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:-