TOM Killick revealed that Eastleigh have stepped up their pursuit of Wessex League scoring sensation Charlie Austin. The Poole Town frontman has caught the eye of numerous scouts after netting 46 goals in 46 appearances for the Premier Division champions
STRIKER Alan Connell and defender Scott Guyett will both miss Cherries' final game of the season at Morecambe on Saturday. Connell, who had been delaying a tidy-up operation on his knee until Cherries' fate was known, will sit out as a precaution ahead
AN AGENCY and consultancy bill of £6.5 million for Dorset County Council has been slammed as “appalling” by a union official. Information obtained by the Daily Echo under the Freedom of Information Act outlines an increase of more than £2 million in
THREE takeaways in Poole are to have their licences reviewed next month after allegedly selling alcohol to children. California Fried Chicken’s branches in Ringwood Road, Wallisdown Road and Ashley Road could have their prem-ises licences suspended
ELUANO Englaro, a 38-year-old Italian woman, died this year. There are pictures of her smiling before the car accident that wrecked her life. That happened when she was 21 and for the next 17 years she was in a vegetative state. Can you imagine what
WORK is about to start on a £1.75 million cats homing centre in Ferndown, national charity Cats Protection has announced. The charity is converting the former recycling plant at Cobham Road on the Ferndown Industrial estate into the new centre
TOMB Raider II, The Bourne Supremacy, The Da Vinci Code... when the biggest directors in Hollywood need a spectacular underwater sequence, they call Mike Valentine. And now the man whose credits include the amazing collapsing building sequence
AFTER years of dressmaking Julie Shortland wanted to turn her attention to something different. When she discovered sock monkeys on the internet, she knew she had found her new project. Three months on Julie, from Somerby Road, Oakdale, Poole, has set
With the news of more and more pets being dumped making the front pages, it breaks my heart to hear of the numbers of animals being abandoned by people “unable” to look after their animals any more (the numbers of calls to the RSPCA from people
DETECTIVES are hunting a man who attacked a woman in broad daylight. The 30-year-old victim is recovering from shock after the assault along a busy residential street close to Talbot Combined School, Wallisdown, Poole, around 3.30pm.
AN Enid Blyton-themed museum planned for an old pub on Poole quay will not go ahead – and the future of the site is now hanging in the balance. Viv Endecott, who runs the Blyton-themed Ginger Pop Shop at Corfe Castle, submitted an application to transform
TWO respected independent schools are merging to form the new Bournemouth Collegiate School from September. Wentworth in Southbourne and Uplands in Poole are pooling their resources to provide a senior school on the College Road, Southbourne
I recently had a fight with a large bramble/ honeysuckle bush. It’s difficult to say who won. While there is certainly a lot less bush there now, I reckon my arms came off worst – I look like a perpetual self-harmer. This act of violence I perpetrated
FIREFIGHTERS unveiled their latest weapon in the war against devastating heathland infernos. The Unimog all terrain vehicle, the first of its kind in Dorset Fire and Rescue Service history, will be used to tackle heath fires, flooding and incidents
LILY Allen, who recently completed a sold-out UK tour, is going back on the road later this year for more. She’s due to play the BIC on November 20 and tickets go on sale from 9am on Friday, May 1. Meanwhile, her new single – Not Fair
PLANS to kickstart the regeneration of Southampton Road in Ringwood are going to be put on public display during May. Phase One of the project being put together by Hampshire County Council, New Forest District Council, the town council,
A GROWING number of celebrities battling drug and alcohol habits are checking into a pioneering Bournemouth addiction treatment centre. The Providence Project in Boscombe, which has been used as a model for centres in other countries, recently
SHE'S our woman in Guatemala City. Shapwick's Julie Chappell, 31, is about to start a three-year posting as the British ambassador to Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras. And just days before moving to the British consulate in violent
Contributed by Rivka Jacobs on 28/04/09 Randall shot out his arm and grabbed her safety helmet by the strap, yanking it so hard as he pulled it off her face and head, that she fell to her knees in front of him. He tossed the helmet into
Elephant Words are the ways in which we describe or interpret the same thing in different ways. Elephant Words is a burst-culture website, featuring daily flash-fiction. Each Sunday, an image is posted. Over the following week, each
THE Daily Echo is challenging schoolchildren in Ferndown and West Moors to “Make A Difference”. The newspaper is joining charities and businesses across the district in setting challenges for teams of Year Eight pupils at Ferndown Middle School and West
FINISHING touches are being made to a new home for Blandford’s tourist information centre. Trustees and volunteers have been working flat-out at the converted toilet block in the market town’s Marsh and Ham car park. The new facility, which has been
AS I step up my training, I can’t help thinking there’s someone in my household much better qualified to tackle the Machu Picchu trek than me. See, I’ve been accompanied on my New Forest forays by Jim, our endlessly energetic dog. Whereas I’ll walk
Well it’s over. I can’t walk, I’m suffering from hyperventilation apparently, plantar fasciitis in my left foot and an ITB injury in my right leg. When one of my colleagues saw me hobbling down Richmond Hill this morning he couldn’t stop laughing
