The post you are reporting:
Clearly I have no family connections with it whatsoever being a foreigner! I drifted along here years ago on a trip to Europe via those wonderful noisy revving Hovercrafts. I remember we stayed over, ie spent some time here in Dover rambling around, and liked it. Having spent lots of time in Brighton and so on previously..but never really took to it there, its very high crass gloss etc there, but it still has its uses when you want chips and candy floss ( not at the same time!lol). Afterwards we made several trips here on motorbikes and stayed in the poor quality hotels...we stayed in the Dover Stage and lived to tell the tale !! A badge of honour. Then came here with Briony when she was small in more affluent times and stayed in The Churchill as it was then.. as she liked the beach and I liked Dover's sort of nautical gloom!
And the seed of affection was sown. Years later I came back to live here and before I knew it by accident I ended up on the internet and helping out and was catapulted into local life. It was so long ago hardly anyone had email..when I got email there was no one to send an email too but the Sunday Times, so i did.
The shops were all different those days. I met several people over the years who told me, and continue to tell me when I chat, that its not like it was. I have Scotchie's book and you can see the way things have changed. No longer vasts amount of people promenading on the promenade, no longer the shops in the town, no longer the buzz in the marketplace as it were.
Whether that has anything to do with Dover failing I dont know, or whether its just the shifting market forces of modern times, the rise of the supermarkets and so on, and the change in shopping habits.
I have to admit I am not a great detailed one for history but I do admire all the work these guys do..maintaining vital historical assets as volunteers. I'm a volunteer myself so I understand the nature of the volunteer beast.