Staines Upon Thames Friday 21st And Saturday 22nd June 2024

Part Three Of Three

Outside of the over-charging Boleyn’s Hotel my time in  Staines was actually quite enjoyable.  Once unpacked and having a chance to relax for an hour, I headed out taking photos round the town, famous as the fictional home of Sasha Baron Cohen character Ali G (The Staines Massive) and the genuine place where Linoleum (Lino) was invented.  It is a pleasant but fairly basic residential town, though with a lovely Riviera atmosphere along the river bank itself. 

I got lots of pub and pub sign photos and drank in a few bars including The Last Hop Café Bar (which promised live music most weekends but cancelled it this night for coverage of the Euros football tournament.  I also had a beer and a very nice burger in The Swan (where I had tried to get accommodation only to find it fully booked). After the long complicated adventures of the early part of  the day I was unusually asleep before midnight back at Boleyn’s.

Saturday 22^nd June.

Post disappointing breakfast I headed to The Bell pub nearby for the AGM of the Inn Sign Society, meeting some members outside as we waited for them to open and let us in to a very nice bar, bearing more art relating to birds like ducks and herons than bells. Service was excellent and they provided a fabulous buffet too (with enough food left over to enable me and other guests to take some away with us).

The meeting itself went smoothly with a moving moment of silence for recently deceased members, much praise for the hard working volunteer committee members, suggestions for further developments of the group website and branching into other social media activity. I was able to thank members who have sent photos to my imminent book on ‘Pub Signs’ due to officially launch on July 15^th. I did have a limited number of advance copies with me at the event to display and sold them to members attending. 

Now it was time for my gruelling return journey home, much a reversal of my trip to Staines,  bus to Slough, combinations of train and underground hopping to Euston, where the 6pm train for Preston was delayed for 30 minutes. I was too tired to walk across town to the buses so I got a taxi home, arriving just after 9pm. 

A complex corkscrewing adventure, with ups and downs – accommodation nightmares a tough journey but so much fun in the town as well as the wonderful Inn Sign Society AGM.  Hopefully getting to future society events will be less stressful.

Thank you to all at the Inn Sign Society, and various bars I went to in Staines and Wraysbury. 

Other notes. Slough is an ordinary but hardly horrible town, so I am very much with Ricky Gervais’s David Brent conclusion that John Betjeman’s poem calling for Slough to be nuked is grossly unjust (though hardly to be taken seriously).  Much of the Underground is horribly inconvenient where escalators give way to stairs (thanks to passengers who sometimes assisted me getting my case up and down stairs).  The exception is the new and beautifully designed Elizabeth Line, with safe safety doors lining the track and the trains able to pull in to align their doors right to the sliding doors as they open, avoiding the usual cattle stampedes for boarding services, often with no time for passengers to get off first. 

Links – The Office scene deconstructing John Betjeman’s Slough poem. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQOJoGx3QyQ

The Inn Sign Society https://innsignsociety.com/

My Book page on Amberley Books.  (Pre-order before 15^th July 2024 for a modest discount. https://www.amberley-books.com/coming-soon/9781398115729-pub-signs.html 

This Review – Links

Part One https://arthurchappell.wordpress.com/2024/06/23/visiting-staines-on-thames-21st-and-22nd-june-2024/

Part Two https://arthurchappell.wordpress.com/2024/06/23/3058/

All photos taken by me.

Arthur Chappell

Staines, Slough, Surrey, Berkshire, London, Underground, Inn Sign Society, pubs, pub signs, Hotels,

My Stay At Boleyns In Staines Upon Thames Part Two Of Three

On Friday 21^st June 2023, I found myself in emergency need of overnight accommodation in Staines at the last minute. 

