From Our Files: Lucky escape... food plea... youth club punch-up... PC saviours

One lad was particularly fortunate, as he went to the pictures one Sunday evening with three of them in his pocket.

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STATEMENTS that trainees at the Forestry Commission’s hostel in the New Forest were receiving a larger amount of food than the average were referred to by the Hon. Mrs Eric Aldridge at a meeting of the New Forest Food Control Committee.

Mr R. G. Whitfield (Food Executive Officer) said the trainees were classified as industrial workers and, as such, their butter, margarine and fats ration was 50 per cent more than the domestic ration. Sugar was also 50 per cent more, cheese was double, and meat was nearly three times as much.

Mrs Aldridge pointed out that people who had worked in the Forest all their lives did not get extra rations.

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THE headmaster of Brockenhurst County High School (Mr R. H. May, B.Sc.) has on several occasions announced to assemblies of parents the news that the school was at some indeterminate date in the future to become a boarding school. At long last, after a series of tiresome yet unavoidable setbacks, the announcement has become a “fait accompli”.

50 YEARS AGO

HAVING been moved into the expanded County of Dorset, Christchurch Borough is to form the major part of a district authority on its own. But the Borough of Lymington, having succeeded in its fight to remain in Hampshire, is to become an unequal partner with the New Forest R.D.C., to become part of the new District Seven. This was the news announced on Tuesday by the Boundary Commission.

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A PLEA to the Highways Committee to get on with the job of finding car parks for New Milton was made at last week’s Lymington Council meeting by Ald. R. H. Alderson. He said that to consider a pedestrianisation scheme for the town before they had adequate parking facilities was stupid.

25 YEARS AGO

SEVENTY-six-year-old Peter Ellingham has come down from Milton Keynes to make a nostalgic visit to Lymington – one of historical significance for he handed over to the Town Council his detailed model of the ship HMS Obedient, along with the original crested shield which was affixed to the destroyer’s bridge. The Obedient was Lymington’s adopted warship in the Second World War when a great many people from throughout the old Borough contributed financially towards it by way of National Savings. Peter served on the Obedient from the day of her commissioning for the remainder of the war, and his gifts will become treasured artefacts in the Council’s offices at the town hall.

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POLICE were called to break up a fight at New Milton youth club on Friday in last week. The incident was described as particularly violent and resulted in a young man being taken to Lymington Hospital.

A subsequent letter from the management to each member of the youth club stated: “Alcohol was certainly a major factor, and this incident illustrates exactly why we are so against it at the club. Those who applauded may also like to consider whether they were in any way to blame – would the fight have continued so long and been so violent without it?”

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TWO off-duty police officers who rescued a paraplegic canoeist from the River Avon have been awarded Chief Constable’s Commendations.

Constables David Atkinson and his brother Peter were canoeing from Fordingbridge to Christchurch in June when they heard a shout coming from a reed bed on an island near Avon Tyrrell Farm.

Although they were able to establish that a person was in trouble, they were unable to see him. As there was no available landing place, David left his canoe and swam ashore. He waded through the reeds onto the riverbank where he found a 62-year-old paraplegic man in a semi-conscious state.