From Our Files: Last borough meeting... ‘Hordle panther’...streaker warning
50 YEARS AGO
LYMINGTON Borough Council met for the first time on Thursday of last week. Expressing good wishes to members and officers of the new authority for success in their future administration of local services Ald B.J. West declared: “We are confident that the future of Lymington is in good hands.”
“There must be sadness in our hearts this day but sadness will mingled with pride that we as members of this council have been privileged to play a small part in the long history of this ancient Borough – a Borough that through the centuries has survived wars and upheavals of every kind in in the course of a long life.
“Alas it was not able to resist progress and so after hundreds of years of service to its people we must bow to the inevitable. The book is about to be closed on a long and honourable existence. Lymington will always be Lymington whatever changes may take place around us.”
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“IF we cannot keep a few things like this, we may as well pack up and go home right now,” said Mr Walter Symons at the first official meeting of Lymington charter trustees on the matter of retention of the armorial bearings which the College of Arms granted to the former borough in 1964.
New Forest District Council advised the trustees that the College of Arms had advised it that they had no right by virtue of the local government act to retain the armorial arms borne by the borough.
If they wanted to retain them, they would have to seek a transfer costing £5-600.
Mr Symons said he would take it upon himself to raise sufficient voluntary funds to secure their transfer.
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MOST children have a longing to own a pony, but few have carried their longing to quite such lengths as two small ladies did recently.
Agister Cooke received a police call saying that a patrol car was with two girls aged 12 and eight at Redbridge roundabout.
They had on the end of a string improvised halter a pony. The two children had found the pony sufficiently tame to accept a halter and had forthwith set out with their quarry to walk 12 miles home towing the pony behind them.
What their parents’ reactions would have been to their arrival will never be known for the policeman foiled the plan in the first five minutes.
25 YEARS AGO
Conservative William Hague roused four hundred of the party faithful to near fever pitch when delivering a passionately stimulating speech at Beaulieu. An enthusiastic round of applause was directed at his stance on Europe. “I want to be in Europe but not run by Europeans and there’s a vast difference.”
“We want an EU that brings in the countries of Eastern Europe that promotes freer trade across the Atlantic we don’t want a United States of Europe.” Mr Hague was speaking at Beaulieu Motor Museum where he posed with Lord Montagu in a classic car.
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TWO men claim they sighted the infamous Hordle panther on Friday in last week outside Gordleton Mill Hotel on Silver Street.
Deputy managing director for Novelli Hotels, Ian Finnan, who is working at the hotel told the A&T the men had a “fleeting” glance of the cat three weeks ago.
He said: “We just laughed about it at the time and didn’t take it seriously.”
However, when the cat reappeared on Friday morning last week Mr Finnan and chef Michael Bird treated it more seriously.
“We reported it to the police then because there are children about,” said Mr Finnan.
The two men spotted the cat at the rear of the hotel. He said: “It was black about two and half metres long with a long curly tail. Michael saw it for longer than me, about ten minutes.
“It sat and looked around, then headed off towards Hordle.”
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A LYMINGTON stall holder received an unwelcome customer on Saturday when at 8.45 am a Wilts & Dorset bus crashed into her stall. Lesley O’Neil of Bladebury Lane, Christchurch, was manning her bric-a-brac stall opposite the bus station and the impact sent crockery and glassware flying.
Mrs O’Neil is pursuing the matter with Wilts & Dorset bus company.
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IS Sway Working Men’s Club hiding a secret streaker? Inquiries made by the A&T this week have been about as successful as an outsider trying to get secrets out of a lodge. On Saturday, a club committee twice during the course of the evening made a solemn pronouncement to those present, that any club member or guest caught streaking would be reported to the committee with a view to their being banned or suspended.
His warning is understood to have arisen as a result of an incident a week or so previously.
Asked by the A&T why the warning had been given Mr Robin Etheridge the club secretary professed to have no knowledge of the incident or the warning and suggested the reporter had been misled or tricked.
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PAY and Display meters went up this week in the last of New Forest District Council’s free car parks following the news that the government had upheld its appeal against a Hampshire County Council veto.
The Liberal Democrat controlled council was jubilant that it had overcome the County’s objection to charges for visitors at car parks at Hythe, Lyndhurst, Ringwood, Fordingbridge and Totton, But annoyed that it had lost around a quarter of a million pounds in income while waiting nearly a year for the appeal decision.