Marshwood+ August 2024

Robin Mills met Guy Deacon in Chetnole, Dorset

My father was in the Army; I liked what he did so I thought I’d do the same sort of thing. I never really thought about it. Being a fireman, doctor, policeman, whatever else, didn’t occur to me. Luckily I passed all the right exams to get in, and ended up doing what I wanted to do, which was fantastic. I thought I’d enjoy it, and I did. I went to Sherborne School, where I was passionate about sport, particularly rugby, playing lock forward for the First XV. To my parents’ surprise, I also managed to pass 3 A Levels at A, B and C. Soon after the end of my last term, I was on my way to Catterick Camp in North Yorkshire, the start of a life full of adventures.

Joining a regiment is a process which requires more than just a desire on the part of the applicant—you have to convince the regiment that they should invite you. You also need to pass the rigorous selection process, and at Catterick I prepared for this. Most of the people in my intake were weeded out, but thankfully not me. But before officer training at The Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, my father had persuaded me I should get a degree; I was fortunate to get a place at Durham University reading Archaeology and Anthropology.

© Guy Deacon Photograph by Robin Mills

Guy Deacon

At Durham I met Andrew Hartley, who turned out to be a lifelong friend, and between us we hatched a plan to fulfil a dream of exploring Africa, specifically the Turkana region of Kenya. Teaming up with two other students, and raising the necessary sponsorship, the trip was a great adventure and our reports well received. After that, I was invited to join another trip, a motorised expedition across the Grand Erg Occidental, a remote and challenging part of the Saharan Desert. The beauty of the vast emptiness, the dunes, and the oases shimmering in the heat I will never forget; the seeds for African adventure in later life were sown.

My regiment was the Queen’s Dragoon Guards, one of a number that made up the Royal Armoured Corps. I never wanted to leave the Army, and in the end I stayed nearly 40 years. In my career there were many ups and a few downs, but overall, it was brilliant. I served in Germany, Kuwait, Afghanistan, Belize, Mauritius, and finally the Congo, where I joined a UN peacekeeping mission following the 1994 genocide in neighbouring Rwanda, disarming and demobilising rebel forces. After 18 months in the DRC I returned home, and was honoured to be awarded an OBE for my work there.

That award coincided with less than welcome news. I had noticed a few symptoms that led me to think things weren’t quite right. For example, I couldn’t turn the pages of a book with my right hand, I would stumble and trip occasionally because my right foot was dragging a bit, and bizarrely, I would cry frequently. If I was reading a book or watching a film, I’d get much more emotional about things, which for me was very strange. I was advised to see a neurologist by my nephew, at the time a military doctor in training, who diagnosed me with Parkinson’s disease. My symptoms were all classic Parkinson’s. His words were on the lines of “Bad news is there’s no cure: good news is it won’t kill you. Just take the tablets and you’ll be fine”. I was 49—I felt no anger on learning my fate, but deep depression was something I would have to continually live with. I was given 2 medications on day one, and have been taking the same ones ever since, although by now I’m taking higher dosages and much more frequently. They seem to work quite well, albeit for a shorter period of time, but over the years my symptoms have inevitably become a lot worse. Despite my diagnosis, the Army, a brilliant employer, allowed me to continue my service, which was of huge benefit to me, and after the Congo mission I held down a number of valuable jobs and was ultimately appointed Colonel RAC, effectively head of the Royal Armoured Corps. I remained committed to the end and the job became

my legacy, doing what I could to ensure that the British Army had a credible armoured capability for a somewhat uncertain future, and in that mission I succeeded, and I was awarded a CBE.

The idea of a mostly solo overland trip to Africa first occurred to me in 1980. I was given a book with the cover showing the sun setting behind Landrovers in the desert and thought that’s what I want to do when I grow up, but not until I retired did I have the time and the resources to realise that dream. For someone living with Parkinson’s, this was going to be more than an adventure, it was an odyssey. I thought if I can cope ok in the UK, why not in Africa too, provided I have plenty of pills and can rest when I need to. It turned out I was a bit naïve.

I decided to head for Sierra Leone initially, then would decide on a route after that depending on how things looked. The trip would raise awareness about Parkinson’s, to show that just because you have the condition, with determination you can still do what you want to do; in other words, don’t be defeated. And a major part of that was to set up a blog using the Polar Steps app to record what I had done each day, so people would know what it was like and how I was feeling. In November 2019, I crossed the channel to France.

I chose a 4-wheel drive version of the VW California, which enabled me to camp anywhere without having to set up an external arrangement, providing simplicity and security in remote places. The African roads caused several breakdowns—wheels, tyres, clutch, differential and suspension failures—which caused many holdups, but in all these and other challenges I was met with remarkable helpfulness and ingenuity from local people. Wherever I went, people humbled me with their hospitality and support for my journey.

I had got as far as Sierra Leone, when in 2020 the world stopped spinning—Covid struck. I was advised to return to UK asap, and although my instinct was to wait for a few months for it to blow over, I flew back on an EU emergency evacuation flight. I had no idea it would be 2 years before I could go back, and I had left the van with somebody I’d met 2 weeks before.

Two things happened during lockdown. Firstly, I met Rob Hayward, who suggested we make a film, and I said yes. And I reengaged with Helen Matthews, CEO of Cure Parkinson’s, who told me of key people I should meet when I went back to Africa, in particular Omotolo Thomas, herself diagnosed with Parkinsons at the very early age of 35, who runs Parkinson’s Africa championing the case

for the estimated 2.2 million sufferers in Africa for whom medication is either unaffordable or unavailable.

To fund Rob Hayward’s film we shot a promotional video and started a crowdfund, which was a great success. Finally in February 2022 restrictions were lifted, and I returned to Sierra Leone, restarted the wagon with very little trouble, and continued my journey with renewed focus. Along the way there were more breakdowns, often needing spare parts shipped out to Africa in the hand luggage embassy staff or former Army mates. There were interviews with Parkinson’s sufferers I was introduced to on my journey, who were working to reassure the many people who had not been properly diagnosed and believed themselves to be cursed, and interviews on TV stations to raise awareness of the purpose of my trip.

Rob Hayward joined me four times along the way to shoot more film, and was with me when I finally reached Cape Town, the end of my odyssey of 18,000 miles. None of which could have happened without the support of my wife of 29 years, Tania.

Since my return to the UK, I’ve been incredibly busy, completing my book about the trip Running on Empty, and working on the film with Rob, which is, we believe, to be broadcast on Channel 4 in the autumn. I’m also raising money through my Foundation, (www.guydeacon.co.uk) which is designed to plug the gap in people’s understanding of the disease—that sufferers can be loved and cared for. And—you have guessed it—I plan to return to Cape Town and travel back up the East side of that magnificent continent in 2026. ’

© Guy Deacon Photograph by Robin Mills

We talked with Countryfile presenter, author and journalist Tom Heap this month about his book Land Smart. It is an investigation into the challenges and trade-offs of land use. In the distant past, land use was pretty straightforward, it was for food and accommodation. Today required uses include carbon storage, energy storage, flood water, space for recreation, space for wildlife, as well as food, transport and business. After more than 25 years of reporting on countryside and the environment, Tom’s knowledge of the activities being undertaken to benefit our land use is extensive and fascinating. The best use of land is also the subject of a letter in our Share Your Thoughts section where—in light of plans for a new retirement village on land in Bridport— town councillor Anna Killick calls on Dorset Council to prioritise building for social rent in the town. She says it’s one of the hardest hit of Dorset towns when it comes to finding rentals. Also in this issue, Horatio Morpurgo talks about the Bibby Stockholm and its impact on the community in Portland. Used for asylum accommodation, the barge has attracted protest from many quarters, whilst the decision to close it—presented as part of a plan to reduce spending on the asylum system—was widely welcomed, but for different reasons. Tackling another social issue of a very different nature is singer Tony Christy. Diagnosed with dementia nearly three years ago, the star, whose hits included Las Vegas, I Did what I Did for Maria and (Is This the Way to) Amarillo is not hiding from his diagnosis and is fighting the stigma that goes with it. At 81 years of age his determination to use his voice and his public persona as a power for positive attitude is admirable.

Fergus Byrne

Share Your Thoughts

Dear Marshwood Vale

Like many residents, Bridport Labour believes the town is at a critical tipping point, in danger of becoming ‘unbalanced’ because there are too many retirees and not enough workers. The latest project likely to attract more incoming retirees is Churchill’s proposed luxury retirement village on the J.C. Phillips site on South Street. The recently sold Jewson’s opposite could also go for the same type of development (if it does not become a supermarket). But there is a chance for residents to make their voices heard. Bridport Labour Party has launched a petition on our web-site to demand social housing for local people of working age.Too many young people, including young families, are experiencing extreme stress due to the lack of genuinely affordable housing. In some parts of the town we have found as many as one in two households reporting close relatives living in overcrowded housing, insecure private rentals or even forced to sleep in their work vans. Many have been forced to move out as far as Yeovil even though they work here and depend on Bridport relatives for childcare.

Let us know your thoughts on local, national or even international issues that affect our lives here. Email your letters to: info@marshwoodvale.com

The new Labour government has announced plans to build 1.5 million homes in the next five years. The majority will be for social rent, which is around half of market rents, unlike the previous government’s category of ‘affordable’ rent which was only 20% below market rents. The new government will make it easier for councils to raise finance so they can build this housing. We want to see the new Liberal Democrat controlled Dorset Council announcing how they will take every opportunity to prioritise building for social rent in Bridport, one of the hardest hit of Dorset towns when it comes to finding rentals. Let’s have no more luxury retirement villages for incomers until we have housed Bridport residents of working age!

The online petition can be found on https://www. bridportlabour.org.uk/housing-petition/

Yours sincerely

Anna Killick, Bridport Town Councillor (in my personal capacity)

LAND Multifunctioning

A regular presenter on BBC1’s Countryfile, Tom Heap specializes in investigative films, and has made many BBC Panorama documentaries on food, energy and the environment. He is also the presenter of Radio 4’s new Rare Earth series and was the anchor of The Climate Show on Sky News. He talked to Fergus Byrne about his new book Land Smart.

At least a third of the world’s population is being kept alive by ‘extensive chemical fertilizer use’ says journalist, author, podcaster and Countryfile presenter Tom Heap. Talking to me about his new book, Land Smart, he highlights a problem that people have been grappling with for many years. Because of its damage, both in terms of climate change, local pollution, and harm to nature, extensive levels of fertilizer use are not sustainable in the long term. ‘So, you’ve simultaneously got something that’s keeping us alive today’ says Tom, ‘but will harm us badly if we carry on using it in the same way.’

It’s a quandary that has engaged the minds of some of the smartest people in agriculture and science, and as Tom says, ‘there is no silver bullet’ to solve this. But there is, he says, ‘silver buckshot’, in the sense that ‘we need lots of different things to be tried at the same time.’ Land Smart is an attempt to look at this problem and investigate the current challenges and trade-offs involved in land use.

In the distant past, what we did with land was fairly simple; it’s essential uses were for food and housing. But in our modern world, beset with more complex challenges and needs, along with a growing population, Tom points out that land use now includes ‘carbon storage, energy storage, flood water, space for recreation, space for wildlife, as well as food, and transport, and business, and all those kinds of things.’ So, we need to ‘be smart about how we use it.’

Although, we know there isn’t an ‘easy prescription’, by profiling a range of different people Tom meets in the pages of his book, he learns ways of balancing and multiplying different land uses. ‘For instance,’ he says, ‘a lot of smart farmers out there are now able to store carbon and produce a lot of food off their land, you’ve got multiple use. Or they can have a solar farm that’s also a great meadow for wildlife. Or you can have a farm where the soil is managed in such a way that it holds water much more effectively, so it lessens flooding downstream. It’s really thinking about where we can multifunction land. And in some cases, it might be where land is best used for just one thing and do that extremely well. And one example of that would be land that is already completely wild and hasn’t been taken into farming. We must leave that to be completely wild and not take it into farming, and that applies more globally than here in the UK. But there are some spaces like that you might pick out in the UK as well.’

one third of all commercial roof space in the UK is on warehousing and if used for solar power could provide savings of up to £3 billion per year.

Tom also talks about the World Resources Institute (WRI) which he explains has a ‘mantra’ when it comes to land use, which he says he has quite a lot of respect for. This revolves around ‘Produce, Protect, Reduce and Restore.’ ‘Produce’, explains Tom, is about carrying on ‘producing a lot of food off a small area’ and the question is ‘can we find ways of doing that with less fertiliser?’ ‘Protect’, he says, is to ‘absolutely keep the wild lands that are wild, wild’ and ‘Restore’ is about areas that have been degraded. ‘Can we restore them either to better agriculture, or for better nature use, or maybe use them for energy generation, put solar panels on or wind turbines? Have them become a useful land use again.’ ‘Reduce’, he says, ‘includes choices within the food world that we’ve set up. And there are questions there about eating less altogether, wasting less, and eating less

Making useable energy from the light that falls on a warehouse is one of the most obvious and productive multifunctional land uses.

Tom has tried not to be too polemic in Land Smart and has avoided highlighting too many villains in the world of climate and environment issues. However, he couldn’t hide his distaste for biofuels. Crops which you end up burning or putting in an anaerobic digester to gain a hydrocarbon fuel from are ‘incredibly inefficient’ he says. ‘If you have a few square meters, or a tennis court or a hectare, or whatever, and put solar panels on it, you will get at least 50 times as much energy as you would get from any biofuel.’ He fears that biofuels will become an easy paying crop that will push land use away from food production, and indeed increase the use of fertilisers and chemicals in the pursuit of profit. Despite an initial interest in biofuels, he says ‘my feelings went from sceptical to standoffish to pretty hostile.’

In Land Smart, Tom also cites many examples of land that could have a multifunctional use such as warehousing being used for solar panels. ‘Making useable energy from the light that falls on a warehouse is one of the most obvious and productive multifunctional land uses’ he says. But of course, that would require new regulation, for instance planning permission contingent on solar and energy being much more prominent in local plans. Speaking with Clare Bottle from the UK Warehousing Association (UKWA) he learns that

meat, which definitely affects this calculation.’

In recent years many farmers have turned to what is known as ‘Regenerative Agriculture’, seeing it as a method of farming that helps soil to regenerate and therefore remain productive without excessive fertilisers and chemicals. Whilst the WRI is concerned that this may produce less food than traditional methods, Tom’s experience with farmers he had met simply reinforces its value. ‘The World Resources Institute’ he says, ‘are worried about regenerative agriculture because they worry it will result in less food being produced from our existing farmland. So, they will therefore worry that it will push farming into new areas of nature.’ This is obviously something that should be avoided. However, he says there are people ‘practicing regenerative agriculture whilst not reducing their yield.’

Part of the problem he says is the fact that regenerative agriculture is a rather ‘ill-defined term’ which he likens to the word ‘sustainable’ which has become an overused term with multiple meanings. With regenerative farming there is what Tom calls a ‘clear goal’ which is that ‘the land that you control should be improving year by year. Basically, the ground should become healthier, not less healthy year by year. That’s the regeneration implied in the title. And I think there are ways of doing that. And as I mentioned in the book, I think science has a big role

to play here. And I’m not shutting out any particular scientific approaches. I think if they can achieve it through conventional science or genetic modification with the right kind of safety tests, then I think those are all to be looked at.’

We need to feed the world’s population whilst ensuring the land that feeds us is maintained to a standard that allows it to survive and thrive. Therefore, the mix of looking after wildlife, supporting organic farming and ensuring we achieve recreational and health benefits, means that all aspects of land use must be looked at. Tom calls it a ‘wicked problem’, because ‘we can’t just have parkland here and skip around amongst our butterflies while we’re trashing the rest of the world to produce our soil, or our lettuce, or whatever.’

Having said that Tom is keen to show that these knotty problems can be tackled and are being tackled by people all over the globe. ‘I’m an optimist about these things’ he says ‘the book is really a series of profiles of people who I think could do it smartly and are showing it can be done. They are, if you like, sort of, pinnacles of best practice. Or at least examples, I think, that we the audience have an interest in, and possibly other landowners could learn from. And so, I think there are ways of doing it. But it’s tough. It’s hard. It requires people to be smart.’

With a new government in place that may have a less short-term interest in land than the previous one,

I ask Tom what he would do if he were in charge of policy. ‘There definitely isn’t any evidence that the Conservative Party gained any electoral popularity from dissing stuff to do with climate change’ he says. ‘But there is no magic button that says simply do one thing. I would definitely open up the conversation. Start asking really smart people some critical questions. How can we produce as much food with much fewer chemicals? That’s a critical question and I think that involves scientists, farmers, food, retailers, etc, etc.’

He says we also need to start a conversation about our diets. The types of food we eat and how that determines land use and what is grown. He is not a vegetarian but agrees that as a race we are eating far too much meat.

