My life of top hat and tales

TWO names, with just a letter to separate them, will forever be associated with the Caledonian Hotel: Hollywood cowboy Rogers, who with his horse Trigger famously descended the hotel’s staircase, and Charlie Rodger, the Caley’s doorman these past 18 years.

Charlie retires on March 2, two days before his 65th birthday.

You could never miss the bewhiskered Charlie on passing. He is a big bloke anyway, and that top hat, matching the blue greatcoat, is constantly framed by the legendary portals of nine feet six.

A daunting figure? Not our Charlie. His welcoming smile has been the first thing countless VIPs and personalities from all walks have encountered the moment they’ve stepped out of their cab or limo.

The sunshine of his smile, not to mention the shine on his shoes, has kept him in the job he has held, unrivalled, in the Capital since he first donned the uniform in 1983.

"I’ve literally seen Edinburgh life pass by the front door. This being the very hub of the West End, there can be few such strategic pitches in the city where you can take its pulse, so to speak," he says.

The perk of the job has been welcoming famous people, too numerous to list. The Prime Ministers, the Royals (Prince Rainier among them), the stars of sport and showbusiness.

"Jimmy Nail stayed here for two months while he was filming locally and he was a great guy, very funny. If he’s in town he comes and sees me," Charlie says. "Kim Novak, with no airs and graces, was the sweetest of women. And Dave Allen was one of the nicest guys. We’d share a few whiskies when I was off duty. ‘Charlie,’ he’d say, ‘your talents are wasted at that door.’"

Then there has been Catherine Zeta-Jones and Michael Douglas, Jane Russell, Nelson Mandela and, of course, Edinburgh’s most famous son, Sean Connery, never stays anywhere else.

"We have always got on very well. The last time he stayed he gave me a memento of his visit, a wee glass in a case with a half bottle of whisky. I’ve still got the glass, but the bottle was finished a long time ago."

After so long in the meeting and greeting business, Charlie knows the secret of success. "You make this job. You fast learn to speak when you’re spoken to. Just be yourself and treat everybody who comes through the door as a VIP. I can now speak in at least ten languages, if only little more than good morning or goodbye . . . bonjour, buenas dias, guten tag, au revoir, arrivederci. That sort of thing. Given enough encouragement, for a laugh, I’ve baffled some of them with ‘lang may yer lum reek, but wi’ somebody else’s wummin.’

"People like to be remembered and if you’re nice to them, they’re nice back, so it’s easy to remember who they are. It’s amazing the people you meet. There’s a chap, Lloyd Ogilvie, who comes here in August and he’s been coming since I started. He’s the pastor to the Senate in America, yet he’s been at my house and had his dinner."

Previously, Charlie had always been "in fish", apart from a two-year stint with the Army on National Service. "I was born at Jewel Cottages, part of Portobello until it was demolished, and brought up in Fisherrow, Musselburgh. My mother had a fish shop there and I worked in it until I was called up.

"My dad had been in the Scots Guards and, being tall like him, I followed in his bootsteps. I was six feet two - with age I’m a diminutive five seven now - so I had the basic height requirement.

"I like to think that the discipline I endured in the Guards stayed with me, equipped with the bearing that helped a lot in clinching this job. Billeted at Chelsea Barracks, I was involved in royal duties throughout my service.

"Many’s the day I stood like a stiff on duty at the gates of Buckingham and St James’ palaces and the Mint. I have to own up, though. I didn’t come out of the Army with an unblemished record. We’re talking about 1954-55. Every morning the Royal Household Guards would ride by Buckingham Palace on their way up The Mall. As they passed this particular day, I gave the butt salute with my rifle instead of presenting arms.

"Just my horrible luck that my clanger was spotted by Regimental Sergeant Major Ron Brittain of the Coldstream Guards, who was enjoying a lot of media coverage at the time as the loudest voice in the British Army. He shopped me, quite rightly, and I was confined to barracks for seven days. My dad was ashamed of me."

On demob Charlie rejoined the family business, subsequently buying "a wee fish shop" of his own in Portobello.

"I sold that in the early Eighties. At 46 I felt I needed a change - to get out of fish - and I wrote to the Caley after it advertised for a doorman. The job was shared by two doormen at the time. It was the duck-to-water thing for me. I can honestly say - and coming from Musselburgh I’ve lived by the Honest Toun standards - that I’ve loved every day of it.

"Up to a couple of years ago, there were always two of us on the door. It’s been me on my own more recently. Nothing I couldn’t handle."

Employee of the Year eight years ago when the hotel belonged to Norfolk Capital, cheerful Charlie has survived eventful, occasionally turbulent times in a if-walls-could-talk hotel that next year celebrates its centenary.

"A helluva lot has happened here while I’ve been on the payroll. I’ve worked for six different owners and under seven general managers. They’ve each had their own style of running things - mine has never changed."

It could be an age thing, but Charlie is not impressed by the society he views from beneath his top hat. Indeed, he veers towards despondency.

"Etiquette and chivalry. Talk about that to today’s teens and 20s and they wouldnae ken how tae spell it," he says lapsing into the Fisherrow vernacular.

"And there’s a touch of the regimental about the penguins passing by the door on their way to and from the big offices up the road with the obligatory laptop, bottle of water and black suit. Night-time you see them with their shirt tails hanging out.

"I’m talking about the 18s to 50s. The only time you see them with a Financial Times is when they’ve got a fish supper in it. Talking out of turn? Me? Well, I never was shy."

But always impeccable in uniform.

"I’m a stickler for spit and polish and you can attribute that to my Guardsman training. What bugs me greatly are dirty shoes. Shoes tell you tons about a person. My mother used to say ‘ye can be puir but ye can be clean’. And I’m just as particular about punctuality. You were ten minutes late."

When he finally leaves his post, his days will be spent on the golf course.

"I’m a member at 440-a-year Monktonhall. I’m there two or three days a week. My handicap has slumped from two to nine, but when I’ve been asked by guests to posher courses like Bruntsfield, or the Royal Burgess, I’ve taken the money."

No flies on Charlie Rodger, 43 years married with three grandchildren. We won’t have seen the last of him beyond March 2. They’re bound to lure him out of his easy chair next year for the Caley’s centenary celebrations.

The Caley’s hall of fame

From Lulu to Lou Reed, some of the world’s most famous have graced the Caley’s revolving doors . . .

- Catherine Zeta-Jones and Michael Douglas stayed at the hotel along with Sean Connery when they were in town launching the film Entrapment in 1999.

- Nelson Mandela was a special guest in 1997 when he was in Edinburgh for the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting.

- Sir Elton John has rested his weary head there. He demanded a supply of Diet Coke in his suite.

- Van Morrison is a regular guest, and particularly likes the food in the hotel’s Pompadour Restaurant.

- Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton stayed there during one of their less tempestuous times.

- Lou Reed performed an hour and a half meditation ritual every morning when he was a guest.

- Tony Bennett stayed there when he brought the roof down at the Usher Hall.

- Mikhail Gorbachev was a guest while president of the former USSR.

- Hollywood stars Pierce Brosnan and Rene Russo stayed the night in 1999 when The Thomas Crown Affair had its premiere in Edinburgh.

- The Princess Royal has been known to park her Landrover outside and have a night at the Caley.