Fergus Byrne met Tom Whittingham at Bishops Down, Sherborne
Iwas born in Surrey, right in the middle of a concrete jungle at Redhill Hospital. My parents both grew up in Croydon, and until the age of 8 I lived in a very suburban area, in Whiteleaf, Kenley.
My dad is a carpenter and my mum is a talented artist. I’d be remiss not to mention my loving fiance Ellen and our beautiful three year old daughter Avery, and my mother and father in law, Andrew and Valerie George who have all played a big part in inspiring and supporting me along the way, and of course to the lord of the butterflies himself Clive Farrell teaching me the foundations of becoming a tropical butterfly farmer.
When I was eight, I moved to Dorset—a journey of 100 or more miles that felt like a total culture shock. Instead of being cooped up in the garden in Kenley, I was able to walk for miles and explore the Wiltshire countryside which felt incredibly liberating.
Butterflies found me through an unexpected path—plants. There were subtle signs throughout my childhood. I vividly remember my mum painting a giant peacock butterfly on our kitchen floor, and my dad would regularly take me to the Lullingstone Butterfly Farm, which is now closed down. I used to go there almost every weekend, looking at giant stick insects and moths and all these kinds of things. By the time I was nine or ten, I was already breeding my first butterflies—peacock
caterpillars I’d found in hedgerows, raising them on nettles and then releasing them.
My teenage years were a blur of skateboarding and adventure. I was obsessed with skateboarding. I’ve also always enjoyed photography, and I used to do a lot of skateboard photography, filming and editing. Now I use photography more like a tool so I can remember when something is happening in conjunction with the point in the life cycle of the butterfly, or the type of growth the plant’s kicking out at certain times of year.
I’ve always had the mind of a collector and been fascinated by plants. Since the age of 18 I worked my way up through formal estate gardens, learning plantsmanship. I did a diploma at Kingston Maurward, but I’m essentially self-taught; I’ve just had very good teachers along the way, undoubtedly inspiring me and pushing me along. I became a self-employed gardener in my early 20s, working across Dorset and Wiltshire, subcontracting to various garden companies. As I learned more about plants, I started looking beyond manicured gardens to the wildflowers surrounding them.
At some point in my late twenties, my love for butterflies rekindled. I began breeding British native butterflies, which caught the attention of Clive Farrell, who noticed my skill set and invited me to become his butterfly breeder here at Ryewater. In 2022 at the age of 35 I had found my dream job I couldn’t refuse. What made this opportunity even more special was that my father-in-law, talented artist and habitat specialist Andrew George, was the designer of the 100 acres of meadows at Ryewater, which is now beautifully maintained by estate manager Wren Franklin—creating the ecological foundations where I now work. I also manage a six-acre meadow/butterfly reserve at Buckshaw House in Holwell, owned by Andrew and Sue May, where the habitat was also created by father in-law. My current role is fascinating. I manage several glasshouses, producing tropical butterfly pupae that are sent to the Stratford Butterfly Farm. It’s a delicate process of creating the right environment for these incredible creatures. Butterflies, like many insects, over-produce—a survival strategy from being in the middle of the food chain. A single female butterfly can produce over 100 caterpillars.
Each day is different. It’s just such another world. It’s almost unbelievable that these things exist. But of course, they do. I grow hundreds of plants for feeding butterflies, and I’m constantly monitoring butterfly behaviour, watering plants, and managing the intricate ecosystems within the glasshouses. It’s not just about breeding; it’s about understanding the complex relationships between plants and butterflies. Some species are incredibly selective about where they lay their eggs. The more I learned about butterflies, the harder it became to pull out weeds. If you’re a sympathetically minded person, you can look at your little patch of garden and think, I’ll leave that patch of nettles because a peacock butterfly might lay its eggs on it, or I might leave those docks because a small copper might utilize them. There’s this sort of balance between having a little bit messy, I call it shabby chic, and a little bit controlled. I think there’s a lot to be said for working at the pace of human nature
rather than the pace of a machine.
The metamorphosis process still amazes me. Apparently, the genetic difference between a caterpillar and a butterfly is about the same difference between us and our earliest human ancestors. But there is a tiny strip of genetic code in that caterpillar. When they become a pupa, inside there is a liquid except for this little bit of genetic code, which then dictates what patterning to have, everything about it, and it slowly forms into that from a soup. It’s almost magical.
I’ve become particularly fascinated by tropical butterflies like the long-winged Heliconius, which have remarkable characteristics. They digest pollen alongside nectar, actually scooping pollen from specific jungle flowers such as Psiguria warscewiczii, and like a cow chewing the cud, they turn it into a protein-rich smoothie that helps repair their cells. I once had a butterfly I named Trevor that lived for 14 months—an extraordinary length of time for these creatures.
The butterflies we have here are jungle-dwelling butterflies; some species are completely happy in full shade.
The Heliconius, for instance, is a South American subcanopy dwelling butterfly with a huge brain size compared to most butterflies. One of their common names is the postman because they can actually remember a route around the jungle, visually mapping out their environment.
The work is about more than breeding butterflies. It’s about education and conservation. We host various groups— botanical societies, schools, international visitors—to show them the intricate world of butterfly ecology. The decline in butterfly populations is scary, and not enough people understand the complex variables that support their survival.
Intensive farming and government policies have dramatically impacted butterfly habitats. By creating diverse, low-fertility meadows, we’ve seen incredible transformations.
At Buckshaw House, we’ve gone from having, say, 13 species present on the site to probably 33 seen annually, in just seven years. That’s directly linked to increased plant diversity, creation of complex land topography providing an increased amount of niches for many invertebrates.
My approach is about working with nature, not against it. You can’t control everything—sometimes you need to allow for things you might not want. It’s about creating a companionship between humans and plants, understanding that every element has its place in the ecosystem.
When a butterfly lands on someone, especially a child, it creates a memory that lasts a lifetime. That’s what keeps me passionate about this work—the ability to create those magical moments, to help people understand the incredible world of butterflies and plants, and to contribute to their conservation.
I feel incredibly lucky. Not many people can say they spend their days surrounded by hundreds of butterflies, understanding their intricate life cycles, and helping to preserve these beautiful creatures. From breeding my first peacock caterpillars to managing tropical butterfly breeding programs, it’s been an extraordinary journey. It might be the most unusual job in hundreds of miles, but I wouldn’t have it any other way. ’
Reading through this issue, there is a stark contrast between the beauty of the natural world of butterflies, oxeye daisies and barn owls and the damage that humans can do to the planet we share, whether through greed, neglect or war. In an article on page 34, former Naval Attaché and defence consultant David Fields discusses the need for dialogue with our enemies, not only to learn how to negotiate with them, but also to help us to understand them better. While David’s point is directed towards communication in a Ukrainian war context, in the current climate it can be difficult to know who our enemy is. To use a now well-worn phrase, ‘we live in a polarised society’ and understanding the forces that drive that polarisation would be helpful. A recent study, published by researchers in Amsterdam and Lausanne, highlighted politicians who exhibit ‘dark’ personality traits such as narcissism (excessive self-focus), psychopathy (emotional coldness and lack of empathy), and Machiavellianism (a tendency toward manipulation and deception) and concluded that these traits contribute to increasing polarisation among citizens. The research analysed the personalities of over 90 prominent global politicians and linked them to voter attitudes in 40 national elections. They found that politicians scoring high on ‘dark’ traits had followers who showed greater hostility towards political opponents. The study included leaders like Trump, Bolsonaro, Johnson, Berlusconi, Erdoğan and many others. While individual scores weren’t released, the study suggests that during political tension, voters often favour dominant, confrontational leaders, regardless of their ‘dark’ traits. It makes interesting reading for those who wonder how the world seems to be shifting from democratic to autocratic leadership, but even more so for those wondering who or what our enemy really is.
Fergus Byrne
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CATCH UP ON OUR APRIL ONLINE COVER STORY
Robin Mills met Gabrielle Rabbitts in Lyme Regis
This autumn will mark my eighth year as the Director of the Marine Theatre, Lyme Regis. It’s a role I thoroughly enjoy and I have taken the theatre charity, which was near closure when they approached me for the role, through a complete turnaround.
I’d describe my childhood as unconventional. I grew up in Symondsbury College, now Symondsbury Manor. My parents separated when my brother, Gideon, and I were small and Mum moved to Bridport. Running the school was demanding, so we had a series of untrained ‘nannies’ who were supposed to look after us; I remember one ‘cooking’ an unopened tin of beans in the Aga and almost blowing the door off! Gid and I were largely left to our own devices and loved playing around beautiful Symondsbury. Summers were the best: as Dad could take time off, we would go on holiday to Italy, where we had friends to stay with. The warmth, the taste of simple pasta dishes eaten outdoors, picking up porcupine quills, and waking at night to electrical storms—such wonderful memories!
these jobs did not cover the rent so I found a job in the city. I quickly found my place in corporate event management but after a few rewarding years I got an offer I couldn’t refuse: to return to Dorset and run the Electric Palace.
A few years earlier, my Dad had bought the Electric Palace, a condemned former cinema, at auction. He and my brother had worked hard to bring the building up to standards, but both wanted to step away. Seeing an opportunity perfect for my skillset and interests, I moved back to Bridport and took over the business. I’d taken a huge risk, and an even bigger pay cut. The Palace had mounting debts and no forward program. However, my years in business, combined with my arts background, gave me the tools to create change.
I learned to negotiate, write press releases, and manage staff—on the job. Once I’d streamlined processes, improved efficiency and got the programme in a healthier place, things improved financially. It took a couple of years of late nights, six-day weeks, and not paying myself for periods to turn the place around, but we got there.
Music always played at home. I’m part of the generation that didn’t have life before Bob Dylan or the Rolling Stones; they are like extended family to me. From a fairly young age, Mum took us to see live music as she loved dancing. We went to festivals, folk clubs, and the Westpoint for Custer’s Last Blues Band on a Sunday.
Bridport, a live music hub, was a great place to be a teenager. The Cavity and The Bull both had open mic nights that I would sing at. In bands, we’d put on nights at Bridport Arts Centre or the back room of The Bull. As well as performing, we did all the promotion, including poster design and marketing.
After A-Levels at Weymouth College, I moved to New Cross, London for a degree in English Literature and Theatre Arts at Goldsmiths College. Students would cross over from directing to acting, writing to music—it was all fluid, and I loved it. However, my passion was acting. I took parts in several MA productions and plays friends had written. Dennis Kelly (co-writer of Matilda and now a successful screenwriter) asked me to be in a play, Debris, which we took to a couple of small venues before it went on to Battersea Arts Centre. After Goldsmiths, I had a variety of small jobs—working on indie art films, assistant directing a play for Mike Hodges (Get Carter), and recording vocals on house tracks for my friend Paul Sng (now a documentary filmmaker). Stimulating as they were,
To attract higher-profile artists like Johnny Marr, Stiff Little Fingers, and The Proclaimers, I needed to increase capacity. We made the dancefloor bigger; I built relationships with agents to get the venue noticed and promoted the Palace’s growing reputation, highlighting its quirky, unique art-deco interior. As things got rolling, I could bring in bigger names to further elevate the venue’s standing. The Palace was grubby, loud, vibrant, and live—and I loved it for what it did for the Bridport community. An audience is a united body. Gigs are one-off special moments that you witness as a collective. You sing together, dance together—to a performance that will not be repeated.
I booked Grandmaster Flash as my first international artist when I was six months pregnant with my first child, Rafe. Everything was about growth at that time. The Palace was on supercharge, I had a new life in my belly, and stilettos on my feet. Flash was old-school; I remember counting out his fee in cash in the dressing room before he went on stage.
Both my children, Rafe and Ramona, were born at home—19 months apart. With a birthing pool set up in the kitchen (hired from the Dorset homebirth group), I didn’t even give hospital a second thought. Why would I let someone else stage-manage the greatest gig of my life? Being undisturbed, to give birth naturally in my home and then get into my own bed felt entirely right.
Rafe was born four days after I stopped work. I took four months off before returning part-time. Around that time the venue was surprise nominated by Ian Gillan of Deep Purple for Best UK Small Independent Music Venue. We received a silver award at the House of Commons.
I could work with one baby, but with two, it was impossible. After Ramona arrived, I made the heartbreaking decision to sell the Palace but was proud to pass it on with a 12-month forward programme, an award and a healthy profit on the books.
My husband, Iain, and I decided to take full advantage of my time off. We bought a camper van, let our house, and took the little ones travelling. We were away for 18 months in total, spending some of the last months in Portugal where Iain had built an off-grid house. We travelled across Europe—to Poland, Romania, Greece—getting as far as the Black Sea and then Morocco. It was an incredible maternity leave!
Arriving back in the UK, I welcomed the timely offer from the Marine Theatre. A charity, with a supportive Board of Trustees who gave me operational freedom, the Marine had a clear identity—and sea views from the auditorium and dressing rooms. I made changes,
recruited my own small team and, within two years, we had paid the debts and were reporting a small surplus. Four years on and the theatre has grown in success and is now almost entirely self-funded. I have a passionate positive team and we are now producing a programme that surpasses expectations for a small UK venue. To bring about real change, you have to truly believe in what you are doing, have confidence in your own capabilities, and trust in your team.
It might feel like gigs just pop up, but to put on a good show, it passes through a lot of hands—programmer, marketing, advancing, finance, then the tech team.
The last call is with the lights and sound. It is essential for all of us in these roles to aim high; we create the pre-state onstage, the welcome for the audience that determines the mood of the whole evening.
In a time when the promotion of division dominates the news and social media, small town theatres strive to unite communities, providing largescale cross-generational community plays, youth theatres, seniors dances and access to culture for all. These precious historic theatres are at the heart of small towns and desperately need to be protected for the next generation.
Meeting Voices Community Choir, Chard. 19.30 to 21.15. Sing for fun. Learn songs in harmony by ear. Everyone welcome. Chard Guildhall. Fore St, Chard TA20 1PP. Phone 07534 116502 or email mvsecretary@outlook.com.
Thursday, 1 May
Prayers For The Stolen (2021)(15). 7.30pm. From Page to Screen, Bridport Film Festival. For details visit: www.bridport-arts.com/fpts.
Folk dancing at Combe St Nicholas village hall (TA20 3LT) at 1930 hrs. John Ridd will be calling and The Dancing Keys are providing the music. It’s £4.00 per person which includes a cuppa and cake, all welcome and it is a lot of fun! Further details from Elaine on 01460 65909.
Dean Carter live at Beltain 7 pm Cafe D’Urberville, 90 Cheap St, Sherborne DT9 3BJ £5 Dean will be performing the Wheel of the Year guitar instrumental suite in its entirety plus excepts from his other internationally critically acclaimed self-penned albums in the Songs Without Words series.
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, 2 May
Gospel Choir - The Good Stuff. Get ready for goosebumps of joy as this 14-piece gospel troupe explode with feel-good soul, R&B and pop anthems. They’ll raise your spirits, then raise the roof. Marine Theatre, Church Street, Lyme Regis, DT7 3QB. Tickets: https://jazzjurassica.co.uk/book-now/. West Dorset Ramblers Group walk: 10 miles. Tibbs Hollow – circular walk taking in Stratton & Jackson Cross. Start 10am Tibbs Hollow c.p. (SY619944). To book and for more details please contact Phil 7874198660.
Saturday, 3 May
The Beauty of the Earth. Mid Wessex singers’ spring concert. Mid Wessex Singers invite you to join us for an evening of music celebrating nature and our world of natural beauty. Our programme,
selected by Alice Dicker, Musical Director, ranges from the modern, such as Stopford’s ‘For the Beauty of the Earth, fun, ‘Singin’ in the Rain’, through the classical Haydn’s ‘Creation’ all portraying the wonders surrounding us. We look forward to welcoming you to a joyous, uplifting occasion focusing on the amazing things creation offers. At 7.30 pm in St Michael’s Church Somerton. Tickets £12, available in advance from Cobbs, Somerton or from Choir members, and on the door. Further information by e-mailing info@midwessexsingers.co.uk or visiting www. midwessexsingers.co.uk.
Bridport Choral Society and West Dorset Community Orchestra present “TOGETHER” , an exciting evening of orchestral music and song in St.Swithun’s Church, North Allington, Bridport at 7-30 p.m. £10 entry. Refreshments available.
Plant Sale. Jubilee Hall, Winsham, near Chard, TA20 4HU. 10.30 to 1pm. Offering a variety of annuals, perennials, shrubs, fruit, vegetables and garden related items. Refreshments available. £1 entry fee. For more details Tel Debbie 07808 505357.
