Research
“I love to walk along the sea front down by the sea cliff. One evening at sunset at the top of the ZigZag, I met an old tramp enjoying his beer. We stood at the edge watching a fox patrol the undergrowth, sensing colours all around, lilac, pink and blue-green all around the sky and sea. We chatted and this old man told me how every night he watched the fox and had become friends with it, feeding it pieces of sandwich when he had some. It came very close to him at times. It was a beautiful moment shared by two strangers enjoying the evening …”
“In the early seventies I lived in Ringwood with my young family – I remember coming to Bournemouth on a shopping trip to spend my maternity grant. Jo and Ellie were toddlers then. We went into Mothercare in Commercial Road – it wasn’t traffic-free in those days – to buy things for the baby I was expecting and an anorak for Ellie and a corduroy pinny and green polo neck jumper for Jo. I remember the feeling of being a young mum, keeping an eye on two lively toddlers in the busy streets, and then we went into Debenhams for lunch. When I go there now I often think of it and see other young families. I always go to the window seat for that view over the Square as we did then …”
“I was about seven and a half and I went to the Ice Show with my aunty and cousin. I remember waiting for the bus and she sat me on the garden wall while she folded my buggy. Unfortunately, I fell off and landed on the pavement and …”
“I lived in Walllisdown, near the University, although in those days it was a Polytechnic, and I used to collect insects in a big match box. My friend … oh, all those lazy afternoons on the beach with friends, out on the pedalos by the pier, laughing, eating pizza, sunbathing. Then, on warm evenings we’d look up at the stars and moon until our necks ached and then walk home along the beach happy, without a care …”
“It was summer, walking through the gardens from Talbot Woods to the beach, hot, sunny, hearing the orchestra playing on the bandstand, people lying around on the grass, feet in the stream, a happy atmosphere of picnics, music, laughing and people dancing on the grass …”
“Six or seven or eight years past I journeyed into the heart of the town to buy books in a great big shop in a language not my own …”
“Oh, I was impatient, waiting for the Number Three Penny Bus to arrive to take us into the Square. I’d say to my mother, “Can I ride upstairs?”, then, the smell, marvelling at the smell of coffee at Lyons Café …”
“It began snowing on Boxing Day in ’63 and by New Year’s Eve it was nine inches thick. I was in the choir at St Peter’s and had to catch a trolley bus near Cemetery Junction but the poles kept springing off the wires. Traffic came to a standstill until the conductor could withdraw a long pole with a hook from under the bus and catch the loose, wayward contact pole swinging wildly around from the bus roof. When everything was fitted back then the bus moved off but a few minutes later the ice on the rails would derail the poles and the whole procedure would start again …”
“The wind at Hengistbury Head. That day we went there with our blue kite, such grey white clouds and deep blue sky and there were several other families flying their kites, lots of laughter as they sped over the skies and shrieks as the kites crashed. When the wind became too strong making it hard to stand upright, we walked on round the headland, leaning into the wind. We made a shelter and sat watching the racing windsurfers, leaving huge wakes behind them, like tails …”
“New Year’s Day 1997. My boyfriend and I left a night club in the early hours and it was snowing and the sky was lit up with stars. We couldn’t get a taxi and wondered if we’d encounter any trouble walking home but everyone we met was full of goodwill …”
“Hell on earth: suicides and drugs; yobs; people slashing their wrists; swearing and shouting; messed up people full of hate and anger; needles of soul destroying drugs; all the bullshit about care, medication, etc.; abuse of power by people and authorities; nobody smiles and talks to anyone; a town full of stuck up strangers …”
And a memory from Queen Victoria:
“Drove down to the beach with my maid and went into a bathing machine, where I undressed and bathed in the sea – for the first time in my life, a very nice bathing woman attending me. I thought it delightful until I put my head under the water when I thought I would be stifled …”
The memories of Bournemouth residents were recorded to form a soundscape of voices as the audience entered the garden at Russell Cotes Museum.
