“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 …”