The Friends of Weymouth Library (F.O.W.L.) talk at 10-30a.m. in the Library will be by Mike Randall, and is entitled “Son of a Spy”. He will relate his father’s exploits during WWII of escaping a P.o.W. camp in Greece to becoming, after the war, a “diplomat”, or was it “counter-intelligence”? Join Mike to uncover what it was like to be “son of a spy”. Tickets are available at the Library (phone 01305762410) @ £2 for members and £3 for non-members. Any other enquiries phone 01305832613. Refreshments available after the talk. Everyone welcome.
Musbury Plant & Craft Sale 9.30am - 12noon. Musbury Village Hall, Seaton Road. Varied selection of vegetables, annuals and perennials for sale, plus a variety of craft items. Refreshments available. Raffle. Parking and free entry. More info: Mary - 01297 553325 Please bring your own bags/boxes!
Monday, 5 May
Scottish Dancing in Chardstock An evening of Scottish Dancing at Chardstock Village Hall EX13 7BH. 7.30-10.00 p.m. Tea and coffee provided but please bring your own mug and wear soft soled shoes. No partner required. Cost £2.00. Contact David on 01460 65981 https://chardscotttishcountrydance. co.uk.
Hawkchurch Film Nights, in association with Moviola.org, proudly presents ‘A Complete Unknown’, 141 mins, Cert.15 (strong language). In this wonderfully entertaining biopic directed by James Mangold (‘Walk the Line’), Timothee Chalamet (‘Dune’, Call Me By Your Name’) gives an extraordinary, Oscar-nominated, performance as the young Bob Dylan, whose arrival in New York in the early 1960s changed the American folk music scene forever. Doors open 6.30pm, film starts 7.00pm at Hawkchurch Village Hall, EX13 5XD. Ticket reservations £6.50 from csma95@gmail.com or leave a message on 07753 603219 (socially-distanced seating available if reserved in advance); tickets also available in advance for £6.50 from Hawkchurch Community Shop or £7.00 on the door (cash only). Subtitles for hearing-impaired patrons provided if available. Homemade cake, teas, coffees, soft drinks, wine and other refreshments available.
Tuesday, 6 May
My Ballet offers you holistic ballet classes with movement to support and improve your posture, balance, coordination, strength,and fitness to beautiful music.First timers to Experienced dancers. Ages 16 to 88 plus welcome email myballetuk@gmail.com or text 07866896978 Meet new friends and stay for a cuppa. Tuesdays Seaton United reformed Church hall, Cross street, EX12 2LH Also May 13,20, June 3,10,17,24. July 1,8,15,22. Wednesdays Bull hotel ballroom, 34 East street DT6 3LF times: 10 to 11:15, 11:30 to 12:45, 1 to 2, 2:15 to 3:30. 2, 23, 30 May 7, 14, 21. June 4, 11, 18, 25. July 2, 9,16, 23. Wednesdays at 3 Church street, Winsham, NR Chard Jubilee Hall TA20 4HU 6:45 to 8pm same dates as above. Fridays Winsham JUbilee hall 3 Church street, NR Chard TA20 4 HU 10am11:15 11:30 to 12:30, 4 & 25 May. 2, 9, 16, 23. June 6, 13, 20, 27.
Scottish Country Dancing at Horton Village Hall TA19 9QR every Tuesday evening from 7.30 to 9.30pm with tea break. Only £3.00 pay on the door and every one is welcome to come along and join the fun. For further information contact Anita on 01460 929383 email anitaandjim22@gmail.com and checkout our web site at www.ashillscd.wordpress.com.
Dance Connection - movement to eclectic music that is guaranteed to make you feel better - no set steps - come alone or with a friend or partner, 7-8:30pm (doors open 6:50pm), Latch, Litton Cheney Hall, DT2 9AU, 07787752201, danceconnectionwessex@gmail. com, www.joysofdance.co.uk
Wednesday, 7 May
Meeting Voices Community Choir, Chard. 19.30 to 21.15. Sing for fun. Learn songs in harmony by ear. Everyone welcome. Chard Guildhall. Fore St, Chard TA20 1PP. Phone 07534 116502 or email
mvsecretary@outlook.com.
Thursday, 8 May
Chesil Bank Writing Shed. Do you write? Would you like to be a writer? Whatever you want to write why not come and learn with our creative writing group. New writers always welcome. 7pm - 9pm, Portesham Village Hall. Find out more by calling Linda on 01305 871802.
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.
Lyme Voices Community Choir. 19.30 to 21.15. Sing for fun. Learn songs in harmony by ear. Everyone welcome. Baptist Church (Pine Hall round the back), Silver St., Lyme Regis, DT7 3NY. Phone 07534 116502 or email petelinnett2@hotmail.com.
Bridport History Society, to mark the 80th anniversary of VE Day, will be welcoming military historian Christopher Jary who will give a talk titled ‘The 4th and 5th Dorsets in WW2 – from Normandy to Bremen’. The talk tells the story of the Dorsets during the final months of the war and their involvement at Arnhem followed by breaking through the Siegfried Line and crossing the Rhine. The talk will be held at the United Church Hall on East Street, Bridport. Doors open at 2.15pm for a prompt 2.30pm start. All are welcome, members £1pp, visitors £5pp. Bridport History Society meets on the second Thursday of each month (except July and August). Membership is open to all (£12 individual / £18 couple). For more information visit: www.bridporthistorysociety.org.uk <http://www. bridporthistorysociety.org.uk.
Friday, 9 May
Cinechard - A Complete Unknown (15). Timothee Chalamet stars in the acclaimed Bob Dylan bio-pic. Doors at 7pm for a 7.30pm start at The Guildhall, Chard. Tickets available in advance from Eleos and the Post Office (cash please) for £6, or on the door for £7. Always plenty of seats, including circle seats; refreshments and raffle available.
Saturday 10 - 18 May
Dorchester Walking Festival enables walkers of all levels of ability and differing interests explore new areas, showing casing the best routes and Dorset hospitality. Our knowledgeable and experienced volunteer walk leaders have been out and about this month conducting recces for their walks, ensuring the best routes are planned so that participants have a fun, enjoyable and safe day out. Walking festivals are sociable occasions and the Dorchester Walking
Festival is no exception. It brings visitors and locals with similar interests together. Many of the walks are wheelchair/pushchair accessible. Dogs are not forgotten and most of the walks are dog friendly, so long as they are kept under strict control. There are also walks specifically aimed at families with young children. Full details of these walks are in the printed programme and on Eventbrite: https:// www.eventbrite.com/cc/dorchester-walkingfestival-2025-3974953.
Saturday, 10 May
Community Car Boot Sale. 10.00 am1.00pm Plus Plants, Clothes, Home produce, Bric a Brac, Tombola, Jazz, Bacon Butties, Fresh Coffee and Cakes. Charity tables (free). Sellers £15 a pitch please book in advance Mob: 07887483228. St. Swithun’s Church Grounds, Allington, Bridport, DT6 5DU. Groove Den ft Dennis Rollins The grooviest, funkiest horns on the planet! The former Pee Wee Ellis gang join forces with superstar trombonist, Dennis Rollins in a high-energy mix of soul, jazz, funk, and hip-hop. It’s big, phat and funky! Marine Theatre, Church Street, Lyme Regis, DT7 3QB. Part of BSharp Busking Festival. Tickets: https://jazzjurassica.
B Sharp Busking Festival - Lyme Regis. Enjoy performances by young people and professional musicians, interactive workshops and activities, street performers and food stalls. There’s something for everyone – music activities for babies and toddlers, a family friendly gig, DJing, music production, afrocuban and samba reggae drumming, New Orleans style street band Brass Junkies, a funkmasterclass and open-mic and busking opportunities. All activities are free and everyone welcome.The festival finale is a fantastic soul, jazz, funk, and hip-hop gig at the Marine Theatre. More information on the day’s programme and how you can get involved visit: https://bsharp.org.uk/buskingfestival/
Bridport & West Dorset Rambling Club 9 mile walk from Arne. For further information please ring 01308 898484 or 01308 863340. New members/visitors welcome.
Hooke Park Open Day 10.30am – 4pm Hooke Park is the woodland campus of the Architectural Association School of Architecture and home to the AA’s postgraduate Design and Make programme, where full-scale building experiments and
hands-on architectural education meet. The open day is a chance to explore our ever-changing woodland campus, learn more about its pioneering history, and visit the latest building additions resulting from our ongoing teaching and research in timber construction. Free entry with site tour at 11am. Book tickets via Eventbrite: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/hookepark-open-day-tickets-1312942258639 Refreshments available.Location: Hooke Park, Hooke, Beaminster, DT8 3PH.
Sunday, 11 May
Young Gun Silver Fox creatively re-work 70s West Coast soul echoing sounds of Steely Dan, Hall and Oates and the Doobies. A Hotel California you’ll never want to leave! A rare appearance by this must see live act. Marine Theatre, Church Street, Lyme Regis, DT7 3QB. Tickets: https://jazzjurassica.co.uk/book-now/
Salway Ash Village Cream Teas 2-5 pm Location:
Strongate Farm, Salway Ash, DT6 5JD Parking at the farm and dog friendly (on leads please). Plant stall and raffle. All proceeds donated Holy Trinity Church Salway Ash. Any enquiries contact Tess 07792 609617. Lyme Bay Chorale’s spring concert, including Handel’s Foundling Hospital Anthem and Haydn’s Creation Mass. Professional orchestra and vocal soloists. Lyme Regis Parish Church at 4pm. Tickets £15 in advance from Fortnam Smith & Banwell or
choir members; £17 on the door (cash/card). 18s and under free.
Afternoon Concert. Brass band concert by St. Swithun’s band. St. Andrew’s Church, Charmouth. 15:00. Free entry donations welcome. 01297 560681, liz@elizabethsansom.co.uk
Monday, 12 May
Scottish Dancing in Chardstock An evening of Scottish Dancing at Chardstock Village Hall EX13 7BH. 7.30-10.00 p.m. Tea and coffee provided but please bring your own mug and wear soft soled shoes. No partner required. Cost £2.00 Contact David on 01460 65981 https://chardscottishcountrydance.co.uk
Tuesday, 13 May
West Dorset Ramblers Group walk: 7.5 miles. Rodwell & Castle Cove Beach – circular walk in Weymouth. Start 10.45 TBC from the Park & Ride (SY 675819) bring bus pas/money. To book and for more details please contact Ian 07826150114.
Scottish Country Dancing at Horton Village Hall TA19 9QR every Tuesday evening from 7.30 to 9.30pm with tea break. Only £3.00 pay on the door and every one is welcome to come along and join the fun. For further information contact Anita on 01460 929383 email anitaandjim22@gmail.com and checkout our web site at www.ashillscd.wordpress.com.
Singing Bowl Soundbath 9pm Digby Memorial Hall, Sherborne DT9 3LN £17 crystal and Tibetan bowl sonic deep-tissue massage and detox. Booking 01935 389655 email ahiahel@live.com.
Dance Connection Workshop, Dance the 4 Elements for balance and wholeness,10:30am-1pm, Bridport St Mary’s CHH, DT6 3NN, 07787752201, danceconnectionwessex@gmail.com, www. joysofdance.co.uk
Wednesday, 14 May
Kilmington Film Night “A Good Year (12)” Marion Cotillard, Russell Crowe, Albert Finney, Rafe Spall. “A Good Year” is a wonderful movie, with gorgeous shots that warms up my heart every time I watch it. Based on a Book by Peter Mayle with a long history of the region and is a superb writer. (Reviews Rotten Tomatoes). Doors and bar open 6.45 film start 7.15 at Kilmington Village Hall EX13 7RF. Tickets @ £6, or £6.50 on the door, can be ordered by contacting: John at wattsjohn307@ gmail.com or Tel: 01297 521681.
Meeting Voices Community Choir, Chard. 19.30 to 21.15. Sing for fun. Learn songs in harmony by ear. Everyone
HMS Heron Volunteer Band concert. The concert includes popular classics, overtures, film music, selections from West End shows, military marches, and contemporary works. Martock Church; TA12 6JL. 7:30pm. Tickets: £12 or £10 at Guardianstickets@gmail.com /07547 213992/Martock Gallery/ Martock Newsagent. https://www.hmsheronband. co.uk/ http://www.martockonline.co.uk/ events.
Chard History Group. Talk by Nigel Sadler on the History of Slavery. Doors open 7pm for 7.30 start. Chard Guildhall. £2.50 for members guests very welcome £3.50. For further details please contact Tessa on 07984481634.
Folk dancing at Combe St Nicholas village hall (TA20 3LT) at 1930 hrs. Rosie Shaw will be calling and Jeroka will be providing the music. It’s £4.00 per person which includes a cuppa and cake, all welcome and it is a lot of fun! Further details from Elaine on 01460 65909.
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.
Lyme Voices Community Choir. 19.30 to 21.15. Sing for fun. Learn songs in harmony by ear. Everyone welcome. Baptist Church (Pine Hall round the back), Silver St., Lyme Regis, DT7 3NY. Phone 07534 116502 or email petelinnett2@hotmail.com.
South Somerset RSPB Local Group Our Rivers and Birds Unite Us. An illustrated talk presented by Vicki Whitworth, from Friends of the Axe. The river Axe flows for 22 miles through Dorset, Somerset & Devon. Vicki is instrumental in the new, communityled Friends of the River Axe and she will share real life stories of how, with encouragement and support, the natural environment, communities and individual people can thrive together. 7.30pm The Millennium Hall, Seavington St. Mary, Ilminster, TA19 0QH. Entry: Group members £4, non-group members £5, under 25’s Free. Tea/coffee & biscuits included – Wheelchair access. Further details from Denise Chamings on 01781473846 or www.rspb.org.uk/ groups/southsomerset. Everyone welcome.
Seaton Music 7pm St Andrew’s Church, Colyton: Recital by Joel Munday (violin) and Alex Wilson (piano). Tickets £15 (free for full-time students).
Friday, 16 May
Milborne Movies – May Film Night Join us at Milborne St Andrew Village Hall for our film: A Complete Unknown. This highly anticipated biographical drama delves into the early life of Bob Dylan, tracing his rise from a young folk singer to a cultural icon during the turbulent 1960s. With powerful performances and an evocative soundtrack, it’s a mustsee for music lovers and film fans alike. Tickets are just £6.50, including a drink or ice cream! Doors open at 7pm, with the film starting at 7.30pm. Come along and enjoy a relaxed evening of film, treats, and good conversation. Whether you’re a regular or it’s your first time, we’d love to welcome you!
Beginners Calligraphy ‘Foundation Hand and Roman Capitals’ Cost £17 (to include materials) 10 till 12noon. At the URC church Chard St, Axminster EX13 5EB. Come and learn this useful skill and be creative. Email :gina.youens@btinternet.com to book a place
Saturday, 17 May - 1 June
Open for Art: Step into the world of creativity as the Open for Art Trail returns. Whether you’re a curious newcomer or a seasoned art enthusiast, this muchloved event warmly invites you to explore the vibrant studios, exhibitions and workspaces of over 60 local artists across Weymouth, Portland, Dorchester and
neighbouring communities. Organised biennially by Artwey CIC and led by local artists, the communityfocused event provides a unique opportunity to meet talented local creators, view diverse artworks and gain insights into their artistic processes. It’s a celebration of creativity that builds community connections, inspires appreciation for local talent, and supports Dorset’s thriving arts scene. For further details, visit www. artwey.com/openforartdorset or follow the Open For Art Facebook page @openforartdorset.
Saturday, 17 May
Jumble Sale with refreshments, 2pm. Contributions gratefully received, & may be left at the hall between 10am & mid-day on the Saturday morning. Clapton & Wayford Village Hall. Further information from Jackie (01460 72324) or Mary (01460 74849).
West Dorset Singers are bringing to Bridport one of choral music’s best-loved works. Remember the Old Spice advert with the surfer? Or the music played for the entrance of the X Factor judges? ‘O Fortuna’ is the famous opening to Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana, a cantata inspired by medieval poems about life’s earthier pleasures - the fickleness of Fate, the joys of Spring and especially what a young man’s fancy turns to. There are maidens who wish they weren’t, young men eager for the pleasures of the flesh, drunken gamblers led astray by an Abbot, a roasted swan, followed by a hangover and realisation that Fate will get you in the end. It sounds like a good Saturday night out in Bridport. First performed in Germany in 1937 to great acclaim, Carmina Burana has become a twentiethcentury classic, so join WDS, a choir of local children, professional soloists, two pianos and a percussion band on Saturday 17 th May at St Swithun’s Church, starting at 7.00 pm. Tickets (£15, free to under 18s) are available from the Bridport Music Centre in South St and from www.ticketsource.co.uk/wds.
