life Insurance Company.”
Working as a rep is not all smiles and happy times, especially when the guests are all 60’s plus. Throughout my career as a rep I have come across and had to deal with many unpleasant situations. However, no prior training could ever have prepared me for my first season. Everyone goes on holiday to have a good time and forget his or her troubles. Unfortunately that is not always the case. They tell you on induction to expect anything and never to get too involved. After a few years “on the job” that may be sometimes possible, depending on the situation, but as a “green” rep, that is certainly not the case. One can get very close to the guests in a short time, and, if something happens to them, it is almost impossible not to take it close to the heart.
On my first Christmas Eve overseas at about 9pm I was standing at the hotel reception. The desk was at the bottom of a nine-storey atrium with stairs that twisted to the top floor. Christmas music was playing over the tannoy and I was having a joke with Paco, the Duty Manager. Suddenly there was a loud, long scream, which would have been at home in any
Alfred Hitchcock movie. Paco and I flew up the stairs to encounter a lady totally in hysterics. “My husband!” she sobbed and pointed to her room. The sight that met my eyes will always be with me. The poor man had had a heart attack and was already changing colour. During the training course we are taught resuscitation but you never imagine that you would have to use it. Anyway, we tried it, but to no avail. We could not help. It was too late. I have never been any good at consoling or commiserating so I could have kissed that other guest who appeared in the room and volunteered to take over the situation with the gentlemen’s wife.
You can imagine how I felt, with it being Christmas Eve, having to conduct a carol concert an hour later for the rest of the guests knowing that, upstairs, was a woman who would never ever forget that night for as long as she lived, and that later I would have to make the re-patriation arrangements. I went through this, in total, eight times in my ten-month season.
Part of the daily routine was the clinic visit. No one spoke English so Garth and I used to take turns to play “attendant and translator.” Falls, scrapes and the occasional placebo. Actually, this became a major part of the role as Garth and I quickly realized that we weren’t just reps but surrogate family. This was what made being a “rep” very rewarding and, for me, well, I realized I didn’t want to do anything else.
Mildred was amazing. She came to stay with us for six weeks. She knew how to enjoy herself. Any man that was single was a target. She was a definite man-catcher. Or so we thought! Every time we saw her she was having coffee or drinking cocktails with a different man. She would have put any partying teenager to shame. That all stopped. Two weeks into her holiday a gentlemen arrived who she proudly introduced as her husband. Well, what could we say? By this time we had we accepted everything as it happened. We never doubted. As it happened he was her husband.
Alfred was his name. In reality he was a Chelsea Pensioner. Now CP’s can only live at the Barracks if they are widowed or single. Mildred was from Blackpool; Alfred was, originally, from Swindon. They had met on holiday in Wales. Now, if a Chelsea Pensioner gets married they are not allowed to stay on at the Barracks. Mildred still had her own house up North and Alfred was happy living where he was. So they had made the decision to maintain the status quo, just meeting up for holidays, when their pensions allowed, thus keeping their marriage a secret. Alfred was very quiet and sedate. He was happy sitting with a beer and his newspaper, whilst Mildred wanted to be the life and soul of the party. For the two weeks that Alfred was with us his wife played the dutiful role, always sat by side, and laughed at his jokes. A different story once he’d gone back to Swindon. She was on the prowl again. Somehow though, we always took her behavior as “tongue in cheek.” She was one of our characters.
There was one guest, George, who always used to wear ladies’ stockings. Nobody used to mention this. He was always immaculately dressed although above his polished shoes we never missed the stockings. He spoke the Queen’s English and was always elegant, no matter what the time of day. He would arrive at the hotel bar at exactly 12.05 everyday and order his usual gin and tonic. There are some people in this world that can only be described as “having presence.” George had it. He never spoke much about his past but everyone knew that it had been something special. He would stand up when a lady approached his table, would be the first to open a door and would always change sides half way when crossing a road with a female companion. George was a “fish” that any elderly widow would wish to land and, during his month with us, many tried but with no success. Many of the guests often liked to talk about their past lives, George
never did, which was probably what made him so interesting, along with his elegance and the ladies stockings.
