Bear Incident File No. 005
| Location | Marine Parade, Folkestone Harbour |
|---|---|
| Approx. incident date | Winter coach season, circa 2004 |
| Barred status | NOT A RESIDENT |
ARCHIVE PHOTOGRAPHS
These two copies belong with the Burstin entertainment material: a hotel brochure and a dance-show group photograph. They are kept here rather than in the Club Shepway record.
The Grand Burstin occupies the harbour site associated with the earlier Royal Pavilion Hotel. The modern building was constructed in the 1970s and opened mid-decade, with a form intended to suggest a ship at the harbour. Dover-Kent notes that parts of the older Pavilion fabric were incorporated and that Britannia Hotels acquired the building in 2004.
Record note: Dover-Kent Grand Burstin Hotel archive page; Folkestone & Hythe heritage material. Sources vary over the earliest construction year and the original “Motel/Hotel Burstin” styling.
Earlier publicity appears to place the Bear in the Burstin cabaret. The 2004 Bear relied heavily on this copy despite the gap in dates and the hotel’s refusal to treat it as a current engagement. The fuller cabaret transfer file is kept under the Dome and Marine Pavilion papers.
The Bear approached reception and said, “Cabaret,” as though giving both his name and occupation. He claimed the ballroom had booked him for the second sitting. The displayed entertainment programme did not support this.
He nevertheless found a service microphone and sang six verses of Widecombe Fair towards a coach party waiting for soup. He demanded one more encore, a cabin with a harbour view, and a modest bowl of pears. All three requests were declined with professional calm.
The Burstin material marks a clear decline in the Bear’s status. What had begun as a novelty cabaret booking had become a management problem. The “Do Not Feed the Bear” warning reframes him not as an entertainer but as a risk: a mascot who had slipped from stage attraction into hotel folklore and staff cautionary tale.
The same clipping links the warning to his being barred from the Mariner’s Pub, making the pub-barring record part of the later Burstin caution rather than a separate Old Buoy performance note.
Escorted to the revolving door. The Bear completed two additional circuits on artistic grounds, then departed without violence or luggage.
Lobby footage was said to show the Bear entering from both sides of the revolving door. The relevant tape was misfiled among coach-party karaoke recordings and has never been isolated.