Where everybody knows your name
Some time back we decided to give our nearest eating place
Bistro 16 a try. We liked the food, the
ambience and especially Kym (with a Y) and Robin the husband and wife team who
ran it. During the last nine months
since MTL left me I have really grown to
appreciate a place ‘where
everybody knows your name’ and you are
made welcome – not just by Kym and the staff but by the other customers
who react like flowers to the sunshine of Kym’s smile and banter. Many of the clientele go every day and Kym
knows all their little idiosyncrasies.
It amuses me how many of them sit at separate tables whilst joining in
the general conversation.
The other day Kym said:
‘I hope you don’t mind my asking but didn’t you used to be a
model. I’d love to see your photos
sometime.’
Normally this makes
me groan inwardly as I always think people expect Richard Avedon type shots
whereas I was more ‘the girl next door’ type model.
However for a while I had been trying to
pluck up courage to ask her for an interview as I had always felt a connection
- so it was good to know she was happy about my doing a profile on her.
Kym is in her early fifties with a vibrant personality.
Robin - and yes he is her true love,
is her second husband and like me, she waited until her children had left home
before ending her marriage. She met
Robin through a dating agency which was a postal service. Both of them were sent five possibilities and
both their names were top of each other’s list as being most suitable. Robin was the fifth candidate that Kym met
and she said:
‘It was like coming home.’
I recognised the deep
contentment of a woman whose husband’s chief aim is to make his wife happy.
Kym spent her first 43 years in Droitwich Spa
– a town in northern Worcestershire situated on massive deposits of salt which
have been extracted there since ancient times.
The water is ten times stronger in salt than sea water and is rivalled
only by the Dead Sea.
An only child Kym used to love to
visit her Bompits (grandfather) in
Minehead and she remembers, aged 12 - buying a book on horses in a shop
opposite to what is now Bistro 16. Way
back the Bistro was a bank – the basement has been concreted over and myth has
it there is still money stored in the sealed up coffers.
Bompits
was an amateur photographer and Kym used to sleep in his dark room which
was painted black. To take her mind off
the resident spiders she would pretend to be a Dalek and recited the alphabet
in a Dalek voice so – naturally - Granddad became Bompits. I remembered she told me recently that she
made up recipes when she couldn’t sleep and I enjoyed one of the results - a
liquorice cheese cake.
She was trained in horsemanship by the
Olympic champion John Lassiter, is still extremely fit and loves her golf. She had three children and her first marriage
lasted 23 years. She is trained in aerobics, has sold children’s clothes, jewellery
and in her thirties started acting – which she loved – and gained an equity
card. She did some TV and photographic
work and at one time had her own business selling overseas a fuel saving device
for the poultry industry.
In her thirties there was a contest to
choose the Carnival Queen - Miss Bromsgrove and she and a friend wrote a comedy
skit on beauty contests. Then one of the
contestants had to withdraw and Kym was invited to take her place. To everybody’s surprise Kym won it and there
was muttering from the teenage contestants and their followers. So much so that Kym was ignored and didn’t
get any of the normal invitations that a Carnival Queen expects. The unfairness of this was taken up by the
Press and as a result Kym appeared on The
David Frost show, That’s Life. ITV’s Today and all the papers.
During her year as Queen she earned a
great deal of money for charity by organising a fashion show for Debenhams with
a story line
Eventually her marriage failed because
she and her husband had widely differing interests.
After Kym met Robin they visited Bruges where Kym had an
Epiphany.
They were strolling down a boulevard of
cafes with customers sitting outside when Kym was entranced by some beautiful
music.
She persuaded Robin they should
sit inside - the better to hear this fantastic musical trio. Not only did the beauty
of the music bring tears to her eyes but she was fascinated by the Madame – a
soignée woman who glided round the restaurant ensuring all was running smoothly
and gracing the room with her presence. There and then Kym determined she was
going to be that woman.
Meanwhile the musicians noticed they
had moved a customer to tears and clustered round her whilst she tried to eat
her steak and sob without slobbering too much.
Back in Minehead they bought a
guesthouse with 8 bedrooms and Kim learned the importance of the green baize
door. She freely admits that she was
going through the menopause at this time so on one side of the door side she
was a monster blaming Robin for anything and everything whilst on the other
side she was the adorable Madame. Then
they planned to buy The Rectory which required much renovation but were beaten
to the post by someone else who then went bust.
So they bought Peppercorns which
morphed into Bistro 16. It hasn’t all been
plain sailing. They inherited a group of
elderly ladies who believed they owned the restaurant. They would come every day at coffee time and
sit there till the afternoon demanding their quite grubby cushions which had
been stored behind the bar. Kym had to point
out that behind the bar was out of bounds for customers.
It was only a matter of time before
Kym heard the ringleader bad mouthing the food to new customers and was forced
to bar her.
Very different from today’s happy
customers.
Sadly nothing lasts forever and
tragedy struck when Robin’s son died.
Now they both want to be nearer to their extended family so they can see
their grandchildren’s school concert and similar occasions – not too close to
be constant baby sitters however. Businesses are slow to move but sooner or
later theirs will be sold – we shall be the losers and Kym and Robin will start
their next big adventure.
See photos below.
