About QE2 Activity Centre

In 1976, the year before the Silver Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II, Prince Charles invited local authorities to commemorate the Jubilee in some way. There may still be trees or park benches  around the country proudly recording the fact that they were installed in 1977 in honour of the Queen having reigned for 25 years.

Eastleigh Borough Council had loftier ambitions. The then Mayor, Cllr Godfrey Olson, asked residents for ideas and a retired Hamble man, Chris Gardiner, proposed an activity centre for people with disabilities. Chris had been involved in outdoor pursuits all his life – as an army PT instructor, running his own sailing school and being in charge of watersports at HMS Warspite (which became Fairthorne Manor). In fact, the initial proposal was for a riding centre, but the idea was fleshed out to become a multi-activity centre, with riding, archery, sailing and campcraft on the menu. Chris and Phyllis Gardiner had a son, Peter, who loved horseriding, sailing, canoeing and camping, supported Liverpool FC, liked the Beatles and had a learning disability. The Gardiners involved Peter – and his friends from Tankerville school – in horseriding and sailing and wanted to give other children and adults with additional needs the opportunity.

The inaugural meeting of the steering committee was held on May 16th 1977. Hampshire County Council was very helpful in providing a piece of land, at a peppercorn rent, in woodland that was to become the Upper Hamble Country Park (later the Manor Farm Country Park, currently River Hamble Country Park). The land had previously been the home of HMS Cricket, a Combined Operations base, a marshalling camp for D-Day, June 6th 1944. Local parish councils, as well as the Borough and County councils, helped out, as well as local people – one of the first events in the fundraising campaign was in June 1977 when Cllr June Sanders completed a sponsored swim.

Queen Elizabeth II Silver Jubilee Activities Centre was opened on March 28th 1978 by HRH Princess Margaret, within the Jubilee Year (which ran from April 1st 1977  to March 31st 1978). Early days were quite quiet. Early users were local special schools, like Tankerville in Eastleigh, Ridgeway in Southampton, day centres like Bishopstoke (Eastleigh) and Brookside (Southampton) and long stay hospitals for adults with learning disabilities – Coldeast and Tatchbury Mount. None of those places exist now. In addition there were club evenings on Tuesdays and Fridays, plus riding and music sessions on Sunday afternoons.

Chris Gardiner was the Director of the Centre from its inception until 1983 when David Budd succeeded him (and promptly changed the title from Director to Warden). The Centre had provided kayaking since the start: Dave Budd brought open canoeing with him, and before long aluminum canoes on the river became a familiar sight. The Centre owned a few boats – a Fishing 15 motorboat, a Drascombe Lugger, a Seafarer. There was also a Wayfarer dinghy and a Challenger trimaran on loan. Trouble is the winds on the upper river are very fluky, and the tide keep going out so sailing times were limited. Centre staff created a rudimentary ropes course, which grew in ambition over the years.  We also had a fleet of cycles – bicycles, tricycles, even a quadricycle, tandems, fixed wheel.

During Dave’s time at the Centre five A frame cabins were built (is this the time to admit to this? – there were only meant to be four cabins, but a printing error on an appeal leaflet meant we ended up with five). These cabins, at the time, were a giant leap forward in accommodation provision for an activity centre. Up to then it was dormitories all the way – but our five cabins were set up like little homes, sleeping up to eight people, so large enough for groups, but small enough that the group was able to cater for itself. In the late ’80s, the 1990s and into the 21st century these cabins provided activity holidays for hundreds of groups. There were many, many firsts – first night away from home, first time cooking, first time on a horse, first time helming a boat. During these summers the sun always shone and nobody threw a moody.

Dave emigrated to New Zealand in 1989 and as he left he handed the keys to Phil Oates who had been waiting in the wings for this moment since first arriving as a spotty teenager in 1981 (and who promptly changed the job title from Warden to Manager).  The Centre then abandoned cycling (because there was never a time when all the brakes were working and none of the tyres were flat) and sailing (because the tide had gone out) and concentrated on what the Centre was doing well. Canoeing, kayaking, ropes course, archery and horseriding.

A climbing wall was obtained (there’s a story there – it was floated down the river from Fairthorne Manor on rafted canoes, and hauled up the track from the river to the Centre on a boat trailer, by students from a local college), and a zipwire, and a pontoon boat. Previously a physically disabled person accessing one of the Centre’s boats would have to leave their chair, getting the pontoon boat made it very much easier to access boating. We are now on our third pontoon boat. The climbing wall was extended, and extended – one section was paid for by a local Rotary Club, built by students at St Mary’s College (when it was Southampton Tech) and delivered and installed by the Royal Engineers. Problem solving exercises and environmental activities gained a hold.

In 1993 the log cabin was built, by the Hedley Roberts Trust. The first group to holiday in the log cabin was a group from Bosnia – at the height of the troubles there. To make room for the log cabin we needed to move a block of three stables. We did this with the help of Community Service. We moved the stables to a concrete yard that was originally part of HMS Cricket’s parade ground, but had been extended by men from NACRO. We added another three stalls, with money raised by disabled students from Lord Mayor Treloar College at Alton. Our new stable yard was opened by 70s pop star/film star/Eastenders actor, David Essex. The Log Cabin was opened by Olympic oarsmen Steve Redgrave and Mathew Pinsent. Another built went up a couple of years later – a resource room with staff room attached, in memory of Eastleigh MP Stephen Milligan.

Now with six cabins we had never been busier; our busiest times were the school summer term when we were generally full, week after week. And the sun continued to shine.

2003 was the year of our own Silver Jubilee and we invited HRH the Princess Royal (Princess Anne to you and me) to join us (and 400 friends and regular visitors) to celebrate. Yes, the sun shone and the little plastic union jacks were waved, Princess Anne planted a tree, cake was eaten and a good time was had by all.

We knew it was time to give the Centre a facelift, and rather than just give it a lick of paint we decided to change the layout. Out went the old office, the cramped lifejacket store, laundry room (which was actually just a narrow corridor), the kitchen and toilets. In came a new office & reception, a larger lifejacket store, laundry room, and modernised kitchen and toilets. In addition we built an extension, which meant that we had a canteen and a games room. The whole Centre flowed better. Also, we got rid of the flat roofs. The extension was faced in Purbrook Stone and the rest of the frontage became wood panelled – a big improvement on the agricultural look of the old barn and breezeblock additions.

As well as providing activity sessions and holidays we ran summer schemes – play schemes and the more ambitious Transitions project. These were two week courses for school/college leavers who were moving into adulthood. The first week was residential and all about being independent, tackling new challenges, being responsible – maybe for the first time. The second week was a project, something to be done for other people, to show that we all could make a contribution to making society better. One project was to build an oru, a traditional Sri Lankan fishing boat. This was the year after the Boxing Day tsunami ravaged the Indian Ocean and amongst other things wiped out the Sri Lankan fishing fleet. Our oru was part of a larger project, where 100 flatpack orus were manufactured – and ours was the template. It was launched on the Hamble River in August 2006, named Trinity, and later flown out to Sri Lanka.  These Transitions schemes were the forerunner of our day service.

Ah, the day service.