Bridport & West Dorset Rambling Club 7 mile walk from Beaminster. For further information please ring 01308 898484 or 01308 863340. New members/ visitors welcome.
Combe St Nicholas Opens Gardens 2.00-4.00pm. Croft House TA20 3NA Smithycroft Cottage TA20 3LY. Embark on a whimsical journey through these idyllic gardens on the edge of the Blackdown Hills, where a warm welcome awaits from donkeys, Pekin bantams, and friendly pet sheep. At Croft House, admire spring shrubs, a tranquil woodland, and a bustling allotment garden nestled beside majestic lime trees. Follow the donkey paddock to Smithycroft Cottage, where fruit trees and a flourishing vegetable patch beckon. Delight in stunning borders adorned with alliums, hellebores, camassias, Peruvian lilies, clematis, tulips, and foxgloves, while serene vistas offer space for quiet reflection and rejuvenation. Parking is available in the village. Entry by Donation.
Refreshments. Toilets. Limited Disabled Access. www.st-margarets-hospice.org.uk/ event/glorious-gardens. 01935709485 for latest times or cancellations.
Beginners Sewing Workshop. At the URC church, Chard St, Axminster EX13 5EB. Come along and learn some new sewing skills on the machine or by hand. Make a small project. Bring a machine if you have one. 10am till 2 pm. Cost £18. To book a place contact: gina.youens@btinternet.com.
Uplyme and Lyme Regis Horticultural Society Annual Plant Sale, Uplyme Village Hall 10-12. Entry £2 includes a drink. More information https://ulrhs.wordpress.com
Sunday, 18 May
The Occasional Singers at 3.00pm. St Mary’s Church, Edward Road, Dorchester DT1 2HL. You are warmly invited to join the Occasional Singers for an afternoon concert on Sunday 18 May at 3.00pm at St Mary’s Church in Dorchester. There will be a selection of songs depicting the four seasons of the year including light hearted madrigals from the 16th century, beautiful romantic songs by Elgar and Holst and a fantastic evocation of the cold wind of a late autumn day, by
EVENTS IN JUNE
Live or Online send your event details to info@marshwoodvale.com BY MAY 14th
the contemporary Estonian composer Veljo Tormis. Entrance is FREE. The retiring collection will be in aid of the children’s hospice Julia’s House. Everyone is most welcome.
Axe Vale Orchestra Concert, 3.30pm, Axe Vale Orchestra invites you to an afternoon concert at The Minster, Axminster EX13 5AQ. The programme includes Mozart’s Impresario Overture, Beethoven’s Symphony No 2, and Mendelssohn’s Incidental music from A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Tickets £15 (free for under 18s or students), from www.axevaleorchestra. co.uk via TicketSource or on the door.
Open Garden in Aid of St Margaret’ Hospice, Bay House East, Ilminster, Somerset TA19 0AT. 2.00pm5.00pm £4.00 entry. An example of a garden where the ground is steeply sloping - a terraced garden with unusual, colourful and old fashioned scented plants. The garden includes a small pond, a greenhouse stocked with tomatoes and cucumbers, lime and orange bushes and a small vegetable garden. The very knowledgeable gardener will be on hand to answer questions and sell plants. Refreshments. Toilets. Parking. Dogs on leads welcome. www.st-margaretshospice.org.uk/event/glorious-gardens. 01935709485 for latest times or cancellations.
Dalwood Jazz Club presents La Vie en Roseoutstandingly popular Gypsy Jazz Band with Rebecca Willson - violin, Nick White (Chris Barber Big Band) - clarinet, David Jones - lead guitar, Laurie Lightrhythm guitar and Yann Mahdjoub - bass. At 3pm. Dalwood Village Hall, EX13 7EG, near Axminster. 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 at the door. t.mackenney111@btinternet.com.www.dalwoodvillage. co.uk.
Kilima Paino Trio Recital: Polly Orr-Ewing (violin); Ruth Wakefield (cello); Mike Stanley (piano). Join us for a delightful afternoon of music with this acclaimed trio of professional musicians playing Mozart’s Piano trio in C (Allegro, Andante Cantabile, Allegro), Faure’s Piano trio Op. 120 (Allegro ma non troppo, Andantino, Allegro vivo); Tchaikowsky’s Andante Cantabile from String Quartet No. 1 in D major arr. H Riesenfeld, Clara Schumann’s Piano trio, Op. 17 (Allegro moderato, Scherzo, Andante, Allegretto). There will be an interval for this performance. 4 PM St Michael’s Church, Shute EX13 7QW. Tickets £12.50 via www.shutefest.org.uk/bookings (children 16 and under Free).
Monday, 19 May
A fascinating talk about life on our planet by Timothy Walker. Ex Director of Oxford Botanical Gardens and world-renowned speaker. “What have Plants ever done for Us”. For gardeners and non-gardeners. Bride Valley Gardening Club at Litton Cheney Community
Hall DT2 9AU. Refreshments, plant sales, raffle. Tickets £5 in advance from Liz Gibbs bridevalleygc@ gmail.com or 07751 942588.
Tuesday, 20 May
West Dorset Ramblers Group walk: 7.5 miles. Around Eggardon – via Powerstock, Nettlecombe and the Spyway. Start 10am from the Eggardon/Roman road To book and for more details please contact Heather T 7798732252.
Scottish Country Dancing at Horton Village Hall TA19 9QR every Tuesday evening from 7.30 to 9.30pm with tea break. Only £3.00 pay on the door and every one is welcome to come along and join the fun. For further information contact Anita on 01460 929383 email anitaandjim22@gmail.com and checkout our web site at www.ashillscd.wordpress.com.
Dance Connection - movement to eclectic music that is guaranteed to make you feel better - no set steps - come alone or with a friend or partner, 7-8:30pm (doors open 6:50pm), Uplyme Village Hall, DT7 3UY 07787752201, danceconnectionwessex@gmail.com, www.joysofdance.co.uk
Wednesday, 21 May
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).
Meeting Voices Community Choir, Chard. 19.30 to 21.15. Sing for fun. Learn songs in harmony by ear. Everyone welcome. Chard Guildhall. Fore St, Chard TA20 1PP. Phone 07534 116502 or email mvsecretary@outlook.com
Thursday, 22 May
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.
Lyme Voices Community Choir. 19.30 to 21.15. Sing for fun. Learn songs in harmony by ear. Everyone welcome. Baptist Church (Pine Hall round the back), Silver St., Lyme Regis, DT7 3NY. Phone 07534 116502 or email petelinnett2@hotmail.com.
Friday, 23 May
Bridport Dance Festival Workshops and performance at Bridport venues. Book your tickets now. TIC 01308 424901. Everybody welcome. www. bridportdancefestival.org.uk.
Dance Connection, as part of Bridport Dance Festival, 2-3:15pm, Bridport St Mary’s CHH, DT6 3NN, https://www.bridportdancefestival.org.uk
Saturday 24, May
Bridport Dance Festival Workshops and performance at Bridport venues. Book your tickets now. TIC 01308 424901. Everybody welcome. www. bridportdancefestival.org.uk.
Dance Connection, as part of Bridport Dance Festival, 2-3:15pm, Bridport St Mary’s CHH, DT6 3NN, https://www.bridportdancefestival.org.uk.
Sunday, 25 - 26 May
Sydling St. Nicholas Open Gardens event with many beautiful gardens for you to enjoy from 2 pm to 6 pm. Tickets from the Village Hall on the day, £5 entry, cash or card, children free. Tea, cakes, plus locally grown plants and shrubs on sale. A lovely day out. Sorry, no dogs. For more information: 07771 623973.
Sunday, 25 May
Singing Bowl Soundbath 2pm Oborne Village Hall
DT9 4LA £17 crystal and Tibetan bowl sonic deeptissue massage and detox. Booking 01935 389655 email ahiahel@live.com
Monday, 26 May
Stockland Fair. Traditional country fair from 1.30pm with old-fashioned games and stalls, country crafts and demos, falconry displays, a fab magician, live music, puppetry and storytelling, ice-creams, afternoon teas
and a bar. Blackdown Hills AONB with have a stall there too. Stockland Village. EX14 9EF.
Tuesday, 27 May
West Dorset Ramblers Group walk: 9 miles. Millhayes & Wytch Tower – circular walk via Stockland (Blackdown Hills), Broadhayes, and Wytch Farm. Start 10am Stockland Village Hall (ST245047) . To book and for more details please contact Ian 07826 150114.
Scottish Country Dancing at Horton Village Hall
TA19 9QR every Tuesday evening from 7.30 to 9.30pm with tea break. Only £3.00 pay on the door and every one is welcome to come along and join the fun. For further information contact Anita on 01460 929383 email anitaandjim22@gmail.com and checkout our web site at www.ashillscd.wordpress.com.
Bridport u3a talks take place on the fourth Tuesday of every month. Our next speaker will be Bob Rayner, who represents Dignity in Dying. His talk is titled ‘Assisted Dying: What is it, and why is it now the subject of much discussion?’ We start at 2pm in the hall of Bridport United Church, East Street, Bridport. DT6 3LJ. The talk will last for 45-60 minutes, followed by a Q&A, then refreshments.
Lunchtime Concert Recital by Bibe Redford (piano) plus Kim Redford and Nicholas Brown (piano duet). St. Andrew’s Church, Charmouth. 12:30 with light
refreshments from 12:00. Free entry donations welcome. 01297 560681, liz@elizabethsansom.co.uk.
Wednesday, 28 May
Loders Local History Group 7.30pm-9.00pm in Loders Village Hall. Talk by Alastair Forbes on Church Bells and Bell Ringing (St Mary’s Bridport). All Welcome £3/adult refreshments.
Learn to Draw Houses and Buildings. Materials provided but please bring your own paints. Learn to draw and sketch your favourite house or building. Learn some tips and skills to improve your drawing. from 10am untll 12.30. At the URC church, Chard St, Axminster EX13 5EB. To book a place email: gina. youens@btinternet.com.
Uplyme and Lyme Regis Horticultural Society. Talk ‘The Revival of the British Flower Growing Industry’ by Charlotte Heavisides. Uplyme Village Hall 7.30pm. Doors open 7pm. Members free; guests £3. More information https://ulrhs.wordpress.com
Thursday, 29 May
Folk dancing at Combe St Nicholas village hall (TA20 3LT) at 1930 hrs. Mary Blackborow will be calling and her band of Robert and Friends will be providing the music. It’s £4.00 per person which includes a cuppa and cake, all welcome and it is a lot of fun! Further details from Elaine on 01460 65909.
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, May 30
Bridport night of solidarity and songs. Joe Solo and friends raise money for refugee group. Bridport WI Hall, North Street. Doors at 7.00 pm and there will be a bar (and probably a raffle). Tickets are £10 + 50p booking fee from Bridport Tourist Information Centre or £12 on the door. They can also be bought from the TIC website. https://bridportandwestbay.co.uk/ product/joe-solo-friday-30-may/
Saturday, 31 May - 1 June
St Wite’s Festival Celebrating Dorset Day at St Candida and the Holy Cross and the Five Bells pub, Whitchurch Canonicorum DT6 6RQ. St Wite, is Dorset’s patron saint and Dorset day is celebrated on her saints day. Her shrine is embedded in the wall of St Candida and the Holy Cross church and has been a site of pilgrimage for a thousand years. 6.30pm Sat 31st May Sarum Rite Vespers. An authentic recreation of a medieval plainsong service sung in Latin, with robed choir and incense. Dual language translation available. Refreshments. Free entry 12 noon - 5pm Sun
1st June The Festival continues with talks on herbal medicine and ancient practice of pilgrimage, children’s craft activities and treasure hunt, local history and art exhibitions, cream teas, barbeque, the Wyld Morris band, other local folk musicians and beer! Free entry to both the church and pub. Tickets for the talks available stwitesway.org. 5.30pm 1st June Celebration concert at St Candida Church with the acclaimed vocal quartet New Eden Consort. Tickets available on stwitesway. org
Saturday, 31 May
Music from the Courts of Europe – a free concert with refreshments available. Step back in time and let Courtlye Musick and Ars Nova of Cherbourg transport you from 1450 to 1600 on a musical journey through the courts of Europe. Costumed performance on reproduction instruments. Donations invited in aid of the church roof. 3.00pm at St Mary’s Church, Dorchester DT1 2HL and Saturday 1st June 3.00pm at Broadmayne Village Hall, Broadmayne DT2 8EW. For more information call 01305 854915. www. courtlyemusick.co.uk.
Bridport & West Dorset Rambling Club 7.5 mile walk from Bridport. For further information please ring 01308 898484 or 01308 863340. New members/ visitors welcome.
River Char Dragon Festival. Let us Clean Up the River Char together! 11.00 am – 12.30 pm Dragon Parade begins at Barr’s Lane DT6 6SE. 12.30 pm -4.00 pm Dragon Festival and Stalls in St Andrew’s Hall, DT6 6LH. Come and see what we’re doing to clean up the river and help wildlife recover. Free! More info can be found at: www.riverchar.org.
Parnham Voices Love is in the air Palestrina 500. Directed by Kris Emmett A concert of a cappella choral music at 7pm The Church of St Mary the Virgin, Charminster Tickets £10 available in advance from 01305 213403 / 07818 508011 or at the door. Interval drinks and nibbles included. Proceeds to church fund.
Sunday, 1 June
Concert by professional vocal quartet The New Eden Consort. The Church of St Candida & Holy Cross, Whitchurch Canonicorum, 5.30pm. Tickets £12 on the door (cash/card). This event is being organised by the Friends of St Candida as part of the Festival of St Wite.
Taunton Deane Male Voice Choir present Choirs in Harmony with special guests Lyme Voices. 7pm, at the Marine Theatre Lyme Regis in aid of RNLI, Tickets from Marine Theatre £13.50, Early Bird £12
article
NNature Studies
By Michael McCarthy
ature’s ability to move people is something I have found more engrossing as I have got older. Of course, not everyone is moved by the natural world; I have friends who couldn’t care less about it. Yet I have other friends who are not only enthusiasts for landscapes and wildlife, but also have an instinctive emotional connection with the living world around us, which sometimes permits experiences which can only be described as profound.
An incomer’s discovery of the natural world in the West Country
A case in point concerns barn owls. Can an encounter with a barn owl be described as profound? Well, in my own case, yes—assuredly so. It is a bird which has a head start in charisma anyway because of the element of mystery carried by all owls as creatures of the night, which makes them prominent in folklore across the world; but what you get with a barn owl is something you don’t get with its fellow species like tawny owls: in the right circumstances, visibility.
For barn owls are not only creatures of the night, they are creatures of the evening—they are, to use that charming word, crepuscular, and will often start their hunting about half an hour before sunset, and it is in these circumstances that they can provide a spectacle which I find wonderful and moving. It’s not just beauty, though beautiful the birds most certainly are. It’s perhaps something to do with the rarity of the occasion—how many times have you watched a barn owl hunting?—and something even more to do with the quality of the flight, which is this silent, unhurried, low quartering of the landscape, a sort of mesmeric cruising over the grassland as they hunt for voles. When we see other birds flying, most are dashing from one place to another, are they not? Barn owls, though, are slow and deliberate, and they take their time, untroubled by anything but their purpose.
But most if all, it’s the time of day. Evenings with their
stillness and soft fading light, and hunting barn owls, make a magical combination—my friend the nature writer Brian Jackman described them to me as “mysterious creatures of the twilight zone, soundlessly floating through the dusk on their exquisite thistledown wings.” And so it was in March, in our village, where we are blessed, not only with the bullfinches and primroses I have already written about this year, but with barn owls on all sides. In the first week of the month, on the first proper evenings of the year, which were very lovely, we had a barn owl which turned up at the cricket pitch at 5.15pm, and proceeded to hunt over the grasslands beyond, and a group of us went out to watch it.
I was moved beyond words. It wasn’t just the spectacle, the entrancing floating flight which was magnificent, above all when the bird caught the rays of the setting sun and the white plumage was suddenly glowing golden, as if lit from within. It was the occasion, somehow, it was almost a visitation, by an extraordinary creature from a different world; like being suddenly shown a reality very unlike the everyday. I’ve racked my brains for a comparison and the only thing I can think of is, it was like hearing a nightingale sing in the middle of a wood at midnight. It was the visual equivalent of that. What I mean is, it was wondrous.
You can say, don’t get carried away, it’s only a bird, and it was. But something in the act of watching it opened a door for me. It was a door into the wonder at the heart of the natural world, the place where we came from, and the place that—we sometimes suddenly realise—we long for, at the deepest level of our souls.
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.
Ihave often been asked if it is possible to rewild at home—in the garden or even in a windowbox— and is there any point in that? So with no-mow May imminent, I thought that I would talk about ‘domestic’ rewilding, what you can do and what difference it might make.
