From our Files: Complaint of note...an explosive find...grammar police caution
75 YEARS AGO
AS a Scottish businesswoman on holiday south of the border, I wish to make known how I have been served in and around this area. On numerous occasions I have had Scottish pound notes refused. When they have been accepted. I have been requested to leave my name and address before acceptance.
When in Highcliffe, I received atrocious service. Luke-warm tea, which tasted old, served, and furthermore, I was grossly insulted on complaining.
This lack of courtesy does not encourage visitors to return to the pleasant countryside of Southern Hampshire for a second summer.
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A RHODE Island Red hen, belonging to a Lymington domestic poultry keeper, is more than doing her bit on the food production front.
Now 16 months old, she has laid several double-yolked eggs and when her owner, Mrs W. Burgess, of South Street, picked up a fair-sized “contribution” from the nest last weekend she thought the hen might have repeated her performance.
Mrs Burgess broke the egg into a basin on Saturday with the intention of using it as an ingredient for Sunday’s cake. And out came, not two yolks, but three!
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WHEN haymaking at Burley on Friday, Miss Violet Penfold, a member of the W.L.A., was bitten by an adder and was rushed to Lymington Hospital for treatment and detained.
Miss Penfold moved some hay in which the snake was concealed and, as she did so, it darted out and struck her in the leg. Miss Penfold lives at Burbash House, Burley, the W.L.A. Hostel, and her home is in Shirley, Southampton.
50 YEARS AGO
TWO children playing on Sunday found a wartime shell in the garden of Moorfield, Lymington Road, Highcliffe. Moorfield is an empty property but is shortly to be the home of the new Highcliffe curate. The police were notified and they contacted a bomb disposal unit who took the shell away the same evening.
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A NEW MILTON couple, returning from a touring holiday in north Wales, parked their Dormobile van in the car park at Chepstow, Monmouthshire, which overlooks the ruined Norman castle, and walked way to admire the view. They left their dog Bruno, 13 years old, in the van, and as they looked at the castle were horrified to see their vehicle start to run forward across the sloping car park, crash through a wall, drop ten feet into a garden and overturn. Their first thought as they rushed to the scene of the crash was for Bruno. The couple were thankful to find Bruno had got out after the crash, completely unharmed.
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AFTER thieves had broken into their car and stolen all their holiday savings, it looked as though the Lilley family from Bolton, would have to curtail their camping holiday in the Forest.
But when the warden of their campsite heard of the Lilley’ predicament, he organised a distress fund among the other campers and raised enough money for the family to continue their holiday.
Last week, Mr and Mrs Harold Lilley, and their two children, aged 15 and 12, had left their car in Rhinefield ornamental drive while they walked in the forest. When they returned, they found that the lock on the car door had been forced and Mrs Lilley’s handbag containing the holiday savings of around £100 was missing.
They returned to the camping club site at Sutton Hill, near Verwood and were preparing to go home when the warden, Mr Jim Joy, heard of their misfortune and told fellow campers, who responded generously. One camper, a garage owner, even repaired the damage to Mr Lilley’s car.
25 YEARS AGO
BUDDING chef, Paul Ainsworth, of Careys Manor Hotel, in Brockenhurst, has been selected to work alongside renowned TV chef and restaurateur Gary Rhodes, at his new London venture, Rhodes in the Square. Paul (19), has trained and worked at Careys Manor for the past year.
Said Paul: “The last couple of months have been very exciting. It was great to win the competition and I was then one of three students to be successfully selected to work at Gary Rhodes’ new restaurant in Pimlico. He’s someone I’ve always admired and part of the selection process involved an interview with him as a member of the panel. I’m really looking forward to working alongside him, although I’ll be sad to leave Carey’s Manor which has given me a brilliant first year.”
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THE “A&T” has been given an informal police caution about its grammar following a complaint from a member of the public.
“I thought this elderly gent was taking the mickey when he complained about the “A&T’s” bad English,” said Pc Ian Hunt, station duty officer at the local nick, “but he was quite serious.
“I reminded him that this was a police station and told him to direct his complaint to the newspaper next door but he said he had already been round and found the offices closed, it being a Sunday.”
The elderly gent, said Pc Hunt, had got himself wound up over a report of a meeting of Brockenhurst Parish Council, which he complained contained bad grammar.
An internal investigation at the “A&T” revealed the identity of the scribe responsible but it is a coincidence that the intrepid reporter concerned is now in Poland!
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“AN Indian reservation look,” was the phrase that Lyndhurst Parish Council chairman, Pat Wyeth used to describe the village’s new “gateway” features at this week’s council meeting.
It emerged that the majority of councillors were unhappy with the new gateway and signs that appeared to have come about as a result of a misunderstanding between the council and Hampshire County Council’s surveyor’s department.
Simon Found, senior engineer for HCC, apologised to the meeting and said: “When we had earlier meetings in December we believed that you would come back with comments and I think perhaps you thought it was the other way around. On the basis we hadn’t heard anything our engineers carried on with the gateways.”
