A short distance away towards waterloo, many older kids rode the new modern motor bikes and push bikes on the heath, using the area as an unofficial speedway track. This pastime is now illegal and the police monitor the local heaths with wasp helicopters, to protect the wildlife.

  Nearby and to the rear of the Alderney Hospital grounds, was a large abandoned red sandy quarry area with a reservoir. This was often used by hordes of us children for playing games and adventurous pursuits. It was here we built special camps and dens similar to caves, into the sides of the quarrys sandy red banks. We would often swim naked in the wide, but safe pool of water, which in actual fact was a reservoir. Such places were my own personal adventure playgrounds.   

 WHERE AS A KID I PLAYED

 Where geese did hiss and ganders chase

      where cock did crow each morn

      where chickens roost and old in tooth

      the saddle back pig was born

 where granfer made the swill each morn

      where grandma baked a pie

      where dogs ran free then followed me

      across the heaths thereby

      where springs were born within the thorns

      where heathers spread the floor

      where trees did ripe and birds took flight

      each and every morn

 where cows did moo and pigeons flew

      where cats did chase the rats

      where summers were long and greenfinch song

      did bless the day your born

 where flowers grew upon the heath

      where tramps and vagrants hid

      where nettles brooks and uncles took

      me out a ferreting

  where rabbits played out of the shade

      where trees grew tall and proud

      where conkers grew and fir cones too

      where planes flew o'er so loud

 where bantams eggs were neatly spread

      where ducks and drakes did play

      where apples grew within the dew and lovers babes were laid

      where as a kid i played.

  There was little housing then, no roads for miles and with only bird song, gypsy caravans and sand lizards for company a great deal of the time.  The area of heath-lands were renowned for splendid pine trees, which were originally brought into the country by Captain and Lady Tregonwell.

The sweet smelling scent of the pines was seen as a cure for tuberculosis and consequently, many sanatoriums were built locally. Including the present Alderney Hospital.

The writer and invalid Robert Louis Stevensonwho was himself a sickly man and came to the area for his health resided at his villa, in nearby Westbourne, where there is a plaque. It was here where he wrote the children’s classics of ‘Kidnapped’ and ‘Treasure Island’. Inspired and influenced no doubt by the views of Poole harbour and Brownsea Island as his inspiration. 

 It was at Brownsea Island where Lord Robert Baden Powell based his very first Scout camp in 1907. Thereby founding and establishing ‘The Scout Association.

 The wife of Baden-Powell was herself a local lady; her maiden name was Olivia Soames. She originally lived with her family at Grey Riggs in Parkstone. (Poole).

Baden-Powell and Olivia were married in 1908 at St Peter’s church in Poole which was the largest in the town.

                                                              Poole Quay                                                                                                           Brownsea Island

 My childhood play world then was a great deal safer then than the present 2Ist Century environment.With its dangerous highways, heavy traffic, and crime, including that of stranger’s danger. A child was able to roam miles in complete safety, parents were not so concerned then as now.

 Even our front door would often remain unlocked at night. Grandad would be more concerned with the foxes, which occasionally came to the Mannings during the early hours. To drag off chickens to their lairs high up in the banks of lodge hills at Canford Magna. He housed a twelve bore shotgun in the hall.

However, there were other hidden dangers. As I discovered on one occasion when my young sister Julie visited, and I took her for a stroll across an abandoned clay pit at the rear of the family brickyard. My sister Julie who was only a toddler then, found that she had trapped herself in an area of quicksand. I tried to reach her but I too found myself slipping in.

Fortunately I had called for help and the local brickyard watchman, appeared with a strong length of rope and fortunately managed to haul my sister free. We went home with our skins baked in red clay and quick sand. My sister rushed directly to the deep stone kitchen sink, and was lifted into it and scrubbed by my mother.

We were constantly warned of such hidden dangers, such as a store of hidden ammunition, abandoned on the boggy heath during the war years. The store containing grenades and mines embedded in the heathland mossy blanket. Another serious danger to the roaming children of the heathland.

As an older boy I would be taken to watch the local football league team play at Boscombe, (Bournemouth) with my grandfather and Uncle Bill, in our family car. The ‘Boscombe Cherries’ football matches would always be an occasion. I would sport the red scarf and berry, along with the popular noisy wooden rattle.

During school holidays uncle Bill Rogers would take me for days out in his 'British Road Services' lorry. To collect coal from railway sidings at Southampton Docks. Or else drive through the beautiful New Forest countryside to deliver large water pipes. Often we would drop in at Uncle Sid Rogers on our way home  at his large local transport companies’ lorry yard of Rogers Tansport at fancy road. The road was named after my great grandmother Emily Fancy.

We would also visit Uncle Charlie Rogers at his large pig sties at Wool Road in Newtown. The Rogers families operated numerous enterprises over the years. These all originated from my great grandmothers’ Elizabeth Fancys first pig and the growth of the original brickyards and the smallholding farm. Hence the road was called Fancy Road.

Culminating in the family brickyard on the Mannings Heath. Which was a focal point in the landscape and could be seen from the trains carriage windows at nearby Poole railway station. 

