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hunt kendall
How we came to be at Ham
BY NICHOLAS KENDALL
Andrew and I had known each other for Only those members more decrepid than us spending in petrol to get to work. Emma’s work
about ten years when we set up our catering will be aware of the Club as it was then. A Club experience continues twelve years later.
business in the early nineties. rich in history, in spirit, in joy – but a Club that
desperately needed the energy and vision It is Emma who calms the over excited bride and
Andrew had spent his working life up until that of someone like Nicholas, who had become the nervous mother. It is Emma who administers
point running a delicatessen and wholesale Chairman of the Club a year earlier. fi rst aid to the broken player or groom, waitress,
cheese business, an outside catering company chef, or guest. It is Emma who is here fi rst thing
and a restaurant. Thus we proposed that, rather than rent an on a Sunday morning, and who stays to lock up
industrial unit on some godforsaken industrial on a Sunday night. Often having done the same
I had spent much of the eighties playing piano estate in South London, we should rent the thing the day before. And the day before that.
in a brothel, apart from the couple of years I Clubhouse, install a commercial kitchen and
squandered broking insurance at Lloyds. commit to turning the Clubhouse into a viable It is Emma who politely and ever so
commercial entity. In very little time, the diplomatically turfs those that played chukkas
And so it was that Andrew and I found ourselves Clubhouse went from being a time consuming that morning out of the Clubhouse, so that the
in the same boat, but for very different reasons; energy sapping liability for the Club - to an asset Saturday afternoon wedding can be set up.
- Andrew’s partner in the restaurant venture earning the Club very decent revenue.
had decided that he was going to sell up, and I We are blessed in Emma, we are blessed in the
remained pretty much unemployable. One of the fi rst and most signifi cant jobs we relationship we have with the Club, and we are
undertook in our programme of renovation was blessed in the clients whose parties we host.
Recognising that Andrew had wonderful skills transforming the kitchen from a pretty squalid
that I could sell, I suggested that we should galley, into a fully functioning professional Ham is probably not everyone’s cup of tea.
set up a catering company on our own. In the facility. What is it? A pretty shed that lies alongside a
depths of the recession of the early nineties, couple of not quite full size polo grounds. One
we found a catering company in Battersea who Then over a period of time, and working with of which isn’t even rectangular. When we fi rst
were prepared to rent us their linen cupboard as Nicholas and the committee, the front verandah arrived here in the early nineties, we recognised
an offi ce, and to give us overnight access to their was extended to twice its original size, the rear the joy of Ham, - and I would hope that even
kitchen when it would otherwise not be used. verandah was constructed, the kitchen was with the work that we and the Club have
further developed and, most recently, the deck undertaken to make the Clubhouse a little more
Our company duly plodded along, - until we was built. civilised it is still, simply, a pretty shed that lies
reached a point where we started to get busier alongside a couple of polo grounds…
than the arrangement with our landlord could All we needed now was somebody to help us
r
sustain. As often happens in life, - just as we with the business we intended to build. Luckily Our polo might not be high goal – but where
u
were trying to work out our next step, fate for us, at just the right time. Emma Ledamun else might you go if you were looking for
-
f
o
y
intervened. We found ourselves providing pitched up. She arrived during Easter of 1997 for conversation with a pop star, an FBI fugitive,
r
t
canapés at a party in Chelsea attended by an a few weeks work experience prior to fi nishing a Wimbledon champion (of either gender), a
f
o
old client and friend of Andrew’s - who was her degree in leisure management. Emma had model, a king of the jungle, a Hollywood A lister,
engaged to a player at Ham. much going for her; she had her own computer, an oliagarch, a show jumper, a porn producer,
her own car, and she didn’t, (and still doesn’t), a footballer, or a man who bought a lion from
We were thus invited to the Club to discuss know much about employment law. Harrods?
hospitality opportunities. As a consequence,
a few weeks later we undertook our fi rst After a couple of months we decided to pay You’ll fi nd them all here…. They probably won’t
engagement at Ham; - providing a lunch for the her a salary. By the Christmas of 1997 we were be propping up the bar at the same time, but it
Mellon Trust Bank. paying her more in a week than she was really wouldn’t surprise me if they were.
To book your event at Ham Polo Club or for more information
about our catering and event management services call
Hunt Kendall on 020 8334 0001 or visit www.hunt-kendall.com
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