Sign – Boleyn’s Hotel – Staines Upon Thames

I was a/. Grossly overcharged for a room at £230 for single occupancy for one night when I see online on both Booking.Com and Trip Advisor (where much of my concern here is being shared) that rooms there average £106 per night for guests traveling solo.  b/. I was also almost denied accommodation for not carrying photo ID, despite being a UK citizen with a valid bank card and plenty of other non-photo ID.  c/. I was also asked for assurances that I would not cause criminal damage or vandalism, as if I was a rock star given to graffiti spraying room walls and hurling TV sets out the unopened  room windows.

I am requesting a refund of at least half of the money charged to my account for this single night room occupancy.  I met with others who stayed there the same night and they were shocked by how my desperate need for a room was not accommodated but exploited.  Without my stay the room I had would have simply been left vacant.

My room’s bathroom, Boleyn’s – Staines

How I ended up there is complicated. I had pre-booked a two night stay at a supposed guest house in nearby Wraysbury, planning to use it as a base for an important meeting I was participating in in Staines itself on Saturday 22^nd June. I arrived after a torturous multi-train, underground and bus trek from Preston Lancashire to Wraysbury-Staines to find the Wraysbury guest house did not exist, being a private domestic residence and, as I was able to locate their nearby estate agent, sub-letting and renting out the house as an Air B & B was a breach of their tenancy agreement. 

My problems recovering monies spent on that accommodation via Booking.Com are by the by. My main problem was now where to stay instead. Wraysbury has no hotels or hostels so I headed into Staines itself, dragging my heavy luggage despite my bowel cancer induced disabilities and baking heat wave. I tried the Travelodge first which was fully booked, as they said, due to the Ascot Week activity in the region. A few other hotels had the same story, but I was advised to check on the Swan Hotel pub opposite Boleyns.  The Swan could have accommodated me on The Saturday but not the more essential for me and they kindly recommended the Boleyn.

I headed across the road over to there and found that to my delight, a room was available, before being subjected to the long meandering preamble on my lack of photo ID, a cruel tease that left me wondering if I was going to be left like Mary & Joseph with no room at the inn throughout the Southern counties. I was exhausted and actually scared. 

The Swan Pub/Hotel, Staines

Finally, the chap on the desk relented but told me my stay would be expensive. On my pressing he told me how expensive. “£230” for one night plus breakfast.  Knowing there may well be literally nowhere else to go, I had to agree to pay it, but took it as the going rate for the hotel, and I expected the heights of luxury. 

I paid by card which was accepted only after bizarre stern demands for lack of violence to the property.

I have to say, the hotel is perfectly pleasant and lovely to stay in, but having stayed in many, it was not better than any I have stayed in for much less money. Had I been charged £100 to £115 for this even for one night, I would have had few concerns.   My room was spacious, quiet and comfortable.  The bathroom was awkward give my disabilities cause me to need to change stoma equipment. Though designed for wheelchair access (I am not in a wheelchair) and having an emergency pull chord), there were inconveniences about the bathroom, in main part the distance between toilet and sink (stoma changes require hot running water, and the toilet is the best place to sit). Also the toilet lacked a fold down seat top, which is useful to sit on for the cleaning/changing process I need to conduct. (I changed bags three times during my stay there).

Breakfast – Given what I was charged I half expected to see quails eggs, truffles and caviar on the menu.  Though the continental element of the meal was all you can eat, there was waited service for the cooked breakfast which was very slow to arrive. I was presented with my toast on sitting at the table but the toast was cold by the time my plated breakfast arrived. The poached egg was fine, beans were lukewarm, solitary sausage lukewarm and stale tasting, solitary hashbrown fell to bits on contact with the fork, mushrooms tasted oily, and the two bacon rashers, pale, and so rubbery I left them after a single bite from each.

