RSA23 Bournemouth

21st - 22nd April 2023

Driving to Bournemouth through torrential rain for the RSA 23 AGM and social weekend felt a bit like a self-inflicted wound: I’d had the car valeted the day before and that always does for the weather. But for a townie like me, the key point on any journey is when the air starts to smell of farms, not fumes, and the place-names get more interesting (well, anywhere that’s not Croydon actually). I’ll come back to place-names later…

So I was delighted to discover from those who’d arrived before me that the weather in Bournemouth had been fine! RSA guests were greeted at the Carlton Hotel by hosts Paul Clayton and his partner Chris – and a very friendly receptionist. Paul was on car park duty telling RSA members not to pay for parking but to log their registration details when checking in. Just as well somebody’s up-to-scratch on the details, eh? Our hosts were busy because about 90 RSA members were attending all or part of the weekend.

There’s a formal report on the AGM elsewhere, but it was good to welcome Chair Andy Maynard to his first in-person AGM, as he was laid low by Covid last year. Sadly, at the same meeting, we bade farewell to former Vice-Chair Tony Cowell, and Hon. Sec Tony Motture. Both will be much missed for their unstinting efforts on behalf of the RSA. Also retiring – after many years – were our traditional AGM Event organisers Phil Holt and Ted Tilley (cf. “Phil and Ted’s Excellent Adventure” – or did I make that film title up?). Happily (for us RSA members), Paul and Chris have agreed to take on the task – and they’re currently working on both RSA 24 (York) and RSA 25! Thanks to all of you.

The drinks reception before dinner - held in a lovely room overlooking the sea - was a great opportunity to catch up with former friends and colleagues, and enlivened by the genial presence of magician David Maidment, whose close-up card tricks intrigued us all. Happily, David re-appeared later in the evening.

Our Friday night dinner was a buffet – and a very good one at that: I love cooking but I haven’t a clue how the hotel chefs could cook and present three choices (chicken & peppers, salmon & rice, and vegan), put them on hot-plates, call up a table at a time – and for the end result to be both moist and tender. As Tony Cowell’s partner Sheena explained to me: “Commercial chefs know cooking and food presentation secrets they’ll never explain to us”. She’s right.

We were entertained during the evening by a delightful duo called “the Land Girls”, who performed a wide range of 1940s ‘big band’ songs. Given that the girls looked scarcely out-of-college themselves, the sound was amazingly authentic – and very beguiling. Our magician David toured the tables during dinner with more tricks, before the Land Girls returned with a 1980s Abba-based set. Personally, I really enjoy close-up magic, because it’s happening right in front of me and I still can’t work out how its done. And the girls produced such an amazing sound. Well done all of you – and thank you.

Beaulieu and the New Forrest

Some RSA members chose local visits on the Saturday, but most of us joined the coach for a visit to Beaulieu – The National Motor Museum and Palace House – via a journey through the New Forest: The coach was magnificent – a luxurious double-decked 80-seater with wheelchair access to the lower floor. No wonder it was called “Excelsior”.

But I was a bit baffled by the ‘New Forest’ name because (frankly) there are thousands of acres of gorse (in glorious full yellow bloom at the end of April), but not that many trees. Here’s why:

The area was (probably) first settled in the Bronze Age, with a favourable climate but poor and acidic soil. By Anglo-Saxon times it was mostly forested (oak, birch and beech) or used for grazing pigs/boar and deer/sheep because the soil quality was too poor for conventional crop farming. Following the Norman Conquest, the whole area was sequestered by William the Conqueror in order to create a private (boar and deer)-hunting area for himself and his courtiers. It’s mentioned in the ‘Domesday Book’ of 1087 as “Nova Foresta”. This was not popular with the locals, as William and his soldiers evicted all the inhabitants across 36 parishes (without compensation).

But what goes around comes around – as they say – and two of William’s sons (and a grandson) died in the New Forest. First was Prince Richard, who died around 1072 after being “blasted with a pestilent air”. He was followed by William Rufus, who was struck in the chest by an arrow fired by his champion archer Sir Walter Tyrell (which had allegedly glanced off a tree before hitting the King). Tyrell fled to France, pausing only at a local blacksmith’s to have his horse shod back-to-front in order to confuse anyone chasing him about his direction of travel. As it happened, he needn’t have bothered: William Rufus was hated as much by his noblemen as he was by the locals, and the huntsmen went home without him, leaving a farmer to take the King’s body to Winchester on the back of his cart. Meanwhile, younger brother Henry had galloped over to Winchester with his soldiers, claimed the Treasury (follow the money, anyone?) and had himself proclaimed King Henry the First. Soon afterwards grandson Henry was hanged accidently when caught by the neck on an overhanging branch whilst hunting. Talk about ‘bad karma’!

Although there was a network of rules allowing local residents to graze pigs/sheep and ponies, the forested area declined – particularly during the 18/19th centuries when ancient trees were felled to build warships (England’s “wooden walls”). Grazing remains important and we saw plenty of ponies, pigs, sheep and flocks of wild deer – all very scenic!