VOICE 1: It was summer, walking through the gardens from Talbot Woods to the beach, hot and sunny, hearing the orchestra playing on the bandstand, people lying around on the grass …
VOICE 2: Oh, I was impatient, waiting for the Number Three Penny Bus to arrive to take us into the Square. I’d say to my mother “Can I ride upstairs?”, then, the smell, marvelling at the smell of coffee at Lyons Café …
VOICE 1: Feet in the stream, a happy atmosphere of picnics, music, laughing and people dancing on the grass …
VOICE 3: It began snowing on Boxing Day in ’63 and by New Year’s Eve it was nine inches thick. I was in the choir at St Peter’s and had to catch a trolley bus near Cemetery Junction but the poles kept springing off the wires …
VOICE 4: The wind at Hengistbury Head. That day we went there with our blue kite, such grey white clouds and deep blue sky and there were several other families flying their kites, lots of laughter as they sped over the skies and shrieks as the kites crashed …
VOICE 3: Traffic came to a standstill until the conductor took a long pole with a hook from under the bus and caught the contact pole swinging wildly around from the bus roof …
VOICE 4: When the wind became too strong making it hard to stand upright, we walked on round the headland, leaning into the wind and making a shelter and sat watching the racing windsurfers, leaving huge wakes behind them, like tails …
VOICE 5: I remember coming to Bournemouth on a shopping trip to spend my maternity grant. Jo and Ellie were toddlers then. We went into Mothercare in Commercial Road – it wasn’t traffic-free in those days – to buy things for the baby I was expecting and …
VOICE 6: I was about seven and a half and I went to the Ice Show with my aunty and cousin. I remember waiting for the bus and she sat me on the garden wall while she folded my buggy …
VOICE 5: I remember the feeling of being a young mum, keeping an eye on two lively toddlers in the busy streets, and then we went into Debenhams for lunch. When I go there now I often think of it and see other young families. I always go to the window seat for that view over the Square – as we did then …
VOICE 7: Oh, all those lazy afternoons on the beach with friends, out on the pedalos by the pier, laughing, eating pizza, sunbathing; then, on warm evenings we’d look up at the stars and moon until our necks ached and then walk home along the beach happy, without a care …
VOICE 8: New Year’s Day 1997. My boyfriend and I left a night club in the early hours and it was snowing and the sky was lit up with stars. We couldn’t get a taxi and wondered if we’d encounter any trouble walking home but everyone we met was full of goodwill …
VOICE 9: I love to walk along the sea front down by the West Cliff. One evening at sunset at the top of Overcliff Drive, I met an old tramp enjoying his beer. We stood at the edge watching a fox patrol the undergrowth, sensing colours all around, lilac, pink and blue-green all around the sky and sea. We chatted and this old man told me how every night he watched the fox and had become friends with it, feeding it pieces of sandwich when he had some. It came very close to him at times. It was a beautiful moment shared by two strangers enjoying the evening …
QUOTATIONS ABOUT BOURNEMOUTH
“We find at Bourne Mouth a place very easy for the enemy to land — being devoid of all inhabiting.” Unknown (1574)
“Sombre woods drop from the healthy plateau
comes, goes, hollows out a dale, then climbes green and black
and drops once more into delicate glades where the light
filters gilding the dim slumber of the cemetrery … ” Verlaine
Quote from The Sunday Pictorial, 1930s
“Bournemouth reminds me of a smartly dressed lady whose appearance is all show, but underneath the fine feathers all is not in keeping.”
The beginnings of a poem:
A smartly dressed lady
whose appearance is all show
but under her fine feathers
are ghouls and ghosties
all manner of real and…
From John Bull article, c 1914
“Beautiful Bournemouth shelters some ugly beasts, visitors and settlers. Some of them described by themselves but nobody else as ladies objected to the presence in the town of wounded and maimed men in hospital blue. The sight affected the creatures’ nerves and complaints arose that the landscape and seascape were spoiled.”
Granville
“I have examined Bournemouth in all its parts under sunshine as well as during the prevalence of wet and high wind, a winter residence for the delicate constitutions requiring a warm and sheltered locality at this season of the year … it is an inland sheltered haven for the most tender invalids.… allowing a most complete ventilation …consumptive persons are often ordered to near the neighbourhood of a pine forest.”
FROM CARDS: THINGS I LIKE AND THINGS I FEAR
There’s a devil in Boscombe
a curse on the Academy
and underground tunnels
that smugglers used
under Exeter Hotel
but no-one’s ever found the treasure.
chines and coves to escape town businesses
sea sand pier sun squirrels flowers winter walks
I fear a surge of old people and tacky summer shows
the years and years it takes to find a job
we want ‘people-sized’ activities developments
Arts to enrich
my dad designed a fountain in Bournemouth
our town between forest and the sea
welcomes foreigners to study and holiday, links with faraway places,
through hotels and boarding houses
young population, university town
Boscombe and Southbourne should retain their individual identity
Variations on the Place name:
Burna Mutha
Bourne Mouth
Bournemouth
A thought! Record voices with different dialects saying the word Bournemouth
