Donald Sinclair (hotel owner)

Donald Sinclair

Donald and Beatrice Sinclair
Born Donald William Sinclair
6 July 1909
Died 1981
Torbay, Devonshire[1]
Nationality British
Occupation Merchant Naval Officer, Naval Officer, Hotelier
Known for Being the inspiration for the fictional character, Basil Fawlty
Spouse(s) Beatrice Coutts Ritchie (1940–1981; his death)
Children Two[2]

Military career

Allegiance  United Kingdom
Service/branch  Royal Navy
Years of service 1939–1946[1]
Rank Lieutenant commander
Battles/wars

World War 2

Donald William Sinclair (10 July 1909 – 1981) was the co–proprietor of the Gleneagles Hotel in Torquay which he helped manage after an extensive career in the Royal Navy, including service during World War II. He was the inspiration for the character Basil Fawlty in Fawlty Towers, owing to his allegedly stuffy, snobbish and eccentric treatment of his guests, including John Cleese and other members of the Monty Python cast.[3]

Wartime career

Sinclair's ship, HMS Karanja, on fire in Bougie harbour, prior to sinking (November 1942)

Prior to World War II, Sinclair was in the British Merchant Navy.[4] As an officer in the Royal Naval Reserve, he was called up in September 1939 for military service.[1]

Soon after his call up, he joined the crew of the armed merchant cruiser (AMC) HMS Salopian.[1] Salopian was a pre-war cargo liner that had been armed and converted into a warship as an emergency wartime measure. In May 1941 she was escorting a convoy in the North Atlantic. Early on the morning of the 13th, 400 miles south of Cape Farewell, Greenland, she was attacked unsuccessfully by the U-boat U-98 in heavy fog. During successive attacks in following six hours, Salopian was hit four times by torpedoes. Her engines were knocked out but she remained afloat and engaged the surfaced U-98 with gunfire. Salopian finally sank after a fifth torpedo broke her in half. All but three of the crew survived and were picked up the next day by the destroyers HMS Impulsive and HMS Icarus.[5][6]

In July 1941, Sinclair joined the Landing Ship, Infantry HMS Karanja[1] and was part of her crew when she was took part in Operation Torch, the Allied invasion of French North Africa. On the morning of the 12 November 1942, at Bougie, Algeria, she was hit in the engine room by at least two bombs from a German Junkers 88 bomber and set on fire, before subsequently sinking.[7][8]

From February 1943 until July 1945, Sinclair served on the escort carrier HMS Trumpeter. He left the navy in April 1946 with the rank of Lieutenant commander.[1]

Hotel career and later life

The Gleneagles Hotel, Torquay, in 2009

Sinclar married Beatrice Ritchie (1915–2010) in Glasgow during the war. She was a policeman's daughter from Ellon, Aberdeenshire, who worked as a fashion consultant and designer at a Glasgow department store. She subsequently moved to Torquay to live with an aunt and avoid the German bombing of Glasgow. After the war ended, while her husband was still serving at sea, she opened a hotel in Torquay called Greenacres.[4] The business was a success and in 1964, she bought a private house that she transformed into a second hotel. She named this Gleneagles after her favourite part of her native Scotland. By this time, her husband was assisting her in running the business.[2] He made this decision reluctantly and would have preferred to remain at sea.[9]

Sinclair died in England in 1981, followed by his wife in September 2010; they are survived by their two daughters.[2]

Sinclair-inspired satire

The Monty Python cast met the Sinclairs while staying at the Gleneagles Hotel in May 1970; they were filming in nearby Paignton. Donald Sinclair was reluctant for them to stay, but his wife argued in favour of them, as the Monty Python cast's three week stay in the hotel represented a considerable amount of business during the hotel's off-season.[10]

Several of the Fawlty Towers plot lines are alleged to be partly based on real life events.[11]

Cleese, who played Basil Fawlty, again played an eccentric hotel manager, this time named Mr. Mersault in the 1999 remake film "The Out-of-Towners." John Cleese later played an eccentric billionaire Las Vegas hotel–casino owner in the 2001 film "Rat Race". In this later piece, the hotel owner's character was actually named Donald Sinclair.

Accuracy

Opinions are divided on how closely Sinclair resembled Basil Fawlty. Former staff and visitors have remembered actual events there that were allegedly as ludicrous as those depicted in the programmes.[12][13] However, Sinclair's family are adamant that Fawlty was an inaccurate caricature of Sinclair.[9] Beatrice Sinclair later described her husband as a "gentleman and a very brave man" and a disciplinarian who could not stand fools; she stated that he was not "the neurotic eccentric that John Cleese made him out to be." An accuracy she did acknowledge is that she was very much in charge of the business, just as Basil Fawlty was usually subordinate to his wife Sybil.[9]

The publication of Michael Palin's diaries in 2006 supported John Cleese's assessment of the Sinclairs.[14]

A former employee of the Sinclairs alleged that Cleese's comedy sketches "scraped only the tip of the iceberg".[3]

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 Royal Naval Reserve (RNR) Officers 1939–1945 "Royal Naval Reserve (RNR) Officers 1939–1945". www.unithistories.com. 27 September 2011.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 "Beatrice Sinclair (Obituary)". The Daily Telegraph. 16 September 2010. Retrieved 16 September 2010.
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 Donaldson, William (2002). Brewer's Rogues Villains and Eccentrics. Cassell. p. 574. ISBN 0-304-35728-6.
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 "Obituary: Beatrice Sinclair, fashion designer, dance hostess and hotelier". Kirkintilloch Herald. 28 September 2010. Retrieved 20 January 2013.
  5. ↑ Daniel Morgan; Bruce Taylor (9 November 2011). U-Boat Attack Logs: A Complete Record of Warship Sinkings from Original Sources 1939-1945. Seaforth Publishing. pp. 96–100. ISBN 978-1-84832-118-2.
  6. ↑ "HMS Salopian (F 94)". uboat.net. 27 September 2011.
  7. ↑ "HMS Karanja (F 128)". uboat.net. 27 September 2011.
  8. ↑ John Weal (20 September 2012). Junkers Ju 88 Kampfgeschwader in North Africa and the Mediterranean. Osprey Publishing. p. 73. ISBN 978-1-78200-445-5.
  9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 9.2 Richard Saville (10 May 2002). "My husband was not like Basil". The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 28 August 2008.
  10. ↑ "Cleese's memory was clearly faulty". Plymouth Herald. September 22, 2010. Retrieved 27 June 2014.
  11. ↑ "The REAL Sybil dies aged 95: Woman's Torquay hotel helped inspire Fawlty Towers". Daily Mail. 17 September 2010. Retrieved 10 April 2013.
  12. ↑ Richard Saville (17 May 2002). "Fawlty hotelier was bonkers, says waitress". The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 28 August 2008.
  13. ↑ Yvonne Swann (1 July 2008). "Paula Wilcox's heaven and hell". The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 1 July 2008.
  14. ↑ Diaries 1969–1979 – The Python Years (published 2006) – In the entries for 11 and 12 May 1970, it is recounted that Sinclair saw the Pythons as a "colossal inconvenience" and when Michael Palin and Graham Chapman decided to leave after one night, Beatrice Sinclair gave them a bill for two weeks.