Surely such an intensely Catholic place would frown on the possibility of same-sex fornication on their double mattress even if we were prepared to pay 58 euros for the privilege? "Not at all," said Mary Coyne taking our booking. How about Aisling House in Knock, County Mayo, just 300 metres from Knock Shrine and a short walk from the Basilica. "You might get the odd proprietor who is a fascist or a redneck, but there's not much we can do about that."Ĭould Britain and Ireland's guesthouses and hotels really be this tolerant? Surely we would find more evidence of homophobia, if only we looked in the right places. "There's no law against gay couples sharing rooms," he insisted. We rang Mike Tait, Jersey's public relations manager. "I don't have a problem with it, " said the man who answered, "but by Jersey law we can't have two males sharing the same bed. "My boss could get in trouble for it, you know, taken to court." We called back a little later to try again. More bizarrely, the receptionist at the Almorah Hotel in St Helier claimed that it would be "against Jersey law" to book gay men into a double room. Perhaps she thought gay men temperamentally need showers. After a very long pause, she returned to the phone to say, "That's fine, but just to let you know that the room only has a bath, no shower. "Oooh, I'll just check," said the receptionist at the Portelet Hotel in St Brelades. Then we tried Jersey, which decriminalised homosexuality in 1990, and things got weird. She said: "It's horrible to think, isn't it, that people like that still exist today?" We rang several places on the Isle of Man (which only decriminalised homosexuality in 1992) and booked double rooms easily. And the lady at the Old Parsonage had just been reading about the Wester Ross story in the paper when she answered our call. The Vale Royal Hotel receptionist even laughed at the suggestion that there might be a problem. We even rang a clutch of places in Tunbridge Wells, where we might have expected a rather more, how shall we put it, traditional, response. But even in the most conservative parts of Essex such as Frinton our putative sexual preferences were welcomed. 30pm curfew." A gay-only curfew? Or did they think gays just more likely to stay out late? Impossible to decide.īy this point, we were getting desperate for rejection.
Then they added something which discombobulated us rather: "The only thing I will say is that we have an 11. The receptionist at Greystone Cottage, Windermere, in the Lake District, hesitated: "Ummm, I suppose not." Again with the warm welcome. "No sir, that is not a problem," said the receptionist at Alicia's B&B in Newquay, Cornwall. In the end, we rang 50 hotels and B&Bs across Britain. Nice.įrom Paisley to Portree and from Auchtermuchty to Aberdeen, our faith in Caledonian hospitality was being restored. The first person we spoke to at Seaview, Fionnphort on the Isle of Mull wasn't sure, but her manager said we would be acceptable. The charming receptionist at the Glen Druidh House Hotel in Inverness also had no problem, adding: "The only person who wouldn't be welcome is him." (Forrest, that is).
The delightful lady at the Albert Hall Hotel in Kirkwall on the Orkneys was pleased to offer me and my male sexual partner a double room for £81 per night. We started with Scotland, because we wanted to test the statement made by VisitScotland's spokesman following the Wester Ross row: "We are confident that this kind of attitude is not mirrored across the vast majority of Scotland."Īnd so it seemed. Mind you, if you go to the guesthouse's website ( Tom and Liz Forrest do clearly state: "We will only allow heterosexual couples and singles to occupy our double-bedded rooms." But how far are Forrest's views shared in the British B&B and hotel trade? We decided to ring round and find out. "You are welcome to our twin room if you wish, but we will not condone your perversion." Now that's what I call a warm welcome. "We do not have a problem with your personal sexual deviation, that is up to you," wrote Tom Forrest in an email to two gay male Londoners who had tried to book a double room at the Cromasaig guesthouse in Kinlochewe, Wester Ross. They might think of altering that guarantee following the news that the owner of a Highland guesthouse refused a gay couple a double room because he didn't want "poofs" performing "unnatural acts in my home". The Scottish Tourism Board is understandably proud of Scotland's tradition of hospitality.