Marshwood+ October 2025 by Marshwood Vale Ltd

Simon Hart on going from unassailable to unelectable Page 40

Duane Forrest presents Bob Marley Page 56

Pete Millson

The Art of the Photograph Page 26

Marsh wo o d

Alastair Braidwood © Photograph by Robin Mills

I’m really Dorchester born and bred, but my father was a Scot. He followed my grandparents down from Scotland, who moved here for my grandfather’s health. My father met my mother, who was born in Broadmayne, here in Dorset, and it’s where I’ve grown up, feel like I belong, and love to be.

Whatever I’m involved in, I tend to jump in with both feet. Music is such a big part of my life that as a family we wonder where it’s come from. My parents haven’t really passed it on to me, or my sister who is very musical, so perhaps it skipped a few generations. My mother sings in a choir, and my father has a good appreciation of music, so it clearly hasn’t come out of nowhere. There was, and still is, a very good music department at Thomas Hardye School when I was there which gave me great encouragement to develop as a musician. I then went to Royal Holloway College in Egham, Surrey, for three years and got my degree, but couldn’t wait to get back to Dorset afterwards.

When I came back from university, I started working for the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, initially doing marketing and PR, but quite quickly moved into the library, sorting out all the sheet music for the concerts. I did enjoy that, but a couple of years ago I left to start a freelance career. I’d always intended to have a proper job with a wage, but

’

Alastair Braidwood © Photograph by Robin Mills

Robin Mills met Alastair Braidwood near Dorchester

Alastair Braidwood

I was getting offers of gigs, either to act or play music, so I thought I’d give it a go. Thus far I haven’t starved, although I can’t say I’m raking it in.

I started acting, aged nine, in Dorchester’s 4th Community Play Fire from Heaven. Then, as a teenager I was in the 5th play A Time to Keep, written by David Edgar and Stephanie Dale in 2007, a large production involving over 100 people, set in Dorchester in 1804 when there was a great threat of invasion by Napoleon. That was huge fun, and my involvement (with both feet) included acting, singing, and playing music, even some of the tech. Since then, there have been two more Dorchester Community Plays, and various productions with the New Hardy Players, for which I’ve acted and written music, and been musical director, including the very enjoyable and successful adaptation by Howard and Alison Payton of Far from the Madding Crowd in 2019. I’m taking on an increasingly directorial role with the New Hardy Players, our most recent production being A Few Crusted Characters, which was also great fun to do, and went down well. During A Time to Keep, all those years ago, I met well-known local folk musician and director Tim Laycock, and he and I now perform together as a duo. We have some gigs coming up in October, when we will be performing traditional songs and readings about the autumn, describing what the rural year used to look like a century or two ago in Dorset.

Much of my bread and butter today comes now from playing the organ at various church services. There’s always a dearth of organists at village churches. As an instrumentalist I’m a jack of all trades and master of none, but I play the hurdy-gurdy for folky things, bash a guitar in a ceilidh band, and play the church organ in all its forms a great deal—and I sing. In the spring and summer, my folk song walks are popular.

I’m classically trained as a musician, with an interest in jazz, and some classic rock, but traditional folk music is my main interest. The more unusual styles of early folk music, plus choral and church music being my main genres these days. It comes from an interest in tradition and history, and how music links us to the past, but having said that traditions in folk music are constantly changing, so there’s a need to keep up with them. That helps keep the traditions relevant to today’s world, as can fusions of other genres like jazz, pop, or music from other cultures lead to new directions with traditional folk.

About 10 or 12 years ago, attending a very wet folk festival with absolutely nothing to do except sit in a damp gazebo, I started to learn to knit. We knitted bunting which we hung up round the gazebo, and I’ve just never stopped. I’ve learned many different styles and techniques, and now I teach other people to knit. I hope to start my own knitwear brand this autumn, specialising in fisherman’s guernseys, and other classic, practical

pieces of knitwear, made entirely by hand. I’m doing it all myself, although if orders come flooding in I may have to think again. I’ll be selling through a website, social media, going to craft fairs, and through word of mouth, which can be a powerful thing. The difficulty is getting people to understand the cost of the hand-made item, which pays someone a reasonable wage to make something from scratch. It is unavoidably expensive, but the product is so much better in terms of quality, sustainability, ease of repair, and the use of only natural materials. The damage wrought by fast fashion, produced by cheap labour overseas, is well known. The percentage of people’s income spent on clothes used to be much higher and was spent on fewer clothes; it’s better to possess one item and look after it, and repair it when necessary, than to have 10 items and throw 9 of them away. Until the industrial revolution so many people were involved in the production of cloth; it would take 8 spinners to supply one weaver with yarn, which gives one an idea of how many pairs of hands the process of making a garment took. Wool, once the source of wealth and employment for so many people all the way back to medieval days, has today become almost worthless to sheep farmers due to competition from cheap materials and high costs of production, but there does seem to be a resurgence in demand for the many uses it can be put to. The British Wool Board have done excellent work in promoting this wonderful fibre with so many benefits.

The ceilidh band I lead is called Tatterdemalion. This year is special as it’s 10 years since we started playing traditional tunes at weddings, parties and fund-raising occasions for people of all ages to dance to, and we’re celebrating with a family ceilidh at the Corn Exchange, Dorchester on 13th September. All the tunes we play come from two manuscripts of folk music dating to the 1820s and 1830s, which would have been recognisable to Thomas Hardy, although we have slightly updated them with a bit more beat and some different harmonies to make them more danceable. We were brought together by Tim Laycock, who provided the first tunes, and his wife Angela, with her amazing knowledge of so many dances, her enthusiasm and persuasive manner, is our main caller. Since we started playing together, providing music for the New Hardy Players’ productions, we have all become great friends. In fact, I met my wife Juliet years ago as we were both playing in the band, but it took me a while to realise I liked her rather a lot, and so we married last year. We have so many things in common, like folk music, living history, and dressing in a classic style. We try to live in as environmentally friendly a way as possible in our lovely little spot in Dorchester. Juliet works at Athelhampton House as resident historian, although that job title covers many roles. She organises living history events there, including the Tudor Week at the end of October.

Talking with photographer Pete Millson recently reminded me of a routine by the late Canadian comedian Norm Macdonald. In his show he discusses how he might be remembered after his death. He said we don’t remember people as a series of moving pictures but as still images. When we attend a funeral or memorial service, we see photographs from that person’s life; perhaps on rare occasions there is some film at a gathering afterwards, but in most cases it is still images. Before the advent of photography, those who could afford it had an artist paint a portrait. Today, we are mostly memorialised through photographs. I found myself trying to remember lost friends this week while listening to Andrew O’Hagan’s podcast about friendship. He is coming to this year’s Bridport Literary Festival to talk about his new book On Friendship. O’Hagan discusses the moment in our youth when we first make friends and how different a friend can become compared to family. Family, he says, is often very involved, dark, personal, and historical. In contrast, he likens early friendships to a ‘glass of cool water after a fever.’ It turned out that trying to picture my lost friends, I could indeed only see still images—some from funeral service cards and some from blurred memories—but always still images, never moving. I wonder whether this will change with the advent of social media, especially that described by Simon Hart on page 40 as a ‘toxic environment’. Will the generations who grew up laughing at the antics of friends posted on YouTube videos or social media be different? Will memories of their friends burst out of the screen like action movie characters? Or is it possible that in a world riddled with misinformation, fake images, and now fake videos, they may struggle to have anything real to look back on?

Fergus Byrne

in your Marshwood Vale Magazine

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Contributors

EVENTS October

Wednesday, 1 October

Monthly Jazz Jam 1st Wednesday of each month: We jam jazz! Performers - bring a tune of your choice. Punters - it may be improvised & rough round the edges…. But that’s jazz! Come for a genuinely exciting and unique night of high quality jazz, virtuosic playing, and inclusive fun! 19:30 The Community Waffle House, Axminster EX13 5AP Just turn up! Or email live@ waffle.org.uk for more info.

West Dorset Community Orchestra meet for rehearsal in Christian Fellowship hall, East Street car park, Bridport DT6 3PL from 6-30p.m. to 7-45p.m. Contact 01308 456297 www.westdorsetmusic.org.uk.

‘My Ballet’ All adults 18-80 plus Holistic ballet for all adults Supportive & Non - judgemental classical ballet. For posture, flexibility, strength, balance, fitness, friendship. Join the fun and feel good. Complete beginners welcome! 10am-11:15 (some experience) 11:30 - 12:45 ( mixed ability) 1pm-2:15 (a Partly seated class with barre work for balance, confidence & fun) 2:15- 3.30 (mixed ability) (also on Zoom 10:30 am )Bull Hotel ballroom, 34 East St, Bridport DT6 3LF. Do get in touch and come and dance ! Whatsapp 07866896978. email: myballetuk@gmail.com ww.my-ballet.uk

Thursday, 2 October

September 5 (2024, Germany, 15, 95 mins, Director: Tim Fehlbaum.) During the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, Germany, an American sports broadcasting team must adapt to live coverage of the Israeli athletes being held hostage by a terrorist group. Doors 7:00 pm, 7:30 pm start. Clapton & Wayford Village Hall (TA18 8PS). Membership £30, guests £5 per film. For more information/book guest tickets, please email mickpwilson53@btinternet.com or k_everard@live.com. Alternatively, ring Mick Wilson on 01460 74849 or Julia Borland on 01460 72769.

West Dorset Ramblers group 6.5 mile walk. Beaminster Circular Walk- north of Beaminster via Buckham Down. To book and for details please contact Chris 07715760884.

Bride Valley Films will be showing ‘Bridget Jones: Mad About The Boy’.’The best Bridget Jones film, a great fourth sequel’. Bridget is back for one last chapter! Now a widowed single mother, she must juggle work, parenthood and romance. With the help of her loyal friends, Bridget navigates encounters with a younger man and a series of awkward encounters with her son’s

science teacher as she strives to forge a new path toward life and love. Starring Renee Zellweger and Chiwetel Eijofor. Litton Cheney Village Hall – DT2 9AU. Doors open at 7:00 pm with the film starting at 7:30pm. Tickets on the door £6 (to include a glass of wine).

Beaminster Museum’s two seasonal exhibitions run throughout October. ‘One and two halves to Beaminster’ turns the spotlight on the history of public transport in the area, from horse-drawn carriages to early petrolpowered vehicles, from canals that never materialised and railways that stopped short of their destination. ‘When the Romans Came to West Dorset’ weaves together three intriguing stories: the Roman invasion from a West Dorset viewpoint, the history of Waddon Hill Roman Fort between Broadwindsor and Beaminster, and the role of digital technology in uniting artefacts from across the country. The Museum is open Tuesdays, Thursdays, Saturdays and Bank Holidays, 10.30am – 4pm, Sundays 2pm – 4.30pm. Admission is free, but donations are very welcome. Whitcombe Rd, Beaminster DT8 3NB. www. beaminstermuseum.co.uk

Friday, 3 October

Screening: Radiohead x Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror (PG), 7pm Bridport Electric Palace, DT6 3NY. Tickets from £10 To book electricpalace.org.uk.

Waffle Live Presents: Tash n Dave With close harmony singing and a range of acoustic instruments, a you can expect music that ranges from Lennon and McCartney, Simon and Garfunkel through to Randy Newman and John Denver. 19:30 The Community Waffle House, Axminster EX13 5AP Book your tickets: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/tash-n-dave-tickets1638300353459?aff=ebdssbdestsearch. Or email live@ waffle.org.uk for more info

‘My Ballet’ All adults 18-80 plus .Holistic ballet for all adults Supportive & Non - judgemental classical ballet. For posture, flexibility, strength, balance, fitness, friendship. Join the fun and feel good. Complete beginners welcome! 10am - 11:15 with experience 11:30 - 12:30 Mixed ability Jubilee Hall, Church street , Winsham, Chard TA20 4HU Whatsapp 07866896978. email: myballetuk@gmail.com www.my-ballet.uk

Saturday, 4 October

Jazz Concert with John Maddocks 7 Jazzmen at St Mary’s church, Beaminster DT8 3BA. Doors open 7 for 7.30 p.m. John’s own New Orleans style of music has evolved over time and the band currently presents tunes

from an early jazz repertoire together with more popular songs so all music lovers are thoroughly entertained. Tickets £15 adults, £3 under 16s available from Yarn Barton Information Centre, Beaminster 01308 862715 or online at www.bridportandwestbay.co.uk/tickets.

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

Dorset composer Matthew Coleridge conducts the 10th anniversary performance of his sublime choral work “Requiem” in Sherborne Abbey. Featuring 120 choral singers, international cello soloist Guy Johnston, acclaimed soprano Amy Carson and professional orchestra Southern Sinfonia, this promises to be an unmissable evening of glorious music. The concert will also include the second performance of Matthew’s stunning new cantata “The Breath of Life”, plus a Q&A session with the composer. Tickets £15 from

matthewcoleridge.com/concerts or email music@ matthewcoleridge.com. 7pm. Sherborne Abbey, DT9 3LQ.

All Floyd, 8pm, Bridport Electric Palace, DT6 3NY. Tickets £29.50 To book electricpalace.org.uk

Sunday, 5 October

Choral Eucharist at 10.30am with music by Bairstow, Mozart and Ole Gjeilo. St Peter’s Church, High West Street, Dorchester, DT1 1XA. This service is free to attend. More information at www. musicatstpetersdorchester.org.

An afternoon of classical, popular and jazz music by “Superlocrian” 7 piece wind ensemble led by Sam Massey - Trumpet/Flugelhorn and with Gavin Mallett, Hugh Davies & Edward Leaker - Soprano & Alto Sax; Jade Gall - Saxes and Flutes, Tom Green - Trombone and Mike Poyser Tuba at 3pm St. Peter’s Church, Dalwood, EX13 7EG (near Axminster). Wine/soft

drinks and tea/coffee/cake etc. Parking at the Village Hall. £12.50p. If possible, please book in advance and pay (cash or card) at the door. t.mackenney111@ btinternet.com.

Opera Screening: RB&O -Tosca (12A) 210 mins, 2pm, Bridport Electric Palace, DT6 3NY. Tickets from £11.50 To book electricpalace.org.uk

Beaminster Museum Free Sunday craft drop-in. Sessions are suitable for children aged five and over –no booking required. 2pm - 4.30pm, Whitcombe Rd, Beaminster DT8 3NB. www.beaminstermuseum.co.uk

Monday, 6 October

Coffee Morning in aid of Gaza. Hosted by the Alexandra Hotel & Restaurant, Pound Street, Lyme Regis. 100% of money raised will go to MAP - Medical Aid for Palestines. From 11am.

Bridport Folk Dance Group. If you like music, gentle exercise and socialising, do come along to our dance sessions in the W.I. Hall, North Street on Monday evenings from 7.15pm-9.30pm. No experience or partner required. Occasional live music and always a Caller to guide the dances. Only £3. Tea and biscuits. Tel: 863552 or text 07456730753 for more information.

Hawkchurch Film Nights, in association with Moviola.org, proudly presents ‘Mr Burton’, 124 mins, Cert.12 (infrequent strong language, discrimination). 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; 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. Home-made cake, teas, coffees, soft drinks, wine and other refreshments available.

Tuesday, 7 October

AUG Wessex Can we help? Do you sometimes have a problem getting your iPhone, iPad or Mac to do exactly what you want? Then we want to help. We are AUG Wessex. We meet once a month to learn what these devices can do and provide 1:1 help to suit your needs and remove some of the mystery. Come along, free of charge, to our open meeting 7.30pm Tuesday 7th October in the Skyrm Room, Beaminster and find out if we really can help. Typical questions are: where do I store my photos? how do I use WhatsApp? can

I make a flyer for the local fete on my iPad?. We can’t guarantee to solve every problem but our members keep coming back determined not to let the technology beat them. Skyrm Room is in the Public Hall, 8 Fleet Street, Beaminster DT8 3EF.

Scottish Country Dancing at Horton Village Hall Nr Ilminster TA19 9QR from 7.30 to 9.30 pm. Everyone welcome including beginners so come along and join in the fun. £3.00 pay on the door. Further information from Anita on 01460 929383 email anitaandjim22@ gmail.com or visit our web site at www.ashillscd. wordpress.com.

