Get me out of here ... Ruth Watson in St Leonards-on-Sea
Last night Five, probably unwittingly, had a bit of a theme night. In How to Be a Property Developer, the rubbish (but very well-groomed) wannabe developers Dan and Dan bought a one-bed flat in Hastings and, predictably, spent far too much time and money turning it into... a one-bed flat in Hastings. Straight afterwards saw the return of The Hotel Inspector, in which the no-nonsense and never knowingly punch-pulling Ruth Watson attempted to turn around the fortunes of the not-at-all Grand Hotel, in St Leonards-on-Sea - the, er, Hove of Hastings. Or at least I like to think so, because I live there.
It's always slightly disorientating seeing the place you live on the telly, especially for two hours when it's not looking its best. As rain whipped the seafront and Ruth Watson peered up at The Grand's peeling façade wearing her bad-smell expression, I felt unexpectedly defensive. I don't love St. Leonards (yet) - don't even think of it as "home" - but I have lived here for the past two-and-a-half years, which counts for something.
Watson runs a delightful small hotel called The Crown and Castle in Orford, Suffolk. I stayed there for a few nights about five years ago and it's fair to say it is everything The Grand is not, but Orford, pretty and twee, is a long way from Slennards in every conceivable way.
I walk past The Grand often, and can confirm that it was a grimy, tacky, eccentric mess, run by Peter, an irritating, pompous, self-aggrandizing "character" of the sort who very often find their natural home among the flotsam and jetsam in faded seaside towns. (Yeah, OK, I know what I just did there ...). Given that Peter vacillated between loathing Watson and loathing her even more, the results of his makeover were suspiciously successful.
Having been sent by the production team to stay in a modern "budget hotel" in "nearby Bournemouth" (Bournemouth is 128 miles from St. Leonards), Peter returned inspired by visions of matching towels and "a nice hospitality tray", repainting his façade egg-yolk yellow and de-cluttering the public spaces of sordid bric-a-brac. The result was... modern(ish), clean(ish), reasonably habitable (there's something particularly depressing to me about hotel room wastepaper bins lined with old plastic bags) and his gratitude was palpable. Watson, on the other hand, couldn't get away fast enough. I know that feeling.
