HOME FROM HOME

It’s a long time since I last stayed at the Harbour View Guest House in Oban.

It used to be a regular haunt – at £15 the cheapest B&B in Oban with a friendly proprietor and easy access to the ferry for lazy 20-somethings.  Mrs Mac had known Alex and his brothers for years and years…. and always showed genuine interest in their welfare.  A genuinely warm welcome awaited, which really made you feel you were almost home.

Archie accompanied me here once or twice when he was really little  but, with small children, an old-fashioned B&B becomes tricky: shared bathrooms, disjointed sleeping arrangements, steep stairs and close proximity with other guests all make for a stressful experience with screaming toddlers or newborns.  Slowly, we started to stay at the Caledonian Hotel – an old railway hotel with a molecular memory of Victorian grandeur …. and extremely good ‘Islander Rates’.    We could stay in a family room with room service and a bar serving beer/milk and YOUR OWN BATHROOM for the same price.  It was no choice at all.

It would be unfair to say that the Caledonian has started to go downhill – I’m not sure it ever really got up the hill in the first place. Successive owners have made efforts – but they have never really got it right.  The taps are so complicated one can never guarantee a hot bath; the heating is erratic and some of the rooms are tiny.  Ask for ‘Islander Rates’ and you may pay £25-40 for a glorious bay-side room… but you may equally find yourself in the attic with a cold bath.

One notable owner – some 8 years ago – encouraged staff to wear badges with their personal interests as well as their names displayed for all to read.    “Luigi: Dungeons and Dragons ” explained that this was because customers should always remember that service was demeaning and that staff were human beings too.  Not surprisingly, having encouraged the staff to believe the job was beneath them, they weren’t very good at it.  The hotel lasted less than a year under that management.   It’s had its glorious moments  – and some stellar staff – but it still struggles to know whether it’s a drab coach-party destination or a slightly up-market make-over of an old-fashioned institution.

Which brings us to the present day.  When I asked the Cally for an Islander Rate room I was told (in that curt fashion so popular with the service industry) that “We have none. It’s £75.”  I needed a room for about 7 hours.  So, some 7 years since I last stayed here, I booked at room at the Harbour View.

It was like visiting an elderly aunt; so incredibly familiar.  It felt as though time had not altered anything; that it had been preserved for some interactive history project.  I cannot believe the same activities are taking place in Oban now as they were 22 years ago when I first visited, but the neat, dustless piles of leaflets at the front desk look untouched.  The key fobs are identical and on entering the bedroom I could hardly believe how familiar it felt.

My own home has existed for just 4 years but the pummelling of 3 small boys and any number of animals and activities has worn the place into submission.  This – a commercial residence, by contrast – demonstrates the sort of resilience traditionally associated with cockroaches sheltering from nuclear fallout.

I have to admit that the mix of doilies, utilitarian metal teapots, small beds and shared bathrooms has not appealed to me for a good while.  But there is something extraordinarily uplifting about visiting a place that has been so cherished and well-kept; is so tidy and clean and lovingly maintained.   Forget fake Victorian grandeur – this is the real deal:  proper old-fashioned, simple British accommodation at its most genuine.   And best value.  I’ve saved myself £50 staying here.

Now that my children have progressed beyond screaming in the night I might just make this my regular haunt – unless it’s fully booked all year round.  As I suspect.