Consuming Interest
Footloose and Taxi Free
By LESLIE ADRIAN Tub less you pay for your holiday, generally speaking, the less • you get, and 'bargain' holi- days, much more often than not, should be Murison Small (25 Shaftesbury Avenue, WI, GERrard 4753) concentrates on villas in summer and chalets in winter which he rents for the season and makes available to groups of about twelve people. He insists that you be over seventeen and under thirty-five, likes to know something about you so that interesting rather than dull groups can be made up and, this year, can offer you a choice of nine chalets in Switzer- land, France, Italy, and Austria for' what's left of the ski-ing season and eleven villas in Greece, Italy and Spain for the summer. If you care to organise your own party of twelve you can have a villa or chalet to yourselves for as long as you want it and one of you will get a 60 per cent. reduction in the cost of his holiday?
Informality is the point in all this. You won't have luxurious accommodation, but it will be comfortable. Each villa or chalet is looked after by two English girls, who do the housekeeping and cooking and who otherwise consider them- selves (and are nice enough for you to consider them) members of the party. All they expect of you is that you make your bed.
Amenities provided free of charge vary from villa to .villa, but all have a small library and a record-player, seaside villas have masks, snorkel tubes and fins, one has an outboard motor-boat and another spearguns and sailskiffs and the villas in Greece have a collection of the kind of guide books and reference books that you ought to have had a look at before your started your 'holiday, but probably haven't.
A considerable advantage is that a driver and a minibus or old London taxi or converted truck are provided free for local travel, so that you don't have to pay extra for daily excursions. And a yin ordinaire is provided free at dinner each evening. Mr. Murison Small seems to me to be on t: a good thing. I particularly like the fact tha there is no small print in his brochure. Lilo all travel agents, he (legitimately) 'reserves ail right' in one way or another, but he is perked] straightforward about it and doesn't hide it, a most agents do, in an obscure footnote in thi hope that you won't notice it.
The small print in the case of villas can bl pretty shattering. I was sent the other day (I hadn't asked for it) the glossy brochure of Trans World Villas Ltd., which is described pompously and unnecessarily, as having beer 'designed, written and produced by The Leslie Frewin Organization Ltd., International Public Relations Associates.' It reads as if it had, too 'Trans World Villas Limited is unique in its character since it offers a new dimension in luxury holidays for people with a purpose— people who seek assured convenience, tranquillity and comfort in delightful surroundings. People preoccupied with irritating family or business problems which all too often threaten their annual few weeks of well-earned rest. People who, on the other hand, want to entertain friends or commercial associates in pleasing style.. . For the international business conference the scheme is admirable. A whole team is able to concentrate rewardingly in a congenial atmo- sphere under one roof with every modern facility readily to hand. A thought worth bearing in mind when pursuing that elusive contract which might be yours in return for a little planning and gracious hospitality.'
After you have read all about holidays with nanny, chauffeur, butler, cook, housemaid, kit- chenmaid, laundrymaid all arranged for you, the 'conditions laid down by the company' indicate that you must pay 25 per cent. of the rent when you make your original booking, that the balance must be paid not later than sixty days before date of departure or on signing of the tenancy agreement and that cancellation of the booking after this date may mean your losing the whole amount unless the villa is re-let. These are pretty tough conditions, but I find that similar condi- tions are insisted on by most of the agencies specialising in villas.
Mr. Murison Small will make a firm booking on receipt of a deposit of three guineas (five guineas in the case of Greece). The balance is paid in two instalments, six weeks and two weeks before departure, or in one payment three weeks before departure. If you have to cancel less than three weeks before departure you may have to forfeit a considerable amount, but a holiday HE SPECTATOR, APRIL 6, 1 9 6 2 [ h, deposits, insurance policy would cover you for _the whole amount.
Mr. Murison Small might, by the way, like 1 to consider an addition to his programme for next year. How about villas and chalets for families with built-in babysitters?
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