Dear all. I’m sure you are all gripped by The Great British Bake-Off hosted by our very own pastry chef / novelty baker Paul Hollywood on his weekends off during the summer. The great news is that Paul has taken a weeks holiday and is today flying out to visit his namesake, Hollywood, home of films and actors, to try and sell his very first film script. The script, called “Make Or Bake” is an action thriller/rom com/sci-fi who-done-it based on his experiences working on the Bake-Off TV show and also draws on his career in our own hotel kitchens. Paul told me the story has all the ingredients to be a smash hit. It opens with a classic car chase where an innocent-looking orphan boy (young Paul) is thrown out of a fast moving car which drives off without him and crashes into a tree down the road. Hollywood miraculously survives and is found in ditch by a 1960′s Fagin and his teenage gang. They make him their apprentice and teach him the century’s old trade of street urchin, but in a novel rags to riches twist he one day arrives rain-sodden at Hill View Hotel in Beckworth selling tea-towels, J-Cloths and pegs. He is taken in by the kindly chef who over a cup tea and a scone recognises the lucky-charm necklace worn by Paul to belong to his dead daughter’s, and that young Hollywood must be her long-lost son who fell out of a car when he was a small boy. Grandfather chef teaches him to bake, do icing, pastry and stuff, and the next thing you know, lothario Paul is on TV making fancy cakes. At this point his old street gang reappear to black-mail baker Paul…. I won’t spoil the plot but it’s great, funny, sad, saucy, etc and peppered with his trademark baking tips, Mary Berry even gets a cameo role. So we all wish him well and look forward to his return when he’ll be baking his prized bloomers for the staff and guests here. Sandy Luton, General Manager, Hill View Hotel

(Above) Heartthrob baker Paul Hollywood taking his script to Hollywood earlier today