THE ROAD TO CHILDHOOD..

Sometimes I wonder whether it`s just the time of the year, when the days dwindle down to a precious few, when the deep midwinter beckons and my dotage gathers momentum;  but I often find myself looking back to the days of my New Forest childhood and wondering where the years have gone.   I came across this photo the other day and immediately it brought back wistful memories of those long ago childhood days. 

It`s a photo of Summer Lane, the New Forest road that leads from Beaulieu to Exbury and it pretty much shows the forest lanes in all their peace and tranquility, even though my earliest memories of such places may be tinted with the recollections of wartime, as I spent my first five years during the conflict of WW2.

At the time my mother and I lived in the village of Blackfield with my aunt and uncle whilst my father, having been captured at Dunkirk, was confined to a PoW camp - Stalag V111B at Lamsdorf in Silesia.  If there were any `advantages` of having my earliest years in Blackfield they may have been that in one direction, just a couple of miles away, was Lepe Beach which was used as one of the departure places for the Normandy invasion in 1944.  In the other direction, another couple of miles away, was the village of Exbury, owned by the de Rothschild family, but their estate was taken over for the headquarters of  the Naval establishment of HMS Mastadon, which  played an important role in the strategic planning for D-Day

It`s all different these days, of course - Exbury Gardens being famous for their spectacular displays of rhododendrons and azaleas - but Summer Lane hasn`t changed.  It`s a lovely drive towards Hill Top on Beaulieu Heath and each time I make the journey I get that feeling, as with all the other New Forest lanes, of being `home` again.   Click on the picture and you`ll see why perhaps........

 

THE SONG HAS ENDED...

Well, please forgive a little more self indulgence but a few posts back I did warn you that I might be boring you with some more snippets from our week back home in the New Forest.  And seeing this photo which I took while we were lost in the depths of Oakley Enclosure brought back memories from just two weeks ago - which already seems a lifetime ago.

I vividly recall how I felt on that morning as we ventured into the unknown - captivated by simply being there, being alive and taking it all in.  The silence was deafening, save for the song of the forest birds going about their business and the slight rustle of the breeze through the towering trees.   I guess I`m understandably feeling a touch nostalgic about it all but I think being able to look back on days like that makes it a little more possible to deal with `the real world,` which all about us seems anything other than how it was on that morning.

So, as my self indulgence gathers momentum, here are a couple of more photos that also provide me with a sense of proportion and a longing to recapture those times and those places that keep me going.  This one shows the sunlight glinting through the forest with not a distracting sight or sound of anything else .......

Whilst out on the open heathland the forest ponies wile away another day......

And at the end of the day the exertions and the new experiences seemed enough for our retriever, Dudley.......

(Please click on photos for better images)

So, self indulgence over for another time.   Back to the real world now with more pressing issues to concern me.   Fulham at St. Mary`s tomorrow, Forest Green at Rodney Parade.

The song may have ended but the melody lingers on.......

QUIET PLACES...

 

I apologise in advance if I go on a bit about the New Forest but after being home again for a few days, the memories of last week linger on.   I think in my last post I mentioned the thousands of people who visit the Forest these days - so much so that the `hotspots` in the Park are invariably crowded - and so it`s important, for us at least, to find those quiet places which people tend to pass by and ignore.

And we found a few.  But you have to be prepared to walk some way to find them.  We came across the ponies in my picture above deep in one of the Forest`s many enclosures.  We left them in peace, they totally ignored us and Dudley or retriever and life went on undisturbed.

One of the many `out of the way places` we found was Anderwood Enclosure on the back road from Burley to Lyndhurst.  It is an impressive site, despite being in one of the more remote locations but you have to walk away from the parking area and get deeper into the Forest, which we did - eventually finding a restful place in Church Moor.   Here`s another photo I took there showing the stillness and tranquility where only the rustle of the breeze in the trees and the birdsong filled the air:- 

And when we eventually made our way back to the car park, we found this family gathering of New Forest ponies taking a rest from their own busy day:-

(Please click on the photo for a better image)

It`s just possible I might bore you again in the next few days but I hope you agree the photos are quite nice and that in the frantic, crazy world we live in it does us good to find our own version of quiet places.