But let’s start with no-mow May, a splendid use of alliteration by Plantlife UK. Firstly, is it rewilding? No, it is more like temporary abandonment, but that’s not a reason not to like it! They suggest that you don’t cut your lawn for a month to provide more structure in the garden and in particular let the wildflowers (if they are there) pop through and provide more food for pollinators.
The problem is that we have been feeding and treating and preening our gardens so long so that they look ‘beautifully’ green, that the soil is very fertile, and the grass is fast growing, and the chances of anything other than dandelions, buttercups and a bit of clover coming through are pretty remote. Wildflowers tend to need low fertility soil and are outcompeted by the grasses on most lawns. So it is not rewilding, no, but do go ahead in May—it is certainly better for nature than cutting the lawn every 5 days—and if you are going to mow, you might want to cut around the clumps of flowers that do come through until they have gone over.
So what about ‘wildlife gardening’, heartily expounded by the Wildlife Trusts? This is all about creating space for nature by creating log piles, bug houses, planting wild-flower seeds, digging ponds, making hedgehog homes (and holes between gardens) and planting hedges instead of fences. To be honest there is nothing not to like about this, so why not look it up online to find out more. If you can attract more moths, butterflies, birds, mammals etc to the garden, you are doing a good thing for nature, but it is very planned, organised, regimented and, well, it is just another form of gardening!
So onto rewilding. What is it, at the small scale? Well, Rewilding Britain’s definition is “the large-scale restoration of ecosystems to the point where nature is allowed to take care of itself”. Hmm, that’s not going to work—but it is not definitive. Mossy Earth define urban rewilding as “about bringing back elements of wilderness, embracing natural processes and restoring ecosystems with less human interference”.
Citizen Zoo—a great bunch from London—even
By Dr Sam Rose
give six principles to Urban Rewilding, which I won’t list here, but they do say that “no space is too small to be valuable” which I love—including lamp posts and the tops of bus shelters. Everywhere where nature can thrive, it will, as long as we don’t scrape it off or treat it with chemicals… but that’s very urban and not really what I am talking about here, in delightful rural Dorset. So can you rewild in Bridport, Lyme, or Dorchester? Yes, absolutely you can. It helps to remind ourselves of some of the key factors behind rewilding—disturbance, dispersal and diversity, and this is the approach I took back in 2021 when I decided to rewild a patch of my front garden. It is about 6x4m, and over the winters it has looked a mess, by traditional standards! Lacking space for large herbivores, my basic approach has been to allow it to
My rewilding patch Oct 2021 after leaving it to grow over the summer — dominated by grasses
The same patch June 2023, with grasses being dominated by Oxeye daisies and a lot of structure in the vegetation
grow up over the summer, then cut some of it back— taking away the cuttings to replicate animals eating it and keep the fertility down—and pushing some of it over to replicate trampling. I have also got the spade out and dug into the soil and exposed it in various places like a pig might do when it rootles.
Referring back to the key factors for rewilding, the cutting and digging have been disturbance, whereas my trousers, and the process of cutting the vegetation back (and so knocking over seed pods) have been the dispersal. To kickstart diversity, the third factor, after more than 20 years of grass lawn, I added a very small amount of locally sourced wildflower seed and have attracted invertebrates through leaving seed heads and putting out some logs to rot.
The changes over four years have been fantastic, with clovers, knapweed, dock, ragwort, and most spectacularly Oxeye daisies turning up en-masse— way before the added local seeds have started to take root. I have also seen new butterflies making an appearance. Ok, they were Mr and Mrs Common Blue, but I had not seen them before in the garden.
The point is that I have set in place the conditions for nature to do what it needs to, and am watching it—and occasionally replicating natural processes—to see what happens; and every year gets more exciting.
On a much smaller scale, yes you could put out a window box with fresh soil to see what happens! Maybe scatter some bird feed on it so that the birds poop out some other seeds whilst feeding, or you could be amazed at what just turns up in the wind.
The point of this is that rather than trying to garden or manage intensely, rewilding even a small space is about setting up the conditions for nature to do what it needs to do and then watch in wonder as it happens. It will almost certainly be messy, by our conventional standards, but it will be complex, wild and ‘natureful’—more of what we need, everywhere. For me, it is only a part of my garden, and a part that has little amenity value, so giving it over to nature was an easy decision. For others it may be less or more depending on your space and inclination, but if you are interested enough to ask yourself whether you should do it, you already know the answer.
Dr Sam Rose is a photographer and podcaster about nature and rewilding—see his website at whatifyoujustleaveit.info and podcast “What if you just leave it?”. He also heads up the charity West Dorset Wilding (westdorsetwilding.org) and the Brit Valley Landscape Recovery project (britvalley.org) but the views expressed here are personal and are not said on behalf of the Brit Valley Project or West Dorset Wilding.
Click Here for an Easy Read version of this article
DA coast facing climate change
By Bob Ward
orset’s iconic coastline faces major changes over the coming decades as sea level rises and extreme weather events become more intense and frequent.
While the people of Dorset undoubtedly cherish the dynamism of their beaches and sea cliffs, they will need to prepare for the precedented, if not unexpected, impacts of climate change.
Coastal communities will be forced to decide whether they can withstand the accelerating landward invasion of the sea, or instead retreat to safety further inland.
While the drivers of sea level rise are global, through the disintegration of glaciers and ice sheets as well as the thermal expansion of water, its impacts are already being experienced locally all along the Dorset coast.
Sea level was relatively stable along the south-west coast of Britain over the past 2000 years, changing by less than a millimetre a year, but it has started to rise at an increasing pace over the past century due to climate change.
One of Britain’s longest-running records of sea level comes from a tidal gauge further along the coast at Newlyn in Cornwall. It has captured an increase of about 2.1 millimetres per year since 1916, but with an acceleration to an annual rate of about 4.6 since 1993.
That means sea level along the Dorset coast is now more than 20 centimetres higher than a century ago, and more than half of the increase has taken place in the past 30 years.
But it also means that the water depth immediately offshore is deeper, allowing the development of larger waves which crash into the cliff, leading to even higher extreme sea levels during high tides and storms.
The Met Office warns that global sea level could be more than a metre higher by the end of this century compared with the start of the 20th century. And the total rise could be larger where local subsidence is occurring or young sediments underfoot are compacting,
such as the mouths of the estuaries at Poole and Christchurch.
As sea level rises, the bases of Dorset’s cliffs are attacked by high tides more often, and extreme tides climb higher up the rockface.
Some of the cliffs between Charmouth and Lyme Regis could move inland by more than 50 metres by the end of the century
The cliffs at West Bay have been made famous around the world by the television drama Broadchurch, but there is evidence that they may be eroding at an accelerating rate as the sea advances and encroaches on the land.
According to the British Geological Survey, 40 landslides have been recorded along the coast between West Bay and Burton Bradstock since 2012, but more than a third have occurred just since the end of 2022.
It is too soon to tell if this trend will continue and whether climate change is the main driver, but it has already permanently altered the route of the South West Coastal Path, and led to heightened fears of the risks to beachgoers from rockfalls.
Of Dorset’s 88 miles of coastline, more than half is classified by the Environment Agency as unmanaged and exposed directly to the power of the sea.
Over the coming decades, our coast could be transformed into a series of protected man-made headlands where the Agency “holds the line”, separated by naturally expanding bays.
Perhaps ironically, our efforts to protect our shorelines against erosion are helping to starve our beaches of fresh supplies of silt, sand and pebbles. So as sea level rise narrows our beaches and attacks our shores, the natural processes of replenishment are being suppressed.
The overall effect is that large parts of the Dorset coastline will recede more rapidly over the coming
decades. New estimates released by the Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs earlier this year of the rates of coastal erosion around Britain indicate that some of the cliffs between Charmouth and Lyme Regis could move inland by more than 50 metres by the end of the century.
While that may mean more finds for fossil-hunters along the world famous Jurassic coastline, it will pose growing threats to local buildings, roads and other infrastructure.
Dorset’s cliffs are also being weakened by more rainwater that percolates through the cracks and crevices, dissolving and displacing the constituent minerals.
As our atmosphere warms, it can hold more moisture, leading to heavier rainfall. According to the Met Office, UK winters for the most recent decade between 2014–2023 were 24 per cent wetter than between 1961–1990, with smaller increases in summer and autumn.
Although there is currently no evidence of a trend in windspeeds during storms that hit Britain, higher sea levels and heavier rainfall mean that they are having a bigger impact on our coasts, including some of our most treasured natural areas.
Storm Ciarán in 2023 not only breached sea defences and gouged out large sections of shoreline, but the overtopping of Chesil Beach, formed by major storms thousands of years ago, and extra
rainfall led to a large channel being carved out near Cogden Beach.
National Trust land also suffered major damage during the storm, as storms smashed through and overtopped defences. The car park at Hive Beach was inundated and at Studland Bay the Trust estimated that erosion rates equivalent to what might be expected over five years occured in just one night.
It has led the Trust to devise its ‘Shifting Shores’ policy to contemplate how to re-locate its buildings and adapt in other ways to avoid damage as the coastline moves inland.
Many of these climate change impacts will continue to grow until the world cuts its emissions of greenhouse gases effectively to zero. But sea level rise is likely to continue for many decades longer.
We need to accept that climate change will re-draw Dorset’s historic coastline over the coming decades by accelerating the many natural processes that have created our famous cliffs and beaches.
Some of our favourite features may be lost forever, perhaps in a single storm, so we all should ensure that we never take for granted our spectacular Dorset coast.
Bob Ward is Policy and Communications Director at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at the London School of Economics and Political Science, and Vice Chair of Burton Bradstock Parish Council.
VEGETABLES BEYOND THE GARDEN
by Caddy Sitwell
The Horticultural Show. Part Three: Packing
‘Johnny Town-Mouse was born in a cupboard. Timmie Willie was born in a garden. Timmy Willie was a little country mouse who went to town by mistake in a hamper…’ Beatrix Potter.
When the RHS held their legendary Autumn Fruit and Vegetable Show in London a coach drew up at 5 am. It had been driven through the night, arranged by an allotment society on the borders of Cheshire and Derbyshire. Out of it poured bleary-eyed gardeners and padded boxes. Each box had been individually made to transport their prize vegetables and long carrots were brought in their own trunks known as ‘coffins’. Next there ensued a chaotic flurry of tissue paper, of hay and straw, of newspaper and string;—the air suffused with high tension, exhaustion and excitement until every vegetable was laid in its assigned place. The team of allotmenteers retreated for breakfast to return after judging. Winners or losers, they cheerfully piled back in the bus and ‘up north’ again they went. It was great sight—dedicated growers who are sorely missed from the show that moved to Essex. Another great rivalry at this show that started in the 1950s was with the dukes and their grapes. Latterly the Duke of Devonshire and The Duke of Marlborough were the main contenders, and it was with enormous pride and trepidation that the Muscat and Black Hamburg grapes were packed and brought down to London from Chatsworth. The fruits were suspended at a 45-degree angle on a 12 inch board in a large egg-carrying box. They were ‘never to be let out of anyone’s sight’: nursed down by train or driven by the chauffeur. Not to waste space, herbs wrapped in sphagnum moss (collected from the moors) were tucked in the gap to try their luck at the show too.
Whatever the distance, the run up to a horticultural show needs planning; the produce you have nurtured must be cleaned, packed and tenderly transported to the show ground in pristine condition. No fat fingerprints on the pea’s bloom, no scrub marks on the potatoes, no aphids on the tomatoes and no slugs lurking in the celery.
These are not dissimilar expectations from a Cook in a great house. A daily message would be sent to the Head Gardener from the kitchen as to what was needed. It was the under-gardener’s job to ensure the vegetables were presented in their best state, clean and pest free. Mid-morning these trugs of washed beets or beans, carrots or ‘saladings’ would be trundled up
to the house in a wheelbarrow, with bunches of curly parsley for garnish and cushioning.
The ‘Housewife’s Trug’ is a favourite show category of mine—reminiscent of the simple pride in presenting something appealing to your mother in the kitchen. Judges still jokingly use this phrase when assessing an exhibit, ‘Now would you be happy taking that to ‘Mother’?’
Even into the 20th century, large kitchen gardens of great houses could supply the family’s town house too, and this is where the packing and wrapping skills of the Head Gardener were really tested. A trunk or large hamper was ingeniously packed: leeks topped and tailed to save space; beans in shallow baskets of wood wool; trimmed bunches of asparagus: small raffia-tied bunches of turnips rolled in moss; tomatoes nestled into punnets of soft paper shavings; figs wrapped in their own leaves and perhaps plums resting on nettles. The hamper was labelled, locked, taken to the train station by pony and cart and thence to London. Another horsedrawn vehicle rattled it over the cobbles to be greeted by kitchen staff who lugged the hamper into the pantry. One can only imagine the glee of unwrapping these fresh, unblemished treasures of the country.
These old packing tricks are useful today when taking exhibits to the show bench. One could resort to bubble wrap and clingfilm but nothing can beat sphagnum moss for moisture and humidity, or a nest of nettles to keep the bloom on one’s peas. Raffia is much kinder than binder twine and a bed of hay and hessian is soft enough for any country mouse to fall asleep in.
First Prize for a Housewife’s Trug Click Here for an Easy Read version of this article
May in the Garden
By Russell Jordan
It’s stating the obvious to say that “every year is different”, as far as weather is concerned, but sometimes it is sufficiently extreme to be worth a mention. Having a very sunny start to the spring, with abnormally high daytime temperatures and much higher amounts of cumulative sunshine, is bound to have an effect on plant growth and development. A lot of flowering potential is laid down by what happened during the previous year, so the exceptionally sunny and dry March into April cannot be the only reason why spring flowering seems to be especially good so far this year.
May is, famously, the month that hosts the “RHS Chelsea Flower Show” and I don’t envy all the growers that are trusted with supplying the show garden designers with their plant material. It’s always a bit of a ‘dark art’ when it comes to ensuring that the plants required, for each particular garden design, are at their flowering peak at the precise moment needed to get maximum points in the ‘Show Garden’ judging. It’s easier to use glasshouses and polytunnels, with the careful application of artificial heat and light, to bring plants on, flowering ahead of time, than it is to hold back plants which have been promoted to flower unusually early due to a very sunny spring. I imagine there will be a fair amount of last minute plant substitution, by the nurseries in conjunction with the garden designers, in order to achieve the requirement for flowering plants to be in full flower for the judging!
The further we head into May the less and less likely it is that we’ll have an overnight frost. This means that tender perennials, which have been kept in a greenhouse or other frost-free place over winter, can be moved outside. Initially they need to be ‘hardened off’, which involves being put out during the day, but kept close at hand, to be brought back under cover if very low temperatures are forecast. Once it looks like the weather is set fair they can be planted out into the garden or used in pots and containers for summer displays.
One of the major advantages of taking plants out of pots and planting them into the ground, or into
much larger containers, is that watering becomes less of an issue. In most years, not this one, having potted plants completely dry out, due to lack of rain and plenty of sunshine, tends to become more of a problem from this month and for the rest of the summer. If a plant goes without water for any length of time it will become stressed and, even if it then gets watered, its growth will be checked and it may flower, or run to seed, prematurely, robbing you of a good flowering display.
The main problem of allowing compost to completely dry out is that it is then very difficult to rewet. The only effective way to make sure that the compost becomes saturated is to submerge the potted plant in water, which is tricky if you have a lot of plants in pots, rather than in the ground. Old, galvanised, water tanks are very trendy to use as planters these days, taking over where old ‘wash coppers’ left off, but their less attractive, plastic, replacements are equally useful for large scale soaking of dried out plants in pots.
Shrubs which flowered in the spring can be pruned now that their flowers have faded using the ‘one in three’ method. The ‘one in three’ refers to the rough plan to remove one third of the shrub’s stems. Prune out the oldest wood and flowered stems so that the shrub never becomes too old and woody but has a balance between vigour, flowering capability and new growth. Good, maybe old-fashioned, shrubs like weigela, deutzia, philadelphus and spiraea soon become dull great lumps if not kept rejuvenated with this kind of routine maintenance.
There is plenty of routine maintenance to be getting on with this month now that everything is in rapid growth and plants are bursting into flower all over the garden. Nipping problems ‘in the bud’ is the key to keeping pests and diseases under control especially the timely deployment of all the readily available biological controls, for everything from whitefly in greenhouses to slugs and snails in the garden. Simple, manual, methods of control are possible if you spot a problem before it really gets out of hand. Rubbing aphids off
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plant stems is feasible when the colonies are relatively isolated and not too numerous; virtually impossible when they have multiplied to the point where every stem is covered. Fortunately, birds, with hungry nestlings to feed, are voracious consumers of many of the invertebrate pests which would otherwise over-run the ornamental garden.