He describes himself as ‘a bit evangelical about food waste’ and wonders whether ‘we can seriously reduce food waste while we demand that food is cheap. So, I’d also want to start a conversation about how we value food, how we price food.’

When it comes to housing, he says there are questions that should be asked more loudly. ‘As an administration, you lock yourself into a number, and it very easily becomes all about quantity, not quality.’

Tom believes that solar power, batteries and fuel used to heat homes shouldn’t be a ‘bolt on afterthought’, they should be a ‘condition of allowing these things to go ahead. It’s about the administration making

Tom Heap

sure it has the will, and to a certain extent the guts, to do it.’ He cites a law that came into force in Scotland this year that prohibits new house builders from installing direct emission (or polluting) heating systems such as oil and gas boilers.

Whilst it’s vital to have conversations about the future of our planet, and massively important to implement whatever changes are needed to protect a future for our grandchildren, change is difficult on many levels. Not least behavioural change. This is something that Tom also tackles in Land Smart Talking to Sarah Bridle, author and Professor at the University of York who specialises in how food effects the environment, he hears that globally around 75% of agricultural land is used to grow food for animals, and although meat and milk are very good sources of protein, so are many vegetables, so this ratio is way off the scale.

Sarah makes the point that we have the ability and the land to produce more than enough food to feed everyone on the planet, but we do need to change our behaviour, something that would also decrease the burden on healthcare. The ‘Our World in Data’ website shows that between 1975 and today, world obesity rates went from less than 5% to around 15%. The increase in ill health caused by trends like this has an enormous effect on healthcare facilities.

But terms like ‘nanny state’ are not easily avoided when it comes to legislation to help a population become healthier, so the question is what might make us change our habits? Well, according to Professor Tim Benton, an ecologist turned food, politics and environment expert based at Chatham House, our uncertain times may play a part in creating change. Quoted in Land Smart he says that nationalism is on the rise and transnational cooperative institutions–like the European Union, the United Nations and the World Trade Organization are ‘under siege’.

With increasing fragility and increasing volatility ‘there’s more political division and potential for all sorts of nasty things to go on.’ However, it’s the ‘looming crisis’ in our health systems that ‘could embolden governments to influence what we eat.’ When it comes to land use Tom Heap concludes that behavioural change is an important tool in the box used to repair our ailing future.

That toolbox has one other item that Tom believes we need to seriously look at when thinking about our future. Whilst most of realise that whatever decisions are made in the coming years are to be made with the future of our children and grandchildren in mind, Tom makes a valid point about education on climate change and solutions for the sustainability of our planet. He says we need to ‘respect and invest in education and skills in this area, because this is vital stuff.’ Whilst we all see the value of education in engineering, AI or health research, Tom says we need to encourage people to study agriculture and how we use land because ‘people working on finding solutions to this on the land are absolutely critical.’

Tom Heap will be speaking at the Dorchester Literary Festival on October 18th at 3 pm. For tickets and more information visit www. dorchesterliteraryfestival.com

Tackling Dorset’s Affordable Housing Crisis

How many new homes are needed in Dorset? What sort of homes? And who is paying?

With housing a major campaign issue for all political parties, not least the new Labour Government, the Dorset branch of the Campaign to Protect Rural England’s (CPRE) conference in June titled, ‘Dorset’s Affordable Housing Crisis’ was timely. The conference was instigated by Dorset CPRE’s strong belief that housing delivered in Dorset should be focussed on meeting the county’s true needs.

Lord Richard Best, Crossbench Peer and Social Housing Leader, chaired the conference following an introduction by Dorset CPRE President, Kate Adie.

The three questions ‘How many new homes are needed in Dorset? What sort of homes? And who is paying?’ were addressed by Mike Allen from Dorset CPRE’s Planning Group.

Speakers include Dr Quintin Bradley, Senior Lecturer in Planning and Housing at Leeds Beckett University; Elizabeth Bundred-Woodward and Brad Taylor from National CPRE; Paul Derrien, Dorset Council Housing Enabling Team Leader and Alison Ward, Director of Middlemarch.

About ninety people attended the online conference, including many Parish, Town and Dorset Councillors, as well as housebuilders, community land trusts, housing associations and members of Dorset CPRE.

The speakers highlighted the inability of the then Government Policy to deliver housing targeted at meeting the nation’s need for truly affordable housing; instead policy is focussed on building large numbers of market homes of which only a small proportion are designated as ‘affordable housing.’ Often these homes are not ‘affordable’ for the families that need them.

Dorset CPRE’s message was that communities need homes that people can afford to live in, particularly social rented housing. The current housing target of 1900 homes per annum is far higher than Dorset’s shrinking local population needs, yet the affordable homes that are desperately needed are not being built. As permission has been granted for 13,000 unbuilt homes, Dorset CPRE believe that a lower target of 1300 homes per annum would suffice to meet Dorset’s demand for housing, a significant proportion of which should be allocated for social rented homes: the number suggested by Dorset CPRE was 577 each year.

Social rent homes need extra subsidy initially, but that subsidy returns to communities a long-term economic benefit in providing local, healthy, and

stable long-term homes for those unable to afford spiralling market rents. A recent report by CEBR showed that the total economic and social benefits of building 90,000 social homes nationally would generate £51.2bn net over 30 years.

The challenge faced by Dorset Council to meet the need for affordable housing was evident. Homeless figures have increased from under 3500 in 2021/22 to over 4000 in 2023/24. Currently there are 500 new applicants per month for housing, the greatest requirement being for 1 and 2 bedroom homes, with smaller numbers applying for family sized accommodation.

Communities can take a pro-active approach towards providing homes that meet their needs by forming Community Land Trusts. These homes tend to be in locations that work for the community, designed to meet the community’s individual requirements and secured for future generations

Lord Best summed up the conference by saying, “We need more affordable housing, more homes for local people, more housing that is social rented that is genuinely affordable housing for the future. It may cost money, but you get the money back!”

Jez Hughes, Vice-Chair of Dorset CPRE, highlighted the relevance of the Conference to the work of Dorset CPRE after the General Election: “We will be calling on our newly elected Members of Parliament to be advocating a focus on more affordable housing in a way that genuinely supports local young people in rural communities and protects and enhances the environment they live in.”

Copies of the presentations and a link to the recordings can be found on www.dorset-cpre.org.uk.

Forge Orchard community land trust homes at Powerstock.

Photo by Samantha Cook Photography.

Discovered During Repair Work

By Horatio Morpurgo

The new government announced in July that its contract with the operators of the Bibby Stockholm will not be renewed in January 2025. The decision, presented as part of a plan to reduce spending on the asylum system, was widely welcomed. But those who have campaigned for the barge’s removal did so from widely differing motives. This is perhaps a good moment to review the nature of the disagreements which have arisen on Portland. What has the island, what have we all learnt from this experience?

I would begin with Maria Stepanova: ‘The world we live in is damaged and nearly irreparably broken and… the job of living is the job of reconstruction, of repair work… if you see a hole then darn it as best you can.’ The Russian poet derives this from the tikkun olam of Jewish mystical tradition. Her own texts, she writes, are ‘above all else, connective tissue joining fragments of the lost... a peace-filled craft that fixes and strengthens…’ This feels close also to the ‘small-scale work’ described by Václav Havel in his essay The Power of the Powerless.

So, asylum seekers are not permitted to work on Portland but some of them, for example, helped to sort through a photographic archive at its museum. They cleared the gutters there, too, and repainted garden furniture. A youth club’s computer was fixed. Iranian carpenters took up the floor of a church, replaced the rotten joists under it and then nailed the floor back down. When none of the residents signed up to volunteer, Peruvians, Ugandans, Kenyans and Pakistanis / Balochis started to help maintain a community garden. They built a stone wall and weeded paths.

Repair work may take many forms and with five months still to run, this story is not over yet. The island’s cricket club has taken on players. Six local taxi-drivers who had formed a boxing club to get in shape issued an invitation to the new arrivals. One of those who accepted was an Iranian boxing coach from whom everybody then learnt. New funding then made possible the purchase of extra kit. Rapport, respect, repair can spring up in the

unlikeliest ways. The Portland Global Friendship Group arranges a weekly walk, a jogging group, Queer Club, collage, creative writing, film-screenings, fishing. It is working with B-side on a music festival this summer.

The confinement of the barge is what asylum seekers have dreaded most when learning they are to be sent there. But equally forbidding is the limited interaction with local people which they expect from a relatively remote area. That’s why the Conversation Club in particular has mattered. This is a safe space in which local people and the migrants can talk. One Iranian attending it told me he had been on the barge for six months awaiting his decision. I commented, a little obviously, that that was a lot of waiting. He nodded.

‘So how do you stay strong?’ I asked.

‘I don’t,’ he briskly replied. He had been at a Holiday Inn near Oxford before, from which he could cycle into town. Someone lent him a kayak, by which he explored the river. He attended lectures given by Iranian academics about the situation in his country. At a café where you could volunteer, he preferred being on the till because of the different accents he heard there. ‘Even if you get residence,’ as he put it, ‘you are still in a kind of prison if you can’t talk fluently.’

So being sent to the barge felt like the end. Conversation Club mattered because it meant he could put the intolerable delay to some use. One of the Global Friendship Group suggested to me that the Club and its popularity are best understood as the flip-side of those hours they spend on the phone waiting for someone from the Home Office to pick up. Someone to whom they will be just another case number anyway. Listening attentively in such a context is repair work, too. We cannot magic into being a Home Office where the phone is picked up and claims processed quickly. But we can listen.

To the atheist Afghan boxer who worked as an interpreter for the British Army and wants to talk religion. To the Russian Physics teacher who questioned out loud the meaning of blatantly

‘Home in on this small-scale stuff and one is tempted by a hope that we are not after all, as a country, what we sometimes anxiously imagine ourselves to have become.’

rigged elections. To the Syrian metal-worker as he describes the crossing from Libya. France had been the inside of a truck. Dad had been an Anglophile. To the Iraqi Kurd who spent months in a hotel where the golf course and formal gardens were off-bounds. Of the paying guests he observed: ‘You could see by the way they looked at you. I didn’t need to ask.’

It becomes apparent, as you listen, that almost everywhere they have gone there have been Friendship Groups. If there was body language at the golfing hotel, elsewhere care has been taken, computers and churches repaired, Kayaks lent. Overcrowding on the barge recently led to peaceful protest and calls on the new government to speed up the processing of claims: a vigil outside the port was held in solidarity. Home in on this small-scale stuff and one is tempted by a hope that we are not after all, as a country, what we sometimes anxiously imagine ourselves to have become.

Though we are that, too.

A photograph posted to the website shows a grey day and a group of young Asian men standing in a gateway. Stamped diagonally in red across this image runs the word ‘Deport’. Below it in white: ‘Not Support’. After the news, in April 2023, that Portland would host a barge on which up to 500 asylum seekers would be held, a Facebook group was started. There were naturally those who asked what it was that qualified Portland so uniquely for this.

‘Bibby’ has had the limelight all to herself but in fact four barges were originally planned, to be moored in different harbours around the country. No other port authority would take one. Some essential backstory: after the Cold War, Portland Port was sold by the Ministry of Defence to Langham Industries, a private company. Langham, later a generous donor to the UK Independence Party, stood to make a reported £2.5 million from the government for taking this ‘refugee accommodation vessel’. Its incentives are clear enough. The material benefit to others on the island is less obvious. To some it felt like a combination of social

dumping and a slap in the face.

A report commissioned by Bournemouth University in 2022, ‘Forgotten Towns’, found that the island’s economy has suffered from chronic under-investment since the Navy’s departure in 1996. There has been no serious replacement for the engineering apprenticeships, for example, previously available on or around the base. Employment is now largely seasonal and precarious. Weymouth and Portland recorded one of the biggest majorities for Brexit anywhere in the UK. The island had in 2018 the lowest social mobility in the country. In 2019 it had NHS provision for the care of the elderly, an X-ray machine, minor injuries and an out-patient clinic. Only the last of these remains. And so on.

Some of the unease, then, is justifiable, but the views being expressed on Facebook soon took on a wildly demeaning tone. Obscene rumours about members of the Global Friendship Group were circulated. One photograph of them was doctored to include Leonard Farruku, an Albanian who committed suicide on the barge, and the convicted paedophile Gary Glitter. Female volunteers are routinely stated to be trans. One of those involved in posting this material has been arrested and is under investigation.

Those urging islanders, then, not to ‘support’ asylum seekers, have in fact also been engaged in an active campaign of intimidation towards those who do choose to support them. The Facebook site is not administered by Conservative Party employees, as comparable groups in and around London are. But Portland is clearly an active front in the present culture wars around immigration.

The Facebookers have been reduced to drawing upon meagre imaginative resources. ‘Incidents’ involving men from the barge are described in online posts. Police are not called but are then accused of covering up what ‘happened’. Welcome to that grey inter-legal zone where virtual outrage is cooked up for the digital lynch mob. Welcome to the rehearsal.

We are this country, too, but the best answer

to ‘Deport Not Support’ is not necessarily its counter-shout of ‘No Borders, No Nations, Stop Deportations!’’ Lord Dubs, who himself arrived as a child refugee and is a life-long campaigner on this, does not argue for open borders. He argues instead (and the figures bear him out) that the UK takes far fewer asylum seekers than comparable European countries. The ‘numbers’ argument doesn’t add up.

The evidence on Portland as elsewhere is that these are young people here to contribute and the job market certainly needs them. Friendship Groups, some argue, are very well but miss the imbalance in a relationship where one side does the kindness while the other does all the gratitude. ‘One positive and significant step would be to let those who wish to do so work,’ immigration lawyer Samantha Knights KC put it to me. Immigration Rules at present only permit working after a year and then only in certain very restrictive categories so that the provision is of little use to most asylum seekers. The Friendship Group, when I put this to them, agreed. But in the absence of better government policies, as one member, Laney White, put it, ‘the need for help is real.’ Let us hope such policies are on the way.

At one level any increase in the number of asylum seekers is a legal-technical challenge with a legaltechnical solution: process claims quicker. Don’t waste everybody’s time and money on policies driven entirely by appearance, their only aim to thwart people and make a lurid exhibition of the resultant suffering.

But knottier questions arise when we ask not only about the economic or legal aspects of this but how to calm public feeling as trusted stories begin to fail around the edges. Where do we look for a shared language to replace that dialogue of the deaf, the ‘hyperbolic intransigence of social media’, that we have now in place of a public culture? That’s not a rhetorical question and I personally don’t think we have to look very far at all. ‘It is right here, deep below the surface, that we must go’, Daniel Halévy once wrote. The place I have in mind is one I pass through each time I travel to or from the Conversation Club.

Portesham is the one with a nice pub garden on the corner. What was its petrol station is now a farm shop. A more pastoral English scene, with high green hills above, you could not imagine. The customised bunting around its church reads ‘1024–2024’, to celebrate one thousand years since its foundation.

The Owl and the Nightingale dates from the late twelfth century. At first glance it is a strange poem about a legal disagreement which neither bird is able to win. Finally, they agree to make their way to Portesham, home to an all-wise and entirely admirable priest called Nicholas. This is often assumed to be a humorous self-portrait of the poet and that does

seem the most natural reading. Anyway, Nicholas will arbitrate.

And what has any of this to do with immigration? ‘Our People! Our History!’ cries the website of Patriotic Alternative, a far-right group friendly with those Facebookers of Portland who have favoured deporting over supporting. It describes the United Kingdom as ‘the only place where the British people, and they alone, can realise their natural, religious and historical right to self-determination… British history,’ it states, ‘will be restored as a central pillar of every child’s education.’

‘The political consequences are by now impossible to escape,’ writes Stepanova, ‘controlling the past, attempting to harness it, monopolise it, rewrite it according to taste, have all become part of electoral and legislative processes in many countries in Europe

and beyond.’ From Dorset to Donetsk, historical politics are always with us.

The Owl and the Nightingale is by turns slap-stick and spiteful and thoughtful. It reads now like some kind of rap battle. It was probably originally intended as an allegory. Scholars, appropriately enough, cannot agree what kind. Through her rapturous love of music, the nightingale sets herself (both birds are female) to address the problems of the young, the claims of strong feeling, the joy of life in the moment. She also makes the case for frequent trips to southern Europe. Some have seen in the poem a seasonal allegory – nightingale’s summer to the owl’s winter. The owl for her part speaks up less glamorously for the problems of the middle-aged and the old, for the virtues of staying put, of perseverance. One theme of the poem is beyond dispute: it is

centrally about the difficulty and necessity of keeping one’s temper in an argument. ‘Hold hard! Hold hard! Exclaimed the Owl, / Your style in all is fake and foul!’ We are, it turns out, not the first generation to have experienced trouble with this.