 GENTLE PERSUASION...

Been away for a week back to the New Forest in Hampshire.   It`s over 60 years ago now that my parents and I had to leave our cottage in Hythe on the edge of the Forest, thanks to BOAC closing down their flying boat operation and my father needing to find alternative employment.   But that part of Hampshire has always seemed like home somehow - I know the area, I know where I am and I know where to go and what to do and also what not to do to enjoy all that the New Forest has to offer.

On the surface it hasn`t changed very much - the contrasting open heathland, the thickly wooded enclosures are still there, thanks to its designation as a National Park and the Park Authority that looks after it along with the Forestry Commission and the local councils;  the Court of Verderers still meets in Lyndhurst to maintain and oversee the rights of the Commoners - so what, if anything, has changed in the Forest that I knew so well as a boy?

I think it`s down to people - countless thousands of them who visit the Forest itself, its olde worlde villages and the gentle shoreline of the Solent looking across to the Isle of Wight.  And their cars, their caravans, their cycles clogging up the narrow Forest roads and imperiling the lives of the ponies, donkeys and other animals for whom the Forest is their true home.  And with this popularity comes the inevitable response from the `authorities,` which tends to formalise much of the area in an attempt to strike the necessary balance between protecting the environment but at the same time allowing controlled access by those, like me I guess, who love to visit and enjoy what it has to offer.

And so there are loads of `do`s and don`t`s` - signs everywhere, speed restrictions, police patrols but also enough parking places across the whole of the Forest so that it would take years to explore all of the Park.  And it was a refreshing change to see that the art of gentle persuasion is being employed to encourage people not to leave litter and other rubbish behind them which can be dangerous to the ponies and other animals and I came across this notice alongside a car park in Burley which, rather than promising dire threats of prosecution, perhaps persuades people to be respectful in the way they treat this national treasure:-

A STONE FRIGATE...

Well, it` a glorious late Spring day here in deepest Kent and it reminds me of the times we have been to stay in the New Forest and the times we have visited Exbury Gardens, just a couple of miles from where I spent much of my boyhood.  At this time of the year the gardens - renowned for their azaleas and rhododendrons - are at their absolute best .  I don`t know but I imagine the gardens might well be closed as the corona virus continues to bite.   Anyway we greatly enjoyed wandering through the gardens and ending up at the rather splendid cafe for yet another dose of tea and cake.

But Exbury has not always been the haven of beauty and tranquility you see today.  In 1942 the Exbury Estate, owned by a member of the de Rothschild family, was requisitioned by the Royal Navy for use in connection with the D-Day landings.   As the `stone frigate` HMS Mastadon, throughout the war the house became a training base. 

It was reneamed HMS Hawk, then HMS King Alfred before being finally derequisitioned  and returned to the family in 1955.  After the war, restoration and development of the gardens was continued until the gardens were opened to the public in the early 1950s and since 1988 they have been run as Exbuty Gardens Ltd, on a long lease from the present freehold owner of the whole estate, Mr. Edmund de Rothschild`s 1966 Charitable Trust.

I hope my photo does at least some justice to it all.......

SHOULD HAVE BEEN HERE TODAY....

It`s 4.15 on a blissful April Saturday afternoon.  In times gone by I would now be in a state of growing anxiety as the second half is under way at St. Mary`s Stadium snd the Saints battle for the odd point to help secure their Premier League survival.   On a good day we might be 2-0 up but the chances are that we might be locked in the perennial struggle for survival, much to the disenchantment of the assembled devotees.  But none of that is happening, of course - football has taken quite a few back seats in recent weeks and so my anxiety levels, at least in that respect, have declined gracefully.

