must often be the case with documentaries, and even with feature films. I hadn’t intended Dinner at Noon to be as personal or as revealing as it turned out to be – or perhaps the intention had been at the back of my mind and this was just a roundabout way of getting there.
What follows is a transcript of the documentary, with notes to indicate who is speaking and where. Though the voice is only one element in the spoken word and a transcript wants both gesture and inflection, I’ve made no attempt to supplement thedialogue, clean it up, or make it more coherent and grammatical. This occasionally makes it hard to read, but it’s a reminder that one cannot overstate the untidiness of human speech or reproduce it accurately on the page.
( A hotel bedroom .)
I was conceived in a strange bedroom. My birthday, like my brother’s, is in May, and, though three years separate us, we were both born on the same date. Counting back the months, I realize we must both have been conceived during the old August Bank Holiday, in a boarding-house bedroom in Morecambe, or Flamborough, or Filey – oilcloth on the floor, jug and basin on the wash-hand stand, the bathroom on the next landing. Nowhere like this, anyway, a bedroom in the Crown Hotel, Harrogate.
( An hotel corridor. A young boy walks past a chambermaid .)
That said, though, I might be expected to feel at home in rented accommodation, but for years nowhere filled me with the same unease as did a hotel.
( Opening titles .)
Town of teashops, a nice run-out from Leeds – Harrogate, where hotels abound and always have.
( Reception desk .)
RECEPTIONIST: Crown Hotel, good morning. Can I help you? I’ll put you through.
( Dining-room: breakfast .)
Once, visitors came to take the waters; now it’s a ‘Leisure Break’ or a conference, a mecca for the businessman. Nowadays I like hotels, at any rate in small doses; they’re a setting where you see people trying to behave, which is always more interesting than them just behaving. When people are on their best behaviour they aren’t always at their best. But I wasn’t always so relaxed. For years, hotels and restaurants were for me theatres of humiliation, and the business of eating in public every bit as fraught with risk and shame as taking one’s clothes off.
What it was – when I was little my parents didn’t have much money, and when we went into cafés the drill was for my Mam and Dad to order a pot of tea for two, and maybe a token cake, and my brother and me would be given sips of tea from their cup, while under the table my mother unwrapped a parcel of bread and butter that she’d brought from home, and she smuggled pieces to my brother and me, which we had to eat while the waitress wasn’t looking.
( Lobby. A chambermaid polishes the revolving doors .)
The fear of discovery, exposure and ignominious expulsion stayed with me well into my twenties, and memories of that and similar embarrassments come back whenever I stay in a hotel. Not that this is an intimidating establishment at all: it’s comfortable and straightforward and caters for what the marketing men call ‘a good social mix’. I hope that’s what the film’s about – not class, which I don’t like, but classes, types, which I do; and a hotel like this is a good place to see them.
( Lobby .)
Behaviour’s a bit muted, but that’s part of the setting. The foyers of American hotels are like station concourses or airport lounges, they’re really part of the street, so you don’t expectpeople to behave in any particular way. Here, with the sofas and the fire, we’re still visibly related to the hall of the country house, and people try to behave accordingly. For some, of course, this isn’t too big a jump.
( A sporty young couple reading Country Life .)
HE: … boring. Is yours boring?
SHE: Mine’s riveting.
HE: Mine’s thoroughly dull.
SHE: That’s what they’re for. Oh, look at that! Isn’t it gorgeous?
HE: … country
What follows is a transcript of the documentary, with notes to indicate who is speaking and where. Though the voice is only one element in the spoken word and a transcript wants both gesture and inflection, I’ve made no attempt to supplement thedialogue, clean it up, or make it more coherent and grammatical. This occasionally makes it hard to read, but it’s a reminder that one cannot overstate the untidiness of human speech or reproduce it accurately on the page.
( A hotel bedroom .)
I was conceived in a strange bedroom. My birthday, like my brother’s, is in May, and, though three years separate us, we were both born on the same date. Counting back the months, I realize we must both have been conceived during the old August Bank Holiday, in a boarding-house bedroom in Morecambe, or Flamborough, or Filey – oilcloth on the floor, jug and basin on the wash-hand stand, the bathroom on the next landing. Nowhere like this, anyway, a bedroom in the Crown Hotel, Harrogate.
( An hotel corridor. A young boy walks past a chambermaid .)
That said, though, I might be expected to feel at home in rented accommodation, but for years nowhere filled me with the same unease as did a hotel.
( Opening titles .)
Town of teashops, a nice run-out from Leeds – Harrogate, where hotels abound and always have.
( Reception desk .)
RECEPTIONIST: Crown Hotel, good morning. Can I help you? I’ll put you through.
( Dining-room: breakfast .)
Once, visitors came to take the waters; now it’s a ‘Leisure Break’ or a conference, a mecca for the businessman. Nowadays I like hotels, at any rate in small doses; they’re a setting where you see people trying to behave, which is always more interesting than them just behaving. When people are on their best behaviour they aren’t always at their best. But I wasn’t always so relaxed. For years, hotels and restaurants were for me theatres of humiliation, and the business of eating in public every bit as fraught with risk and shame as taking one’s clothes off.
What it was – when I was little my parents didn’t have much money, and when we went into cafés the drill was for my Mam and Dad to order a pot of tea for two, and maybe a token cake, and my brother and me would be given sips of tea from their cup, while under the table my mother unwrapped a parcel of bread and butter that she’d brought from home, and she smuggled pieces to my brother and me, which we had to eat while the waitress wasn’t looking.
( Lobby. A chambermaid polishes the revolving doors .)
The fear of discovery, exposure and ignominious expulsion stayed with me well into my twenties, and memories of that and similar embarrassments come back whenever I stay in a hotel. Not that this is an intimidating establishment at all: it’s comfortable and straightforward and caters for what the marketing men call ‘a good social mix’. I hope that’s what the film’s about – not class, which I don’t like, but classes, types, which I do; and a hotel like this is a good place to see them.
( Lobby .)
Behaviour’s a bit muted, but that’s part of the setting. The foyers of American hotels are like station concourses or airport lounges, they’re really part of the street, so you don’t expectpeople to behave in any particular way. Here, with the sofas and the fire, we’re still visibly related to the hall of the country house, and people try to behave accordingly. For some, of course, this isn’t too big a jump.
( A sporty young couple reading Country Life .)
HE: … boring. Is yours boring?
SHE: Mine’s riveting.
HE: Mine’s thoroughly dull.
SHE: That’s what they’re for. Oh, look at that! Isn’t it gorgeous?
HE: … country
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