It turns out there was already in the twelfth century a poet who thought we can do better. I think he makes a convincing case. My own small-scale repair work has consisted in listening as I’ve described, in writing this and in a short play updating The Owl and the Nightingale for our times. Its poet knew—and we can use the reminder—that we should keep our cool, even when that is difficult, because wrath ‘stirs up the spirit’s blood / With raging surges like a flood, / And overpowers the beating mind / Until with passion it is blind. / The spirit thus loses all its light, / Perceiving neither truth nor right…’

Bibby Stockholm asylum seekers barge at Portland Port

EVENTS August

Thursday, 1 August

St Mary’s Church Fete, Burton Bradstock 2pm to 4.30pm. Rectory Gardens, Burton Bradstock DT6 4QS. A traditional village summer Fete in a beautiful setting. Grand Draw, Face Painting, Children’s Magic Show, Teas and Cakes, Hog Roast, Ice Cream, Climb the Tower, Stalls and Games, Live Music. Free Car park . Admission £1 Children under 12 Free Proceeds will go towards enhancing the Community Space in St Mary’s Church. Colyton town history walk leaving from Colyton Dolphin Car Park at 2 pm – Guided walk approximately one hour. Cost £5, children under 16 free. No booking required, all weathers. Group bookings by arrangement – Contact 01297 552514 or 01297 33406.

Michael Rosen 11.30 am and 14.30 pm. Award winning Children’s Author, ‘Michael Rosen’ Celebrating 50 years at Bridport, Electric Palace this summer! The Dorset school summer holidays will be marked with a very special performance from one of the world’s best-selling children’s authors and poet, ‘Michael Rosen’ .The event includes a Q&A plus book signing. Bridport Electric Palace 35 South Street, DT6 3NY. Tickets £14 Adult £13 Child £46 Family ticket £46 (2A & 2C) or (1A &3C) Book online -electricpalace.org.uk. Friday, 2 August

The Dreamettes. Experience the Timeless Magic of Motown with The Dreamettes: A Tribute to the Soul & Motown. Relive classic hits from legendary divas including Diana Ross and The Supremes, Martha and The Vandellas, Tina Turner and Aretha Franklin. Featuring toe-tapping beats and irresistible grooves, The Dreamettes’ tribute promises an unforgettable evening of nostalgia and celebration. Tickets: £25 Students: £5 Children 12 and under: Free. Ilminster Arts Centre, The Meeting House, East Street, Ilminster, Somerset, TA19 0AN. Tel: 01460 54973 / E: info@ilminsterarts.org.uk 10.00am. East Devon Ramblers. 6 mile moderate walk. Heathlands and ponds Budleigh. Tel: 07780638350

The Bikeriders(15) - 19:30. The Bikeriders, starring Austin Butler, Jodie Comer, Tom Hardy and Norman Reedus, follows the rise of a midwestern motorcycle club, the Vandals. Seen through the lives of its members, the club evolves over the course of a decade from a gathering place for local outsiders

into a more sinister gang, threatening the original group’s unique way of life. Bridport Electric Palace 35 South Street, DT6 3NY. Tickets £8 Book online -electricpalace.org.uk

Saturday, 3 August Loders Fete, 2-5pm, in the picturesque grounds of Loders Court, DT6 3RZ (next to Loders Church). Free car park. Traditional stalls, dog show, children’s entertainer Count Backwards, St Swithins Band, tea tent, bbq, bar. Fund raising for Loders Church and local community organisations.

Uplyme and Lyme Regis Horticultural Society Summer Show. Competition marquee, cream teas, talks and demonstrations, stalls, croquet. Uplyme Village Hall 2-5pm. All adults £1; 16 and under free. More information www.ulrhs.wordpress.com

‘Gateway Theatre Summer Fair’ - Gateway Theatre, Seaton – 10am - 3pm, free entry. A variety of artisan craft stalls with items for your home and garden. Free entry to all, the theatre cafe and bar will also be open. All money raised on the day goes towards The Gateway Theatre Charity. www. thegatewayseaton.co.uk.

Scottish Dancing Party in Chardstock. An evening of Scottish Dancing at Chardstock Village Hall 7.30 - 10.30 pm. No partner required. Please bring your own mug and a plate of food to share. Tea and coffee provided. Cost £5.00 For more information contact David on 01460 65981.

Dorset Food and Arts Festival. A community celebration showcasing a bumper crop of local food, drink, art, craft, music and community talent from 10am - 3pm at the Great Field, Poundbury, Dorchester DT1 3RH. With 65 plus stalls around the festival field selling delicious food and drink, locally made products, crafts and art, there’s something for everyone! Held on the Saturday closest to the late Queen Mother’s birthday, the festival follows the pattern of previous years with Free entry for all. Visit the Dorset Food & Arts Festival Facebook Event for more details, including a full list of stallholders. Bridport & West Dorset Rambling Club 7.5 mile walk from Beaminster. For further information please ring 01308 898484 or 01308 863340. New members/ visitors welcome.

‘Inside Out 2’ (U)’ - Family Picnic Night Screening - Gateway Theatre, Seaton, 7pm doors 6pm, tickets Adults £7.50, Under 16s £6.50. In the follow-up to 2015’s Oscar®-winning “Inside Out,” Joy, Sadness,

Anger, Fear and Disgust—who’ve long been running a successful operation by all accounts—aren’t sure how to feel when Anxiety, Envy, Ennui and Embarrassment show up. Tickets from 01297 625699, www.thegatewayseaton.co.uk or in person

Tue - Thur 10am - 1pm.

Sunday, 4 August

National Garden Scheme Open Garden The Old Rectory, Pulham, Dorchester DT2 7EA. Mr & Mrs N Elliott. 4 acres of formal and informal gardens surrounding C18 rectory with splendid views. Yew pyramid allées and hedges, circular herbaceous borders with late summer colour. Exuberantly planted terrace, purple and white beds. Box parterres, mature trees, pond, sheets of daffodils, tulips, glorious churchyard. Ha-ha, pleached hornbeam circle. Enchanting bog garden with stream and islands. 10 acres woodland walks. Mostly wheelchair accessible. Open: Sun 4, Thur 8 Aug (2-5). Adm £8, chd free. Home-made teas. Visits also by arrangement 1 May to 15 Sept for groups of 10 to 50. Adm £9 (or inc tea & home-made cakes £13). Location: 13m N of Dorchester. 8m SE of Sherborne. On B3143 turn E at Xrds in Pulham. Signed Cannings Court. 10.30am. East Devon Ramblers. 5 mile moderate walk. Axmouth. Telephone: 01297-21797

Singing Bowl Soundbath 2pm Bridport Unitarians, 49 East St, Bridport, Dorset DT6 3JX Deep tissue sonic massage and detox to take you into deep healing brainwave states. Booking ahiahe@live.com 01935 389655 £16.

Tuesday, 6 August

Flower Club at Abbey Farm Flowers, Abbotsbury (DT6 6DG). Join us for a guided tour, a PYO flowers session, and a gardening chat o er coffee and cake. Learn, make new friends and take home a unique bouquet. 10.30-12.30, £30. Book online at www. abbeyfarmflowers.co.uk.

Arts and crafts Victorian Games Come and join us throughout the summer holidays for fun, crafts and games. Our School Holiday activities are all inspired by our new exhibition ‘ West Bay -A Resort to Rival Others.’ 11am -3pm at West Bay Discovery Centre DT6 4EN. Free admission www. westbaydiscoverycentre.org.uk

Wednesday, 7 August

Holiday Hangout. 11 to 4pm – Free event for 9-14 years. The Great Field, Poundbury, Dorchester. Aimed at young people aged 9-14 years, this free

event includes a huge range of fun activities to take part in including inflatables, craft and rocket building, football coaching, clay modelling, crazy golf and so much more! Children can bring a picnic or purchase a delicious burger or sausage and salad with a piece of fruit for just £4. Children who are eligible for free school meals and who have a HAF passcode will receive their BBQ lunch for free. This is a drop off event (just head to the Pavilion in the Park café) so once adults have brought their children for registration, they are free to spend the day how they wish! For more information and links to booking, visit the Summer in Dorset listings on the Help and Kindness website or email e.scott@dorchester-tc.gov. uk. Alongside this event people will also be able to see the huge range of activities taking place across Dorset as part of the Holiday Activity and Food Programme. The Holiday Hangout is being hosted by Dorchester Town Council and the Pavilion in the Park café who are grateful to have received funding from Dorset Council, Waitrose, The Talk About Trust, and the Poundbury Community Trust. River Char Community Project, Charmouth Village Hall, Wesley Close, Charmouth, DT6 6QT. River walk along the River Char to the beach and back, with short talks on the river, flooding, watervoles and wildlife. Meet at 5pm at the Village Hall (car park very nearby). Free. Followed at 7pm by the premier of Max Redwood’s film ‘River Char Voices’ about the River Char and a talk by Howard Atkinson about mink and watervoles on the River Asker near Bridport - and what we can do on the River Char. Drinks and nibbles. FREE (donation requested for refreshments). More info on both events: andrew@westhay.com

10.30am. East Devon Ramblers. 10 mile moderate walk. Exmoor. Tel: 01297-23424

Thursday, 8 August

Outdoor Family Theatre. Multi-award nominated Immersion Theatre present a magical evening of outdoor theatre, filled with music and laughter, telling JM Barrie’s classic tale of Peter Pan at Somerset Rural Life Museum in Glastonbury at 6.00 pm. Advance booking required. For information and booking visit: https://swheritage.org.uk/events/ peter-pan/

Arts and crafts Victorian Games Come and join us throughout the summer holidays for fun, crafts and games. Our School Holiday activities are

all inspired by our new exhibition ‘ West Bay -A Resort to Rival Others.’ 11am -3pm at West Bay Discovery Centre DT6 4EN. Free admission www. westbaydiscoverycentre.org.uk

National Garden Scheme Open Garden Broomhill Rampisham, Dorchester DT2 0PT. David & Carol Parry. A former farmyard transformed into a delightful, tranquil garden set in 2 acres. Clipped box, island beds and borders planted with shrubs, roses, grasses, masses of unusual perennials and choice annuals to give vibrancy and colour into the autumn. Lawns and paths lead to a less formal area with large wildlife pond, meadow, shaded areas, bog garden, late summer border. Orchard and vegetable garden. Gravel entrance, the rest is grass, some gentle slopes. Open: Thurs 8 Aug, (2-5). Adm £5, chd free. Homemade teas. Visits also by arrangement 5 June to 9 Aug for groups of 8 to 45. There is room for a coach to park. Location: 11m NW of Dorchester. From Dorchester A37 Yeovil, 9m L Evershot. From Yeovil A37 Dorchester, 7m R Evershot. Follow signs. From Crewkerne A356, 1½m after Rampisham Garage L Rampisham. Follow signs.

Colyton town history walk leaving from Colyton Dolphin Car Park at 2 pm – Guided walk approximately one hour. Cost £5, children under 16 free. No booking required, all weathers. Group bookings by arrangement – Contact 01297 552514 or 01297 33406.

Seaton Garden Club. A Talk by Sue from Colyton Garden Shop. Topic to be confirmed. At the Freemasons Hall Seaton Time 2.30 p.m None Members £2.00 including refreshments. Contact No 01297 22869.

Friday, 9 August

Flower Club at Abbey Farm Flowers, Abbotsbury (DT6 6DG). Join us for a guided tour, a PYO flowers session, and a gardening chat o er coffee and cake. Learn, make new friends and take home a unique bouquet. 10.30-12.30, £30. Book online at www. abbeyfarmflowers.co.uk

10.00am. East Devon Ramblers. 5 mile moderate walk. Beer. Tel: 01297-552860

Kinds of Kindness (18) - 19:30 Kinds of Kindness is a triptych fable, following a man without choice who tries to take control of his own life; a policeman who is alarmed that his wife who was missing-atsea has returned and seems a different person; and a woman determined to find a specific someone with a special ability, who is destined to become a prodigious spiritual leader. Bridport Electric Palace 35 South Street, DT6 3NY. Tickets £8 Book online -electricpalace.org.uk

Saturday, 10 August

‘The Bikeriders’ (15) – Picnic Night ScreeningGateway Theatre, Seaton, 7.30pm doors 6.30pm,

tickets Adults £7.50, Under 16s £6.50. The Bikeriders, starring Austin Butler, Jodie Comer, Tom Hardy and Norman Reedus, follows the rise of a midwestern motorcycle club, the Vandals. Seen through the lives of its members, the club evolves over the course of a decade from a gathering place for local outsiders into a more sinister gang, threatening the original group’s unique way of life. Tickets from 01297 625699, www.thegatewayseaton. co.uk or in person Tue - Thur 10am - 1pm.

Dorset One World Festival 11 to 4pm – Free Family Event. Borough Gardens, Dorchester. Dorset One World Festival is back once again to celebrate the diversity of cultures in Dorset through world music, dance, food, and activities. It will feature a programme of traditional and modern music involving our local communities. Come and marvel to the beautiful sounds of the sitar, listen to wonderful traditional songs from Ukraine, enjoy the sounds of traditional Syrian and Kurdish song, and get your dancing shoes on with We Afro Tallawah who will be providing funky reggae tunes and the smoothest musical delights.

Beaminster Museum Living History Day. The volunteers will be out in force, sharing their knowledge and enthusiasm for different aspects of the museum’s collection. It’s an opportunity to dig a bit deeper into local history and discover some of the fascinating stories behind the displays. If you want to know how Beaminster helped Nelson win the Battle of Trafalgar, what happened to the Witch of Netherbury or why the River Brit is so named, this is your chance! You’ll also be able to see how the museum’s newly acquired 3D scanner is helping us to ‘virtually’ expand our collection and create more interactive displays. There will be plenty to entertain children and grandchildren, with themed activities and a Design a Dorset Button competition.If you’re new to the area or a local who hasn’t yet made it to the museum, the Living History Day is the perfect introduction; if you’re a regular, the day is bound to shed fresh light on some familiar exhibits. Admission is free but donations are very welcome. 10.30am –4.00pm Whitcombe Rd, Beaminster DT8 3NB. www. beaminstermuseum.co.uk

Bubbly and Cake Tea. 3.00 – 5.00 pm in Chideock Village Hall, Main Street, Chideock. Hosted by Chideock WI. Join us for a summer tea and take the opportunity to purchase tasty WI cakes and savouries as well. Further information from chideockwi@ gmail.com or www.chideockwi.org.uk.

Seaton Outdoor Cinema presents Star Wars IV: A New Hope. The original 1977 classic will be shown in Cliff Field Gardens, Seaton, EX12 2PH. Gates open at 7.15pm and the film starts at approx. 8.45pm. Tickets: Adults £12; Children (under16) £9. To

book: visit www.tram.co.uk/cinema or visit Seaton Tourist Information or Owl & Pyramid bookshop in Seaton. For more info email: seatonoutdoorcinema@ gmail.com or visit our facebook/Instagram page for updates.

Bridport & West Dorset Rambling Club 8 mile walk from Kingston Maurwood. For further information please ring 01308 898484 or 01308 863340. New members/visitors welcome.

Saturday, 10 - 11 August

National Garden Scheme Open Garden

Glenholme Herbs, Penmore Road, Sandford Orcas, Sherborne DT9 4SE. Maxine & Rob Kellaway. Paths meander through large, colourful beds inspired by Piet Oudolf. Featuring a wide selection of herbs and salvias along with grasses, verbena and echinacea. Planted with wildlife in mind and alive with pollinators. The garden also features a beautiful natural swimming pond. A mixture of grass and firm gravel paths. Open: Sat 10, Sun 11 Aug (10-4). Adm £4, chd free. Home-made teas. Location: 3m N of Sherborne. Please see directions on our website & type Glenholme Herbs into Google maps to find us as the postcode will take you to the wrong location.

Sunday, 11 August

Yeovil Railway Centre, Yeovil Junction Station, Stoford BA22 9UU: Steam Train Day with Steam

Punk and Classic Cars. Recorded information on 01935 410420, see the website www.yeovilrailway. freeservers.com, or on Facebook. 10.30am. East Devon Ramblers. 3.5 mile easy walk. Muttersmoor Sidmouth. Tel: 01395-513974

Dance Connection & Gong Journey Day Workshop, 11am-4pm, Bridport St Mary’s CHH, 07787752201, danceconnectionwessex@gmail.com

Monday, 12 August

The Wessex Morris Men will be dancing at Maiden Newton, 7.45 at the War Memorial and the Greyhound Inn, Sydling St Nicholas at 8.30pm. All welcome to join us for a song and a tune after.

Tuesday, 13 August

Singing Bowl Soundbath 9pm Digby Memorial Hall, Sherborne, DT9 3LN. Deep tissue sonic massage and detox to take you into deephealing brainwave states. Booking ahiahe@live.com 01935 389655 £16.

Wednesday, 14 August

White Tara 2:1s 4pm onwards Oborne Village Hall, nr. Sherborne DT9 4LA. Reiki/soundbath combined 1hr individual sessions £80/60concs. Booking only ahiahel@live.com, 01935 389655.

