At the Sign of the Black Horse

[Lloyds Bank is to save HBOS from catastrophe by taking it over - for a quarter of the company's value last year]

The first time I met a bank manager was in the Park Hotel, Tynemouth, where I was working as a waiter in my school holidays. I've already reported here how we were serving a formal lunch to twenty local bank managers, and I watched as our Portuguese deputy headwaiter grandly presented a huge tray of lamb chops to the guest of honour, and in the process poured two pints of scalding hot gravy (which had been lying under the bed of chops) onto his trouser crotch. The banker leapt into the air, sending the entire table skywards. The waiter burst into tears and ran away, never to be seen again.

It was end of my first week of paid employment and I proudly went round to the little branch of Lloyds Bank in Allendale Place, Tynemouth to pay the wages into my new account, number 0021291. Lloyds has been part of my life ever since.

The manager, Raymond Lycett, was a pillar of the community and knew everyone by name. He was charming, concerned, discreet, and when I was 21 gave me my first overdraft to buy a Ford Cortina. He, or rather his bank, has owned most of every house I’ve ever lived in. When in 1985 I set up my production company in London, it never occurred to me to approach a corporate player for our banking. As a result, ten years later, the tiny branch in Allendale Place found itself processing millions of pounds worth of cheques every year from my 82 separate company accounts.

One day, after Mr Lycett retired, the regional head of Lloyds invited me to lunch in Newcastle. There he told me I had outgrown Tynemouth, as they had to employ several clerks just to check my signature on the thousands of cheques. Instead he was downscaling the branch and moving me to a bigger one in Newcastle. I politely told him that if he did so, I would immediately move my accounts to some London bank that didn’t have a black horse over the door. He relented, and the Tynemouth branch survived.

For the next few years, I rarely visited the North East, but once in the mid-90s, while filming an episode of Challenge Anneka in the region, I brought the crew down for a day out at the Coast. After a blustery stroll along the Long Sands, Anneka was desperate for a cup of tea. I said I knew just the place. It was 3.29pm when we walked into Lloyds. The young girl clerk behind the counter was closing up her till when I handed her a personal cheque. She looked at the signature and did a double take. “Is it really you?” she said, and then she saw Anneka Rice and her crew standing behind me. They locked the doors and got out the best mugs and some ginger biscuits from Walter Willsons. I always felt that the staff at Lloyds – all of whom I knew by name – were part of my business, and I know the feeling was mutual.

The image of the friendly high street bank manager living in your wardrobe at home has long gone, but I still, quite irrationally, think of Lloyds with affection and so far my loyalty has never been betrayed. As an investor, rather than as a customer, I’ve found Lloyds’ to be solid, dependable, and, frankly, rather predictable and dull. I’ve always kept a few shares not for their performance, but for their cash dividend, which has tended to give a better return than any deposit account. So imagine the shock last week when they announced the HBOS takeover. Even though they’ve reduced my dividend, I can’t help feeling a tinge of almost familial pride that, when the dust has settled and the City regains its confidence, there’s a chance the old dark horse may be awarded the prize for the best deal of the decade.

Jim's Inn, Dad, and piccalilli

Last week's experience of working for a day in a professional gastropub kitchen brought back many childhood memories.

My father used to manage a restaurant in Newcastle called Jim’s Inn. It was a Steak Diane/Lobster Thermidor type of eaterie. You know the sort of place: black-tied waiters with faces marbled by alcohol, cocktail barmaid with heaving cleavage, tables lit by tiny candles, black walls and red leather, an air of forbidden opulence. For a 15-year-old, it was utterly addictive.

Dad had worked in the food industry all his life – he was a food technologist, working for companies like Heinz. He was on the team that developed Heinz Sandwich Spread and I still have his recipe for piccalilli at home, which might be really useful if ever I need to make 40 gallons of the stuff. Later he was a consultant for Tyne Brand in North Shields (strapline: “No lumps of fat or gristle guaranteed”) and for a company called Jaunty Foods that sold minced chicken resembling dog food.

Dad had the most sensitive palate, particularly for fine wine. So to be asked to manage a restaurant at the age of 70 must for him have been heaven. For me it meant that if I wanted to see him before bedtime I had to go into the dark recesses of the cocktail bar, and our Christmas lunch was always off the set menu. In its day, Jim’s Inn was the place to be. All the stars at the Theatre Royal piled in after the shows.

Mind you, there wasn’t much competition. I experienced the other end of the scale first-hand. Like the Park Hotel in Tynemouth where I worked as a waiter in the holidays. There was a terrifying chef who treated his staff even worse than the unfortunate pieces of meat he offered his customers. There was a Portuguese waiter who resembled Manuel from Fawlty Towers and one day, while serving a formal lunch to twenty of the region’s bank managers, he presented a huge tray of overcooked lamb chops to the guest of honour, and in the process poured two pints of scalding hot gravy onto his trouser crotch. The banker leapt into the air, sending the entire table, laden with liebfraumilch, skywards. The waiter burst into tears and ran out, never to be seen again.

I also remember working at the Everest restaurant in Tynemouth. I was asked to help out because on Christmas Day they’d optimistically sold two sittings for lunch. When I turned up, I was the only one with any waiting experience (and that was derived from my six weeks at the Park Hotel). Unfortunately the Everest's chef had quit the night before, so they hired a replacement from an agency. He turned up drunk at 10am and the turkeys were still in the freezer. The first hundred customers arrived at noon, and at 3pm they were still waiting for starters as the second lot were banging on the door. There was blood on the carpet that day. The owner, a charming but inept Indian gentleman, was in tears. North East food has come on a lot since those days.

Dad died in 1972, but those last flambé-filled years gifted me my fascination for catering. From time to time I scan the leases for sale, wondering if I should take the plunge, but I know that it would lead to ruin. I like food too much to serve anything but the best or to cut corners. It’s in the blood – my mother was a food industry expert as well. It’s one of the reasons I love being back in the North East: our ingredients and local supply chain are second to none. We could still do with some good restaurants, though.

25 years after his death, I was filming in Newcastle and made a pilgrimage to North Street to see what had become of Jim’s Inn. Amazingly, surrounded by new development, the little Victorian black and white building was still there, boarded up but otherwise untouched. There above the front door was the small plastic sign: “Herbert Thomas Gutteridge, Licensed to sell Beers, Wines & Spirits”. That night I borrowed a screwdriver from my hotel’s concierge and surreptitiously unscrewed it from the doorframe. I mounted it on a smart wooden plaque and my mother has it to this day.

That was ten years ago. The building still stands empty. Every time I pass it I smile and think of Dad, and how proud he’d be of my cooking in a real restaurant, even if for just one night. Forget television, the awards and the rest: food was what really mattered to him. Mind you, despite his amazing palate, he was really just a meat and two veg man. All my complicated sauces would have been pushed to the side of the plate. But he would have loved the Galloway beef.