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