Gary - The New.
Since the earliest of times, whether it be the first member of staff employed by Adam and Eve to help clean up all the animal droppings and collect the apples to make scrumpy from - or Moses trying to get decent carpenters to help him build a floating zoo - to present day attempts by the worlds ( so called ) richest nation to find a decent and competant President - staff have always been the making - or the breaking - of any establishment. Slaves were fabulous - No holiday pay - No sick pay - Worked 7 days a week - called you Sir and did what thet were told.
Wives were once a good source of slave labour - begatting and then raising your children with no wage, no identity and no rights.
But sadly slaves don't stick around for long and some people assume it is wrong to own slaves, so we have to give them rights and all those things mentioned above, like sick pay - and freedom.
It's just so 21st century.
This is NOT Gary pictured here...> I don't want to frighten you too soon...
Many years ago a big private company with 20 staff - the owner and I were chatting and he told me that when you run your own business you can only expect the maximum of 20% from a staff member, as they will never share your passion and drive and will always be clock watching for ' home time' and really would rather not be there - and all their thoughts are about getting the hell out fo there and going home, and at the end of the day after they leave, you as the owner still have hours and hours of work which they never see - or understand and show no appreciation of how hard self employed people work.
If you have aways been employed by someone else - then you truly have absolutely no idea how hard being the boss / manager or the owner - can be.
How many think about running a bar in Spain - as they have holidayed and they have sat at the bar and giggled the night away and now buy a bar to loose everything within one year, have nervous breakdowns and end up shattered and broke and all for a fantasy that was not quite as they thought.
This is so common and hundreds of people have done this to loose everything.
I owned and ran a hotel back in the 70's and sold it to family members connected to the ' Curry's' family - 3 people who told me that a hotel runs itself - and while I told them it did not and that they would be working 18 hours a day from April to October - ALL THREE had breakdowns and lost everything , going bankrupt within 5 months - employing staff to do everything and doing nothing yourself - is your profit gone, and these foolish people - all with some kind of mental health - thought the hotel would look after and house them safely and the staff would run the place with no input by them - like being in a care home, and how wrong they were.
The hotel closed and was re sold and has remained empty for the last 40 years - derelict.
Hamilton Hall is no different.
We have had Dumb and Dumber here, 2 special needs grown men who I thought might - combined - work as one - but besides being appalling workers, one evening got crudely drunk and eneded up shitting and vomiting all over the place and in front of customers and were fired the very next morning and after months trying to help these two morons, was told top ' Fuck off you cunt' at the end of it, and I came close to hitting the pair of them. The more you show concern and the more you try and help, the more it is resented and thrown in your face and the two struggled big time after they left here - BIG TIME - but not my concern any more.
I know what you are thinking ... ' Poor John...'
We have also had a French man working here for a while who I also fired on the spot one time and threw his arrogant condescending asshole out of here on the spot - ( what is it about some French that is just so fucking arrogant ) and another Lithuanian man, who was such a sweet gentle giant and someone I would dearly have loved to have stay on but in a different role - if I had had a huge estate - but his memory could not remember even the simple things like how to lay the dinner table, how to lock up at night and even how to sort the Laundry Cupboard and this meant a great deal extra work for me checking all the time and sadly he had to go as well, as it kills me - I have my own work - and cannot take on someone elses especially when they are paid to do precisely that.
I have also had some superb staff who stay for years and become part of the place, like a fixture and fitting.
Dale decades ago was here for 3 years and only left after his boyfriend - who moved in latterly as he was diagnosed with cancer of the throat and he stayed with us here at Hamiltoin Hall free of charge until he died - and Dale left as he couldnt stay - the memories etc. were too painful for him.
Christian, he was the one we found out after he appeared in the TV programme '3 IN A BED' with me - and the daft moron should have guessed that as he was on the run from the police, someone might see him on telly and report him to the police and they may come and investigate and - as he was wanted for identity fraud - ( all unbeknown to us ) he went back on the run again and vanished off never to be heard of again.
You couldn't write this could you ...
David was an Essex boy and was here with me the longest - 4 years - and only left during the Covid Pandemic as he had a family loss which crushed him and he left to start anew - to start healing and start moving on - and he went with our biggest and bestest hugs and best wishes for the fiuture. It was like the end of an era. The inbetween staff time is always a frightening time wondering what the fuck you are going to be sent by the universe next, and after so many ups and downs - so many good and so many awful - it is a concern. It's not just choosing the correct staff member from those who apply - it's the choice offered that is sometimes so limiting and many apply for all the wrong reasons and that does not help.
Some think it is a summer job, lots of sex, lots of fun and lots of excitement, when it is actually work - long hours, hard work and is not the fantasy many assume it to be.
