THE PERSONAL TOUCH
In an increasingly computerised age of faceless exchanges, where we feel like nothing but a number, a little bit of care and attention goes a long way
When you come from a country swarming with snakes, crocodiles and poisonous spiders, it’s not usual to be scared of cows. But I am in England. With a dear English friend. We’re walking along a coastal path with the sea on one side and wheat fields on the other. There’s a dozen cows grazing on the track in front of us.
“Oh bugger,” she says. “We’ll have to cross down through the field.”
I stare at her incredulously. My friend is a war reporter, but here she is, showing uncharacteristic caution over a few bumbling Herefords.
“Actually, they’re Red Polls,” she says knowledgeably. “And people are trampled to death by cows all the time.”
I consider my recently lapsed life insurance and abandon my fruitless attempts to shoo them away.
We head off the path and through the field. It starts to rain. Torrentially. Sheets and sheets of water, as if the nearby North Sea had been up-ended on our heads. The sweet hand-drawn map we’d taken from the hotel is soon soggy. And we’re lost. Properly, properly lost.
An hour-and-a-half later we finally arrive back at the hotel so wet if you wrung us out you could fill a bath. The owner is beside herself with relief.
“I came out in the car to look for you,” she says. “I drove down all the lanes trying to find you.”
I was poleaxed by her motherly concern. But it wasn’t confined to disaster management. For the next 48 hours this lovely woman, who runs a “restaurant with rooms” in a tiny corner of Suffolk, reminds us what care and attention and personal service is all about.
In a world increasingly automated and stripped of the human touch, Ruth has created a place where people (and dogs) are all that matter; where service is not some haphazard afterthought, but a sign of pride and civility.
Wearied by shopping centres that are a facsimile of the next, by airlines that won’t even pour you a cup of water unless you pay for it and by algorithms that deliver what they think you want, Ruth’s establishment offers charm, care and proficiency.
I’m making her sound Victorian and chintzy. In fact she’s a force of nature — fierce, blonde and hilarious. Mobile phones are banned from her dining room on the grounds — according to the notes in the room — that she finds their “use on what should be a social occasion completely intolerable”.
Drugs can be refrigerated if necessary — “legal ones, not crack cocaine”. Loo brushes are available from reception but not left in the guest bathrooms “because they are not objects of beauty”. The last time a hotelier made me laugh so much was Basil Fawlty.
She may have an aversion to technology, but did I mention how much she loves dogs? She has room for their food in her hotel fridges, and water bowls outside.
A table near the fireplace is earmarked for furry friends and anyone with a wet pooch is encouraged to pick up extra towels from reception. Especially if they have a spaniel whose flappy ears have a high mud-spatter factor.
Good service has always been a careful balance of confidence and deference, but as life becomes more homogenised and goods and services seem to slip from a conveyor belt rather than human hands, we’ll increasingly seek out more personalised and idiosyncratic experiences like the one offered by Ruth.
After our drenching my lovely friend and I enjoyed a glass of wine in the lounge.
We told Ruth’s delightful waiter we’d like something dry and preferably European on the grounds I drink Australian tipples at home.
“Here you go,” he said, placing a glass of something French and delicious in front of us.
“If you don’t like it I’ll find you something else.” Incredibly, he’d even filled the glass — an act of generosity that shames the quarter-filled nonsense that now passes for a ($15) glass of wine in our capital cities.
Then he handed us a menu notable not only for its appeal but also its wit.
“We keep a spare set of spectacles in case you have forgotten your own” it noted, pointing out that if you’d forgotten your own you wouldn’t be able to read such a kind offer anyway. Guests were encouraged to ask for something cooked more plainly or even a favourite dish.
“Much is possible!” read the menu, a far cry from those that forbid shared bills, tweaking of dishes or meat cooked to your liking.
Needless to say the food was the best I’ve eaten in years — not in that poncey way of places that boast hats and stars, but because it was created with thought, love and a human touch.
As businesses become more about massproduced anonymous provision, we will desire this kind of bespoke experience where we are not a number, but a name. In the end Ruth couldn’t rescue us from the rain. But it was enough knowing she tried to.