It’s summer down in Falklands Square
All the yob’s hanging out there
Sun hanging in a cloudless sky
Talking about the week gone by
Everyone a stranger ’til the weekend
Saturday afternoon and everyone’s a friend
And when the winter comes on down
They’ll still be there hanging around
Their faces sadder, their cheeks are red
Maybe wishing they hadn’t left their bed
But that spirit lives on in the square
Just waiting for summer to arrive there

8th Nov 2021 – It’s odd that the square is actually called Falkland Square without the pluralisation. The seats and island on the left in the picture was taken over by punks from Wareham, Bournemouth and far out in the sticks where I was too. It was an epic journey by local bus that only ran twice a day and you were fucked if you missed it. It was a long walk home and I don’t think I ever did miss the bus but there were occasions I chose to walk home instead. I had been coming to Poole most every Saturday since 1983 or 1984.

We had so much fun in this place, blasting Minor Threat to the bemused locals, (some) stealing anything not nailed down in the shops, hanging out at the Animal Rights stall, eating baked potatoes in the late afternoon when all the alcohol had run out, jumping, shouting a being a general nuisance. We never had any problem with the police though sometimes the shopping centre security guards would try to quiet us down.

In the picture, the shopping centre is called The Arndale Centre but around 1988 they changed the name to what was perceived as the more upmarket Dolphin Centre. Before Falklands Square was built all sorts of kids would hang around in groups looking over the balconies, waiting for friends to show up, shouting and screaming as kids would do. There would be groups of trendies with cute girls, Goths, also with cute girls, and then the mostly girl-free wanna be punks, as I might classify myself looking back. All the security guards ever did was ask us to move along and we would joke with them every time, shouting ‘move along’ before they even had the chance. Each group would scatter and reform at another part of the centre and so it went on. I think the security guards were happier once we had relocated outside to the Square.

The strangest memory I have of that time is when a messed up punk kid, who none of us knew, was stumbling around the ground floor without much coordination and looking completely lost. We watched him anxiously for a few minutes and were as horrified as the straights and regular shoppers when he decided to pull down his pants, squat and take a shit right there in the mall. We didn’t rush to help him. He was fucked!