The heartless letter that trashed thirty years of fond memories

where to go or what to do and there’s a virus going around. I have camping gear so I will camp in the forest but I don’t know what my colleagues are going to do because they are in the same situation as me, with less resources than me. Some of them only have around £200 in the bank, so they are at risk.”

Camping in a tent. In the Cairngorms. In March.

Thankfully, human decency began to prevail and former Coylumbridge employees were soon being offered accommodation from other hotel ownersow in the area. Ones who, presumably,pre did not have hearts madema of corrugated iron.

OfO course, back when I stayed there, the the Coylumbridge wasn’t owned ow by the Britannia Group, who bought bou the hotel in January 2019.

Interestingly, In 2019 was the same year that Britannia topped the Which? Wh magazine list of Britain’s Worst Wor Hotel Chains for a stunning SEVENTH SEV YEAR RUNNING.

Guest Gu complaints ranged from finding find unflushed poo in their rooms room to dead pigeons rotting outside outs their windows and Britannia was 101 times more likely to be rated poor for cleanliness than any other hotel group by guests surveyed. It was ggiven one-star ratings in almost every category and an overall score of 39 per cent.

So perhaps it was no surprise that Britannia was now treating its ememployees like it seems to treat manmany of its customers.

WhenWh I tried to call Britannia for a comment for this piece, I was shunted shun around several phone numbers numb before a woman started shouting shou at me, refused to let me speak spea to anyone and gave me an email emai address that didn’t work.

Eventually,Ev the company released a statement state that appeared to distance it from the contents of the letter: “With regards to the current situation regarding staff at our Coylumbridge Hotel and being asked to vacate their staff accommodation, unfortunately, the communication sent to these employees was an administrative error. All affected employees are being immediately contacted. We apologise for any upset caused.”

However, when pushed on whether staff would be reinstated, the spokeswoman added: “I cannot comment, unfortunately, and it is not just Britannia Hotels – staff in many businesses are being temporarily laid off and every support is being given.”

There you have it. It was an “admin error”. They just told loads of people they were fired and to get off the premises by mistake.

So we can choose to believe this and conclude that Britannia Group are simply incredibly incompetent.

Or we can choose to not believe it. In which case, it would be easy – and natural – to jump to the following conclusion: “To hell with those heartless scumbags Britannia Hotel Group and I hope their business sinks without trace after this is all over.”

But that doesn’t really help any of their employees.

Let’s hope that the enormous public humiliation Britannia is going to have to endure today will be enough to shame them into treating their staff better tomorrow.