My friend Michael Holiday, who has died aged 92, left school with no qualifications but forged an international career in hotel, facility and events management that spanned 44 years. From 1985 to 1995 he was house manager at Cliveden House in Buckinghamshire.
Born in Leigh-on-Sea, Essex, Michael was the son of Wilfred Holiday, a director at Tate and Lyle, and Hilda (nee Day), a housewife. He went to Felsted school in the county, but his education was curtailed when he was evacuated to Welwyn Garden City, Hertfordshire, during the second world war. Childhood holidays were spent at a guesthouse in Clacton-on-Sea, where he made a lifelong friendship with the actor Penelope Keith, whose mother organised children’s entertainment in the resort.
After leaving school, Michael was advised by his father to study hotel and catering at the local college in Southend, where he mastered his signature dish: choux pastry swans.
His hospitality career began at the Kensington Palace Hotel in central London. From there he went to Frankfurt, where he became fluent in German, returning to London for a period on reception at the Savoy – which earned him membership of the Savoy Gastronomes, a group of food and wine enthusiasts made up of former employees who travelled internationally together.
After the Savoy he worked at the Le Meurice in Paris, before taking up the post of staff manager at Claridge’s in London. Then followed general manager positions at the Norfolk Hotel in Brighton and in South Kensington. In the mid 1960s he moved to the Canary Islands, becoming front of house manager at the Hotel Reina Isabel in Las Palmas.
Michael had a spell running his own bar before a chance meeting in 1976 with the mother of the Playboy executive Victor Lownes led to him managing Lownes’s UK residence, Stocks House, near Tring in Hertfordshire. Michael organised lavish parties there including the 25th Playboy anniversary party in 1978 attended by more than 5,000 guests over its 25-hour duration.
He regarded the peak of his career as his 10 years as house manager (“butler”) at Cliveden – the only job he was formally interviewed for. There he hosted many celebrity weddings; his old-school propriety meant that, in our 20-year friendship, he never revealed any guest details.
He met his partner, the restaurateur and Michelin inspector Tony Rudge in the early 80s. They became civil partners in 2006.
In retirement in Milton Keynes, Michael helped Tony after his disabling stroke. Together they catered for musicians playing for Cleo Laine and John Dankworth at the Stables, in the village of Wavendon, where he also worked as a part-time events assistant, alongside guiding in French and German at Woburn Abbey. Following Tony’s death in 2019, he volunteered at MK Gallery in Milton Keynes, enjoying educating visitors about the art exhibitions.
Michael was a fabulous cook and enjoyed nothing more than hosting a party followed by a competitive game of Rummikub, which he played until a few days before his death.
