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Most of them curried favour with the proprietors and thought they were popular with them, and so they were to some extent, particularly in winter, since they paid the running costs of the establishment. Had it not been for the permanent residents, as they were politely called, the proprietors would have had to close each autumn, and engage fresh staff each spring, which is no small problem.
    But when spring and summer arrived, the love of the proprietors for their permanent residents wore thin. Most of the residents couldn’t afford to pay high summer prices for their rooms. Most of them weren’t allowed to stay on, even if they could.
    Elderly residents can only pay rent while they are alive. They don’t live for ever. If they hang around occupying their rooms all the summer how does the place get known? What about fresh blood, and particularly holiday-makers’ blood?
    Thus argued Miss Constance Brett, I learned, who ruled the Bower Hotel like an eastern potentate, and wasn’t much tougher, some said, than an old bayonet scabbard.
    So every Easter or Whitsun there was an exodus from Burlington. It consisted of the old, the frail, the lame and the impoverished; and all over the country relatives prepared spare rooms, and proprietors of crumby places inland partially aired the damp beds in preparation for the Burlington refugees.
    In the autumn the residents were allowed to come back and sometimes even occupy their old rooms. In return for the privilege of paying out good money, they could forget the worries of the summer. They had been taken back.
    Familiar rooms, surroundings, and faces made it seem like home. They were grateful, and often said so, which was more than the proprietors ever did, because it is bad policy to unbend too much with subject races such as permanent residents.
    The Bower Hotel, owing to the grey stones of which it was built, and its architecture, must have looked sad from the moment when the first Victorian customer crossed the threshold. It gave the impression of a hotel which never wanted to be there. In this it was deceptive, like some of the staff, and some of the residents. For unlike its seedier neighbours, which were mere converted houses, the Bower had been built as a hotel in the first place. So had the George Hotel, further along the promenade, and the Cliff Hotel, above the town, but they were giants, with American Bars and orchestras, and in a different class altogether.
    Nevertheless, the Bower had class, too, of its kind. It lay back a few yards from the road and there was a short drive with an entrance for cars marked IN , and another marked OUT .
    Inside the metal-studded front door, there was a reception-desk on the right, where a grey-haired, bespectacled woman, called Miss Banks, appeared to pore over ledgers from eight o’clock in the morning until six o’clock at night, with an hour off for lunch. Framed on the wall above Miss Banks’ head was an embroidered sampler which those arrivals who had only known the exterior of the hotel regarded with some astonishment:
    A thing of beauty is a joy for ever;
    Its loveliness increases; it will never
    Pass into nothingness; but still will keep
    A BOWER quiet for us, and a sleep
    Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing.
    John Keats
    On the left of the entrance hall was the hall porter’s desk, with railway time-tables and brochures, and behind the porter’s stool a series of pigeon-holes for letters and keys.
    The hotel was heavily carpeted throughout, and comfortably furnished, and most of the rooms had central heating. Even the food was reasonable. So that despite its melancholy exterior it was snug inside. Miss Brett, who had been running it for nineteen years, knew her job. Most of her residents were allowed to stay during the summer if they could afford the increased seasonal prices, though not all, and she saw to it that their creature comforts were well attended to.
    Above all, she kept them warm. Too warm for a