West Dorset Ramblers group 7 mile walk. Searching for Stone Circles via Little Bredy & Hardy’s Monument. To book and for details please contact Heather 07798 732252.

Wednesday, 8 October

West Dorset Community Orchestra meet for rehearsal in Christian Fellowship hall, East Street car park, Bridport DT6 3PL from 6-30p.m. to 7-45p.m. Contact 01308 456297 www.westdorsetmusic.org.uk.

Kilmington Film Matinee Mr Burton (12). Doors and bar open 6.45 film start 7.15 at Kilmington Village Hall EX13 7RF. Tickets £6 can be ordered by contacting: John at wattsjohn307@gmail.com or Tel: 01297 521681.

‘My Ballet’ All adults 18-80 plus Holistic ballet for all adults Supportive & Non - judgemental classical ballet. For posture, flexibility, strength, balance, fitness, friendship. Join the fun and feel good. Complete beginners welcome! 10am-11:15 (some experience) 11:30 - 12:45 ( mixed ability) 1pm-2:15 (a Partly seated class with barre work for balance, confidence & fun) 2:15- 3.30 (mixed ability) (Also on Zoom at 10:30am) Bull Hotel ballroom, 34 East St, Bridport DT6 3 LF Do get in touch and come and dance! Whatsapp 07866896978. email: myballetuk@gmail.com www. my-ballet.uk

Thursday, 9 October

Book Launch: Gill Barr A Wide River Divides Us. Debut poetry collection launch with readings, conversation with Greta Stoddart, a poem-film and book-signing. Gill Barr’s debut collection A Wide River Divides Us opens with acute recollections of a troubled childhood in 1970’s Derry/Londonderry. Shocking and poignant poems evoke the child’s experience as violence escalates in the streets around her. In a compelling fifty-year leap the poet then leaves behind the city of her youth and sweeps into an expansive future, where her loosening voice reckons with the past and with the self. The arc of this poetry collection is tremendous, ambitious, wide – what strikes most is its sheer variety and vitality. An accomplished

and distinctive collection. 7.30pm. Doors 6pm. Hot supper available from the bar before the event. Please call 01308 459511 for Tickets at £10.

A night of comedy, music and poetry for the ages 7.30pm at The Lyric Theatre, Bridport. Lost Mythos is a parish council meeting like no other. Fresh from their recent album collaboration, the haunting soundscapes of Mara Simpson and the words of acclaimed poet JLM Morton will take us back to a weird, forgotten Albion. Meanwhile, comic Emma Kernahan guides us through this mythical meeting agenda, blending unruly local folklore and stories from modern rural life. Tickets £12on sale at Bridport Tourist Information Centre. Chesil Bank Writing Shed. Do you write? Would you like to write? Whatever you want to write, why not come and join our friendly group. New writers are always welcome. 7 pm - 9 pm, Portesham Village Hall. You can find out more by emailing linda@lindaph.co.uk.

Seaton Garden Club at 2.30 p.m. Venue The Masonic Hall Seaton. A Talk by Rob Hutch- of Hutch House Plants. Pot plant problems solved, ------so bring your ailing plants. Members free Visitors £2.00 plus refreshments. Contact 01297 22869 for more information.

Chard History Group Roger Marsh will talk on the on the Pen Mill Rail Crash of 1913. 7 for 7.30pm. Upstairs Chard Guildhall (with lift). Members £2.50 Non members very welcome £3.50. For further details contact Tessa on 01984481634.

Folk dancing at Combe St Nicholas village hall (TA20 3LT) at 1930 hrs. A Pair Of Shears will be providing the music and Simon Maplesden calling. 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.

Bridport History Society will be welcoming Tim Goodwin who will give a talk about Dorset during the English Civil War. 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: http://www.bridporthistorysociety.org.uk.

Kilmington Film Matinee Mr Burton (12) (See 8th October). Matinee, doors open 1.45pm film starts 2pm, cream-teas served during the interval but must be pre-booked with your seats @ £4. see above and www. kilmingtonvillage.com/other-organisations.html for more information.

Friday, 10 October

Kathryn Roberts and Sean Lakeman From their roots in 90s folk supergroup ‘Equation‘ through to becoming

a revered duo in the folk music scene this multi awardwinning folk music couple continue to exude timeless class with their exquisite brand of traditional and contemporary acoustic music. 2025 sees them celebrate 30 years of their musical partnership with the release of their first live concert album. Titled ‘Another Day At The Circus’ it perfectly encapsulates the intimate poignancy of an evening with a couple at the top of their game. Kathryn and Sean have twice been voted BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards Best Duo as well as winning Best Duo honours from both Spiral Earth and Fatea Magazine. “It’s folk music for the modern age.” – The Telegraph, London. Tickets: £18. 7.30 - 10pm. Ilminster Arts Centre, To book phone: 01460 54973 www. ilminsterartscentre.com.

Beaminster’s Yarn Barton Centre (reg’d charity) has its annual fundraising quiz night at the public hall, Fleet St, 7.00 for 7.30 p m. Teams of 6 maximum. Tickets @ £10pp , to include ploughman’s supper and a drink, are available from the Centre (01308 862715).

Talk - Air raid on RAF Warmwell in August 1940. This talk is about the air raid on 25 August 1940 on RAF Warmwell, believed to be the largest single bombing raid on an English airfield in WW2. Well known historian John Smith from Rockbourne in Hampshire will talk at 6.30pm in Moreton Village Hall near Dorchester, DT2 8RE. The raid was carried out by about 300 Luftwaffe JU88’s on the strategically important airfield of RAF Warmwell, which was part of the south coast defence for the Battle of Britain which was to come later that month. This is part of the celebration of the stained glass window in Holy Trinity Church Warmwell, installed last year to the memory of the personnel of RAF Warmwell some of whose graves can be found in the Commonwealth War Graves in the Churchyard. Tickets £10 from David Walsh Tel 07770 343441 or davidpwalsh1802@gmail.com OR on the door if not sold out. All proceeds to Holy Trinity Warmwell and a donation to SSAFA.

Open Mic 2nd Friday of each month: Inclusive & family-friendly open mic hosted by Pete Scott Keyboard, drum kit, backing tracks, full PA set up and ready, band accompaniment available upon request. 19:30 The Community Waffle House, Axminster EX13 5AP . Book your tickets: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/open-mictickets-1616809824709?aff=ebdssbdestsearch. Or email live@waffle.org.uk for more info

‘My Ballet’ All adults 18-80 plus. Holistic ballet for all adults Supportive & Non - judgemental classical ballet. For posture, flexibility, strength, balance, fitness, friendship. Join the fun and feel good. Complete beginners welcome! 10am - 11:15 with experience 11:3012:30 Mixed ability Jubilee Hall, Church street , Winsham , Chard TA20 4HU Whatsapp 07866896978. email: myballetuk@gmail.com www.my-ballet.uk

Saturday, 11 October

Uplyme and Lyme Regis Horticultural Society. Autumn Show and Coffee Morning, plant stall and raffle. Fun event judged by public vote and open to all. Free. Uplyme Village Hall 10am to 12 noon. More information https://ulrhs.wordpress.com.

The Friends of Weymouh Library (F.O.W.L.) talk will be by Alan Jenkins, a retired Dorset Police Inspector. He was involved in planning and commanding royal visits. On one royal visit to Dorchester everything that could go wrong did! We will learn what happened on that fateful day. The talk begins at 10-30a.m. in the Library. Tickets are £2 for members and £3 for non-members, and can be obtained from the Library (01305762410). For other information phone 01305 832613. Everyone welcome.

Lindisfarne, 8pm, Bridport Electric Palace, DT6 3NY. Tickets £33 To book electricpalace.org.uk

Sunday, 12 October

The Soulful Jazz of Cannonball Adderley 8pm Marine Theatre, Church St, Lyme Regis. Julian “Cannonball” Adderley was an American jazz alto saxophonist whose playing was infused with an infectious gospel tinged earthiness. His playing has been a great inspiration to saxophonist Will Paley who will be presenting Adderley’s music accompanied by Philip Clouts at the piano and John Donnelly on the bass. Tickets available at www. marinetheatre.com. You can also purchase tickets from the Lyme Regis Bookshop and Bridport TIC (01308 424901).

Monday, 13 October

Winsham Art Club, 2pm at Jubilee Hall TA20 4HU. The theme this practical session is Trees on the Levels using Watercolour. It is a 2.5 hr. session led by a visiting tutor. Small friendly group of mixed abilities. Members £5, non-members £7. Annual membership £15. All welcome. Contact: Email : suzyna48@gmail.com for further details.

Tuesday, 14 October

Singing Bowl Soundbath 9PM Digby Memorial Hall,

Sherborne, DT9 3LN £17 Lie down, relax, and allow the Pure Sounds of a crystal and Tibetan bowl soundbath plus sacred vocal overtoning give you a sonic deep-tissue massage, taking you into the deeper brainwave states of ‘the relaxation response’, while charging and balancing the aura and chakras of the subtle body, and detoxing the physical body. Booking 01935 389655 ahiahel@live.com.

Bridport Film Society La Chimera by Alice Rohrwacher. Josh O’Connor plays Arthur, a renegade British archaeologist in 1980’s Tuscany. Just released from prison, he makes an illicit living stealing historic artefacts with a bunch of disaffected locals helping his grave-robbing exploits. 7.45pm Bridport Arts Centre. Members and Guests (£5) only.

West Dorset Ramblers group 6.5 or 9 mile walk. Jubilee Trail east of Lewesden – and Pilsden. To book and for details please contact Ian 07826 150114.

Wednesday, 15 October

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).

West Dorset Community Orchestra meet for rehearsal in Christian Fellowship hall, East Street car park, Bridport DT6 3PL from 6-30p.m. to 7-45p.m. Contact 01308 456297 www.westdorsetmusic.org.uk.

‘My Ballet’ All adults 18-80 plus Holistic ballet for all adults Supportive & Non - judgemental classical ballet. For posture, flexibility, strength, balance, fitness, friendship. Join the fun and feel good. Complete beginners welcome! 10am-11:15 (some experience) 11:30 - 12:45 ( mixed ability) 1pm-2:15 (a Partly seated class with barre work for balance, confidence & fun) 2:153.30 (mixed ability) (ALso on Zoom at 10:30 am) Bull Hotel ballroom, 34 East St, Bridport DT6 3 LFDo get in touch and come and dance! Whatsapp 07866896978. email: myballetuk@gmail.com www.my-ballet.uk

Thursday, 16 October

Friends of Lyme Regis Museum offer an illustrated talk, ‘Shipwrecks of Lyme Bay’ by Nigel Clarke at 2.30 pm in the Woodmead Hall, Hill Road, Lyme Regis. DT7 3PG. Nigel has published books on a wide variety of topics including geology, local history and walk guides. Members £3 visitors £5. All welcome. Enquiries to David Cox, 01297 443156.

South Somerset RSPB Local Group A Return of the White-tailed Eagle to Wales We welcome Sophie-lee

Williams, of Eagle Reintroduction Wales, who will tell us about her work building a case for the return of these majestic birds to South East Wales, at 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.

Friday, 17 October

Spikedrivers - bluesroots at its best 1992 ~ 2025 “A celebration, an anniversary and a farewell“. Their music has been described as ‘haunting’, ‘gutsy’, ‘tribal’ and even psychedelic. Blues in Britain says, “From the first note, Spikedrivers demand to be listened to. Ben Tyzack, Constance Redgrave, Maurice McElroy & Roger Nunn are four very talented musicians willing to experiment and evoke unusual contemporary sounds while they continue to keep diggin’ the blues by the roots.” Tickets: £22. 7.30 - 10pm. Ilminster Arts Centre, To book phone: 01460 54973 www.ilminsterartscentre.com.

Chard TA20 4HU Whatsapp 07866896978. email: myballetuk@gmail.com www.my-ballet.uk

Informative talk – local speaker and enthusiastic ‘Mother of Pearl’ collector Fran Watson, will share his interesting hobby with us. £5 includes tea/coffee/squash & cake. Please book in advance. 3pm, at Clapton & Wayford Village Hall. Further information from Mary (01460 74849) or Julia (01460 72769).

A Warm Invitation to Milborne St Andrew. Friends from nearby villages are warmly invited to join us at Milborne St Andrew Village Hall for our next Milborne Movies screening: The Salt Path. Based on the bestselling memoir by Raynor Winn and starring Gillian Anderson and Jason Isaacs, this moving story follows a couple who, after losing everything, take to the South West Coast Path – a journey that passes through many landscapes familiar to us here in Dorset. Come and enjoy a night out on the big screen for just £6.50, which includes a drink or ice cream. A perfect evening of film and friendship, without the hassle of travelling far! at 7.30pm (doors and bar open at 7.00pm) Milborne St Andrew Village Hall, DT11 0JX. We’d love to welcome our neighbours from surrounding villages – bring your friends, enjoy the bar, and settle in for an inspiring film in good company.

Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale (PG) 2025 122 mins 7:30pm, Bridport Electric Palace, DT6 3NY. Tickets £8.50 To book electricpalace.org.uk

Friday, 17 - 18 October

Giovanni Lonati for classical piano. Giovanni Lonati returns to Tincleton for a second concert, “The Hour Is Beautiful For Dancing“. This his fourth time of trying to get here mind you, the first attempt was a casualty of Covid lockdowns, then he himself caught Covid just before boarding his flight in Rome on the second attempt. The third try was a dream and he wowed the audience in 2023 here in Tincleton and now returns two years later. The programme will be the same on both nights. As usual drinks & nibbles will be served. All concerts start playing at 8pm. Please arrive after 7:30pm. Tickets £20 each. To order tickets please email info@ tincletongallery.com or call Tincleton Gallery on 01305 848909

Saturday, 18 October

Lunchtime concert between 12.30pm and 1.00pm given by Hannah McFarlane (cello) and Rob Taylor (piano), including works by Rachmaninov and Faure. St Peter’s Church, High West Street, Dorchester, DT1 1XA. Admission free. More information at www. musicatstpetersdorchester.org.

‘Colours of Autumn’, a concert by Hertford Chamber Choir, directed by Manvinder Rattan. The Church of St Candida & Holy Cross, Whitchurch Canonicorum, at 5.30pm. Tickets £15 (under-18s £5) on the door or in advance from www.buytickets.at/ thefriendsofstcandida/1852386. Refreshments available afterwards. Organised by The Friends of St Candida. Comedy: Georgie Carroll - Infectious, 7:30pm, Bridport Electric Palace, DT6 3NY. Tickets from £25.50 To book electricpalace.org.uk.

Sunday, 19 October

Choral Eucharist at 10.30am with music by James Whitbourn, Byrd and Elgar. St Peter’s Church, High West Street, Dorchester, DT1 1XA. This service is free to attend. More information at www. musicatstpetersdorchester.org.

Dalwood Jazz Club presents “Three Good Men” - a tribute to the Benny Goodman Trio with Nick White - clarinet, James Clemas - keyboard and Jim Newtondrums at 3pm. Dalwood Village Hall, EX13 7EG (near Axminster). Bar for beer/wine/soft drinks and tea/ coffee/cake etc. Parking at the Village Hall. £12.50p If possible, please book in advance and pay (cash or card) at the door. t.mackenney111@btinternet.com.

Axe Vale Orchestra Concert, 3pm, Axe Vale Orchestra invites you to an afternoon concert at Colyton Town Hall EX24 6JR. The programme includes Elgar Serenade for Strings, Orff Carmina Burana arrangement for ten wind instruments, Finzi Bagatelles for Clarinet with Strings - soloist Chris Gradwell, and Haydn Symphony No 96 ‘The Miracle’. Tea and Cake after the concert.. Tickets £15 (free for under 18s or students), from www. axevaleorchestra.co.uk via TicketSource or on the door.

