ships i worked on

[Keith Moody]

Trader,
yes I am the one and only son from the Prince Regent. Dover, did you know me or the family? I was born in that place and spent my early life there until going to sea in 1955.
my mother knew a lot of the people who came into the pub and she could remember a face of someone who had been in there from years before, she was the landlady from 1935 until the middle 1970`s. a lot of people knew her. she died a few years ago at the age of 92. as a kid i remember the Trawlers comimg in and the same people came up to see the family, time after time , each one of them bought us a bucket of live herrings until mum told them to stop as the bath was full, it took a week to kill and clean all those fish and i remember that dad gave away all the soft Roes and just kept the hard ones. fried that tasted so good.
talk to me trader on what you know of us?
keith

[Trader]

Hiya Keith,

I don't know you but I remember your mother. I first came to Dover in 1971 to visit an old shipmate of mine, Bill Stone, who had gone ashore and was running the Dover Tavern. I had just paid off the Baltic Sprite at Erith on the Thames and decided to come down to Dover for a day to visit Bill before returning to my home port of Manchester.

Bill persuaded me to stay for a few more days as he had plenty of room at his pub, it was August time and the weather was beautiful and Dover was a lively town unlike what it is today. To cut a long story short I had spent my pay off and decided to go back deep sea but a job came up on the Hovercraft which I took and so stayed on in Dover until the end of September until I got laid off as it was a seasonal job. I went back deep sea but came back to Dover in May 1972 to work on the Hovercraft again and I have been here ever since.

I had some great times in the Prince Regent or the Horse Box as it was nicknamed because of the small cubicles around the bar. There was also the big room with the skylight where all the sing songs went on. It was also a favourite of the old "Queens" who worked on the ferries and went back on the Liners at the end of the season, they were a good laugh, some of the names were Stella Minge, Patsy, Rose, Liz, Bubbles and many others whose names I cannot remember now.

Your mother had taken a back seat in those days but was always there in the background. Eric was the main barman who seemed to run the place. I remember your sister Kay who had an antique stall next door in the old Market Hall helped out by Iris. My memory is getting fuzzy these days but was Iris also your sister and married to Eric but they had seperated.?

Some of the customers were Dover Flo, Snuffy Fred (stand by the Pilot) and Molly Nolegs. It was a great pub and now Dover Library is now on the old site. I go in the library regularly and can imagine myself having a pint in the old Regent. I don't know if you have seen this web site Keith but it gives some interesting stories about the pub and all the dates when your parents were the licensees.

PRINCE REGENT Pubs of Dover

Thats all for now Keith, how long have you been out on the Prairies ?.

Alec.

[Keith Moody]

you hit the nail on the head, that was my mum, and yes Iris was married to Eric (ex deck hand) but after they moved from the pub they seperated, Eric later passed on, then in sept 189 so did Iris, mum passed away a couple of years later, Kay who had the shops in the market was helped by my other sister Joan, she passed away just last week.some of you may remember Eric Gun from when he was at sea, he also had a brother called Ern Gun who spent many years deckside at sea.
funny you should have joined the hovercraft, i worked on them as an assistant technician back in the winter of 1968 until spring 1969, realy enjoyed the work, the only reason i got the job was that the airline i worked for (British Eagle ) went bust that year, me being a steward ment they had nothing for me with airlines at the labour exchange, the closest was the hover craft but that was engineering they toldme, i said i would visit them anyway to see if i could get on with cabin work. At that time it was down a the eastern arm, so down i go and end up by miskae in the engineers office he started to interview me and mentioned what sort of engins that were on there (prouteuos), and did i know anything about them? sure i said "they were the same engins that were on the aircraft i used to fly on" he thought i knew a lot and hired me. at that time most of the engineers were ex railway boys and thought anything could be fixed with a good heavy hammer, a couple of them had been away to Rolls Royce for training and were better informed. it was always very interesting when we had an engin to re-build as all the parts were sent down in a box with scematics of where everything went. one spring day i got a call from an old friend who said they were setting up a new charter airline and was i interested? i joined them and eventually became the general manager for cabin services, a few years later a Canadian Airline co, came over to England looking for qualified Boing 707 staff. some of my staff went up for the interviews, so i went up too to advise against taking my staff and in the end they offered me a job as Manager of Flight Attendents, none of my staff got accepted. they paid for my move to canada and accomodation for the first 3 months in a hotel. that was in 1973 been here ever since, however not with the airlines,that only lasted 3 years and they got taken over and my job became surplus, since then ..... courier driver, sales representative, and hotel owner. (still although it is up for sale) i was in Dover last september for a holiday, it has changed a lot from the time i used to play around there, what part of dover do you live in? I used to live on Buckland Ave. one other thing .... you must also remember Nellie Booke from the New Mogual Inn. those names you mentioned such as Dover Flo and little Molly who always pronounced my name with a lisp. they may have been a strange lot who went in there, but there was never a dull moment.
regards, keith