Grass, in the form of a lawn, is the perfect foil to flower beds and borders and this will also be actively growing and in need of regular cutting. If you set your mower blades to a higher setting, for the first few cuts, now that it is growing more rapidly the blades can be set to your preferred lower setting. Very fine lawns may be kept extremely short but, in most cases, the lowest setting on your mower will result in a certain amount of ‘scalping’ in all but the most perfectly level lawn. If you use a mulching mower, rather than one which collects the clippings, then you will need to be more disciplined in regularly cutting the lawn. Successful mulching requires that the length of grass cut off, at each mowing, is sufficiently short that it disappears into the sward and is not left behind in unsightly clumps.
I have mentioned before that the movement known as ‘No Mow May’ may have its heart in the right place but not cutting your lawn for one month is not going to produce a wildlife-rich meadow! If you have beds
and borders full of a diverse mixture of herbaceous plants, bulbs, shrubs and trees then having an area of lawn is not ‘anti-nature’. A lawn, that has always been kept as a lawn, will not have the diverse species of native plants that a true meadow contains and not cutting it in May will just result in long grass and not a flowery mead. Far better to campaign for the return of proper flowering meadows, to the British countryside, than to make gardeners feel guilty if they dare to cut their lawns during May.
I am, of course, just referring to domestic sized lawns. If you are fortunate enough to have a large country house, with acres of manicured lawns, then there is real merit in returning those large scale areas of monoculture to a more diverse sward; from memory this has been very successfully achieved at ‘Slape Manor’, Netherbury, which is open under the excellent ‘NGS Open Gardens’ (a.k.a. the ‘Yellow Book’) scheme.
If you can’t get into the ‘Chelsea Flower Show’, then visiting real gardens, through the ‘NGS’, ‘RHS’ or just ‘Googling’ gardens open in your particular vicinity, is a very worthwhile undertaking now that the weather is, hopefully, amenable and enjoying someone else’s garden is the ultimate in getting a horticultural fix with the minimum effort.
PROPERTY ROUND-UP
Magical May
AXMINSTER
£900,000
Tucked away on the Devon/Dorset boarder, this simply stunning 5 bedroom detached house, set in approx. 0.65 acres and with 3 en-suites, encompasses the perfect multigenerational family home. Needs to be seen to fully appreciate the flexibility and space that this home offers.
DOMVS: 01308 805500
BROADWINDSOR GUIDE PRICE
£1,850,000
Handsome, historic, country house with stunning gardens and grounds featuring spring-fed lakes, occupying a beautiful, peaceful country location. Linked to the house is the indoor 40ft heated swimming pool and leisure facility, probably one of the best of its kind in West Dorset.
Stags: 01308 428000
HARCOMBE, OFFERS OVER £800,000
A period stone cottage with a modern contemporary two storey extension offering substantial accommodation situated in a superb elevated position within 0.93 acres of sloping gardens, patio with views and large double garage with office/store over.
Greenslade Taylor Hunt: 01404 46222
HARCOMBE
£825,000
Stunning detached four bedroom dormer bungalow, set within 3 acres of beautiful formal garden, woodland and paddocks in the sought after rural location of Harcombe. Private driveway and double garage.
Fox & Sons: 01297 32323
PILSDON GUIDE
£1.5M
A charming, very historic and well appointed, detached period farmhouse with numerous outbuildings and extensive land in a wonderful peaceful country setting with stunning views in the beautiful Marshwood Vale.
Stags: 01308 428000
MORCOMBELAKE GUIDE
£900,000
Main house, cottage and lodge. Coastal home with outstanding far reaching countryside and sea views. Versatile living accomodation with successful holiday letting business. Large, well-maintained lawned area, and a sloping, tiered garden.
Goadsby: 01308 420000
This Month in the not so distant past
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Looking back at historical moments that happened in May, John Davis highlights the liberation of the Channel Islands.
At a little after seven o’clock on the morning on May 9th, 1945 warships nosed slowly into the Channel Island’s harbours of St. Helier in Jersey and St. Peter Port in Guernsey. They were carrying liberation forces that would free the islands after five long years of Nazi occupation— the only part of Britain that had been occupied by the enemy during the whole of the Second World War.
The Channel Islands are an archipelago consisting of five main islands, Jersey. Guernsey, Alderney, Sark and Herm. They were separated from mainland France by a rise in sea level during the Neolithic period. Jersey is about 160km from the south coast of Britain while Alderney is only 15km from France. The total surface area of the islands is about 200 square kilometres and the total population currently stands at about 170,000.
When World War Two began, Hitler decided that the Channel Islands could provide a suitable landing stage for a possible invasion of Britain. He considered the capture of the islands would also present a major propaganda coup. Later, he would see them more as part of his heavily fortified Atlantic Wall, built to withstand any possible European invasion by the Allies. Early in the conflict, Churchill decided the islands held little strategic importance for Britain so they were de-militarised and left undefended.
In 1940 the Wehrmacht, employing their highly effective ‘blitzkrieg’ tactics, stormed through France and Channel Islands residents began to evacuate in large numbers. A third of the total population left the islands for the UK. The remaining inhabitants of Jersey, Guernsey, Sark and Herm decided to stay and tough it out. They could not have known how difficult life was about to become.
On June 28th, 1940 the Luftwaffe bombed Jersey and Guernsey killing forty-four people and inflicting considerable damage on the islands. Two days later Luftwaffe airmen took control of Guernsey airfield. There they met the chief of police who informed them that the islands were undefended-the bombing raids had been entirely pointless.
By the beginning of July, detachments of soldiers arrived in Guernsey and the Nazi swastika flag was
raised. Jersey also surrendered and troops were quickly stationed there. Islanders had to show their compliance by flying white flags. More soldiers were soon to arrive and turned their attention to other islands in the group.
The islands are well known for their long stretches of sandy beaches but during the occupation these were filled with barbed wire, mines and anti-tank barriers.
Alderney had been almost completely deserted by the time a garrison of German infantry arrived there. It would become the most heavily fortified of all the islands and home to some 4,000 forced labour workers working for the Nazis’ Todt Organisation. They came from different parts of conquered Europe including France, Russia and Poland. Four camps were built where, during the course of the war, it is thought at least 700 captives died. In reality the numbers could be much higher. Burial sites have been located by archaeologists using GPR (Ground Penetrating Radar) but to date strict island regulations have prevented excavations from being carried out. Inmates on the island were brutally treated by SS guards and were punished or killed for the slightest wrongdoing or as a means of saving supplies.
Those who had stayed on the two main islands had much to contend with, not only the loss of family and friends who had moved to the mainland. An 11.00 p.m. to 5.00 a.m. curfew was immediately imposed. What supplies came to the islands were strictly rationed, with soldiers taking preference, and towards the end of the war, in 1944, only the visits of an International Red Cross supply ship, the SS Vega, with humanitarian aid saved many of the population
from starvation. The islands are well known for their long stretches of sandy beaches but during the occupation these were filled with barbed wire, mines and anti-tank barriers so were out of bounds. Sailing and boating trips at sea were also banned. All firearms had to be surrendered. With many of the young men away, children were forced to work in the fields and homes could be requisitioned by German officers and soldiers at any time. Learning German became a compulsory part of school curriculums and only Nazi propaganda films were shown in cinemas. Young men still on the islands were compelled to labour and, with foreign workers that were shipped across from France, thousands of tonnes of concrete were used to construct watchtowers, gun emplacements, air-raid shelters and other large defensive structures. (See footnote). Anyone caught breaking the rules, which included listening to a radio or taking photographs, could expect to be arrested and were often sent to prison in France. Many did not survive to return to their homeland including a small number of Jewish residents caught up in the Holocaust that was sweeping across Europe.
Tumultuous celebrations followed the arrival of British troops and the surrender of German forces on May 9th, 1945 and every year since then has been designated as Liberation Day, a public holiday, on the two main islands of Jersey and Guernsey. Sark celebrates the event the following day and Alderney has its own Homecoming Day in December. The
form of the celebrations has changed over-time but still includes thanksgiving services, parades, music festivals, sporting events, military re-enactments, food fairs, commemorative exhibitions and heritage tours. This May, eighty years on, was no exception.
Footnote: Sites that can be visited today on Jersey include the War Tunnels (with the underground hospital used for treating soldiers injured fighting in Europe), the Military Museum, the Battery Moltke and the Peilstad Tower. Guernsey has the La Valette Underground Museum, the German Naval Signals HQ and the smaller German Occupation Museum, a personal favourite of mine with so much attention to minor details. Alderney has a museum and many defensive constructions but little remains of the four forced labour camps including the infamous Lager Sylt.
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.
Face on liberation statue commemorating freedom from occupation, St Helier, Jersey, Channel Islands, UK
Food&Dining
GUEST RECIPE
FOUR GREENS SALAD
I love making this salad when I’m craving something light, quick and fresh. It is a very simple salad, but sometimes that’s all you want, a fresh and delicious bowl of greens. For a cheeky punch of flavour and colour, add roasted butternut.
Wholesome Bowls
MELISSA
DELPORT
Published by Nourish, an imprint of Watkins
Media Limited
ISBN: 978-1-84899-414-0 (Hardback)
ISBN: 978-1-84899-415-7 (eBook)
INGREDIENTS
SALAD
• 1 handful baby spinach
• 1 handful rocket
• 45g (1 3/4oz/1/2 cup) thinly sliced red cabbage
• 1 avocado, sliced
• 250g (9oz) slim stalks of broccoli, blanched
• 1 handful sugar snap peas, thinly sliced
• 30g (1oz /1/4 cup) pumpkin seeds
• Salt and pepper
DRESSING
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar
Serves 4
DIRECTIONS
Create a meal that is not only deliciously healthy, but also visually beautiful, by layering all the ingredients for this salad in a large salad bowl.
1. First, form a base with the spinach and rocket leaves.
2. Next, stack the cabbage, avocado, broccoli and sugar snap peas on top.
3. Finish with a sprinkle of pumpkin seeds, dress the salad with olive oil and apple cider vinegar, and season to taste.
Celebrating the land that feeds
James Lynch, Footpath through the Orchard 2024
FIVE artists, each of whom has a thrilling, richly developed style of their own, admired by collectors across the world, show together at Sladers Yard in West Bay from May 17th. For more details visit www.sladersyard.co.uk.
Who’s behind ‘The Art of the Photograph’?
A NEW series of articles about photographers working in the wider local community began in the April edition of Marshwood+, the online issue of The Marshwood Vale Magazine. In this series we learn about local photographers, as well as those drawn to the people and places that make up the area in and around the Jurassic Coast.
In June we will meet Brendan Buesnel who recently shared some of his unique photograhic vision, in the form of a projected slideshow on the wall of Mercato Italiano on the Dreadnought Trading Estate in Bridport. Now published monthly online and every two months in print, make sure not to miss this article and other issues of Marshwood+ by visiting www. marshwoodvale.com and subscribing to our monthly newsletter.
On the eve of publishing a new book on Royal Navy and Russian Navy relations, former Naval Attaché and defence consultant David Fields talks to Fergus Byrne about why dialogue with Russia matters now more than ever. Click
In the 1995 film Crimson Tide, the late Gene Hackman gave one of his most powerful performances. He played the captain of a nuclear submarine who comes close to authorizing a nuclear strike on Russia. When challenged by his executive officer about taking the decision to instigate the launch of missiles, he points out that his job is to ‘preserve’ democracy, not to ‘practice’ it. At the end of the film, the closing text highlights the fact that the only person in the United States with the authority to launch a nuclear strike is its Commander in Chief— currently Donald Trump, the President who recently accused Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky of “gambling with a third world war.”
Whilst we can hope that Trump’s autocratic ambitions don’t lead the world to such a dangerous and potentially nuclear precipice, a new book by Bridport-based David Fields highlights another danger: that posed by not having people with a sophisticated understanding of Russia, its defence strategy, and national ambitions or meaningful dialogue with the Russians.
In a book, co-authored with Robert Avery, The Royal and Russian Navies: Cooperation, Competition and Confrontation, David, a retired Royal Naval Attaché to Moscow, pulls together the story of how the two navies of UK and Russia, currently confronting each other following the latter’s actions in Ukraine, built dialogue post-Cold War. An experience that could offer a blueprint toward avoiding further escalation of conflict and a re-engagement of military dialogue with Russia. ‘While rightly we are focusing on the threat that Russia presents and the need to defend against it, we also need to be mindful of the importance of dialogue,’ David says.
Illustrating the path to what he believes is a dangerous breakdown in communication, he tells me about a meeting he had with Captain First Rank
Konstantin Gulnev in St Petersburg. It was just after the annexation of Crimea by Russia in 2014, and David had come to break the news that the UK would be cutting off all military-to-military cooperation and dialogue with Russia.
Describing him as a quiet man with a great sense of humour, David says Gulnev at first didn’t believe him and carried on discussing details of an upcoming Royal Navy ship visit. On learning that the news was not a joke, Gulnev’s reaction was bewilderment. This small piece of land, he said, ‘has always been Russian, don’t worry about it.’ From his perspective, this surely wasn’t a reason to break off a dialogue between the two countries that had been mutually beneficial for more than twenty years.
‘Eighteen months later,’ said David, ‘I met with a somewhat more depressed Gulnev again and explained that the Euro Atlantic alliance and Russia were now on opposite sides of the room, shouting at each other, but not listening. Misunderstandings, miscalculations and escalation of risk were getting higher and higher, and I told him that one day, if we’re not careful, Russians and the British are going to end up killing each other.’ They both agreed that they didn’t want that to happen. ‘But given the UK’s military support to Ukraine since 2022, this has, albeit indirectly, come true,’ says David.
Whatever way it’s presented, the UK and its allies, including—for the moment—the US, are in a proxy war with Russia over Ukraine, and for over ten years, vital dialogue between the UK and Russia has been non-existent.
David suggests that this is a ‘grave mistake’. The book details a period of time when cooperation and dialogue between the Royal Navy and, at first, the Soviet Navy, then the Russian Federation Navy, helped develop a bond that nurtured a growing understanding of how Russia viewed the world and,
more importantly, how it saw its position in a rapidly changing world structure. It was a period of time when shared challenges and mutual respect helped to create a strong link at a working level between the two countries.
Russia’s culture, whether we like it or not, is born from a position of vulnerability, explained David. Whether it was Mongols, Napoleon, the (first) Crimean War, Hitler, or the Cold War, it has always felt the need to be on a defensive footing to protect itself and its natural resources over a vast area. It has also always had an inherent fear of NATO expansion. And while NATO states that “no treaty signed by NATO Allies and Russia ever included provisions that NATO cannot take on new members”, the expansion of NATO is one element of the narrative that Vladimir Putin cites to defend the ‘aggressive defensiveness’ Russia has used to annex Crimea and later invade Ukraine.
David says this is part of the Russian psyche that has developed after years of defending their borders, along with their growing belief that they have always been ignored and not taken seriously on the world stage, especially after the end of the Cold War. ‘This shaped the Russian mindset,’ says David. ‘It also shapes their foreign policy and their paranoia. If you go on feeding their paranoia, they will eventually lash out.’ He likens the invasion of Ukraine to Russia feeling the need to throw the first punch as part of a defensive strategy.
He also suggests that coexistence with Russia is something we may all have to come to terms with when the war with Ukraine is eventually resolved, and that might entail working with an ‘indicted war criminal.’ He says we are firmly in Ukraine’s corner supporting them against this vicious assault by Russia, but somehow, we’ve got to come back from this, or at the very least in a post Ukraine conflict world, we don’t want the relationship to be worse than it needs to be. ‘Russia is not going away.’
He knows that some of his observations will make for uncomfortable reading. ‘Knowing and understanding your enemy or adversary, however, is not to defend how they behave. The word understanding is too often interpreted as being sympathetic to a country’s particular strategic culture and views. In Russia’s case, this is translated as being an apologist for Putin and his invasion of Ukraine. It is not. What it is, is having an understanding of how the leadership of an enemy views the world and how that influences its policy decisions and actions.’
A former Commanding Officer of the frigate HMS Westminster, David Fields describes his navy career as a ‘normal trajectory’ from gunnery officer, navigator, warfare officer, then second in command until commanding his own ship. He qualified as a Russian interpreter in 1990 and was posted to Moscow in 1997–1999 as the Assistant Naval Attaché. Following work on the Iraq team in 2003/4 and work with NATO, as well as working for the First Sea Lord, he returned to Russia as the Naval Attaché in 2013–2015, covering the start of the Ukraine crisis in 2014.