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

Monday, 20 October

Scottish Dancing in Chardstock. An evening of Scottish Dancing in Chardstock Village Hall 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 £3.00 For more information contact David on 01460 65981 www.chardscottishcountrydance.co.uk. Bridport Folk Dance Group. If you like music, gentle exercise and socialising, do come along to our dance sessions in the W.I. Hall, North Street on Monday evenings from 7.15pm-9.30pm. No experience or partner required. Occasional live music and always a Caller to guide the dances. Only £3. Tea and biscuits. Tel: 863552

or text 07456730753 for more information.

Tuesday, 21 October

West Dorset Ramblers group 7 mile walk. Dorchester to Hardy’s Cottage – circular walk town to country and back. To book and for details please contact Janet 07947 881635

Wednesday, 22 October

Uplyme and Lyme Regis Horticultural Society. Talk, Japanese Gardens by Charles Chesshire. Uplyme Village Hall 7.30pm. Doors open 7pm. Members free; guests £3. More information https://ulrhs.wordpress.com.

West Dorset Community Orchestra meet for rehearsal in Christian Fellowship hall, East Street car park, Bridport DT6 3PL from 6-30p.m. to 7-45p.m. Contact 01308 456297 www.westdorsetmusic.org.uk.

Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale (PG) 2025 122 mins 2pm, (Also at 7.30pm). Bridport Electric Palace, DT6 3NY. Tickets £7.50 To book electricpalace.org.uk.

‘My Ballet’ All adults 18-80 plus HolisticBallet class for fitness, fun, posture, balance,strength, friendship and fabulous music. Bull Hotel ballroo’My Ballet ‘ All adults 18-80 plus Holistic ballet for all adults Supportive & Non - judgemental classical ballet. For posture, flexibility, strength, balance, fitness, friendship. Join the fun and feel good. Complete beginners welcome! 10am-11:15 (some experience) 11:30 - 12:45 ( mixed ability) 1pm2:15 (a Partly seated class with barre work for balance, confidence & fun) 2:15- 3.30 (mixed ability) (Also on Zoom at 10;30am)Bull Hotel ballroom, 34 East St, Bridport DT6 3LFDo get in touch and come and dance! Whatsapp 07866896978. email: myballetuk@ gmail.com www.my-ballet.uk

Wednesday, 22 - 23 October

A Free exhibition on the life of Lord Horatio Nelson to celebrate Trafalgar Day and the launch of the David Clement Maritime Library and Archive. 10am - 5pm in the Bradshaw Meeting Room at Thomas Whitty House, Silver Street, Axminster, Devon, EX13 5AH. For further details please email rebecca@saltwaternarratives.co.uk or telephone 07548 018654.

A Dreadful Hole - Horatio Nelson’s Caribbean Posting’, a talk by archaeologist and author, Nigel Sadler, 7:30pm - 8:30pm in the Bradshaw Meeting Room at Thomas Whitty House, Silver Street, Axminster, Devon, EX13 5AH. Tickets £5 can be purchased from Eventbrite: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/1665262357539?a

ff=oddtdtcreator, by emailing rebecca@ saltwaternarratives.co.uk or telephoning 07548 018654.

Thursday, 23 October

Folk dancing at Combe St Nicholas village hall (TA20 3LT) at 1930 hrs. Ian and Margaret will be providing the music and Jane Thomas is the caller. 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.

BridLit Special Event: Alexander McCall Smith, 7pm, Bridport Electric Palace, DT6 3NY. Tickets £16 To book electricpalace.org. uk.

Friday, 24 October

Pam Ayres: Doggedly Onward, 7:30pm, Bridport Electric Palace, DT6 3NY. Tickets £35 To book electricpalace.org.uk.

Jess Gillam revisits Beaminster Festival. The Beaminster Festival is thrilled to present the Jess Gillam Trio in a very exciting Autumn Concert, kindly supported by the Friends of Beaminster Festival. The programme will feature Jess’ typical wide-ranging programme showcasing the versatility of the saxophone including music by Gershwin, Corelli, Telemann and Barbara Thompson. Jess is joined by Zeynep Özsuca, piano, and Sam Becker, double bass. Jess came to the Beaminster Festival in 2017 after reaching the Grand Final of the 2016 BBC Young Musician and has since made a phenomenal career as an international soloist and also as a presenter of BBC Radio 3’s This Classical Life; BBC Proms and BBC Young Musician. 7.30pm, St Mary’s Church, Beaminster. Tickets are available from www.beaminsterfestival.com or call 0333 666 33 66.

Waffle Live Presents: Fly Yeti Fly Delicatebut-distinctive folk guaranteed to put a smile on your face. Blending rich vocal harmonies with intricate guitar arrangements, mandolin and harmonica, and with a warmth of spirit that radiates from the stage, the Wiltshirebased duo weave songs and stories about connection, community and the seasons. 19:30 The Community Waffle House, Axminster

EVENTS IN NOVEMBER

Live or Online send your event details to info@marshwoodvale.com BY OCTOBER 14th

EX13 5AP Book your tickets: https://www.eventbrite. co.uk/e/fly-yeti-fly-tickets-1617514893589?aff=ebdssbd estsearch Or email live@waffle.org.uk for more info ‘My Ballet’ All adults 18-80 plus Holistic ballet for all adults Supportive & Non - judgemental classical ballet. For posture, flexibility, strength, balance, fitness, friendship. Join the fun and feel good. Complete beginners welcome! 10am - 11:15 with experience 11:3012:30 Mixed ability Jubilee Hall, Church street, Winsham, Chard TA20 4HU Whatsapp 07866896978. email: myballetuk@gmail.com www.my-ballet.uk

Saturday, 25 October

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

Yeovil Railway Centre, Yeovil Junction, Stoford BA22 9UU: Evening Halloween Disco with Steam Train (and on the 31st). Prebooking recommended - see website www.yeovilrailway.freeservers .com

Choral Evensong at 4.30pm with music by Natalie Burton, Rihards Dubra, Liz Dilnot-Johnson and Herbert Howells. St Peter’s Church, High West Street, Dorchester, DT1 1XA. This service is free to attend. More information at www.musicatstpetersdorchester.org.

Charmouth Heritage Coast Centre Craft and Fossil Fair 10am - 4pm in St Andrews Community Hall, Charmouth, DT6 6HL. Meet the fossil collectors and visit the stalls - glass, jewellery, pottery, willow craft, pebbles, ceramics, paintings, cards, baby knitwear, handcrafted bags, quilting and felt, FREE ENTRY Refreshments served all day- bacon rolls and cream teas. All proceeds go to support the Centre run as a small educational charity.

Come to the Ceilidh at St Mary’s Church House Hall, South Street, Bridport. All Welcome..so don your dancing shoes!! Music by ‘Orion’s Ring’ and the Caller is Rosemary Hunt. 7.30pm to 10.30pm. Only £10. (Accompanied children £1) Light refreshments available or BYO.

Purbeck Film Fest: The Marching Band (15) 2024 103 mins, 5pm, Bridport Electric Palace, DT6 3NY. Tickets from £7.50 To book electricpalace.org.uk. The Roses (15) 105 mins, 8pm, Bridport Electric Palace, DT6 3NY. Tickets from £7.50 To book electricpalace.org.uk

Saturday, 25 - 26 October

Angels of Sound Sound healing voice workshop Module 2 10am-5PM Oborne Village Hall, Oborne, nr. Sherborne, Dorset DT9 4LA £128/£64 deposit. Learn to give yourself and others a sound-healing treatment using the instrument that you already own–your unique voice! Booking essential ahiahel@live.com 01935 389655 ffi www.centreforpuresound.org.

Sunday, 26 October

Singing Bowl Soundbath 2pm Oborne Village Hall nr. Sherborne, Dorset DT9 4LA £17 Lie down, relax, and allow the Pure Sounds of a crystal and Tibetan bowl soundbath plus sacred vocal overtoning give you a sonic deep-tissue massage, taking you into the deeper brainwave states of ‘the relaxation response’, while charging and balancing the aura and chakras of the subtle body, and detoxing the physical body. 01935 389655 ahiahel@live.com.

Netherbury Repair Cafe 10:00-12:00 at the Village Hall. Why not bring your broken items and see if one of our lovely team can fix them. We have volunteers who fix: electrics, bikes, textiles, ceramics, electronics, and wood and metal items. Please bring any spare parts that you think you might need. And while you are waiting you can sample what the cafe offers: home-made cakes, delicious coffee and a range of Clipper teas. Vegan and vegetarian-friendly. We are always looking for new volunteers and so if you love fixing things, baking or being part of a fun community event then come and join us.

Purbeck Fim Fest: Ocean with David Attenborough (PG) 85 min, 5pm, Bridport Electric Palace, DT6 3NY. Tickets from £7.50 To book electricpalace.org. uk. The Mastermind (12A) 110 mins, 8pm, Bridport Electric Palace, DT6 3NY. Tickets from £7.50 To book electricpalace.org.uk

Monday, 27 October

If you like music, gentle exercise and socialising, do come along to our dance sessions in the W.I. Hall, North Street on Monday evenings from 7.15pm-9.30pm. No experience or partner required. Occasional live music and always a Caller to guide the dances. Only £3. Tea and biscuits. Tel: 863552 or text 07456730753 for more information.

Spine-tingling family theatre in Dorset this October. Touring Dorset this autumn with Artsreach, Squashbox Theatre’s latest show Shivers & Shadows is a deliciously spooky treat for families. 2pm – Milborne St Andrew Village Hall. Follow Craig as he explores a creepy old mansion inherited from his eccentric great Uncle Vladimir. What spectres stalk its corridors, what eerie figures move through the forest, and what strange creature lurks in the cellar below? Shivers & Shadows is a fast-paced, inventive performance brimming with puppetry, tall tales, live music, comedy and just the right amount of spooky silliness. A perfect half-term outing for families with children aged 6+. Fancy dress

‘Every Brilliant Thing’ comes to Bridport’s Lyric Theatre

Friends of West Dorset are bringing their production of Every Brilliant Thing to the Lyric Theatre in Bridport on October 24 and 25 at 7:30 p.m. The show was a sell-out success at the Allington Arts Festival in September, and tickets are now available at the Bridport Tourist Information Centre by calling 01308 424901.

Critically acclaimed, the play explores depression and suicide, but according to the Guardian, it manages to be “One of the funniest plays you’ll ever see about depression.” Taking London by storm in the summer, the play is fundraising for a suicide charity, James’ Place UK. It is written by Duncan MacMillan and Jonny Donahue, and in London, Lenny Henry and Sue Perkins, among others, are performing solo roles. Casarotto and Ramsey Associates have granted the company permission to stage an amateur production of the play.

Romla Walker, who is playing the lead role in this one-person play, last year raised money for James’s Place UK, whose work drew her to this project. She is thrilled to be highlighting such vital issues in such a powerful way.

Margie Barbour, the director, explained that her brother’s suicide, aged 17, had changed her whole family’s life, and so she knew at first hand the impact of suicide. Margie shares the story of the play: ‘You’re seven years old. Mum’s in hospital. Dad says she’s “done something stupid”. She finds it hard to be happy. You start a list of everything that’s brilliant about the world. Everything worth living for. You leave it on her pillow. You know she’s read it because she’s corrected your spelling.

Every Brilliant Thing is a funny, moving and interactive play that reveals the effect of mental illness on families while exploring the lengths we will go to for those we love. The child attempts to ease their mother’s depression by creating a list of all the best things in the world. Through adulthood, as the list grows, they learn the deep significance it has on their own life.

‘This play is life-affirming and shows the healing power of connection,’ says Margie. ‘From when I first came across it, I have wanted to find an opportunity to direct it. The Allington Arts Festival at St Swithun’s invited me to bring it to them, and I am delighted to do so.

‘At heart it’s a play about living with depression, and it’s less about the idea that the list actually “works”

than that it’s a way of communicating love and care between those who struggle to talk about the pain they’re going through; that some things can only be addressed obliquely. Every Brilliant Thing is above all a communal endeavour.’

Chris Fogg, dramaturg, explained, ‘Every Brilliant Thing is a remarkable play—unique, innovative, engaging, compelling. It manages to be both comic and tragic at the same time, poignantly celebrating hope’s triumph over sorrow in a way that is as courageous as it is moving. Romla delivers an unforgettable, virtuosic performance in the lead role that is wittily nuanced and full of surprises, directed with precise, subtle clarity and confidence by Margie Barbour.’

Tickets are now available at £15 and can be purchased from the Bridport Tourist Information Centre by calling 01308 424901.

Please note: This production includes discussion of suicide and depression. Age recommendation 16+

Romla Walker. Photograph © Colin Fursman

encouraged – with prizes for the best! Optional postshow shadow-puppet workshop (£4 per child, booking essential). Part of the Artsreach autumn programme bringing professional performances to rural communities across Dorset. More details and booking: www.artsreach.co.uk.

‘Marshwood Vale’ is an anthology of poems written by the well-known Bridport poet, David Bushrod. Each poem is a lovingly crafted jewel, evoking the grandeur of the Dorset countryside. With the assistance of Mark Damon Chutter, Chairman of the Thomas Hardy Society, and using poems recorded by David Bushrod this year, Robert Eshelby will examine the power of David Bushrod’s poetry and offer his response to the poems of Abbotsbury, Eggardon, Golden Cap and other beloved Dorset features at Dorset Museum from 2 - 3pm. The 30th Anniversary edition of ‘Marshwood Vale’, with a foreword by Robert Eshelby, will be available from October 2025.

POSTPONED

Tuesday, 28 October

Bridport U3A The U3A monthly talk in October is being carried out by Mary Smith. The talk entitled ‘A Schoolgirls War’ tells the story of school life during the war. Starting at 2.00 pm at The British United church hall, East street, Bridport DT6 3LJ. The talk lasts for up to 1 hour followed by Q & A && then refreshments. Members free, visitors £3.00.

Bridport Film Society Kneecap by Rich Peppiatt. A fictionalised account of the controversial group’s formation; their chosen moniker being a reference to the IRA’s method of punishment during the Troubles. Combines the profane with a serious political message about Irish independence and riotous humour. 7.45pm Bridport Arts Centre. Members and Guests (£5) only. West Dorset Ramblers group 9 mile walk Jakeman’s Cross & Bushes Barn via Grimstone and Stratton Downs. To book and for details please contact Jill & Simon 07974 756107.

Wednesday, 29 October

Artsreach & Wootton Fitzpaine Village Hall presents Wild by Black Country Touring. Featuring original songs, immersive soundscapes and storytelling, Wild is a vibrant, moving, captivating show that will leave you wondering... what is your Wild? at 7.30pm Tickets £12.50; 11-17yr old £6; Family £35 From Artsreach. co.uk and 01297560948 Card and cash bar and raffle with proceeds to Wootton Hall.

Screening: NTL – Mrs Warrens Profession (12), 120 mins, 7pm, Bridport Electric Palace, DT6 3NY. Tickets from £17.50 To book electricpalace.org.uk

Thursday, 30 October

Clapton & Wayford Village Hall AGM; business followed by wine & nibbles, 7.30pm; all welcome. More details from Mary (01460 74849).

West Dorset Ramblers group 10 mile walk. Pilsden Pen circular via Drimpton, To book and for details please contact Chris 07715760884.

Family Theatre: Fun For Little Ones- A Tribute to Ms Rachel, 12pm, Bridport Electric Palace, DT6 3NY. Tickets £16.50 To book electricpalace.org.uk

Friday, 31 October

The Rocky Horror Picture Show (12A) 1975 100 mins, 7:30pm, Bridport Electric Palace, DT6 3NY. Tickets £7 To book electricpalace.org.uk.

Samba Drumming Workshop with Drum Devon An enthralling trip to Brazil - James from Drum Devon’s 90-minute workshop on Brazilian Timbal drums. Drumming isn’t just fun, it’s good for you too! (Please note £10 per ticket for this exclusive event) 19:30

The Community Waffle House, Axminster EX13 5AP Book your tickets: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/ samba-drumming-workshop-w-drum-devon-tickets1638341707149?aff=ebdssbdestsearch. Or email live@ waffle.org.uk for more info

Saturday, 1 November

Mozart’s Requiem 10.30 am to 16.30 pm at Thomas Hardye School Dorchester. Weymouth Choral Society warmly invites you to an exciting singing day, featuring the much loved Mozart Requiem, with special guest director Victoria Ely. Victoria is a sought-after choral conductor, founder of the highly acclaimed chamber choir ‘Evoke’, and Director of Music at Reading University. Cost: £20 per singer, to include music hire, morning refreshments, afternoon tea and cakes. For further information and to book your place, please visit: weymouthchoralsociety.org.uk, email philip. wise76@gmail.com or telephone 07762 416590.