No, instead of all that, I should right now have been staying at Burley in the New Forest starting a week in and around the National Park and revisiting many of the places I knew so well in my formative years.  There are just so many places to visit and to see in the Forest - from wide open heathlands, to the calm backwaters of the coast, to the seemingly endless forest walks among towering trees right away from everything.

Here`s a photo I took last year of one of my favourite forest haunts - the trackway leading through Setthorns Inclosure close to the village of Sway.  It`s just one of many places where the grandeur of the forest seems to take over and to make you feel privileged just to be there.   Such a shame our week has been cancelled but we`ll just hope to be there this time next year.......

(Please click on photo)

THIS TIME NEXT WEEK....

.....we should have been going to the New Forest for a week `back home.`  We have holidayed in the Forest on a number of occasions over the years, partly because it is the part of the world where I spent most of my boyhood but partly also because it`s a really lovely area to explore.  So we were looking forward to another week in the village of Burley but of course that has been cancelled for obvious reasons.

I never tire of revisiting the Forest - as a boy growing up in Hythe on the western shore of Southampton Water the Forest was literally just up the road and that, along with the sea at the bottom of our garden, made it an idyllic place to grow up a bit.  There are just so many places and things to see in the Forest that it`s difficult to find a photo that is in anyway `representative` of what the area means - at least to me.

I came across this one which I took on our last visit and it shows the village of Beaulieu - I called it rush hour - and it is a village that has so much to commend it.  Quite apart from its picturesqueness it boasts a wonderful cafe, which specialises in enormous gooey cakes and splendid coffee, so I`ll miss that next week (and have to wait until this time next year which is when our week in Burley has been rearranged.)

IT`S NOT THAT FAR...

One of our New Forest visits reminded me - and I`m not quite sure why because the contrast could not have been greater - of one of the lyrics from the wonderful but sorely missed Kirsty McColl.   "From an uptown apartment to a knife on the A-train, it`s not that far.......from the sharks in the penthouse to the rats in the basement it`s not that far"....and so on.

And our visit to Boldrewood on a mid summer weekend afternoon was perhaps not the best time to go - car park full, all those people determined to get away from it all only to find themselves surrounded by all those people.   And on our way back to our probably illegally parked car, I spotted some rising smoke from the inevitable barbecue.  This photo I took gives a flavour of what a summer barbie in the New Forest might look like.......

But if you take the trouble to walk away from all that you can find an area set aside for deer watching. It`s not that far. The silence is deafening, the mayhem left behind and if you`re patient and lucky, as I was, you might just catch a glimpse of what the Forest is really all about.  Here`s a photo I took of that quiet moment.......

Oh yes - and on the subject of Kirsty McColl`s lyrical song writing, one of her most sad but hopefully predictive lyrics included the line, "Now it`s England 2 Colombia 0 and I know just how those Colombians feel......"    Another reminder of her remarkable genius?  We might find out tomorrow evening.

OUT OF THE FOREST..

Been absent from these pages for a couple of weeks, partly to avoid any flack stemming from my suggestion that we might be going overboard with our collective national mourning - interesting that the flack never arrived.   

Anyway, we had a week in my old stamping ground of Hampshire`s New Forest, scene of my misspent boyhood and it was, as ever, a real treat to revisit those places that I hold dear and which were, I suppose, at least partly responsible for  some aspects of my persona from my formative years.

One of the real pleasures was to go back to Setthorns Inclosure, close to the village of Sway where we were staying.   It`s one of the smaller of the Forest Inclosures but it always appeals as one with genuine forest trails among spectacular trees.  Above is a photo I took just as we were coming out of the forest where it gives way to the open heathland.    Please click on the photo for a better image.

A DAY TO REMEMBER...

This is Dudley, our new golden retriever.  He won`t take the place of Barney or Henry or any of our previous five retrievers but he will be welcomed into our home, our family, our community and our village when he joins us in a couple of weeks` time.   On Saturday we made the journey down to the New Forest where we had to choose which puppy to have from the adorable litter.  We were left with a choice between two and it was difficult to choose between them - I think we would happily have had both - but in the end we chose this one;  I`m sure you can see why.  

