WHILE spending a few days away recently in one of the UK’s best known summer tourist areas it seemed that the majority of tourists who’d chosen to holiday there at the same time as me were aesthetically challenged; not that good looking; ugly. That doesn’t include my wife and me of course.

And if I do have my doubts about her, I’m not stupid enough to publish them here.

Then when I sat down to consider it I thought: this can’t be right. Where have all the beautiful people gone?

But actually they were there, in their normal proportions found across the population of the UK. But two factors were making them look strange.

First, when we Brits go on holiday, we leave all our dress sense behind.

It’s probably because we think we’ve no one to impress and we’re not going to bump into the neighbours.

It’s also possible that we don’t actually have very good dress sense anyway.

Second, and this was the real reason, the people I was watching, almost without exception, were all stressed. They were having to cope with the unknown or, in the modern parlance, they were outside their comfort zone. Even when doing something as unchallenging as walking around a stately home or along a cliff path, shopping in an unfamiliar town or eating in an unfamiliar restaurant, they were not relaxed. It showed on their faces and it isn’t particularly attractive.

Visiting restaurants is a bit of a busman’s holiday for us and, as we were staying in a place and house familiar to us and therefore felt at home, we remained as attractive as you’d normally find us. But the “fish out of water” syndrome showed on the faces of many. And in their actions too. I can’t tell you how many times we had to sit next to arguing, uncomfortable, unhappy tourists in restaurants, cafes and pubs and it wasn’t much fun. It was like sitting on the bus or the train and that very odd person comes and sits next to you; it doesn’t make for an enjoyable experience.

I like to think that, over the years in our various restaurants, I’ve become rather good at spotting whether someone is comfortable – it’s our job, as restaurateurs, to try to make people feel as comfortable as possible. One of our company mottos is that we strive to ensure that every customer leaves us wishing to come back.

But that won’t happen if they aren’t relaxed while they’re there. And it may not happen to the people sitting next to them if they’re spooked by the stressed people next to them. This is not a joke. If people around you are relaxed and enjoying themselves, the chances are better that you will too.

So remember, next time you’re in a restaurant, it’s not just the job of the staff to take your order, serve you your food and keep their thumb out of the soup.

They also have a responsibility to protect you from your fellow man.

We’ve never had to ask someone to leave because they were too tense and spoiling their neighbours’ meal. But there have been a few memorable occasions when we’ve had to eject customers because they were upsetting the majority.

Obviously there’ll always be the one that can’t handle his drink. Then there was the time I had to dig deep at being diplomatic to get a particularly smelly tramp to leave.

But the worst was a New Year’s Eve when one particular regular, unbeknown to me, spent the evening openly propositioning and indecently assaulting one of our waitresses. It certainly did upset some of our customers who brought it to my attention, the waitress being too polite to mention it. Our customers may actually have been even more incensed because, as normal, he’d come in and placed his bible on the table next to him.

When I found out what he’d been doing I nearly hit him before telling him to leave and never come back.

While he, himself, wasn’t particularly stressed, he was stressing other customers and spoiling their good looks.

And he was definitely the one you wouldn’t want sitting next to you on the bus.