Near as I can figure it, through the possibly flawed perceptual filters of my own reality tunnel, the most likely answers this week, seem to me to be:
Q1. Rottingdean
Q2. Rudyard Kipling
The initial clues seem to place us at the village of Rottingdean, in the county of Sussex and it was here c 1896, that a marvellously potty inventor, named Magnus Volk (born c 1851), built the Brighton & Rottingdean Seashore Electric Railway. It ran from a pier at Rottingdean to Kemp Town in Brighton and consisted of a car, which some sources say measured forty five feet by twenty two feet (nine hundred and ninety square feet) that rode on four twenty three foot high stilts and which was propelled electrically along an underwater track, which lay just off the shore line. This of course reminds the Eastender of the laid back president Ulysses S Grant's quote from the Will Smith film, Wild Wild West, who when confronted by the steampunk mechanical arachnid of the evil genius Dr Loveless, quipped "That's a fine looking spider you've got there". Mixing water with electricity seems like a bad idea but Volk's 'Daddy Longlegs', as the contraption was known locally, ran from 1896 to 1901, when it was finally closed, due to the local council building a groyne in its path, with Volk not having the funds to re-route his railway.
Sir Stafford Crips, who was appointed Chancellor c 1947 attended a preparatory school at Rottingdean and a sealord appointed c 1916, called Sir John Jellicoe was educated at Field House School, in the village. A novelist called Enid Algernine Bagnold, lived at North End House, Rottingdean and published a work called 'The Last Joke' c 1960. Another famous writer who lived in the settlement, was Rudyard Kipling. Kipling published a work called the 'Just So Stories' (c 1902) and it is in one of these, that he explains how the camel got his hump
The hotel mentioned in the clues is probably the (Grand) Ocean Hotel, at Saltdean Lido, which was built c1937 - 38, depending on which sources you check. Seems to have been opened for three years before the fire service took it over to train their personnel and was subsequently bought by Billy Butlin.
N.B. The Eastender has moved to moderated comments due to the number of people who normally write letters in green ink, posting on his page. Rest assured though, if you have a non abusive comment relating to solving the puzzle and possible solutions, he will publish it.
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