Sunday Times Where Was I?

Not too difficult this week, the Eastender Himself has been on holiday to this location and near as I can figure it, the answers are:

Q1 . Bournemouth

Q2. Melita Norwood

The initial clues place us in darkest Dorset, specifically, Bournemouth. Bourne is an old English word for burn or stream, so the name of the town is literally 'mouth of the stream'. The trolley buses there, were indeed yellow and were by and large replaced by diesel buses c1969.

The Bournemouth symphony orchestra was formed c1893 and one of its famous conductors from 1951 to 1961, was Sir Charles Bernard Groves (b 1915). The 750 ft pier that the author passed, was most likely Boscombe pier, which opened in 1889. This is where it gets a tad confusing, the puzzle compiler says he descended to the beach via a cliff railway to the east and then walked west past Boscombe pier. There are three cliff railways in Bournemouth, from the eastern most to western most in order, these are Southbourne, East Cliff and West Cliff. The railway at East Cliff is between Boscombe pier and Bournemouth pier, so he cannot have descended using this one and instead must have used the one at Southbourne and walked west, until he came to Boscombe pier.

An astronomer and author who spent the later years of his life in Bournemouth was Sir Fred Hoyle. A world light heavyweight boxing champion (1948) who was born there c1919 was Freddie Mills.

The first spy (born in the town c1912), was a woman called Melita Norwood (aka 'Hola'), a dodgy clerk at  the British Non Ferrous Metals Research Association, who by all accounts, read the 'Morning Star' newspaper and passed on secrets to the KGB. The second spy was a member of a group called 'The Cambridge Apostles', Sir Anthony Blunt (b1907). He got lifted by the police c1979, for keeping some of her majesty's pictures.....