Town hall’s century of civic pride

As Bournemouth prepares to join its civic neighbours Christchurch and Poole in the BCP unitary council, what part its largely Victorian town hall will play in the new era is yet to be decided.

Rudolf Schwarz – from Belsen to Bournemouth

He arrived in Bournemouth in a blaze of publicity seventy years ago as the first post-war musical director of the re-formed Bournemouth Municipal Orchestra in its brand new home – the re-commissioned Winter Gardens – but the appointment of Rudolf Schwarz was not without controversy and even elicited questions in the House of Commons. A Read More…

At home he’s Dad; on stage he’s David

At home in Ferndown most of the time he’s just Dad to his two boys, but at least two or three nights a week – sometimes more – Laurence Bolwell dons make up, wigs and a series of outlandish costumes to become a starman; The Starman in fact, David Bowie. For 19 years Laurence has kept Read More…

Nesta of the Forest: Bournemouth’s witch

Psychic, medium, spiritualist, mental healer, psycho-analyst, folklorist, Nesta of the Forest carved quite a niche for herself in Bournemouth society and beyond in the 1930s. Prosecuted by the authorities but loved by her clients, she wrote the weekly Confidential Column for the Bournemouth Times having moved from Gloucester after being jailed for refusing to pay a fine of two Read More…

They loved it, yeah, yeah, yeah

Of all the places that ‘had their moments’ according to the lyric of John Lennon’s elegiac song In My Life, 46 years since its release, Bournemouth fits the sentiment as well as any that figure in the history of The Beatles. Still revered as one of the greatest – and most commercially successful – groups Read More…

The Times of his life in Bournemouth

MUCH is made of the current obsession with celebrity, but it’s nothing new – fame has always been newsworthy. Even more so when a star comes down from the firmament and lands on your doorstep. It’s nearly 50 years since Tony Crawley came to Bournemouth from Salisbury to take over the show page of the Bournemouth Read More…