Charity Ceilidh, fun night of dancing with caller and live music from the Wyld Band. Bar and hot snacks available. 7pm-11pm. Dancing 7.30pm. Wootton Fitzpaine Village Hall, DT6 6ND. Tickets: £10 (£5 under 14). To book email saintandrewsmonkton@ gmail.com

Saturday, 1 - 2 November

Winsham Art Group 2025 exhibition The Jubilee Hall, Winsham, TA20 4HU. Saturday and Sunday 10am –4pm. Email : suzyna48@gmail.com for further details. Step into a world of colour, texture, and expression— an annual exhibition of new, original art by our talented members at affordable prices.

Abundant for now... but possible future victim of the Asian hornet - the buff-tailed bumblebee

SNature Studies

By Michael McCarthy

ometimes we have likings that are instantaneous. For example, the comedian Eric Morecambe, one half of the old duo Morecambe and Wise, made me grin as soon as I saw him. He didn’t have to say anything. I just had to set eyes on him and I would start to laugh. And I sort of feel the same way about bumblebees.

How can you not like them, these colourful flying furry bundles? How can that shape not be instantly appealing? (Perhaps it appeals to the remnants of the child inside us.) And are they not admirable—visibly hard-working whenever we encounter them, going from flower to flower patiently collecting pollen, in sharp contrast to wasps which we tend to think of as dangerous unwanted guests at our summer picnics?

Of course, on one level that is all anthropomorphic nonsense—bumblebees and wasps are both just doing what comes naturally. But on the other hand, the likes and dislikes that we take towards the natural world are part of life, and I have the impression that most people are, as I am, instinctive bumblebee fans, even if they know very little about them. So, some quick facts: bumblebees are like honey bees in that they live in colonies, but whereas we have just one species of honey bee—the honey bee, Apis mellifera—in Britain we have twenty-four species of bumblebee, distinguished by the different coloured bands across their tails, though most of us will probably only encounter three or four of them in our gardens (the most likely being the buff-tailed bumblebee, Bombus terrestris.) And the reason I raise the subject here is that last month I was concerned to hear two pieces of bad bumblebee news.

The first came from the national bumblebee monitoring scheme run by the Bumblebee Conservation Trust, which revealed that 2024 was the worst year for bumblebees since records began. Across Great Britain, bumblebee numbers declined by almost a quarter (22.5 per cent) compared to the 2010-2023 average. And the second came in a new piece of

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

research about the Asian hornet, an invasive species from the Far East which first appeared in Britain in 2016, and, which I wrote about here eighteen months ago. This predator can devastate colonies of European honey bees which have evolved no defences against it, and can have a seriously damaging effect on other insect life; and the new research showed for the first time that four common species of bumblebee are also among its most frequent prey.

Now increasingly known as the yellow-legged hornet, to highlight its most characteristic feature, this beastie came to Europe through global trade, arriving in France in 2004 and spreading to other continental countries. It reached Britain in 2016 and became established in Kent two years ago. However, the one hopeful bit of news is that the fight to keep it from spreading, by beekeepers and government scientists, seems to be succeeding—at least in Dorset. By the middle of last month, 112 nests had been found and destroyed this year, but the overwhelming majority of them were in Kent; only two nests were found in Dorset, both in Verwood in the east of the county. Despite the fact that two nests were found in Portland in August 2023, there has been no trace of it since. “I think we have managed to eradicate it on Portland,” Duncan Fergusson, the beekeeper in our village told me.

Fingers crossed. Bumblebees are not only attractive: they are among the most significant and important of all our plant pollinators. Yet they are so familiar and—up till now—so common, that it is easy to take them for granted, and assume they will always be there. Just remember what Joni Mitchell sang: “Don’t it always seem to go, that you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone?” And she knew what she was singing about.

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.

Part of the Point of the Pint

Participating in a social Swift survey, Horatio Morpurgo ponders conversation, counts, and questions that hang in the air.

The Swift Pint was introduced and explained at a meeting in Bridport Town Hall. Those wishing to be involved would take up position on a summer’s evening outside a number of evenly spaced pubs. Over the same half hour, everybody would look up at five-minute intervals and count how many swifts they could see. Someone from each group would record and send numbers to the survey’s coordinator, ecologist Tom Brereton, who would collate the data. Three Swift Pint Surveys for 2025 were advertised well in advance. Bridport has enough cavity-riddled old buildings that its population of this charismatic creature is still quite high. The aim was to gauge its status more exactly.

Some backstory: 180 years separated Gilbert White’s observations of this ‘amusive bird’ in the 1770s and Swifts in a Tower first properly scientific study. Less than 12 months separated two recent titles on the same subject—Mark Cocker’s One Midsummer’s Day: Swifts of Life on Earth (2024) and Hannah Bourne-Taylor’s Nature Needs You: The Fight to Save Our Swifts The Swift Pint is part of a wider surge of interest and concern.

Brian and Sue are old friends and have birdwatched all over Europe. The Crown Inn, which they were assigned, stands by a roundabout where the A35 by-passes the town. Birding’s way of leading you to unlikely locations is part of its charm. But a peregrine falcon sailed over as we occupied an outdoor table and set the tone. Between our scannings of the sky, conversation ranged far and wide. Sue curates the Roman collection at the town’s museum. A retired civil servant, Brian has a knowledge of planning law which makes him the indispensable member on any environmental committee.

Larger numbers of swifts were counted over the middle of town. We mainly saw ones and twos. But the Crown’s landlord was enthusiastic anyway. Plus part of the point of the Pint is the conversation it occasions. We’ll come back to this.

A swift brick looks like a normal one but has a small opening which leads to an internal cavity space. It is essentially a nesting-box fitted flush to the wall. Hannah Bourne-Taylor’s Nature Needs You story of her campaign to make their installation mandatory with all new-build. Launching a petition,

she set about collecting the 100,000 signatures needed to trigger a parliamentary debate. She wore nearly nothing to deliver her ‘Feather Speech’ in Hyde Park,

topical: they have just flashed across her postcolonial reading-list ‘with a humming-bird’s electric wings, this engine / that shot ahead of each question like an answer’ (Derek Walcott’s Omeros). Her godfather, another birdwatcher, also shows. He restores old buildings and has photos of a swift brick he has just installed. My own goddaughter, still in the midst of A-levels, praises a difficult but strangely beautiful question from a Physics paper, about the sun’s structure. Part of the point of the Pint is once again the conversation it occasions.

that milling of parents, children and vehicles at dropoff time. Earlier on the day of the third and final Swift Pint, in mid-late July, my son and I had passed beneath that ‘circusing’ of swifts, walking together to his last day at primary school.

He was tired but agreed to cycle down to the Crown Roundabout. My wife also joined us. A trainee psychotherapist, she has looked into how environmental concern is affecting practise, from women who choose not to have children to outdoor therapy sessions. Part of the point of the Pint.

Mark Cocker’s One Midsummer’s Day happens in his garden in Derbyshire but roams if anything even further afield than those ‘flying dots quaking in the ether’ above him. It is to his credit that he frets at the limits of ‘nature writing’. So his book planes and plunges, for example, into the process whereby hydrogen is turned to helium at the sun’s core. It tracks the resulting energy as it streams across the solar system. He makes this process the centrepiece of his case for imaginative engagement with science,

Although that match surely ended in a one-all draw

If Bourne-Taylor lives too much from headline to headline, Cocker walks to a slower beat, inscribing himself in a long tradition of English nature writers. Neither writer mentions the other and Cocker is most original where he is furthest from Bourne-Taylor’s approach. To study the swift with him is to hear in their shrilling ‘the story of life on earth’, to hear geological time percolating into the everyday life of

to us each year are traced to a planetary collision over four billion years ago, from the aftermath of which our moon was formed. Its gravitational pull keeps the earth’s tilt within bounds, allowing for a seasonal variation hospitable to life, rather than the excessive heat and cold of Mars, say, which has no such neighbouring mass to ‘anchor’ it. He traces the emergence of our breathable atmosphere, our plants and insects—of everything, in short, without which the ‘near-perpetual mobility’ of this bird (and ourselves marvelling at it) could never have come to

The question of what gets through to people is surely by now the one that counts. For all their differences, both of these books are genuine attempts to answer it. Most people asking themselves that question are thrown back on early experience of their own. Or perhaps to observing that of their children. Swifts nest each year under the eaves of an old chapel across the road from my son’s primary school. Every summer term for the last four years their screaming and circling has gone on a few feet above

Both books I’ve described are branches off the same trunk. Swifts in a Tower (1956) documents the decade David Lack spent studying a colony of swifts in the tower of Oxford’s Natural History Museum. ‘The times’, he wrote, ‘urgently require us to search out the basis of our lives.’ He sought it through studying the common swift. To judge by these more recent books, we are searching for it there still. Even as their numbers dwindle and the gap widens between what is needed and the political readiness to effect change.

Just a week after the third and final Swift Pint was poured, they were gone. I had never before felt so strongly the abruptness of that departure. They left a question hanging in the air, as we loaded the car for departures of our own or arranged play dates upon our return. For all their differences, these books are engaged in a common search for that ‘basis of our lives’ which has only gained in urgency. They deserve our attention.

To read an extended version of this article visit the Marshwood Vale Magazine website at: www.marshwoodvale.com

The Art of the Photograph

This month featuring Pete Millson

Isometimes notice a similarity between photographers and private detectives, such as Poirot, Columbo, or Miss Marple, or secret agents like Jason Bourne. TV and film often show moments where an agent sits in a café or bar, observing everything around them in great detail. Photographers share a similar habit of observing and absorbing their surroundings, though hopefully for different reasons.

Talking with photographer Pete Millson in a café in Bridport, Dorset, he mentions how he is constantly, though not always consciously, noticing his surroundings. ‘If something visually strikes me, I have

to stop and go back to see what it is that I’m being drawn to.’ He then has to ‘reverse engineer’ the moment to piece it back together. He smiles, relating a story of how he explained this to a detective inspector once, who laughingly told him, “You’re just paranoid”.

But citing an interview with a National Geographic photographer, he describes how you have to learn to return to that one split second that captured your imagination. For most people, he says, inertia means they will just walk on. But for people like Pete, that moment is golden and might produce an iconic photograph.

Amy Winehouse. Photograph © Pete Millson

Oliver Land. Photograph © Pete Millson

This doesn’t mean that he is only interested in the unusual things that appear out of nowhere. As a portrait photographer, he is searching for dignity. ‘What I love about a good portrait is that it’s a dignified record of a person who actually existed.’ Explaining that he is constantly trying to improve his photography, he talks about those who believe they cannot be photographed—they say the camera doesn’t like them. ‘The question to ask is who was the photographer,’ he says. Pointing at the table, he explains. ‘A photograph is not something that that cup could do; it’s down to the people.’

Although there was always an Instamatic lying around when he was young, the first time a friend gave him a ‘second-hand, proper camera’, he was amazed. ‘I just kept staring at it,’ he says. He then began studying the work of photographers like Anton Corbijn and Henri Cartier-Bresson, trying to imitate their techniques. Corbijn’s work inspired him so much that he wanted to produce what he recalls as ‘vital’ and ‘credible’ work—striving to create a ‘Kapow! sort of photograph.’

‘The real job is to let somebody’s actual life happen’

He put together a portfolio of photographs of friends and eventually got a job with the New Musical Express (NME). ‘I must have caught them on a quiet day,’ he laughs. But the freelance ‘bits and bobs’ led him to a three-year spell at a local paper in Islington, where he learned how to take photographs in a wide range of challenging situations. He followed that with a five-year job photographing musicians as diverse as Bob Geldof, Keith Richards, Siouxsie Sioux, Charlotte Church and Amy Winehouse for a Guardian feature on musicians’ record collections. The list of people he photographed is huge but he remembers how the approach was a great way to get subjects into the right frame of mind. ‘Because these, often famous, people were being asked about the very thing they loved, rather than some tittle tattle, they totally opened up.’

The experience led to more press shots for record labels as well as cover photographs for albums, something he still does with as much immersion as he did in the early days with the NME. The difference now, he points out, is that there is little record label work; today, he mainly works directly for the bands. ‘I’m still championing the artist,’ he says. ‘I try and persuade people that you’ve got to spend some money on photography, you don’t want to look like a Muppet.’

Pete’s ‘other hat’ is that he is a musician, singersongwriter, and music mixer. He is quick to point out that stardom is not his thing. He likes to be what he calls ‘five-foot outside the spotlight’. So when it comes to either helping musicians with their sound or their look, his experience is enormous and it’s likely his ego isn’t going to get in the way of the end goal.

Meeting and photographing many famous people can be enlightening, especially in developing a philosophy of life and understanding that there is reality in each subject. Pete’s experience has allowed him to understand that vulnerability and fallibility are present in everyone, regardless of their status in life.

‘I’m just trying to say that person X, who’s struggling with the shitology of life, I still can see the dignity there. And person Y, who’s got a million dollars and a stylist, I can still see a person there as well. I’m after things that look great, but not at the expense of it not being a real person.’

But how has his photography evolved over the years? Experience has helped him develop his instincts. He knows what he likes and what he doesn’t like, something he calls his ‘artistic prejudices.’ He explains that a photographer has to take account of the atmosphere

Molly Bruce. Photograph © Pete Millson

around them. ‘My empirical research tells me that if you pay attention to the vibe in the room, you sort of know when to hit the button. It’s a kind of psychological gate. But it’s not like you get it right 100% of the time; it’s more that you get as close as you can.’ He explains that part of a good portrait photographer’s armoury is that you’re ten steps ahead of your sitter. ‘The real job is to let somebody’s actual life happen.’

Somehow, we arrive at the inevitable question about the future for creatives and how to handle AI in photography. ‘It’s easy to answer that one,’ says Pete. ‘It doesn’t really matter whether you use a pencil, a biro, a camera, or a block of stone; it’s about the person and their journey through life. If they use, say, the medium of photography, they can express it through that.’

And what about AI? ‘If AI does it for you, you’re welcome to it’ he says. ‘If, by pulling a lever and having something generated, you’re happy with it, photography is not for you. Because an artist will always go, “wait, there’s something wrong with this”. Art is not about a destination; it’s about a journey. And AI is all about a destination. AI is all about the end result.’

Is AI wrecking the art world? ‘Numbnuts are always knackering things for people, aren’t they? It’s just that the numbnuts are in charge of the world now, so you just live with it.’

Pete also recognises the need for us to be more honest in our assessment of what is presented to us. ‘I guess, in the times we’re living in, a really positive thing to say is that people are learning to be more fair. We’re all gradually learning to offend people less. But there’s a lot to be said for saying “that is a pile of shit, and that’s really good”. It doesn’t matter if you offend the person who took the pile of shit; it’s still a pile of shit. And if it’s AI that’s a pile of shit, then it’s a pile of shit! We need to get our opinions nice and strong again, because otherwise you have homogenised general art, which is what AI creates, homogenised generalness. So be nice to people, respect people but don’t start making everything great.’

I recount a story about how a winning image at the Sony World Photography Awards a few years ago turned out to be AI-generated. ‘It’s quite hard to keep an eye on excellence,’ he says. ‘Because everything’s pretty good now. You get your iPhone out of your pocket and the shot is pretty good. So, is pretty good good enough?’ Of course not. When it comes to the journey that is art, most artists would start again if they thought their work was just ‘pretty good.’

To learn more about Pete Millson or to contact him visit: www.petemillsonphotographer.uk.

Bernard Butler. Photograph © Pete Millson

Late summer or early Autumn outing

WITH summer fast fading there are only a handful of local gardens still open to raise funds for the National Gardens Scheme. The scheme offers visitors unique access to over 3,500 outstanding private gardens across England, Wales, Northern Ireland, and the Channel Islands, and raises significant funds for nursing and health charities through entry fees, teas, and cake.