10.30am. East Devon Ramblers. 10 mile moderate walk. Farway. Tel: 01395-488480.

IMAG(IN)E 2. Bridport Camera Club presents

an Exhibition and Open Day showcasing images by our diverse and creative membership, who like to push the boundaries of photography using whatever device they have, be it smartphone or sophisticated camera. It’s free and open to all: chat to members, browse the exhibition and take part in our 15 minute photography challenge. 10am to 4pm Bridport WI Hall North Street DT6 3JQ info@ bridportcameraclub.co.uk Samantha Mulligan 07903 933343.

Thursday, 15 August

The Chantry Buoys, 2.45pm. Jubilee Gardens, Beer. The Buoys will be singing as one of the events during Beer Regatta week, 10th-16th Aug. Also during the week, Racing and rafts, barrel-rolling, Fireworks and fancy dress.

Colyton town history walk leaving from Colyton Dolphin Car Park at 2 pm – Guided walk approximately one hour. Cost £5, children under 16 free. No booking required, all weathers. Group bookings by arrangement – Contact 01297 552514 or 01297 33406.

Friday, 16 August

La Vie en Rose - Gypsy Jazz. The south-west’s favourite gypsy jazz and hot swing band has a wellearned reputation for its take on the ‘Hot Club’ style. Toe-tapping rhythms and soaring melodies combine in a virtuoso performance of gypsy favourites, jazz standards, soulful ballads and Latin swing, all played with the verve and joy that is the heart of this music.

Tickets: Early bird £18 Standard Adult £20 Students: £5 Children 12 and under: Free. Ilminster Arts Centre, The Meeting House, East Street, Ilminster, Somerset, TA19 0AN. Tel: 01460 54973 / E: info@ ilminsterarts.org.uk

10.00am. East Devon Ramblers. 4 mile leisurely walk. Seaton. Tel: 07587-217811

Saturday, 17 August

Award-winning author Alice Allan launches her new young adult novel The Whispering Trees, set in East Devon. “The Whispering Trees is a terrific book: at once haunting, witty and witchy” (Robert Macfarlane) at 5pm in The Kings Arms, Stockland, EX14 9BS. Register via www.aliceallan.co.uk. The first 30 people to register will receive a glass of sparkling wine/soft drink.

Bridport & West Dorset Rambling Club 7 mile walk from Roman Road. For further information please ring 01308 898484 or 01308 863340. New members/visitors welcome.

‘Despicable Me 4’ (U) Family Picnic NightGateway Theatre, Seaton, 7pm doors 6pm, tickets Adults £7.50, Under 16s £6.50. Gru faces a new nemesis in Maxime Le Mal (Emmy winner Will Ferrell) and his femme fatale girlfriend Valentina (Emmy nominee Sofia Vergara), and the family is forced to go on the run. Tickets from 01297 625699, www.thegatewayseaton.co.uk or in person Tue - Thur

10am - 1pm.

Sunday, 18 August

10.30am. East Devon Ramblers. 7 mile leisurely walk. Kilmington. 01395-577891

Tuesday, 20 August

‘Letters to Juliet’ (PG) Nostalgic Cinema – Matinee screening - Gateway Theatre, Seaton – 1.30pm, doors 1pm, tickets £3.50. Anyone who loves nostalgic films is very welcome to join us for an afternoon of fond memories and friendship. This month we are screening this romantic film set in Italy, perfect for the summer! Tickets from 01297 625699, www. thegatewayseaton.co.uk or in person Tue - Thur 10am - 1pm.

Arts and crafts Decorating Sea Shells Come and join us throughout the summer holidays for fun, crafts and games. Our School Holiday activities are all inspired by our new exhibition ‘ West Bay -A Resort to Rival Others.’ 11am -3pm at West Bay Discovery Centre DT6 4EN. Free admission www. westbaydiscoverycentre.org.uk

Tuesday, 20 - 24 August

BMTC : Kinky Boots - Nightly until Saturday 24th August 19:30. The award-winning Bridport Musical Theatre Company return to the stage this summer with the hit musical ‘Kinky Boots’. This joy-filled sensation, based on a true story and hit movie, features Tony and Grammy winning music and lyrics by pop icon Cyndi Lauper, a hilarious and life-affirming book by Tony Award winner Harvey Fierstein. Bridport Electric Palace 35 South Street, DT6 3NY. Tickets £19.50 Book online -electricpalace.org.uk

Wednesday, 21 August

Coffee Morning, including cakes, scones & savouries, and bacon/egg rolls (made to order), 10.30am – noon; all welcome. Clapton & Wayford Village Hall. More details from Julia (01460 72769). Deadline for Elemental Entries for the Photography Division of Winsham Horticultural Society Annual Show: categories all relating to Earth, Air, Fire, Water. Submissions welcome from within and beyond the village. Plus, Handwriting Classes: Poem about Water. Entry forms from The Village Shop, TA20 4JA.

10.30am. East Devon Ramblers. 7 mile moderate walk. Broadhembury. Tel: 01404-549390

Thursday, 22 August

Colyton town history walk leaving from Colyton Dolphin Car Park at 2 pm – Guided walk approximately one hour. Cost £5, children under 16 free. No booking required, all weathers. Group bookings by arrangement – Contact 01297 552514 or 01297 33406.

Evening Folk Music Walk at Abbey Farm Flowers in Abbotsbury (DT3 4JJ). Come and join us for an evening walk with two local folk musicians, exploring the beautiful landscape and enjoying music along the

way. 6pm start, tickets £12. Book online at www. abbeyfarmflowers.co.uk

Friday, 23 August

‘Fly Me To The Moon’ (12A) Picnic Night

Screening - Gateway Theatre, Seaton – 7.30pm, doors 6.30pm tickets Adults £7.50, Under 16s £6.50 Starring Scarlett Johansson and Channing Tatum, Fly Me to the Moon is a sharp, stylish comedy-drama set against the high-stakes backdrop of NASA’s historic Apollo 11 moon landing. Tickets from 01297 625699, www. thegatewayseaton.co.uk or in person Tue - Thur 10am - 1pm.

10.00am. East Devon Ramblers. 6.5 mile moderate walk. Kilmington. Tel: 01297-552860.

Saturday, 24 August

Winsham Annual Show will be held at 2.30pm (£1 to enter, children go free) at the Upper Recreational Ground (Bakersfield TA20 4JN) with a host of all things floral, vegetable, homecraft, handicraft, photography & art. There will be a delicious array of cakes, tea, coffee & soft drinks on offer to enjoy while you wait for the presentation of cups at 4pm. Schedules can be obtained from Winsham Village Shop should you wish to enter, entries are only 25p per class (children’s classes free) and entries close at 7pm on Wednesday 21st August. There will also be a

BUDDING AUTHORS

Writing an interesting story, the past achievements of an organisation or a family history for self-publishing and need some advice with style, layout and editing? Contact freelance author and editor John Davis on johndavis77@btinternet.com.

car boot sale running alongside the show so do come along and join in the fun. For more details please contact Debbie 07808 505357.

Car Boot Sale running alongside Winsham Annual Show. Cars are £5 each and can set up is from 1.30pm with gates opening to the public at 2.30pm the same time as the show. For more details please contact Debbie 07808 505357.

Hawkchurch Fete 2pm to 5pm. Held on Hawkchurch playing field EX13 5XD. Includes music, majorettes, morris dancing, raffle, classic cars and tractors, hog roast, beer tent, tea tent, many traditional stalls and plenty of games for children and adults. Entry only £2.50 for adults, Under 15s are free. Proceeds to Devon Air Ambulance and other charities. Contact: peter.kleyn@companycoach.co.uk (01297 678468) for enquiries or classic car entries. Flights of Fancy: an evening of bird-themed poetry, storytelling, & music. Poets, storytellers, singers, and musicians from the West Dorset area are gathering at Bridport town hall at 7pm, to raise money for the Bridport Swift Town project. Bridport Swift Town is a community response to the dramatic decline in the UK swift population, which has declined 60% since 1995. In 2021 the much- loved birds were added to the Red List for endangered birds. The project is a collaboration between local residents, Common Ground, the Bridport Bird Club, Dorset National Landscape, Bridport Town Council, RSPB, West Dorset Wilding, Little Toller Books and the Dorset Wildlife Trust. All profits go to the Bridport Swift Town Project. There will be a licensed bar, generously provided by The Woodman pub, and an info stall. Door entry is £10 (cash only).

“Wings Appeal” Bridport and Lyme Regis members of the Royal Air Forces Association will be holding a “Wings Appeal” event in Bucky Doo square Bridport from 10am to 1pm. As well as a Bric a Brac and RAFA stall there will be live entertainment from local Morris dancers, Cynewulf Morris and Rock duo Free Spirits. Free event all welcome. Further details Bill Davies Tel: 01308 281200. Fly me to the moon (12A) 7.30pm. Adult £8, U16’s £7. Starring Scarlett Johansson and Channing Tatum, the film is a sharp, stylish comedy-drama set against the high-stakes backdrop of NASA’s historic Apollo 11 moon landing. The White House deems the mission too important to fail! The Beehive, Dowell St, Honiton EX14 1LZ. Box office: 01404 384050. www.beehivehoniton.co.uk.

Saturday, 24 - 25 August

National Garden Scheme Open Garden Folly Farm Cottage, Spyway Road, Uploders, Bridport DT6 4PH. Neil & Steph Crabb. An established garden of approx 1 acre with a contemporary twist. The garden has 4 connecting rooms, a main lawn with borders, ornamental trees and rose bed, a large pond area with mature trees, grasses, golden willow &

silver pear which leads on to a natural fruit orchard, tennis court, greenhouse & mixed raised bed. Far reaching views of Eggardon Hill & the surrounding fields. The majority of the garden can be enjoyed via wheelchair, there are 3 short steps at the kitchen side entrance of house. Opening: Sat 24, Sun 25 Aug (1-5). Adm £6, chd free. Home-made teas. Location: On Spyway Road ½m on L from Matravers House, Uploders. ½m on R from The Spyway Inn, Askerswell.

Saturday, 24 - 26 August

Abbey Farm Flower Festival A free festival celebrating flowers, with stalls, local crafts, food & drink, live music and a full programme of walks, talks and demonstrations. Fun competitions and a floral dress code - get involved! www.abbeyfarmabbotsbury. co.uk

Sunday, 25 August

National Garden Scheme Open Garden Black Shed, Blackmarsh Farm, Dodds Cross, Sherborne DT9 4JX. Paul & Helen Stickland. Over 200 colourful and productive flower beds growing a sophisticated selection of cut flowers and foliage to supply florists and the public for weddings, events and occasions throughout the seasons. Traditional garden favourites, delphiniums, larkspur, foxgloves, scabious and dahlias alongside more unusual perennials, foliage plants and grasses, creating a stunning and unique display. A warm welcome and generous advice on creating your own cut flower garden is offered. Easy access from gravel car park. Wide grass pathways enabling access for wheelchairs. Gently sloping site. Open: Sun 25 Aug (1-5). Adm £5, chd free. Location: From Sherborne, follow A30 towards Shaftesbury. Black Shed approx 1m E at Blackmarsh Farm, on L, next to The Toy Barn. Large car park shared with The Toy Barn.

French + Breton Folk Dance, Bal Crewkerne with live house band, in the Speedwell Hall, Abbey Street, Crewkerne, TA18 7HY. All welcome. Dance workshop for beginners 6-7pm followed by main dance 7-9.30pm. Admission £4 at the door. Tea and coffee available or bring your own drinks. Free parking in the town centre car parks. More information on our website: https://balcrew.wixsite. com/balcrewkerne

Tuesday, 27 August

The next U3A talk will take place at the Bridport United Church Hall, East Street, Bridport. DT6 3LJ, at 2pm. It will last about an hour, followed by a Q&A then refreshments. Members free, visitors £3. The talk is titled ‘Life on the Licence Fee’ and is given by Alex Leger. Alex worked at the BBC for a long time, and will share stories about his time there.

Wednesday, 28 August

Arts and crafts Windmill making Come and join us throughout the summer holidays for fun, crafts and games. Our School Holiday activities are

all inspired by our new exhibition ‘ West Bay -A Resort to Rival Others.’ 11am -3pm at West Bay Discovery Centre DT6 4EN. Free admission www. westbaydiscoverycentre.org.uk

10.00am. East Devon Ramblers. 8 mile moderate walk. Abbotsbury. Tel: 01308-898432

Thursday, 29 August

Music deco - an evening of light music from renowned, international musicians, 7pm, The Mariners` Hall, Beer, East Devon. Advance tickets 12 pounds from www.ticketsource.co.uk/bags.

Colyton town history walk leaving from Dolphin Car Park at 2 pm – Guided walk approximately one hour. Cost £5 , children under 16 free. No booking required, all weathers. Group bookings by arrangement – Contact 01297 552514 or 01297 33406.

Fly Me To The Moon (12a) - 19:30. Starring Scarlett Johansson and Channing Tatum, Fly Me To The Moon is a sharp, stylish comedy-drama set against the high-stakes backdrop of NASA’s historic Apollo 11 moon landing. Bridport Electric Palace 35 South Street, DT6 3NY. Tickets £8 Book online -electricpalace.org.uk

Friday, 30 August

The Seatrees + *pint and ploughman’s. The Seatrees are a lively acoustic duo. Bring your friends and family and have a boogie to the all your favourite rock classics. Ticket price includes ploughman’s and *glass of cider or soft drink. Tickets: £12 (includes ploughman’s and glass of cider or soft drink). Ilminster Arts Centre, The Meeting House, East Street, Ilminster, Somerset, TA19 0AN. Tel: 01460 54973 / E: info@ilminsterarts.org.uk.

The Commandant’s Shadow (12a)19:30. Two lives. Two stories. One wall that divided them. Witness the historic moment over 70 years after the Holocaust when the son of the Commandant of Auschwitz meets an incredible survivor. Bridport Electric Palace 35 South Street, DT6 3NY. Tickets £8 Book online -electricpalace.org.uk

10.30am. East Devon Ramblers. 6 mile moderate walk. Sidbury. 01395-579607.

Saturday, 31 August

Bridport & West Dorset Rambling Club 7.5 mile walk from Upwey. For further information please ring 01308 898484 or 01308 863340. New members/ visitors welcome.

EVENTS IN SEPTEMBER

Live or Online send your event details to info@marshwoodvale.com BY AUGUST 12th

Dalwood Jazz Club presents The Jake Leg Jug Band with Duncan Wilcox - vocals & double bass, Warren James - vocals & guitar/banjo, Cohen Wilcox - washboard, Richard Leach - trombone. Dalwood Village Hall, EX13 7EG (near Axminster) 3pm. Bar for beer/wine/soft drinks and teas/coffees/cake etc. Parking at the Village Hall £12.50p. If possible, please book in advance and pay (cash or card) at the door. t.mackenney111@btinternet.com

Thelma (12A) 7.30pm. Adult £8, U16’s £7. Comedy starring June Squibb. Deceived by a phone scammer pretending to be her grandson, a 90-yearold woman sets out on a quest to reclaim what was taken from her. The Beehive, Dowell St, Honiton EX14 1LZ. Box office: 01404 384050. www. beehivehoniton.co.uk.

Despicable Me 4 (U) - 11:00am. Gru faces a new nemesis in Maxime Le Mal (Emmy winner Will Ferrell) and his femme fatale girlfriend Valentina (Emmy nominee Sofia Vergara), and the family is forced to go on the run. Bridport Electric Palace 35 South Street , DT6 3NY. Tickets £6 Child £8 Adult Book online -electricpalace.org.uk

LYME REGIS

Rare find at Fossil Festival

An opportunity to sift through sand brought by the Natural History Museum to the Lyme Regis Fossil Festival revealed a rare tooth for one 7 year old visitor. James Okai’s discovery was considered ‘a very nice find’ by Dr Neil Adams, the Curator of Fossil Mammals at the Natural History Museum. He said the tooth was from an ancient animal called Prototomus that lived more than 55 million years ago. It was donated to the museum.

EAST DEVON

Four Green Flag Awards

The Green Flag Award scheme which rewards well-managed parks and green spaces has recognised four areas in East Devon as some of the best in the country. A testament to the hard work and dedication of the teams that care for them, the spaces are: Connaught Gardens and Peak Hill Slope in Sidmouth, Manor Gardens in Exmouth, Seafield Gardens in Seaton, and Seaton Wetlands.

BEAMINSTER

British Legion branch centenary

The Beaminster branch of the Royal British Legion celebrated the centenary of its formation with a church service and barbecue recently, with a raffle raising £890 for RBL funds. Music was provided by the Prout Bridge Project Band and the Bridport Broadsides Band. The branch welcomed new MP, Edward Morello, his wife and family to the event, giving the Chairman an opportunity to outline what the occasion was all about.

