Where Messenger staff enjoyed a pint for just 9p
Les Bull joined the Kent Messenger staff as an apprentice compositor at the age of 15 in 1956.
He stayed with the firm until the early 1970s.
Now 76, he wrote from his home in London Road, Maidstone: “I was surprised the feature about the Victoria made no mention of its once being a favourite watering hole of Kent Messenger staff.
“This was at the time when the newspaper’s offices and printing works, which still used hot metal, were just a few steps away in Week Street and Station Road. Lunchtimes would regularly see a group of journalists, compositors and printers enjoying a drink in the Vic’s comfortable bars.
“Fortunately, pubs had rigid closing times in the 1950s and 60s or some would have happily spent the afternoon there.
“On Thursday evenings, which was publication day, the imbibing continued until ‘time gentlemen please’. If the editor wasn’t in his office, everyone knew where he might be.
“The Vic was a cosy place with a double-sided fireplace, which warmed two adjoining bars that were furnished with armchairs and tables.
Drinks were modestly priced. Even up until the end of the 1960s a pint of bitter cost 1/10d (9p).
“It wasn’t the only favourite of the newspaper employees. Just down the road was the West Kent Hotel and bar (now KFC), and opposite was the London Tavern (now Mu Mu).
“They were all very popular with KM staff. It’s a world that has long disappeared – as have a lot of the colourful characters who inhabited it.”