Gary. He started middle of January 2021 and although employed unseen - just interviewed through e mail, I was holding my breath and crossing everything I had and hoping for the best and it seems, my prayers were answered.
Some people you meet and instantly you have a rapore. Like friends straight away. Same humour. Similar likes and dislikes and where both know how fabulous I am ( ha ha ) and Gary is perfect.
Having been the manager of several much larger Premier Inn Hotels - ( but we won't hold that against him - no one is perfect ) he is well experienced in hospitality and works hard and is really excited to be here and cannot wait to open and be a part of something special: - No not me - although I have to say --- er no --- I mean Hamilton Hall --- and our guests...
It was his suggestion we started redecorating and redoing various aspects - and because of his interest - mine was reserected and we have been working long and hard and repainting and re-wall papering and re building and re doing and re vamping and I am running out or words that start with re --- but whetever there is - we have been re doing it.
( WTF ??? )
Because of my love for the TV programme ' Escape to the Chateau '
and we have learned some new crafts and have applied some of those into Hamilton Hall and it has been fun.
Back to Gary: He is from Doncaster - which he says is 'Sunny Doncaster' - although I say it is somewhere ' up north ' and having been a Malteser - and I don't mean crunchy on the inside and brown and sweet on the outside, I mean he lived and worked in Malta - he has had a colourful past with many interesting jobs, places lived and experiences learned, and all vital to making a man with a past - a past that makes him an interesting person in the present and unlike so many on the LGBTQ scene who have no stories to tell and resent those of us that do - he has enough stories to compete with me ( well - not really but ... ) and is never dull chatting - and suddenly another little gem appears and leaves me looking at him with big question marks floating above my head - as I look on in amusement and interest - as it is always so good to meet someone who has done something with their lives, been places, seen things, learned and grown and who has a voice of their own and not someone who just repeats what is on telly - and he has his own opinions - and he is a very good compliment to myself - with his own mind and his own voice and his own opinions and his own considerations on what makes the world tick - and the only negative thing is how he pronounced grass and bath differently to me, but then, we will soon teach him to speak Posh English and not that northern stuff that sounds like a commercial for Yorkshore Tea... or an internet connection...
' That'll do.'
I've also let him win a few times at Scrabble, just so he can feel - sort of - more equal to us southerners who - well - naturally - are supreme beings - and that story of how northerners are more friendly than southerners has yet to be proven... but as a supreme being I have to make allowances and learn the ways of others so it is me who is learning new words and phrases from ' up north' and I think my teaching him southern ways - has somewhat faltered and I am starting to look at mushy peas with new eyes - eating fish and chips out of newspaper with curry gravy - saying things like ' eee by gum lad' and - well - I am becoming concerned that the north is taking over the south - and after David left - the Essex boy where I learned to speak ' Essex Talk ' ( they only have a few words words in Essex with more than one sylable and more than 4 letters ) - now it appears I am to become tri lingual - as what with my BBC British - Essex talk and now I am almost fluent in northern.
Who'd have thought chuck ?
So there you are. If I can find a picture of Gary that doesn't frighten too many children - and if I can show it on here for yawl ( oh more northers creeping in there - did you get it ??? ) and see what I can offer. Brutal dear - that's how I would describe his look, with a big facial scar ( no not round his neck with a bolt on both sides ) and a wonderful friendly smile that reaches his eyes and is genuine, ( unlike so many vacuous faggots whose insincerity shows in their face ) he loves it here and I am thrilled to have him. I can relax and know the venue is in good hands if and when I am out or away and no, the answer to the one question I have always been asked and is always the same . NO - I do not have sex or a relationship with my staff / companion / PA / assistant - we are friends and sex would ruin that relationship, so No, we don't - although I see it in his eyes, the desire, the wanting, the desperation of finding perfection with easy reach and yet - so far. It's probably something those from ' up north' are raise with, you know, it's in their DNA, to want to be like us southerners, to sound and look and dress and imitate the very thing they so admire and worship.
You know, to talk posh like what I do.
( Oh God - northern is taking over... aaahhh )
So welcome Gary - welcome to Hamilton Hall and welcome to our regulars who I am sure are going to love him as they did David and Dale and the many others before and all the rest - good or bad - as all have helped and all have been here and all have added a little of themselves and all gave us a story and a memory worth keeping and that - my friends - is life.
We take the ups
and we take the downs
and we move on with life
as there is no other way but ahead.
This is not a time when we get back to the old ways now the pandemic is coming to a close,.
This is a ReBirth as we all enter a new age, a new beginning and a new start for us all.
Renevatio - Latin for ReBirth.
That new start for Hamiltoin Hall is saying Goodbye with love to David - and welcome Gary with friendship and better Scrabble scores in future..
John Bellamy
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