 

  The activities of the family at the Manning's house often took precedent over every other consideration. I would be expected to assist with the wheel barrowing of pig manure, which was used to fill in trenches at the allotment garden. The planting of seeds, gardening work, or the collection of fruit, from the trees in the two vast orchards. These were all essential tasks, which I was expected to participate in. Along with similar duties, such as assisting my Grandfather with the brick building of the front garden wall, or the new pig stys. All of such activities kept me very busy indeed. 

 

        Funny things happened which brightened up my childhood days. On one occasion I dressed my Airedale dog, Rusty, up in a dress and red Indian head-dress and played football with her. on the large grassed area at the rear of the house. My uncles would take their prize pigeons to Exeter, when we visited our relations there. I created my own hide outs, such as in an abandoned pig sty shed, furnishing it throughout with carpets, curtains and chairs, or in a chick run, using hardboard and carpeting. During these play activities, I was actually involved in what later came to be known as junk play.

 

 Aunt Ivy, Uncle Tom and cousins Maureen and Tommy Thorpe each year. The pigeons would be set free as we left, arriving back at the Manning's pigeon and dove lofts well before our return home.

 

  Christmas was very different then and not so commercialised. We would use the front room parlour, as the room for our coal fire throughout the Christmas period. In our Christmas preparations, we would catch a chicken outside on the farm, kill it, then pluck its feathers in the bath. Then it was scorched and hung for a while, before being finally prepared for the oven. This was our Christmas dinner to feed the large family of grandparents, uncles, aunts and visitors.

 

 Gran would encourage me to help her make Christmas puddings, cooked in the deep stone kitchen copper. Using sheetings of cotton to tie them up, before being cooked in large saucepans and the copper itself. The Christmas sack for presents then, (which Santa delivered) would be a pillowcase. Gran would play the piano in the front room parlour, on Christmas day itself, before we listened to the royal speech on BBC radio.

 

One year we had a new magic lantern film projector and screened pictures onto a cotton sheet draped across the bathroom door. Watching Laurel and Hardy, boxing matches and Tom Mix the cowboy, was seen to be quite an event.

 During school holidays, I would spend time with my mother Iris at her home above the R.S.P.C.A shop in Poole. Close to the regent cinema opposite the george pub, or he rear of the towns Municipal Buildings in Fernside Road.  I would also occasionally visit my relatives the Colliers Uncle Stan, Aunt Winnie and their children, David and Margaret at  

 

         

Wimborne                                          

                                                                      Bear cross  cross

 

  lady wimbornes cottages

 

 At their tied cottage, close to their employers home at Barnsley Farm, where my uncle worked as head dairyman.  

 

Occasionally, I would be taken on an excursion by my cousin Joan Broom, to watch the pictures shown at the Parkstone Regal cinema. Locals referred to as, "up on the hill". As the little yellow and brown bus took us through Rossmore, the ups and downs and through the alder hills. The route of the gypsy driver Louie Foot with her old Ford T. 

 

 At the Regal cinema we would attend and watch the A.B.C children’s matinee films, shown there on every Saturday morning. We would queue up with hundreds of other local children, to watch cartoons and trailers on the big screen. Along with favourites, like ‘Hopalong Cassidy’ and "Tom Mix", with Pathe news bulletins.

                                                                         

 

During windy autumn days at the Mannings, I would construct huge kites made from large sheets of brown paper; canes, string and a tail made from newspaper strips. On such a windy day, I would be able to fly my kite at a great height, extending the roll of string to its base and tying this to a chicken house corner nearby. However, such a high flyer caused problems with local aircraft flying through the terrain from Hurn Airport. Thus I would have to shorten the kites’ length of flight, due to a telephone call made from the airport to my Grandad, at the brickyards little office, opposite our house.

 

The Mannings smallholding farm presented a panoramic view of the whole surrounding area, based as it was in a wide area basin of open expanse. The smallholding was itself situated in the base of a valley, from where I could view all around, including the water tower at Old Wareham Road and the Wool Road area of Newtown. The area is now known as Tower Park. From here, one could also gain splendid views of the Lodge Hills of the Canford Heath estate at Canford Magna.

 

In the opposite direction one could see the backwaters of Hamworthy Poole, known as Waterloo and see the distant trains on their way to Londons waterloo station. I was at night able to view the street lights in the distance at the Fleets Bridge roundabout along with the power station at Poole, with its tall chimneys. (which was unfortunately dynamited down in recent years)

 

As a small boy, I was fascinated with the power of matches, on one occasion I caught fire to furze bushes on the common, which terrified me. I was unable to put the fire out, for it was spreading so quickly. Being mid summer, the day was very hot, however eventually three fire engines arrived. I was kept in my room and scolded for this major misdemeanour. Because of this, I was determined in later years to provide safe play opportunities for children, to both control fires and to enjoy the excitement, energy and warmth of fires within supervised adventure playground environments.

 

The many play opportunities provided to build, create and take responsibility for oneself was always a part of my childhood at The Manning's. This along with the daily care of all the many animals and pets, the picking of blackberries and the apples for freshly made pies.There was always some form of construction going on on the farm, such as new pens, ready for the chickens. Along with garden's created and fresh trees saplings to be planted. The Manning's and its surrounding terrain was in so many ways an adventure playground. In itself a community, yet of animals and pets.

 

 

Occasionally my Aunt Vera Dominey would take me out for the day with her large family of 8 children, cockling. In the backwaters of Poole at Hamworthy.