We then went on to revisit one or two places that are a little bit special, well to me anyway.   On the way we drove through some of the open heathland areas of the New Forest and I caught this picture of  a new foal and its mum which kind of sums up what the forest is all about:-

Then on to Lepe on Hampshire`s south coast.  I still recall that when I was about five years old in 1944 walking to Lepe beach from the house my mother and I were staying in with relatives during the war.  It was the first time I had ever seen the sea and it was at the time of the build-up to D-Day in June 1944.  I still remember the hordes of American trucks driving through the village and the troops throwing packets of sweets to us urchins as they drove through en route to Lepe where the Mulberry harbours had been constructed.   These days Lepe is a busy country park but still has the views out to the Isle of Wight.  Here`s a photo of that timeless view I took on what was truly a day to remember:-

(As ever, please click on photos for better images)

A FAVOURITE HAUNT....

Having spent a memorable boyhood on the edge of the New Forest I always enjoy going back and revisiting old haunts.  One of my favourites is the village of Beaulieu and I took this photo on a tranquil afternoon looking across the lake towards Palace House, home of the Montague family and the renowned National Motor Museum.   I had an uncle who lived at nearby Blackfield and worked in the museum once he had retired from whatever it was he used to do.  It was a long time ago.

The whole village is quite fascinating, if just a touch `olde worlde.`  Just across the road from where I stood to take this photo, there is a very interesting garage selling sought after classic cars at sought after classic prices although I detected an air that the proprietor might not welcome penniless time-wasting riff-raff.  In the village car park there is one of the country`s most agreeable and welcome `conveniences.` There is a splendid cafe which does extraordinary cakes, an old fashioned sweet shop and a good riverside walk all the way to Buckler`s Hard which I often think must be rather nice for Mr. Buckler.   I really must get back down there again...........

(Please click on photo for larger image)

IF YOU GO DOWN IN THE WOODS TODAY...

Deep in the New Forest on the quiet road between Bolderwood and Emery Down you pass a curious looking relic.  It`s a fireplace - just a fireplace, no house, no bungalow, no building of any kind - just a fireplace.   It originally formed part of the cook-house of a unit of the Portuguese army, stationed here during the First World War to lend assistance to the depleted local labour force in the production of much needed timber for the war effort. 

The Forestry Commission have retained the fireplace not just as a memorial for those men who lived and worked here at the time but also in acknowledgement of the assistance given by the Portuguese government which helped towards the cost of renovating and preserving this surprising yet poignant memorial.........

"GOOD MORNING - HOW ARE YOU?...."

.......this Robin seemed to be asking and bowed its head as we passed it on our walk from Beaulieu to Bucklers Hard.....

A MATTER OF CONVENIENCE...

I`m not sure why but over the years I have cultivated a genuine interest in the cleanliness, standard and `acceptability` of public conveniences.  Maybe it`s an age related thing but these facilities seem to grow in importance in direct relationship to one`s advancing dotage. And I have come across some truly dreadful ones as well as some which are quite outstanding.    One of the worst was at Sennen Cove in Cornwall, whilst that same county produced at least two of the very best - at Camelford and especially Portholland.   Anyway, this one in Hampshire proved to be extremely convenient, as can perhaps be judged by the quality of its informative notice..........

A FAMILY GATHERING....

Christmas is coming and this is the time of the year when families get together.   Here`s a photo I took of a different kind of family gathering - one deep in the New Forest of my long ago boyhood. To be fair, I didn`t really have to go searching for these deer because, each day around lunchtime, the herd arrive at Bolderwood knowing that goodies will be put out for them to enjoy.   We certainly enjoyed the spectacle and I hope you do too.....

A FAILED ESCAPE BID..

