Search just our sites by using our customised search engine

Unique Cottages | Electric Scotland's Classified Directory

Click here to get a Printer Friendly PageSmiley

The Edinburgh Balmoral


Bob Cunningham still possesses a photograph of the huge "Brigade Culinaire", taken in 1933, which shows a strictly ordered society, with M. Favage fixed firmly in the centre. It had not changed much when Jackie Monteith started as an apprentice making today's tartare sauce from yesterday's mayonnaise and wearing a borrowed white coat because he couldn't afford to buy one out of his week's wage of 7s 6d. He thought he would not stay longer than the first week. "I had never heard so much shouting". But the excitement of the place grew on him, he discovered a leaning for the work, he enjoyed the artistry involved in creating fantasy. Most of all he liked the camaraderie and bustle in the kitchen. "It was busy, busy - like King's Cross Station".

What all the staff remember with pride is the training provided by the North British, a legacy from the old railway company which was to be handed on by the nationalised transport hotel group. Head waiters, chefs and managers have pursued careers across the world on the strength of a North British training. Helga de Bordes, now returned to Austria, kept notes from her 1933 training course at the hotel, which instructed staff in the art of recognising different types of patrons. The social order is set out thus: "(a) business man, (b) business woman, (c) Old people, (d) children. (e) irritable person, (f) guest who tries to be too personal, (g) timid person, (h) leisure class type".

The links with the railway were severed in the early 1980s - not a happy decade for the hotel as its ownership changed rapidly in an extended game of company take-overs. The start of the 1990s, however, brought again the prospect of a settled future under the ownership of a company with a similar vision of the hotel and its place to that created by its founders at the start of the century.

Balmoral International Hotels, a new company based in Edinburgh, bought the North British with the intention of making is a flagship for an international hotel group with luxury hotels in strategic cities in the United Kingdom, Europe and North America. It is an ambition of which the directors of the North British Railway Company would have approved.

History has an off way of repeating itself. The New Edinburgh Balmoral has a style and appearance very close to the spirit of the building which took its triumphant place on the Edinburgh skyline as the century began - indeed it deliberately evokes the Edwardian era which has become a symbol of timeless comfort and security the world over: tea may be taken in the Palm Court whatever is happening in the real world outside. Very deeply rooted in local history the Edinburgh Balmoral will compete with the best hotels anywhere in the world just as George Wieland intended when he led the "Waverley Station Hotel Committee" on a grand tour across Europe all those years ago. The name may have changed but the sense of identity has turned full circle.

Return to the Balmoral Index Page


  Return to Other History Page


 


This comment system requires you to be logged in through either a Disqus account or an account you already have with Google, Twitter, Facebook or Yahoo. In the event you don't have an account with any of these companies then you can create an account with Disqus. All comments are moderated so they won't display until the moderator has approved your comment.

comments powered by Disqus

Quantcast