Today, a hotel guest can complain online before they have even checked out. A disappointing breakfast, a broken television or a questionable room can become a one-star review within minutes. But decades before TripAdvisor, Google Reviews and social media, the hospitality world operated very differently. In Certainly Sir. Up Yours!, author Michael Pellegrini takes readers straight back to that era and does so with outrageous humour, unforgettable characters and absolutely no filter.
Set around the fictional Savoy Court Hotel in Margate, the book draws inspiration from Pellegrini’s own long experience in hospitality. He spent 30 years in the hotel business and grew up around the industry after his father bought a hotel in Margate in 1974. That background gives the story its distinctive sense of authenticity, even as the characters themselves are presented as fictional.
Welcome to a Very Different Kind of Hotel
The Savoy Court is not the polished, carefully branded hotel experience modern travellers might expect. This is a place where some rooms rely on electric fires, toilets are shared, furniture does not match and the old-fashioned cage lift requires staff assistance. Even the hotel’s attempts at upgrading feel wonderfully stuck in another time.
For readers who remember British seaside holidays in the 1970s and 1980s, these details create instant nostalgia. For younger readers, they offer a hilarious glimpse into just how different travel and hospitality once felt.
But the building is only part of the attraction. The real entertainment comes from the people attempting to run it.
Where Customer Service Meets Complete Chaos
Frank Tolley narrates much of the madness. An ex-RAF man with a taste for ceremony, alcohol, sarcasm and mischief, he approaches hotel life with a very personal interpretation of customer service. Alongside him are George Antonopoulos, the overpowering hotel owner, his complicated family, unpredictable employees, questionable entertainers and a seemingly endless stream of demanding guests.
One memorable episode sees more than 160 guests arrive at once on three coaches. Keys are handed to the wrong people, luggage piles up, tempers rise, the lift becomes overloaded and complaints begin almost immediately. What should be a routine check-in quickly becomes total disorder.
And that is fairly normal by Savoy Court standards.
Elsewhere, readers encounter kitchen practical jokes, eccentric musicians, disastrous refurbishments, wedding chaos, Christmas catastrophes and staff members who seem just as interested in entertaining themselves as serving the guests.
A Comedy That Refuses to Behave
Michael Pellegrini makes it clear from the beginning that Certainly Sir. Up Yours! is not designed to be polite. The language is adult, the humour is deliberately provocative and the characters frequently behave in ways that would be completely unacceptable in a modern hotel. That irreverence is central to the book’s personality.
Yet beneath the outrageous comedy is also a portrait of a disappearing world: family-run seaside hotels, coach holidays, old-fashioned entertainment, eccentric staff and an era when hospitality operated without online ratings hanging over every interaction.
For readers who enjoy bold British humour, workplace chaos, nostalgia and characters who say exactly what they think, Certainly Sir. Up Yours! offers a hotel stay unlike anything available on a booking app.
Ready to check in? Discover Certainly Sir. Up Yours! by Michael Pellegrini and enter the unforgettable world of the Savoy Court Hotel.
Get the book on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0HCLXVCL1/
