How Poole looked in 1963 - and the same view today (From Bournemouth Echo)

How Poole looked in 1963 - and the same view today

10:44am Tuesday 1st May 2012 in Echoes By Diana Henderson

A FASCINATING glimpse back into old Poole has been given a modern twist by documentary film maker Roger Hopkins.

As a schoolboy nearly 50 years ago, Roger took a photo from the top of the town’s old grain silo and has turned his snapshot of the past into a stunning YouTube video.

“My Dad was a photographer and one afternoon I borrowed his twin lens reflex camera to take the picture from the top of a giant industrial grain silo with a stunning view over Poole town centre,” he recalled.

The 1963 shot shows how the town was before its heart was redeveloped. With the help of digital technology, he has produced an animated journey around the picture.

Sixties’ cars and fashions can clearly be seen among architecture long ago razed to the ground. It was a time when engineering works such as Aish and rubbed shoulders with corner shops and homes.

Clearly visible are the Hants and Dorset Motors bus garage, Regent Cinema and gas storage holder, all now long gone.

Christopher Hill’s grain silo was long ago replaced with the Asda tower on the corner of West Quay Road and the view shown is looking across what is now the Hunger Hill junction. The Ladies Walking Field is visible in the background over roofs of old cottages, Georgian buildings and a busy looking town, soon to be replaced with concrete.

“I knew it like that,” said Roger, now of Talbot Woods, Bournemouth, who was 16 or 17 when he borrowed his dad’s Rolleiflex camera and took this snapshot in time.

“Parts of the old town were like walking through Corfe Castle is now,” he said. “It had a heart. It was a community. There were families who had lived there for centuries. All that has disappeared.”

He kept the negatives all this time and said: “When I recently revisited the photograph I realised its fabulous detail would allow me to get under the skin of the overall scene and take a closer look at other bits of unseen business.

“It worked, and the end product is a unique window on a typical English town just emerging from the grip of post war austerity.”

He said: “For those of us who remember life in pre-shopping centre Poole, this is a proper trip down memory lane, and for students of social and local history it’s time travel at its best.”