From the Dover Express and East Kent News, Friday, 6 June, 1952.

With his usual energy Mr. Durrant sends up the first wood.

BEER & SKITTLES

Another Charlton Green Enterprise

Expected to be particularly popular with West Country People, a skittle alley was opened on Whit-Monday by the towns uncrowned Soccer King, Fred Durrant, in the grounds of the "Red Lion", Charlton Green.

Hoping to popularise the game in this area is the licensee, Mr. L. R. Latcham who came froth Somerset some years ago. Before the war there were three rinks for bowls behind the house, and and since they were destroyed during the war the regulars have been pleading for the return of the game.

Realising that the cost of laying the green was prohibitive, Mr. Latcham nostalgically remembered the skittle alleys back home, and had one built where the old rinks were.

Introducing Mr. Fred Durrant, Dover F.C's. popular player-Manager, Mr. Latcham recalled that the town had just seen a particularly good year for sports, and said he could think of no one who was better qualified to have a hand in the opening of the town's latest sporting venture.

Before cutting the tape stretched across the entry of the bowling alley, Mr. Durrant thanked the crowd of spectators, who he said were typical of those thousands of local people who, week after week gave their support to the Town football club.

An impromptu challenge match with Mr. H. A. Carr, Chairman of Dover F.C. Supporters' Association, Fred lost by 8 shots to 6.

The first game after the official opening was between four Somerset men, now living at Elvington, and four local men--and much to the fifty odd onlookers' surprise, it was the Dover men that won 71 to 54.

With the claim that it is the only alley this side of London, Mr. Latcham says that he will keep it for the locals three nights a week, while on the other nights he hopes to allow other clubs that might start up to play there.

From the Dover Express 24 January 1992.

Publican Alf Bentley: "Leases are as ill-conceived as the poll tax."

Publicans are prepared to lose their jobs and homes rather than sign new leases they say could double their rents.

Half the publicans in Dover being offered these contracts and two-thirds in Shepway are rebelling, say the local branches of the Licensed Victuallers' Association.

"It's like signing a suicide pact, and I won't do it," says Rick Abbott, who runs the Cricketers in River.

He added: "I have a wife and three children and we would lose our home, but we would be ruined if I signed."

Big breweries, with more than 2,000 pubs in the country, are selling pubs or offering 20-year-leases because the Monopolies and Mergers Commission is restricting how many they can have.

Alf Bentley, landlord at the Red Lion in Charlton Green, Dover (above), said: "This is as ill-conceived as the poll tax. What use is a 20-year lease to me when I am 60? The breweries are also driving out experienced landlords and replacing them with people who were probably bakers before."

Lost customers.

Leslie Carpenter, of Carpenter's in The Stade, Folkestone, said: "My own rent will only go up by a third but I couldn't even manage that. I am prepared to lose my pub rather than accept.

"It's hard enough to survive with the recession. We've just lost more customers through the Sealink redundancies."

The LVA says the increase would further damage pubs because landlords would have to put up their prices to try to survive. They say the cost of  pint is now pushing £2.

Only last week Barry Musk walked out of the pub where he had been a tennant for four years, the Red Cow on Foord Road, Folkestone. He now manages a free house, the Impoerial, in Black Bull Road.

He said: "Signing would have meant my rent going up from £12,000 a year to £20,000 which would have ruined me. I was lucky because I found another pub without that kind of expence.

All four pubs are owned by Whitbread. A spokesman said the company was willing to negotiate with landlords if they could not afford new rents.

"The LVA claims that rents will double but I dispute that. Our own survey sows that overall rents have increased by just 45%," he added.

Whitbread says the government legislation has put it and other brewers in a dilemma. The new Landlord and Tennant Act gives publicans security of tenure, yet monopolies commission says brewers must get rid of pubs.