Stephanie Joy Phillips

World Childless Week Founder

Even the smallest of victories can feel amazing when you are childless. The victories where someone realises their actions were not inclusive (and whilst they don’t actually apologise) they do change their original stance to make it more inclusive.

Recently I felt the brewing of a victorious cheer, but held back because you never know exactly what is on the horizon.

It all started when a member of The Non-Mum Network made a post about a new incentive called A Grand Day Out that she’d seen advertised on the Farmhouse Inns Facebook page. The advert read:

Did you know more than 43% of Brits aged 65 and over experience feelings of loneliness up to five times a week?

We teamed up with Sherrie Hewson to tackle loneliness head on and we will be giving away FREE CARVERY for your grandparent every Tuesday throughout November (with the purchase of a kids meal). Head into pub and say 'A Grand Day Out' to take this opportunity and treat your loved ones with a carvery plate filled to the brim on us.

It raised questions and and several group members, including myself, decided to visit the original post and add our thoughts on the deal.

The Childless Collective ran a survey in 2023 and 94% of the 400 childless who replied expressed they were lonely.

My comment received a response from a Farmhouse Inns representative and a conversation was started. They offered the opportunity to speak through PM’s (private messages) but I declined informing them “I'd rather make a public comment so that everyone can see what you are confirming” and continued with:

I can't bring a grandparent because they have all died however having checked your offer out a little more I see that there is some confusion between what you are saying here and what you are advertising online elsewhere. Between the variables it appears there are two options that enable me as an "old person" to obtain your deal:

1. Order one (or perhaps two) kids main meals for hubby to enjoy and I can be his old person eating for free.

2. Buy one adult meal and still receive a free adult meal for the old person (me).

It's great that no physical child is needed to attend and no grandparent either. Just purchase a meal (kids if referring to this post) or adults (if referring to the web) and tuck in.

Please confirm you will honour both points one and two (as it is what you advertise) so I can share with my childless and childfree friends.”

Their final response was:

Thanks for getting back to us, Stephanie. We've made some minor adjustments to this promotion and the points you've mentioned in your comment are correct. This promotion can be made the most of when purchasing any adult main meal, adult carvery, kids meal or junior carvery. Thanks again.

From this point there was only one thing I could do… visit one of their pubs.

On Tuesday 12th November my husband and I entered The BlueBell Inn in Worcester. Whilst waiting to be seated I noticed there were no posters about any offers or deals. After a few minutes no one had come to seat us so we found our own table. Before looking at the menu or ordering our food my husband went to the bar to check about the Grand Day Out offer. I was not surprised when he called me over.

The women he had spoken too had not heard of the offer and was now serving someone else so we had to wait until a male employee eventually came to us. I told him about the offer advertised on Facebook and the website, but he had no idea what I was talking about. It was clear he didn’t believe a word I was saying so I whipped out my mobile and showed him his employers Facebook page, scrolled down to the relevant post and in turn my conversation. I then read out the final two comments of my discussion (as mentioned above) with the Farmhouse online representative. He clearly wasn’t happy and dismissed me showing him further evidence, whilst asking for our order. I explained that we hadn’t chosen yet because we wanted to ensure he would honour the offer.

We returned to our table and decided what meals we would have and then my husband returned to the bar to place our order. Whilst sitting alone I noticed that there was no advertising literature on any of the tables mentioning A Grand Day Out. Shortly afterwards my husband waved for me to join him again. Despite our previous conversation the male employee was now dictating that the free meal had to be a carvery. I again referred to my online conversation where the Farmhouse Inns representative said my points were correct and made no reference to the free meal being a carvery.

He refused to honour the deal agreed online and as such we walked out of the building. 

As a general rule of thumb most reputable organisations work on the basis of the customer being right, even when they are wrong. In this case their online representative did not correct my statement or the points I’d mentioned and as such I feel I was justified to have any free adult meal of my choosing.

Having come to such a dead end I wondered if I’d be welcome to another public house within the chain or be treated with the same hostility. I decided not to mention the fact I’d been informed I could have any free meal and just wanted to discover if I’d be welcome to have a carvery without being a grandparent or having a grandchild by my side. So I made a few phone calls, and after making 14 calls, these were my results:

• 8 went straight to answerphone

• 1 responded with “never heard of it”

• 5 confirmed the offer was running but only available to grandparents

On two of the calls I asked how I could prove I was a grandparent. One said they didn’t know and the second replied, “bring a grandchild and say A Grand Day Out”.

I decided to go back to the original post on Facebook and came across another response from the Farmhouse Inns representative against another comment:

Hi there,****. We're pleased to let you know that you'll be able to purchase an adult's main/carvery or a kid's main/carvery to receive a free carvery! Just make sure you mention the phrase 'A Grand Day Out' to your sever when ordering to make sure the deal gets added to your bill.

Disregarding that they mentioned the free meal being a carvery in this comment the main fact was you didn’t have to purchase a child’s meal (which would indicate no child needs to be present) in order to qualify for the deal. It implied the offer had been made open to anyone. My experience and research shows their words to have no standing and appear to be solely an attempt to silence us on Facebook with the hope of no repercussions.    

If Farmhouse Inns really cared about loneliness they’d look at the population as a whole, and not split us into those with children and those without. I know that having children doesn’t guarantee not feeling lonely but being without children certainly removes most people’s biggest link to connection. If they want a reputation of honesty and equity they need to start by acknowledging you can be lonely at any age with or without children.