From 2016, he worked in the Ministry of Defence (MoD), assisting in the development of the MoD’s Russia policy before retiring in 2017. Throughout the period covered by the book, he and Robert Avery were heavily involved in the cooperation programme between the two navies through dozens of meetings, confidence-building discussions, exercises and reciprocal ship visits. The Royal and Russian Navies: Cooperation, Competition and Confrontation gives a detailed account of these interactions with fascinating glimpses that reveal the character of the Russian naval leadership.
‘If you go on feeding their paranoia, they will eventually lash out.’
Russian formality was one of the first hurdles to overcome, explained David. ‘However, once you’ve cracked through the granite composure, the Russian is actually a very warm, hospitable, generous person, who’s very interested, actually, in you. They have a great sense of humour, very similar to that of the British, a bit self-deprecating, but smart.’
That particular ‘granite composure’ was often broken down with the help of vodka. ‘We could have filled the book ten times over with relentless anecdotes about Olympic vodka bouts in ships, board rooms and meetings with the Russians, in practically everything that we did with them’, he says. ‘Vodka is the currency of business; it is how you get things done. They appreciate human contact. A Russian naval officer once said to us, “I never trust a man until I’ve got drunk with him.”’
But David’s experience over those years and his time as a defence consultant put him in good standing
to face some harsh realities. Realities that European leaders are struggling to deal with, especially when it appears that relying on help from the US is becoming less and less secure. ‘Total defeat of Russia is unlikely,’ he points out, ‘and focusing on Putin’s demise misses the point that we are a long way apart from Russia in our world view.’ A history of defending their borders has allowed Vladimir Putin to create acceptance of a militarised society. His ruthless suppression of any kind of competition, be it political opponents or others that challenge the State, has meant conscription and spending on defence are accepted without much opposition.
‘They have had 25 years of establishing a political system which can outlive Putin’
This is not like the end of the Cold War. ‘We’ll be effectively coming out of a hot war, so it’s going to be really difficult to get over this after Ukraine,’ David says. ‘Especially after we’ve seen Russian brutality and violence on a scale that is truly horrific. But we have to understand that sanctions are not going to bring Russia to its knees. And as distasteful and unpleasant as it is, we’re going to have to try and do business with them in the same way that we do business with China and Saudi Arabia and other nations with whom we don’t share common values.’
David explains that there is often an assumption that after Putin dies ‘everything will be hunky dory.’ But he’s not so convinced. ‘They have had 25 years of establishing a political system which can outlive Putin. And the people that are being groomed for future leadership have all come up through that system. The opposition is not unified, it’s not united. And the propaganda of “the West are out to get us, and everyone hates us” plays quite well into the Russian audience. So, he’s not as unpopular as some people would like to think.’
In determining a route back to dialogue, one immediate action could be to re-establish military Attache posts in London and Moscow, following diplomatic expulsions in May 2024. ‘This is the first time since 1941 that there has been no military representation in either capital—that can’t be right,’ David says. Whilst revitalizing communication between the two navies could be challenging, creating channels through retired but well-connected contacts may also be a way forward.
‘The relationship was deepest between the two navies, for all sorts of reasons, not least historical’ he says. ‘Admiral Samuel Greig from Scotland
commanded Catherine the Great’s Imperial Navy and over half of the officers serving in that navy were British.’ But all branches of the armed forces, including arms control teams and the UK-run Russian Officer Resettlement Programme, were involved in some sort of dialogue and cooperation with the Russian armed forces from 1990 to 2014. ‘There were huge numbers of people interacting with the Russian military in the post-Soviet era, and in March 2014 the UK was due to sign a Military Technical Cooperation Agreement with Russia. Instead Putin annexed Crimea.’
Unlike Crimson Tide, where a breakdown in communication was rectified and disaster averted, this isn’t Hollywood. Resolving this rupture in communication will require painstaking rebuilding of relationships that will be exceptionally challenging but not impossible.
Launch Event
David Fields will be at a launch event for The Royal and Russian Navies: Cooperation, Competition and Confrontation at Mercato Italiano, unit 3b, Dreadnought Trading Estate, Bridport DT6 5BU on Wednesday, June 4th at 6pm.
There will be a short presentation and a Q&A session.
Whilst the book gives a fascinating insight into past and potential methods of interaction and dialogue with Russia, David will be very open to other questions.
The event is free to attend but spaces are limited and booking is necessary at: https:// mercatoitaliano.uk/events or telephone 01308 459274.
Through the Glass - timelessly
Tracy Chevalier talks to Fergus Byrne about her time travelling novel The Glassmaker.
For centuries, Venice has beguiled artists and authors, beckoning them into its Grand Canal, majestic buildings, and maze-like waterways. The city offers rich material for writers, especially those working in historical fiction. So much so that when Tracy Chevalier began researching her latest novel about glass makers on the island of Murano, one of her biggest difficulties was choosing what to read and where to visit.
However, just when she had begun to compile the thread of her story, the Covid pandemic hit.
‘I had all these plans,’ she recalls. ‘I visited Italy in January 2020, thinking I’d return for two months, learn the language, and immerse myself in the experience. Then the pandemic happened, and for 18 months, I couldn’t go to Venice. There’s nothing like being in situ to really get under the skin of a place. So that was a little tricky.’
However, like many people’s experiences of the pandemic, there were benefits. Tracy had to reimagine her story. As a city, Venice is always in danger of becoming the main character, but Tracy developed the key players in the story through a literary time lapse by introducing a range of historical additions to the central narrative. The result creates a timeless world that competes with the setting. The story leaps through centuries, tracing one family’s triumphs and tragedies: plague, flooding, war’s devastation, Murano’s dominance, and Venice’s transformation into a tourist city.
Tracy was particularly intrigued by characters like Maria Barovier, a rare female glassmaker who invented the Rosetta bead. A strong influence, Barovier encourages Orsola Rosso, eldest daughter of another Murano glassmaker’s family, to work in the revered craft then forbidden to women. Orsola’s innate talent and vision drive her. Upon her father’s death, she secretly masters beadmaking, her creations sustaining the family.
With the benefit of leaping through time, the book also introduces other strong female characters, such as Joséphine Bonaparte and Italian heiress and socialite Marchesa Luisa Casati Stampa, known for wandering the streets of Venice naked but for a fur cloak and a pair of cheetahs on diamond-encrusted leads.
She also includes the famous playboy Casanova, whose personal history provided unexpected narrative threads. ‘I couldn’t resist including Casanova,’ Tracy admits, ‘but I didn’t want him to be a main character. I wanted him to play a small but important role.’
The book’s unique structure—touching down at different historical periods—presented its own challenges. Tracy had to carefully select moments that would show the broader sweep of Venetian history while maintaining the story’s momentum. The main protagonists aged only a few years as the setting leapt forward hundreds. Historical events like Napoleon’s conquest and the vibrant carnival period became crucial touchstones.
Her approach to character development was equally nuanced. Characters like Orsola and Venetian incomer Antonio were crafted to represent broader human experiences. She also hints at evidence of the slave trade in Europe with the intriguing Domenego, an African gondolier working for an Austrian trader. ‘I see a book like soup,’ Tracy tells me. ‘You need to find ways to make it tastier and thicker, rather than a thin broth.’
The unexpected arrival of Covid during her writing process provided an additional layer of historical resonance. She saw parallels between the 16th-century plague and the modern pandemic, particularly in how communities traced contacts and implemented quarantines. ‘I wanted to remind readers that our ancestors are not so different from us,’ she says.
Born in America, Tracy began writing after a stint in the publishing world. That experience led her to pursue a master’s in creative writing. Her fascination with the past, and particularly historical fiction, has roots in her family’s Huguenot heritage, especially her father’s Swiss American background.
For her, historical fiction allows her to delve into the timeless aspects of the human experience. Like her past novels, The Glassmaker represents more than just a historical narrative. Known for using historical events, activities, and characters, she admits that it’s also a form of escape from the world around her. ‘I much preferred writing the historical parts,’ she says, ‘because it allowed me to leave my own life behind. Right now, I’m so glad I don’t have to set a novel at this particular point in time, because the news is literally changing every 10 minutes.’ This comment sets us both off on a potentially extensive discussion on the current US administration and the complexities of world turmoil. ‘Don’t get me started on that,’ she says.
As she moves on to her next project—a murder mystery set in 1826 Northumberland—The Glassmaker stands as a testament to her ability to weave intricate historical narratives that feel both distant and intimately familiar.
Tracy Chevalier will speak at a special event for the Bridport Literary Festival in June. Author of many successful novels, including Remarkable Creatures, Girl with a Pearl Earring and the recent The Glassmaker, she is undoubtedly one of our most popular and critically acclaimed writers. She will discuss her work with fellow writer Jo Willett on Thursday, June 19th, 2025, at 2.30 pm at The Electric Palace, Bridport. Tickets are £15 and can be purchased via The Electric Palace online and the TIC on 01308 424901 or in person.
A World of Dance Comes to Bridport
The first ever Bridport Dance Festival is an exciting and colourful multicultural gathering of dancers and artists from far and wide, as well local dance groups from West Dorset. During the weekend festival there will be performances and workshops in the centre of Bridport offering a very wide range of dancing from all around the world: Argentinian Tango, Indian classical, holistic ballet, jazz fit, jive, hip-hop, tap, contemporary, creative and circle dance. As well as specially choreographed dance films.
Founder Carla Steenkamp Sheills has been a pioneer in inclusive dance education, establishing My Ballet in Bridport in 2010. Her co-producer Nikki Northover is the creator of Bridport Youth Dance which has been running for over twenty years. Carla says ‘This festival is family friendly and includes everybody in our community. There is nothing like dance and music to bring people together. If you think you are not a dancer, don’t worry, it will be a feast for your eyes!’
Key dancers will be Fiona Harvey, former ballerina with the Royal Ballet; Nafisah Baba from London, winner of the BBC young artist award 2017; Aakash Odedra from Leicester; Leo and Tracey Fandago Acosta from Buenos Aires & Bournemouth; Grace & Growl founded by Anna Golding from West Dorset; Vrushali Harihar from India & Bournemouth; My Ballet Dancers; Bridport Youth Dance and alumni as well as local community dance groups. There will also be opportunities for those in wheelchairs and those
living with Parkinson’s. Something for everybody. Locations. All events will be held in Bridport: The Bull Hotel Ballroom, Bridport Town Hall, Bridport Arts Centre, Electric Palace, St Mary’s Church Hall, British Legion Hall and Lyric Theatre. There will be dance workshops for all ages. There will be some free events at BAC and in the Bridport Community Orchard including Nature Voicessongs and raps about endangered species like Dormice and Natterack toads.
Find our more at www.bridportdancefestival.org.uk
There will be a special Dance Finale in the Electric Palace on Sat 24th May featuring many of the key dancers and groups as well as a series of short films: ‘Inner voices of the Sea’ Dance portraits produced by Carla Sheills Plus ‘Dance Weavers’ and ‘Ocean of Tears’ produced by Nikki Northover.
It’s all happening in Bridport on Friday 23rd and Saturday 24th May 2025.
For more information Contact: Carla Sheills info@ bridportdancefestival.org.
Crowdfunding: There is also a vital crowd funding opportunity as Carla and Nikki need to raise £15,000 to make all this happen. Visit: https://www. crowdfunder.co.uk/p/bridport-dance-festival
1 -31 May
Kit Glaisyer: Paintings of Light & Drama explores Kit’s evolving exhibition of West Country landscape paintings in his gallery and studio, including original spectacular paintings, intimate drawings, and popular prints on canvas. Open Saturdays 10am - 3pm or by appointment. Bridport Contemporary, 11 Downes Street, Bridport, Dorset DT6 3JR. 07983 465789 www.kitglaisyery.com @kitglaisyer
Until 3 May
Carleton E. Watkins Photographing the American West. Accompanying the From Page to Screen film festival exploring the work of Carleton E. Watkins (1829-1916), one of America’s best-known landscape photographers. Exhibition Open from 10am – 4pm, Tuesday – Saturday. Bridport Arts Centre, 9 South Street, Bridport, Dorset DT6 3NR.
Until 4 May
Nicola Hicks ‘Dressed for the Woods’ the first solo retrospective of Nicola Hicks MBE FRSS – one of the most significant British sculptors of the 21st century. Messums West Place Farm, Court St, Tisbury, SP3 6LW. Email: west@ messums.org. Telephone: (Thurs - Mon) +44 (0) 1747 445042.
Until 5 May
Sue Durant and Lin Hawkins – ‘Points of View’ – An exhibition featuring semi abstract representations of the natural world. Expect to see landscapes, seascapes, flowers and moons. Free entry. Ilminster Arts Centre, TA19 0AN. Open Tuesday – Saturday. 9.30am - 3pm. 01460 54973 www. ilminsterartscentre.com
Until 7 May
Dorset in Colour. An exhibition by 4 artists, Jenny Penney, Caroline Tucker, Rupert Andrews and Clare Hughes working in complex media, manipulating acrylic, card, clay or felt. 10 am - 4.30 pm daily, Eype Centre for the Arts, Mount Lane, Eype, Bridport DT6 6AR. Free entry and car parking. www. jennypenneyart.net.
Until 10 May
Portrait of the Artist, Philip Sutton. Sladers Yard, Contemporary Art, Furniture & Craft Gallery, Licensed Café, West Bay, Dorset DT6 4EL. www.sladersyard.co.uk. 01308 459511.
17 May - 12 July
Beautiful, swift and bright. Paintings by Louise Balaam NEAC RWA, Nick Jones and James Lynch. Ceramics by Gabriele Koch. Furniture by Petter Southall. Sladers Yard, Contemporary Art, Furniture & Craft Gallery, Licensed Café, West Bay, Dorset DT6 4EL. www.sladersyard.co.uk. 01308 459511.
18 May - 28 June
James Ravilious: An English Eye featuring key photographic works chosen from a large retrospective show originally mounted for Ravilious by the Royal Photographic Society. Open Tuesday to Saturday, 10am - 5pm. Thelma Hulbert Gallery, Elmfield House, Dowell Street, Honiton, Devon EX14 1LX. www.thelmahulbert.com.
24 May - 31 May
Bridport Art Society Spring Exhibition Salt House, West Bay. 10-4pm. All welcome. www.bridportart.com.
Until 8 June
Strength and Resilience: Somerset Women in the Second World War. An exhibition exploring the impact of 1939-1945 on the lives of four women with links to the West Country. Somerset Rural Life Museum, Glastonbury.
PREVIEWMay
Bloody women and other myths BRIDPORT
MEDEA, betrayed by her husband for a younger woman (sound familiar?) but also vengeful child murderer, is one of the great tragic/horror figures of Greek myth and drama—now reinvented by clown April Rose Small for a new look at the tragic story of women through history in Bloody Medea!, coming to Bridport Arts Centre on Friday 16th May.
This one-woman show is wild, bold and deeply human, as April tackles the injustices faced by women throughout history—including her own.
She reimagines the tragedy of Medea through comedy, song and dance. Expect the nuttiest, weirdest and funniest moments, as Medea’s pure love explodes into chaotic hilarity and heart breaking tragedy. It’s a show that will make you laugh until you cry, then weep until you laugh. Medea is the original femme fatale, Euripedes’ sorceress-seducer, Jason’s golden goose.
Unravelling steampunk HONITON
CONCERTS on consecutive days at Honiton’s Beehive Centre will take the audience on journeys
into Americana and folk-rock with The Unravelling Wilburys, and the Jules Verne and Willy Wonkainflected world of steampunk with the Steampunk Orchestra.
The Unravelling Wilburys, a clever and hugely enjoyable tribute to the original Wilburys—a supergroup that included Tom Petty, Roy Orbison, Bob Dylan, George Harrison and Jeff Lynne—are at Honiton on Friday 2nd May.
The show features the best of the Wilbury albums (Handle with Care, The End of the Line, The Devil’s Been Busy, Tweeter and The Monkey Man) as well as Only the Lonely, Won’t Back Down, While my Guitar Gently Weeps, Like a Rollin’ Stone, Mr Blue Sky—as well as the kind of comedy only a band spending too many nights in Travelodges could dream up.
On the following night, Saturday 3rd, you are invited to step into a very different world where classical elegance meets the energy of rock, indie, and pop. The Steampunk Orchestra is an experience that blends musical genres and eras with a unique steampunk flair.
Get ready to be transported into a realm of gears, gadgets, top hats, feathers and bustiers and
April Rose brings Bloody Medea! to Bridport Arts Centre in May
unforgettable melodies from five decades of iconic music, all bathed in the warm glow of vintage Edison bulbs.