WEYMOUTH

Seagull banned from shop A cheeky seagull nicknamed ‘Steven Seagull’ has been banned from a Weymouth store for shoplifting. A video of the seagull brazenly walking into the shop and taking a packet of crisps has gone viral on the internet. In an effort to stop Steven thieving, staff at the Lyndale Central store in Wyke Regis have put up posters urging customers to make sure to close the door after them to stop the gull.

PORTLAND

Bibby Stockholm to close

The contract for the Bibby Stockholm asylum accommodation in Portland is not to be renewed past January 2025 according to a government announcement. Ending the use of the barge forms part of the expected £7.7 billion of savings in asylum costs over the next ten years, as the Home Secretary takes action to restart asylum caseworking, clear the backlog and remove those with no right to be here.

Getting out on a bike, for those who can’t

IS your Granny about to have a big birthday? Does she want to go out for a ride but hasn’t got a bike? Does she want to experience being outside and feeling the wind in her hair? Cycling Without Age will take her out and bring her back feeling as though she has had a really ‘special’ day.

The local group of Cycline Without Age take people out, young and old, grandad’s as well as Granny’s, indeed anyone who can’t get out for themselves for a whole host of reasons. They don’t have to be celebrating a birthday. The group has a trishaw which can take two passengers for a gentle ride.

The Bridport bike is based at West Bay where they ride out along the piers, along the esplanade or up the old railway track past the children’s playground.

For anyone who is housebound or not confident about going out, unable to go to these places themselves but would like to do so Cycling Without Age can talk about how to gently help people reexperience the sea air, the view of the cliffs, watch the waves coming in or listen to the noise of the children playing in the park.

Cycling Without Age is a charity, that is run nationally, but caters for the local community who might benefit from just getting out.

If you would like to explore what can be done for you or someone you know why not give the local organiser a ring on 07753 817294. They make no charge but welcome donations from anyone who wishes to support the charity.

For more information visit https:// cyclingwithoutage.org

ONature Studies

By Michael McCarthy

ne of the few compensations for the wetness of the first half of summer 2024 has been the pageant of summer flowers. Flower lovers in Dorset are used to stunning outbursts in the spring, the primroses and wood anemones, the bluebells and wild garlic; but the blooms which follow in June and July are rarely so spectacular in their displays. This year, however, has been different. The seeminglycontinuous rain of this period, so depressing for us humans (and so damaging for butterflies and other insects) has led to many examples of very lush growth, of vegetation going truly rampant. On the chalk downs the grasses seem taller than ever and some which last year were knee-high are waist-high or even breast-high. Hogweed, which replaces cow parsley as the white umbellifer in the hedgerows and roadside verges at the end of May, is flourishing in mini-forests. Teasels, those tall plants with prickly heads which used to be used in cloth-making, look enormous: one which has sprung up in the wild part of our garden is fully eight feet from base to tip. But it is not just size, it is the colourful displays of summer flowers which have been notable. Two in particular have been rosebay willowherb, deep pink, and meadowsweet, creamy-white; on the railway going north from Dorchester to Bath I have seen great swathes of them, sometimes growing together, which is quite a sight; and the thickets of buddleia which grow alongside the tracks have never seemed so profuse with their scented purple spikes (alas for the butterflies which should be covering them and are absent). The upright sprays of viper’s bugloss, which are a deep blue, have never looked more

An incomer’s discovery of the natural world in the West Country

magnificent. Other flowers which are so common as to be thought of as weeds, such as the bright yellow ragwort and the pink-and-white Himalayan balsam, an invasive species which can take over river banks and be very hard to extirpate, seem to be more plentiful than ever in 2024; I have seen ragwort covering whole hillsides.

That this is different from the norm may of course just be my impression. But I don’t think so. And one species in particular confirms it for me, which goes by the splendid name of hemlock water dropwort. This is a plant of wet places, especially the sides of streams; it is an umbellifer, a sort of aquatic version of hogweed, although its umbels, its large white flower heads, are globular rather than flat. I have never seen anything like its growth this year: in June it turned sections of the water meadows of the River Frome around Dorchester into pure white corridors. Peter Marren, one of our leading botanists, told me he had never seen the plant in such quantities.

Hemlock water dropwort has a drawback: as the first part of its triple name implies, it is poisonous, so perhaps if you are gathering a bunch of summer wild flowers next year, leave this one out. Although personally, I would settle for fewer summer blooms in 2025, in return for a lot less rain when the June sun should be shining, and a lot more butterflies.

Recently relocated to Dorset, Michael McCarthy is the former Environment Editor of The Independent. His books include Say Goodbye To The Cuckoo and The Moth Snowstorm: Nature and Joy.

Pure white corridors of hemlock water dropwort © Photograph by Robin Mills

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This Month in the

not so distant past

Taking a look back at historical moments that happened in August, John Davis highlights Jesse Owens’ Olympic Games

The arena that staged the final of the Euro 2024 Football Championships recently—or the Olympiastadion to use its correct title— was built on the same site where the Berlin Olympic Games were held in August 1936.

Germany had missed out on staging the games in 1914 because of the onset of the First World War. But in 1931, despite much opposition, they were offered the 1936 slot mainly because influential members of the Olympic Committee, particularly the American Avery Brundage, thought it would be a good way to ease them back into the international community.

By the mid-1930s Hitler and the Nazi Party were firmly in control in Germany and it did not take Propaganda Minister, Joseph Goebbels, long to realise that the event could prove to be an amazing public relations exercise. In effect, the Berlin Olympics were not only to be hijacked by the Third Reich but also Nazified as well.

The 1936 Olympic Stadium, designed by Werner March and Albert Speer, took three years to build and, with some standing room, could hold up to 100,000 people.

Using stage management skills that had been honed during the spectacular torch-lit Nazi Party rallies at Nuremberg, the ceremonial aspects of the Berlin Olympics were to provide a template that is still featured in parts today.

They were the first to open with a parade of all the competing athletes, for example, and the first to transport the Olympic torch, (made from Krupp steel this time), from Greece to the host stadium using a team of relay runners. Finally, after Hitler and his entourage had made their imposing entrance, Berlin was first to feature the lone athlete mounting the flight of steps to ignite the sacred flame. In addition to huge crowds in the stadium, events were relayed on radio and, for the first time, there were even transmissions from a fledgling television network. Everything, at least outwardly, was aimed to provide a display of super-efficiency-a glitzy demonstration to the world that Germany was a vibrant, thriving nation worthy of its place on the world stage.

Re-inforcing this impression were leading members of the Nazi hierarchy like Herman Goering, never one to miss a chance of ‘glad-handing’ in his role as the genial, jovial bon viveur. Visiting statesmen, politicians, ambassadors and news correspondents were entertained at a series of lavish receptions, dances and other functions where some serious social networking took place.

Most visitors though were unaware that many properties on the roads and railway tracks leading into Berlin had been renovated or re-painted and that racial graffiti on businesses and synagogues had been cleaned up. The waves of antisemitism that had intensified since the passing of the Nuremberg Race Laws in 1935 were temporarily suspended but leading German athletes with Jewish ancestry were barred from taking part.

Contrary to all of this National Socialist hype and the fact that Germany finished top of the medal table, the 1936 Berlin Olympiad is best remembered for a quiet, unassuming African American athlete named Jesse Owens.

The sprinter’s full name was James Cleveland Owens but he was known in the family as JC. In his youth, a teacher had misinterpreted the initials and when ‘Jesse’ was entered in the official school register the epithet stuck.

Owen picked up gold medals in the 100m, 200m, long jump and 4 x 100m relay, breaking several world best times. The four-fold haul was to remain a record for forty-eight years until Carl Lewis repeated the feat at Los Angeles in 1984.

One lesser-known detail of Owens’ long jump success was the friendship he established with his nearest rival in the event, German athlete Carl Ludwig ‘Luz’ Long. Long offered Owens helpful advice when the American’s run-up caused problems and was the first to congratulate him after the winning leap. In fact, the two jumpers completed a lap of honour together.

Hitler, was said to have expressed his disapproval while Long was later chastised by the authorities for not being ‘racially conscious’ and his behaviour was monitored for a while afterwards.

Owens, the grandson of slaves, had grown up picking cotton during breaks from school. He was feted on his return to America although was later ostracised by athletics organisations for refusing to take part in certain events.

At one point in order to raise money for his young family he resorted to challenge races against local champions and even tested his speed against dogs, horses, motor cycles and cars.

In the 1950s he established himself as a motivational speaker before setting up his own public relations business and the Jesse Owens Foundation. The organisation still operates today providing financial assistance and support for young people with untapped potential. Owens received several top awards in the USA before his death in 1980 at the age of sixty-six.

And what of his friend Long. He never met Owens again but continued to compete until the outbreak of the Second World War. He then worked as a lawyer until being conscripted into the Wehrmacht where he was killed in action following the Allied invasion of Sicily in 1943.

In 1966, Owens returned to Germany to make the documentary film ‘Jesse Owens Returns to Berlin’. There he met Long’s grown-up son Kai and since then descendants of the two long jumpers have kept in contact with each other.

Footnotes:

Uncertainty surrounds the apocryphal story that Hitler stormed out of the stadium in 1936 to avoid shaking hands with Owens. With other duties to attend to, the Fuhrer did not visit events every day. When asked about it, Owens himself was guarded but, with emphasised irony, added, “Although I wasn’t actually invited to shake hands with Hitler, I wasn’t invited to the White House to shake hands with the President either.”

Hitler’s favourite film maker Leni Rienfenstahl, well known for her Nazi propaganda film ‘Triumph of the Will’, also made a 1938 documentary on the Berlin Olympics entitled simply ‘Olympia’. It is easy to access.

Semi-retired and living in Lyme Regis, John Davis started working life as a newspaper journalist before moving on to teach in schools, colleges and as a private tutor. He is a history graduate with Bachelors and Masters degrees from Bristol University with a particular interest in the History of Education and Twentieth Century European History

Luz Long of Germany talks to Jesse Owens, USA

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Spectacular Summer Sunflowers in Dorchester in aid of Hospital’s Emergency and Critical Care Appeal

Get ready to enjoy the spectacular 2024 Sunflower Trails at Maiden Castle Farm— and all the other Sunflower events being planned in and around Dorchester this summer. All the fundraising events will be supporting Dorset County Hospital’s Emergency and Critical Care Appeal.

The sunflower seeds have been planted, now it’s time to watch them grow and look forward to experiencing the beautiful sunflower trails and displays. This year the sunflower trails will be complemented by a range of additional events and activities on the Maiden Farm site and around

Dorchester town.

Dorchester Town Council’s Matilda Manley said: ‘We’re running a number of special events to tie in with the sunflower theme—these include a Sunflower Summer Spectacle in Dorchester on Saturday 24 August with fun family activities for all ages.’

One major new feature around the sunflowers themselves will be an early evening run through the sunflower fields and around Maiden Castle, with a choice of 5km and 10km routes. Visitors will be able to stay to watch the runners as they complete their race.

Another exciting new event is a new Art competition. Four categories of painters will be encouraged to take part, from expert to under 16s, who will find a suitable location to set up their equipment then paint or draw their impressions of the sunflowers, to be later judged by a small panel.

Dorset County Hospital Arts in Hospital Manager, Suzy Rushbrook said: ‘We’re really looking forward to this element of the sunflower summer—to bring together new and established local artists in a beautiful setting to create their own works of art. We hope to exhibit some of the winning paintings in the hospital’s new Emergency Department when it’s finished, so more people can enjoy them.’

Hazel Hoskin of Maiden Castle Farm said, ‘We’ll have to wait and see what the weather brings before we can provide the exact dates the sunflower trails will open, but keep an eye on our website so that you can book your tickets early as soon as they go on sale. We’re keeping the price the same as last year, just £5 per person. We’ll also have activities for children to take part in as they explore the trails.’

Hazel added: ‘We’ve also got an amazing raffle with prizes including a fantastic driftwood sculpture and driftwood art workshops, to create your own sculpture to take home. Plus Sundowner events in the evening—perfect for watching the sun set over the sunflowers—and a pilates evening!’

The Dorset County Hospital Charity team are working with Hazel, Matilda, and the wider team to make this the best sunflower spectacular so far!

Keep an eye out for further information here: www. maidencastlefarm.co.uk/sunflower-trail

For more information about the Emergency and Critical Care Appeal visit www.dchcharity.org.uk

August in the Garden

By Russell Jordan

At the time of writing we’ve not had a particularly hot or dry summer so the garden is holding up pretty well without too much supplementary irrigation (I hope I’m not tempting fate by writing that!). In August there is still a chance that we will have a hot, dry, spell so make sure that whatever you need, to water essential garden areas, is still in working order. Recently planted areas, where plants may not yet be fully established, are a priority for watering in dry weather and established beds and borders should only be watered in extreme conditions. Grass should never be watered because, however parched it becomes, it will always bounce back as soon as wet weather returns.

Plants in pots and containers will, of course, still require artificial watering unless there is a really decent amount of natural rainfall. If you are going on holiday this month then it’s probably worth finding a trusted neighbour to at least water your containers and impress upon them that this will be required even if there isn’t a heatwave. Plants in pots and containers cannot send their roots out into the soil, to seek out any available moisture, so they are entirely dependent upon you for their life giving water. If no-one is able to do your watering for you then moving your container grown plants into the shade, watering them very well before you go away, is a good idea. Standing the pots in large saucers, or in water filled trays, will extend the time it takes for them to dry out.

Dry spells stress plants and make them more susceptible to disease and this may show up on plants, such as Knautia macedonica, by mildew which turns the green leaves to a silvery colour. This is unsightly so cutting them down, to remove the spent stems,

will help to freshen up the border and encourage established plants to produce fresh, green, shoots. You can allow the seed from plants such as this Knautia to fall to the ground, as you cut it back, because it, like the similarly useful Verbena bonariensis and Lychnis coronaria, seeds itself around in the border and is easy to weed out whenever it threatens to become too numerous.

Another plant which really will need cutting back, if you’ve not done so already, is catmint (Nepeta) which will have finished flowering by now and which tends to squash its neighbouring plants if left to its own devices. Cutting it back now gives it a chance to produce a new flush of foliage and flower before it dies down again in the autumn. The large mats of foliage, which catmint produces, will provide excellent cover for pests, such as slugs and snails, so removing them has the added advantage of controlling these undesirables into the bargain.

Less of a thug, but still likely to need some intervention at this point of the year, is Stachys byzintina, ‘Lamb’s Ears’. It produces upright, woody, flowering stems which can also succumb to mildew by now and which, even if they do not succumb, are best removed in order to encourage the plant to produce a new flush of silvery leaves, rather than the upright flower spikes. Removing spent flowers is beneficial to most border plants so treating Stachys in this way is really not that unusual. Wherever you find spent flowers in the border it’s generally a good idea to remove them as this usually encourages the plant to produce new flowers or foliage. The exceptions are plants which have architectural flower spikes, such as Phlomis russeliana, or those which you are leaving in order to collect seed.

One task which it is traditional to do at this time of year is cutting yew hedges. Mixed hedges and those with largely deciduous species in them will probably have needed cutting a little and often to keep them to their required shape and proportions. The reason for tackling evergreen hedges, such as yew, now is that they will have produced extension growth over the summer which needs removing, if they are to be kept under control, and doing it now allows them time to recover, with some regrowth, before the onset of autumn and colder weather.

One of the major benefits of much improved battery technology is that there really are plenty of affordable cordless hedge trimmers on the market now. It really is so much easier, and safer, to be able to cut even well established hedges with electric trimmers which need no power cable. The other essential, if you have tall hedges or topiary specimens to cut, is a sturdy but lightweight ladder, or platform, to work from; aluminium tripod ladders are particularly useful.

On the subject of cutting back or pruning, now is a good time to tackle rambling type roses which have finished flowering. Just like wisteria, which we tackled last month, rambling roses tend to produce a

large amount of extension growth, over the summer, and most of this is superfluous. Although most roses are pruned while dormant, and leafless, over the winter the reason for pruning rambling, or vigorous climbing, roses now is to remove the excessive growth before it can get caught up in autumn winds which could cause the rose to get dislodged from its supporting structure. Just like with wisteria, you need to decide which stems are ‘structural’ and need to be retained and then remove, or severely shorten, any extension growth which is not needed. Pruning out the oldest stems and tying in new, strong, shoots will keep the rose vigorous and abundant.

Elsewhere in the garden it’s much the same as usual when it comes to grass cutting and maintenance tasks. Keeping on top of dead-heading and feeding of bedding and tender perennials will ensure that they carry on flowering for as long as possible. Keeping an eye open for pests and diseases will allow you to tackle these before they become a problem although, by this point of the year, the natural balance of pest and predator should be doing the hard work for you. As with every other month of the year, hopefully there will be time for you to enjoy your garden whatever state it is in and whatever may need doing!