In West Dorset during October, Slape Manor in Netherbury (featured last month) will be open from 1 to 5 pm on 5th October, while Frankham Farm near Sherborne will be open from 12 to 5 pm on Sunday, 12th October.

A 3½-acre garden, created since 1960 by the late Jo Earle for year-round interest, Frankham Farm is a large and delightful garden filled with a wide variety of well-grown plants, roses, unusual labelled shrubs, and trees. It also features a productive vegetable garden, clematis, and other climbers, as well as spring bulbs through to autumn colour, particularly oaks.

Dogs on short leads are welcome in selected woodland areas, and a ramp is available for the two steps to the garden. There are modern WCs, including facilities for disabled people.

Frankham Farm, Ryme Intrinseca, Sherborne DT9 6JT is open: Sun 12 October from 12 - 5pm.

Admission costs £7, children go free. Enjoy light refreshments in their newly converted barn (no steps). There is a BBQ featuring their own farm-produced beef, lamb, and pork, along with vegetarian soup and homemade cakes baked by village bakers.

Located 3m south of Yeovil, Frankham Farm is just off the A37—turn next to Hamish’s farm shop signed to Ryme Intrinseca, go over the small bridge and up the hill. The drive is on the left.

Frankham Farm near Sherborne

October in the Garden

By Russell Jordan

The hot and dry summer is becoming more and more of a distant memory every time it rains, which it seems to have done almost every day as I write this. Now that ‘normal service has resumed’, October is a month to concentrate on preparing for the fact that properly cold temperatures, even the possibility of the first frost, are on the way. Check the greenhouse, if you have one, to make sure it is clean and tidy, ready to receive any tender perennial plants which you’ll soon be digging up and bringing under cover to shelter them from sub-zero temperatures.

The moistened soil means that the spring flowering bulbs which you ordered last month, or which are still for sale in garden centres and elsewhere, even in supermarkets, can be planted in the ground or in pots and containers. If you are planting them in containers then the general rule is that the largest bulbs should be at the bottom of the pot with successively smaller bulbs above them in layers, the so-called ‘lasagne’ technique. Finish with a final covering of compost planted with winter flowering bedding, to provide interest now and through the whole of the spring.

As with any planting in a container it is important to ensure that there is good drainage by placing ‘crocks’ in the bottom of the pot, traditionally this is broken up terracotta pots, followed by an inch or two of coarse gravel. You should always use fresh compost, not soil dug up from the garden, to ensure that it is weed and disease free and invigorated with the correct balance of plant nutrients, ready for the bulbs to get their roots into. Autumn planted bulbs will produce roots as soon as they are triggered back into growth, by cool and wet conditions, even though you may see no signs of life until their shoots appear

above the soil surface in late winter or early spring.

If you have added a layer of winter bedding, as a finishing touch to your bulb pots, keep an eye open for when the bulbs underneath begin to emerge because the new shoots can push the bedding plants clean out of the soil! If this happens it is a simple job to gently firm the bedding plants back into the compost in the spaces between emerging bulb shoots. There is a wide range of winter flowering bedding plants from primroses and primulas, pansies and violas, Bellis perennis (daisies) and cyclamen. I find a lot of these may be in flower when you buy them, from garden centres or nurseries, but tend to stop flowering in the coldest months of winter. Large flowered pansies are particularly guilty of this although the ones with smaller flowers, generally closer to the species type ‘viola’, are better at flowering continuously.

Elsewhere in the garden there are some plants which are worth seeking out to inject colour into borders; asters (most of the garden worthy varieties are now reclassified as Symphyotrichum), Ceratostigma, chrysanthemums, Schizostylis and nerines all have surprisingly strong colour for this late stage of the season. Careful ‘editing’ of the surrounding plants, in beds and borders, will allow these late season plants to perform at their best. The wet, and relatively warm, autumn soil provides ideal conditions for planting new plants or for lifting and dividing existing herbaceous perennials which have already died down. This kind of operation is exactly the kind of task which you may well notice needs doing when you are finding spaces to plant spring flowering bulbs.

Digging up a large perennial clump, geraniums are

a prime example, can often provide a good space for planting bulbs, a generous drift of alliums springs to mind, and then the smaller divisions of the herbaceous perennial can be planted back on top, just as you would with winter bedding plants. The alliums (ornamental onions) will happily push up through the geranium and will happily co-exist for many years—the mounds of geranium foliage providing the extra benefit of disguising the, rather messy, dying leaves of the allium.

If planting, ‘naturalising’, bulbs in grass then it will be necessary to mow the grass as short as you can beforehand. In fact mowing lawns should continue as long as the average temperatures are still warm enough to encourage growth so that it’s not too shaggy during the winter months when it’s stopped growing. Mowing, assuming the ground is not too soft, is a good idea, well into autumn, although you may need to raise the cutting height of the mower the later into the season you get. Assuming your mower collects the mowings, it also has the advantage of collecting the first of the falling leaves although the major leaf fall is probably yet to come and will require raking up, rather than mowing over.

I began this article by suggesting that you get the greenhouse ready to receive any plants which need to

be protected from frost over the winter. It’s generally considered safe to leave dahlias outside until they’ve been blackened in the first frost but cannas are a little less hardy so it may be prudent to lift these slightly sooner. Cut off most of the top growth, pot up the lifted root (rhizome) into fresh compost and bring into the greenhouse or other frost-free place. Assuming the compost is wet when you pot them up, they’ll require no watering while they are dormant, over winter, but will need watering again once they begin to warm up in the spring.

If you have other tender perennials, many plants used as summer bedding fall into this cate-gory, pelargoniums and salvias for example, these should also be cut back a little, to reduce the space they take up, and potted, like the cannas, then brought into a frost-free place towards the end of the month. If you don’t have a greenhouse then a cool windowsill, possibly in a room which you don’t need to keep centrally heated, will do for a choice selection of tender perennials which you want to keep from year to year. It’s nice to have a ‘core’ collection of these plants which can be wheeled out, year after year, to provide summer colour with the added bonus that they will be bigger and better than those started from scratch.

This Month in the not so distant past

Looking back at historical moments that happened in October, John Davis highlights Charles Babbage and Ada Lovelace.

Who could predict that a chance meeting over drinks and canapes one summer evening would later have such a significant effect on the development of technology that we all take so much for granted these days.

The meeting, in 1833, was between the Cambridge academic Charles Babbage and the young impressionable Ada Byron who had been invited to Babbage’s soiree by her tutor Mary Somerville the scholar who has an Oxford college named after her.

Babbage could certainly be considered as a polymath of the Victorian age as he was not only a mathematician but also a philosopher, inventor and mechanical engineer. Born in 1791, he was educated at Peterhouse College, Cambridge and later taught mathematics at Trinity College in the same university.

After early work on mathematical formula and astronomy, the 1820s saw Babbage begin work on his Difference Engine, basically a machine that could perform mathematical calculations. He was to produce several prototypes of this machine before graduating to design the Analytical Engine, a much more complex device that, using punched cards, was intended not only to perform mathematical calculations but deliver instructions and store information in a memory.

The seventeen-year-old young lady that Babbage was introduced to and who seemed so fascinated by his work was the estranged daughter of the romantic poet Lord Byron. The poet, described by the press as ‘mad, bad and dangerous to know’, left England four months after Ada was born and there is no record to suggest they ever met. He was to die in Greece from a fever while fighting in the Greek War of Independence in 1824. He was thirty-six.

Perhaps, not surprisingly, Ada’s mother, Annabella Milbanke, was quick to steer her daughter away from literature and the arts, and focussed her offspring’s education around a core of mathematics and science. Young Ada proved to be a prodigious talent, working on difficult calculations and number patterns while drawing up plans and designs for a flying machine. Once, when asked why she loved mathematics so much she replied, ‘Because it has answers. Every time

I solve a maths problem, it makes a lovely shape in my head.’

At the evening gathering Ada was mesmerised by Babbage’s work on his Difference Engine even though it was only partially constructed. He also discussed with her other inventions he was making in his large house in Dorset Street and outlined plans for his next project, an Analytical Engine.

‘Every time I solve a maths problem, it makes a lovely shape in my head.’

Shortly afterwards, progress on the Difference Engine would slow and, as financial backers lost interest, work eventually stopped. Undeterred, Babbage still pressed ahead with his new device and in desperation began to search for monetary help abroad. This put him into contact with the Italian mathematician Louis Menebrea who published details about the Analytical Engine in French. Being no linguist, Babbage asked Ada to translate the report for him. For nine months during 1842-43 she worked feverishly on the report not only translating the information but also adding her own notes and observations. It was for this piece of work that she established her reputation as one of the most famous mathematicians of the Victorian age.

Ada’s translation proved that not only did she understand the plans for the machine as well as Babbage but that she was much better at predicting how successful it could be in the future. Ada saw the machine’s potential as a general-purpose computer that could be adapted to perform specific tasks like composing music, drawing graphics and being put to practical scientific use. When she suggested giving the machine a set of instructions for calculating number patterns she produced, in effect, the first computer program and became the world’s first computer programmer. The name Ada is still used today for a computer programming language, used in such things as aircraft navigation systems.

Babbage who died in October 1871 aged seventynine worked in many other fields of science and mathematics before his death. Parts of his incomplete mechanisms can be seen in the Science Museum in London. In the 1990s, a functioning Difference Engine was constructed from Babbage’s original plans. Built to tolerances achievable in the nineteenth century, the success of the finished engine indicated that the machine would have worked successfully. The same is probably true of the Analytical Engine because its design contained the principles of modern computers. Its sheer complexity and scale, however, requiring steam power, would have made it impossible to build with the precision and materials available in the nineteenth century.

While still heavily engaged in her scientific and mathematical work, Ada married William King in 1835 and when he later succeeded to the family title, she became Countess Lovelace. Despite spells of ill health throughout her life the couple brought up three children Byron, Annabella and Ralph. Ada, the only legitimate child of Lord Byron, ‘flirted with scandals’ to quote one biographer and with her quick eye for spotting good odds, became an avid gambler, losing large sums of money on several occasions when she was unable to repay the other members of her syndicate. She became seriously ill during 1852

and died in November of that year. She was only thirty-six years old. At her request, she was buried at Hucknall in Nottinghamshire beside Lord Byron— the father she never knew.

It was the pioneering work carried out by Charles Babbage and Ada Lovelace that later mathematicians, especially Alan Turing, were able to develop into other computing machines. Turing used some of the principles established by Babbage and Lovelace to construct his ‘bombe’. It was a device that could be used to discover some of the daily settings of the Enigma Machines used by German military networks and greatly assisted the code-breakers working at Bletchley Park during World War Two.

Turing was to go on to contribute towards building early electronic computers including the Automatic Computing Engine (ACE) and the Manchester Mark I. He is also considered to be the father of artificial intelligence

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.

Charles Babbage and Ada Lovelace

Dinner with a View

EVERY time I ask Mark Hix where one of the ingredients for his sumptuous sixcourse meal originated, he simply nods his head towards the window behind me and says ‘there’. Mackerel, octopus, scallops, and ray—they all come from the bay behind me. And the delicate salad leaves that the ray sits on? He nods again behind me. They are grown in his garden.

Mark Hix’s ‘Kitchen Table’ experience in Charmouth is a unique and intimate dining experience. The menu is paired with carefully chosen wines and complemented by fascinating food history and local knowledge. Renowned for his in-depth expertise, especially in British cuisine, Mark has a knack for making simple dishes look sophisticated and sophisticated ones look effortless. The result is an exceptional evening out.

A welcome cocktail made from homemade quince gin and lemon verbena was so moreish that more was indeed offered and enjoyed. While guests appreciated a beetroot soup with smoked mackerel and blended horseradish, Mark slowly built up what was undoubtedly the best octopus risotto anyone at the table had eaten. We enjoyed Tonnix wines from a collaboration between Mark and Mitch Tonks, and watched as Mark deftly cooked hand-dived scallops, produced by local scallop diver Ali Day. Watching a master in the kitchen can be mesmerising. Topped with a chorizo crumb on a pea purée, the scallops were followed by tender strips of ray on a bed of lettuce leaves topped with a ginger dressing.

Next up was locally sourced venison on a bed of chard. Cooked to perfection, it was followed by peaches on puff pastry topped with Baboo Gelato and blackberry compote.

There really wasn’t room for more but as an unexpected bonus, not on the menu, we were fortunate to be joined by Nikki from the local Bride Valley vineyard. She treated us to an impromptu tasting of the vineyard’s Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, and the UK’s only home-produced Crémant. Delicious, and what an end to a fantastic evening of gastronomic delights at Mark’s Kitchen Table.

Dinner at Mark Hix’s house in Charmouth comes with more than fabulous food

Ilaria’s Italian KITCHEN

RECENTLY adding fabulous fresh produce from Spring Tail and Tamarisk Farms, as well as delicious eggs from Old Ways, the Mercato Italiano menu now features dishes made from seasonal products, along with weekly specials.

Using beautiful Italian oils and balsamic vinegar, Ilaria has a simple but highly effective method of making the perfect salad dressing.

‘Season the leaves with salt and freshly ground black pepper before adding the oil and vinegar,’ she says. ‘This has to be done first so the salt can distribute evenly. Then, a good drizzle of extra virgin olive oil followed by the vinegar.’ Ilaria says the best way to mix this is with bare hands, gently turning the leaves from bottom to top. ‘This is because the heat of your hands will help bring out the flavour of the oil. Of course, each salad needs more or less dressing depending on the structure of the vegetables. When it is just leaves, dress it close to serving time, or it will ‘stew’.’

Initially launched as a weekly market stall selling high-quality cured meats and cheeses directly imported by Ilaria through her Italian produce contacts, Mercato Italiano has grown into a popular destination for authentic pizza, coffee, cocktails, and much more.

The café and deli on the Dreadnought Estate is also a great stop for lunch from 12-3pm, Monday to Saturday. The pizza and pasta lunchtime specials are not to be missed!

Extra Virgin Olive oil, 100% Italian, from Perugia and Aceto Balsamico di Modena, Acetaia Cattani.

Local Talent at Melplash

Reliving happy childhood memories, Shirley Booth shares her delight with the wealth of local talent in the West Dorset food community at this year’s Melplash Show.

This year’s Melplash Show was again a celebration of local talent. The horticultural tent always brings back happy memories of my childhood, attending flower shows with my father (and entering—with my miniature garden and home made jam tarts!). Perhaps that is the reason the Children’s Classes are the first thing I race to look at. They are a delight. The judges must have had a difficult time as there was so much creativity and imagination on display. In the class ‘Favourite Animal Made From Vegetables’, we found a tromboncino courgette with cress growing through to represent a caterpillar and, in the younger section, an endearing cat made from a melon—both first prize winners! There were classes for A Musical Instrument Made From Vegetables and Miniature Village in a Seed Tray, amongst others. All were entertaining and inspiring and it was encouraging to see what children can think of and construct, as there were plenty of entries without prizes which were equally deserving of a win. I heartily recommend encouraging your children to enter. It is a lot of fun and, even if you don’t win— there is always next year!

Representing local talent in the cookery theatre was Jamie Pimbley from The West Bay Hotel where he is busy building on the fine reputation forged at The Half Moon in Melplash. And there was some nationally recognised local talent from Mark Hix MBE, who needs no introduction to readers of The Marshwood Vale Magazine. Mark enthralled the crowd in his usual down to earth and entertaining style, whilst demonstrating some intriguing recipes with

octopus: grilled with a sweetened cider vinegar and greengage sauce; roasted with a mix of seashore vegetables in a ginger dressing. Mark is an expert forager, and explained how he was using foraged vegetables which can be found along the estuary in Bridport. For those similarly inspired, he also runs courses in foraging—a day spent with Hix and Wild is informative and fun, with plenty of chat and bonhomie, culminating in the eating of an imaginative and delicious meal around Mark’s Kitchen Table with other members of the group.

