Inspiration
My Mother Sheila, bought Willow Cottage, when she was in her late fifties. A trained nurse, her original plan was to turn it into a residential nursing home.
It was trading as a successful ‘Bed and Breakfast’ when she bought it and was a favourite with the GoodWood crowd and visiting Americans. They loved the house with its beams and creaky staircases – and often requested a quick tour of the Brewery after hearing all her tales of pirates and ghosts.
Due to health and safety regulations, turning it into a nursing home would have meant the house losing a lot of its charm, and so my mother decided to keep it going as a ‘B&B.’ Owing to the popularity of the GoodWood racing season and the famous Festival Theatre in Chichester, she also inherited a lot of regular guests from the previous owners, so it seemed silly to ‘look a gift horse in the mouth.’ Besides which, she was having fun.
She was a stickler for high standards and was very reluctant to let anyone, other than family, run Willow Cottage in her absence. Woe betide us, if there were any stains on the tea-spoons. My brother Stu, did a lot to help her. They were quite a duo.
No spring chicken herself, she ran Willow Cottage as a ‘B&B’ for thirty odd years while caring for both my grandmother and step-father in their old age.
She had a real life ‘Tess,’ now buried in a silk-lined coffin with a headstone in the garden. Four other rescue dogs, adopted from the excellent, ‘Mount Noddy’ re-homing centre near Chichester, kept Tess company. Like Holly, my mother felt a lot safer in the house with her canine companions.
A Vietnamese pot -bellied pig, called Polly, (who features in ‘Sunny Side Up’ ) lived in the back garden. Another much-loved pet and big hit with visiting children, she was cremated at a pet cemetery in Arundel when she died and there is a little statue of a black pig, commemorating her in the garden.
Guests used to find it very amusing that the owner of a ‘B&B,” should have a pet pig. My mother always assured them that her beloved pet, wouldn’t end up on their plates.
As fun as it was, running a ‘B&B’ is extremely hard work. You live where you work and work where you live. Your doorbell rings at all times. But life was never dull and my mum met some wonderful people, some of whom became close family friends.
Willow Cottage is a grade 11 listed property, hopefully it will still stand in all its glory welcoming people through its doors for many years to come.
Clare with her Mum Sheila,
The original ‘Bed and Breakfast Queen’
The real-life ‘Tess’
The Willow Cottage Trilogy: Book 2
‘SUNNY SIDE UP’
Millie Henderson has just turned sixty. Her dream of putting her feet up and retiring to sunnier climes has been snatched away and she finds herself having to think about making a living for the first time in forty years. A widowed, one-time ‘executive wife,’ Millie feels decidedly ‘past her sell-by date’ when she scours the job adverts.
Running a ‘B&B’ is the perfect answer. She can live where she works and work where she lives. Her children have flown the nest and she will be accountable to no one but herself and her dog. As soon as she sees Willow Cottage she falls in love with it and has no qualms about her ability to run it as a B&B ‘par excellence.’
But Millie gets a lot more than she bargains for when she buys Willow Cottage.
The Willow Cottage Trilogy: Book 3
‘MOVING ON’
Millie is getting older. She worries about her daughter, Sophie, a single parent living in London on a shoe-string with a wayward daughter. Surely it makes more sense for them all to live together in Willow Cottage? Her daughter could step into her shoes and make a nice comfortable living, allowing Millie to take a back seat and grow old gracefully, safe in the knowledge that her daughter has her own home.
But is Millie as ready as she thinks to hand over the reins of her precious B&B? And can Sophie live with the increasingly erratic behaviour of her mother?
Willow Cottage
The Willow Cottage Trilogy
The Willow Cottage Trilogy: Book 1
‘THE BED AND BREAKFAST QUEEN’
When Holly Bradbury turns thirty and decides to buy a wonderful, old sixteenth-century coachhouse trading as a "Bed & Breakfast" in the country, everyone thinks she has lost her senses.
Her once seemingly perfect relationship with Mac, a high-flying advertising executive is now firmly on the rocks and Holly needs to change her life. Fast. But is burying herself in the country, swapping her designer suits and killer heels for green wellies and bumper packs of bacon the answer?
Will her new life as a 'B&B' Queen cause her to fall flat on her face, tripping over bundles of washing and mounds of ironing, or prove a gateway to the life of her dreams? As Holly soon finds out, dealing with an eccentric cleaning lady and unpredictable guests can be frustrating, moving and sometimes just plain hilarious.
Is she up to the task?
