While Barney was drinking Champagne with a beautiful blonde lady in September, I lay on my sick bed, grumpily quarantined at home with pretty severe chicken pox (I looked particularly delicious – I have photos but am keeping them to myself for fear of scaring everyone). Barney had a good excuse though; we’d been invited to the AA Hospitality Awards at the London Hilton Park Hotel with 700 members of the hospitality industry, and are extremely chuffed to have been awarded ‘AA Hotel of the Year – England’.

As you will see in the photo Barney is smiling his head off, but there were a couple of hiccups – firstly the presenters announced that “Barney and Zoe Cunliffe, the owners of Gilpin”, were coming up to collect the award, at which point John attempted an impromptu board meeting on the way to the stage to try to establish at what point Barney and I had taken over the company and they had sailed off into the sunset! Although he seemed happy to cede the overdraft…

Barney declined to accept the overdraft and instead concentrated on the presenter of the award – the lovely Sophie Raworth, maturely commenting to his Dad “bagsy next to the blonde”. Meanwhile Christine was beside herself, jittery with nerves, convinced that someone was going to stop her and say what are you doing winning this award, go and sit down! Christine then stood next to Ms Raworth and wouldn’t budge as she was so nervous she couldn’t hear what anyone was saying. A small tussle ensued (not really, I think the photographer rearranged them) and Barney got to stand next to the lovely lady. Hence the great big smile – a fabulous award and a beautiful lady!

So why did we win it, and what will we do with it?

The why is hard, there are so many fantastic hotels out there. We feel extremely honoured to have been chosen this year – we do have high standards, but are not perfect by any means! We hope that for our guests we have acheived overall consistency over the last 24 years.

Particularly in the current climate, it’s incredibly important to us to be able to differentiate ourselves and so this award gives us a great opportunity to do that. Having said that, it can be a double edged sword – while we always strive to be the best in every way we can, proclaiming to be the ‘best hotel’ can make it that much harder to meet those expectations. It’s much easier to under-promise and then over-deliver! What it certainly means is that we have to work even harder this next year to live up to the accolade. It’s a very special award to receive.

 http://aahospitalityawards.com/

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About the author

Zoe Cunliffe
Zoë 'Chief Chatterer' Cunliffe joined in 2001 with husband Barney. After years of working through the departments as a sort of family apprentice, Zoë’s chief talents have finally been rewarded with a role that encompasses her métiers - talking and writing! You will now mostly find her harassing guests in reception and the restaurants, and writing/editing Gilpin Life. Jasper Gerrard of the Telegraph wrote that Gilpin was "friendly informality, personified by Zoë Cunliffe and her smile that speaks of crumpets by the fire and earthy humour."