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| Photo from South Kent Gazette |
South Kent Gazette
21-1-1981
Local News
The oldest and longest-serving publican in Folkestone,
Mr. Harry May, retired on Sunday after 32 years as landlord of the Lifeboat, in
North Street. It`s also the end for the pub. The brewers, Whitbread Fremlins, are
closing it down and will probably sell it as a private house.
Mr. May, 79, became landlord of the Lifeboat in 1948
after 30 years as a fisherman in Folkestone. On Friday he was given a royal
send-off by friends from the Folkestone Licensed Victuallers` Association and
by representatives of the brewers. Mr. Joe Cornwell, tied trade regional
manager of Whitbread Fremlins, presented him with a pewter tankard. His wife,
Dorothy, received a bunch of flowers. Mr. John Mees, chairman of Folkestone
Licensed Victuallers` Association, presented the couple with an engraved silver
tray and a set of wine glasses. Harry and Dorothy will soon be moving to nearby
St. Gabriel`s Court. Harry will keep himself busy by helping to mend the nets
at the town`s fish market. The big loves in his life have been fishing and his
pub. He started work as a fisherman on the family boat, The Three Brothers, in
August, 1918. “It was a poor life, except for the Second World War, when we
made a bit more money”, he said.
Folkestone Herald
18-7-1981
Local News
A youth claimed he broke a pub window by accident, then
deliberately put his elbow through another because he was angry he had hurt
himself, a Crown Court heard on Tuesday.
Stephen Laws, 18, of Victoria Grove, Folkestone, claimed
he tripped as he left the pub`s outside toilet and fell against a window, grazing
his forearm. “I got mad and put my elbow through a pane in the
front door”, he told Gravesend Crown Court. Laws denied attempted burglary and
damaging a wall window at the Lifeboat Inn, North Street, in February last
year, but was found Guilty. He had earlier admitted damaging a window in the
pub door. He was ordered to carry out 120 hours' community service and ordered
to pay £7.62 compensation with £50 prosecution costs.
Mrs Dorothy May, of
St Gabriel’s Court, Dover Road, formerly of the Lifeboat Inn, told the court
she was woken by a bang in the early hours of February 1. She looked out of the
window but could see nothing and went back to bed. Later she heard the sound of a sash window opening
downstairs and saw a youth running away across the road. She found a window in
the bar had been opened and the glass cracked around the lock. A window in the
ladies` toilet had been opened and its lever bent, and a small pane of glass in
the front door just above the lock was smashed.
P.C. Andrew Walker said
he arrested Laws in Tram Road. There were fragments of glass in the mud on the
soles of his shoes and a small cut on his finger. He had been drinking but was
not drunk, he added.
In evidence Laws said
he had been to a disco at the East Cliff Pavilion and had drunk a large amount
of lager. On the way home he stopped at the Lifeboat to use the outside toilet.
He claimed he fell over something and broke a window by accident. Then, as he
was “pretty mad”, he put his elbow through a pane in the front door. Laws
denied trying to get into the premises and claimed he had not tampered with
catches on the door or windows.
He was said to have
previous findings of Guilty for burglary, theft and handling.
South Kent Gazette
9-6-1982
Local News
A new-look lifeboat has been launched in
Folkestone - on dry land! But it is not a place where staying dry is the order of the day. For The
Lifeboat at The Durlocks, Folkestone, is a pub.
Mr. Geoff Gosford and his wife Marion have
bought it as a free house. Closed for the last three years, Mr Gosford has given the pub a new lease
of life by taking over the helm. The bar has been redesigned and the whole place
renovated and redecorated. The coxswain of Dungeness lifeboat Mr. Willie Richardson, accompanied by
his crew, officially reopened the pub. Last October Mr. Gosford packed in his job as
a services’ representative for the Ford Motor Company, for which he worked in
Southern Europe but was based in Basildon, Essex. He wanted a more settled life to be with his
family instead of travelling and living out of a suitcase.
