WITH the rise of package holidays and chain hotels, it is understandable how boutique hotels such as the Hotel Continental close.

However, the rise and fall of the Dovercourt hotel will be recorded for posterity by former owners Gordon and Blossom Hoyle.

Gordon, 81, and Blossom, 70, are now happily retired in their flat on the Esplanade in Walton but they are keen to share their lively, spirited careers in hospitality through a new book.

The couple have been together for 43 years and married in 2003.

They took over the iconic seafront hotel in the summer of 1996.

They had no experience in the hospitality industry but went on to feature in shows including Channel 4’s Four In A Bed and the Hotel Inspector.

Mrs Hoyle said: “We’ve always been indepedent and self-employed, we did all sorts of jobs which kept us going.

“We thought we would be able to do it up. We thought we can take it on as it’s just like running a large house. We couldn’t do ordinary jobs.

“The idea behind it was that we would try to look after and treat people how we would like to be treated. We were the only hotel of it’s kind in the area.

“There were lots of people over the years who have became friends but we tried to make it somewhere that wasn’t the same as everywhere else.

“We never really clocked off from working there, we just did whatever it took to make it work.”

The couple poured every penny they earned into the business transforming all 14 rooms into quirky, one off works of art where holiday-makers could make themselves at home.

They had a core staff of six people but the couple would regularly work from 6am until the following 3am.

They rarely had a day off and they ended up buying the properties next to the hotel to rent as holiday lets.

But the Hoyles could not fight the tide and were forced out of their dream career about twoyears ago.

They had tried so hard to make it work but eventually offered the hotel for sale via raffle tickets costing £1,000 each.

Still it was not enough. Not enough tickets were sold and the couple were declared bankrupt and the hotel closed.

Mrs Hoyle said: “We lost everything at Christmas 2016.

“It was shocking, it was a terrible time.

“Everything we had we put into the hotel we just thought what shall we do now?

“The problem with the hotel is that it was either too big or too small.

“We just weren’t in control of our lives anymore.”

Mr Hoyle said: “It wasn’t a sudden thing it trailed off for a few months.

“One point we would be kicked out on to the beach. It was painful but I’m just getting used to the idea now.”

They had no choice other than to sell up.

The Hotel Continental now remains empty as prospective developers want to transform the building into flats.

Mr and Mrs Hoyle are avid writers and have put pen to paper to tell their story of the highs and lows of running the iconic hotel.

Mr Hoyle said: “As a working title my book is called ‘The Hotel Continental - A Success on Paper’ or ‘What Shall We Do Now?’ “The point of it is to record what we did and what happened over the years but it reads as a story.

“It also goes into detail of the murder that must have have happened in about 1997.”

Mrs Hoyle: “That happened really early on when we had the hotel. A woman came to stay for the night with her boyfriend who left and murdered someone.

“She got the boyfriend to murder her husband who was a postman. They were in room ten.

“We only found out about it when Scotland Yard turned up months later.

“A TV station made a programme about it about the various people who were imprisoned for life. We had a part in that and they explored the room they stayed in.

“The book goes into the murder, some of the chapters are quite graphic.”

Although the Hoyles have fond memories of the hotel, they don’t want to see it any more.

Mr Hoyle said: “We just won’t go near it and we don’t want anything to do with it.”

Mrs Hoyle said: “I also don’t want to see how it’s changed.”

Some things are still too raw.