Food&Dining

INGREDIENTS

For the jelly

• 100-120g strawberries, hulled and chopped

• 100g caster sugar

• 6g leaf gelatine (2 sheets)

• 200ml white port

For the base

• 50g sponge cake

• 100ml white port

• 150g strawberries, hulled and sliced

For the custard

• 300ml double cream

• vanilla pod

• 5 free-range medium egg yolks

• 60g caster sugar

• 2tsp cornflour

For the topping

• 250ml double cream

• 50-60g strawberries, hulled and sliced

• 20-30g flaked almonds, lightly toasted, or crushed macaroons

WHITE PORT AND STRAWBERRY TRIFLE

This luxurious trifle was inspired by a trip to Portugal to visit one of our wine suppliers, Quinta de La Rosa. Around 2010, I visited the vineyard with my friend Mitch Tonks to meet owner Sophia Bergqvist, a 6th generation port and winemaker in the Douro Valley. After a long lunch we came up with a plan for our own wine called ‘Tonnix’ (Tonks and Hix). Now that was a pretty productive lunch! I asked my friend Tracey Emin to design the label, and here we are, still drinking Tonnix over 14 years later. Rick Stein recently sampled the wine at an event we hosted together at The Oyster & Fish House. He agreed to cohost a dinner with me and Mitch at the vineyard later this year, so we have curated a 2-day experience on 27/28th November which you can book online here https://theoysterandfishhouse.co.uk/news-events/tonnixon-tour/

DIRECTIONS

1. For the jelly, put the chopped strawberries, 200ml water and the sugar into a saucepan. Bring to the boil, lower the heat and simmer gently for a couple of minutes.

2. Meanwhile, cover the gelatine leaves with cold water and soak for a few minutes to soften. Take off the heat. Squeeze the gelatine to remove excess water, add to the strawberry mixture and stir until dissolved. Strain the mixture through a fine sieve into a bowl and leave to cool a little, then add the white port.

3. For the trifle base, break the sponge into pieces and arrange in a layer in the bottom of a glass serving bowl or 4 individual dishes. Sprinkle the port evenly over the sponge and lay the strawberries on top. Pour over the cooled (but not set) jelly so it just covers the strawberries and put in the fridge for an hour or so to set.

4. Meanwhile, make the custard. Pour the cream into a heavy-based saucepan. Split the vanilla pod lengthways, scrape out the seeds with a knife and add them to the cream with the empty pod. Slowly bring to the boil, then remove from the heat and leave to infuse for about 10 minutes.

5. In a bowl, mix the egg yolks, sugar and cornflour together. Take out the vanilla pod and pour the cream on to the egg mix, whisking well. Return to the pan and cook gently over a low heat, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon until the custard thickens; don’t let it boil. Pour into a bowl, cover the surface with a sheet of greaseproof paper to prevent a skin forming and leave to cool.

6. Once the jelly has set, spoon the cooled custard on top. Cover and refrigerate for half an hour or so until the custard has set.

7. For the topping, softly whip the cream, then spoon on top of the trifle. Decorate with the strawberry slices and toasted almonds or crushed macaroons.

MARK HIX

Photgraph by Matt Austin

Catering Business of the Year for Local Food Links

SCHOOL meals provider and social enterprise, Local Food Links (LFL), is delighted to announce that they have won the Catering Business of the Year Award at the LACA Awards for Excellence in Birmingham on 4th July.

The judges recognised an organisation that has demonstrated a high level of management skill, initiative, and commitment, which has brought about positive change in food service in Dorset.

This prestigious award represents the hard work and commitment that has gone into the success and growth of LFL over the last 18 years and it is a real honour for Caroline and her team.

Local Food Links had also been nominated in the Natasha Allergy Research Foundation Allergy Management Award. For a relatively small organisation to be shortlisted in two categories amongst much larger companies demonstrates the dedication and skill of the LFL team.

Caroline Morgan, Chief Executive, said: ‘I am absolutely delighted that our unique organisation has been recognised for the work that has been done to reintroduce a hot meals service across schools in Dorset. More than that, we have built a reputation as a high quality service provider who schools value working with. This award is for the entire team and our Directors, who are all dedicated to feeding children well.’

A LONG WAY

From Amarillo

Still touring and wowing audiences after a diagnosis of dementia

Tony Christie talks to Fergus Byrne

If you’ve got it, don’t be ashamed of it says singer Tony Christie about his diagnosis of dementia. ‘Get to the doctors and get on the tablets quickly’ is his advice. Now 81 years old, the British singer who had three hits in a row in 1971 with Las Vegas, I Did what I Did for Maria and (Is This the Way to) Amarillo is determined not to hide from his diagnosis, which he received exactly 50 years later in 2021. Since the diagnosis, he has become an ambassador for the Music for Dementia charity and, alongside Sting, recorded Andrew Gold’s Thank You For Being A Friend to support the charity’s Thank You Day

But what may surprise many is that at 81 whilst dealing with dementia, Tony is still touring and putting on memorable concerts for fans of all ages. ‘It’s constant, I never stop’ he laughs when I speak to him and his son Sean about the current tour entitled Tony Christie, A Life of Music Celebrating 80 Years. He is also somewhat surprised that he’s reaching a ‘full audience of mixed ages’ saying, ‘It’s fantastic, but a bit shocking at times. You see these young kids in the audience singing along, knowing all the words.’

Fronting a six-piece band along with backing singers, Tony says his singing is still strong. ‘This thing hasn’t affected my voice at all’ he tells me. ‘People are saying I’m singing better than ever.’ One of the bonuses that fans have mentioned is the fact that since so many of his songs are stories, the fact that he doesn’t try to reach certain high notes adds a new dimension to the performance. ‘There’s more emotion in what I’m doing now because I don’t have to shout the high notes.’

Tony was surrounded by music from a young age. His Irish grandparents were in a ceilidh band ‘My grandmother played the fiddle, and my grandfather played the Squeezebox, and then my father was a piano player. Also, on the English side of the family he says ‘there were some good voices, good singers.’

He started from an early age. ‘I started singing when I was five or six years old’ he says. When his grandparents would come over to visit, he remembers standing on a little stool to sing for them. In school the music teacher sent him to sit at the front of the class saying, “Go up to the front, because you can sing!”

The talent began to offer benefits early on. He remembers how he and his friend Dave would sing together while walking home from school. They graduated to becoming a club act singing Everley Brothers songs. He remembers how Dave’s Mum went to a Glee Club and would invite them to come along and sing a few songs. ‘We agreed to do it because we were about 16 years old at the time and they used to go all over the place, do these shows. And we went with them. And on the way back, they all stopped at a pub. So, we were in the pub drinking beer, my mate and I at 16 years old!’

As his own career took off, he signed with a manager called Harvey Lisberg who also managed Herman’s Hermits and Neil Sedaka at the time. Lisberg brought a tape of Tony’s singing to Neil Sedaka who played him the rough outline of (Is This the Way to) Amarillo. Lisberg liked it but Sedaka said it wasn’t finished as he hadn’t written lyrics for the part that went “Sha La La, La La, La La La”. Which, as Tony laughingly remembers, ‘was the bloody hit part!’ The song followed Las Vegas and I Did What I Did for Maria and was a hit in the UK and Number 1 in Belgium and Germany, also reaching Number 2 in the New Zealand charts at the time.

Tony’s career carried on throughout the 80s and 90s with a huge European following and (Is This the Way to) Amarillo hit the British charts again in 2005 when comedian Peter Kay mimed the song in a video to support Comic Relief and Children in Need. While Kay mimed, a backdrop featured Tony singing, as well as Brian May, Roger Taylor and Michael Parkinson amongst a vast supporting cast. He has also been recording a new album in Nashville which is due out in March 2025. The album covers many of his hits including what he describes as a ‘gospel’ sounding version of (Is This the Way to) Amarillo.

Tony Christie has collaborated and sung with a raft of different artists from Shirley Bassey to Nile Rodgers. It’s more people than he can remember, and as he points out with a laugh, that’s not just caused

by dementia. ‘I’m 81 you know!’ With his cover of Thank you for Being a Friend with Sting now in the encores for his live shows, his support and openness about his condition are a credit to his resilience and determination to make something positive out of it. Talking about how he wants people to act now and not fear the condition he says, ‘Nobody should be ashamed. I admitted it three years ago, but I wasn’t ashamed of it. They put me straight away onto very strong tablets, which I’m on still which has kept it down. It hasn’t gotten any worse.’

Talking about his support of Music for Dementia and the Thank you Day that he recorded the song for, he also highlights the ‘unseen carers’ who are supporting loved ones and friends: “I am living proof of the power of music on people living with dementia and I fully support the Music for Dementia campaign and its work with Thank You Day. It is so special that this country has been gifted a day that connects communities with this incredible celebration of people and music.”

Whilst Tony is convinced that a cure is a matter of a few years away, he reserves his most poignant comment for the end of our conversation. With the astute timing and magical twinkle of the great Northern comedians he says: ‘Treat it like you’ve got a bit of flu. And it’ll go away eventually.’

Tony Christie will be performing at Westlands in Yeovil on the 5th September 2024 (7.30pm). For tickets and more information visit https://www.westlandsyeovil.co.uk/whats-on/#top.

Tony Christie will be in Yeovil in September

Celebrating One World in Dorchester

Dorset One World Festival is back once again to celebrate the diversity of cultures in Dorset through world music, dance, food, and activities. This free event will be held on Saturday 10th August from 11 am - 4 pm at the Borough Gardens in Dorchester and will feature a programme of traditional and modern music involving our local communities. Enjoy the beautiful sounds of the sitar and the wonderful traditional songs from Ukraine as well as the sounds of traditional Syrian and Kurdish song, and get your dancing shoes on with We Afro Tallawah who will be providing funky reggae tunes and the smoothest musical delights.

The Global Food Village will offer a wide selection of mouthwatering fresh food and drinks from around the world. Come and taste some incredible cuisine, from Tibetan dumplings and Middle Eastern falafel to appetising Thai food, authentic Asian curries, South American burritos, Italian pizza, Afro-Caribbean jerk chicken, and more! There will even be a fries stall, where you can have a range of yummy toppings from around the world. And if you have a sweet tooth, there will be treats available including freshly cooked churros.

As well as music and food, the event will feature a wide range of stalls and additional activities to get involved with, including an African drumming session, henna painting, and fermentation workshops. Children will also be well catered for with a bouncy castle and arts and crafts workshops.

The event is being hosted by the South West Dorset Multicultural Network and Dorchester Town Council and has been kindly sponsored by Dorset Council, the Casterbridge Rotary Club and Dorchester Town Council. ‘We hope that residents and visitors come and enjoy the festival and experience a fun, friendly and culturally enriching day’ said Mona Elkotory, Chair of the South West Dorset Multicultural Network.

Dorset One World Festival is at Borough Gardens in Dorchester on Saturday 10th August 2024 – 11 am to 4 pm.

GALLERIES August

1 - 29 August

George Biles King of Signwriters. A major retrospective art exhibition celebrating the remarkable talents of Bridport’s Master Sign Painter George Biles (1900 - 1987). British Legion Hall – 10.00 to 16.00 Tuesday to Saturday. Bridport Arts Centre – 10.00 to 16.00. Bridport Museum – 10.00 to 16.00. Lord Nelson Skittle Alley during the pub opening hours – visit www.lordnelsonbridport.co.uk. George Biles Murals at the Electric Palace, South Street. If you would like to see the murals the Electric Palace Box Office will be open on: Sat 10 Aug | 10am – 2.30pm. Sat 24 Aug | 10am – 2.30pm.

Until 2 August

Landmarks: the Colours and Patterns of Dorset – an exhibition of vibrant paintings by Hilary Buckley. After a very successful first solo exhibition last summer, this will be the second exhibition of vibrant paintings by Hilary Buckley, a Lyme-Regisbased artist, who specialises in depicting the local Dorset landscape in her own colourful style. For more information visit dorset-artist.uk. The Malthouse Gallery, Town Mill, Lyme Regis DT7 3PU. Daily 10.00am to 5.00pm. Free admission. Contact: 01297 444111. Website: Dorset-artist.uk

Until 5 August

Time by the Sea An exhibition of paintings by Richard Corbett. A collection of paintings inspired by the artist’s walks by the sea and through the coastal landscape of West Dorset and South Goa. He tries to capture the sense of space, atmosphere and emotion that the coast evokes - a place to be immersed in Nature. This exhibition is in support of The Living

Tree charity, helping people live well with and beyond cancer. Eype Centre for the Arts, St. Peter’s Church Mount Lane. Eype. Bridport, Dorset DT6 6AR 10:304:30. https://richard-corbett-artist.sumupstore.com/

10 - 19 August

Adrian Sykes Solo exhibition. After the success of his solo exhibition last year, Marine House are delighted to present another collection of work by artist Adrian Sykes. What makes his work distinctive and compelling is his undoubtable fertile imagination which displays itself by simple twists in seemingly straightforward townscapes and landscapes. Intriguing houses on lakes, vertiginous towns with amazing pathways and incongruous juxtapositions of people and places, industrial towns, Venice inspired scenes, wintry landscapes and hot desert oasis are all represented in this show. Adrian’s bold and warm use of his chosen medium and technique underlines his creative confidence and stimulate the viewer’s imagination. The exhibition starts on the 10th August at Marine House and runs until 19th August. Marine House at Beer info@marinehouseatbeer.co.uk. www. marinehouseatbeer.co.uk

13 - 26 August

Richard Kaye, Recent Works The Malthouse Gallery, The Town Mill, Lyme Regis DT7 3PU Opening times: 10 – 5 daily (including Sundays). This exhibition is incredibly varied and includes abstract landscapes of Exeter, vibrant, geometric wooden reliefs, some Brutalist screen prints, and some hugely accomplished drawings too. The common thread is a constant focus on dramatic compositions and explosive use of colour. Not to be missed!.https:// www.instagram.com/richkayeprints

Until 24 August

‘By Invitation’ An exhibition featuring invited artists centring around a nature theme. Free entry. Ilminster Arts Centre, TA19 0AN. Open Tuesday – Saturday. 9.30am - 3pm. 01460 54973 www.ilminsterartscentre. com.

27 August - 21 September

‘Connections’ Four artists get together to show their connections to the landscape in a new exhibition entitled ‘Connections’. Margaret Micklewright, Andrea Oke, Mary Stradling, Angela Uren will be showing work related to the inspiration they get from the amazing landscapes of the British Isles. Free entry. Ilminster Arts Centre, TA19 0AN. Open Tuesday – Saturday. 9.30am - 3pm. 01460 54973 www. ilminsterartscentre.com

Until 31 August

seam collective: A Visible Thread. Through a diverse range of textile disciplines and perspectives, this exhibition brings together the work from 15 seam artists to stimulate thought, connection and conversation. Tuesday – Saturday, 10am – 5pm. Thelma Hulbert Gallery, Dowell St, Honiton EX14 1LX thelmahulbert.com. 01404 45006.

Until 13 September

Mapping the Undercliffs Nature Reserve. A refreshing new way for us to look at the Dorset and Devon coastal paths is offered in this fascinating collection of images and strip maps hand-drawn by nature journaling artist Alex Boon, who spent a year documenting the pathways, wildlife and landmarks of the Undercliffs Nature Reserve. Be inspired to replicate Alex’s journeys with your own coastal adventure. Rotunda Gallery, Lyme Regis Museum, Bridge St, Lyme Regis DT7 3QA, Tues-Sat 10am-5pm, Sun 10am-4pm, www.lymeregismuseum.co.uk

Until 15 September

Slader’s Summer Print Show Aquatint, carborundum, deep etching, screenprint, linocut and woodcut prints by: Laura Boswell ARE, Martyn Brewster ARE, Merlyn Chesterman RE, Nick Jones, Anita Klein RE and Sally McLaren RE. Wooden sculpture by Roger Hardy. Furniture and sculpture by Petter Southall. Ceramics by leading studio potters and sculptors. Sladers Yard, West Bay Road, West Bay, Bridport Dorset DT6 4EL gallery@sladersyard.co.uk Tel. 01308 459511.

Click Here for an Easy Read version of this article

Retrospective for master sign painter

Amajor retrospective art exhibition celebrating the remarkable talents of Bridport’s Master Sign Painter, George Biles will take place during August across different venues in Bridport.

George Biles (b.1900 / d.1987) was a highly talented signwriter and pictorial painter who lived in Bridport throughout his life. For many years George painted the pub signs for Palmers Brewery as well as for a number of other independent breweries in the south west.

Writing in this magazine in June 2022, the late Cecil Amor highlighted the ‘attractive, colourful and artistic’ nature of George Biles’ work.

With background information supplied by Mr Ken Allen from Yeovil, Cecil recalled how a small company was established at 71 East Street in Bridport in 1924, as sign writers and pictorial artists,. It was called Bridport Signs Service Studios. The leader of the group was F G Biles, who had been apprenticed himself in 1914. Biles employed two assistants, after five years or so, whom he trained up to his own standard. One of these was another local man, James (Jimmy) Hallett.

