Famous people who have lived in Folkestone

I'm looking for help online with a puzzle that a friend at work has set, it relates to a famous grave and plaque in Folkestone somewhere. No joy yet, but I did find this PDF of Folkestone Town Crier (the newsletter of the town council). It has a crossword with these clues:

Across:
1) Which famous Seamen's Friend is buried in St Martins Grave? (8)
2) He played British Agent Harry Palmer in the Ipcress File. (5)
3) Don't wait up for this smooth talking charmer. (11)
4) Who was Jimi Hendrix's Bass player? (4)
5) This member of a famous banking family lived here in 1815. (10)
6) Whose plaque is mounted in Albion Villas? (7)
Down:
1) Who was "Just Good Friends" with Jan Francis? (12)
7) Who was the creator of Frankenstein that took up residence in Folkestone in 1830?(11)
8) He played a cameo role in the Italian Job with 2 across. (10)
9) This writer found it murder on the Orient Express(6)
10) This actor was "To the Manor Born". (5)
11) Carry on Matron. (6)
12) A famous violinist who's (sic) school of performers have played at the Leas Cliff Hall. (6)
13) This actor played Mr Banks in Mary Poppins. (5)

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Folkestone double death plunge smash horror tragedy!

Yoinks, yesterday someone chucked themselves off the roof of Bouverie Square in Folkestone, and today the end of our road was sealed off by police because of a "scene". Police were stopping anyone getting close to what had happened, so a) we had to walk home via a circuitous route, and b) no I didn't get any photos / videos / close up viewing details of what had gone on.

Actually wrote that yesterday and then Clare made me think about whether I should write about things like that or not. Of course I should, this is for me to remember where I was and what I was doing and things. Any local events are worth a mention. Perhaps making a horror death map tour of the town on google maps or something would be going to far, but it might be interesting to see local murder points, or the inevitable floral tributes. Look, what's likely to happen first, I write publish something insensitive and gory, or I just get too dull and other people stop reading?

I didn't go out of my way to find out anything about the Bouverie Square (newish town centre shopping complex, Asda, Starbucks, HMV, etc) suicide, I first overheard at work that something had happened "opposite SAGA". Although I was back in work, jetlagged and holiday-hungover, Clare had another day off and was spending part of it walking to Hythe, so right past SAGA HQ. Clare wasn't answering her phone, but she spotted it and called me back, she'd been in to town and heard all about the tragedy there from someone who worked in Asda.

Further details emerged on the way home, I had borrowed a car from work and gave someone else a lift back to Folkestone, he'd been on Facebook and the other gossip networks and heard from people who'd apparently been there, and there were seemingly plenty of witnesses, some of them holding up their camera phones as it all happened (although an apparent eye-witness has checked in to say this is NOT TRUE). So that's why I don't have any firm details, I'm not googling for it in case someone more awful than me has a YouTube clip or something.

Going to be a fairly lazy day today, hopefully I will get round to sorting my holiday photos and trying to remember some details of what we actually did while we were in Key West. Yesterday we had a bit of a day out - it's a bank holiday, so a free day, so let's do something different. We ended up in Ramsgate - it's rubbish, but the harbour side cafes were OK on such a nice day, and it does have a Pizza Express. We tried a few pubs, but could not find ANY local beer, how odd. So we headed back after lunch and jumped off the train at Deal briefly - much nicer there, went to the very cool The Bohemian pub / bar, and happened to be at the station at the same time as The Orient Express. Well, the English leg of it anyway. Lots of people suited and buoted on the platform, very odd.

We came home from Deal quite early just to stay in and catch up on Lost and House and loads of low quality quiz shows on BBC iPlayer.

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Did all my links break?

Bah, can anyone see any of the embedded videos below? What did I do? And then all the videos came back...

What I did do today is walk up to the out of town Sainsbury's on a quest for Coke Zero, as no-one in town has it... also tried to sign up at a dentist, YES I KNOW you are not accepting NHS patients, but please don't speak to me like I'm an unemployed! I do have some work now ACTUALLY, a fairly short contract, but all will be revealed soon.

Tonight: off to Keppel's, the bar under The Grand, a big old hotel type affair down the end of the road. Not been in there before, I always thought it might be a bit quiet and lacking, like most hotel bars. On my recent jaunt there to try and give blood I noticed a sign saying "Real Ales", so that's got to be worth a look...

Keppel's is named after Alice Keppel, mistress of Edward VII, and I think she's also an ancestor of that woman who won Who Wants To Be A Millionaire

Here's a history of The Grand, it's not quite as down-at-heel as that guy makes it sound, but it's not the kind of place for secret royal liaisons any more. It's "managed apartments" now, rather than a hotel as you might understand it, but still an impressive looking place. Not so sure about the reference to Keppel's as a restaurant though, will report back... in the mean time here's a nice snippet of showbiz history from the history I just linked to:

Robert Morley and Michael Caine made their stage debuts at Grand Hotel, and Agatha Christie wrote Murder on the Orient Express in this very building.

2006 :: Comment / reply