"Service! Service!"

After an over-night flight with no sleep, we headed straight for a welcome home cup of coffee. The pre-occupation and indifference that accompanied its preparation in this instance is gradually diminishing in this country, I think.

Service with a smile is almost universal in America, in my experience. Nor is it the supposedly bland “Have a nice day” caricature. It’s generally convincingly polite and clearly recognised as an important part of the job.

Here at home - and at the other end of the scale, I’m still occasionally amused by old-fashioned servility dressed up as good service - a hang-over from the upstairs/downstairs divide that misplaced nostalgia helps to perpetuate.

One of our favourite hotels specialises in what they probably regard as old-world gentility. It is sometimes made affordable for us, I hasten to add, by proactive marketing and some timely good deals.

I know where the dining room is so I don’t actually need you to sweep up our drinks and lead us there in a mini-procession of three people headed by a tray. I can still manage to pull out my own seat, put my serviette over my thighs and arrange my cutlery from the voluminous canteen already surrounding my place mat, all by myself. There is no need for you to have one hand behind your back when you serve me my spuds, unless you are otherwise going to topple over. I should add that this same gentleman is perfectly capable of presenting me with a stony-faced countenance if I let the side down by turning up for dinner in a non-descript tee-shirt and jeans, in spite of the house rule which only bans ripped denims and branded tee-shirts in the restaurant.

By the way, you can’t wear trainers, either. This will come as a big disappointment to “Sneakerheads” - people who like trainers a lot. When Europe’s biggest sneaker convention was held in London last year, the Guardian reported [7/7/18] that, “The Nike Air Jordan 1 Off-White in a new blue and white North Carolina colourway is likely to become the most in demand of the convention”. It sold out on release at £144 a pair and tipped to sell for £1,500 when sold on by private collectors. “If Drake wears a pair of Jordans today then everyone will want Jordans”, added the organiser. I think not. In any event, don’t try wearing them at my favourite hotel. They would never get past the waiter.

Though it grates with me to even have to consider if my clothing is going to offend someone, I put up with it in this case for the many other advantages of being there - comfort, spacious bedrooms, old maps and photographs on the walls, pleasant and helpful staff and a lovely old building in local stone, set in a wonderfully picturesque location.

There is also a hand-rail to help me get out of the bath and I can turn the bath taps on with my toes - both big pluses when you have no cartilage left in your knees and especially after a day on the [lower] fells.

Other contrasts with America are still fresh in my mind. How nice it is to be free for a time from the depressing and perpetual betting advertisements that now cling like leeches to live TV football broadcasts. On the other hand, in the US there was a dreadful promotion of a soft drink that contained, as acceptable, a threatened stabbing motion with a BBQ skewer. When we passed a massive roadside billboard in North Carolina, I immediately resolved to give Dirty Dick’s Crab House a miss, for some reason. Crab cakes are only posh fishcakes, after all, however good the service is.

In the States, if you have the money to do something, then your entitlement is no longer in question. In Britain, I’m not sure that’s always so. In his book, “The Railway” [p.77], Simon Bradley recalled, “A guard on the East Coast route….. being summoned to eject ‘some yobboes’ from first class, who turned out to be Jimi Hendrix and his entourage, their tickets all in order”.

In the early days of travel by train, the wealthy could take their own carriage on a wagon. When that fell out of favour, they could still use their own transport to reach the station, make use of a first-class waiting room until the train arrived and carry on keeping themselves to themselves by making the journey first class, as well.

In her book, “Watching the English”, Kate Fox [p.401] claims that at the very core of our Englishness is social dis-ease. She defines it as “…..our lack of ease, discomfort and incompetence in the field of social inter-action” and our ”….general inability to engage in a normal and straightforward fashion with other human beings”.

On trains, where we are sometimes forced to sit closer to other people than we want, this manifests itself in a form of denial, where we cling to as much privacy as possible by pretending that our fellow passengers do not exist. We just want to be left alone.

People will go to quite some lengths to keep their distance as the train fills up at intermediate stations - by putting their bags and clothing on the seat next to them instead of on the luggage rack, by sitting in the aisle seat so that it is difficult for someone to get past them to claim an adjacent window berth, or by building a fortress of food or electronic devices on the table around “their” empty seat. 

I would love to think that my own guiding principles in all this are driven by my mother’s insistence that politeness cost nothing. Of course, she meant far more by it than simply that. A positive demeanour should surely be a pre-condition for every social relationship, from the briefest of encounters to the deepest of bonds. “Treat others as you would wish to be treated yourself”.

If we are honest, though, I think that we are all probably guilty of paying our way out of what might be regarded as awkward social situations in favour of a bit of privacy or exclusivity, from time to time and where it can be afforded.

Financial independence gives the freedom to choose what we hope will always be good service. This includes the right to buy exclusivity and separate ourselves from other people. Both come with an obligation to reciprocate with respect rather than prejudice.