Beatrice Tollman is dedicated to her craft and has an unwavering determination to deliver the best of everything. For the founder and president of the Red Carnation Hotel Collection, hotelkeeping is a 24/7 love affair. Across the many years Tollman and her husband, Stanley, have been running hotels, first in South Africa and, since 1984, from their London headquarters, "Bea" has always run the family home, brought up four children and worked day and night to build the family business. She talks about working on the evening she delivered her fourth child, Vicki, and how she had to ask a friend to drive her to the hospital because Stanley was working elsewhere. She delivered the baby and was back working in her sanctuary, the kitchen, no more than a few days later wearing her white overalls, hair tied up, standing behind the long counter to taste everything on the menu. Hard work and dedication to service excellence has been the couple's calling since they leased their first hotel in 1954, The Nugget in Johannesburg, using wedding present money to furnish the property. At age 22, Tollman, who initially intended to become a nursery school teacher, was a novice running her own kitchen and learning the ins and outs of luxury hotelkeeping.
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