It was indeed a very bad news weekend - Tunisia; Kuwait; France - and so in a desperate attempt to get away from the wall-to-wall coverage of those appalling events and ones which are simply annoying, like Glastonbury, I discovered that ITV3 were showing re-runs of their 2012 series about National Parks.   Last night`s final programme in the series was supposed to be all about the New Forest which I could claim as my spiritual home, having spent my boyhood at Hythe on Southampton Water, "where the forest meets the sea."

Now the New Forest has much to commend it - the woodlands, the heathlands, the lawns, the forest villages, the wildlife, the history, the culture, the coastline - and I thought that at least some of these might be captured in an hour long `documentary` about the area.   Not a bit of it.   Instead we what was dished up was a collage of Caroline Quentin gushing loudly and largely incoherently in a series of staged encounters, including joining a lady up a tree. joining another one rounding up and then selling a pony, joining some chef on a forage for stuff to eat, having a good time at the Romsey Show, which isn`t in the New Forest National Park and watching a man hang gliding with his dog over Barton on Sea, which isn`t in the New Forest either.

And all done with the kind of `look at me,` stentorian, self promoting `style` which she employed to ruin a similar series about Cornwall some while ago.   Now to some people, doubtless Caroline Quentin is something of a national treasure.  The truth, however, is that she has now become a national embarrassment to herself as well as to the National Parks.   So my escape bid failed miserably and so I rescued my evening by watching Nicholas Roeg`s masterpiece, `Walkabout,` on BBC 4 and hearing once more John Barry`s glorious music and the mellifluous tones of the young Jenny Agutter.   None of which has come close, however, to easing the images and suffering brought on by a weekend which will be unforgettable for all the wrong reasons.

ROOTS..

Just back from a week in and around the New Forest in Hampshire and in many ways it was a return to the area where I spent my formative years until my family moved away when I was about 13 or 14.   You never forget those early years, of course, and my first few years coincided with wartime spent in the village of Blackfield before, when my father returned from having been a prisoner of war, we moved to Hythe on the shores of Southampton Water.

It was almost the perfect location to be a boy, with the waves of Southampton Water lapping at the bottom of our garden and with the New Forest just inland.  The long summer days seemed filled with adventures and in an era without television or PCs or iPads or smartphones or Twitter or Facebook it was only seriously inclement weather that kept me indoors and away from the activity on the Water or the secrets of the Forest.

And so last week I ventured back again to Blackfield and Hythe, where the march of time has seen much change and we also visited Beaulieu, Bucklers Hard, Exbury, Calshot, Lepe and explored once more the hidden glades of the Forest where, at Boldrewood, I managed to capture this sight of feeding deer:- 

It`s exactly the kind of experience that makes it highly likely that we will be spending more time in the land of my roots.

A FOREST TALE...

As someone with a pathological fear of snakes, I have long been intrigued by the life of Brusher Mills, pictured above outside his New Forest `home.`   Born in 1840 at Emery Down, near Lyndhurst - the `capital` of the New Forest - Harry `Brusher` Mills came to prominence in his `40s when he moved into an old charcoal burner`s hut on the outskirts of Brockenhurst and it was there that he took up the unusual work of snake catching for a living.

He worked as a snake catcher for about 18 years, during which time he set about ridding local properties of snakes.   No-one knows how many he caught or whether and how often he was bitten but conservative estimates put the total at around 30,000 grass snakes and 4,000 adders - the country`s only poisonous snake.   He is said to have sent some to London Zoo as food for the birds of prey and the cannibalistic hamadryads and was reportedly paid one shilling by a local landowner for each adder he caught.

He also supplemented his income by being paid to sweep the wicket between innings at Balmer Lawn cricket ground and this may account for his nickname of `Brusher.`

But the story has a poignant ending.   There used to be a New Forest tradition of `Squatters Rights,` under which anyone who occupied a home in the Forest for 30 years then became the owner of the land on which the dwelling stood.  Brusher Mills lived in his hut in the Forest for one day short of 30 years and it is truly pathetic to think that just a few hours before the 30 years were complete, he came home to find his hut had been burned to the ground. It broke his heart and he died soon afterwards at the age of 65. 