My Room, Boleyn’s – Staines

£230 for this?  I don’t think so. Can I have at least half of this money restored to my account please? I may consider legal action if the response to this is in the negative. Exploiting a disabled customer in a desperate accommodation predicament in this way was totally unethical.  It was equally inappropriate to chastise me and make feel I was not going to get a room for not bearing photo ID despite proof of my identity, ability to pay and my UK citizenship. https://photobooth.online/en-gb/blog/why-do-hotels-ask-for-id  Add to that the extraordinary insistence with no cause or provocation that I commit no criminal damage was off the scale. Had I been confident I could have found a room elsewhere I would have boycotted Boleyn’s in a heartbeat.

Links

Part One https://arthurchappell.wordpress.com/2024/06/23/visiting-staines-on-thames-21st-and-22nd-june-2024/

Part Three  https://arthurchappell.wordpress.com/2024/06/23/staines-upon-thames-friday-21st-and-saturday-22nd-june-2024/

All photos taken by me.

Arthur Chappell

Visiting Staines On Thames 21st And 22nd June 2024

Part One Of Three

My journey from Preston, Lancashire to Staines Upon Thames in Surrey for the Saturday 22^nd June AGM of The Inn Sign Society proved to be a sharp contrast of The Worst Of Times And The Best Of Times.  All the negative experiences relate to my accommodation, and in one place, absence of accommodation.  Everything else about the trip was lovely.

My Inn Sign Society AGM Attendance badge

The journey was a complex leap through multiple modes of transport, though on the most part I expected this. 

My outgoing journey itinery.  1/. Bus from home to Preston Train station. 2/. Train from Preston to London Euston. 3/. Walk from Euston inter-city station to the external Euston underground station. 4/. Underground from Euston to Tottenham Court Road.  5/. Underground to Paddington. 6/. Overground train to Slough. 7/. Bus (I could have got a train) to Staines. 8/. Bus to Wraysbury.

Paddington Bear plaque at Paddington Station, London

My pre-booked (via Booking.Com accommodation was to a guest house in Wraysbury at Mill Place. I arrived there, a few minutes walk from the bus stop, to see a very basic housing estate. Number 13 was one flat in a big residential block. Nothing indicated it offering guest accommodation.  A resident, owner of a flat within, let me in. I found there was no reception, not notices regarding accommodation, no keys, nothing. My phone was out of both credit and battery so I was unable to ring the number I had for the room booked. The chap who owned the neighbouring one suggested I go to the block’s estate agent in the village, a twenty minute walk away.  The heatwave and hauling my luggage on castors was now becoming an endurance test. I stopped briefly at a lovely pub, The Perseverance for a break and a quick beer and went to the estate agents. They told me the owner of the flat I was booked into had been ordered by them to stop sub-letting the flat to guests as it breached her tenancy agreement. They were concerned that she was a/. still doing this and b/. taking the money from a guest with zero effort to alert them that the place was inaccessible. They found efforts to phone her were not getting her phone answered at all.

Pub Sign – The Perseverance, Wraysbury, Staines – apt ironic pub name and image given my experiences

Recovering my money over this fiasco was a problem for after I got back to Preston, My worry now was where to stay instead.  Wraysbury has no other accommodation. I knew there were places to stay in Staines itself though I expected them to be a bit dearer. I had settled on the Wraysbury guest house as it was modestly priced for two nights and a commute to and from Staines.

I walked to the train station, midway between the flat that wasn’t, and the estate agents and got a train to Staines.  On advice I headed round to the nearby Traveloldge to find it fully booked.  As it was Ascot week at the racetrack, most places in London and the Southern Counties were booked up. I was starting to panic and pictured myself spending a night on a park bench. After several more ‘sorry no vacancies’ alerts, I was tipped off about a pub-hotel that might take me in.  My struggle was not however fully resolved even there as part two will show.

Thameside View, Staines

All photos taken by me.

Arthur Chappell.

Links

Part Two Part Two  https://arthurchappell.wordpress.com/2024/06/23/3058/

Part Three https://arthurchappell.wordpress.com/2024/06/23/staines-upon-thames-friday-21st-and-saturday-22nd-june-2024/