hotel hiraeth

 

Oh for a few days in a grand creaky old hotel in the mountains. But many are long gone, if they were ever there at all. Some I’ve visited, some I’d like to, and others are no more. Of those remaining, my favourites are neither chic nor shabby, but maybe a little frayed, and all the better for that. It’s called character. Thick stone walls, large log fires and heavy curtains cosset against a cold outdoors both bleak and beautiful. Those in Britain are often former farmhouses or drovers’ inns, family-run, relatively remote and take pride in personal service and hearty food. Menus are short and so is the choice of beverages. I recall asking for the wine list in one such establishment many years ago. “You can have red or white” came the answer. Life was simpler then. Elsewhere, even the good old three-course meal has had its chips, replaced by the minimalism of tapas or tasting menus, or paradoxically by a “tyranny of choice”. Sometimes more is less.

What some call progress is clearly the prerogative of the proprietors, so I’m not really entitled to complain. The customer is right no longer. Yet in many cases the owners are distant investors who seem intent on running the businesses down. I won’t dignify the organisations by naming them here. You may have heard of them anyway. Some no longer provide hospitality to the lone traveller, to couples or small groups, having become exclusive wedding venues, places of corporate hospitality or converted into timeshare apartments. Worse still, impersonalised by equity firms, asset strippers or chancers, others are now little more than unstaffed hostels with shared kitchens and minimal upkeep, if any. 

The financial press will no doubt explain it like this: 

“Leisure has seen some resilience, despite revenue hiccups room-wise. It was impacted by tough comparatives last year and a hike in labour outlay. Others are wising up to the opportunity, fuelling an uptick in acquisition events”.

Indeed, acquisition is all, whatever the rest of the paragraph means, in gobbledegook redolent of that fictitious business correspondent “Collaterlie Sisters” in TV news satire The Day Today. Whatever it’s all about has little to do with taking pride and pleasure in providing hospitality, and shakes my naïve faith in people’s dedication across the “service sector”.  I mistakenly thought all in the care industry really cared, that lawyers believed in justice or that clergy upheld morality and inclusiveness.  But I also know of those who with passion, hard work and little money, have started restoring old hotels to something of their former glory, often one room at a time, bolstered by the appreciation of their guests. A couple of bedrooms at first, then the bar, finally the dining room. I have to be patient. 

The concepts of Hiraeth and Shangri La transcend borders today, and are almost synonymous. The former yearns for the latter, representing idyllic places and times that maybe never were. Shangri La meets Abercuawg. A cursory scroll through travel pages found many hotels and other holiday accommodation with the name Hiraeth. And these are not exclusively in Cymru. I found others in America, Australia, Greece, India, the Maldives and New Zealand. I’m sure there are many more. Shangri La features much more frequently. Aside from numerous small independent inns, the name is used by a global chain of one hundred hotels. Hiraeth too has been appropriated by a leisure group. The words evoke destinations longed-for in themselves.

Thankfully some of my favourite mountain lodgings are still there, from Capel Curig to Darjeeling, Wasdale to Wester Ross. Is it too much to hope that they never change? If they do, I can still appreciate a mountain view at home. I’m lucky enough to create something of the feel of these old hotels through their subliminal influence on my domestic surroundings; unintentionally, unplanned but maybe more so than I’d realised. And like me, they're getting a bit creaky. 

LINKS 

The Tyranny of Choice by Renata Salecl – review | Society books | The Guardian

Luxury Hotels and Resorts | Official Site Shangri-La Hotels and Resorts

Where Is Shangri-La?

The Day Today - Wikipedia

Levelled up?

Austerity for the many. Tasting menus for the few. And for the aspirational.