A life-long supporter of British fishermen, Mark finished with an impassioned plea for us to support them too by becoming more aware of where our fish comes from—how it is raised, and whether it’s sustainably fished; and expressed his anger at how small EU boats are able to land under-sized fish from our waters, yet we are forbidden to use small boats to do the same. ‘We’ve given up our fishing rights to Europe’ he lamented. At the end of the presentation the dishes that Mark had prepared (together with some of the actual china dishes!) were auctioned off. A generous member of the audience gave thirty pounds for the star dish of grilled octopus, and over a hundred pounds was raised for charity. Many thanks go to Mark for supporting our local show once again.

A truly uplifting story followed in the next presentation, told by Mark Banham, Wine and Spirit Education Trust (WSET) Diploma holder and judge who, as Trade Ambassador, was presenting locally-made wines from Furleigh Estate, just outside Bridport. The story of Furleigh is a story of chance and synchronicity. The 85 acre estate was for many years a dairy farm, until the mid 1990s when it was sold. But fate was to intervene when, some years later, it came back on the market and one of the daughters of the original farming family, Rebecca Hansford, who was now working in the city, was told by her parents that it was for sale. So of course she had to buy it! She completed the purchase on Christmas Eve 2004; and, with the help of her husband and winemaker Ian Edwards, set about turning it into a vineyard, planting 22,000 vines. Furleigh’s very first vintage, a mere five years later in 2009, was entered into the French competition Effervescents du Monde, and won Gold. Quite an achievement, especially as they were the first English vineyard to do so.

Mark clearly enjoyed telling us the story, and then

A caterpillar made from a tromboncino courgette with cress

proceeded to give us a masterclass in wine tasting, as taught by the WSET : first use your eyes, then nose; then swirl, and slurp. He explained that ‘length’—how much of the flavour stays in your mouth is always an indicator of quality—and Furleigh’s wines have plenty of that.

All Furleigh’s wines are estate-bottled: the grapes are grown, pressed, fermented, aged and finally bottled on the estate, something of which Rebecca is very proud. We had time to taste three of their signature sparkling wines: Bacchus 10, so-called because of its low alcohol content at 10%, had an elderflower nose with notes of melon and lemon on the palate—fresh clean and balanced; next came Wessex Heathland made from a blend of 60% Chardonnay grapes, 20% Pinot Noir and 20% Pinot Meunier. This had more biscuity notes, was crisp and creamy, and ages well. Finally we tasted Furleigh’s signature fizz—Wessex Hills. This is made in classic cuvee proportions (a third each of the classic Champagne varieties Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Pinot Meunier), and spends five years on the lees, which gives it a round and rich flavour:“definitely a superior fizz”, I noted. Furleigh’s wines have gone on to achieve many more accolades, winning numerous awards and competitions. With Ian Edwards having even been named UK Wine Maker of the Year in 2012, Furleigh are definitely putting our little corner of West Dorset on the map.

As well as celebrating local food and drink there was an Italian flavour to the cookery theatre: Chiara Tomasoni, Head Chef at River Cottage, kicked off the demonstrations, and went on to judge in the Food Hall, awarding a first to Baboo Gelato (does that sound Italian?) and second to Mercato Italiano, a food and restaurant hub run by Bridport’s favourite Italian resident and adoptee, Ilaria Padovani.

Italy again featured strongly in the final drinks presentation. David Blacklock Smith has spent many years as a mixologist, previously working at Hix, but he is now shaking the flask at Mercato Nero, upstairs from Mercato Italiano.

David demonstrated three cocktails, and gave us some good tips: for example, keep vermouth in the fridge. Many people make the mistake of having a bottle languishing at room temperature, just as they also mistakenly do with sherry. He explained how he makes his own Saffron Gin, and how the added flavour is not used to mask inferior ingredients—a premium Italian brand of gin is always used. As is the vodka in their own limoncello—a clean 44% abv vodka, so it’s stronger than most. In fact, David kindly shared with us how he can make limoncello at little more than a moment’s notice if they run out. It’s almost a trade secret but, by vacuum packing the spirit and lemon, and immersing the package in a Bain Marie style hot water bath (temperature secret!),

he can have limoncello ready in hours, rather than the months it usually takes. After such an intriguing explanation, we had to taste it, and we were all offered a taste of his signature cocktail, Limoncello Spritz, made only with Prosecco and Limoncello. David explained that they don’t add soda, as he feels it waters it down too much. And indeed it was delicious.

Every year at Melplash I intend to see more of the animals—it is an Agricultural Show after all—but sadly there wasn’t enough time. Not even for the adorable goats, but I did catch a little bit of a Guide Dog Demonstration—and heard a moving and uplifting talk from a guide dog owner, who told us a how his dog had given him back the will to live after losing his sight. Guide Dogs is a very worthwhile charity to support.

I just had time to call in to the Home Produce tent to pick up something very special. After my surprising success with a first prize in the Flower Wine category last year, I had been inspired to enter again—this time with home-made liqueurs. Again, to my astonishment, I won a first and second, as well as a trophy for ‘The Best Exhibit in the Wine, Spirits & Cordial Classes’. I hope our local children will be similarly inspired to have fun entering the show, and I look forward to seeing their entries, but probably not in the wine class just yet!

In the younger section, a cat made from a melon.

Mark Hix at this year’s Melplash Show

Unassailable to UNELECTABLE

AALTHOUGH reading Ungovernable: The Political Diaries of a Chief Whip by Simon Hart is somewhat like rewatching a motorway pile-up in slow motion, the content and his perspective on the years leading up to the 2024 General Election offer some very interesting and sobering thoughts. He may present uncomfortable opinions and occasionally speak like someone dancing while nobody’s watching, but they are likely only hard to swallow for those with an axe to grind or a particular party to support—or, of course, those who are at the sharp end of his frustration.

Former Chief Whip under Rishi Sunak, Simon Hart talks to Fergus Byrne about some of the issues that helped decimate the Conservative Party in 2024

The author had a front seat view of everything, from negotiations around Brexit to the debacle of Covid and Partygate, as well as the impact of Liz Truss’s extraordinary forty-nine-day premiership. As Chief Whip under Rishi Sunak, he also observed a party unravel as the electorate deserted it.

Despite his contention that the bulk of MPs were ‘people driven by solid values’ who were ‘doing their best in increasingly intolerable circumstances’, the book stands as an insider’s observations of internal dysfunction, personal feuds, and a deeply flawed candidate selection process.

Ungovernable probably does pull a few punches but it still offers occasional shredding comments about former colleagues. Describing the resignation letter of Nadine Dorries, who recently joined the Reform Party, he says it was the very worst example of why our candidate selection process is so flawed. ‘Bitter, chippy, delusional, paranoid, vicious and vindictive.’

He describes Boris Johnson as a ‘hypnotist’ and a ‘total opportunist,’ and wonders if a Prime Minister can ever have any friends. Michael Gove, he says, ‘has mastered the art of appearing thoroughly engaged whilst completely ignoring the argument’, while he finds it hard not to consider Lee Anderson a ‘total knob.’

Chatting with him in advance of his talk at the Bridport Literary Festival next month, he perhaps understates some colleagues’ reactions to the book. There are those, he says, who are ‘not enthusiastic about the whole concept of whether books of this nature should be written in the first place.’ The book has received a mix of reactions, from “highly readable”, “engrossing” and “entertaining” to “tittletattle” and “self-justification”—a sure sign that it has punctured a few bubbles in political circles.

Regardless of its value as a behind-the-scenes look into the world of British politics, Ungovernable highlights some of the key issues every political party is likely to face. Important issues that, despite some critics claiming are whining complaints, need to be taken seriously by all parties and scrutinised by the electorate well before the next general election. One of those is candidate eligibility and the vetting process, and another is the lack of a system to ensure that those elected to represent their constituencies receive the help needed to do the job they signed up for.

Peter Mandelson’s sacking, which some like to attribute to bad vetting processes, proves that this is not a problem solely associated with the Conservative Party. Simon highlighted how the Labour Government is ‘subject to exactly the same sort of headwinds as we were subjected to’, stating that it is not always possible, let alone easy, to succeed in politics nowadays. He argues that this

‘We’re one of the very few industries in the world that doesn’t actively recruit.’

is partly due to demands for ‘instant gratification’ from the media and the public, especially the ‘toxic environment’ of social media, but he also questions whether anyone can truly succeed in politics while constantly under siege. ‘Whether it’s Labour, Conservative or anybody else,’ he asks, ‘what does success look like? Can it be achieved?’

Expanding on his concern about the challenges new recruits to parliament face, he points out the need for a resilience that doesn’t come naturally to everyone. ‘The lifestyle needs some scrutiny,’ he says. ‘It’s not particularly favourable to people with young families, or indeed families at all.’ He says that the requirement for people to be ‘locked away in a distant city for large periods of time’ is all very well if they are achieving progress in their constituency, but it’s more likely they are receiving ‘200 abusive social media messages a day’ and ‘not actually making any headway’ with their brief. New MPs, he says, feel like they are banging their heads against a brick wall.

Part of the problem is the lack of a proper recruitment process. ‘I do think that political parties rely too heavily on people knocking on their door, volunteering to be candidates, and not enough on us going out and finding really good people in the community. We’re one of the very few industries in the world that doesn’t actively recruit.’ Explaining that candidates get appointed by a democratic vote of local members, which he describes as ‘all very good and worthy stuff’, he questions ‘whether that process fully recognises what is required of an MP in this day and age.’

‘Simon Hart oversaw a hub of crisis management, handling scandals and legislative compromises while maintaining party discipline and morale during turbulent times.’

Scale this situation up to ministerial level, and he goes back to the issue of vetting, suggesting that even if candidates for election pass a simple regional party vetting process, they are rarely assessed on whether they could make a good minister, whether that involves the ability to make crucial decisions on health or even determine a nuclear strategy in times of conflict. The one thing that is seldom evaluated is whether they have the skills to work at that level. ‘We might be able to decide whether this person would be a good MP, but would they be a good minister is a very different question.’ The transition from MP to minister, and what is required of a minister with a ‘huge budget, a massive team of civil servants, and multiple responsibilities’, is something that is not researched, he says. ‘We just chuck people into these roles. You might put somebody into the MOD who’s got absolutely no knowledge about procuring, for example, large weapons contracts. We kick them in there, with literally no training at all, and tell them, get on with it.’

It would be easy, and in some ways possibly true, to say that this is just making excuses for the apparent disintegration of a powerful political party—shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted. But having described the Whips’ Office as a field hospital, into which ‘damaged colleagues are delivered, patched up and returned to front-line duties,’ Simon views the process with a seasoned perspective that affects every party across the board. Time and again, he says people enter politics thinking they could ‘change the world’ or ‘broker world peace’ or pursue ‘some high-level dream,’ when the reality is quite different. Success in politics, he argues, is measured in tiny percentages. ‘You’re able to make a sort of 1% difference, or a 5% difference to the particular cause you’re wedded to—that’s success. That’s what success looks like.’ Many jump in ‘full of energy, full of zeal,’ but then the ‘life is sucked out of them within about five years, and they’re then very disillusioned.’ This disillusion, he says, makes them more susceptible

to ‘sometimes acting in a way that is somewhat unattractive to the public.’

Despite declaring that most misdemeanours are the result of normal human frailties rather than ‘intentional malevolence’, Ungovernable details some of the Whip’s office ‘field hospital’ duties, which few would describe as ‘normal’ human frailties. The book details occasions such as extracting a colleague from a brothel at 2.45 in the morning, dealing with an employee dressed as Jimmy Saville having sex with a blow-up doll, as well as questionable financial dealings, explicit photos and inappropriate social media posts. Not to mention shocking displays of entitlement in bids for honours. As Chief Whip, Simon Hart oversaw a hub of crisis management, handling scandals and legislative compromises while maintaining party discipline and morale during turbulent times. All in a day’s work.

The end result, he says, is that ‘the overall appeal of politics as an honourable career’ has been eroded, and it is gradually wearing away. ‘And I think people look at it now and think, Oh, why would I want to do that?’

So, what are the skill sets that might help MPs survive the political cauldron? Having served with the Territorial Army for five years, he suggests that although it’s a very old-fashioned view, a services background could benefit those pursuing a career in politics, partly because military training can prepare individuals to handle unforeseen circumstances. ‘It maximises your physical and emotional resilience,’ he says, and prepares people to cope with ‘chaos and disappointment.’ When things don’t go as expected, ‘the correct reaction in those moments isn’t to fall over in a heap or just blame somebody else, it’s to pick yourself up and just get on with it, find another way and make the best of a difficult situation.’ You have to deal with challenges, he says. ‘Nobody owes you a living.’

Ungovernable, and some of Simon Hart’s insights don’t paint the country’s politics and governability in

a flattering light. Pointing out that Labour’s victory was less about their policies and more about the electorate’s rejection of the Conservatives, Simon suggests that Sir Keir Starmer and all parties trying to win power share the same issues. ‘The problem for Starmer,’ he says, ‘is that Labour made the same mistake we all make, and I suspect Reform is making too. That is promising instant gratification in a way that cannot possibly be delivered.’

One of the reasons the ‘public is impatient for change’ he claims is because they have been promised ‘results and outcome’ by each party. And the reality is that ‘these things are complicated’. Stopping the boats requires a ‘multinational approach to a global problem’ which he says will take years to achieve. ‘The noise from social media is they’re just as useless as the people before, so we should ditch them as well. It’s impossible for Starmer.’

He describes Nigel Farage as ‘the sort of pub bore who stands at the bar shouting about foreigners,’ but points out that Reform is ‘a business of which Farage is the major shareholder, so there is a commercial incentive at play.’ He says Reform is playing the same game as other parties. ‘They’re concentrating on trying to win and making a lot of quite rash promises in the process.’ It’s a strategy from a well-worn playbook that we have seen in many countries around the world. ‘Members of Reform do sail remarkably close to the wind,’ he says, ‘and when it comes to stirring up fear and hatred, it’s a pyromaniac thing, really, isn’t it? You light the fire and then blame somebody else and say that only you can put it out. That worries me.’

Written in a diary-style format, Ungovernable offers candid observations and insights into the systemic issues, emotional toll, and public disillusionment that defined a turbulent era in British politics. Simon Hart, in conversation with Sir Oliver Letwin will no doubt be a fascinating extension of these insights.

Simon Hart will be in conversation with Oliver Letwin at the Electric Palace on Sunday 2nd November @ 2.00pm. For tickets visit: www.electricpalace.org.uk/ or telephone 01308 424901.

Ungovernable: The Political Diaries of a Chief Whip by Simon Hart is published by Pan Macmillan. ISBN number: 9781035068791

Until 3 Oct

Quiet Contemplations embodies the serene, introspective quality of Roger Rowley’s work, inviting viewers into a space of stillness and reflection. Free entry. Tuesday–Saturday, 9.30am–3.00pm at Ilminster Arts Centre, TA19 0AN. 01460 54973 www.ilminsterartscentre.com.

Paul Newman: Canopy Tales in the Café Gallery – Derived from an ongoing fascination with observation, mark-making and being in nature, Canopy Tales will see 30 different birds populate the Café Gallery. Free entry. Tuesday–Saturday, 9.30am–3.00pm at Ilminster Arts Centre, TA19 0AN. 01460 54973 www.ilminsterartscentre.com.

Until 4 October

The Spaces In Between Paintings and Prints from the last Fifty Years. The Art Stable is delighted to be presenting a solo exhibition of paintings and prints by Sally McLaren whose evocative works capture the spirit and subtle rhythms of the natural world. Looking back through Sally’s archive there is a consistency of intention, always evoking movement and mood with a quiet intensity. Drawing inspiration from the chalk downs, wild coastlines, and open skies of Dorset and beyond, her art bridges the boundary between observation and emotion. The Art Stable Child Okeford Blandford Dorset DT11 8HB.

