SIXTY-five years ago, the Festival of Britain was launched as a way to bolster national spirit during the long recovery from war.

While London was the national focus of the exhibition, Bournemouth and Wessex was among the regions chosen to host their own contributions.

The festival was timed to mark the centenary of the Great Exhibition, the morale-boosting Victorian celebration of British greatness.

With much of London in ruins after the war, Clement Attlee’s Labour government saw the Festival of Britain as a way of boosting the public’s confidence in recovery and reconstruction. It would also celebrate the best in British arts, science, design and industry.

As plans were laid for a series of exhibitions in London, a large area of the South Bank was redeveloped. Homes and warehouses gave way to concreted public space by the river and to striking modernist buildings, most famously the Royal Festival Hall.

The redevelopment was sometimes controversial – and the resulting disputes inspired a film, The Happy Family, in which a shopkeeper’s family fight Whitehall’s plans to seize their home and business.

Margaret James, nee Barton, now living in Wimborne, was in the film, playing the young wife of George Cole.

“They were pulling down all the houses and this family stayed put. We barricaded the house with wood and all sorts of things and when the council came around, we threw flower bags at them,” she remembers.

Margaret, who turns 90 this week, was nursing her five-month-old son Michael when she made the film.

“My mother was looking after him and we lived off Baker Street, in Dorset Street. They used to send this great Daimler to bring him to the studio with my mother so I could give him his lunch,” she said.

Margaret, who had appeared in the classic Brief Encounter a few years before, remembers the festival well, but also the arguments about redevelopment.

“When they pulled the housing down, they were taking away people’s community. People were upset because they’d always lived next door to Auntie or across the road from Mother and now they didn’t. That all got lost and that was a huge thing,” she says.

Bournemouth and Wessex Festival of Britain ran from June 3-17, 1951, after Bournemouth and Christchurch were selected by the Arts Council as one of the provincial centres to host outdoor and cultural events.

The local festival was opened by the Duke of Wellington, who was also Lord Lieutenant of Hampshire, in front of 4,000 people at Meyrick Park.

The Duke said: “One hundred years ago the Prince Consort was the inspirer of the Great Exhibition which, it was hoped, would mark the beginning of a brotherhood of the nations.

“The hopes then entertained have not been quite fulfilled. It was with the almost unanimous approval of the nation that the government decided some years ago to commemorate the anniversary of the Great Exhibition by this Festival of Britain. Having taken that decision, it is wise to go through with it.”

Three days later, a highlight of the exhibition was a visit by the Duchess of Kent.

She arrived at Hurn Airport and was taken to Bournemouth Town Hall, where a large contingent from the Territorial Army were lined up. Crowds filled the town centre to catch a glimpse of the Duchess as a car took her to lunch at the Pavilion. Afterwards, she visited the chalet of Victoria Home for Crippled Children on the West Promenade.

But like the national festival, the local one came with some controversy. The following January, the Echo revealed the events had cost Bournemouth £14,574 and Christchurch £516.

Aside from an appearance by the Salzburg Marionettes, all the arts events lost money, as did the outdoor events. It had been hard to attract visitors to Bournemouth during the school term.

A report by Alderman AH Little, the festival’s honorary organiser, said: “no ambitious series should in future be undertaken in the spring or autumn until national conditions alter, more particularly in regard to staggering school holidays”.

Former Bournemouth mayor Barry Goldbart was an eight-year-old boy when he was taken to the festival and particularly remembers its huge funfair at Battersea. He recently offered his festival medal to the Echo reader with the best memories of the event.

Bill Routley, Ferndown, responded by sharing his souvenir programmes from the event.

“It was overwhelming really. There were so many displays,” he remembers.

He particularly recalls the science and poplar (architecture) exhibitions, “which was that they hoped buildings would be like in the future – shopping centres and flats”.

He added: “There was so much there – we learned so much.”

Stephen Oxdale from Mordew Avenue, Ferndown, remembers his mother, a nurse, featuring in a television programme at the time of the festival.

Mary Scott, Palfrey Road, Northbourne, remembers going to London with her cousin and sister during her first holiday after starting work.

“We stayed in Chiswick and first day out, somehow got on the wrong train and ended up at Turnham Green. In the 1950s it looked like the back of beyond with just us on the platform,” she said.

“Nevertheless we all enjoyed the exhibition.”

Christine Barker, from Poole, shared the memories of her mother Mary Nott, 84, from Bournemouth.

“I had met a young man, Reg, in the small Kent village where I worked and our first date was a trip to the Festival of Britain,” said Mary.

“The festival has always been memorable for us and has very happy memories. I cannot believe that is was 65 years ago. I remember how overwhelming it was in its size, the crowds, noise and the number of exhibitions.

“The young man and I married later that year. Unfortunately, my husband died in 2007, after a very happy marriage.”

Tim Lawrence, 78, from Wimborne, was a 13-year-old chorister at Bransgore Church at the time of the exhibition.

“We had been chosen to sing with massed choirs at the Royal Albert Hall in London in front of the then Princess Elizabeth,” she said.

“I remember we were opposite the Princess, who was wearing a pale blue coat, with a sparkling diamond on her lapel.

“This visit to London was my first visit and also my first railway journey.

“Everything was very exciting, especially when we visited the festival site itself, going up the shotgun tower 100 feet above the ground, crawling on the planks of wood at the top, peering through the planks to the ground below. It was quite frightening.”

* Thanks to the Heritage Team at Bournemouth Library. We’ll announce the winner of Barry Goldbart’s medal shortly.