From Our Files: New Milton manners... millennium party axed... hospital strike
75 YEARS AGO
A DELIGHTFUL and outspoken talk on shopping in New Milton was given by a local lady, who wished to remain anonymous, at the quarterly meeting of the Chamber of Trade.
The speaker said she came to New Milton nine years ago and was impressed with its shopping possibilities. Shopping was far more important to a woman than things like sports facilities or architecture, shopping could make or mar a town.
“In New Milton” said the speaker, I have never met a higher standard of manners.
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THE march of Communism was referred to in very serious terms by Col. O. E. Crosthwait-Eyre, MP for the New Forest and Christchurch Division when he spoke at a crowded meeting at New Milton. “It has swept all the way from the ancient Polish frontiers right to the Elbe and the Adriatic and even now Czechoslovakia.
“We read how a similar ultimatum has now been sent to Finland. We know that Sweden is practically on the edge of being absorbed. We are told the days of Italy are numbered and we know it is only General de Gaulle that stands between France and a like fate. We see the lights going out all over Europe and, in place of a free Continent, the same slavery which we hoped had banished from its face.”
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THOUGH due to be taken over by the State in July, an appeal for continued voluntary support for Lymington and District Hospital, so that patients may continue to receive those extras which make all the difference to their comfort, was made at the annual meeting of the Hospital on Wednesday in last week.
The 34th annual report of the Committee revealed a year of very marked progress and in the words of the Committee “every effort has been made to ensure that our Hospital is handed over to the State on the appointed day as an up-to-date and efficient unit.”
50 YEARS AGO
WELLWORTHY LTD have concluded a reciprocal agreement with Pinewood Homes of Walkford, whereby the Lymington factory site at Stanford Road of 5.8 acres has been sold at approximately £500,000 for non-industrial redevelopment, and a plot of 8 acres at Lower Buckland, recently released for industrial development, has been purchased for £400,000 for the construction of a new piston ring factory.
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THE strike by hospital ancillary staff brought the closure of 14 beds at Lymington Hospital this week – 12 of them on Wednesday, and a further two on Thursday. On Thursday a total of 133 beds had been closed in the Southampton Hospital Group’s area, which includes Lymington.
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TENDENCY of the Forestry Commission to ignore recommendations of the New Forest Consultative Panel has increased, and again calls into question the value of a consultative body of that kind, states the annual report of the New Forest Commoners’ Defence Association.
“Consultation does not imply blind acceptance of the advice offered, but it does call for its careful consideration and a reasoned reply in all cases,” it states. It is claimed there are many reports and recommendations of the Panel which have received no such reply.
25 YEARS AGO
ON every third Tuesday of the month, Burley school entertains an extra-curricular class – of around fifteen villagers aged seventy and over! They chat with the 92 pupils aged four and eleven and join in the school lunch: “It’s good for the children to meet senior citizens, who have wonderful stories to tell,” explains headmaster Clive Cole.
Eighty-one-year-old Rodney Cole, who left Burley School in 1930, was asked last week to officially open an extension at the school.
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PLANS to celebrate the millennium in New Milton have been scrapped because of lack of interest. For more than a year a Town Council led steering committee struggled to drum up support but defeat was finally conceded last week. “It’s very disheartening and I don’t want anyone turning round in two years, moaning that the Council hasn’t done anything to mark the anniversary,” declared chairman Delia Wilson. “We were trying to get a sense of community, but apathy has got the better of us.”
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POSSIBLE improvements to Lymington Town Quay met with strong opposition at the second community workshop hosted by New Forest District Council on Thursday in last week.
From the outset, the meeting was dominated by a group steadfastly resistant to any change. All suggestions were consistently heckled, and around 50% of participants voted that all concepts should be abandoned and the Quay left as it was.