11 October

– 15 November

From and To A new exhibition by Laura Eldret and the people of West Dorset Allsop Gallery, Bridport Arts Centre exploring and celebrating ideas of creative freedoms. The exhibition is by Dorset artist Laura Eldret in collaboration with communities of Bridport and West Dorset and will incorporate creative contributions by local people. It will

also offer local residents the opportunity to use the gallery as an open creative space for their own creative activities – anything from busking to drawing to creative meet-ups (more info on how to do this will be announced shortly). From and To is one of 60 new works commissioned across the UK as part of Our Freedom: Then and Now, a new UK-wide, locally-led arts and creative programme, reflecting on what ‘Our Freedom’ means to communities following the 80th anniversary of VE/VJ Day. Bridport Arts Centre pitched to explore what ‘creative freedom’ means to the town and wider West Dorset area and have been developing an exciting programme of activity in which the local community can get involved. Allsop Gallery, Bridport Arts Centre South Street, Bridport. https://www.bridport-arts. com.

18

October

- 15 November

Filled with Delight David Gommon (1913-87). Paintings from 1936 to 1985, to coincide with the publication of a monograph on the life and work of David Gommon, published by Sansom & Co. The Art Stable is delighted to be presenting the fourth exhibition of paintings by David Gommon, and delighted too that his work is being celebrated and documented in the wonderful monograph which is being published by Sansom & Co at the same time. This is the first comprehensive overview of Gommon’s work, with a text by Philip Vann and it places Gommon’s work within the wider context of his times and the radical currents of contemporary art during the mid C20th. The Art Stable, Kelly Ross Fine Art, Child Okeford, Dorset DT11 8HB. kellyross@theartstable.co.uk. 07816 837905.

Until 31 October

Brian Rice Exhibition of Found Object Constructions. Brian is usually known for his colourful and beautifully made abstract paintings. But for the past 25 years he has also been making works from scrap and found materials. He began collecting ‘interesting’ things in the 1960’s and has continued up to the present. This show is the ultimate in recyling for fans of rusty metal, abandoned textiles, rural archaeology and board games. Finds from street markets, car boot sales and digging around two ancient farm houses have resulted in this extraordinary exhibition of sculptures and constructions. The secret Brian Rice has been revealed The Viewing Room, 13 Fore Street, Castle Cary, Somerset BA7 7BG www,georgiastoneman.com. 01963 202030.

Until 8 November

As Dreams Are Made on Marzia Colonna MRBS collages Fiamma Colonna Montagu ceramic sculpture. Petter Southall furniture. Two remarkable artists, Marzia Colonna and Fiamma Colonna Montagu, mother and daughter, will be exhibiting their harmonious and yet utterly individual and irresistible collages and sculptures alongside Petter Southall’s stunning furniture. The title ‘As Dreams are Made on’ refers to Shakespeare’s idea that life is an illusion, made up of dreams, fragments and memories. In this exhibition both artists are showing work which carries the quality of dreams, works resonant of deep sensory impressions and memories of colours and textures in nature. All three artists have completed large scale commissions and projects in the USA, Europe and the UK and have work in important collections internationally. ‘As Dreams are Made on’ is a celebration of the wonders of life. Sladers Yard Contemporary Art & Craft Gallery, Cafe Sladers, West Bay, Bridport Dorset DT6 4EL. Open Wednesday to Saturday 10am – 4.30pm. t: 01308 459511 gallery@sladersyard.co.uk sladersyard.co.uk.

Until 10 January 2026

A Life Outside: Hope Bourne on Exmoor. Exhibition at Somerset Rural Life Museum offers a new appraisal of the work and life of Exmoor writer and artist Hope Bourne. Open from 27 September 2025 to 10 January 2026, A Life Outside: Hope Bourne on Exmoor, is created in partnership with The Exmoor Society which cares for The Hope L. Bourne Collection. This exhibition considers Bourne’s status as one of the West Country’s most significant nature writers, whose work and way of life are especially prescient in this time of advancing environmental crisis. It draws on new research by writer and Guardian Country Diarist Sara Hudston, whose book A Life Outside: Hope Bourne on Exmoor will be published next year. Sara is co-curating the exhibition with Kate Best, for the South West Heritage Trust. Somerset Rural Life Museum, Glastonbury is open Tuesday – Saturday 10.00 am – 5.00 pm. For more information visit SRLM. ORG.UK.

Under Open Skies A Group Show of Dorset Painters

Under Open Skies, the third major show at Stinsford Studios in Dorchester features Dorset based artists all showing work predominantly inspired by nature. Although the third major show, it is the first to concentrate specifically on the county and its painters.

Organised by artist Julian Bailey, the choice of exhibitors is largely drawn from friends and colleagues and makes no attempt to be comprehensive or judgmental.

The ethos of Stinsford Studios is one of an artist community with everyone participating in the event helping out in various ways. The organisers charge no commission.

The exhibition will be open at The Old Vicarage, Stinsford, Dorchester, Dorset, DT2 8PT from 11am to 5pm on Friday October 10 to Sunday October 12.

For more information and images visit: https://stinsfordstudios.com/ under-open-skies-25

The Bather by Julian Bailey

Down to the beach, Ringstead Bay by Franchesca Shakespeare

Heavy Skies over Charmouth by Morgan Willey

The Upstairs Window by Gabriella Bailey

High Summer Harbour by Binny Mathews

Kale Moon. West Bexington by Frances Hatch

Questions on Friendship

FROM THE BESTSELLING

author of Mayflies and Caledonian Road, a heart-enriching celebration of what makes us great, our friends is the subject of a BridLit talk with Andrew O’Hagan in November.

If we are lucky, in our lives our friendships will be rich and varied. They will be shared with those with two legs, with four legs, with whiskers or clean faces; they will come dressed in the simplicity of childhood or the professional attire of adult life; some will span decades, and some will be only fleeting. But the thing they will all have in common is that life is not only unimaginable, but unimagined, without them.

In these gorgeous personal reflections, Andrew O’Hagan explores friendship through music and poetry, memory and history, illuminating the many ways and reasons that people come together, and how our lives are all the better because we do.

Andrew O’Hagan was born in Glasgow. He has been nominated for the Booker Prize, was voted one of Granta’s Best of Young British Novelists in 2003, and won the E. M. Forster Prize from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He is Editor-at-Large of the London Review of Books and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. He will be in conversation with Nic Jeune at 12 noon on November 2nd at The Electric Palace, Bridport. For tickets visit: https://www.electricpalace.org.uk/events.

Soft Tissue Damage

JOIN AUTHOR ANNA

Whitwham for a writing workshop looking at how memory works in the art of writing memoir. Anna, who teaches Creative Writing at Royal Holloway, shares her insights into the processes of writing memoir, based on her own experience of writing Soft Tissue Damage, which explores the human body’s capacity for strength and vulnerability, as she trains as a boxer alongside the grief of losing her mother to cancer.

At 8pm, anyone is welcome to come along to the Human Nature sofa to hear local artist Vanessa Cooper talk with Anna about the book and enjoy an evening of conversation with pop up bar.

The workshop is at Human Nature, East Street, Bridport on Wednesday 5th November from 6–8.00pm followed by the Q&A. Contact TIC Bridport to book tickets, 01308 424901.

Kingmaker in Dorchester

AN EXPLOSIVE MEMOIR from the heart of Westminster, Sir Graham Brady’s Kingmaker—Secrets, Lies and the Truth about Five Prime Ministers lifts the lid on some of the leadership battles that have defined British politics for a decade and a half during the eras of five Conservative prime ministers—Cameron, May, Johnson, Truss and Sunak. From coalition to Brexit, Covid to Partygate, Trussonomics to the 2024 election, prime ministers came and went, while one man was at the heart of every leadership challenge, seeing all, saying nothing. Until now.

Sir Graham Brady became Chairman of the 1922 Committee in 2010. As leader of the group with power to choose a new leader of the Conservative Party, his hand held the axe over five Conservative prime ministers’ heads. Elected to parliament in 1997 as the youngest Conservative MP in the house, Brady comes from a lower middle-class background and fell into politics age 16 when he joined a campaign to save his grammar school. This book is the story of how a boy from Salford came to be the definitive Tory insider, offering insights into the character and choices of successive Prime Ministers and the administrations they led. For tickets visit: https://dorchesterliteraryfestival.com.

McCall Smith visit

WORLDWIDE BESTSELLING author Alexander McCall Smith, the man behind The No 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series, is coming to Bridport on Thursday 23 October.

The series, set in Botswana and featuring the detective Mma Ramotswe, has now sold more than 20 million copies in the English language alone.

McCall Smith has written and contributed to more than 100 books, including short story collections, children’s books, and specialist academic titles.

He’ll be at Bridport Electric Palace and talking to local writer Nikki May, who won the Comedy Women in Print Prize new voice award for her first novel, Wahala. At the Electric Palace, he will be entertaining the audience with tales from the latest 44 Scotland Street novel, Bertie’s Theory of Ice Cream, and discuss In the Time of Five Pumpkins, the new novel in the detective agency series.

For tickets visit: https://www.electricpalace.org.uk/events.

PREVIEW October

Tangled up in Rome

BRIDPORT AND TOURING

TANGLE Theatre has a new Shakespearean production on tour this autumn, continuing this exciting company’s commitment to championing African and Caribbean actors and creatives, and presenting classic dramas in new and surprising ways. This year’s tour features Julius Caesar, coming to Bridport Arts Centre on Friday 17th October.

With a cast of five, this fast-moving production drives through the political chaos, power struggles and friendship betrayals at the heart of Shakespeare’s greatest thriller.

Julius Caesar has become a tyrant. Cassius sees the threat. Brutus is torn by loyalty. Together, they conspire to kill Caesar. “It must be by his death ...”

When Cassius and Brutus murder Caesar in full public view on the Ides of March, they think they have heralded a new political age. Instead, chaos erupts, and civil war begins. Who will seize power? Will this bring conflict or stability? Will the new ruler also fall to corruption?

Adapted and directed by Anna Coombs with original music, performed on stage, by John Pfumojena, who also plays Mark Antony, this high-energy production brings African-inspired storytelling into the heart of ancient Rome.

The tour starts at the Mayflower Studios in Southampton on 9th-11th October, New College, Swindon, on Wednesday 15th October, Poole Lighthouse on Thursday 16th, Corscombe village hall with Take Art on Saturday 18th, the Brewhouse at Taunton on Tuesday 21st, Braunton Academy with Devon’s Beaford Arts Rural Touring, The Exchange at Sturminster Newton with Artsreach, and Pound Arts at Corsham.

Remembering The Poor Man’s Friend in Bridport

Rembering The Poor Man’s Friend BRIDPORT

DORSET has a remarkable and long tradition of community plays, but perhaps the most extraordinary was The Poor Man’s Friend, created in 1981 and remembered in a special event at Bridport Arts Centre on Saturday 4th October.

The Poor Man’s Friend was an epic community play produced by Ann Jellicoe’s Conway Theatre Trust. It brought together hundreds of people from across West Dorset, on stage, backstage or contributing in numerous other ways.

Written by Howard Barker and with music by Andrew Dickson, the play was rooted in the town’s history. It told the story of a local teenage boy who was hanged—by Bridport rope—for setting fire to a field of flax.

The evening will start with a screening of the BBC Arena documentary that charted the production’s development through to performance. It will be followed by a discussion with members of the original production, chaired by BAC director, Claire Tudge.

The evening will also be a chance to consider, what next? What might a community production of the 2020s look like? And how could it be made to happen?

Scoring a horror masterpiece DORCHESTER

DRACULA is, by any stretch of the imagination, the most famous horror story of all. It has spawned films,

plays, ballets, puppet shows ... even pantomimes. But arguably the greatest reworking of Bram Stoker’s 1897 novel is GW Murnau’s silent film Nosferatu, which has now been re-released with a new score by Chris Green, Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horrors is being screened by Dorchester Arts at the Corn Exchange on Wednesday 15th October at 7.30pm.

The 1922 masterpiece is famous for its combination of expressionistic acting and unforgettable images—it is as powerful and unsettling today as when it first thrilled cinema-goers more than a century ago.

Chris Green’s new score was commissioned by English Heritage for an outdoor screening of the film at Dracula’s spiritual home of Whitby Abbey.

The music is a haunting blend of electronic and acoustic instruments performed live by the composer. Combined with FW Murnau’s iconic images, it makes for a genuinely remarkable and unique cinematic experience.

Chris Green began playing guitar at the age of eight and piano from the age of nine, and plays most things with fretted strings or keys. Largely self taught, he has worked in a variety of musical genres including folk, theatre and early music. He is a regular musician at Shakespeare’s Globe and was one of the musicians on the BBC’s Poldark.

As a composer, he adapted The Wind in the Willows (2017) for Green Matthews as well as A Christmas Carol: In Concert (2018). His 2018 first solo album, Switched-On Playford, fuses 17th-century dance music with electronica, using a blend of early

The Poor Man’s Friend was an epic community play produced by Ann Jellicoe’s Conway Theatre Trust.

instruments, synths and loops. It was described by fRoots as “bloody brilliant…. an exquisitely-rendered and endlessly satisfying piece of work.”

Hits and myths with Living Spit TOURING

WHEN two members of the comedy theatre company Living Spit are overheard bragging about how good they are, Zeus, up there on Olympus, is enraged by their hubris and decides to teach them a lesson—catch their new tour, Too Many Greek Myths, coming to Dorset, Somerset and Wiltshire in October and November to see how the king of the Greek gods punishes them!

Zeus sets them a Herculean challenge—to squeeze 20 of the greatest Ancient Greek myths into one chaotic, side-splitting show!

Join Living Spit as they tackle everything from Hades to Heracles, Midas to Medusa, with their trademark blend of hare-brained humour, questionable wigs and a total disregard for historical accuracy.

Can they conquer the labyrinth of legends before time runs out? Or will the gods have the last laugh? Prepare for a mythological marathon—Living Spit style!

Warning: May contain togas, ridiculous puns and possibly an overworked Trojan Horse.

Too Many Greek Myths is at Living Spit’s home base, The Theatre Shop, Clevedon, from 29th September to 11th October, and then on tour, with Artsreach in Dorset at Swanage’s Mowlem Theatre on Monday 13th October and Halstock village hall on Wednesday 15th, at Dorchester Corn Exchange with Dorchester Arts on Tuesday 14th, the Marine Theatre, Lyme Regis, on Thursday 16th, the Exchange at Sturminster Newton on 17th and 18th, the Blakehay Theatre at

Weston-super-Mare on 23rd to 25th, and Bristol’s Tobacco Factory Theatres from 27th October to 1st November. They are back in Dorset at Bridport Arts Centre on Monday 3rd November, in Wiltshire at Malmesbury Live Arts on 6th November, Pound Arts at Corsham on 7th, and the tour ends at Salisbury Arts Centre on 14th and 15th November. All these dates are of course subject to the whim of the gods ...

What’s up, nurse?

BRIDPORT

THERE is apparently a powerful connection between medicine and comedy—look at the number of doctors and other medics who have combined standup with their work, or moved over entirely from the operating theatre to the performing theatre. Take Georgie Carroll, a nurse who has been playing to sell-out audiences for some years and brings her latest show to Bridport’s Electric Palace on Saturday 18th October.

Nurse Georgie worked in healthcare for 20 years, but is now retired, drawing on her decades on the wards to create knock-out shows—her best-known sketch is the Three Stages of Nursing—the terms dolphin, penguin and orca used in the clip are now apparently ingrained in international nursing vernacular!

Infectious, the new show, follows her award-winning performance, Sista Flo 2.0, which she toured for three years of sold out seasons in the UK, New Zealand and Australia—if you are a bit under the weather in these troubled times, Nurse Georgie may be just the tonic you need.

Beware - Nurse Georgie may be Infectious at Bridport’s Electric Palace on Saturday 18th October.

Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow ...

LYME REGIS

A TIME-travelling romantic series of novels and television adaptations, one of Scotland’s best-known actors making his Royal Shakespeare Company debut and a comedy about three school-kids might not, at first sight, have much in common. But the clue is in the heading—the Scottish play, as you have never seen it, coming to the Marine Theatre at Lyme Regis on Saturday 4th October.

Just Macbeth!, performed by Our Star Theatre Co, is a show for Shakespeare lovers and sceptics alike, for all those people who found the Bard impenetrable when they were at school, and those for whom life and the theatre without Shakespeare is unimaginable.