‘The company prospered’ said Cecil, ‘producing

signs of all types and sizes for establishments throughout the south west of England.’ To read the full article follow this link.

The Bridport exhibition is in three venues which will be open from 1-29 August 2024 between 10 am and 4 pm (closed Sunday and Monday).

They are the Royal British Legion Hall, Victoria Grove which will display a recreation of George’s studio with a selection of pictorial pub signs and other images of George at work in Bridport.

Bridport Arts Centre will be showing a display of Pantomime screens and backdrops painted by George Biles.

Bridport Museum is offering a display of the original Spirit of Bridport town sign and the Lord Nelson Skittle Alley where visitors can see more of Palmers pub signs. It will be open during the pubs hours. Visit www.lordnelsonbridport.co.uk for times.

The George Biles Project has been delivered by the Town Council working with Palmers Brewery and local signwriter Jemma Thompson. Work to research, record and exhibit the works by George Biles was made possible with support from the National Lottery Heritage Fund.

George Biles photograph album with kind permission of Ken Allen

Captivating film archives open up nostalgic railway journeys into the past

It’s been a long time since the common sight on a train was someone reading a book or a newspaper.

Today the predominant entertainment is the mobile phone. Whether it’s scanning through social media, reading news platforms or watching a download of a favourite TV series, the mobile phone has opened up a world of visual stimulus for those waiting for their trains or killing time on their journeys.

But now Great Western Railway passengers across Somerset, Wiltshire and Dorset can also use their phones or tablets to travel back in time as part of an archive film project by Windrose Rural Media Trust.

It’s been inspired by an old film called Great Western Approaches, a renowned film made in 1936 and still available, which took viewers on a journey to the sun.

Windrose director Trevor Bailey said: ‘Long ago, the Great Western Railway saw the potential of film to promote its trains and the places they served. It has an extraordinary heritage and the modern GWR is proud to link past glories with today’s progress.’

Windrose has used footage from 1909 to the 90s to craft short films relevant to 24 stations across the south west including the popular holiday destination of Weymouth. Each film explores local life as it used to be, allowing customers to travel into the past via a QR code link on posters displayed at stations, which can be scanned into phones while waiting for the train.

Windrose Rural Media Trust is a Dorset-based charity which uses the media—television, radio and the internet—to portray the past of rural communities in the south west and to give them a voice in the present day.

Trevor added: ‘We have a massive film archive of life in Somerset, Dorset and Wiltshire, which has largely been digitised, and we’ve drawn on this to provide a companion for people on their train journeys—a window into the past of the places

served by stations on seven GWR routes.

By scanning a QR code, viewers can select the route and station of their choice and find themselves in the past life of that community. ‘It may be a livestock market in the 1930s’ said Trevor ‘daily street scenes in the 1910s, a long-closed railway line, seaside holidays in the 1950s and much, much more. These moving images are the nearest thing to living history that exists.’

The Great Western Approaches Revisited project was unveiled at Westbury station and has been made possible by a grant from GWR’s Customer and Community Improvement Fund. The fund is designed to support small and medium rail-related projects that can be completed over the course of the financial year.

GWR Business Assurance and Strategy Director, Joe Graham, said: ‘The Customer and Community Improvement Fund is a fantastic opportunity for us to invest in projects that really make a difference to our customers and communities at a local level. We’re delighted to support this exciting series of films, helping to inspire travel across routes we serve. I’d like to congratulate all those involved for bringing it to fruition.’

Delving into the past. GWR director Joe Graham and Windrose Rural Media Trust’s Trevor Bailey and James Harrison

Enjoying the sun or taking up the challenge in Weymouth

Sneak Peek

A peek at what’s coming up on stage and screen near you

Just click on an image to view a trailer

Nick Hart - Live Marine Theatre, Lyme Regis, Sunday, 25 August, 8pm. Book at: https://www.marinetheatre.com/whats-on/

The Commandant’s Shadow - Film

The Electric Palalce, Bridport, Friday, 30 August, 7.30pm. Book at: https://www.electricpalace.org.uk/whats-on/

Gail Porter - Live Axminster Guildhall, Friday, 6 September, 7.30pm. Book at: https://www.axminster-guildhall.co.uk/home_1

Tony Hadley - Live

The Lighthouse, Poole, Saturday, 31 August 7.30pm. https://www.lighthousepoole.co.uk/whats-on/

Paul Smith - Live BIC, Bournemouth Saturday, 31 August 7:30pm Book at: https://www.bic.co.uk/whats-on

Carrie Martin - Live

The Lighthouse, Poole, Saturday, 31 August, 8.00pm. Book at: https://www.lighthousepoole.co.uk/whats-on/

Fly me to the Moon - Film

The Beehive, Honiton, Saturday, 24 August, 7.30pm. Book at: https://beehivehoniton.co.uk/whats-book-tickets/

Milly Riquelme - Live

The David Hall, Ilminster, Saturday, 7 September, 8 pm. https://www.thedavidhall.com/whats-on/

PREVIEW August

Folk by the sea LYME REGIS

THE summer folk festival programme continues with Lyme Folk Weekend, from Friday 23rd to Sunday 25th August, with four big events at the Marine Theatre.

Steve Knightley, half of the West Country’s favourite folk duo Show of Hands, has a solo gig on Friday, followed on Saturday by rising star Angeline Morrison.

Steve is a prominent figure in English folk and acoustic music, and is celebrated for his deep connection to the West Country. His extensive body of work blends historical narratives with contemporary themes.

Angeline Morrison is a folk singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist whose 2022 album The Sorrow Songs, produced by Eliza Carthy, was The Guardian’s Folk Album of the Year. After making her TV debut on Later ... with Jools Holland, Angeline has recently appeared at many festivals including London Jazz, Glastonbury and Brighton Festivals.

Sunday brings Ghosts, Werewolves and Countryfolk (see separate story) to the festival at 12.30pm, and the evening concert features another of the younger stars of the folk scene, the singer-songwriter and instrumentalist Nick Hart, at 8pm.

Morrison is one of the leading performers at the 2024 Lyme Folk Weekend.

Angeline

Six days of music and art BURTON BRADSTOCK

VIRTUOSO musicians, playing instruments that range from classic strings to drums, guitar and accordion, return to Burton Bradstock in August for the village’s annual festival of music and art, from Saturday 10th to Sunday 18th, with the annual art exhibition in the village hall and six days of wonderful music, mainly in St Mary’s Church.

The festival begins in the now-traditional style with a tea party and live music in the rectory gardens on Sunday 11th, followed by the festival evensong in the church.

On Monday there is a conversation in the church at 11.30am, in which festival artistic director and violinist David Juritz talks to double bass player Sandy Burnett about his journey, growing up in a musical

house in Southern Africa and about the music that has shaped his life. The evening concert is Balkan Bradstock, featuring the brilliant Paprika, six Balkan musicians, including the accordion maestri Milos Milivojevic and Zivorad Nikolic.

Tuesday’s lunchtime concert has pianist Veronika Shoot and David Juritz playing a programme called Faure and the Viardots, music from late 19th century France. In the evening there is Brazilian jazz with singer Carolina Lelis and a five-piece band. This is followed by a late-night recital, Bach to Brazil, with guitarist Craig Ofgden and Adrian Bradbury, cello.

The Wednesday evening chamber concert includes works by Schubert and Faure, and Peter Hope’s A Dorset Calendar. It is followed by a 9.45pm recital, with a quartet playing Messiaen’s haunting Quartet for the End of Time.

Brazilian jazz with singer Carolina Lelis and a five-piece band at Burton Bradstock

The Spooky Mens Choral are bringing their sonorous and often surreal music to Dorchester and Sidmouth

The busy Thursday programme begins with a lunchtime Summer Celebration with the Atea wind quintet and David Juritz, followed by a Viennese soiree with soprano Milly Forrest, harpist Eluned Pierce and the Festival Players at 7pm. The late night recital features works by Faure and another piano prodigy, the American-born Bud Powell—the musicians include David Gordon, piano, Paul Cavaciuti on drums and percussion, and bassist Sandy Burnett.

The festival’s gala finale features all the week’s musicians and singers in a programme that includes Bach’s Triple Concerto, Mozart’s Sinfonia Concertante, Dvorak’s Rondo for cello and orchestra and Faure’s Dolly Suite.

Spooky songsters from down under DORCHESTER

AUSTRALIA’s uniquely, peculiarly talented Spooky Men’s Chorale are back in Dorset, with a concert at the Hardye Theatre at Thomas Hardye School, Dorchester, on Sunday 4th August at 7.30pm.

As thunderous as a herd of wildebeest, as sly as a wagonload of Spike Milligans and as sonorous as a cloister of monks, the Spooky Men’s Chorale are the gift that keeps on giving. They emerged blithering and blinking-eyed from the Blue Mountains of New South Wales in 2001, and armed with no more than their voices, a nice line in deadpan and an ill-matched set of hats, have been gleefully disturbing audiences ever since.

Formed by New Zealand-born spookmeister Stephen Taberner, the Spooky Men soon attracted attention with a judicious combination of Georgian table songs, beautiful ballads, highly inappropriate covers and a swag-bag of often hilarious original songs.

Renowned for a combination of Visigothic bravado, absurdist humour and eye-moistening tenderness, the Spookies in middle age, and fortified with a new generation of wunderkids, are more masters of their territory than ever before. They will delicately garnish their much-loved black-catalogue with new incursions into beauty and surreal comedy.

The Spooky Men’s Chorale is also at this year’s Sidmouth Folk Festival.

Kinky Boots and musical nuns BRIDPORT AND HONITON

THE award-winning Bridport Musical Theatre Company returns to the stage of the town’s Electric Palace from 20th to 24th August, with the feelgood musical, Kinky Boots. Meanwhile, a few miles west, Honiton Community Theatre Company has chosen another hit musical, Sister Act, for the summer show at the Beehive arts centre, in the week to Saturday 3rd August.

Kinky Boots is a joy-filled sensation, based on a true story—and a successful film—with Tony and Grammy-winning music and lyrics by pop icon Cyndi Lauper and a hilarious and life-affirming book by

PREVIEW August

the centenary of the death of Sabine

Tony Award winner Harvey Fierstein.

After inheriting his family’s failing shoe factory, and with a relationship on the rocks, Charlie Price is finding life very difficult. And then he meets Lola, a drag queen whose sparkle and unsteady heels might just hold the answer to saving the struggling business. The show is guaranteed to Raise You Up and celebrate everybody’s individuality. Performances start at 7.30pm.

Sister Act is the improbable but very funny story of disco-diva Deloris Van Cartier who takes refuge in a convent after witnessing a crime. Disguised as a nun, Deloris finds herself at odds with the strict Mother Superior, but soon discovers the power of sisterhood,

igniting the convent’s once lacklustre choir with her soulful rhythm and infectious energy!

Celebrating Sabine TOURING

SABINE Baring-Gould is a name that is largely forgotten nowadays, but folk star Jim Causley and singer and musician Miranda Sykes of Daphne’s Flight and Show of Hands, aim to change that, as they celebrate the centenary of the death of this historian, folklorist, novelist and hymn-writer. Ghosts, Werewolves and Countryfolk—Songs and Stories of Sabine Baring Gould, who lived at Lewtrenchard Manor in Devon, will explore Baring-Gould’s life and

Jim Causley, Miranda Sykes and storyteller John Palmer are on a West Country tour celebrating

BaringGould, author, historian, folklorist and hymn-writer.

writing through the folk songs that meant so much to him. The Victorian polymath, who is now largely overlooked, was a pioneer of folk song collecting— inspiring Cecil Sharp to follow in his footsteps. He was a best-selling-novelist of the period and composed the hymn Onward Christian Soldiers, with a tune by Sir Arthur Sullivan.

But his work on the West Country folk music tradition was perhaps most important to him. He wrote: “To this day I consider that the recovery of our West Country melodies has been the principal achievement of my life.”

Local dates on the tour include Sidmouth Folk Festival on Saturday 3rd August, Beautiful Days at Ottery St Mary on 16th to 18th August, Lyme Folk Weekend on Sunday 25th August, the Plough Arts Centre at Great Torrington on 26th September and Bristol Folk House on 20th October.

and 2.30pm.

One of the world’s best-selling writers for children, and a popular broadcaster, Michael Rosen will talk about his life and career and will answer questions from the audience, and sign books. Michael was the Children’s Laureate for England from 2007 to 2009

This year is also the 50th anniversary of his first published collection of children’s poems, 1974’s Mind Your Own Business. In the five decades since then, he has published around 200 books for children and adults, and has had 55 million views on his YouTube Channel, Kids Poems and Stories with Michael Rosen. One of his best-known and most loved books is We’re Going on a Bear Hunt, which has been adapted as an animated film for Channel 4 and turned into a successful stage show.

Michael Rosen’s first degree was from Wadham College, Oxford. He went on to study for an MA and a PhD and is currently Professor of Children’s Literature at Goldsmiths, University of London, where he co-devised and teaches an MA in children’s literature.

As a broadcaster, Michael has presented BBC Radio 4’s acclaimed programme about language, Word of Mouth, since 1998, as well as regularly presenting documentary programmes for BBC Radio 4 and BBC Radio 3, including the Sony Gold Award-winning On Saying Goodbye

He has written a book for children and teachers on writing poetry, What is Poetry?, and three booklets for teachers on writing and reading. He also writes a monthly open “letter” to the Secretary of State for Education in The Guardian, where he critiques government policy on schools from the standpoint of a parent. He visits schools, teachers’ conferences and university teacher training departments and regularly appears at literary festivals all over the UK and Ireland.

His many honorary awards include degrees from the Open University, the University of Exeter and the University of London Institute of Education, the Eleanor Farjeon Award for outstanding contribution to children’s literature. He received the Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in recognition of his contribution to the profile of French culture in the UK.

Michael Rosen at the EP BRIDPORT

FANS of the much-loved poet and children’s writer Michael Rosen can join him as he celebrates 50 years of live performance, with two shows at Bridport’s Electric Palace on Thursday 1st August at 11.30am

Summer rep at the Marine LYME REGIS

REP theatre comes to the Marine Theatre at Lyme Regis throughout August, featuring three consistently popular plays—two thrillers and a comedy—and running from 1st to 20th August.

The idea of rep—one play in production, one in

Michael Rosen comes to Bridport in August

Screen Time

with Nic Jeune

Top Six at the Flix

Plaza Cinema Dorchester

Spiderman Season (2002, 2004, 2007)

Before Tom Holland and Zendaya there was Tobey Maguire and Kirsten Dunst. “When Spider-Man came out in 2002, it was the first major superhero movie, and it set the trajectory for the Marvel Cinematic Universe…..”

CBR. Madisyn Espinoza.

Bridport Electric Palace

The Bikeriders (2023)

“A testament not only to how Nichols lovingly crafts a fictional story around the photos Danny Lyon took for his seminal 1968 book The Bikeriders, but also to the flesh his actors put on the bones of the archetypes who populate it.” Total Film. Neil Smith.

BBC iPlayer

The Olympics. Paris. 1924! Chariots of Fire (1981)

“Chariots of Fire reasserts the importance of the so-called old-fashioned virtues of moral courage and personal integrity and, as such, it is a movie that, with the help of Vangelis Papathanassiou’s wonderfully stirring music, lifts the spirits to a new high.” New York Daily Times. Kathleen Carroll.

Hurt Locker (2024)

“A small classic of tension, bravery, and fear, which will be studied twenty years from now when people want to understand something of what happened to American soldiers in Iraq.” The New Yorker. David Denby.

Netflix

Borderless Fog (2024)

“The most intriguing title to emerge from Netflix’s South East Asian showcase was the slick crime drama Borderless Fog from Indonesian filmmaker Edwin. By virtue of the genre, Borderless Fog will break new ground for Indonesian cinema, a country where crime thrillers are a rarity, even more so with a woman as the protagonist.” The Hollywood Reporter. Abid Rahman.

Amazon

Arthur King (2024)

“Obviously, being a dog lover goes a long way toward one’s enjoyment of Arthur the King. But even if you’re not, you won’t be able to resist this canine thespian who manages to convey a world of information merely through barks. And he doesn’t even need those.” The Hollywood Reporter. Frank Scheck.

rehearsal and one “on the book”—is long-established in the English summer holidays but has largely disappeared in the past few decades. The exception is just along the coast from Lyme, at Sidmouth where the Manor Pavilion continues to stage a programme that runs right through the summer and into September.

The Lyme season starts with the play that gave us the word which is now synonymous with a particularly horrible form of coercive control in relationships—gaslighting. Patrick Hamilton’s Gaslight, running from 1st to 6th August, is the story of Jack and Bella Manningham, who have taken a four-storey house in London in the latter part of the 19th century. Jack is a man-about-town, often leaving Bella alone in the house in the evenings. While alone, she thinks she sees and hears things that frighten her—is her mind playing tricks on her, or is it something altogether more sinister? And who is the strange man who appears with disturbing tales of the house and its past?