The New Forest area in World War Two

But in the mid-20th Century, many New Forest areas took on a significant role in preparation for the Allied Armies “D-Day” invasion of France, with almost three million troops encamped across southern England:

There were several airfields constructed across the New Forest (thanks to Phil Holt for his descriptions whilst we were on the coach), including RAF Stoney Cross (used also by the USAF) to RAF Beaulieu. At Beaulieu, for instance, spies were trained to be dropped in enemy territories by the incredibly-brave members of Winston Churchill’s ‘private army’ the Special Operations Executive. An embarrassing post-war revelation was that one of the SOE’s spy trainers at Beaulieu, Kim Philby, was himself a Soviet spy…

But the SOE was only one of many ‘incomers’ to the Beaulieu estate: almost 500 ‘Mulberry Harbours’ were constructed and launched from the Beaulieu River shoreline before being towed across the Channel to support the D-Day Landings in June 1944. The Beaulieu foreshore was also an important launch site for the “Operation Pluto” undersea pipeline that supplied essential fuel to the Allied Armies following the D-Day landings.

But it wasn’t just about supplying our allies – before then, it was essential to identify aircraft heading for Britain as ‘Friend or Foe’. Whilst our ‘Chain Home’ radars looked out across the Channel, there was still a need to identify those who were in UK airspace, and RAF Sopley (an experimental aircraft recognition establishment) had an underground Operations Room based on the same technology as the ‘Bunker’ at RAF Uxbridge. It was later known as “Southern Radar” and remained operational for some years after the war.

Beaulieu Estate and the National Motor Museum

We arrived at Beaulieu on schedule. The estate belongs to Lord Montagu and his family, but was gifted originally to the Cistercian Monastic Order in 1204 by King John who (like most medieval monarchs) regarded church establishments as ‘the bank of mum and dad’. Local folklore says that John made the bequest after awaking from a nightmare in which he was being beaten by monks. Beaulieu (Norman French for ‘beautiful place’) became the biggest Cistercian Monastery in England and was very wealthy, before most of the buildings were demolished after the estate was sold to the Montagu family’s ancestors in 1538 at the ‘Dissolution of the Monasteries”. The ‘footprint’ of the abbey is mostly visible as a series of ‘lines in the grass’, but the former monks’ refectory is now the parish church, the gatehouse has been incorporated into the current ‘Palace House’ and a former dormitory is now a display building.

For centuries following the ‘Dissolution’, Beaulieu functioned as a working estate i.e. a collection of farms and other commercial businesses – including ship-building on the river at Buckler’s Hard – without the owning family being permanently resident. But when the estate was gifted in 1867 to a son (Lord Henry Scott) as a wedding present, he decided that the existing buildings were too small, so the famous Victorian architect Sir Reginald Blomfield was commissioned to build something more appropriate - i.e. gothic – but retaining the medieval vaulting from the former gatehouse. That’s the Palace House we see today, home of the Montagu family. I travelled there on a replica WW1 ‘B’ Type bus – great fun!

It would be fair to say that the Montagu’s have included some delightful eccentrics: the 2nd Lord Montagu was a passionate campaigner for the motor car – and the only member of the House of Lords who was also a qualified engine driver. He would drive trains between London and Bournemouth and on her wedding day, Lady Montagu received a commemorative gift from the ‘Enginemen and Firemen’ of the Bournemouth ‘shed’.

But we have to thank his son, (the 3rd Lord Montagu) not only for what we can see at Beaulieu today, but for being a post-war pioneer of what we now know as the ‘heritage industry’.

In the early 1950s, three young men inherited historic estates, paying huge death duties and facing vast maintenance bills: they were the Duke of Bedford (Woburn Abbey), the Marquis of Bath (Longleat House) and Lord Montagu (Beaulieu). Each recognised that they needed to find new ways of bringing paying visitors to their estates, in order ‘to keep the roof on’. Lords Bedford and Bath went for wild animal ‘safari’ parks, whilst Lord Montagu went for motor vehicles. They all succeeded, but Montagu went beyond the others to become Chairman of ‘English Heritage’.

The 3rd Lord Montague was as car-obsessed as his father, and he built on the vehicle collection he had inherited, opening it to the public in 1952. Later, he formed a ‘National Motor Museum’ charitable trust, and commissioned a new building which opened in 1972. The collections continued to develop (and are still evolving under direction of the current Lord Montagu) and were given ‘National Status’ official designation in 1997.

And this is where it gets personal: I’ve been a car lover since I was little – eventually swapping ‘Dinky Toys’ for the real thing. The phrase ‘kid in a candy store’ springs to mind…. Inside the museum, the only problem was where to start.

