Review of the year 2018: July, August and September

• Poole’s Lighthouse is forced to close for refurbishment after flooding caused by a fault in the sprinkler system.
• The on-going heatwave sees paramedics called to a school sports day on Bournemouth beach and old folk in Howell House in Colehill complaining of sweltering temperatures after saying they couldn’t turn off their central heating.
• Staff at Poole Hospital celebrate the 70th anniversary of the NHS, and also run a full-scale chemical weapon attack training exercise.
• Dorset is in the mood to party after the UK beats Colombia in the World Cup and again when they demolish Sweden in the quarter final. But hearts are broken when they crash out to Croatia in the semis. Football does not come home.
• Bournemouth Pride cheers everyone up with its Hawaiian theme, as does the story that a mysterious big cat has been seen on the prowl in Westbourne by Darren Jenner. Police send a dog unit to investigate.
• Elvis the emu is rescued from a garden in the New Forest. He was bought on eBay as an egg by his owner and was living with chickens.
• A pod of dolphins is spotted swimming alongside the Barfleur off Old Harry Rocks, but there is disharmony in the town when travellers move onto Baiter Park for the third time this year.
• Camp Bestival-goers can’t quite believe their eyes when they spot the drummer on Rick Astley’s set. Yes, it really is former Bake-Off star Mary Berry. Sadly Bestival is cut short by terrible weather and there is further gloom when campers allege their empty tents have been looted.

August

• The number of robberies in Bournemouth have gone up by 26 per cent, figures show.
• Poole fiancee Anya Marie Watt Stewart shows off her Bride Squad, the whopping 23 attendants she’ll have for her marriage to partner Brian at St Mary’s Catholic church in Wimborne Road, Poole.
• Ed Baker takes his daughter, Georgia, to Upton County park and is amazed to find the pond is bone dry.
• Britain’s longest married couple, Maurice and Helen Kaye, are sadly parted when Mr Kaye dies suddenly, aged 106. The loving couple were married in 1934 in a London synagogue.
• Police are called to Ibsley in Ringwood to rescue a deer which fell into a disused swimming pool.
• There is drama in Poole harbour when a yacht becomes trapped against the side of the Sandbanks ferry during a spring tide. The RNLI rescue the sailors.
• Rachael Loker of Hurn village gives thanks as she gives birth to baby Hughie after getting caught in a three-vehicle pile up. Rachael and Hughie are pronounced fine.
• Three ponies on the loose create havoc on the A31 but clever locals corral the beasts and no one is hurt.
• Have-a-go hero mum Maria Carroll, of Queen’s Park, chases down car thieves who try and steal her son’s motor.
• Crowds are wowed at Bournemouth Air Festival by the jet-suit display from Dr Angelo Grubisic.
• Mayor of Ferndown Steve Lugg is given a military funeral attended by members of the Household Cavalry after his death from cancer, aged just 54.
• A house in Sandbanks is sold for £8 million.
• Travellers arrive at Glen Fern Road car park in Bournemouth. Furious MP Conor Burns claims they are a ‘blight’.
• Lewis Paxman is taken to Poole hospital after being bitten by an adder in Studland near Agglestone Rock.
• A homeless man sets up home in the doorway of a disused restaurant in Old Christchurch Road.

September

• Bournemouth Air Festival welcomes 900,000 visitors over the show’s weekend.
• A couple with the combined age of 183 have become Britain’s oldest newlyweds. Rob Cave, 91, and Margaret James, 92, marry in front of 150 friends at Wimborne Minster.
• The A338 roadworks begin and within days they are branded a ‘hellish, shambolic nightmare’. Boss of Beales Tony Brown warns that it could hit pre-Christmas sales in town stores. Days later Dorset council’s cabinet member for the roadworks, Daryl Turner, admits: “There’s a lot more we could have done.”
• Jamaican-born Bournemouth man Tony ‘Chico’ Giscombe celebrates becoming a British citizen after living in the area for more than 50 years. Now, he says, he can finally visit Jamaica.
• Poole Hospital records its busiest day ever when 77 ambulances and 235 patients arrive in A&E.
• Street preacher Rev Elaine Glover speaks out against a Halloween house of horrors at Hollywood fancy dress store in Poole, saying they will terrify children and encourage violence.
• Three-year-old Libby Mackenzie stands atop a pumpkin bigger than she is, grown by champion veg producers Stuart and Ian Paton of Lymington.
• A silhouette of a silent soldier is placed at Christchurch’s Fountain roundabout.
• A large tree comes down on flats at Ensbury Court when Storm Bronagh storms into town.
• Dame Kelly Holmes visits Bovington and rides on a Challenger tank.
• Angry headteachers Lucy Waterhouse, Kate Carter and Helen Roderick say things must change as they battle for extra school funding.