IT is fifty years since the completion of the Waterloo housing estate - Poole's largest housing development at the time, when the first of 750 families started moving in.

Luckily some of the families, many of whom had been waiting for up to four years to relocate to the two, three and four bedroom houses, are still there and able to contribute to a local exhibition which chronicles the lives of its residents.

The Waterloo - from Village to Estate exhibition, which marks the fiftieth anniversary of the development, is at Scaplens Court Museum in Poole High Street and will run until the end of August.

It includes a mixed media presentation, which focuses on the oral evidence of the surviving residents, as well as the photographic, CD-ROM and video archives of the development.

Colin Phillimore, a community liaison officer with the Borough of Poole, who has been working on the project, has been talking to members of the Waterloo and Hillbourne Resident's Association, as well as to some of the first people to move in to the estate on Waterloo Road, close to the old Waterloo village, north of the Upton By-pass.

"I wanted the anniversary to be celebrated in a creative way and to get all the different generations together. The exhibition will feature stories and memories from people who first moved in to Poole Council's 64-acre estate back in 1952 and 1953," he says.

Frances Cambrook, who manages the recently-opened Oral History Research unit at Bournemouth University, was approached by Steve MacLaurin, arts in the community officer, to take part in a joint project with Poole Museum.

She says: "I was particularly interested in becoming involved in this project as one of my own special areas of interest is the application of oral testimony in museums - its ability to help bring artefacts and events to life by providing them with a context of meaning which enhances the visitor's understanding."

Two students, Laura Ellis and Ellen Haring, who are studying their Masters in collections management, became involved and helped to interview some of the surviving residents for the project.

Laura says: "As part of our 25 day placement, we spent time visiting the Waterloo Community Centre and interviewed about 14 people who still lived on the estate.

"They told us the land was so boggy after building work, they could not grow anything. They also had to boil water to run a bath."

One of the older residents, 90-year-old Ivy Wells, joined Poole's deputy mayor Graham Mason, the head of Cultural Services for Borough of Poole, Claire Chidley and other residents of the 85 acre, council- built Waterloo estate at last week's launch.

She can still remember the air ships sent up by the former mayor, Lord Llewellyn, to protect Poole's residents against German bombers, when she lived in Waterloo Village.

"I was born in the village in 1913, then I went to live in Croydon, but came back to live there. My brother Alfred helped to build some of the houses on the estate.

"I can remember the train that took enthusiasts to the clay works in Broadstone from Creekmoor. Poole Pottery on Sopers Lane, used to make pipes before they started making china."

Ivy displayed a formidable long-term memory in reeling off a list of street names and people.

She was married to Lesley Wells, a surgical instrument maker who helped to make the prototype mine sweeper, which saved hundreds of lives during World War Two.

"We were all very neighbourly on the estate," she remembers.

"My mum was a general nurse and was called in to look after the pregnant wives."

The estate was part of a swathe of post war property developments in Poole and across the country, as well as forming part of the slum clearances.

An article in the Echo at the time describes the plight of the first family to move in, the Andress family, who said they 'felt like packing up the first night,' after joining the ghost-like development before the other residents had arrived.

The residents, some of whom described their initial situation as 'like living on an island', soon had their own shopping centre, two churches, a community centre, old people's home and an infants and junior school however, which are still there today.

The exhibition, which is free, can be seen at Scaplen's Court Museum, between 10am and 5pm and between midday and 5pm on Sundays.

A second exhibition, Round the Garden, which features a collection of contemporary objects from 20 different artists, including ceramics, jewellery, wire animals, and flower baskets, will run simultaneously.