Journey to medieval Scotland for this introduction to the great tragedy of ambition and murderous obsession. The story of Just Macbeth! follows three school students, Andy, Danny and Lisa, as they prepare their homework presentation: an extract featuring the three witches. On reciting their lines and concocting their potion, they are transported back to medieval Scotland!

(And in case you need the riddle unpicked—the novels are the Outlander series by Diana Gabaldon, adapted by Starz in seven hugely popular seasons, starring Caitriona Balfe as the time-travelling heroine Claire, and Sam Heughan, who plays her 18th century Highland warrior husband and is about to take the title role as Macbeth at the RSC in Stratford on

Avon.)

Ring out, handbells HONITON

RINGERS from all over the south west will descend on Honiton’s Beehive centre on Saturday 18th October for a very special celebration, Ringing for Gold, marking the 50th anniversary of the formation of the South West Region of the Handbell Ringers of Great Britain (HRGB).

Special effects and visuals will accompany the mellow sounds of traditional handbells in this concert by the Sou’Westers Handbell Ensemble featuring 30 ringers, with more than 200 handbells and handchimes, coming from Cornwall, Devon, Dorset, Somerset, Wiltshire, Gloucestershire and Oxfordshire.

The group gets together each month in Taunton to play music that their own, smaller, teams are unable to tackle. Many of the ringers are themselves conductors or leaders of handbell teams so this is their opportunity to actually play the bells themselves.

The repertoire is wide and the selection for this concert is likely to include music by composers as varied as Henry Mancini, Dmitri Shostakovich and Snow Patrol. Pieces written specially for handbells will contrast with music from shows and films including Lord of The Rings and Aladdin, and fun pieces such as the Banana Boat Song.

The concert begins at 5.30pm.

A sci-fi classic with new music BRIDPORT

Now you see him ... DORCHESTER AND TOURING

STORIES From An Invisible Town is the latest creation from the multi-talented Welsh performer Shon Dale-Jones, who comes to Dorchester Arts at the Corn Exchange on Friday 10th October, on a national tour that also includes dates in Salisbury, Bristol, Plymouth and Bath.

First and foremost a storyteller, Shon is honest, inventive, curious and offbeat. His work combines heartfelt, funny and insightful stories. He prioritises empathy over irony and connection over confrontation. He blends storytelling, social commentary and personal reflection, challenging and asking the audience to think about contemporary life and society, using humour and wit. His gentle radicalism is both political and personal.

Stories from an Invisible Town is set in a half-imagined world in the made up town of Llangefni on the fantastic Isle of Anglesey. Moving seamlessly between comedy and deep emotion, Shon blends truth, fact, fiction and fantasy effortlessly, weaving stories that are funny and thoughtprovoking. His stories often dwell in the grey areas—between past and present, fact and fiction, stage and life. He’s just as interested in what’s forgotten as what’s remembered, embracing fragility as a strength.

He proves you don’t need flashy effects or elaborate sets to make powerful theatre—just a compelling story, a big heart and a bit of imagination. In a world increasingly divided by digital distractions, Shôn reminds us of the power of shared space and collective attention.

Other local dates are Friday 3rd October at Salisbury Arts Centre and 5th to 8th November at Plymouth Theatre Royal.

METROPOLIS, Fritz Lang’e 1927 black and white, silent movie classic, is being shown at Bridport Arts Centre on Friday 10th October with an exciting new live soundtrack, performed by Palooka 5, playing 1960s-tinged ‘sci-fi surf music’.

The film is not only one of the best science fiction movies and one of the finest works of the silent era, it is arguably one of the greatest films of all time, a dystopian vision of a future city where workers toil like machines underground to sustain the pleasureseeking elite.

Freder, the wealthy son of a city master, and Maria (the iconic Brigitte Helm), spiritual leader to the workers, attempt to heal a divided society. But inventor Rotswang’s transformation of a robot into Maria’s doppelganger stirs violent revolution—and creates one of the most memorable sequences in cinema history.

Few films have such a distinctive look as Metropolis, with its Expressionist designs that combine Bauhaus, Cubist, Futurist and Art Deco influences.

And, in turn, few films have been as influential. It shaped the look of sci-fi classics from Frankenstein (1931) to Blade Runner (1982) to The Matrix (1999) as well as the work of musicians and designers including David Bowie, Beyoncé, Jeff Mills and Karl Lagerfeld.

The song of the blackbird NINEBARROW

DORSET’s much-loved folk duo Ninebarrow are releasing a new album at the beginning of October.

The Hour of the Blackbird marks a departure for Jon Whitley and Jay LaBouchardiere, working with two choirs, Hart Voices from Hampshire and Chantry Singers from Surrey. The duo have earned a reputation over their 12 years of recording together for their engaging and empathetic songwriting, their reworking of traditional songs and their beautiful harmonies.

The new album sees Ninebarrow revisiting 13 of their songs, renewed and enhanced by the voices of sopranos, altos, tenors and bases, all directed by Roy Rashbrook, who is a member of the choir of St Paul’s Cathedral.

The songs all lent themselves perfectly to the choral style. There are eight Ninebarrow originals, two traditional songs and three covers.

The album will feature on this autumn’s Ninebarrow tour, which includes West Country dates at the Flavel Arts Centre at Dartmouth on 11th October, St James Church, Poole, on 1st November, the David Hall at South Petherton on 22nd November and St Endellion Church in Cornwall on 29th November.

Salt, sea and a supernatural singer

LYME REGIS

A REMOTE fishing community on the bleak Norfolk coast in the late 18th century is the setting for the first play by a new theatre company, making its only West Country appearance at the Marine Theatre, Lyme Regis, on Wednesday 29th October.

Salt, written and directed by Beau Hopkins

How reggae changed the world CHETNOLE AND WEST STAFFORD

TORONTO-based singer-songwriter Duane Forrest will take the audience on an acoustic journey through the roots of reggae and the global influence of Bob Marley in his show, Bob Marley—How Reggae Changed the World, at two Artsreach concerts in October, at Chetnole village hall on Sunday 19th and West Stafford on Monday 20th, both at 7.30pm.

Experience acoustic renditions of legendary reggae songs that have reshaped countless lives, including Duane’s own. From the origins of reggae to Marley’s transcendent legacy, immerse yourself in the soulful melodies and transformative power of this iconic music.

The second half of the concert includes Duane’s own new work, a reggae, jazz and folk music fusion album, Adrift.

Following a sold-out run at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 2024, Duane is back in the UK after an international tour.

and presented by the Great Yarmouth-based Contemporary Ritual Theatre, is a story of passion and jealousy, threaded through with folklore, religious faith and supernatural powers.

Billy, a solitary young fisherman, lives with his domineering mother Widow Pruttock in an isolated coastal community on the east Norfolk coast. Two things govern their life: the herring harvest and their devotion to God. In 1770, a stranger, Sheldis, a singer with supernatural gifts, appears. As the young man’s obsession with her grows, his mother—believing her son bewitched—will do anything to break the spell.

Filled with sea shanties, dances, hymns and folk songs, Salt is a tale of faith, jealousy and demonic passion. Contemporary Ritual Theatre has created a visceral new form of theatre which places ritual— ancient and modern—at the heart of its practice. Blending folklore, movement and mask work, and using only a rope on the ground for a stage, CRT unites audiences and performers in a single, unforgettable ritual.

A reviewer wrote: “Extraordinary ... if Shakespeare, Ken Loach and Nick Cave went on a day trip to Great Yarmouth, Salt could be the result”

Close harmony from three countries VILLAGES

THREE folk singers from different countries unite in Michell, Pfeiffer and Kulesh, coming to Dorset for a three-date tour with Artsreach, the county’s rural

touring charity, on Friday 3rd October to Ibberton Village Hall, Saturday 4th to the Cecil Memorial Hall at Cranborne, both at 7.30pm, and Sunday 5th at 3pm at Shipton Gorge.

The trio brings together the exciting talents and exquisite voices of award-winning songwriters Odette Michell from the UK), Karen Pfeiffer from Germany and Daria Kulesh from Russia.

Performing on guitar, bouzouki, accordion, dulcimer, shruti box, percussion, Irish flute and recorders, their three-part vocal harmonies bring to life spellbinding folk tales, expertly woven together with a vibrant international twist. Their debut album Flowers was released in 2024 to great acclaim.

Expect beautiful music that carries messages of peace and female empowerment from a folk point of view, featuring songs known and new, presented in innovative arrangements.

Live music for everyone

DORSET AND BEYOND

BOURNEMOUTH Symphony Orchestra’s new season opens at its home venue, Poole’s Lighthouse arts centre, on Wednesday 1st October, with chief conductor Mark Wigglesworth, and guest pianist Sir Stephen Hough, in a programme that includes Rachmaninov’s 1st piano concerto, Shostakovich’s 10th symphony and The Butterfly Effect by the BSO’s partner composer, Dani Howard.

Wigglesworth, in his second season in the top role,

Close Harmony from three countries on a three date tour with Artsreach

will conduct 22 performances across the 2025-26 season, which takes the region’s major orchestra to venues in major towns and smaller centres including Bristol, Exeter, Sherborne and Taunton, and new venue this year, Plymouth Theatre Royal.

Highlights of the year include the appointment of the celebrated baritone Roderick Williams as the BSO’s artist in residence, with four appearances across the season, and star saxophonist Jess Gillam giving the UK premiere of Dani Howard’s saxophone concerto at Poole and at Bristol’s Beacon centre.

The BSO is extending its support for seven regular Community and Wellbeing Orchestras including Chard and Exeter, and the programme with Arts in Hospital at Dorset County Hospital is being extended to Dorset HealthCare sites across the county.

If you can’t get to a concert at one of the major venues, you can always enjoy the BSO on-line – the orchestra broadcasts 19 live-streamed digital concerts from Poole. And there are plenty of smaller local events with the BSO On Your Doorstep concerts continue, which take music into rural and isolated communities, in Dorset and further across the region.

And it’s not all serious—BSO Pops has become a major part of the orchestra’s work. The new season has 28 orchestral performances spanning film music favourites John Williams and Hans Zimmer and symphonic specials of music by ELO, Led Zeppelin and more.

Enyi Okpara returns for his second year as Calleva Assistant Conductor, conducting in Exeter, Barnstaple and Truro in a programme including

Dvořák’s Cello Concerto with soloist Johannes Moser on 9th, 11th and 14th September. In early 2026, he joins musicians from the orchestra, BSO Resound and members of the National Open Youth Orchestra— the pioneering inclusive orchestra for 11–25-year-old disabled and non-disabled musicians—in a tour of SEND and mainstream schools.

Nine centuries of love songs

CONCERTS IN THE WEST

VOICE, a female vocal trio with a shared interest in early music, come to Bridport, Ilminster and Crewkerne on 24th and 25th October, on a Concerts in the West tour, with a programme that ranges from Hildegard of Bingen to contemporary.

In their 18 years together, they have built a dedicated fan-base across the world; a rich, varied repertoire of their own arrangements, new commissions, and rarely performed early music. Victoria, Clemmie, and Emily first began singing together in Oxford as members of the Oxford Girls’ Choir, before going on to form the trio in 2006 as well as forging their own successful, diverse careers.

Their interest in early music can be traced back to their performances and recordings of the medieval chants of Hildegard of Bingen, which they learned as members of Stevie Wishart’s group, Sinfonye. They still perform with Sinfonye today.

As a trio, Voice continues to perform Hildegard’s music and have commissioned new works inspired by her words and chant. The trio has toured throughout the UK, USA and Europe and released two albums:

Female vocal trio Voice come to Bridport, Ilminster and Crewkerne in October

Musical Harmony (2013) and Patterns of Love (2015). Their latest album is Hildegard Portraits (2022).

The Concerts in the West tour is based on Patterns of Love, a programme of a cappella songs that explore the beauty, heartache, and humour of love. The trio’s performance spans hundreds of years, from medieval to the present day, with music from 12th century Germany by Hildegard of Bingen, 13th century France, Shakespearean song, and folksong arrangements from the UK and Ireland. It also includes special commissions and new music by British composers Marcus Davidson, Liz Dilnot Johnson, Stevie Wishart, and Ayanna Witter-Johnson.

The concerts are at Bridport Arts Centre at 11.30am on Friday 24th October, Ilminster Arts Centre that evening at 7.30pm, and the Dance House at Crewkerne on Saturday 25th at 7.30.

A partnership revived PIDDLETRENTHIDE

THE musical partnership between Leon Hunt and Jason Titley started way back in the early nineties, at some truly unforgettable late-night festival jams which, inevitably, led to the formation of a band, the ground-breaking and hugely popular ‘progressive’ bluegrass outfit, Daily Planet. Now the pair are back together and are coming to Dorset for two dates with Artsreach, including Saturday 19th October at Piddletrenthide Memorial Hall.

Numerous projects and years later, banjo-wizard Leon and virtuoso flat-pick guitarist Jason are back as a duo, making the very most of the musical chemistry they always had, but with the addition of decades of experience.

Leon Hunt has played alongside some of the world’s top musicians from several musical styles, backgrounds and disciplines for more than a decade. Jason has toured with Tim O’Brien, and played on stage with the God of Hellfire himself—Arthur Brown.

Now back together and performing on guitar, banjo, gourd banjo and percussion, these old friends will confound any preconceived ideas you may be harbouring as to what these instruments can (and should) do. Their set leans heavily on traditional music from the US and the British Isles, while their own compositions take musical references from just about everywhere else.

Catch the duo also at Hinton Martell village hall on Friday 7th October at 7.30pm and Sunday 9th at Studland village hall at 4pm.

Putting the economy on stage VILLAGES

IT’s the economy, stupid! The phrase that was made famous by James Carville, a political strategist for Bill Clinton, during the 1992 US presidential campaign, is the title of a new play by Worklight Theatre, coming

Leon Hunt and Jason Titley ave two dates in Dorset in October

Screen Time

with Nic Jeune

Top Six at the Flix

Bridport Arts Centre Volver (2006)

Pedro Almodóvar, the great Spanish director’s fourth triumph in a row following All About My Mother, Talk to Her and Bad Education Newsweek. David Ansen.

Penda’s Fen (1974)

Hailed as one of the most original and vauntingly ambitious British films of the last half century…The family, heterosexuality, militarised manhood: all these pillars of patriotism take a tumble. The Guardian. Sukhdev Sandhu.

Bridport Electric Palace

The Marching Band (2024)

The Marching Band perfectly blends humour, a heartwarming story, and sharp social commentary, all underscored by a beautiful classical soundtrack. TPM. Frederica Battiato.

Mastermind (2025)

Reichardt has made a genre picture that peels away all the usual tropes to focus on character, on human failings and on the reality that even someone from a comfortable middle-class back-ground can be worn down by struggle and reach for unwise solutions. Hollywood Reporter. David Rooney.

Plaza Cinema Dorchester I Swear (2025)

John Davidson, who developed Tourette’s at 14 and found his entire life forever changed… a remarkable central performance from Robert Aramayo does heartwarming justice to a remarkable life. Screen Daily. Nikki Baighan.

Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere. (2025)

Cooper doesn’t try to tie neat bows either. He allows this superstar to be flawed and damaged, but not in a cheap melodramatic way, in a relatable way that actually gives you strength to find a reason to believe in seeking help. Roger Ebert. Robert Daniels.

to Dorset on a short tour with Artsreach, on Friday 10th at Buckland Newton village hall, Saturday 11th at Briantspuddle, both at 7.30pm, and Sunday 12th at Burton Bradstock at 7pm.

Based on a true story of a family caught up in the 90s recession, It’s the Economy, Stupid! reveals the heart, humour and humanity behind economics. Using paper bags, an old board game and a pinch of magic, Joe Sellman-Leava and Dylan Howells calculate how their lives were shaped by the economies they grew up in, uncover how economics wins elections, and ask why the force that dominates people’s lives is so bloody complicated!

It’s the Economy, Stupid! has been praised for making economics accessible and entertaining, while connecting a deeply personal story to the financial realities we all face today: including the housing and cost of living crises. It’s the Economy, