Pearl

For the whole of his working life, my father worked at the Pearl Assurance company headquarters in High Holborn London (except for his period of active service during the Second World War).  It was there that he met my mother who also worked for the company until the end of the war. (They were married in 1940 when he was on leave from the army). His brother also worked there.  In later years his daughter, my sister, got her first job there as a shorthand typist (do they exist any more?).  When I was in the sixth form, I took summer clerical work there to build up my savings for university. We therefore have strong family connections with the Pearl.

In 1989, after my father had retired, the company relocated its headquarters to Peterborough.  Since then, the building has been thoroughly restored,renovated and internally transformed to become a hotel.  The current hotel, which opened in 2013, is the very stylish 5 star Rosewood Hotel.  In line with the hotel's philosophy of "a sense of place",  they have retained references to the Pearl Assurance Company, with one suite called the "Pearl Suite".  I understand the hotel's dog's name is also Pearl.

Today happens to be the Pearl anniversary (30 years) of our wedding.  As a special surprise, my wife arranged for us to have lunch in the Mirror Room of the hotel.  When booking, she had mentioned my connections with the building and, when we arrived, the restaurant receptionist was expecting us and immediately called for the manager, who offered to show us around the building.  It was delightful to see that they had retained and made full use of some of the lovely features of this rather splending Grade II listed building, which features extensive areas decorated in seven different types of marble, some extremely rare. As you might expect of a hotel of this standard, the design and decorations were of an extremely high quality.

We returned to the dining room for our lunch, where the manager brought us complimentary glasses of champagne to celebrate the occasion.  Our dedicated waiter then took our orders and looked after us for the rest of our meal.  In my blip, he can be seen preparing our starters.  At the end of the meal he even brought us a platter of sweets and cheesecake, the platter decorated with the words "Happy Anniversary".

It was a thoroughly wonderful day. I suppose you could call it "Pearly".