A WELL-KNOWN and respected Weston hotelier has died, aged 83. Arnold Freedman, along with his wife Vivian, founded The Arosfa Hotel in Lower Church Road. Mr Freedman was an active member of the community and the Hotels Association, becoming president for

A WELL-KNOWN and respected Weston hotelier has died, aged 83.Arnold Freedman, along with his wife Vivian, founded The Arosfa Hotel in Lower Church Road.Mr Freedman was an active member of the community and the Hotels Association, becoming president for four years in the 1970s. He was also a member of West Woodspring Rotary Club where he enjoyed many years of fellowship.He was born, one of three brothers, in Pontypridd, South Wales, in 1923, and attended the local grammar school. Called up and drafted in 1941, Mr Freedman worked on radar and the first computers. After being de-mobbed in Bristol at the end of the war, he married his wife Vivian in 1947, and went to work as an accountant in Bath for £4.10 per week.The couple moved to Weston in 1949 and bought The Arosfa Hotel, which at the time was an eight-bedroom guesthouse. Having borrowed all the money to buy the property, the first things they did were de-louse it and install hot and cold running water. Up until this point hot water had to be delivered to each room at 7.30am each morning.Working very hard and living in the basement of the hotel, every five years they were able to expand the business, and eventually The Arosfa Hotel became the 50-bedroom version that it is today. By 1975 the hotel could cater for 90 guests, and Mr Freedman still insisted on doing all the cooking himself.His family joined him in the business in the early 1970s and he eventually handed the running of the hotel over to his son Michael in the early 1980s, enabling him to semi-retire and enjoy his other interests, especially travel. The hotel was eventually sold in 2006.He leaves a widow, two children, four grandchildren, and one great grandson, and will be sadly missed by all of his friends in the town.