The post you are reporting:
I came to Dover just for a day in August, 1971 and I am still here after 41 years.
I paid off a ship, the "Baltic Sprite", at Erith on the Thames and before I went home to Manchester I thought that I would visit an old shipmate of mine named Bill Stone who had left the sea and had gone into the pub trade. He was the landlord of the "Dover Tavern" now called "The Firkin". He was well pleased to see me and asked how long I was staying for, I said "only one day, I am on my way home to Manchester". He wouldn't have it and said you can stay her we have got plenty of room. I was single, footlose and fancy free as the saying goes so I decided to stay for a few days.
It was August and the weather was beautiful, the beach was crowded, the town was bustling, buses in the Market Square, no pedestrian precinct, no motorway dividing the town from the seafront, pubs were packed, shops were thriving, French and Belgian daytrippers buying up all the bargains.
My few days turned out to be a few weeks and my pay off was dwindling so I managed to get a job on the Hovercraft which was in the Eastern Docks in those days. I did about two months on there before being laid off (it was a seasonal job). I was told that I would be welcome back for the next season if I wanted it.
Sadly I left Dover and all the friends that I had made in such a short time and went back to sea. I got a ship with the same company that I had left before coming to Dover the "Baltic Viking" running from Manchester to Riga in Latvia which was part of the USSR in those days. She was a good little job and I did several trips to the Baltic which wasn't very nice in the winter, stuck in the ice etc. and freezing my b--ls off. All I could think about was getting back to Dover which I did in the May.
I came back to the Hovercraft in May and was made permanent so I got myself a little bed sit up Victoria Park after staying at the Seamans Mission and the YMCA for a while. Dover was still thriving but they had started to build the York St. bypass so there was a lot of disruption in the town. I stayed on the Hovercraft for a couple of years and moved over to Townsends, later P&O. I left there after the 88 strike and moved to the Harbour Board then the tunnel for three years (which nearly killed me but the money was good). Made redundant in 1993 but then got a job with Stena (shoreside) at the age of 60 which nearly took me up to retirement. You could do these things in those days, jumping from job to job, I feel sorry for the unemployed today who haven't got the choices that we had.
I am sorry to say that Dover ain't what it used to be but I love it warts and all and wouldn't want to live anywhere else. I forgot to mention that I got married in 1977 at 43 years of age(first time) and moved to Whitfield.
I think that when the Army left Dover and the ships started working week on week off were two of the reasons why Dover started to decline plus that motorway dividing the town from the seafront.
Sorry to have rambled on a bit but you did ask Paul.