Guest 686- Registered: 5 May 2009
- Posts: 556
I live a mile from where I was born; my parents still live there. My grandparents lived here too, though not sure how far back the line goes. Despite having spent 15 years in the Navy when "home" was barracks or married quarters in various parts of the country "Home" was always Dover and we always came back here for leave and when I left the service.
I don't really know what it is about Dover but I just wouldn't want to live anywhere else!
Phil West
If at first you don't succeed, use a BIGGER hammer!!
Guest 653- Registered: 13 Mar 2008
- Posts: 10,540
Jean and I moved to Dover in November 1994 to buy a guest house in Folkestone Road after working for NatWest in London at their Computer centre(s) for over 24 years.
I soon got to realise and appreciate the benefits of Tourism and wished I had done this years before.
After a while I was asked to be the Chairman of the Dover Guest House Association and helped develop the website, which I believe is even now a very useful and informative site.
For me, Dover has a potential that no other coastal Town has; not only the Port, but the beautiful cliff-top walks, the surrounding countryside and of course the history.
Knowing what needs doing, but not being allowed to help in any way, is one of the most frustrating things I have had to cope with, but slowly, the brick-wall is winning, so I am learning to relax and spend more time with Jean and the garden and less on Dover.
I hope its potential will eventually be realised.
Roger
howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
the word "potential" keeps cropping up on this thread, we have had very many visitors in the last week or so since the cruise calls restarted.
they do wander around even as far as the london road but i haven't seen 1 carrying a bag with something they have bought here.
Guest 653- Registered: 13 Mar 2008
- Posts: 10,540
It's probably because the potential just isn't being realised Howard. I can't help in Dover realising it's potential, so I must step back; being told "you're not wanted" is not easy to cope with, but I'm getting there.
Roger
Jan Higgins
- Location: Dover
- Registered: 5 Jul 2010
- Posts: 13,894
Paul, thank you so much for the picture.
I have now shown it to my daughter who with no prompting picked out the same lady as I did, 2nd row from the top 3rd lady along.
This possible picture of my birth mother shows how informative and very important this wonderful forum can be.

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I try to be neutral and polite but it is hard and getting even more difficult at times.
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Alec Sheldon
- Location: Dover
- Registered: 18 Aug 2008
- Posts: 1,037
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.
Guest 696- Registered: 31 Mar 2010
- Posts: 8,115
Great post, Alec!
Here's another from me:
As a child I lived on Western Heights, in the proper sense of the word, in the town of my ancestors. I live there now. I wish to see our Western Heights preserved to nature and beauty, I praise the Lord for giving us such beauty, and may the High City preserve our Western Heights from developers and their bull-dozers.