Hotel Biography

FORWARD.

Why the biography?

Well, judging by the number of visits to the Hotel Continental website and Facebook page nearly five years after its demise, it seems there is sufficient interest to warrant telling the inside story.

The blog will briefly outline why we purchased the Hotel at an age when most people are looking forward to retirement, the development of the business, and how it eventually emerged into a destination with personality, part art gallery, part a meeting place for foodies, part a drinking hole and of course part a lodging house. And then go on to discuss the fabric, the characters contained, the progress and eventual bankruptcy, with humour and sadness and show the goodwill and treachery met with along the route.

I do not intend this blog to be a dry report presented chronologically, nor a list, but rather a work inserting details as they occurred to me like a series of short stories, swallowable mouthfuls in weekly increments. Indeed, a true reflection of the way our Hotel developed.

Gordon. 14/02/2021

ROOM 10

At the time you’re not taking a lot of notice because they’re just another couple arriving off the ferry from the Hook of Holland. Though it wasn’t winter they said it had been a particularly rough passage. The girl had fallen on board, hurt herself and needed to go straight to the room to rest. Therefore, could they eat in the room?

We took a food order. I remember being asked to help them upstairs with their bags. I do remember that the bag I carried was particularly heavy.

The next morning, they came down for Breakfast about 10 0’clock and making conversation, small talk and pleasantries, Blossom asked them were they going anywhere nice that day and the girl, I say girl but she was actually an attractive young woman in her late 20’s, said she didn’t know and they might go anywhere, could even fly off to New York. It seemed to me like they could easily be on honeymoon with no fixed plan. They paid the bill and left.

We thought no more about them until several months later Blossom answered a phone call which was followed by a visit from a Scotland Yard Detective Inspector. He asked us to supply details of any phone calls that the couple had made through our switchboard: wanted their signature on the registration form: their vehicle registration number, and where they were going after leaving our hotel. Unfortunately, we hadn’t seen any importance in prying too much into our visitors’ business. Being nosey can easily give offence, bring conflict and break down trust and is the very antithesis of hospitality, the business we were in, and therefore in this instance, as usual, we had failed to get more than their names. The Detective Inspector wasn’t too happy about this; gave us a telling off and advised we had a legal duty to be a bit more thorough. So, with the help of BT we managed to get telephone records which helped the enquiry and soothed the irate inspector.

At the end of this meeting he said that the young woman, an Asian, had paid someone to shoot her husband, who happened to be a postman, in order to collect a large insurance pay-out. It turned out that the man she stayed with at the hotel might even have been the murderer.

After several visits by the Detective Inspector we were told they’d gathered sufficient evidence to take the case to trial and we may have to attend the Old Bailey as witnesses. At the end of the day they didn’t need us at the Old Bailey and the couple received life sentences.

We were approached some while later by a TV production company who wished to interview us as part of a film documentary, in the room where the execution was planned. The room was room 10.

At this time Room 10 was the most expensive and probably the best room in the hotel. With en-suite and access to the balcony overlooking the sea, it’s pale blue walls and very feminine white lace-trimmed four-poster bed it was a truly romantic setting which, thinking back, added a rather sickening perversion to the gruesome episode.

Here I deviate for no other reason than you may find it interesting that it is possible I’m a bit unusual in my frequent proximity to murder. Much as I dislike lists in this particular I think a list appropriate as I don’t want to wander too far from the hotel nor overdo the macabre. So, a simple factual list I believe will serve best.

1. Whilst living in Yorkshire in the '70's, the next-door neighbour, a farmer I worked for building dry stone walls and general labouring was fresh out of jail for the murder of another local farmer over sheep grazing rights.

2. Arrested and questioned for hours by West Yorkshire murder squad because the rumour had come to their notice that I’d killed and buried my wife (the one before Blossom) on my land.

3. Questioned by the police who had received an anonymous letter suggesting I was the Yorkshire Ripper.

4. Blossom was questioned by Greater Manchester police about the ‘Tranquility Tearooms’ murder. The interviewing officer wanted to know my shoe size to eliminate me from their enquiries.

5. Mick the Knife who frequented our bar had murdered his wife; he claimed accidentally, with a bread knife in front of their children. This was before we bought the Hotel, and he’d already served a prison sentence.

6. Another bar customer, shortly after I met him, stabbed to death a lad he’d caught in bed with his wife.

7. One of our Polish cleaners’ lovers found dead at the bottom of the stairs leading to her flat. Foul play was suspected but nobody dared say what they knew.

8. And a young fellow caused ugly, grieving scenes in the bar concerning his sister’s recent murder who had lived two streets away.

9. Woolworths shop assistant killed at the till by her jealous boyfriend. We knew her father and she came into our shop most days on her way to work.

Truly incredible, but all true. Creepy, creepy, creepy. Am I being stalked by something sinister, a particularly spectacular grizzly cause of death or is it an unseen benign power trying to warn me.