Not as sweet as it looks...

In the summer of 1980, my friend and I worked as kitchen porters and barmen in a hotel in the centre of the main promenade in Douglas on the Isle of Man. Our duties involved assisting the chef or cook with making the main meals, dishing up, and also with the washing up. We were kitchen porters ‘extraordinaire’. One day, the boss of the hotel, who fancied himself as a bit of a cook, covered for the main chef and decided to do his legendary apple pie for dessert. It was the height of summer and the hotel was full, which meant that we had about two hundred guests. He took unashamed pride in his apple pie, and the truth is it did look delicious. He served up and then the waitresses took it out to the expectant guests…but as quickly as they went out the one door, they returned in the other; back with a tray full of partially nibbled pies! Guests were complaining that it tasted awful. This was a mystery to us all. Such a slur on the boss’ famous apple pie surely could not be true. He investigated it immediately. It tasted salty. We all had a go and agreed – yes, it was salty.

Now you need to know that the salt and the sugar were both kept in large disinfected dustbins, and were both clearly labelled ‘salt’ and ‘sugar’. He tested them both and they seemed to be OK. But as he dug a little deeper into the sugar one, the unmistakable taste of salt greeted his unwelcoming taste buds! It looked like someone had mistakenly put the wrong condiments into the wrong dustbins. The boss took immediate action to try and remedy the situation, and so it was all hands on deck as we opened copious tins of fruit cocktail.

Meanwhile, outside at the dinner tables, the unfortunate recipients of the now infamous apple pie were longing to get rid of the horrible salty taste in their mouths… “Ah! Deep joy! Here comes the cavalry…” - the waitresses were bringing tea and coffee to the tables… “And perhaps an extra spoon of sugar will help to get rid of that disgusting taste…? Yes, something really sweet…” And so, the spoon delved into the sugar bowl…and into the cup…and it was given a good stir…and… “Yuck!” That was when we realised the full extent of the damage and just how widespread this disaster was. There wasn’t a sugar bowl on any of the tables that hadn’t been salted!

The epilogue to this story is that months after this event we found out that the bosses’ son had been responsible for this dirty deed. Having a grudge against us, he maliciously connived to get us the sack by doing such a prank. Thankfully, the boss didn’t fall for it...