Scottish Catholic Observer

MAURICE Taylor was awarded a CBE in the 2016 New Year Honours List for distinguished services to business and charity. When asked to introduce himself at the Palace, the founder of Chardon Trading—which owns and operates six hotels throughout Scotland—replied: “Maurice Taylor, humble hotelier from Scotland.”

I met him for a coffee in his famous French brasserie La Bonne Auberge, in the heart of Glasgow, to talk about his extraordinary journey to become one of Scotland’s most successful Catholic businessmen. Mr Taylor is the youngest son of James Taylor, a devout Catholic and strict father. “The kind who let the deterrent strap dangle from his back pocket!” he laughs.

Headmaster of St John’s, Barrhead, at just 35, James Taylor later became the first Catholic provost of his local burgh.

Reading and learning were at the heart of family life; both his mother and maternal grandmother were teachers. He attended St Aloysius’ College in Garnethill and then St Benedict’s Abbey at Fort Augustus in Inverness-shire. The Jesuits despaired of him, he grins, and packed him off to the monks with whom he shared a similarly stubborn educational experience.

He left school at 16, much to the dismay of his academic father, who didn’t speak to him for two years as a result. He took on an apprenticeship at Weir’s of Cathcart in 1957 and gained his national certificates in engineering. He was subsequently accepted to the Royal Technical College (now Strathclyde University), where he began a degree in engineering. In his spare time, he bought insurance write-offs and took great pleasure in racing old motorbikes and cars.

At 19, Mr Taylor crashed his Triumph Tiger Cub into a wall whilst driving at 90mph. With five holes in his side and fractures in his head and collar bone, he received the last rites at the Southern General Hospital in Glasgow, where he was interned for three months.

Miraculously, he made a full recovery but missed his college exams and took a job as a junior night porter at the Turnberry Hotel, earning £5 a week and kicking off what would become an illustrious 50-year career in the hotel industry.

Indeed, meeting and greeting guests like Bob Hope and Bing Crosby gave the young entrepreneur a taste for the big time. His flair for languages was finally paying off and he quickly realised his ability to parlez so affably with guests could also double his pay packet.

He soon caught the attention of the personnel manager of British Transport Hotels, Scotland’s premier hotel management training scheme, which ran Gleneagles, The Balmoral and The Caledonian in Edinburgh.

He enjoyed periods of training in Spain and Switzerland, but most fondly in Paris, where he learned his craft at the Tour D’Argent, a Michelin-star fine dining restaurant frequented by a plethora of Hollywood stars like Marlene Dietrich, Sammy Davis Junior, Jacques Charrier and Brigitte Bardot.

In the years that followed, Mr Taylor managed and ran a myriad of successful hotels in Scotland, before investing in the business himself.

In 1973, he had just enough money to undertake a new venture in creating his own hotel company, which became Chardon Hotels Limited, boasting three hotels in its first year in Edinburgh, Loch Earn and Nairn.

This was just the beginning. La Bonne Auberge and Harvey’s American Bar and Diner followed, the latter being the first American burger joint of its kind in Glasgow. He also purchased The Lorne Hotel on Sauchiehall Street and The Garfield in Stepps.

His entrepreneurial spirit took him in other directions too. In the late 1980s he renovated a fleet of flats in Notting Hill. He also turned around the fortunes of a struggling engineering firm in Stonehaven and built houses in Livingston and Parklands Country Club in Renfrewshire. He even enjoyed a spell supplying his secret recipe Cumberland sausages to brewers pubs across Edinburgh.

Mr Taylor remains stubbornly humble about his successes. “If you talk about the good work you do, it doesn’t count,” he recalls his mother saying. Indeed, running alongside the extensive list of business achievements and personal success is a similarly impressive record of charitable works and investment in people and communities.

He has served on the boards of a number of charities including Marie Curie and St Margaret’s Adoption Society. He is currently a Trustee of The Willow Tea Rooms, and is involved in conserving and restoring its iconic Charles Rennie Mackintosh heritage.

Inheriting his father’s love of fine music, he donated significant sums of money towards the installation of two organs; one in St Aloysius’ Church, Garnethill, and another in the Royal Concert Hall, Glasgow. He is also director of the Pitlochry Festival Theatre and sponsors students at the Royal Scottish National Orchestra.

He sponsors young people going on pilgrimages to religious sites around the world and is a Knight of the Holy Sepulchre, providing on-going support for the Christian Church in the Holy Land.

Mr Taylor has also been awarded an honorary Doctorate by Strathclyde University, and offers advice to a new generation of entrepreneurs and business students.

At 78, it’s increasingly unlikely that Mr Taylor will take up that scuba diving retirement in Florida he’s always talked about. He remains chief executive of Chardon Trading whilst his daughter Nicola is now managing director. He is simply too good at business, and too fond of using its profits to do good works.

Mr Taylor sees himself as a paternalistic sort of character: “I want to look after my staff, and know what their problems are. If their kids are sick, I want to know.”

This philosophy has paid off over the years—his chef at La Bonne Auberge has been in residence for 25 years, his manager 16 years; almost unheard of in the service industry. He’s an investor in people. “I’d rather change their attitude, than change the person” he adds.

Indeed, his successes have been shaped by the Catholic values instilled in him by his parents and by his Catholic education, the foundations upon which, he says, his life was built.

“I’ve become more and more like my father,” he jokes. “More than I ever wanted to be.”

Mr Taylor and his wife, Una, will soon celebrate 55 years of marriage. “She keeps me grounded” he observes gently.

While decorating recently, she packed up a collection of his awards and accolades in a box marked ‘take to the office.’ Humility shared, it seems, is a match made in heaven.

Maurice’s generosity of spirit, much like his Faith, is lived out quietly and constructively, often in the simplest but most extraordinary ways.

As he packs up to leave, he quips: “If something speaks for itself, don’t interrupt.” The humble hotelier, indeed.