If you enter the New Forest today, you appear to step backwards in time. The landscape is unique and traditions exist here that are unchanged since mediaeval times. The New Forest's ancient woodlands and wilderness heaths remain largely intact, earning the area national and international status.

This most English of forests continues to be a living and working community where ponies and cattle still have the right of way as they freely graze the land. Deeper in the forest wild deer browse beneath the canopies of mighty oak and beech - natural scenes unchanged by the modern world.

My first visit - was many years ago when as a young boy I was lucky to have parents who had a car and caravan so we travelled down from Manchester and stayed in the forest wherever we wished to park up. This was around 50 years ago when you were lucky to get a holiday never mind travel with a caravan in tow. My young brother and I used to sleep in a tent close to the caravan until the horses started to bother us. They were lovely days days but now sadly a faded memory. Today all the roads are bordered by ditches dug to prevent caravans from parking in the forest, except for the few designated camps such as Longbeach, also the threat of gypsies and travellers needed to be addressed.

I returned to the forest in 1995 when my good friend Thierry Cabanne called me to tell me he had decided to escape London and move to paradise. He had bought an old house, Eyeworth Lodge (pictured left), which used to be a gunpowder factory near Fritham. The house was large and rambling but a finer place to live I don't think I will ever see.
Thierry stamped his mark on building with some quite innovative features and I certainly enjoyed my time there helping him to complete his interior decor. Thierry has since moved on to Kings Sombourne near Romsey but I will always be grateful to him for allowing me to share this little corner of paradise with him. Visit Thierry's new venture at www.horsefair.co.uk

Getting to know the locals in the Forest is not the easiest thing you will ever encounter, I mostlyfelt quite alienated in their company. This wasn't the case with all Hampshire people, I made many friends mainly with people from Salisbury, Southampton and further out - I suppose because the forest is so insular the people are suspicious of outsiders or grockles as we were known as.

My favourite places were the lovely country pubs scattered throughout the forest the nearest one being the Royal Oak (pictured right) at Fritham. This place would have fitted into my sitting room, without doubt the smallest pub I have ever been in. At the time they served their ale straight from the casks which were on the floor behind the bar. If I remember rightly their finest was called Ringwood 6x, this stuff seriously challenges your ability to walk.

Wandering round the forest is an absolute joy, you share the silence and beauty with all manner of wild animals and can go for hours without seeing a soul. The main danger to the animals of course is people driving cars. There are many animals killed and to be fair a number of human fatalities have occurred when animals have come through the drivers window. I had the misfortune to be driving to Salisbury one evening to visit a friend when a herd of deer decided to leap across the hedgerow in front of me and stampede across the road. I crashed into one leaving it dead in the ditch. By the time I had been to the nearest pub to report it to a forest ranger I knew and returned to the spot, it had gone. The ranger said I should have put it in the boot and then got in touch with him, someone had obviously beaten me to it.

Things you must do :                        Right - Longbeach  Campsite

• Visit the museum in Lyndhurst - Who are the verderers? What is the common of mast? Are New Forest ponies wild? Find out the answers to these questions and much much more. Meet their New Forest pony and foal, and use their computer touch screens to investigate the history of the Forest and its wildlife. See the New Forest Embroidery and visit the gift shop. It's also a lovely town
• Ringwood town and Country experience - A welcome will await you when you  experience a time when life was a little slower. Stroll into olde shops, see the train at the station with the sights and sounds. Learn the history of old Ringwood town and countryside, magically arrive in Ringwood market place with its thatched cottage, carousel and local trade. Enjoy refreshments alongside the mill and waterwheel. There is also a great Saturday market here.
• Visit Setley Ridge Vineyard Brockenhurst : Enjoy the pleasure of English wine in the New Forest. Grown, produced and bottled on-site. Well on form when I visited....
  www.setleyridgevineyard.co.uk
• The Bell Inn Lyndhurst - If you want to eat good food in a traditional English Inn (1782) then this is for you. The bell Inn can be found on the B3078 from Cadnam to Fordingbridge road. Eat your fill and sample the fine local ales.
  www.bramshaw.co.uk

My friend Thierry has left the forest now and moved to nearby Kings Sombourne close to Romsey where he has a business so I don't get down to the forest to often but, when I do go to Thierry's I usually take the opportunity to look up my old friends and once again taste that special feeling you get when you cross the cattle grids to enter the New Forest.

Since I completed this page Thierry (pictured left) lost his life when returning from a trip to London, his car left the road and hit a telegraph pole in nearby Little Sombourne during the early hours. Thierry lost his life and I lost a dear friend. September 13th 2007 left a huge void in many lives, he helped me into a totally different life from that I'd been used to and I will always thank him for that. This man is irreplaceable.

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