Jewish Hotels and Guest Houses in Bournemouth

Pam Fox gave a talk to the ELELS community, and explained that in the late 1870s Jewish people were first recorded as visitors to Bournemouth for “The Season” and these tended to be people who had a second home there. However they came to be outnumbered by people who came for health reasons as Bournemouth’s raison d’etre was convalescence.

They would lodge in rooms in boarding houses usually run by non-Jews who advertised in the Jewish Chronicle that they knew about Kashrut or would make the necessary arrangements- not everyone was comfortable with these assurances. In the 1890s the first kosher hotels opened: the Ulendi in 1892; and Merrivale Hall in 1894 – at this point Pam showed photos of the establishments. The latter was advert‐ised as having “commodious” rooms and “cuisine” rather than food. In this way it was the precursor of the zenith of Jewish hotels. At the turn of the 20th century Pam no‐ticed that Boarding Houses had be‐come Guest Houses and that they were larger and had more facilities. These changes had the effect of attracting hoteliers and guests from other resorts and accelerated after the 1st World War as hotels were no longer about con‐valescence. People who lived and worked in crowded conditions such as the East End of London and parts of other towns and cities wanted to es‐cape to the establishments advertising “lofty rooms, sea views and airy spaces”. Upwardly mobile Jews were moving to the suburbs and wished to have similar lives to their non-Jewish neighbours and take holidays by the sea. This led to the opening of many more hotels in the 1920s, namely Be‐rachah, Trouville and East Cliff Court, who were in intense competition with each other. Advertisements were placed in the JC couched in superlat‐ives that each was the “most luxurious”, the “most sumptuous” and they were constantly updating by installing lifts and hot and cold running bath water. Each would close to extend and make more changes such as ballrooms. By the 1930s the stage was set for the heydays of Jewish hotels and holiday‐makers with the building of East Cliff manor and the Ambassador – the first purpose-built kosher hotel. During the 2nd World War some of the hotels were requisitioned for Govern‐ment purposes, but after the hostilities ended the vacationers returned. Pam’s research showed that although it was thought only the very wealthy stayed at the eight best known hotels e.g. The Green Park and East Cliff Court, in fact most were middle class. However, her understanding is that everyone was treated like royalty and they stayed loyal to which ever hotel they pre‐ferred, returning for the same week, every year, and invariably asking for the same room, and table. They came for their honeymoons and then with their children.

Pam realised that the hotels were places to see and be seen. Apparently, attire would be despatched by van be‐fore the tourists arrived so that there were rails of clothes and stacks of shoes and plenty of jewellery. From her reading and from what people told her Pam learned that there were daily fashion parades and these were not confined to adults. (I have to admit that my grandmother did kit me out with some new clothes but they were very sensible and I don’t remember any fashion parades - I was probably enjoy‐ing myself too much with the other youngsters there!) Pam also learned, as she talked to people just how many had met their life partner at a Jewish hotel in Bournemouth. She compared the scene to the Catskills in New York State! Pam was delighted to discover that a few of the hotel owners were powerful women who were highly regarded, in‐cluding Bloomah Feld and Fay Schneider. Many of the staff of the hotel happened to be non-Jewish – and the hotel could not function without them. They too were highly regarded, well paid and well tipped and often stayed for years! Pam assured us that by far the largest chapter in her book concerned food! She told us a great story she had heard from Fiona Hulbert’s Aunt Hetty whose husband narrowly avoided being stabbed with a fork as another resident pushed through to what she described as the legendary Kiddushim tables, groaning under the weight of food. Not only was the food fabulous but the en‐tertainment was second to none, as dancing, card playing, and gambling were popular pursuits. The larger ho‐tels, the “Big Eight”, had resident bands and entertainers. Later many singers and musicians were to become wellknown names in the West End. And so, to the decline of Kosher estab‐lishments in Bournemouth which was brought about by a number of factors: firstly, holidays abroad had become affordable and people realised they could as easily enjoy their choice of re‐laxation in a more settled climate. After the Six Day War, holidays in Israel star‐ted in earnest and people were buying second homes in the area to enjoy weekend breaks. In addition, costly new regulations were being enforced on hotels and guest houses which had a serious impact. However, there was another major factor that Pam put forward as an accelerator of the decline, that being, the change in religious observance. Pam noticed that there was a homogeneity in observ‐ance in the “Heydays” but this shifted with far more diversity. Consequently the Ambassador, which attracted the most Orthodox clients stayed open longer but eventually closed while the Normandie, which attracted the Charedim, remains open to this day. It was such an enjoyable evening. A huge thank you to Pam with an apology …space has not allowed me to include the wonderful stories that Pam had been told by people as she conducted her research nor the excellent photos so, what can I say, but - buy the bookwhich also contains wonderful photo‐graphs. By June Bradbury