The joints do not jump, the fare is formidably uneven. But – for twenty-four hours, at any rate – Malcolm Gluck is sensible to Bournemouth’s old-fashioned charms
Illustrated by Bob Wilson

The surrounding climate is thoroughly wet. Training it through the New Forest – as inundated as swampland after two days of incessant downpour – the stunted ponies look like suburban garden statues: stiff, slightly shocked, ceramic creamybrown in colour.
Arrive at the Miramar Hotel in Bournemouth. A player piano is belting out sweet custardy music. A bevy of geriatric ladies, exquisitely turned out, are finishing lunch in a side room. An old lady up a metal ladder is pinning up Christmas decorations. Fawlty Towers looms large. The receptionist cannot find my reservation. I hear another tell someone on the phone ‘a sea-view room is ten pounds.’ My reservation is found. I go to my room. Surely that receptionist meant ‘another ten pounds’?

  In any event, I have my own ten quid’s worth of sea view: the view of that cement-coloured sea D H Lawrence loathed and was so happy to leave. It is mottled in the rain (which I hope will desist as I plan to walk along those cliffs).
  

I descend to the reception area. Shall I eat here? Can I eat at a place called the Miramar – Sea Views Ten Pounds? The menu is not promising. Who eats a ‘chilled melon boat served with a raspberry sorbet’ as a starter? The wine list has no vintage dates appended (always a sign of a sloppy establishment catering to people who care little for food – though they might care a lot about eating).
I ask for a map at reception. They have none, which convinces me that this is not so much a hotel but more a retirement home where everyone knows the route to the local cemetery. Still, it makes me feel young to be amongst these folk.

In the town centre I see two diehards shoplifting sandwiches by the simple expedient of one of the men pushing the plastic-wrapped food inside the back of the other’s jacket as they loiter by the display. As they emerge from the shop, I follow them. They sit down and eat and afterwards carefully throw their wrappers in a bin. I stroll over and see if the bin might contain a notice ‘For Shop Lifters’ Use Only’. It doesn’t. A man wearing clothes so loose they appear to have dropped on him from a great height by parachute comes up to me as I move along.
  ‘Which way is Smiths mate?’
  ‘I know Smith. I don’t know his mate.’

He looks at me open-mouthed, revealing badly stained teeth. ‘Just around the curve down the hill, on the right,’ I tell him, relenting. He nods and goes down the hill. Not another word out of him. Strange mixture of manners this town is exhibiting.
I decide to have Earl Grey at the Royal Bath Hotel. This is where I should have stayed and probably would have done had I left matters in the hands of my publisher instead of trying to find somewhere quaint myself. What a fool I am.
The Royal Bath, I discover, is Bournemouth’s first hotel, built in 1839.

A charming French girl from Lille serves me tea and biscuits. The room is free of old ladies, tinsel and muzak, the atmosphere marred only by a repulsive American who uses his mobile phone with brutal clarity. The wine list has a decent selection of wines by the glass and some not entirely despicable burgundies. I decide to book a table for dinner here, and order a bottle of the old Vouvray on the wine list. I pay for the bottle, giving explicit instructions that it must be decanted immediately and kept cool for 9 pm when I will return, after my book-signing, to find something to eat with it.

I stroll down to the bookshop and strut my stuff for two hours. A man from the local newspaper says to me, as I leave the shop, ‘More people have come to see you tonight, in the rain, than came to see the Christmas lights switched on on Sunday – and we had fireworks.’ Humbled by this, I beat my retreat.

  I am shown to my table at the hotel and I find that the Vouvray has not been decanted. The bottle, unopened, is lying in a bucket. I report my dissatisfaction to the flunkey. He responds grandly.

  ‘I’m the restaurant manager. This wine does not require decanting.’
  ‘Yet I gave explicit instructions it was to be. Why were they ignored?’
  ‘A wine like this … doesn’t …’ Oh damn. I’m not going to have a row with this imbecile. The Vouvray is fine to drink of course, but I’d wanted it finer. His officiousness has robbed me of that pleasure. And entirely because he was an ignoramus, or rather had a little knowledge which is worse. Doubtless his catering course instructed him that white wines do not need decanting.
  I order red mullet and Dover sole. Who can screw those up? The mullet is not bad, with a perfectly cooked potato salad with chives. The wine with the dish is as good as these things get, the liquid and the chives getting on splendidly and making a perfect fit. The sole is far from fresh and, I suspect, defrosted before cooking. I ask for it on the bone but it comes beheaded – always the sign of a previously frozen beast. The wine resents the mediocrity of the fish but is gracious enough not to make too much fuss. I am enjoying myself. The Jersey Royals have the soul the sole lacks. The cheese menu is a surprise. I can choose from Flower Marie (ewes’ milk), Denhay Dorset Drum, Wigmore (ewes’), Goldencrown (goats’). I opt for Shropshire Blue with the wine. What a wine! It weathers it all! Even a ripe Shropshire Blue. Dinner has passed in congenial company.

The Miramar Hotel when I reach it after a walk up the hill is not exactly jumping but various ancient bodies are crawling into vehicles, and in the bar, two people are fast asleep. I go to my room, open the window, listen to the sea, read a book, fall asleep. Not bad for ten quid.
  The next morning, I take a kipper with the Guardian. Both are an acquired taste and both require bones to be spat out. I can now appreciate why a sea-view room is only ten quid. Only three people seem to be staying at the hotel which probably boasts fifty rooms.
  Entertaining old couple at next table. The waitress comes up and wishes them good morning for the second time (having already done it once as they entered the dining room).
  ‘Bonjour,’ says the man, wearily. The wife looks irritated, then sympathetic, then resigned. They order tea. ‘Eggs. Poached. I think,’ says the wife dreamily, consulting the breakfast menu card. ‘Oeufs pochés,’ mutters the man. The wife sighs. Tea arrives. The waitress strikes a heroic pose to take their order. ‘Poached eggs and bacon please,’ says the woman. ‘Fried eggs for me, and sausage and bacon.’ These things arrive in a twinkle. I lift up my head from the Guardian crossword and my kipper debris and the couple are already tucking in. ‘Can we have brown toast? And butter?’ calls the woman. ‘Beurre,’ mutters the man. The wife takes a deep breath. It is a tribute to the mildness of the climate this does not kill her immediately. Outside, the sun makes a brave, very British stab at shining.
  The bloke is still practising his French when I retire to the lounge to write these notes and finish the crossword. The chatter of the Miramar’s young staff is constant as I attempt these chores. No guest here must feel he or she is paying for anything. Surely this is a catering training centre for delinquents and we its guinea pigs?
  The fire alarm goes off with a series of ear-piercing wails. The staff cavort about in delight (doubtless at the thought of all the old gentlemen still abed who will be falling out of their pyjamas). I clamber into my cab to the railway station, thinking I have been privileged, in the manner of those intrepid anthropologists who discover a new tribe or a threatened species, to have enjoyed twentyfour hours in Bournemouth and discovered a side of Englishness I imagined had disappeared by 1939.

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