Last updated 13:35, Thursday, 31 July 2008

ONE of my great regrets in life is that I have never been very good at complaining.

Oh, I can whinge and rant after the event, and even fulminate from the safety of this column, but at the time I am meeker than Minnie Caldwell.

No matter how bad the service I have endured, whenever the unctuous provider rubs his hands and asks: “Everything to your satisfaction sir?” I can only cravenly squeak: “Very nice, thank you.”

Take last weekend, when I paid an all-too-rare visit to my native Cheshire, where Mrs Hextol and I took up residence in the Hotel de Posh to celebrate our 37th wedding anniversary.

One of the joys of returning to home territory is that you can get those little items which simply are not available in Tynedale.

Among the things I miss is proper Cheshire cheese.

Its creamy taste and crumbly texture take me back to my childhood, when I was regularly despatched to Williams’s Shop for a quarter of cheese.

There was never any specification as to which variety; as far as we were concerned, there was only one type of cheese.

There was none of the blue veined monstrosities smelling like a bad dose of athlete’s foot, or multi-hued cheeses from many lands, or the strident yellow and orange British varieties that all taste like Cusson’s Imperial Leather.

Nor did it come pre-packed in industrial strength plastic, so thick that it would blunt the chopping axe.

There was only one cheese, and that was Cheshire, a round of which stood proudly on every grocer’s counter, a dazzling white barrel of gustatory delight.

It was cut to order by hand, and the fact it was cut by the same unwashed hands that had moments before been selling firelighters or flypapers seemed to add to the flavour.

It was only when I left Cheshire that I found out there was an orange version of the cheese too, but I think that must have been for export only; we kept the best for ourselves.

Mr Williams wore enormous pebble glasses which made his eyes look like those of a Martian, and I was always a little afraid of him, but not too afraid to ask for my cheese.

He sliced it expertly, once down, and once across, and the glistening slab was then wrapped in a single sheet of greaseproof paper to be carried home in triumph.

Whether put on toast, or between two shives of bread, this was the epitome of high living.

So, when I spotted “Cheshire cheese, thickly layered on freshly baked crusty bread from the hotel kitchen, garnished with genuine Branston pickle and salad newly picked from our own garden”, on the lunchtime lite-bite menu, the saliva jetted from beneath my tongue.

Although it cost almost £5, I reasoned it was a price worth paying to recapture my youth, and ordered a plateful forthwith.

It took the best part of 20 minutes before the waiter appeared bearing a tray which contained Mrs Hextol’s modest ham and apple chutney sandwich, and what appeared to be my much anticipated prince of dagwoods.

I ripped off the clingfilm – and was confronted by two small pieces of sliced loaf, between which lay several chunks of acid yellow cheese, which was no more Cheshire cheese than the green cheese the moon is made of.

There was no Branston either, and my salad “newly picked from the hotel garden” was what appeared to be a handful of dandelion leaves, accompanied by seven soggy crisps of indeterminate flavour.

The waiter heard my screech of anguish, and stopped in his tracks, with an eyebrow quizzically and theatrically raised,

“A problem, sir?” he asked, but I could do little more than gesture at the sweating fare on my plate.

“That’s not Cheshire cheese!” I finally managed to splutter, at which he shrugged his shoulders eloquently and said: “But it was served in Cheshire…”

I vowed to raise the matter with the management, and demand that the cost of the disappointing dagwood be struck from my bill, which would also contain a small consideration for my pain and suffering at being denied my childhood succour.

But of course, when we checked out, and the receptionist trilled “Did you enjoy your stay sir?” whilst relieving me of the cost of a small house in Halton Lea Gate, I smiled weakly and said: “Yes, everything was fine...”