But he is remembered -revered almost - by a descriptive headstone on his grave in Brockenhurst churchyard, a detail of which is shown above.  He is further remembered by the former Railway Inn in Brockenhurst being renamed The Snakecatcher in his memory.

THE WOOD FOR THE TREES..

Back from a week away in the New Forest.   We were blessed with glorious Spring weather and made the most of out time there by visiting the promised old haunts as well as some new ones.   I made return visits to places I knew all of 60 years ago - Hythe, Blackfield, Lepe, Calshot, Fawley where I first went to school - and some of the more popular places - Exbury, Beaulieu, Buckler`s Hard, Keyhaven, Hurst Castle and even down to Lulworth Cove and Durdle Door on the Jurassic Coast of Dorset.

But what I especially enjoyed was to explore the Forest once more and nowhere better than the Ornamental Drive at Rhinefield and Boldrewood - shown in my picture below.

The New Forest is a very special place for all kinds of reasons.  It has a long and unique history along with its own unique character and it seems to be very well `managed` albeit by a tangled web of disparate `agencies.`   As you wander through the forest glades and lose yourself in the peace and tranquility away from it all, you are quite unaware of the complex management that lies behind that unforgettable experience.   But when you find out, you begin to wonder just how on earth the Forest has managed to survive and prosper for these past 1,000 years without the introduction of these layers of management.

The New Forest, almost paradoxically, is the country`s newest National Park and as such it has to have a National Park Authority, whose main purposes are`to conserve and enhance the natural beauty, wildlife and cultural heritage, promote opportunities for understanding and enjoyment of the Forest and foster the social and economic wellbeing of the Forest communities.`

Of course, the Forest being a forest, the Forestry Commission gets involved as it is responsible for the management of the Forest Crown Lands.  There`s the New Forest Trust, whose aim also is to secure the wellbeing of the Forest, there`s the New Forest District Council, Town Councils at places like Lyndhurst, Parish Councils across the Forest, Hampshire County Council, the New Forest Tourism Association, Natural England and other wildlife conservation groups and on and on it goes.

Of course, to my mind the ones that really matter and know the Forest better than anyone are the Verderers of the New Forest whose ancient role has always been pretty much the same as all the other, newer agencies, whilst the New Forest Agisters are a small, skilled working group of just five men with a good working knowledge of the Forest and its depasturised animals.   Four of them are allocated a large area each and are responsible for overseeing all aspects of the New Forest ponies.

With all of these other agencies and authorities involved there`s the real risk of duplication of effort and resources, which the Forest can ill afford, but it`s a sign of the times that we deem it necessary to impose layer upon layer of authority whereas once a simple and effective structure with local people who knew the Forest did the job for so many centuries.  

The Forest hasn`t changed in a thousand years, but I wonder if it can sometimes see the wood for the trees of bureaucracy that surround it.   For much more, please see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Forest

OLD HAUNTS ..

I`m going to be away for the next week or so, staying in the village of Sway, deep in the New Forest.   In many ways it will be like retracing the steps of over half a century ago.   Despite being born at a very early age in neighbouring Dorset, I spent most of WW2 in a house at Blackfield, between Hythe and Calshot - see the map above, where my mother and I stayed with her sister and her husband.  

I still have vivid memories of the nightly bombing raids on the docks at Southampton and sleeping under the stairs with a junior set of earplugs.    After the war ended and my father returned from five years in a PoW camp, we moved the short distance to Hythe, where we spent many very happy years as a family in that `village by the sea.`

Of course, I`m still a frequent visitor to Hythe and to Southampton but I`m looking forward to once again exploring the New Forest and the Hampshire coast, which has so much to offer.   Who knows, we may also venture back into Dorset, check out my birthplace and revisit old haunts including Lulworth Cove and Purbeck 


Here`s hoping the weather is as kind to us next week as my aunt and uncle were all those years ago.