INTERVIEW
Nino’s
star-studded
T
here aren’t many people
who can claim to have
given rock superstar
Mick Jagger a telling-off – but
Island bar owner Nino Besozzi
is one of them! In fact, having
a chair lobbed at him by the
ex-Rolling Stones singer is just
one of the highlights of Nino’s
colourful life in the hotel trade.
Now in his late 80s, he remains
a central figure at the familyowned Bonchurch Inn, where
we caught up with him.
In the late 1960s and early 70s, Skindles
in Maidenhead was THE place to be seen
if you were rich and famous. Regular
visitors included Princess Margaret and
Winston Churchill, and the venue also
attracted famous bands of the time, such
as Thin Lizzy and The Strawbs.
But that clearly didn’t faze the venue’s
then manager Nino Besozzi. By then, the
Italian-born hospitality professional had
already met Hollywood legends Tyrone
Power, Rita Hayworth and Sophia Loren,
during the five years he spent travelling
through Europe, working as a waiter on
the glamorous Orient Express.
So when the 1.00am closing time
arrived at Skindles and Mick Jagger and
his new wife Bianca were still partying,
Nino promptly turned off the lights and
music.
“We had a disagreement” he chuckled.
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“Bar times were very strict in those
days and I was just doing my duty, but
he ended up throwing a chair at me. I
managed to avoid being hit, but it went
through a window, so Jagger got the bill
for replacing it!”
Not all of his encounters with the rich
and famous were so dramatic though:
he met Her Majesty the Queen on two
occasions, when she visited Maidenhead
for the historic Beating of the Bounds
ceremony, and he organised childhood
birthday parties for the current Duke of
Westminster, whilst he was working at
the family estate-owned Grosvenor Hotel
in Chester.
past!
It was all a far cry from Nino’s early
years, growing up in a town near Lake
Maggiore on the Italian/Swiss border, and
having to go out to work as an apprentice
baker at the age of 10 to support the
family after his father died. “They were
tough times,” he recalls.
At the age of 12 he was fined for
working illegally under age in a bar. By 14
the Second World War had started and
he went to work in a forge – but his heart
clearly was always in hospitality so after
the war, at 21, he went to Milan to work
in a restaurant. “I wanted to be a waiter
because in Italy it was seen as the best
trade for improving yourself”.