interview
Island Life - April/May 2010
Photo: The Dabell
family
Photo: The Dabell family Christmas 199?
and developed a new large screen cinema
where we show a 15-minute aerial film of
& catering teams.
So in between helping to keep both sites
Simon has been closely involved with
Island Tourism and is an active member
the Island. We have also re-designed the
running smoothly, Simon, now divorced
of the Chamber of Commerce. He is fully
old pub as The Ship Ashore tea rooms, a
but with two grown-up children and a
supportive of the Chamber’s partnership
quality catering facility ideal for passing
South Wight resident for 30 years, still
with the IW Council and hopes this will
visitors.”
finds time to fine-tune his acting skills,
flourish, despite the economic difficulties.
The total spend on this new project has
been close to £500,000, but Simon firmly
believes it is the right direction to go
as well as write and regularly visit the
cinema.
So will any of the next generation of the
family follow Simon into the business? He
Acting has been Simon’s favourite
shrugged his shoulder and smiles. “We
with more and more adults, rather than
hobby, and for nearly 20 years he has
are very much aware of succession in a
just families, visiting the Island. However,
run the“Caught Red Handed” group who
business like ours.
younger families need not despair
perform ‘murder-mystery’ productions
because the Blackgang th