Court Colman Manor - Press Clips

Bilayati Dreams

At Cardiff train station a dapper, sixtyish gent greeted us. Welcome to Wales; I'm Vijay Bhagotra, he said. A desi in deepest Wales? How rare could a Welsh rarebit be? Apparently very rare indeed. Part of Bilay-at's dreams, Vijay is makiag his own dream come true. He came to Britain in the mid 7Os, when racism was rife. Despite this, he made a spectacular career in hoteliering and three years ago he bought a 35-room hotel in South Wales, the Court Colman Manor, 26 miles from Cardiff.

Built on the site of an ancient abbey, the 200-year-old manor which was part of a large country estate became a hotel in 1981. Vijay took it over, refurbished I the accommodation into individually designed theme rooms (yes, there is a 'Bollywood' room, lurid with chiffon and zari) and imported three cooks from India, Pravin, William and Anna, who respectively specialise in Mughlai, Punjabi and South Indian cuisine.

Vijay told us his story as we had tea on the sweeping lawns of the hotel with his French wife, Isabelle, and their two grown-up children, Sanjay and Roneeka. Staying at the Colman Manor is like being part of an Indian joint family - but one located in a stately home of Britain.

The next day we explored the Welsh countryside with Selwyn Walters, an ex-history teacher turned guide. We drove along the panoramic curve of Swansea bay and up into the hills of the Brecon Beacons, the land surging and dipping so that you felt you were on a gentle roller coaster made of green velvet. We drove through the Rhondda region, scene of Richard LLewelyn's classic 'How Green Was My Valley'. The Welsh mines have long been closed, and their scars have long healed. As the black gold lies beneath the earth does it dream of the fire it will never be, now that the men who would have brought it to the sun are dead and gone? I remembered Dylan's lines: "Time held me green and dying, though I sang in my chains like the sea."

That night at Colman Manor, Vijay had invited some Welsh friends to dinner. The conversation flowed in English, French, Welsh and Hindustani. Everyone agreed the baigan bharta was multilingually fantastic. Was I dreaming? Then the thought struck me. As the chap said, we all are such stuff as dreams are made on. And a dream is a dream is a dream. Be it of the Bombay or the Bilayati kind. Or indeed the Welsh.