Spring concert
AXMINSTER
AXE Vale Orchestra has a spring classical concert at the Minster in Axminster on Sunday 18th May, at 3.30pm.
Conducted by Walter Brewster, the orchestra, led by Jane Bultz, will play Moxart’s Impresario overture, Beethoven’s Symphony No 2, and the incidental music from Mendelssohn’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
For more information or tickets, visit www.axevaleorchestra. co.uk.
In for a Duck?
DORCHESTER
CRICKET is by its very nature a rather theatrical sport, full of traditions, big characters and a certain almost nostalgic glamour, and Two Mapgies Theatre Company have taken it onto the stage with Duck, a play by maatin, coming to Dorchester Arts at the Corn Exchange on Friday 2nd May at 7.30pm.
It’s the summer of 2005, as England prepares to win the Ashes ... Ismail (Smiley to his friends), a British Indian schoolboy, is about to become the youngest-ever player in his elite public school’s First XI cricket team.
He sets his sights on immortality, breaking the school batting record and getting his name into Wisden—but things are about to heat up.
Duck is a play about adolescence, the pressures of sporting competition and finding your identity in an environment that doesn’t cater for difference. The production features creative captioning— performances are captioned with projected text and illustrations onto the set.
Help! Fairytales in danger!
HONITON AND EXETER
FAIRYTALES, Fables and Other Assorted Nonsense is an original, imaginative and colourful new show for all the family from Assembleth Theatre, with two dates in Devon, at Exeter’s Phoenix arts centre on Thursday 29th May at 7pm and Honiton Beehive Centre on Friday 30th at 3pm.
Across the land, fairytales live in fear ... fear for their lives, fear for their freedom and, most importantly, fear for their turnips. Why you ask? Because Little Red Riding Hood has taken control. The once sweet and innocent girl now rules The Breadcrumb Forest with an iron fist and a mob of incompetent wolves.
The fairy tales of the forest needs someone brave, someone bold, and someone daring to free them from this oppression. Unfortunately for them, they’ve only got Susan. Faced with tax-collecting, big bad wolves, bears who’ve had too much porridge and smorgasbords of poisoned fruit, Susan must try desperately to find a way to help the forest. If she starts a revolution along the way, well that can’t hurt anyone can it?
Join Susan as she traverses this magical land to help aid all your favourite fairy tale characters, from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, The Three Little Pigs, Cinderella and more as they aim to keep the literal wolves from the door. Ridiculous mishaps, outlandish love stories and a barnyard full of animals that won’t stop talking await in this riotous, rebellious comedy.
Imaginary beings and magical music
SHUTE AND LYME REGIS
THE year-round programme of Shute Festival events has two dates in May, travel writer Nicholas Jubber exploring our fascination with monsters, on 7th May,
and the Kilima Piano Trio at St Michael’s Church on Sunday 18th.
Nicholas Jubber will be talking at Peak Chapel, in Pound St, Lyme Regis, from 7pm, looking at the age-old interest in monsters, from the granite cliffs of Cornwall to the mountain shrines of Japan. How have these imaginary beings affected humanity over the ages. Booking is essential for this event.
The Kilima Trio have a delightful programme for their afternoon concert at 4pm. They open with Mozart’s Piano Trio in C, followed by Faure’s Trio Op 120k, Tchaikovsky’s Andante Cantabile from the 1st String Quartet, and ending with Clara Schumann’s Piano trio Op 17
Barb Jungr, Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen
BRIDPORT & TAUNTON
ONE of the world’s greatest cabaret singers and a brilliant song arranger, Barb Jungr comes to Taunton Brewhouse on Thursday 8th May, and Bridport’s Electric Palace on Saturday 10th, with Hallelujah on Desolation Row, a celebration of the songs of Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen.
This show features her best and award-winning interpretations of songs by two of the greatest contemporary songwriters, with a selection of challenging new arrangements of these classic songbooks.
Barb Jungr’s formidable talent as a singer, composer and lyricist is matched by her ability to reinterpret familiar songs and reveal new depths of meaning and beauty.
A Puccini favourite EXETER
DEVON Opera’s young singers will tackle one of the most popular—and vocally demanding—operas for their spring production—Puccini’s La Boheme, which will be staged at the Barnfield Theatre, Exeter, on !5th and 16th May.
It is so well-known that it is easy to overlook just how vocally and emotionally demanding their beautiful tragic opera is, with its story of povertystricken Bohemians in late 19th century Paris.
The soloists are Oksana Lepska as Mimi, Martins
Ridiculous mishaps and assorted nonsense come to Honiton in May
Barb Jungr brings the songs of Dylan and Cohen in May
Smaukstelis as Rodolfo, Catherine Hooper as Musetta and Sam Young as Marcello.
The opera is directed by Anna Gregory, the artistic director of Devon Opera, who is a well-known singer in her own right.
Celebrating dance BRIDPORT
BRIDPORT Dance Festival, a new festival in the town’s calendar, on the weekend of 23rd-24th May, is a celebration of dance in all its forms, with opportunities for local dancers and visiting professionals.
Dance Jam and Cypher, on Friday at 7pm, will see more than 20 dancers taking to the centre of a circle to dance for three minutes, improvising movements to different pieces of music. The audience will stand around the circle in this performance which originates in hip hop.
On Saturday 24th, at 2pm, the Aakash Odedra Company will perform Little Murmur, a show which explores choreographer-dancer Aakash Odedra’s own story of being diagnosed with dyslexia as a young child.
He spelt his name wrongly until he was 21 and it wasn’t until he “found the missing A” that he felt he belonged. Defined by his learning difficulties, not his abilities, dance became his mode of expression.
Also on Saturday, at 7.30pm at the Electric Palace, there will be a performance of dance and film, reflecting and celebrating the individuality of the dancers. It will feature solos by guest artist Nafisah Baba, who won the BBC Young Dancer of the Year 2017 and later danced with Phoenix Dance Theatre.
The play’s the thing DORCHESTER
Dorchester Arts has a busy programme of drama in May, beginning with Our Star Theatre, on tour with another comic reinvention of John Buchan’s secret agent Richard Hannay, Hannay Stands Fast, on Friday 9th May.
A thrilling sequel to The 39 Steps, the new play sees our dashing hero on a mission to thwart a new and deadly threat to his beloved England. Engaged on this top-secret case by MI5, Hannay makes his way down to Cornwall to infiltrate a secretive organisation and learn their dastardly plans.
From Wednesday 15th to Friday 16th May, the Somerleigh Players are staging Time Firth’s Sheila’s Island. Laugh (and sympathise) with Sheila, Julie, Denise and Fay, on a supposedly enjoyable adventure, who find themselves marooned on an island in the Lake District.
They have to fend for themselves, manufacturing weapons from items found in Julie’s bottomless rucksack, playing French cricket with very different rules and facing disappointment when the rescue call fails. Truths are told and dirty washing aired in the gloomy foggy weather, in this black comedy.
The role of Hamlet is one of the biggest in all theatres so a solo version sounds like a challenge ... but The Play’s The Thing, as The One-Person Hamlet comes to Dorchester Corn Exchange on Sunday 18th May. In this critically acclaimed 90-minute staging, directed by Fiona Laird, actor Mark Lockyer explores Hamlet’s inner demons. We see the prince, powerless against a tide of selfishness and injustice, losing his grip on reality. But if he really is mad, then is this story a figment of his broken imagination, and the other characters merely voices in his head? This powerful play is also at Poole’s Lighthouse Arts Centre on Friday 16th May.
• Hannay Stands Fast is also at The Mowlem, Swanage on Thursday 8th May, Sidmouth Manor Pavilion on Saturday 24th, and The Flavel, Dartmouth on Wednesday 28th.
Award-winning trio on tour CONCERTS IN THE WEST
Trio Anima are coming to Dorset and Somerset in May
A TRIO of harp, viola and flute players, who met at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama nearly 20 years ago, come to Dorset and Somerset on Friday 9th and Saturday 10th May, for a series with Concerts in the West, at Bridport, Ilminster and Crewkerne.
Trio Anima are Rosalind Ventris, viola, Anneke Hodnett, harp, and Matthew Featherstone, flute. They have been playing together since 2006, and have
Whip-crackin’, gun-totin’, suede outfitrockin’ Doris Day is back in this hugely enjoyable 1953 musical now on rerelease, playing “Calamity” Jane Cannary (loosely based on the real-life frontierswoman). Peter Bradshaw. The Guardian
Bridport Electric Palace
Mr Burton (2025)
The true story of the teacher who inspired and encouraged the metamorphosis of Welsh schoolboy Richard Jenkins into Hollywood acting legend Richard Burton follows the usual contours of such films—a heartwarming story of triumph against adversity, glossy production values and a rousing score. Nikki Baughan. Screen Daily.
Amazon Prime
All We Imagine as Light (2024)
It is universal and emotional enough to hypnotise anyone who has been alone in a city, or been spellbound by a film on the subject.
Bfi Player
The Crime is Mine (2023)
Do yourself a favor and go see The Crime Is Mine, a delicious bit of French froth from master director François Ozon. Moira Macdonald. The Seattle Times.
No Other Land (2024)
Winner of 2025 Oscar for best documentary film. No Other Land, for its many images of despair, still offers a stirring vision for what could be—Israelis and Palestinians working together in the name of justice, collaborating toward a world where both are free. Adrain Horton. The Guardian
Apple TV+
Cha Cha Real Smooth
Cha Cha Real Smooth is an affable, heart-onits-sleeve winner. Rodrigo Perez. The Playlist.
delighted audiences in concert halls and at festivals with their distinctive instrumental combination and imaginative programming.
The trio won the Elias Fawcett Award for Outstanding Chamber Ensemble at the 2012 Royal Overseas League Competition & First Prize at the Camac Harps Chamber Ensemble Competition in 2007. They have been Live Music Now Artists and were awarded a Chamber Music Fellowship at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama in 2011. In 2017 they were selected as Kirckman Concert Society Artists.
The programme for their tour includes works by Arnold Bax, Sally Beamish, Faure, Piazzolla, Debussy, Dowland and Nathan James Dearden.
They are at Bridport Arts Centre on Friday 9th May at 11.30am, Ilminster Arts Centre that evening at 7.30pm and at Crewkerne Dance House on Saturday at 7.30pm.
Sons of Town Hall
BROADWINDSOR & LANGTON MATRAVERS
FOR fans of Simon and Garfunkel, Tom Waits, and Monty Python, the theatrical-folk duo Sons of Town Hall offer an exciting and inspiring musical adventure, coming to Broadwindsor’s Comrades Hall, on Friday 23rd May, and the village hall at Langton Matravers on Saturday 24th, both at 7.30pm.
The show is more than a concert—it’s an immersive experience unlike any other. American songwriter/author David Berkeley and British songwriter/producer Ben Parker are the men beneath the hats in this transatlantic folk duo, creating an entirely new performance genre. Part live concept album, part performance art, the pair conjures their timeless
Musical adventures from Sons of Town Hall in May
mythic universe under the aliases Josiah Chester Jones and George Ulysses Brown, 19th-century vagabonds who travel the world in a handbuilt boat to escape troubled pasts and search for adventure and love.
Favourite choral work
BRIDPORT
CARL Orff’s Carmina Burana, a theatrical, dramatic cantata that is one of the world’s best-loved choral works, is the spring choice for the West Dorset Singers’ concert on Saturday 17th May at St Swithun’s Church, Bridport.
Much-used in television scores or as music with advertisements—do your remember the Old Spice advert with the surfer, or the music played for the entrance of the X Factor judges?—O Fortuna is the famous opening verse of Carmina Burana, in which ORFF drew on medieval poems about life’s earthier pleasures—the fickleness of Fate, the joys of Spring and especially what a young man’s fancy turns to.
There are maidens who wish they weren’t, young men eager for the pleasures of the flesh, drunken gamblers led astray by an Abbot, a roasted swan, followed by a hangover and realisation that Fate will get you in the end. It sounds like a good Saturday night out in Bridport!
First performed in Germany in 1937 to great acclaim, Carmina Burana has become a 20th-century classic.
West Dorset Singers are joined by a choir of local children, professional soloists, two pianos and a percussion band for the concert on 17th May at St Swithun’s Church, at 7pm. Tickets are available from the Bridport Music Centre in South St and from www.ticketsource.co.uk/wds.
Beaminster Festival
BEAMINSTER
THE brilliant Three Inch Fools kick off the Beaminster Festival performing their high octane, musically driven hilarious The Most Perilous Comedie of Elizabeth I, set in the magnificent gardens of Beaminster Manor on Tuesday June 3rd at 3 pm—picnics from 1.30pm.
Highlights of the Festival are an Art Exhibition in the Public Hall during the week of the Festival; Secret Galleries and Gardens in aid of the Prout Bridge Project; music ranging from The Fairey Brass Band to Guy Johnston, cello, from Steve Knightley to Jacky Zhang, piano, BBC Young Musician finalist. Add to that five fascinating literary events and you have a veritable feast of culture set in one of the most charming little towns in West Dorset.
Main events 28 June-6 July. Pick up a brochure or visit www. beaminsterfestival.com. GPW
The Young Lit Fix
Land of the Last Wildcat By Lui Sit Illustrated by David Dean
Published by Macmillan
Children’s books
Paperback £7.99
Reviewed by Nicky Mathewson
PUFFIN was excited to hear her mum’s talk about the Kuri during her school trip to the museum. The Kuri is a mythical wildcat known as the “Legend of Linger Island”, located in the North Atlantic Ocean. The cat and the island have a symbiotic bond and one is the lifeforce for the other.
Her mum was Head of the Mysterious Animal Genetics and Innovation Centre and the Kuri was her speciality. Puffin hadn’t seen much of her mum lately as she was always busy with work, so she was particularly happy.
Strangely though, her mum didn’t show up for the talk and stranger still was the man who gave the talk in her place.
Puffin and her friend Lance were determined to find out what was going on and managed to sneak away from the school group. Whilst nosing around the museum, they stuck their noses in where they weren’t wanted and discovered an incredible secret.
There in a cage in the lab beneath the building, was a Kuri. What on earth was it doing there and why had her mum kept it from her?
Puffin knew that it was wrong for the cat to be caged up there and she knew she had to do something really bold and daring to rescue the cat and take it home before it was too late. How long could the Kuri survive away from Linger Island? And how on earth were two children going to take it back there?
This is a wonderful, fast paced magical adventure about family, friendship, and protecting the natural world.
The author, Liu Sit was born in Hong Kong, raised in Australia and now lives in London. She writes beautifully about the natural habitat and builds a world full of wonder. A fabulous adventure for readers aged 9+
10% off for Marshwood Vale readers at The Bookshop on South Street, Bridport. 01308 422964 www.dorsetbooks.com
BBC Young Musician Finalist Jacky Zhang comes to Beaminster Festival in June
The Leopard (Il Gattopardo)
by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lapedusa
ALTHOUGH written in the 1950s, this novel concerns the unification of Italy in the middle of the nineteenth century and the way it effects one particular noble family in Sicily. It is regarded by some as one of the finest historical novels written in Italian.
The central character of the story, Don Fabrizio Corbera, is based on an actual ancestor of the author. He is known as The Leopard because of the animal depicted on his family crest. There are no actual leopards in Sicily, though there are creatures resembling the serval-a breed of wild cat.
The story traces the events that saw the transformation of Italy from a collection of independent kingdoms into a united country under one monarch.
In addition to Don Corbera there are prominent roles for his nephew, Tancredi Falconeri, his daughter Concetta and Angelica the child of the unscrupulous Don Calogero Sedara.
Woven into the plot are real life characters like Giuseppe Garibaldi. And no, he’s not a biscuit maker from just outside Rome, although he has given his name to the said confection which originated as quick and easily portable nourishment for his band of red-shirted guerilla fighters.
The novel is in many ways a two-part metaphor for developments that happened in Italy during this period. Firstly, it demonstrates how power gravitated towards the north of the country, especially around Turin and Milan, while Sicily, as an island deep in the south, came to be considered as almost a poor colony. Secondly, as the aristocracy lost wealth and influence, a new middle class emerged. It was made up of lawless and wealthy brigands and unprincipled ‘nouveau riche’ who, some would suggest, together formed the roots of the Cosa Nostra.
As Don Fabrizio astutely observes: “The lions and the leopards are gone and those who take our place are jackals and hyenas.”
Published by Penguin
Footnote: A film based on the book by Italian director Luchino Visconti was released in 1963 and a serialised version has recently appeared on Netflix.
JOHN Buchan is one of the old-school thriller writers to be classed alongside Conan Doyle, Chandler, Christie and Dorothy L. Sayers.
