Collecting the award
April 23rd 2009 – St. George’s Day. The National Enjoy England Awards for Tourism were held at the National Railway Museum in York – and yes, – we did it! We won Self-Catering Holiday of the Year2009!
The evening was hosted by the young T.V. stand-up comedian Michael McIntyre; the expression on his face in the photo shows what he felt like at having to kiss yet another middle-aged woman and we weren’t even half way through the awards! We were the only business from the West Midlands to win an award, so we were doubly delighted to feel that we were waving a lone flag for our area. In actual fact, two Golds were awarded, the other one to some lovely-looking cottages in Yorkshire called Noelle’s Cottages.
There were lots of different categories, from tourism journalist to the one for Outstanding Contribution to English Tourism – awarded to the great English pub, of which we have a very good example just down the road, The Oak. The award was collected on behalf of all publicans by Neil Morrissey (from Men Behaving Badly and Waterloo Road – neither of which we have seen – sorry Neil). He owns a number of pubs and had put some of his bottles of beer (Morrissey Fox Blond Beer I think) on the tables. We spoke to him briefly later on in the hotel bar.