There was one night when he did open up though. I had decided to take a stroll along the Promenade to get some fresh air after dinner. I had only been out a few minutes when a familiar voice called out. “Come and have a drink, Old Boy!” George was seated alone at a pavement café and
looking a little bit tipsy. “Today’s my anniversary. It would have been forty five years.” After a brief silence he continued, “She should have been here with me but she was taken last month. I had to come. She would have wanted me too.” That evening turned out to be one of my most interesting nights in Spain. I didn’t really say much, just drank beer and listened to George as he told me about his life. It wasn’t a man just talking but a storyteller unraveling a tale. He had been the first in his village to join up for the War, choosing the Tank Regiment. However, by the time he arrived in the desert he had worked out that the life expectancy of a tank commander was not very long, so he volunteered for the Intelligence Corps or Secret Service, which he considered to be a much safer option. Apparently he spoke three languages like a native and spent most of the rest of the war behind enemy lines. His wife, he explained to me that night, was a beautiful francaise who he had met whilst working with the Résistance. Eventually after a few beers I plucked up the courage. I had to ask. It was my only chance. “Why the stockings?” With a smile he explained. “We used to go out on missions at night. It was so very cold lying for hours waiting in ambush so Claudette used to lend me an old pair of her silk stockings to keep my legs warm and help the circulation. I wear them as a sweet memory of her but now, if anyone asks, I just explain that they are surgical and for medical reasons.” “Anyway,” he added, “amongst these old fuddy daddies, who cares!”
I left the café that night feeling a better person after listening to George’s story. He made me promise, though, to tell no one. For me, this latter day James Bond’s secret was in a safe place.
Airports are fascinating places. People, however, seem to change their personality when they arrive at the check-in lounge. Someone who is usually a mild, unassuming person can suddenly change into an outrageous warlord if his or her flight is delayed. Over the years I have had chicken dinners thrown at me, beer shampoos and my parenthood thrown into question. If a plane is late, the rep automatically becomes the managing director of the airline. At first I used to get very upset with peoples’ reactions to delays, but experience eventually told me not to take anything personally.
“I’ll never travel with your Company again!” Sure enough, next year, “Good to see you again Mr. and Mrs. Robinson. Remember me?”
Some British people, when they travel can be very funny. They seem to think that if they speak very loudly and very slowly then every nationality will understand them. If I had a pound for each time I was approached with the question “Do you speak English?” I would be a rich man. Sometimes we would look at the person in a blank way and reply, just as loud, “Non!” or “Que?”
Airport announcements can be very garbled at the best of times but I will never forget one particular day. We needed to contact a guest about some luggage so decided that the best way would be over the tannoy system. I phoned the Information Desk and requested that they put out a call out for a Mr. Hassall to report to our check-in area. Can you imagine our consternation when the following was heard at a very loud volume throughout the airport?
“Will Mr. Arsehole, Mr. Arsehole, please report to the check-in area?” Three thousand travelers collapsed in tears of laughter and, needless to say, no one would own up to being “Mr. Arsehole.”
As you’ve probably gathered the guests all came from a wide variety of backgrounds. That can also be said for the reps. My colleagues were just as diverse.
Garth should have been pharmacist. You only had to look in his
bathroom to see that he had major shares in a chemist’s shop. Even when working, his rep’s bag contained enough deodorants, gel and aftershave to keep him going for a week. His real name was Simon but he didn’t think that that was macho enough so he called himself Garth. We were forever having our photos taken with departing guests, and each time this happened, off would come the bottle bottom glasses that he desperately needed. Actually he was a great guy and he very soon became my link with sanity as we used to sneak out to the local Spanish bars that we knew the guests wouldn’t dare frequent. In town we were still somewhat of a novelty but everyone easily accepted us as the “crazy Brits” who mixed in.
