Yorkshire bed and breakfast owners who worked in Tesco during lockdown hope for autumn tourists

Lucinda and Andrew Jenkins, who run the six-bedroom Orchard Lodge in the village of Flixton, both worked in Tesco in Scarborough for more than three months up until the reopening of their business on July 4.

Lucinda said: “We needed to support ourselves. After lockdown was announced, we applied online for jobs at 10.30am and by noon we got a call from the local Tesco. The majority of the customers were very good and very appreciative of the staff - the full-time staff do a brilliant job. We reopened Orchard Lodge on July 4, we had guests in and I finished my final shift that night.”

Andrew and Lucinda previously worked in education before opening Orchard Lodge in April 2016 and in October 2017 their new business was named as a ‘Hidden Gem in Yorkshire’ at the Eviivo Awards. They are also on the shortlist for this year’s White Rose Awards.

Lucinda said reopening has come with some challenges, with bookings for July 50 per cent down on last year. “It was very slow to start with but it is picking up now,” she said.

She said while the business has benefited from the Government’s new restrictions on travelling to destinations like Spain, the local lockdowns which have affected West Yorkshire have also raised some concerns among guests not fully familiar with the region’s geography.

“With the Government restrictions on foreign travel, staycations are picking up. We have had people last week who had been due to go to Spain but cancelled,” she said. “We had guests phoning up on Friday morning after the local lockdowns were announced to ask is it alright to come? There are no Government guidelines to say they can’t.”

She said another challenge since reopening has been the considerable amount of extra time it now takes to deep-clean rooms and serve breakfast.

After a difficult first half of 2020, she believes things can improve during the rest of the year. “We are hoping for a lovely Indian summer. A lot of our guests have the time to come last minute being retired. Tesco have said we can go back to them - so we always have that option!”

Editor’s note: first and foremost - and rarely have I written down these words with more sincerity - I hope this finds you well.

Almost certainly you are here because you value the quality and the integrity of the journalism produced by The Yorkshire Post’s journalists - almost all of which live alongside you in Yorkshire, spending the wages they earn with Yorkshire businesses - who last year took this title to the industry watchdog’s Most Trusted Newspaper in Britain accolade.

And that is why I must make an urgent request of you: as advertising revenue declines, your support becomes evermore crucial to the maintenance of the journalistic standards expected of The Yorkshire Post. If you can, safely, please buy a paper or take up a subscription. We want to continue to make you proud of Yorkshire’s National Newspaper but we are going to need your help.

Postal subscription copies can be ordered by calling 0330 4030066 or by emailing [email protected]. Vouchers, to be exchanged at retail sales outlets - our newsagents need you, too - can be subscribed to by contacting subscriptions on 0330 1235950 or by visiting www.localsubsplus.co.uk where you should select The Yorkshire Post from the list of titles available.

If you want to help right now, download our tablet app from the App / Play Stores. Every contribution you make helps to provide this county with the best regional journalism in the country.

Sincerely. Thank you.

James Mitchinson

Editor