From our Files: ‘Bolshy’ ponies...war refugees welcomed...alarming crime rise
50 YEARS AGO
POLICE have again warned people that New Forest ponies are wild and must be treated with caution following separate incidents which put two women in Southampton hospitals this week.
Mrs Phyllis Edmonton, 55, of Southampton, is in Southampton Eye Hospital with severe facial injuries. A spokesman for the hospital said she is progressing as well as can be satisfactorily as expected but it is too early to say if she will lose the sight of one eye.
She had stopped with her family to picnic on a green at Lyndhurst when an agitated pony approached. Fearing for the safety of her 14-month-old grandson she went to pick up the baby when the pony which was accompanied by a foal lashed out. Mrs Edmonton’s son Frank claims that his mother was kicked 15 feet.
The second casualty was Mrs Edith Horswell, 75, of Bitterne Southampton who was knocked unconscious. She was taken to Southampton General Hospital but sent home later in the day.
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WITH an under-strength police force Hampshire faces an alarming rise in crime this year. Already the figures for the first six months of 1974 shows a rise of 18.7 percent compared with the same period last year.
Burglaries increased from 4,259 to 5,439 and a feature was that more violence was shown towards those burgled – in 11 cases this year their householders or others were threatened or injured by intruders.
Acts of vandalism where damage of over £20 was caused showed a big increase from 476 to 772. Crimes of violence including serious wounding rose from 586 to 675. There were nine murders and violent robbers rose from 70 to 93.
A spokesman at Hampshire police headquarters said: “The public have got to be alive to the fact that it could happen to them. I think too many of them feel that it couldn’t and then when they get caught by a burglar, they come to us. We always do our best, but prevention is better than cure.”
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NO fewer than five boys from Priestlands School Lymington have been selected to represent Hampshire in the All-England schoolboy championships at Shrewsbury. This is the first time the school has been represented at these athletics championships and the boys have maintained a rigorous daily training schedule some throughout the winter in their bid to attain country recognition.
They have trained under the watchful eye of David Armitage the head of physical education at the school for the past three years. The boys are Mark Saunders, 16, Edwin Davis, 16, Adrian Stride, 16, Nicholas Young, 16, and Andrew Power, 14.
25 YEARS AGO
THE quiet village of Milford-on-Sea perhaps better known for its ageing population could start the millennium as the first in the New Forest to have a business and computer training centre with internet access involving young people.
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THE prospect of having cutting edge technology provided as a local facility has been opened up as the result of the former youth club hall, now renamed the Millennium Hall, being passed into community partnership.
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KIND-HEARTED people who feed hungry animals in the New Forest are being warned that sweeping changes to byelaws could land them with a court appearance and a maximum £200 fine if they are caught.
The new laws represent the Verderers’ attempt to stem the tide of incidents involving “bolshy” ponies which target holiday makers picnicking around Forest beauty spots. There have been incidents of ponies getting used to being hand-fed then biting and kicking people who attempt to eat in front of them.
One incident involved a pig in Bramshaw which attempted to make off with food belonging to a meals-on-wheels volunteer.
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THE smell of sewage being taken away by lorry will soon be a thing of the past for beach hut owners in Mudeford Sandbank when a new drainage system is completed.
“The whole place will be so much cleaner, “said Christchurch Borough Council’s engineering services manager.
“The residents ought to see tremendous environmental benefits.”
Five toilet blocks will be joined to the main pumping station on Mudeford Quay via a tunnel under the Run.
The new drainage system will spell the end of the elderly cesspit system used by beach hut owners for the last 50 years.
Residents will no longer have to contend with the smell of diesel as heavy lorries trundle across the Sandbank as they take sewage to the treatment works at Purewell.
It will also put a stop to the blocks being closed when overflowing toilet tanks leak raw sewage. When thousands of people visited the tankering system was unable to cope leading to sewage leaking out onto the beach leading to the council closing the toilets immediately.
“The toilets were completely overwhelmed. It was the first weekend of the summer. There were 340 odd beach huts and there must have been a sleeping population of 1,000. Because of the hot weather there was an influx of day visitors, and the old cesspit only had limited capacity. It filled up and started to overflow, “a council spokesperson said.
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TEN war refugees, seven from the Balkans two from Iraq and one from the Congo have recently arrived in the New Forest and now recuperating in the care of a religious group in Ashurst.
The Montfortian Brotherhood of and Sisterhood based at St Joseph’s turned their home into a centre for refugees.
Sister Dorothy Baxter told the A&T: “We wanted to provide a place where they could find some peace and stability and regain some dignity.”
“The boys are here because of the wars in their own countries. They all have their own stories and have all suffered trauma.”