From Thursday 8th to Tuesday 13th August, the choice is comedy with one of Alan Ayckbourn’s most dazzling plays, Taking Steps. Set in a crumbling, three-storey Victorian house that was once a brothel (and still said to be haunted by a murdered prostitute), and over the course of one hectic night and morning, this comedy has lots of running up and down stairs and in and out of rooms, mistaken letters and mistaken identities, with all the characters immersed in their personal problems, leading to much hilarious confusion.

Frederick Knott’s Dial M for Murder was made famous by Alfred Hitchcock in a 1954 film that starred Grace Kelly and Ray Milland. Playing at the Marine from Thursday 13th to Tuesday 20th August, this sinister thriller is a masterclass in suspense. Former professional tennis player Tony wants to murder his wealthy wife. He blackmails an old college associate to execute the crime but things don’t work out as planned.

Platinum anniversary SIDMOUTH

SIDMOUTH Folk Festival returns this year, from Friday 2nd to Friday 9th August—for the 70th anniversary, making it one of the world’s longest established celebrations of traditional folk music and dance.

Sidmouth has been at the heart of the English—and British, European and world—folk scene, championing traditional music, dance and song since July 1955, when the English Folk Dance & Song Society (EFDSS), on Eileen Phelan’s suggestion, decided that the town was a perfect addition to their existing and established folk dance festival in Stratford, offering the added attractions of the seaside and the Devon countryside.

Over the following decades, the festival, spread in marquees and venues around this picturesque East Devon seaside town, attracted dance sides and traditional and contemporary folk performers from all over the world. Since the pandemic, the festival has rebuilt its programme and this year will see it continuing its reputation for creating an inclusive music

community that celebrates tradition and the rich diversity of folk arts from the grassroots to the cutting edge.

The programme once again ranges from top folk stars to emerging talent, ceilidhs, Morris and folk dances, storytelling, a children’s festival, youth and other participatory sessions and workshops and much more.

The big names this year include Aly Bain and Phil Cunningham, Blowzabella, Blazin’ Fiddles, Karine Polwart, Kate Rusby, Oysterband, Ralph McTell, the Rheingans Sisters, Sea Song Sessions, Spooky Men’s Choral, Fay Heild, and Catrin Finch and Aoife Ni Bhriain (and many more).

Rob Rinder and music PURBECK

HOT on the heels of his efforts at conducting Vivaldi in Venice during his televised Grand Tour with Rylan, the barrister, judge and television presenter Rob Rinder will be at this year’s Purbeck Chamber Music Festival, in conversation with festival artistic director, Natalie Clein, on Friday 30th August.

The music-loving lawyer and polymath will be discussing with the international star cellist “Why is music important in our lives?” The event, sure to be one of the highlights of the festival weekend, will be at St Mary’s Church, Swanage, at 5.30pm. It will be followed by a recital in the church at 7pm, when Natalie Clein will be joined by the festival’s other performers, including mezzo soprano Lotte Betts Dean, in a programme of works by Beethoven, Schumann, Mendelssohn and Stuart MacRae.

The festival opens on Thursday 29th, at St Mary’s, Swanage, with Tales From the Enchanted Forest, works by the Norwegian composer and violinist Henning Kraggerud, Schubert, Beethoven, Dvorak and Brahms. The opening work, which gives the concert its name, will be performed by the young Kraggerud siblings, Alma on violin, Franz cello and Hector piano.

Other festival events include Cell’Ode to Joy, an all-cello concert on Friday 30th at 11am, at Studland’s St Nicholas Church, featuring Natalie Clein playing three Bach cello suites; a violin extravaganza at St Peter’s Church, Church Knowle, and a concert on the theme of Youth and Experience, Joy and Reflection, at St Mary’s, Swanage, both on Saturday.

The festival finale, Friendship Through Generations, will be held at St James; Church, Kingston, on Sunday 1st September at 11.30am and is dedicated to Purbeck’s famous sculptor and supporter of the arts, Tony Viney, who died in February.

The Young Lit Fix

The Jellyfish Jiggle By Caryl Hart Illustrated by Nicola Slater. Published by Orchard Books. £7.99 paperback. Review by Nicky Mathewson

WHEN we were at the beach today, a little crab came by.

“Come SCUTTLE with me,” said the crab. “Scuttling’s fun, let’s try!”

“Just stand out wide, then bend your knees, and SCUTTLE side to side… …then snip and snap your crabby claws.”

“Ooh, scuttling’s great!” we cried.

Whirl and wiggle! Whirl and wiggle! Let’s SCUTTLE and snap to the Jellyfish Jiggle!

This story is busy with activity and alive with sealife as we join a child at the beach who has tremendous fun with lots of different seaside creatures. Scuttling with a crab, diving with a penguin, swimming with a dolphin and rocking with a pelican. We also meet an octopus, jellyfish, angler fish and a blue whale.

This is a rhyming picture book with lots of opportunity to join in with movements. A repeated verse gives a wonderful flow to the story and the illustrations are delightful! Bold and colourful it will draw children in. The story builds in momentum and then gradually recedes into preparation for bedtime, ending with a very gentle goodnight.

I love this book and I only wish my children were toddlers again so I could read it to them. It will make storytime or bedtime enjoyable for children and their adults. Have fun!

Natalie Clein is the artistic director for the Purbeck International Chamber Music Festival

The Home Library Service in Bridport needs more volunteers!

Are you a keen reader? Can’t bear to be without a good book? Then you’ll understand how important it is to be able to carry on reading, even if you can’t get to your local library.

The Home Library Service is provided to customers who, for a variety of reasons, cannot use the conventional library service. These customers may be living in their own homes, or living in residential or nursing establishments; they can be private, housing association, or statutory establishments provided by the local authority or sheltered housing provided by either the local authority or a private housing association.

The Home Library Service is offered to someone who is unable to leave the home; travel to the library; gain easy access to the library, for example, due to poor facilities for users with a mobility problem or to carry materials to or from the library.

The Service also serves those who experience a combination of the above criteria and may include those who are so elderly and frail or infirm that it

I’ll

Keep You Safe

prevents them using a conventional service point or other collection; those with physical difficulties; those with sensory disabilities, especially severe visual impairment; those with profound or severe learning difficulties; those with certain mental health problems which make it difficult to leave the home; those suffering from long term illness; those who are culturally isolated in the home or carers who are unable to leave the home for any length of time.

The need may be long, seasonal (illness or disability worsened by bad weather conditions) or temporary (following a severe accident or recuperating from a serious illness.)

Bridport’s Home Library Service is looking for more volunteers in the Bridport area to join their team, choosing and delivering books to housebound readers in the area every 3 weeks. Training and support will be given, and expenses paid.

If you are interested please contact Maria Jacobson, Royal Voluntary Service Manager Dorset Home Library Service, on 01305 236666 or e-mail maria. jacobson@royalvoluntaryservice.org.uk

by Peter May

A prolific writer of suspense stories, Peter May, is well known for his series of novels like The Lewis Trilogy, The China Thrillers and the Enzo Files.

This though is a stand-alone tale based around a Hebridean husband and wife company which is seeking to establish its own niche market by weaving a special variety of Harris Tweed.

The business venture appears to be moving forward progressively when the pair travel to Paris for a sales conference.

Then, in a roller-coaster opening chapter, Niamh (Neave) gets a disturbing message about her husband Ruairidh (Roo-are-ee), he leaves in a car with a female Russian designer before the vehicle is dramatically torn apart by a massive explosion killing them both.

Niamh’s life is in ruins as she returns home with her husband’s remains. There is the tenuous hope that she can keep the fledgling business afloat and maybe discover who was malicious enough to want her husband dead.

High on its list of attributes is that this story does not rely on the well-used ‘police procedural’ routine featured in television dramas like Vera and Grace. There’s more of an ad-hoc approach to the bombing investigation which is led by French detective Sylvie Braque, who has flown in from Paris, and local policeman, George Gunn.

A map of the Isle of Lewis and Harris proved useful in the edition I read and there is also some helpful guidance on how to pronounce Gaelic names.

Peter May knows the area very well and is keen to share the information. The plot tends to drift a little when he becomes rather ‘Hardy-esque’ about the local scenery but, after the welcome idyllic interlude, the reader is soon steered back on track.

Review by John Davis

Published by riverrun, an imprint of Quercus Editions Ltd

Historical Novels reviewed by John Davis

The Wager by David Grann

THIS painstakingly researched novel from investigative journalist David Grann is not so much an historical ‘whodunnit’ but more a case of who did what to whom and do the ends ever justify the means.

The Wager in question is a British Navy man-of-war that departed from Portsmouth in September 1740 as part of a small squadron of ships on a ‘secret’ mission to capture a Spanish treasure galleon.

Down in the Southern Ocean, around the notoriously stormy Cape Horn, The Wager is wrecked and those who survive are washed up on an uninhabited island.

Early in 1742, thirty of the skeletal survivors from The Wager, led by gunner John Bulkeley, come ashore in Brazil before eventually making their way back to Britain to relate their harrowing story.

All seems well until six months later three further seamen from the vessel including Captain David Cheap and midshipman John Byron make it to the coast of Chile with an altogether contradictory account of what has transpired.

More than reputations are at stake here as witness statements are dissected and Admiralty boards of enquiry and court martials begin to sift through a plethora of evidence.

Grann, who took five years to collate his findings and spent three weeks on an island in the Southern Ocean as part of his research, has his own verdict on the outcomes though there is an open invitation for the reader to think otherwise.

Incidentally, if you wanted to know what ‘powder monkeys’ were, where the sayings ‘toe the line’ and ‘under the weather’ originated and what exactly The War of Jenkins’ Ear was all about then this is the book for you.

Published by Simon and Schuster

While Paris Slept by Ruth Druart

FICTIONAL stories set in the Second World War has proved to be a popular genre for authors although for some readers immersing themselves fully in the period may be too visceral an experience.

That said, Ruth Druart’s debut novel is a good place to start for, while there is cruelty, sadness, hatred and separation to tug at the senses, it’s counterbalanced by kindness, hope, courage and love.

To deal with the logistics first. The book is written in dual timelines and multiple perspectives. The narrative is well organised though so each chapter is given a date, location and character name tag.

In terms of chronology, the outline plot is as follows:

It’s May 1944, a young Jewish couple, Sarah and David are rounded up in occupied Paris to be transported to Auschwitz. They have a young infant son, Sam.

As she boards the train, Sarah makes a heart-rending decision, thrusting the bundle wrapped baby into the arms of a nearby French railway worker Jean-Luc who in turn takes the youngster home to his girlfriend Charlotte.

Nine years later, Jean-Luc and Charlotte, having survived life under the Nazis in France, have re-located to a new life in Santa Cruz, California where Sam is growing up in a situation where familial bonds have been established and a cultural identity is being developed.

That is until one day there is a knock on the door...

Throughout the reader is encouraged to empathise with the difficult dilemmas that arise and decisions that have to be taken.

In summary, I’m reminded of a quote from historian and scholar Yehuda Bauer: “Thou shalt not be a victim; thou shalt not be a perpetrator; but, above all, thou shalt not be a by-stander.”

Published by Headline Review

New research finds that being old increasingly feels like being ‘cancelled’

Being an older person in the UK can increasingly feel like being cancelled according to comprehensive studies undertaken for The New Ageing Index, 2024, from Home Instead, the UK’s largest private provider of home care.

The project was an attempt to discover what older age in 2024 really looks like. What do people think when they reflect on the prospect of their later years? How do the people who are already into older age feel? And what about people who find themselves looking after older people?

The research answers many of these questions— with new insights that often debunk popular perceptions around age.

Over a third of all respondents (35%) believe being old is like being cancelled. This rises to nearly half (43%) for older women (over 75s). And rises further to 46% for some of the youngest respondents (18-34 year old men). Almost a third (32%) of older men (over 75s) believe this to be the case.

Margaret Newson, 88, said: ‘You get to a point in your life where you cease to exist as far as the rest of the world is concerned. Being excluded like this really is like being cancelled—you feel that you are no longer invited to the party. You begin to feel invisible in every aspect of your life which for many leads to an increased sense of isolation and loneliness.’

Martin Jones, Home Instead CEO, said: ‘We urgently need to challenge how older people are both perceived and treated in this country. Traditional stereotypes have become completely outdated. Older people can make a huge contribution and it’s clear from our research that they want to embrace life and be catered for at every level.’

The research also shows the retirees of today are living more active, healthy and dynamic lifestyles than ever before—and are switched on culturally and technologically to a degree that completely contradicts the way many still perceive them. For more details visit: www.homeinstead.co.uk/new-ageing-index/

Ceiling fan/ light white with gold trim, Mississippi style, 3 speed, £15. Seaton. 07789 537011.

Music books (17) & sheet music (20+), Beatles, Film, Rogers & Hammerstein, Carols etc. £30 the lot of will separate. Seaton. 07789 537011.

Extractor fan, 4” diameter, bathroom/ kitchen silent loo environment, will demonstrate working order, photo on request. Sell £10. Seaton. 07789 537011. Diecast models x 25 in wall presentation case, phone for photo/ model list, £170. Will separate. Seaton. 07789 537011. Trousers 36w 29i/l x 10. (x5 new) M&S, BHS,

George, £10 each, black, fawn, others part used £5 each. Seaton. 07789 537011.

Ladies smart modern coat with big fur collar colour mustard/tan, size 22 with belt, worn once, cost £100. Bargain £40 ono. 07840 803872.

Ebosser automatic embosser & die cutter £80. Home pure cloth and fabric steamer, with attachments, £20. Les Shaper exerciser £30. 01297 631724.

Free – serious cyclist ceasing after 60+ years. Quantity of clothing free to young novice cyclist. Dorchester 07719 535094. Beer making kit, 40 flip-top bottles, 40 pint

FOR SALE

fermenting tub, plus Hydrometer only £20. 01305 871089.

Settee, 3 seater burgundy red leather with inlaid wood features, faultless condition, photo on reuqst, sale £120 will deliver. 07789 537011.

Royal Doulton “Tapestry” full tea & coffee & dinner service for six, plus serving dishes, extra plates etc. Perfect condition. No sensible offer refused. Can send photo. 01297 678392. Please leave message.

Pair Art Deco armchairs, very stylish bottle green velvet. £100 the pair, or offer. Can send photo. Heavy so buyer to collect, near Axminster/ Bridport. 01297 678392.

Please leave message. Victorian mahogany five-drawer chest of drawers, H:41”, W:41”, D:20”. No sensible offer refused. Can send photo. Heavy so buyer to collect, near Axminster/Bridport. 01297 678392. Please leave message.

Edwardian dressing table, very pretty with mirror and drawers, glass top, H:1.7m, W:1.2m, D:55cm. No sensible offer refused. Can send photo. Buyer to collect, near Axminster/Bridport. 01297 678392. Please leave message.

Pair Art Deco wooden armchairs, pale grey/green paint, upholstery. No sensible offer refused. Can

send photo. 01297 678392. Please leave message.

Flymo Easy Glide 300

Hover Collect lawnmower 1700w motor, cutting width 30cms, easy empty grass box, 10m cable. VGC complete with manual, 4 cutting heights £35. Tel 07971 991012. Juke Box - Rockola 454 80 Play in working order needs some TLC. Nice Project - £500.00. For details call Steve 07810 353 747.

Biria Easy boarding bike- As New , 46cm, £500 (no offers). Tel. 01308 458787.

Ladies lightweight Falcon Adventurer bicycle £25.00. Crewkerne 07891705598.

Stamps & Coins wanted by collector / investor. We are keen to purchase small or large collections at this time. Tel Rod 01308 863790 or 07802261339.

Coins wanted. Part or full collections purchased for cash. Please phone John on 01460 62109 or 07980 165047.

Dave buys all types of tools 01935 428975

Do you have a shed / garage full of old tools, car bits, unfinished projects etc? I buy job-lots of vintage items. Also enamel signs & slot machines & complete collections, 07875677897

Vintage & antique textiles, linens, costume buttons etc. always sought by Caroline Bushell. Tel. 01404 45901.

Collectables, bygones, vintage, autojumble, Job-lots & collections a specialty. Good prices paid 07875677897

Secondhand tools. All trades and crafts. Old and modern. G. Dawson. 01297 23826. www. secondhandtools.co.uk.

TUITION

Piano, violin, theory tuition at your home. Highly qualified teacher. Adults and children welcome. Beginners to advanced. Dr Thomas Gold 07917 835781. Dec 23

RESTORATION

FURNITURE

Antique restoration and bespoke furniture. Furniture large and small carefully restored and new commissions undertaken. French polishing, chair repairs and modern hand finishes. Phil Meadley 01297 560335

advertise here email: info@ marshwoodvale.com

WANTED

Tractors and Machinery, Pick-up Vans and Tippers. Best prices paid. Tel. 07971 866364.