Purbeck Revealed Ilay Cooper

[weeladdie18]

Tom...Found this book 2005 in my library..must have been one of my purchases as my mother died in 2005 and I retired in
2006. Ilay Cooper would have been one of my contemporaries as he grew up in the same road as my grandfather lived in
before he passed away in 1960...I managed to track down Ilay cooper on the intenet about a month ago.
He remembered my grandfathers old home in swanage ..The family moved into this house in 1926.
A google of Ilay Cooper revealed a video of his perception of the Purbeck Quarries.. and Dancing Ledge...an old swimming pool
cut into a Tidal Rock Shelf for a Boys School...
Further digging produced information on the Purbeck Oil Field which was larger than the Texas Deposits .....
Kimmeridge Drilling ran five miles out under the sea bed....Smedmore Estate ....Tyneham Estate...English Heritage...
Bond Estate ...National Trust.....Bovington Army Ranges and Tank Museum....
All the Poole Harbour Clay quarry workings ...Corf Castle...John Mowlem ....Burt....Swanage Railway..
.The Old Clay Pit Railway....yes it is all on the Internet

A google of ....Islay Cooper should produce a Video of Islays wandering through the world of the favourite childhood wanderings
of both my father and myself....I would say this was part of our Heritage....

A good subject to Study Online if you ever have a rainy day and are feeling a little bored....Roderick

[weeladdie18]

Cross referencing Islay Cooper against my Cornish Book Shop ....there must be a way to
obtain a copy of Purbeck Revealed by Islay Cooper an interesting story.....

Another Relevant Book is...The Book of Studland ....Portrait of Purbeck's Heathland Village...Rodney Legg.

Stories of the Old boatmen who rowed passengers 7 miles across the creeks of Poole Harbour
before the Railway Line reached Swanage.
If I remember correctly Poole harbour is the second largest Natural harbour in the World...

Two of my family stories....my Grandfather was so poor that he could not afford the Rail Fare to send
My father to school in Wareham every day ,wearing his straw boater ,known as a Donkey's Breakfast.
So he bought my father a 500 cc Rudge Motor Cycle , when he was 14 years old.
The vehicle was ridden without a crash helmet...I do still ride my 400 cc quad bike legally around
the Cornish lanes without any Crash Helmet..
Lawrence Of Arabia was not so lucky He had a 500 cc Brough Superior and died from head inuries
between Bovington Camp Post office and His home at Clouds Hill in The Mid 1930's
An interesting story of Colonel T.E. Lawrence who lead the Arabs against the Turks in WW 1
He died as Aircraftsman Shaw ...He had been involved with high speed R A F rescue launches
in Portsmouth and and may have been working in Poole harbour with the flying boats
...All under cover of Darkness...a man of mystery....it is believed he was an Arabic Speeking Archeologist
at the outbreak of the war....
There are photos of my father and one of his post war friends out in the dessert sand an a pair
of 500 cc Miltary Nortons... He ended his war service with Glubb Pasha and Abbu George...
They were keeping the american armoured cars running on long range dessert patrols against the Turks.
I saw the photos in a 1950 s book on the Arab Legion...No one knew what was going on as all the vehicles
were cut out of the old faded photographs in my fathers photo album ...it is somehere in the next room
as I write this text.....I still talk to my parents although they passed away many years ago.....Roderick

[weeladdie18]

I am hoping this makes sense as I have been modded and cannot see my previous post.
I first went sailing in Poole Harbour with my parents when I was three years old.
The Poole Sharpie was owned by the wife of a retired Brigadier....The lady was my fathers boss.
The boat was bought so that my father could teach her daughter to sail .. My mother was crew on our family trips around Poole Harbour....
Her tasking was to work the jib sheets ,Pull up the Centre Board when we went over
a mud bank and keep baling.....that boat was moored off the sailing club opposite
the Sandbanks Car Park...You may remember my story of how my father was taught
to sail by the Swanage Coast Guards....Perhaps I told Ilay Cooper this story ...but not
the Skirt Cafe...
There will be another story telling how my father was burning " his " boat "s"
to warm the water on bath night....This was a vast improvement on the tin bath infront
of the old black kitchen range ...we paid 5 bob a week for that old estate flint cottage
back in early fifties....Yes five bob , now 25 pence ..The rent worked out at £ 1 per year.
I went to school with 7 other kids................Roderick

[weeladdie18]

I might as well tell the next story here as it is relevant to Ilay Coopers Life style at Swanage.
His story Purbeck Revealed is a good example of Local History and his love of wild live
and and venture.

My next story is how the lads built a raft to sail on the Village Dew Pond
Only sixteen feet deep and lined with clay and pebbles.When the pond dried out,
the sediment was spread on the fields and the villagers had a tea party with home baked
cakes in the pond ....This was all in the village records but never occured in my lifetime
for one simple reason...the drains from two cow sheds ,used as dairys ,discharged raw
animal sewage directly into the pond , which was opposite the village school.
There was probably 14 feet of sediment in a sixteen foot deep pond....
It was mid winter....The pond was frozen and cover in snow .
One moonlight night a car rally came through village . One of the competitors
drove onto the pond assuming the pond was the village square.He stopped in the
middle of the pond and dropped down through the ice so the water was level
with his bonnet.
These two intrepid motorists then banged on a villagers door, Their comment
to the occupant of the cottage was "please may we come in. Our Car is stuck
in the middle of your pond ? " ...."Certainly not " was the reply.The front door
was closed in their faces......The following day the ice was broken and the car
was towed to a local farm yard...The ice was about four inches thick at the time.
The skaters were out on the pond the following weekend...
They carefully avoided the damaged ice in the middle of the pond .
All the local High School Girls were out on the pond playing Ice Hockey
with the Local School Boys...Another faded photograph.....

[partlyscot]

I never knew there was any onshore oil fields in the UK.

[geron]

The last time I was there, an onshore nodding donkey was beside the coastal path in Kimmeridge Bay, and it had been there for many years. And there has also been a drilling rig out in Studland Bay..

[weeladdie18]

Yes a little pumping station down on the Purbecks.. pumping oil from five miles
out to sea for 60 years

[weeladdie18]

If I am correct Poole Harbour is the second largest natural harbour in the World.
Again if I am correct...Green Island has its own Oil Pumping Station owned by B.P.
A stratigic place from which to extract natural resource.
I am unable to state the position of the end of the extraction pipe..

[Kirbstone]

We have two nodding donkeys in our front field, half-brothers a few months apart in age (7). They produce no oil or hydrocarbons, but lots of useable donkey manure and no doubt the methane to go with it.

Tom

[weeladdie18]

We have two nodding donkeys in our front field, half-brothers a few months apart in age (7). They produce no oil or hydrocarbons, but lots of useable donkey manure and no doubt the methane to go with it.

Tom

Thank you Tom,unfortunately this is a system with no horse power...........Roderick