Well-known local legend Ken Hoare and his wife Sylvia have been celebrating their Platinum Jubilee alongside someone nearly as famous!
Kenneth George Hoare, only son of Earnest George Hoare and Florance  Lillian Hoare and Sylvia were married on June 7, 1952, at Hampreston Church, with the reception at the Innisfail Hotel off New road Ferndown, now replaced with many bungalows.
Ken’s father started his haulage business when he left the Army in 1918 with horses and carts, hauling timber from the New Forest to Ringwood railway station.
He then excavated sand and gravel from local pits and supplied local builders. His first vehicle was a Model T Ford, he then had an agreement with Lord Wimborne to rent a parcel of land at Little Canford where he installed a gravel washing and grading machine.
In those days all the gravel was excavated by pick and shovelled onto half-ton skips and winched to the washing plant.
That area of land is now the Wessex Water Depot.
Ken’s father took him away from
school at the age of 13 to work in that quarry operating a new gravel washing plant.
It was not long before Ken was driving a dumper and a lorry in the quarry at the age of 14 and at 15 he was driving a 15-ton Dragline excavator, dredging gravel from below water level and loading it onto dumpers.
On June 3,1944, he was called up into the Army and served in the REME servicing diesel engines on the gun sites defending London and in 1945 he was sent to join a regiment bound for the Middle East,
After three years out there he was demobbed.
Back home in his father’s workshop he was soon repairing vehicles and various plant equipment.
His father passed away in 1951 which left Ken and his mother to carry on the business.
Due to the pressure of working long hours Ken joined the West Hants Motor Club to have some weekends away taking part in hill-climbing with his VW 1300 Beetle and in 1966 became the British Champion, an achiecement he repeated in 1970 driving a 1300 VW Golf.
He then took up auto-crossing and rally -cross, competing for 37years.
The firm expanded with two gravel quarries and two sand quarries, 12 vehicles (four and eight-wheelers) with 30 employed personnel.
Due to the recession the firm ceased trading in 1989 after 71 years.
Sylvia and Ken had two sons, who are both married, and they have five grandchildren and five great-grandchildren..