From Our Files: NZ move regret...dogs dumping ground...grey MP’s pub refusal
50 YEARS AGO
THIRTEEN months ago Mr Pat Warren, 65, and his wife Doris, 58, decided to leave Lymington where they had lived all their lives to make a new home in New Zealand to be near two of their sons.
But now Mrs Warren regrets her decision, being unable to settle there. Finding it difficult to strike up friendships there, her health became so affected she paid £280 to return to England on a liner.
She says a large proportion of those on board were also returning to their native country.
Mrs Warren’s husband is enjoying New Zealand, but she is hoping to persuade him to come home saying: “When I walked down the road this morning within the first three minutes it was terrific. The New Zealanders seem loath to talk to ‘Pommies’.”
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NEW Milton Ratepayers Association is to write to the Chancellor of the Exchequer urging him not to introduce multi-rate VAT which they say would be an “intolerable burden on pharmacies, grocers, and other small traders, driving many into bankruptcy”.
They state in their resolution that the “small shopkeeper is an essential element in the trading community and his extinction would inflict great hardship on the public”.
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BECAUSE he fears that vibration from vehicles and machinery working on emergency measures at Barton-on-Sea is endangering his home, the owner of one of the properties most immediately threatened has fenced off his back garden, some of which now forms the undercliff.
New Forest District Council embarked on a £180,000 scheme on an emergency scheme to save the cliffs which is in addition to the £1 million it has already spent on coastal defences.
But the owner of ‘Cliff Edge’, Mr Ron Stradwick, claims that the council’s machinery is threatening his bungalow home as well as vandals who have been tunnelling into the cliff face.
25 YEARS AGO
THE growing problem of stray dogs left abandoned in the New Forest was discussed at the recent New Forest District Council’s environmental services and licensing committee meeting.
Environmental health manager Annie Righton explained that when a stray dog is captured by a council dog warden it is placed in kennels for seven days.
If the owner comes forward, they pay the fee for the kennels. If not, the council pays it. It also pays for any vet fees if the animal is ill before it can be rehomed.
“We have a problem in the New Forest,” she said, “as it seems to be used as a dumping ground for dogs. Out of the current 300 dogs we have, only 45% have been collected.”
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“THIS defendant is lucky to be appearing before you today,” Hythe magistrates were told by Mr Tim Selwood, prosecuting, when a man stood in front of them charged with being drunk and disorderly at Beaulieu Road station,
“After his actions on the live rail, he was very nearly committed to a higher court than this.”
Police had been called to the station because the defendant was on the platform waving a sword around. When an officer approached, he jumped down onto the railway tracks, one of which was live, and received a slight shock.
The man told the court: “I have never been drunk before in my life. I’d had some domestic problems and, with so much on my life, I just wanted to finish my life. I’m sorry for all the trouble but now I realise it was a mistake.”
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THERE were roars of laughter in the House of Commons after New Forest West MP Desmond Swayne admitted that a pub refused to serve him at the age of 28.
Youthful Mr Swayne even confessed to having been sent packing, despite the fact his hair was so grey at the time he was going through a bottle of Grecian 2000 every week.
He made his comment during a debate on the proposal to tighten laws governing the sale of alcohol to under-18s.
