The businessman who moved from selling ice cream to running clubs

IN the early ’80s a Newcastle businessman wanted to expand his nightclub and bar empire.

One-time ice cream seller Michael Quadrini liked to think big and, when he couldn’t find premises in the North-east to add to his Tuxedo Junction family, he came up with an innovative idea.

He bought a retired Scottish roll-on/roll-off car ferry and converted it into a giant entertainment venue.

The only snag was Newcastle City Council wouldn’t grant permission for the ship to be moored on the Newcastle side of the river.

Gateshead were more welcoming and the former Caledonian Princess opened as the Tuxedo Princess ready for Christmas 1983 on the south bank of the Tyne.

The boat soon became a celebrity magnet and Quadrini decided to test the waters of the Clyde. So in 1988, as the Teesside Princess set sail for life north of the border, a replacement was waiting in the wings. A Mediterranean passenger ship called the Sol Express had been transformed into the Tuxedo Royale and took over the mooring on the Gateshead waterfront.

The Royale had actually gone through her second major transformation, originally a steampowered 1965 British Rail crossChannel ferry under the name of the TSS Dover. The Swan Hunter roll-on/ roll-off ferry became the Earl Seward during the ’70s. As the Sol Express, she had responded to an emergency call from Beirut to enter very troubled waters and blew a gasket. The Princess like Cinderella headed home early, back to Gateshead, while younger sister was sent to Middlesbrough at the turn of the century. The Tuxedo Royale was definitely not the ugly sister, she could boast not just a revolving dance floor, but two separate areas enabling DJs to please chart fans with the addition of rock, alternative, soul, jazz and funk evenings; later introducing house and garage, attracting up to 2,000 clubbers a week to St Hilda’s.

In 2004, the latest plans for the Middlehaven regeneration were announced, and the news that the Tuxedo Royale would not be included in that vision.

The discovery of asbestos on board didn’t attract new locations or new owners following Quadrini’s Absolute Leisure’s fall into administration. Being entered into the National Historic ships register and a campaign to save the rapidly declining vessel couldn’t prevent the final voyage in this ship’s full and varied journey. She now sits in the shadow of the Brent Bravo as they both await their now inevitable fate.