{"product_id":"grockle-who-stayed","title":"Grockle Who Stayed: Local Secrets, Honest Stories \u0026 the Real Bournemouth","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eBarbara says a grockle is anyone who arrived after she did, and she was born in Winton in 1950.\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eShe told me that on the bench by Boscombe Pier in my third week, watching the tractor rake the sand before the dog walkers got to it. Seventy six. Beach hut lettings office in her twenties, then thirty years on the floor at Beales on Old Christchurch Road. She has a view on every chine and most of them are wrong, according to her, apart from Alum. Four years on I have a notebook full of Barbara and I have started checking her against the Echo. She is usually right.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWe came down from Milton Keynes in September 2022, me and Hannah, once my job went fully remote. We said it was for the sea. It was partly for the sea. It was also because a town that has been a holiday since 1810 seemed like a good place to stop pretending we were fine. We rent in Southbourne. I know what people here think about remote workers and rents, and I think it too. This is not a tourist guide. It is what the Undercliff knows that the hotel leaflet does not, written down by a man who is not from here and says so in the first line.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp style=\"text-align:center;margin:26px 0;\"\u003e\u003cimg src=\"https:\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0942\/8218\/7134\/files\/grockle-who-stayed-spread.jpg\" alt=\"Chapter Four: Alum Is the Only Chine, a real spread from Grockle Who Stayed\" style=\"max-width:100%;height:auto;border-radius:6px;\"\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ch3\u003eWhat's in it\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eThe pier, this autumn.\u003c\/strong\u003e From 21 September crews are lifting six hundred metal grilles, half a ton each, off the old timber landing stages under Bournemouth Pier, mostly between 11pm and 8am on weeknights, because an inspection said they were a risk to anyone in the water below. Why the £9.6 million restoration went out to tender and came back with no suitable bids, why £4.3 million of it has now gone to the East Cliff, the West Cliff and Boscombe Pier instead, and what Barbara says about the landing stage she used to fish off.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eThe chines, settled.\u003c\/strong\u003e Branksome, Alum, Middle, Durley, Boscombe and Honeycombe, in order from the Poole end, with what each one is actually for. Which zigzag has the shade at three o'clock, where the Alum Chine bridge takes you, why Barbara says Boscombe is a town and not a chine, and the two I got wrong in public before four people corrected me.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eBeales, Bobby's and the empty windows.\u003c\/strong\u003e Which building was which, what the shop floor was like in Barbara's thirty years, what the planning permission on the Beales site actually allows (130 flats, a gym and pool in the basement, 42 spaces with car lifts) and what has been built so far, which is nothing. Westover Road and the ice rink get their own pages.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eParking without a £160 letter.\u003c\/strong\u003e The London level fines came back to 543 seafront roads from Sandbanks to Southbourne in August 2026, £160 or £80 if you pay inside a fortnight. The 6 per cent tariff rise on seafront bays from March, the streets in Southbourne and Boscombe where you can still park for nothing if you walk, and the one car park Barbara will not use on principle.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eBoscombe beach or Bournemouth beach.\u003c\/strong\u003e The honest case for each, the surf reef that cost £3.2 million and was shut over the currents around it, where the sand is widest at low water, which groynes the tractor rakes first, and why the Boscombe Pier bathing water logged fourteen sewage spills last year and where to check before you go in.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eThe Cherries in Europe.\u003c\/strong\u003e The first European match in the club's history, won 2 to 1 at Real Sociedad on 17 September, then Liverpool at the Vitality three days later and a 1 to 0 that Barbara says was \"typical\". What a Europa night in Kings Park does to the buses, Holdenhurst Road and your parking, with Sturm Graz and AC Milan coming in October.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eBeach huts, real prices.\u003c\/strong\u003e What a council hut costs to rent by the season, how the waiting list works, why the Mudeford Spit huts lost their 50 per cent council tax discount in April 2026 and a Band A hut now pays around £1,500 a year, and how the lettings office ran in the 1970s when Barbara had the key.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eThe cliffs, straight.\u003c\/strong\u003e East Cliff stabilisation starts in September 2026 and runs about eight months, on a budget that went from £4.31 million to £5.5 million. Which paths are affected, why it is where the pier money went, why a Green councillor says the decision was taken under urgent powers without a proper debate, and the parts of the cliff you do not walk under after rain. No jokes in this chapter.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eThe Air Festival, resting.\u003c\/strong\u003e The last one was 2024. Why the council stopped paying, why the operator talks fell over beach access, what the seafront trade lost, and what a late August weekend on the East Overcliff feels like now.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eChristchurch, Poole and the edges.\u003c\/strong\u003e Priory Car Park going back to the church on 28 November 2026, the Sandbanks ferry queue rules, Westbourne on a Saturday, where the real Poole starts, and the bus routes Barbara sits upstairs on.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp style=\"text-align:center;margin:28px 0 18px;\"\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/rootsand-routes.com\/cart\/58095246147966:1\" style=\"display:inline-block;background:#16281f;color:#fff9ec;padding:16px 34px;border-radius:6px;font-size:18px;font-weight:700;text-decoration:none;letter-spacing:0.3px;\"\u003eGet Grockle Who Stayed now\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp style=\"text-align:center;margin:26px 0;\"\u003e\u003cimg src=\"https:\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0942\/8218\/7134\/files\/grockle-who-stayed-updates.jpg\" alt=\"Buy it once, keep it forever, free updates for life\" style=\"max-width:100%;height:auto;border-radius:6px;\"\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ch3\u003eHow it works\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003eAn ebook of around 70 pages. Pay once, the download link arrives straight away, and it reads on a phone, tablet or laptop. When the pier works finish or the fines change again the book gets updated and you get every update free, for life.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ch3\u003eWho this is for\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003ePeople who grew up here and left, and want to know what is still standing. Anyone who remembers Beales, Bobby's, the ice rink and the Pavilion as they were. Movers and retirees who want the place explained without the brochure voice. And locals who will read it to tell me where I am wrong, which is fine. That is how it got written.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eBarbara's last word, on the bench, September: \"Put in that Alum is the only chine and Boscombe is a town. Then they can argue with you and not me.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp style=\"text-align:center;margin:28px 0 18px;\"\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/rootsand-routes.com\/cart\/58095246147966:1\" style=\"display:inline-block;background:#c4883a;color:#fff9ec;padding:16px 34px;border-radius:6px;font-size:18px;font-weight:700;text-decoration:none;letter-spacing:0.3px;\"\u003eDownload it now, free updates for life\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eInstant download. Any device. Written under the pen name Joel Wander.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Roots \u0026 Routes","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":58095246147966,"sku":null,"price":12.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0942\/8218\/7134\/files\/grockle-who-stayed-cover.jpg?v=1790340184","url":"https:\/\/rootsand-routes.com\/products\/grockle-who-stayed","provider":"Roots \u0026 Routes","version":"1.0","type":"link"}