From the https://www.kentlive.news By Lauren MacDougall, 6 September 2020.

Thanet: Fatty Towers was the forgotten Margate hotel which weighed diners as they entered.

(Image: Suzannah Foad / Margate Local & Family History Facebook). Thanks to Margate Local & Family History for the picture.

The Margate hotel exclusively for large people everyone has forgotten about.

Many will know the name Buster Bloodvessel, the big bubbly frontman of chart-topping band Bad Manners.

Hits such as Lip Up Fatty and Special Brew were big name tracks associated with the two-tone ska band as they made a name for themselves in the 1980s.

Buster may be well known for his position behind the microphone, but not everyone will remember his Kent venture in the 1990s.

He pitched up home in Cliftonville, Margate, in 1996 and vowed to open Fatty Towers - a hotel for the larger than large in the east Kent district.

We take a look back at the hotel which had everything from extra large bath tubs to eye-wateringly large food portions.

How was it adapted for bigger people?

Open for just two years in Lewis Crescent the wacky hotel featured extra-large bathtubs, pleasure rooms, huge beds and mega-sized portions of greasy food in the hotel restaurant.

Dishes included steak and mushroom pie sandwiches as well as 48oz steaks – around six times the standard portions.

Buster made quite the name for himself as a local celebrity, with the ever-popular "Belly of the Year" contest frequently drawing crowds.

Rumour even has it that some punters were even weighed before they were allowed to enter the exclusive premises, with the skinnier variety turned away at the door.

Sadly Buster had to give up his hotel business with the doors closing for the final time in 1998.

And his own belly deflated alongside Fatty Towers after he underwent gastric bypass surgery in 2004.

Speaking to Kent Live's sister paper the Thanet Times in 2009, Buster said his experience in Margate coupled with a “bender” he went on after splitting up with his wife almost killed him.

The 59-year-old singer, real name Douglas Trendle, said: “It had been a great time, I loved it down there, but then me and the missus split up and I went on a serious bender. Those are not the happiest memories of my life.

“I was 32 stone at that point and I tried to lose weight.

“But when I got down to 25 stone I contracted meningitis.

“At one point I was so ill that I actually died for 11 seconds before doctors brought me back to life.”

Buster left the isle under a thundercloud after a row with Margate Football Club and Thanet Council, whose bureaucracy he blamed for being forced to sell his hotel.

He moved back to London, where he grew up as a kid in Hackney, and has continued touring ever since.