Savoy Hotel by Henry Shukman
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The Savoy is still the epitome of Britannic stateliness. Built as solidly and beautifully as can be, the place is amazingly peaceful, despite being at the heart of a big city. Walls thick as a dungeon’s, doors of solid oak, cornicing all round, fabulous Deco shuttlecocks for lamps – it was built to last. It even has its own sidestreet, the only street in all Britain where traffic drives on the right, up which the dowager duchesses still sweep in their Rolls.
The Savoy was the brainchild of D’Oyly Carte, the great impresario of Gilbert and Sullivan, whose works premiered in the attached Savoy Theatre. It was here that show-business and hotel-business joined forces to forge a new yardstick of glamour, an emporium where stage and crown could hobnob under the same chandelier.
Even today the staff are Jeeveses to a man. Ken, a tailcoated West Indian who brings up my bags, takes one look at the shirt I’m proposing to wear to dinner and tuts. “Let me take it and press it.” In the end he leaves with my jacket, my trousers, my shirt and my shoes – in short, all of me. When he returns he brings three ties along, hoping one of them will dissuade me from the floral tribute I have planned for my neck.
Likewise in the morning I’m awakened by a light rapping on the door, followed by the entry of a magnificent white-clothed table on wheels, followed by Gilles, also tailcoated, also Jeevesily cryptic. “A red day for London, Sir,” he offers.
“Sir?” I return. Cough. “Excuse me?”
“Livingstone, Sir,” he says, referring to the new Mayor of London, voted in last night. He proffers a dressing-gown, then goes to the window and snaps open the heavy drapery (far too heavy for me to snap: how does he do it?) on a glorious Thames morning, the river dusted with hazy sunlight, the barges drifting to and fro. London looks happy to be red.
I click on the TV for the latest in the mayoral results. At which point Gilles, without a word, steers the table to a perfect viewing-point by the bed. My very own gourmet TV breakfast. A flourish or two, and the scrambled and b. are there before me, flanked by a steaming cup of black and a freshly ironed Telegraph. This, surely, is how a dozen duchesses must wake up, if not the Queen herself. Royalty and the Savoy go back. There used to be a special warning bell in the foyer that alerted the staff every time royalty was approaching. It rang so frequently that it was finally deemed unnecessary.
The list of Celebrity Firsts the Savoy can claim is yards long: Gershwin premiered Rhapsody in Blue here; Oscar Wilde first quarrelled in public with Queensberry; Peach Melba and Melba Toast were first concocted (for Nellie Melba); Liz Taylor had her first of many honeymoons here; Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh first set eyes on each other; the Queen’s Coronation Ball (her first public event?) was held here. This is the very pleasure-dome of the Establishment, the institution where Guccio Gucci began life as a dish-washer and Monsieur Ritz cut his teeth, where the annual consumption of caviar and foie gras still exceeds four hundred pounds and one ton respectively.
Yet in spite of its continuing success, the Savoy has preserved its sanctified air of a gentleman’s club. Potentates of Fleet Street and Threadneedle Street still have their lunches at the Savoy Grill, and debs still dandle their smoked salmon in the Riverview Restaurant, while the Savoy looks after them like the mother of all chaperones.
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