Letter: Far from remote

I READ with interest your television review of the documentary Blood on the Carpet (Culture, 17 January) but I would like to know who your impeccable authority is on my remoteness in Forte. Far from being remote, I spent a huge amount of my time travelling round the business visiting operating units and talking to people working on the shop floor. I was regularly in touch with the top 200 managers in the company on a formal and informal basis.

It is interesting that all managers with me now in my new business are ex-Forte. If I had been so remote surely they would hardly risk leaving a comfortable, well-paid job to join me in an embryonic company.

Even today, three years after the takeover, I continue to receive letters from staff and customers bemoaning what has happened to the company and wishing I was still there.

I do not think running hotels is easy, as Gerry Robinson does. It is very difficult and requires a great deal of hands-on attention from the people at the top. The implication of your comment is that my interaction with my staff was purely for the purposes of the documentary. This is patently not true, as anyone who works with me will tell you.

ROCCO FORTE

RF Hotels Ltd, London SW1