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| Photo from South Kent Gazette |
Folkestone Herald
20-11-1987
Local News
Beer drinkers in Folkestone have passed a bitter
milestone in pint prices. This week the Good Pub Guide book was frothed up over
Kent regulars digging deeper into their pockets than most of Britain`s
pub-goers. The guide criticises a one third increase in Surrey, Sussex and Kent
during the year “pressing towards the £1-a-pint barrier which London has
passed”. But some pubs in Folkestone broke the barrier up to two years ago and
finding a brew in the area for less is a problem.
Folkestone landlords this week criticised the guide for
being out of touch and blamed high rates plus brewery increases for the pricey
cost of their pints.
Geoff Gosford, landlord of the Lifeboat in The Durlocks,
said “Prices are quite high, but so are the overheads. Folkestone rates are the
same as some London boroughs. Our beers can be expensive, but it is all real
ale. We recently had the legendary Conqueror here as a guest ale. It was £1.28
a pint but three pints of that beer was worth nine of any other. I haven`t had
one complaint about my prices”.
Eileen Lewis, landlady of the Guildhall on The Bayle (£1
a pint) said “Some pubs may take advantage and raise prices higher. But the
majority are very conscious of the cost of beer to their customers. It is not
publicans clamouring for expensive beer, it is breweries”.
Ken Holletts, landlord of the British Lion (£1 a pint)
said “I have not raised the price of beer since becoming the landlord. All
increases have been imposed by the brewery. Our prices are reasonable, and as
cheap as you`ll find in the town centre”.
Black Bull landlady Maureen Coles in Canterbury Road
(prices again in the £1 range) said “Rates and electricity and so on are all
expensive and brewery increases take their toll”.
A spokesman for Whitbread, a major brewery supplying
Folkestone, said “Beer prices are cheaper in other parts of the country, but
Folkestone is no different, really, to most other parts of the South East”.
Folkestone Herald
5-2-1988
Inquest
Detectives and a Home Office pathologist were called in to
investigate a suspected murder after a man died in hospital of multiple head
injuries. Father-of-three Kenneth Huntley was so badly injured he could not speak
or communicate with his son or doctors. At his inquest, a coroner recorded a
verdict of accidental death after he heard it was more likely Mr. Huntley was
injured from falling downstairs drunk. Some 34 witnesses, including several
pub landlords in Folkestone, were questioned by police and were called to give
evidence. The hearing was told that Mr. Huntley was a regular in at least three
pubs in the town and often drunk to excess.
Landlord of the British Lion, The Bayle, Folkestone, Kenneth Hollett,
said “Mr. Huntley would come into the bar in the early morning and mid-evenings
about three or four times a week”.
Another landlord, Geoffrey Gosford, of The Lifeboat Inn, said “Mr.
Huntley was not the most popular of customers. He drank very heavily and
occasionally I saw him the worse for drink, but he never caused any trouble”.
Neighbours of Mr. Huntley’s at Bradstone Road, Folkestone, said they
often heard him screaming to himself, and several had seen him drunk or slumped
outside his house. They claimed he had become worse since his wife left him.
One of the last people to see Mr. Huntley before he was injured last
September was a customer at the British Lion, Carol Edge, of Connaught Road,
Folkestone. She told the inquest “I was driving
along and I saw Mr. Huntley coming down Grace Hill. He appeared very drunk and
was staggering. That was about 10.30 p.m.”
The same night a neighbour of Mr. Huntley, Mrs. Beryl Davies, said she
heard a scuffling noise coming from the basement of his house, but she was
frightened and did not want to get involved.
When Huntley’s son, Alan, went to check on his father the next morning,
he found him lying in bed in pain with a black eye and marks on his face. Hours
later his speech was “unintelligible” and the doctor was called. Tests in
hospital showed Mr. Huntley had suffered a fractured skull and collarbone,
fractured all his ribs except one, and had severe bruising. “He never explained
how he got his injuries”, said Alan Huntley.
Kenneth Huntley, a former chief warden at Hythe Rangers, died of a heart
attack the next morning. Despite the circumstances surrounding his death police
were not called in until the following Tuesday.
At the inquest Home Office pathologist, Doctor Peter Venezis, who carried
out tests on the body, said “The injuries on Mr. Huntley are consistent with a
heavy fell. If he was drunk, he would have fallen heavier, and this might explain
why his injuries were such”.
Watercolour by Stuart Gresswell (ex Raglan and Guildhall)
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