Myths of The Midland: some of the tall tales surrounding the iconic Morecambe hotel's famous guests

Those of you fortunate enough to have enjoyed afternoon tea at the Midland Hotel may have read the menu/brief history of the hotel until recently placed on each table.

Unfortunately, in the wording of an early paragraph the hotel itself has helped perpetuate one of the most familiar Midland myths – that the building was “a favourite haunt of celebrities such as Coco Chanel, Sir Laurence Olivier and Noël Coward”.

While it is indeed true that Laurence Olivier stayed at the Midland when making the film The Entertainer in 1959, of Coco and Noël there is no record.

These two sophisticates of the 1930s rarely strayed north of the Home Counties and probably would have struggled to locate Morecambe on a map.

Noël Coward much preferred the warmer climes of Jamaica for his seaside sojourns while Coco Chanel liked to top up her tan on the French Riviera and it is unlikely she would have flown all the way to Lancashire from Cap d’Antibes for a drink in the Midland as one author fancifully suggested!

However, her influence may have reached Morecambe in the cult of sun-worshipping adopted by the gay young things who did stay at the Midland and frequent the neighbouring Super Swimming Stadium.

At this time just before the Second World War the hotel’s clientele largely consisted of the families of well-off northern businessmen, particularly from Leeds and Bradford, who would take over suites for several weeks during the summer, often sharing the hotel with theatre stars playing at the town’s Winter Gardens.

There is also a complete absence of evidence for another myth – the clandestine trysts which the future Edward VIII was deemed to have held with Wallis Simpson in romantic weekends at the Midland.

In fact, during the summer of 1936 she was keeping out of the limelight in the east coast resort of Felixstowe, rather handier for London, while her husband-to-be was sorting out his abdication.

Discreet dalliances at the Midland there may have been but not involving our uncrowned king!

Another popular tale involved the wealthy American socialite Gloria Vanderbilt chartering a seaplane, flying across the Atlantic and landing next to the Stone Jetty before popping into the Midland.

This, presumably, would have been in the 1950s, a time from which visitor books still exist. There is, unsurprisingly, no such entry for Gloria.

A former employee did once, however, recollect seeing a light aircraft land on the beach to deposit a newly-wed couple who were starting their honeymoon at the hotel.

Was the Midland the location of a secret meeting between Winston Churchill and Nikita Khrushchev in the early 1950s as some claimed? Well – no.

Confusion may have arisen when a similarly roly-poly Russian, Georgy Malenkov, stopped for afternoon tea at the hotel in March 1956 (Churchill was by then no longer Prime Minister).

As Minister for Energy he and his entourage were on their way to visit the recently completed atomic power station at Calder Hall. After dining he went for a ‘walkabout’ making himself quite popular with the crowd which had gathered, some of whom may have believed they were meeting the Soviet leader.

Sadly, Malenkov was not so popular at home and not long afterwards was expelled from the Communist party and exiled to Kazakhstan.

Persistent rumours also abound about the hotel’s basement; one suggests that a tunnel linked it to the old Promenade station so that VIPs and their luggage could arrive unobserved.

Interestingly, despite extensive work carried out by Urban Splash in the said basement during renovation of the hotel, no tunnel was found.

A long-retired hotel porter remembers escorting visitors and carrying their luggage across Marine Road to and from the station as part of his job.

Any underground journey, if feasible, would have often necessitated wellingtons as water ingress was always a problem until the cellar was eventually made watertight.

When the Midland was converted into a RAF hospital during the war, a small room in the cellar became a temporary mortuary although its use was limited as very few deaths were recorded.

However, this has not prevented stories of the moans of badly wounded airmen permeating the building.

Moaning there may have been but probably nothing more unearthly than the wind blowing through badly fitting windows.

Some staff and guests claim to have seen ghostly apparitions, particularly the spectral figure of a wartime airman entering the hotel’s service lift – though why a ghost should need to use a lift is anyone’s guess.

Whether or not you believe in ghosts, there are always such tales attached to well-known buildings like the Midland.

They make good stories especially if their tellers are not particularly concerned with factual accuracy.

The continued appearance of the various Midland myths in hotel literature, books and newspaper articles echoes the ending of John Ford’s seminal Western film The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance.

When Shinbone’s newspaper editor learns the uncomfortable truth behind an heroic event which the townspeople had believed for years, he decides not to reveal it, saying “When the legend becomes fact, print the legend”.

The Midland Hotel is indeed a fascinating building and there are tales to be told of the many famous people who actually did stay there – but that’s another story for another day.