PLAYTIME for children in Christchurch is about to become a lot more fun thanks to a windfall of government funding to the tune of £200,000. In partnership with other Dorset councils, Christchurch Borough Council submitted a bid for funding
HOLLYOAKS star Chris Fountain is joining the cast of Bournemouth’s summer show, Kyran Bracken’s Ice Party. He will join former World Cup rugby star Kyran as well as Duncan James, Donal McIntyre and a host of professional skaters from August 21 to September
We took the duck to the sea again today (thanks once again to those kind folks at Southsea Canoe Lake) and it didn't quite go as smoothly as the first trial. As the wind had picked up, the sea had become considerably rougher than our first practice
As we get ever closer to the event, we thought we'd better take our duck to sea to ensure that she was in fact seaworthy and wouldn't sink within 5 metres of our departure. So a few weeks ago Captain Bossy and First Mate Nalder dragged our
We turn on the radio and it seems all you hear from the male singer songwriter field is a handful of over-saturated dour pop-stars whining about the complexities of failed relationships. This makes angst ridden tales from the heart all the more refreshing
A CAT can thank the NHS for saving one of her nine lives after she was poisoned by paracetamol. Smudge the cat turned blue after ingesting the medicine and worried owner Becka Johnson, 39, from Oakdale, rushed her to the Companion Care vet
ALMOST daily the letters page in our Echo is about councillors having a go at each other over things that surely should be talked about and thrashed out in council chambers. Just in case Poole councillors don’t know where these chambers are
AS A visiting Grimsby supporter I would like to thank the people of Bournemouth for their hospitality and friendliness towards the overwhelming majority of Grimsby supporters. You will always get a mindless minority from all sides but that should not
A LONG-running battle that has torn a community in two is due to come to a head at a crunch meeting. Controversial plans by Poole Town Football Club for a stadium on Branksome Rec will be hotly debated by club officials and residents next Tuesday
ALTHOUGH now retired, I worked in the environmental field for many years and I follow with interest the litter issue as it appears in the Echo all too frequently. It is notable that the amount of non-degradable litter we produce, particularly
WHILE I applaud Christchurch council for celebrating St George’s Day this year for the first time, I presume that it must have been a last-minute decision. Although the Echo reported the arrangements a few days before, I did not see any other advertisement
I WAS pleased to see the portfolio holder for the environment in Poole speak up for cleaner streets. But so many questions are still unanswered. Why, in Poole, do we not have regular street cleaning? We go months and never see the cleaning lorry
CLLR Collier says in the Echo that the battle against littering comes down to encouraging the people to help keep Poole clean or increasing the amount we spend. As a first step, what about getting the fast food outlets and the banks and others to put
ON THE matter of keeping our streets clean, the Poole councillor in Letters on Friday said that Poole has a success rate of 90 per cent in keeping streets clean. But 90 per cent of suburban roads never get any litter from one month to another anyway
I WOULD like to congratulate all the Beavers, Cubs, Scouts and Explorers who, together with their leaders, took part in the St George’s Day parade last Sunday for both their behaviour and their enthusiasm. What a shame the same can not be said for the
PEOPLE in Dorset and the New Forest are being urged not to panic after it emerged that seven people in a neighbouring county have been tested for swine flu. News of the possible outbreak in Wiltshire came as health officials in Dorset continued
IT might sound amusing, but losing a tassel from a prized sporran is no laughing matter for Second World War veteran Douglas Clarke. For Mr Clarke, 84, of Parkstone, Poole, was presented with the officer’s sporran to mark 30 years’ service to the Argyll
I BELIEVE that there are moments in history that should be experienced as well as learned. During a visit to Amsterdam last year, I visited Anne Frank’s House in the city centre, a shrine to the schoolgirl who wrote a poignant diary during the time she
LOAN star Rhoys Wiggins has described the possibility of joining Cherries permanently as a “great option”. Popular Wiggins, dubbed ‘Rolls’ by his team-mates, played a starring role in helping Eddie Howe’s men avoid the drop this season and
STARS like Madonna, Sting and Hilary Swank seem to ooze a natural A-list poise and elegance. But it might have less to do with their X-factor and more to do with the fact they’ve had lessons in the Alexander Technique. For they are among a number of
DEFENSIVE hero Jason Pearce starred as Cherries kept their place in the Football League – then vowed to stay at Dean Court to help the club build for a brighter future. The wholehearted centre-half, whose magnificent performances this term earned him
MATT Ford defiantly insists Pirates can drag themselves off the foot of the table and force their way into the top-six title play-offs. But Poole Castle Cover’s chief admits their short-term new signing Ales Dryml is not “the answer to our problems by
ALES Dryml has admitted he was surprised to get the call to link up with Pirates so soon after being released by Peterborough. But the Czech Republic international has vowed to grab his unexpected chance with both hands to try and extend his initial
