Bournemouth's Who Was Who

The sudden death of Simon Hoggart this week made me recall his visits to Bournemouth for party conferences.

In 2010, when deploring the political parties’ switch to from the seaside to Manchester, he wrote: “The council at Bournemouth long ago wrecked the seafront (meaning BIC), but you can still climb high enough to catch one of the finest coastal views in the country.”

In 2007, as part of his Guardian column, he had written very generously about Bournemouth’s mother church: “St Peter’s is a magnificent Victorian church designed by George Edmund Street, with a nave and chancel that make the House of Lords look drab and utilitarian.”

In addition he knew all about the Shelley heritage.

The Royal Mail is to issue a postage stamp depicting actor Sir Alec Guinness who has many Bournemouth connections.

He went to school in Southbourne where the headmaster said that Alec would never be an actor.

Later he stayed regularly with his aunt and uncle at Westbourne where his grandfather had been the arcade caretaker.

The stamp will be available from Tuesday 25 March. It would be appropriate if the first day cover were to be available from Westbourne Post Office.

Canon Colin Deedes died last Tuesday.

Canon Deedes was the rector of St Peter’s and the town centre parish from 1973 to 1980.

He came to Bournemouth in 1973 following the appointment of his predecessor Colin James as Bishop of Basingstoke.

Colin James was last to be known as vicar and Colin Deedes was the first St Peter’s incumbent to be called rector.

The Deedes daughters attended Talbot Heath School and one, Rosie, is a priest.

He was in Bournemouth for seven years until being appointed Master of St Cross at Winchester. His successor in Bournemouth was Dick Jones.

There will be a service of thanksgiving at Winchester Cathedral on Friday 8 November at 2pm.

Jeremy Paxman’s Great Britain’s Great War is a first glimpse at the author’s  four part television series next year marking the 100th anniversary of the First World War.

He has filmed at Talbot Heath School and in the book takes issue with the warning given to its pupils in 1918 that ‘Only one out of ten of you girls can ever hope to marry…nearly all the men who might have married you have been killed’.

Paxman claims that although there was much shared anxiety about the future there were eventually more marriages than expected.

The teacher with the very gloomy fear is now thought to have been the head mistress Mary Broad who was addressing pupils on the old school site near Bournemouth West Station when Talbot Heath was still known as Bournemouth High School.

The record of this incident was made by Rosamund Essex, who lived at Boscombe, and later became the first and so far only woman to edit The Church Times.

Bath Travel has been sold 89 years after the travel agent was founded by Reginald Bath at its present address 2 Albert Road.

The name will survive under the ownership of Sunderland-based Hays Travel.

Reginald’s son Peter, who expanded the business to give it a nationwide reputation, died in 2006.

The third generation, Christine, Stephen, Andrew and Sally, has decided to sell rather than hand the business on to their 14 children says the Daily Echo.

Ben Miller’s My Hero on BBC1 this week looked at the life of Tony Hancock.

It was disappointing not to see the Sacred Heart hall or the Avon Social Club in Avon Road where Tony made early appearances.

However, Ben was free to wander around the Hotel Celebrity, once the Durlston Court Hotel run by Tony’s family, and there was old footage of the seafront and trolley buses in Old Christchurch Road.

It is available for viewing on iPlayer until Tuesday 3 September.

Etheldreda Anna Benett, Mother Foundress of the Sisters of Bethany, died a century ago and was buried in Bournemouth’s St Clement’s churchyard.

The House of Bethany was a major presence alongside the church.

The Foundress died at the mother house in London but the funeral was in Bournemouth.

The Sisters of Bethany are now in Southsea and will be returning to Boscombe for an anniversary service at St Clement’s at noon on Monday 29 July.

The Bournemouth Daily Echo has a feature.

News in the Bournemouth Daily Echo that Cliff End at Boscombe Gardens might be rebuilt should be good news. But there is still a concern about the historic building.

Bournemouth Council’s development brief expressed a desire to see the historic core of the building preserved.

Paul Hanson of the Meyrick Estate says: “There’s remarkably little left of value that is capable of reinstatement.”

In fact there is still the original frontage and on the extension is the reinstated sundial with the motto ‘We only count the sunny hours’. The the original villa and sundial should be saved since Cliff End was the home of jeweller H Samuel.

Harriet Samuel (1836-1908) took over her father-in-law’s Liverpool clockmaking business in 1862 and called her own first shop, opened in 1890 at Preston, H Samuel.

Her husband Walter was the son of Moses Samuel whose initial appears on the sundial.

The Queen will enter Westminster Abbey this morning as the choir sings William Parry’s version of Psalm 122.

This is a repeat of the start of the Coronation service sixty years ago.

It will also be the moment to recall that Parry was born on Richmond Hill in Bournemouth and baptised at St Peter’s Church. The year was 1848 which is known as the ‘year of revolutions’ in Europe.

The composer came back in 1890 and again for Bournemouth’s centenary year 1910. By then his version of Psalm 122, I was glad, had been sung at Edward VII’s coronation as it was to be the following year for George V’s crowning.

Jeremy Paxman has been to Talbot Heath School filming his television series to be broadcast next year on the anniversary of the outbreak of the First World War.

His focus in Bournemouth is Rosamund Essex was was head girl in 1917.

He will recall her being warned by a teacher that due to the war most girls will never find a husband and so must make their own way in life. Rosamund became editor of the Church Times.

Research reveals that the teacher, which I did not know, was head teacher Mary Broad.

“The school is proud to recognise Rosamund Essex as an Old Girl of Talbot Heath and a superb role-model for the girls today…as Talbot Heath celebrates A Year of Inspirational Women,” says Talbot Heath.