From Our Files: Overseas food ban... tick for TIC... homes row... jobs loss outrage

BY a record vote of 22-8 Lymington Borough Council at their meeting on Wednesday passed a resolution opposing the proposed payment of allowances to members of local authorities under the Local Government Bill now being considered by the House of Commons.

The resolution, proposed by Cllr A. E. Spencer MBE and seconded by Cllr Mrs Creagh-Osborne, stated that the payment of such allowances would be contrary to the best interests of the electors.

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THE death of Captain Sydney (“Dickie”) Richardson, in a Milford Nursing Home on Saturday at the age of 67, recalls one of the enemy aeroplane raids on New Milton during the late war.

Captain and Mrs Richardson had their home then at Winkfield, Spencer Road, and in the afternoon of 8th August 1942, it was completely demolished by a bomb from a German aircraft.

Mrs Richardson was in the garden with her dog, and both were instantly killed. Captain Richardson was in bed suffering from lumbago but was found standing on the debris of what had been the kitchen.

50 YEARS AGO

THE appeal by Messrs J. and J. F. Fawcett, for housing development to be permitted on part of Fawcett’s Field, Christchurch Road, New Milton, has been dismissed. A public inquiry was held at Lymington Town Hall on 13th September in connection with the appeal, which was against the decision of the Lymington Borough Council, acting on behalf of the Hampshire County Council, to refuse planning permission for the erection of 107 houses on about 22 acres of land, being part of Fawcett’s Field.

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A CRITICISM on the Church of England’s ban on remarriage in church, if either party has previously been involved in a divorce, has been made by the vicar of Christchurch, the Rev. Leslie Yorke, in the December parish magazine.

The vicar was prevented from conducting a marriage ceremony for his own daughter Christine, who married a divorced man. In the magazine article he says frequently he has to turn away “hurt and angry” couples whom he cannot marry because one partner has been in a divorce.

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CHRISTCHURCH police have asked people living on Somerford council housing estate to contact them immediately if they any suspicious noises at night.

Nine properties have been entered, either by way of insecure doors or windows, and in each case the electricity meter coinbox has been rifled.

25 YEARS AGO

CHRISTCHURCH Tourist Information Centre (TIC) has come top of a nationwide competition to find the most helpful office.

The Mystery Shopper Campaign, which is run by the English Tourist Board, used specialists posting as visitors to go into TICs. They asked a range of questions and assessed responses, from first impressions to how specific information was found and presented.

The Christchurch TIC came top of the league by scoring 100%, which the council’s tourism manager Sue Harmon-Smith described as a tremendous achievement as the national average was only 70%.

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A DOG survived being hit by a train at New Milton and has been reunited with its owner after being given veterinary treatment.

The mongrel, which had escaped from its Wick Close home, got on to the nearby railway track, and was lucky to not only survive being electrocuted, but being hit by a 55mph train.

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ONE of New Milton’s largest employers, the Johnson & Johnson hip-replacement production factory to the Stem Lane industrial estate, produced a bombshell this week when announcing this facility is redeploying to Ireland, aided by a £4m European Union grant. With 120 workers affected, local MP Desmond Swayne described the move to the A&T as “grotesque”, adding: “This is, in effect, British taxpayers’ money, because we are one of the few net contributors to the European Union. To use our taxpayers’ money to relocate jobs to other countries is an outrage.”