Gatwick: The Last Chance Hotel (ATOM Study Guide)

Gatwick: The Last Chance Hotel chronicles the final years of the Gatwick Private Hotel, a boarding house that over the years became a local, and then national, icon. Shot over four years, this intimate documentary reveals the day-to-day lives of proprietors Rose Banks and Yvette 'Etty' Kelly, the twin sisters who worked at the hotel from the age of fourteen. Featuring residents and regular visitors of the hotel, Gatwick: The Last Chance Hotel shines the spotlight on fascinating characters that live on the fringes of a community going under gentrification. Before a forced closure and sale in 2017 the building was a halfway home to a few and a home to many others. Gatwick Private Hotel housed a ragtag menagerie of characters who either lived in, frequented or volunteered their time at the hotel, all under the caring eyes of Rose and Etty, known locally as 'the Saints of St Kilda'.

Curriculum Links

This study guide is mainly aimed at mid to senior secondary school levels, with general relevance within the class activities to, and interconnecting between, English, Media Studies, Society and Culture, and Civics.

The following are the key general topics arising from the documentary:

• Poverty
• Homelessness
• Community resourcing
• Human wellbeing and health
• Mental illness
• Drug and alcohol support
• Government support and funding