Hotelier who hosted Mrs Thatcher and Arthur Scargill
George Goring 1938-2020
George Goring, who has died aged 81, took over the family business in the 1960s, and proceeded to turn the Goring Hotel, in London’s Belgravia, into one of the finest in the capital. His German-born grandfather, Otto Richard Goring, had opened the hotel in 1910, with central heating and a bathroom for every bedroom – a world-first. But his father, Otto Gustave, had not kept up the standards. When he took the helm, George gave the hotel a much-needed refurbishment, said The Times – and a spark of eccentricity. A mischievous man, he reacted to being told that, owing to its calm atmosphere, the hotel had a “country house feel” by filling it with fluffy wooden sheep. Over the years, it became so famous for its flock that during the foot and mouth epidemic in 2001, American visitors rang up to ask if they’d be safe staying there.
The Queen Mother once remarked that the
Goring was “just over the garden wall”. She was a regular visitor, as was her elder daughter. During successive coronations, the hotel had been used to put up so many foreign royals, it was known as the “annex”; and it was where the Duchess of Cambridge stayed the night before her wedding, in 2011. But the Goring had always attracted a range of guests: during the Second World War (when it was used to accommodate Polish servicemen) Winston Churchill held meetings with Allied leaders in the Silver Room; in the Swinging Sixties, Jean Shrimpton caused a stir by turning up in one of the first miniskirts; Margaret Thatcher had her own table in the dining room (she was particularly keen on the beef Wellington); and during the miners’ strike, Arthur Scargill popped in for lunch after meetings at the nearby National Coal Board.
George Ernest Goring was born in room 114 of the hotel in 1938, along with his identical twin Richard. They were known as Goring 1 and Goring 2, and when they were sent to Cheltenham, their teachers found them so hard to tell apart, they were both beaten when one of them misbehaved. George described his schooling as Victorian, and his father as a “despot” and a “real tough bastard”, so it came as something of a surprise to the family that he grew up to have such a free spirit, said The Daily Telegraph. When he got older, he was groomed to take over the Goring, while his twin was given responsibility for The Spa Hotel in Tunbridge Wells. George went to hotel school, and learnt the ropes at hotels in Edinburgh and St Ives. It was in St Ives that he met his wife, Penny: she ran a riding school across the road. They had two children. He started work at the Goring in 1961, and remained in charge until 2005, when he handed the building’s original keys to his son, Jeremy. “There will always be a Goring at the Goring,” he said.
Away from the hotel, he was known for his fearlessness on horseback: he was a keen steeplechaser. He also loved the sea, and travelled extraordinary distances in a rigid inflatable called Bugsy Malone, once getting as far as Lisbon. He broke countless bones riding, and there were accidents at sea too – but they never seemed to dent his joie de vivre. He was, his son once said, just great fun to be around. “When Dad is in the room, you know everyone is going to have a good time.”