Thursday April 17th - Britain's Top Mrs Mop!

We welcomed Deborah Preston to our April meeting to describe her work as “Britain's Top Mrs Mop”. This title was gained from the press when she was awarded a prestigious CATEY for her work – one of only ten awarded internationally each year. Her position was the executive housekeeper in 5 star hotels.

Having attended hotel school for three years training as a receptionist Deborah changed to housekeeping – a position she held for thirty four years. She started as a floor housekeeper in Sheffield before moving to the Tower Hotel London which had 336 bedrooms. The next move was to the Strand Palace Hotel with 900 bedrooms. Here she became known as the 'human hoover' for her tidiness.

At this point, aged 30, Deborah left the business to become a lecturer at the Slough College of Further Education teaching on a life skills course. After six years she got married. The next step was to the Grosvenor House Hotel in Park Lane. This had 520 rooms, 136 apartments and 11 miles of carpet in the corridors. Large sums of money were spent, including £32,000 for Xmas decorations. Six years later came a move to the London Hilton. This led to an amusing description of the workings of a new washing machine, the space finally making way for a new casino.

Nearly six years later Deborah returned to the Grosvenor which was then taken over by Granada. We heard amusing stories about guests. These included a Middle Eastern family who smuggled a goat in for sacrifice, Margaret Duchess of Argyle and her companion who loved to drink and the Lady who claimed a dress had been stolen when she was actually wearing it!  Finally Britain's “Top Mrs Mop” retired to the Norfolk border where her main cleaning challenge is the local church. All in all a very entertaining evening.

In June our speaker will be Monica Maxwell with her account of SOE (Special Operations Executive).

Anne Jones

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