Julia was a lovely lady. Once a radiographer, she was twenty-two stone. When she arrived in resort we considered ourselves the “old timers.” David, Garth and I had already been there for three weeks. We didn’t need anyone else. It was our territory. Thinking about it now, it’s funny how quickly you forget that you’re new. We had set up the resort, made the
contacts, and didn’t want anyone to come in and usurp our patch. That all changed one night after Julia arrived. All she said was, “Ok, guys who’s buying me a beer?” By the end of that night, when we had gone round for
round, Julia had agreed to do all the admin, arrange the airport transfer lists, and look after everything financial. She was going to do everything we hated to do, and besides, she could drink like a trooper. In fact, as we quickly realized, it wasn’t long before Julia had us well and truly organized. So there we were with our team for the season.
My main task, apart from the resort walks was entertainment host. The main objective was to keep the guests busy. Historical walks, country rambles, treasure hunts. I had never walked so much in my life. When I ran out of routes to take them I just did them again in reverse.
Quizzes, bingo, French bowls. There’re only so my activities you can do to keep their interest. The problem was that we had two hundred and fifty arrivals spread over three days a week. The majority of those stayed for a month. That’s a lot of quiz questions to keep them different. I actually soon began to realize how competitive these older guests can be. Sometimes, just to boost their interest, I used to organize male versus female competitions. This didn’t last very long as it caused what can only be described as a real
battle of the sexes. Remember the Liverpudlian social club? When I tried it with them it nearly ended in world war three and I can only compare it to two teams of football fans who hated each other.
A lot of the guests, albeit in their 70’s plus, fall in love. Romance was a regular occurrence. A well repeated phrase in the repping world is “walking the road of shame.” Basically, it means getting spotted going home after a night of passion in someone else’s room. Believe it or not, but this used to happen regularly amongst our group. If it was a first time occurrence it usually occupied an embarrassed smile. On a regular basis it was a wink and a grin. There was Arthur who became the king of the walk. He was eighty-four and didn’t care who knew. He used to write an addition to the “Do Not Disturb” sign. “We’re making babies!”
Apart from the standard flamenco shows and hotel entertainers, every Wednesday night there was the reps show. This was a night when each holiday company had to provide one of their crew to help put on a show. Garth, David and Julia coerced me. One night when we were all having a few beers I somewhat volunteered myself. It was one of those occasions when you wake up the next morning and wonder what you’ve agreed to. It turned out to be good fun.
Singing was never my forte but the end result was miming to different songs and generally making a fool of myself dancing around. Nervous cannot describe how I felt but the audience made everything fine.
It was rather tacky at first but, as the weeks went on, we all became rather professional and the applause seemed to encourage us.
My highlight of the season happened after a night of three quick changes. I had mimed and danced to “Singing in the Rain”, had everyone standing waving their hands in the air with “New York, New York” and performed a difficult duet with the French rep of “Anything you can do, I can do better!” A couple approached me and asked, “How do you change your voice to sound like the originals? We think you’re brilliant!” My three
colleagues saw the reaction I was having on the guests and furthermore wanted to be part of the show.
It was at this point that I knew that I didn’t have a job. I had a way of life. Previously all I was interested in was making money and feathering my nest. Here I began to notice that I was having an effect on people. The four of us were helping people to enjoy themselves. For me personally, that was reward in itself. Ok, the money was there but it wasn’t the be all and end all. We lived in a five star hotel all-inclusive food wise and were appreciated by the guests. They were demanding though. Even at mealtimes we were never
off duty. We soon became accustomed to the phrase “I know you’re not working, but can I just ask you a question?” With a smile, we always responded, “No problem. How can I help you?” I don’t think I ever had a non-interrupted meal in the ten months that that I spent in Almunicar.