by Dr. Iain
Corness
I
warm to anyone with the name of “Iain” (note the spelling) being the
same as mine, denoting a shared Scottish heritage. Iain Arthur is one of
the owners of the Alkemy Restaurant in the Nova Park serviced apartments,
and now spends 50 percent of his time in Pattaya and the other 50 percent
in the UK.
Iain was born in Paisley in Scotland, and his great
grandfather was one of the original weavers who produced the famous
‘Paisley pattern’; however, Iain says that they stole the design from
Kashmir! Fortunately the Kashmiri’s didn’t patent it.
His father was an accountant, Scots are always
‘canny’ with their money, and Iain was a post-war baby. “I was the
first thing my Dad did when he came home,” said Iain, obviously a man
with an original Scottish sense of humour, as opposed to the ‘copy’
Paisley pattern.
Iain was an industrious little fellow. “I started
work when I was three years old, digging up my father’s turnips and
selling them to the neighbours.” This was not a serious attempt at
retailing however, as the neighbours brought them back to give to his
father, but the early seeds of commerce had been sown.
But by the time he was a teenager, he did have an
all-consuming interest - cooking. So much so that he would enter cooking
competitions at the local village halls, and by the time he had completed
his grammar school education he was ready to enrol in the Scottish Hotel
School.
This training establishment was taken under the
umbrella of the Strathclyde University, and four years later he emerged
with a degree in Hotel and Institutional Management. This was the first
time this became a degree course in the UK, and Iain claims he was the
very first - because his surname started with the letter “A”.
After the cloistered halls of academia came the
kitchens of the Forte Group in the UK. It came as a rude shock that his
entry position as commi-chef did not place him as high as he was given to
believe, with his bright and shiny degree in his pocket. “The highest
privilege of a commi-chef is scrubbing down the stoves,” he said.
However, he did in those first 12 months learn respect and humility for
his fellow workers. “I learned a lot in 12 months in Forte’s
kitchens,” he reminisced.
By this stage he was married and his wife was
complaining about split shifts and the other unsociable hours that stove
scrubbers keep, so he asked the company for something more 9-5, and was
offered a post in sales. He found he enjoyed this side of the hotel
business and kept on annoying the marketing director so much with what
were called ‘daft ideas’ that he was seconded to their advertising
agency, a position that became permanent.
From there he was given the task of getting more
customers into the company’s pubs, and some of Iain’s ‘daft ideas’
to do this included topless barmaids, rock bands in pubs, actually
starting the Pub Rock craze in the UK and darts leagues.
In the end it was darts that was to pin him down for
the next few years. He was refereeing a darts competition and was
approached by a gentleman in a trench-coat and given an address in Park
Lane and the name of someone who wanted to meet him. Filled with curiosity
he was interviewed by a mysterious gentleman who just happened to have a
shipment of coin in the slot snooker tables on the water from Australia.
The owners had defaulted on a debt, relinquished title and the Park Lane
financier needed someone to do something with them. Iain left with a
contract in his pocket and began to seriously market these strange tables
with funny balls with numbers and stripes.
The first problems came soon after installing them in
the pubs - the cash boxes were filling up quicker than they could empty
them! They needed bigger boxes and more tables and Iain could not wait for
another shipment from Australia and contracted the work out to Hazelgroves
in the UK, who are incidentally now the largest manufacturer of pool
tables in the UK. If you’ve ever wondered where the rules of pub pool
came from - Iain wrote them. There were fights breaking out in the pubs,
as there were no hard and fast regulations. “I sat down on a wet
Thursday in the George Hotel and wrote the rules. There have been more
additions since then, but that was the beginning.”
Despite the success, Iain needed more stimulus and
joined an advertising agency as account director in London. It was a small
agency with only 15 people, but during the 10 years that he was with them
the staff grew to 2,000 personnel, spread all over the world. Iain was
elevated to chairman of the UK group and became responsible for the
Pacific Rim countries. This was to bring him to Bangkok in 1987.
Bangkok was exciting, even though he was always late
for appointments, never having seen such traffic before! However, weekends
were lonely and hot and it was suggested he try the cooler climes of
Pattaya, and 16 years later he is still enjoying the sea breezes!
This idyllic state was brought to a close when his ad
agency was taken over by a French concern, but with his golden handshake
he bought a hotel and restaurant in the UK and then began visiting
Thailand six times a year, being unable to keep away from a country he had
grown to love.
However, people like Iain Arthur can’t just sit
around waiting for sea breezes. “We formed a company to create a high
standard restaurant in Pattaya,” and this was Alkemy, where he can be
found most nights when he is in the Kingdom.
Iain Arthur is at peace with himself, “I’ve done all the dramatic
parts, it’s now exploring the pleasures of the kitchen!” And he will!
