From Our Files: ‘Too many chiefs’...bathers ejected...fight for youth venue
Then & Now (with St Barbe Museum + Gallery): No. 9 High Street Lymington, 1952
No. 9 High Street, Lymington has housed various businesses over the years. Currently, it is occupied by Mine’s A Pasty, a bakery, cafe and takeaway specialising in Cornish and other pasties.
In the mid-20th century, the premises were home to EL Bale & Son, a family-run hairdressing saloon.
Historically, New Forest ponies roamed freely across the New Forest and occasionally ventured into nearby towns, including Lymington.
Photographs from the 1950s depict ponies wandering along Lymington’s High Street, illustrating their once-common presence in the town centre. Over time, as urban development progressed and concerns about public safety and traffic increased, measures were implemented to restrict livestock from entering busy town areas.
50 Years Ago
There is growing discontent and frustration amongst the New Forest District Council’s outside workers who claim lack coordination between administrative staff in Lymington Town Hall and the depot in Marsh Lane along with the comparative imbalance of formen to manual staff.
There are also at least ten time and motion staff touring the council’s terrority. One lorry driver said: “There are too many chiefs and not enough Indians.”
Another said: “Where we used to try and do a good job, we just rush through it any old how now.”
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Nick Routier’s been in hot water all week – he’s the supervisor of Lymington open air sea water baths which have been crowded out in this week’s scorching heat.
At 5pm closing time on Saturday he had to eject 200 bathers and on Sunday the figure was 300. Nick’s been the recipient of streams of abuse from disgruntled swimmers reluctantly leaving the water and he is so upset he has started an official complaints book to hand to his superiors.
He had offered to extend the opening hours of the baths in such exceptional circumstances, but New Forest District Council turned him down.
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One of the biggest ever stingrays ever caught by a shore angler was this 5lb 8oz specimen taken by Esso Fawley S.A.C member Andy Stevens.
Andy who lives in Dibden Purlieu baited 20 hooks with ringworm on a 24lb line from a mark at Sowley Sedge on the Western Solent.
25 Years Ago
Mike McGowan, chairman of the trader’s association, said that drivers seem to have the attitude tht they could park anywhere.
Parish councilor Brian Giles said that widening of the pavement had not been an improvement but a “disaster.”
Chris Hobby reminded the council that it had been widened to help those in wheelchairs and with prams so that they could get into the most important place in the village, the post office.
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A local mother is spearheading a campaign to get better facilities for the youth of Lymington following A&T reports of teenage alcoholism and vandalism in the town.
A group of around 30 youths are regularly drinking in the high street.
They are said to be “making life hell” for residents. A mum of three told the A&T: “They are me out to be louts and troublemakers but they are fed up with having nothing to do and nowhere to go.”
She said the kids want a drop in café adding: “When I was a teenager there were about six or seven places we could go. It kept us off the streets.”
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Three hundred years ago Daniel Defoe author of ‘Robin Crusoe’ condemned the town of Lymington for its widespread industry of “rogueing and smuggling.”
Today it would appear that residents are far more law abiding as after many years the Customs and Excise office on Lymington river has been closed.
In recent years officers caught a gang from North Africa who were dumping drugs at the mouth of the river for fishing boats to dredge them up later.