Phil Holt took us to the ‘Record Breakers’ studio, showing us a series of historic vehicles, each of which had held the World Land Speed Record. What a stunning ensemble, darkly lit and with an excellent commentary. My personal favourite is Donald Campbell’s ‘Bluebird’, which reached 403.1mph in 1964. Sadly, Donald was killed on Coniston Water in 1967, trying to break his own Water Speed Record.

Where do you go from world record holders? Just nearby stands the original ‘Chitty-Bang-Bang’ an Edwardian racing car fitted with a huge airship engine for the wealthy amateur racing driver Count Louis Zborowski, who lived near Canterbury (and owned a large chunk of Manhatten). The car is much better known as the star of the film ‘Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang’ written by Ian Fleming (who was a neighbour of Zborowski in Kent).

Outside, I spotted a replica which gives rides to children. What fun!

Then, I was torn between the familiar “my mate’s dad had one of those”, or “I had one of those – why ever did I sell it?”, or “I want to put that in my pocket and sneak it home”. In that order; an Austin Atlantic, Sunbeam Rapier Convertible and Lord Montagu’s own vintage Bentley. And don’t start me on the bright red Jensen Interceptor, or we’ll be here for hours…

But what struck me was how many of them are actually roadworthy, from the incredibly flimsy 1886 Benz ‘Dogcart’ that does the ‘Old Crocks Run’ to the 1914 Rolls-Royce ‘Alpine’ Silver Ghost that was driven from Peking to Paris recently. I stepped across one ‘museum-piece’ that had a battery-charger attached, so was clearly going out for a run very soon. Thanks to all you lovely motor-mad Montagus.

The museum has allocated spaces for a number of supporting organisations, including one for the ‘Guild of Motoring Writers’ – most of the UK’s motoring journalists. I can’t resist telling you that they’re better known – in the trade - as the ‘Guild of Muttering Rotters”. Several of them were friends of mine – until now. Just saying….

Lunched in the café, which was great once you’d worked how and where to order. Normally, I’d complain about supermarkets stocking Christmas produce as early as August, but on every table the Beaulieu team was advertising its Christmas food and drink offerings. In April??? Please give us a break, guys!

I bypassed the “Top Gear” hut - as you would – heading for the monorail. Oh what fun! It reminds me of the Docklands Light Railway in London before it got busy and big: tiny little carriages dodging around buildings on sharp curves. To do that on one rail (rather than the DLR’s two) seems more exciting and I was reminded of others I’d come across:

As a child, I remember seeing pictures of the “Ballybunion & Listowel Tramway” where the engine and carriages were suspended either side of a wooden trestle – so you could only get out on the half-side you got in because the track was waist-high in the middle of the carriages. Then there’s the overhead monorail that features so prominently in the 1968 film of Ray Bradbury’s 1963 novel “Fahrenheit 451”. The monorail was French, experimental and long-since demolished. But did you ever see the film? It’s based on the premise that people are controlled through flat-screen TVs in their homes; books are banned because they encourage independent thinking, and the firemen’s job is to search out and incinerate books (which burn at 451 degrees F) and their owners. I had to watch this at Uni and when asked for my reaction I said “I’m so traumatised by this that I’ve been buying books ever since”. A few years ago, I went to see the courtyard in Berlin where the Nazis burned books… So, 50 years after seeing the film, I’m still buying books.

Eventually, we returned to our hotel via a very scenic coastal route. I’m so glad I wasn’t the driver as the street market stalls in Lymington made things pretty difficult for our coach to navigate.

But that wasn’t for everybody, as some of our members had opted to a ‘free day’. Several of them visited the Russell-Cotes museum just around the corner from our hotel. It would be easy for me (as a Londoner) to disparage regional museums, but not in this case because the Russell-Cotes is a ‘cracker’, housing an amazing variety of personal art collections and important items purchased during overseas travels.

Now, it doesn’t apply just to particular areas, we all know that our heritage is under pressure from so many ‘adjustments’ i.e. cuts, so please go out there and support your local heritage – your grandchildren will thank you.

But who needs polemics when there’s a Gala Dinner to attend:

After the customary drinks reception, we were all welcomed to the Dining Room by RSA Chair Andy Maynard. Our silver-service dinner was accompanied by the mellifluous tones of Frank Sinatra look-alike (and very good sound-alike) Scott Free. Scott returned later in the evening and got many dancing (no small achievement, given the amount many of us had been eating or imbibing). Thank you Scott.

Later, RSA President Bob Coles took to the microphone to thank attendees, in particular our retiring event organisers Phil and Ted. Bob formally welcomed Paul Clayton and his partner Chrissie, who have now taken over as the RSA AGM event organisers. As Bob Coles said: “We look forward to welcoming all RSA members and their partners to our next event: RSA 24 in York next year.

See you all there!!”

Did you think I’d forgotten the place-names I referenced? The first (Rufus Stone) was (supposedly) the site of King William Rufus’ shooting in 1100, but modern research tells us that it’s in completely the wrong place. Then (Steep Marsh), off the A3 near Hindhead. I mean, how can you possibly have a steep marsh? I’m still trying to work that one out.