Big Dave, the royal host with the most!
Gloriously flamboyant, exquisitely tailored and a larger than life personality — no wonder the Queen adores ...
THE Queen could have been forgiven for feeling a bit discombobulated when she left her staff Christmas party at a hotel in London’s Belgravia this week. Not that she would have been put out by the drunken interloper who darted through the hotel doors and had to be forcibly removed just as she sat down for lunch.
No, the reason could have been that for once in her life, as she was escorted down the hotel’s marble steps and waved off into her Bentley, all eyes and, indeed, camera lenses were not focused solely on her.
But why would they, when her protector and chaperone, 54–year-old David Morgan-Hewitt, looked so arresting with his blue gingham shirt, cerise tie, bespoke double-breasted suit, flamboyant silk handkerchief and, er, largerthan-life physical presence?
Indeed, the minute pictures were published of the teeny Queen and enormous but impeccably dressed David on the pavement, chatting and smiling, then bidding farewell, the internet carried a stream of comments and endless wonderment.
It was not at the Queen’s pretty-in-pink look. What wowed them was Big Dave’s fabulously dapper appearance and equally impressive girth under that beautiful suit.
The photos were published in newspapers and popped up on Facebook and Twitter. Radio 2’s Jeremy Vine tweeted: ‘I knew this gentleman at university. He was a big character back then.’
So let’s put some flesh on the bones (sorry!) of the Queen’s knight in blue gingham.
Who is he, where does he come from — and how does he maintain such wondrous, authoritative calm in a crisis?
MORGAN-HEWITT, known fondly as ‘Big Dave’, ‘Camp David’ (on account of his flamboyant manner) and, less fondly to some, as ‘Morgan Hugegit’, is the Durham-educated history graduate who is the goring Hotel’s world-famous, awardwinning, awesomely dedicated managing director.
He knows everyone who is anyone and has been pictured beaming next to celebrity guests as diverse as comedian Paul o’grady, lyricist Sir Tim Rice, Princess alexandra, actress June Whitfield and the late Baroness Thatcher.
He is loud, colourful, eccentric and known to break into spontaneous song. occasionally, he will surprise staff in the hotel restaurant with his rousing falsetto. In his own time, fuelled by champagne and port, he has been known to belt out Rule, Britannia! — a royalist to the core.
But he is also, by every account, astonishingly good at his job and impressively discreet when it comes to his guests’ affairs.
Which is presumably at least partly why the Middleton family chose the goring Hotel as their family base for Kate and Wills’s wedding in 2011, after David had sent a message asking the Palace if there was anything the hotel could do to help.
The resultant explosion of publicity — at one stage 2.2 billion people had their eyes glued, via international television, on his establishment’s front door — transformed the profile of the hotel.
It was also on his watch that, in 2013, the goring became the first hotel to be granted a royal warrant of appointment to Her Majesty the Queen for hospitality services.
In fact, most things have happened under his watch, for David has been at the goring for more than 25 years — the bulk (if you’ll forgive the word) of his career.
His commitment is legendary — and he isn’t the sort to do anything by half, either on duty or off. Each of the hotel’s 69 bedrooms and suites has had a £100,000 makeover in recent years, and it now boasts gains-borough silks (used in royal palaces throughout Europe) on the walls, and handpainted silk linings on the backs of wardrobes. Scarlet-liveried footmen are everywhere.
He is just as committed to style at the handsome £2million West London home that he shares with an old Durham University friend, Paul Dickinson.
The front windows may look out on a council estate but inside it is all baroque luxury — lavish antiques, grand piano, gorgeous sunken garden, an extensive fine wine collection and an even larger stock of Penhaligon’s fragrances.
‘It’s as camp as Christmas,’ says one visitor, ‘and all a bit “Uncle Monty”.’ (the flamboyant character played by the late Richard griffiths in the film Withnail and I).
The goring’s managing director likewise cares deeply about his appearance, even though he might present his tailor with a challenge.
David is always impeccably dressed and admits spending ‘thousands’ on his suits. Refreshingly, he seems almost to revel in his size.
an avowed gastronome, he maintains his figure with the help of expensive wines. Then, of course, there are the temptations of superb three-course meals and pretty much anything from the hotel restaurant — boeuf en croute (beef in pastry), a treat from the famous carving trolley, a full English with home-made sausages, black pudding, smoked bacon, two eggs, the lot.
If he’s in a hurry, he keeps hunger at bay with a handful of cold bacon squashed between two bits of toast, wolfed down on the hop (with a vast white linen napkin tucked in at the throat, to protect his sartorial perfection).
as to his exact weight, we can only guess wildly at what the scales might read.
EIGHT years ago, when he was said to be 20 stone, he was reported champagne? to be huffing and puffing at a lavish Bollinger-fuelled 150th anniversary dinner at Tate Britain. What was the cause of his ire: substandard food? Inadequately chilled
No, he was worried that the flimsy stackable chairs on offer wouldn’t support his ample frame. He preferred three chairs to one, as he crossly demonstrated to awestruck diners — one to take the central load, with another on either side for extra support.
But that was then. as the photographs of him in clinches with the great, the good and the famous — and, orchestrating events at the Royal Wedding — reveal, he has expanded considerably during recent years.
as a 14-year-old, David watched a television programme about a german hotel, was ‘instantly transfixed’ and decided then and there that hotels would be his life. It was a yearning strengthened when he read an article about Willy Bauer, then general manager of The Savoy.
His father was less keen and
packed him off to Cambridge to study law. David loathed it and ended up reading history at Durham (with Jeremy Vine) and working in hotels in the holidays.
He started at the Goring in December 1990 and was so exhausted, he spent every evening soaking his aching feet in salt water.
Twenty-six years later, he has seen it all. The Queen Mother loved the hotel and was forever dropping in to entertain the racing novelist Dick Francis, commentator Peter O’Sullevan and other racing pals over a gin and Dubonnet or a reviving dry martini. The late Baroness Thatcher, John Major and Tony Blair are all fans, along with showbiz royalty and, of course, real royals.
David is proud that everyone at the Goring receives the same excellent service, whether they are staying in an £850-a-night suite, have just popped in for a toastie and mineral water, or are the Queen.
He adores his job so much that he spends every holiday visiting other top hotels in London and around the world, measuring up the competition and enjoying the rival service.
‘I’m never happier than when I’m in the lobby of a hotel,’ he once said. ‘I love watching the staff, I love watching the guests and I love the feel of the place.’ He works hard, is a stickler for detail and loathes music in restaurants.
‘The wonderful sounds of guests chatting away, silver knives tapping the finest English china and everyone enjoying a really wonderful meal — that is the only music a restaurant needs.’
But rumours suggest that Big Dave’s reign may be coming to an end. Apparently, he is selling his London home and moving to a big house in Wells, Somerset, which he has bought and is doing up in customary style. The Goring without Big Dave? That’s a distressing thought, because he is an institution.
Over the years he has dealt with everything — including marauding foxhounds that ran wild in the hotel’s glorious garden and wolfed canapes while Baroness Thatcher and fellow Tory bon viveur Nicholas Soames looked alarmed; drunken businesswomen swaying naked at the top of the hotel’s main staircase, and over-refreshed men trying to tear down a risqué Victorian picture from a loo wall.
Not to mention welcoming the entire Middleton clan for the duration of the Royal Wedding, causing the hotel’s website to crash under the impact of five million visitors.
So a mere drunken intruder in a grubby grey tracksuit, muttering ‘I’m Irish, I’m hard as f***’ will not have disturbed him one iota.