samkydd

It's fate is yet undecided and everyone has hated it with a vengeance since it went up. It looks like a giant Kwik-Fit depot right next to the beach! I think a few council people did well financially in granting planning permission, I mean what's the cost of a few Algarve apartments in a total budget of 19.5 million quid? Chicken feed!

Hopefully they will do something useful with it like turn it into a public pool, the fantastic one I used to use every day at the BIC which had water slide, wave machine, gym, saunas and steam room was demolished by the council in 2004 for "additional conference facilities"! Baffling!

"...the chairman of Littlewoods stores made a Keynote speech!"

stevie boy

Mwnt is indeed a lovely place, is it a small church or house that is there.?? Cardigan is fabulous it was lovely to walk around the bay and see the seals. Happy memories

Nooti

Best place in Greece for a holiday is the island of Hydra. Despite its name there is no fresh water on the island - it is shipped in. Neither are there any motorised vehicles, all transport is mule/donkey and cart. Fastest things on the island are the local cats running down the pier when the fishing boats come in!
Scotland's a great place for getting away from it all. We toured the Orkneys last year and although the weather wasn't great it didn't spoil it, and the people were fantastic. We flew out to North Ronaldsay - the most northerly of the islands one Sunday morning planning to spend the day there and get the ferry back. A lot of the islanders meet the plane and newcomers are always welcomed. We hit a snag during the day as due to forthcoming bad weather the ferry was cancelled. The plane back to the mainland was fully booked up - and the next ferry out was on Friday!
Since we're happy to improvise, staying on the island for 5 days wasn't a problem, just that we had to be back to work before the next ferry went out!
Loganair were fantastic and sent out another plane just for us. They didn't charge us any extra either, just the standard rate. They pulled out all stops to get a pilot and they got us back to Kirkwall before the storm set in.

I love it when a plan comes together

Steve Crook

Mwnt church

is up on the cliffs where the "village" is. There's really just the beach on the little bay with the long flight of steps leading down to the beach

Steve

stevie boy

thats the one Steve,cheers, happy days spent in that area

christoph404

Donna, ye need tae get oot ay Glesgah and heed sooth, its like the sooth o France doon here, braw weather every day o the summer, nae rain at aw, its no like och aye land where a gid day o sunshine makes heedlines fir weeks.

earlb

och aye the noo

I'd give my right arm to be ambidextrous.

scholes

Aye,aye deerie deerie me wee Jimmy.

bhowells

Donna, lucky old you going to Ireland,, beauiful place, a driving holiday is a nice way to see the Emerald isle.

My wife and I are going on a coach holiday to Loch Lomond, we went to Fortwilliam and Oban a few years ago, really enjoyed it.

samkydd

A couple of my retired neighbours go on organised coach trips frequently throughout the year and see parts of the country they've never seen before, and stay in pretty reasonable guest houses along the way. It's a good way to meet people as well I suppose.

I prefer to drive but only because I'm a long legged 6' 4" and there hasn't been a coach built yet that can offer me anything like a comfortable ride for more than a couple of miles! This is a great pity because driving any distance these days in the UK is both stressful and expensive, and some of these long weekend coach deals are cheaper than staying at home!

"...the chairman of Littlewoods stores made a Keynote speech!"

