Bournemouth's Who Was Who

The May Festival at St Stephen’s Church in Bournemouth starts on Saturday 4 May with a focus on Percy Whitlock.

Whitlock’s biographer Malcolm Riley will be giving the festival lecture called Percy Whitlock at 110. This is followed by the always splendid tea and Exeter Cathedral choir singing evensong.

Percy Whitlock was first the church’s organist and then Municipal Organist who played in London churches and broadcast. His legacy includes the Song of Bournemouth and a familiar Mass setting.

The lecture (£7) starts at 2.45pm and will be  a rare occasion.

Booking Office : 01202 399139

An online petition calling on the Throop Mill owners to allow the building to be saved and opened has been launched by a schoolboy who passes daily.

The picture of Ali Kemal in tonight’s BBC2 programme Boris Johnson: The Irresistible Rise is a reminder of the Mayor of London’s Bournemouth connection.

The Turkish leader who was assassinated lived for a time in Lorne Park Road. His son Osman who was left behind in Bournemouth is Boris Johnson’s grandfather.

It is Osman’s wife who is the ‘paternal grandmother’ referred to by Rachel Johnson when recalling having to read aloud The Times‘ leaders..

I have put a note on the Bournemouth Coast Path blog about a new Bournemouth book’s comment on a Shelley Park incident involving an unconscious sailor.

St Valentine’s Day has seen the publication of a book on Neville Heath who befriended and dined a lady before murdering her.

It is a strange case which has never before been clearly explained. The events took place on the West Cliff and Branksome Dene Chine.

Heath, both a deserter and a brave airman, was arrested for the murder but convicted and hanged for an earlier murder in London.

William Leith, who claims to have never heard of the Bournemouth murder, has given the book a good review in the Evening Standard.

Handsome Brute: The Story of a Ladykiller by Sean  O’Connor (Simon & Schuster, £16.99)

The Bournemouth Evening Echo and my Bournemouth Coast Path blog have been looking at Gordon Selfridge’s local connections.

This morning’s news of the fire at Cliff End in Manor Road is bad news.

I hope that the main building has not been too badly damaged.

Calls for the derelict building to be pulled down are a mistake.

Cliff End, overlooking Boscombe Chine Gardens, was built in 1887 for Harriet Samuel of H Samuel jeweller fame.

She 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.

A sundial on the wall of Cliff End has the initials R and M (Reis and Moses) and the motto ‘We only count the sunny hours’. Harriet’s husband Walter who died in 1863 was son of Moses Samuel.

This house is part of Bournemouth’s heritage and our nation’s history.

On Friday 24 April 1812, two hundred years ago today, Lewis Tregonwell and his wife arrived in Bournemouth to spend their first night in the first house to be built overlooking the bay.

It’s a day for quiet celebration. We may have marked the 200th anniversary of the town in 2010 but it is interesting to remember that it took two years to build that first house for the first residents.

The mansion was the focus of the town, the scene of mayor making and Royal visits. Today as an hotel it is a landmark for visitors and conference delegates at the BIC opposite.

Lewis Tregonwell lies in the churchyard of St Peter’s Church which is being floodlit in his honour tonight.

Tonight’s Daily Echo carries my contribution to highlight the day.

Artist Eustace Nash bought a house in Poole when he won a prize in the village sign competition with his Christchurch sign.

Now another artist, Cherie Wheatcroft, has produce a hand-painted copy on stainless steel.

News that the Bournemouth International Hotel, the former Abbey Mount in Priory Road, is to be pulled down means the loss of the last vestiges of an 1860s house.

It was built about 1867 for the former rector of Downton who called it Upton. By 1875  it was the home of Admiral George Grey, son of Earl Grey who had been prime minister.

George was a friend of Richard Potter whose young daughter Beatrice (Webb) probably visited the house whilst a school in the town.