Not concerned with the set procedure of police operations, GPS tracking devices or clues found by hacking into electronic devices, his tales are more to do with fascinating characters, windswept locations and intriguing plot contortions.
Buchan (later known as Lord Tweedsmuir), was also an historian and a politician. Between 1935 and his death in 1940 he served as Governor General of Canada.
His ‘Bondesque’ central character in several novels is Richard Hannay, whose travels in this story take us from central London to the Scottish Lowlands and then to the Sussex coast.
It’s 1914 and Hannay is back in Britain after working abroad, He’s bored and looking for something to do. His wishes are duly obliged when he befriends an American writer/foreign correspondent named Scudder who soon ends up dead in Hannay’s apartment.
Scudder, it appears, was on to ‘something’ involving a Greek politician, naval secrets and several big-hitters in European affairs who seem to be spoiling for a war.
The next we know Hannay, complete with Scudder’s coded notebook, is on the run as his train journeys take him to the heather covered moors north of the border and back again, all with agents on his tail. What kind of organisation is The Black Stone? And what does the coded message “Thirty-Nine Steps. I counted them.
10-17 High Tide.” mean?
Published by Nielsen UK
Footnote: Richard Hannay has been played by at least four actors in film versions of this story. Robert Donat (Hitchcock’s version in 1935), Kenneth More (1953), Robert Powell (1978) and Rupert Penry-Jones (2008).
The Thirty-Nine Steps by John Buchan
The Clues in the Fjord by
Satu Ramo
Stieg Larsson, Henning Mankell and Jo Nesbo put the aptly named ‘Nordic noir’ into our homes in print long before television and film directors got hold of it.
In their thoroughly entertaining, though often dark, stories they did their best to put Sweden, Denmark and Norway on the crime map. If you thought though that Iceland might have got a raw deal, your worries are over.
Satu Ramo hails from Finland but since moving to Iceland as an exchange student has embraced the culture, literature and mythology of her adopted country. She claims this first novel is more ‘Nordic blue’ as it deals with important human issues and is not so bleak and cynical.
At the centre of the whodunnit is Hildur Runarsdottir, the only police detective working on the isolated west coast of Iceland. Personal problems and a traumatic past, two sisters went missing and her parents were killed in a road crash, have to be put to one side when a local man is found dead underneath an avalanche. The body count then continues to stack up. The deaths may be connected and perhaps the motive for them is hidden in that connection.
Some may find the pace rather slow and issues that are included, the way doors open there, the Icelandic wool industry and the country’s attitude towards police carrying guns, for example, seem somehow superfluous especially when they take precedence over unanswered questions in the plot.
However, if you like your mysteries with travel guide information thrown in for nothing, you are in luck. Oh, by the way, there don’t seem to be any ‘clues in the fjord’ or maybe I missed them?
Published by Zaffre
Footnote: For those who enjoy the novel, the follow-up The Grave in the Ice is due out this spring and a third tale, The Shadow of the Northern Lights, is planned for the autumn.
Book ahead
Book now and always have something to look forward to.
www.beaminsterfestival.com.
Call yourself an Irishman, Corn Exchange, Dorchester, July 17. Tickets from: www.dorchesterarts.org.uk.
Chris McCausland, Lighthouse, Poole, June 13.
from: www.lighthousepoole.co.uk.
Douglas Dare, Bridport Arts Centre, June 21. Tickets from: www.bridport-arts.com.
Morgan Szymanski guitar at Beaminster Festival, June 30. Tickets from:
Tickets
Lashmar
Kingmaker: Pamela Churchill Harriman’s Astonishing Life of Seduction, Intrigue and Power by Sonia Purnell (Virago 2024).
FROM Winston Churchill’s confidant at No10 during the Blitz to Bill Clinton’s inner circle, Pamela Harriman was the woman that anyone who was anyone in the political elite of the West wanted to know and then have a good gossip about.
Pamela Beryl Digby was born in 1920. Her rise to fame and infamy began when she married, aged just 19, Randolph Churchill. She was to become a sounding board to his father, Prime Minister Winston Churchill, during the Second World War. Her notoriety sprung from her many affairs, one of which was with W. Averell Harriman, President Franklin Roosevelt’s special envoy to No10 in wartime Britain.
Five intensely lived decades later, while serving as the US ambassador to France, her life ended after suffering a cerebral haemorrhage as she took her morning dip in the Pool at the Paris Ritz. A dramatic end to a dramatic life. As one writer noted ‘Pamela would become one of the most influential, moneyed and talked-about women in postwar Anglo-American high society.’
Dorset
What is not so widely known is that Pamela Digby grew up in rural Dorset, indeed within the Marshwood Vale Magazine’s publication area. She was a Digby from the aristocratic family who have been part of Dorset since the early 17th Century when they acquired Sherborne Castle. Later they bought Minterne House, in Minterne Magna, north of Cerne Abbas from the Churchill family. By the turn of the 20th century Minterne House was riddled with dry rot and so the 10th Baron Digby had it demolished and built a new mansion influenced by the Arts and Craft movement. Anyone who has visited the open gardens there knows it is an eccentric edifice. The interior as with the exterior, as apparently the 10th Baron did not like bathrooms,
thinking them as ‘dirty’ and so did not include any. (How the family managed this absence is not explained).
Pamela’s father, Edward, had been a Coldstream Guards officer in the First World War but was having financial difficulties. On elevation as 11th Baron Digby, he sold up the Belgravia house, the Irish estate and moved back to Minterne House. The Mintern estate had been reduced to 1500 acres from 40,000. A year after Edward’s marriage, Pamela was born and would be the first of five siblings.
The young Pamela made the best of Dorset country life and was especially keen on horse riding. When she was 12, she is said to have jumped her horse across the penis of the Cerne Abbas giant, exclaiming: “God, it’s big!” She was to retain an affection for Dorset even when she lived the high life in London, Paris, Turin, New York and Washington DC.
Clarissa Churchill recalled of the teenager that Pamela was “Fat and freckly with red hair and mad about horses.” And that; “We used to bully her.” At Minterne she was educated by governesses and never went to university, a loss of opportunity she was acutely aware through her life. “I was born in a world where a woman was totally controlled by men,” she later said. “The boys were allowed to go off to school. The girls were kept home, educated by governesses. That was the way things were.” As a debutante of the 1938 season, she did not stand out and received no marriage proposals.
Deprived of any chance of peerage by primogeniture—Minterne later went to her younger brother—she moved to London. There, she took a job at the Foreign Office as a translator, and she later told friends: “I felt a real country bumpkin”.
In 1939, and still a teenager, Pamela met 28-yearold army officer Randolph Churchill, the son of Winston Churchill on a blind date. Convinced he was going to die on active service Randolph wanted to get married and have a male heir. He asked eight women in a week. Despite being warned by alarmed friends and family that he was feckless; she was the only date to take the offer seriously and agreed. And feckless Randolph was, as a heavy drinker, gambler, a man always short of ready money and something of a misogynist. Posted to Egypt by the army, Randolph had even managed to gamble away a large sum of money on the voyage, which he then expected Pamela to pay off.
With Randolph away at war, Winston and Clemmie Churchill took the pregnant Pamela under their wing. Winston Spencer Churchill was born October 1940 at Chequers. Now Prime Minister and a grandfather, Winston discovered that Pamela was a very intelligent woman, far more so than his son, and
he took to dining with her in the evening at No10 to discuss the latest political turns of the war. This aspect of Pamela has only been highlighted in the most recent biographies.
A series of older men visiting No10 were entranced by her. She had something and, as the turn of phrase captures it, had blossomed. For the rest of her life, men found her enormously attractive. This proved very effective with the Americans that President Roosevelt sent over from the still neutral USA to see if Britain was worth aiding. Harry Hopkins was a keen admirer though nothing more. She had flings and affairs with some including Averell Harriman. Sonia Purnell’s engaging biography of Pamela claims that she was able to pass on key pieces of intelligence from her pillow talk with high rankling Americans that helped Churchill make well informed judgments about manipulating the American entry into the war. Purnell suggests Pamela played a part in getting the crucial Lend Lease agreement and the US declaring war. Apparently, Winston Churchill said she was her as “his most willing and committed secret weapon”.
At one-point mid-war, she was said to be sharing her nights between the head of the US bomber command and the British chief of air staff. Another amour was the legendary radio journalist Ed Murrow, whose live broadcasts from the London blitz across the US, are thought to have influenced the American people away from isolationism.
After D-Day the Mata Hari role lessened. From time to time, she returned to Minterne with the young Winston. With both spouses errant from early on, it was clear that her marriage was broken. Anxious to avoid scandal impacting on the Prime Minister during the war, Randolph and Pamela divorced after VJ Day on the grounds of his desertion. Even his father admitted Randolph was ‘useless’. She was still only 25.
The three times married Pamela had an untutored intelligence, honed as an autodidact. Her last husband was Averall Harriman, whom she married many decades after their affair. Combined with her refined charm and interest in politics, from the 1960s, she was a confidante to many Democrat politicians including JFK and Bill Clinton. Now known as Pamela Churchill Harriman, her Washington DC salons and fund raisers were where high politics were settled. Clinton was elected in 1992 and he later said of her part in his election, ‘Today I am here in no small measure because she was there.’
She did though, need to get away from the intensity of DC at weekends and bought herself a country house, as isolated as Minterne, in Westchester County. As Purnell notes she set about
making the gardens as much like Dorset as she could.
However, says Purnell, ‘In defiance of Digby traditions she installed numerous contemporary bathrooms as well as shagpile carpets, one of America’s first microwave ovens and early remotecontrolled television’.
Her long-time desire to have a high-powered public post was fulfilled at the age of 73 when President Clinton, who held her in high regard appointed the multilingual Pamela to be US Ambassador to France in 1993. She handled the post with aplomb. She died in post four years later.
Early biographical accounts were not very well disposed to Pamela, often settling scores. In a 2000 biography of Madeleine Albright, Harriman is cited in contrast to Albright, as a socialite who slept her way to the top. She was described by TV mogul William Paley, a former amour, as a compliment, “the 20th-century’s most influential courtesan”. As Rake magazine put it, Pamela ‘blazed a trail through the international scene of her era, enticing powerful men like moths to a particularly feisty flame.’
On buying ‘Kingmaker’, I expected not to like Pamela, but on reading Purnell’s generally sympathetic account I was intrigued by the power of her personality and her disdain of boredom. Nothing she did that caused so much backbiting, would have raised much of an eyebrow if she had been male. She had her faults and failures including neglect of her son Winston—who resented her and preferred his father—despite her attempts to bribe him with lavish gifts. She also mishandled the children of her later husbands and lovers who responded with public denunciations and lawsuits. Had she been a man, she would have undoubtedly risen to some higher office than ambassador and much earlier in her career.
It is nearly 50 years since her death, yet Pamela Churchill Harriman’s long journey from the Digby’s Minterne House to Clinton’s White House via No10 Downing Street, still makes for a gripping biography. Not a perfect life but a bloody interesting one.
Paul Lashmar is author of Drax of Drax Hall: How One British Family Got Rich (and Stayed Rich) from Sugar and Slavery. An unauthorised history of the Drax family. Pluto Publishers (2025).
He shares the shocking and, until now, untold story of Dorset’s own slave-owning dynasty. Drax of Drax Hall: How One British Family Got Rich (and Stayed Rich) from Sugar and Slavery. Pluto Press. At Waterstones bookshop, 45, 47 South Street, Dorchester. 18.00 on Thursday 5 June 2025.
Riser recliner chair by HSL. electric handset. pale grey tweed. Cost £2,300. Excellent condition. £290 ono Careco Elexir bath lift. Used twice. Cost £260 (£200 + £60 assembly) £60 ono. Tel: 07816 873161.
Axminster wood lathe. Good order. Wood/
metal jaws, revolving centres, drill chuck. Set of 8 tools and many purpose made. Bargain £95. Buyer collects. Tel 01460 220081
Vintage chamber pots all in good condition. £12 each or 2 for £20.
Pot a plant in or use for pot Pourri? Some antique ones also available. Photos. 07519 130010.
Electric Bike, excellent condition, 4 years old, little used recently. £995 ono. Try before you buy. 07368999710.
Earthquake Domestic Cultivator. 3365 series.
FOR SALE
Gear drive. Front tine tiller. Briggs & Stratton engine. In excellent condition. Photos provided if required. £200 ono. Phone. 01297 33889. Raymonds hill. Axminster.: 01460 220081.
David Shepherd painting of nine elms, (9F. BRS 4-6-0.).
78x40mm. £40.00 ph. 07494057654. Spur cast iron adjustable dumbbells. One pair of 20Kg each Cast Iron Dumbbells - £15.00. One Pair of 22.5 Kg each Cast Iron Dumbbells - £15.00.
Bridport 01308 420801. 8x2 Harveys water softener blocks £40 (approx half price) buyer collects. “Ecomax” garden compost bin 220l complete and good condition Free to collector. Phone 07876 550056 Bridport. 4 dining chairs for sale. Black, modern design, 6 months old but unused, unmarked condition and very comfortable. Cost £100 each yours for quick sale £125 the lot. Phone 01297 598249 (axminster). Violin. Primavera
Model 200 Half Size
Violin. Very good condition complete with bow, case and 2 Learn To Play books. £65 ovno Can email photos. Axminster based. 0797 041 6021 or 01297 33344.
Sidecar chassis
A change of plans means this old British sidecar chassis is up for grabs. I believe it’s from a Canterbury sidecar. Consists of the frame, suspension unit and solid wheel. Located near Stockland. £40 ono. Call 07479474392 and leave a message.
Fundraiser hopes to bring back much loved sculpture
Greta Berlin’s Stalking Dog at Palmers Weir
A CROWDFUNDING initiative has been set up to try to save a much loved Greta Berlin sculpture in Bridport.
The beloved Stalking Dog sculpture, which has graced Palmers Weir for the past three years, is set to return to its creator as it is in need of refurbishment.
The Stalking Dog has become a town landmark, and many will miss its presence. Curator of the sculpture trail that it is part of, Cleo Evans, said, ‘Sadly, Stalking Dog is on its last legs and needs recasting.’ The sculpture was modelled on Greta Berlin’s family’s dog Queenie.
Cleo and local writer Ros Huxley are hoping to raise £6,000 for a new, permanent sculpture. This will pay for the construction of a mould, a casting in strong resin, and secure fixings. The money will also include a fee for Greta who, up to now, has loaned all her artworks to Bridport for free.
‘This is our last chance for Bridport to keep Stalking Dog, and it would be fantastic to be able to raise the necessary funds so it can be recast in resin and become a permanent fixture in our lovely town’ says Cleo.
In 2023, the public voted the Stalking Dog the most popular artwork in the Bridport Sculpture Trail. The trail has been a vibrant addition to the town’s Green Walking route over the past four years.
To contribute to the Crowdfunder visit: https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/queeniesculpture.
Tanya: in her own words
While tributes have poured in for Bridport Literary Festival Director Tanya BruceLockhart, who died suddenly in April, her own words sum up her humour and drive, through an extraordinary life. To read her story, as told to Robin Mills, visit: https://www.marshwoodvale.com/people/2025/04/tanya-bruce-lockhart/
Coins wanted. Part or full collections purchased for cash. Please phone John on 01460 62109 or 07980 165047. July 24
Dave buys all types of tools 01935 428975
Collectables, bygones, vintage, autojumble, Job-lots & collections a specialty. Good prices paid 07875677897
CLEANING
No.1 Cleaning Company. Exceptional weekly home cleaning service. Moving house, end of tenancy cleaning. Ironing service. Experienced & reliable. Call Wendy 7841487123.
DECORATING
Alex Hickman
Decorating - based in west Dorset. Quality interior and exterior painting at reasonable rates. Reliable, local, affordable. Call 07590264009 for a free quote today.
Secondhand tools. All trades and crafts. Old and modern. G. Dawson. 01297 23826. www.secondhandtools. co.uk.
Stamps & Coins wanted by collector / investor. We are keen to purchase small or large collections at this time. Tel Rod 01308 863790 or 07802261339.
Vintage & antique textiles, linens, costume buttons etc. always sought by Caroline Bushell. Tel. 01404 45901. Jan 25
RESTORATION
FURNITURE.
Antique restoration and bespoke furniture. Furniture carefully restored and new commissions undertaken. French polishing and modern hand finishes. Phil Meadley. 01297 560335. phil.meadley@btinternet.com Sept
TUITION
Piano, violin, theory tuition at your home. Highly qualified teacher. Adults and children welcome. Beginners to advanced. Dr Thomas Gold 07917 835781.
Advertise Here
WANTED
Old Tractors and Machinery, Pick-up Vans and Tippers. Best prices paid. Tel. 07971 866364.