david_dsmedia

According to the BFI's History Of British Film, in the 1920s a US producer announced Bournemouth would be the ideal place for a “British Hollywood.”
We're still waiting for it to happen.
The BBC has used it for many years to film suburban exteriors for sitcoms like 2.4 Children. A couple of these were set in the area, Waiting For God (after the town's nickname God's Waiting Room) (1990-5), and One Foot In The Grave (1990-8), but mostly the conurbation doubles anonymously for London suburbs. As Nigel Havers said on BBC1's Comedy Connections about Don't Wait Up (1983-90), the reason is the parking is a lot easier than anywhere near London. You'll also see glimpses of it in period guise (when it was still part of Hampshire) in the BBC's 1984 Miss Marple telefeature The Body In The Library (set c 1950) - the Marriott Highcliff and parts of 2 other big hotels, the Carlton and Royal Bath, being used.
Cinema features even part-shot here however remain few and far between. Ken Russell's Valentino (1977) is of interest here (if you can find it) as the area doubles for 1920s Hollywood. (If you've never been here, we do have palm trees.) This is as close as the town seems likely to get at present, given the "lack of infrastructure." (I'm quoting from the report on BBC's The Politics Show last Sunday, to which I contributed some background research re this issue.)
Nothing was shot here of JB Priestley's 1950 masterpiece (an original script he co-produced), Last Holiday starring ex B'mth schoolboy Alec Guinness, set in the upmarket resort of "Pinebourne." (JBP lived across the bay, on Wight.) And despite tourist movie map claims, nothing was shot on location for Rattigan's Bournemouth-set Separate Tables (for either the 1958 film version which won David Niven his Oscar, and the 1980 HBO/ITV version starring Alan Bates and Julie Christie, both being entirely studio-shot). Hancock's pet project The Punch & Judy Man was based on his memories of Bournemouth but shot at Bognor.
Re the depressing Durley Dean hotel, the Pythons also used the area as a base when the series started in 1969, the opening shot with the Michael Palin as a hermit saying “It's-” being shot across the bay at Studland. Palin's diaries from the 'Python Years' published last autumn mentioned the group staying at a depressingly dingy hotel near Durley Chine during filming.

samkydd

Interesting information. Hancock's parents' hotel which they owned during his later childhood and when he first started on stage as a pretty dreadful stand-up is still here, but with a change of name (but now has a bar called Hancocks).

Bournemouth University has a vibrant film school and caters for other media professions.

I can think of two famous actors who were from Bournemouth; the late great Charles Gray who played two separate characters in two Bond movies, one of which was Blofeld in Diamonds Are Forever, and he also played Mycroft Holmes in the Jeremy Brett Sherlock Holmes series, and was Jack Hawkins' voiceover when he could no longer speak properly. The other actor was Stuart Grainger whose former childhood home is now a small hotel near the East Cliff.

"...the chairman of Littlewoods stores made a Keynote speech!"

bhowells

Nom the Imax closed about three years ago. There are bars and a resturant in the building that are still open, but as you say its an eyesore.

samkydd

It is alleged/rumoured that council officials took very generous backhanders to allow it to be built in the first place. When you look at its position, which blocks off a huge view of the seafront and pier, and because it's a building with virtually no windows looking out on to the beach/seafront, this can be the only logical explanation.

Had it been at a purpose built site such as Tower Park near Poole where there is a multiplex, loads of fast food restaurants and other family attractions it would probably have been a resounding success.

Let's face it who the hell wants to sit in a gloomy characterless cinema a few yards from the beach, when within walking distance of the Imax is Westover Road where there are already two large cinemas which have been there for many years! I realise that the Imax is a different cinema experience, but happily it failed miserably because most of the town boycotted it on principle and visitors thought it was an eyesore and avoided it like the plague.

If the new council wants to put things right it should demolish the Imax and build a new swimming pool, which was originally on the site pre-1984. They included a fantastic pool in the BIC complex which was built then, but in 2004 they destroyed it completely and wasted millions of pounds of Council Tax payers' money in the process!

Fat useless council officials obviously don't swim, and don't see the need for youngsters or adults to stay fit and healthy! They don't mind endless burger restaurants and fish and chips, but obviously anything healthy is not a priority.The sea is usually only warm enough to be comfortable from around mid-July to October, and so visitors and locals would certainly enjoy a heated pool by the beach, something that they had for many, many years!

"...the chairman of Littlewoods stores made a Keynote speech!"

bhowells

I am sure that a sketch from the first Python series with Terry Jones doing a striptease was filmed in the Bournmemouths pier theatre.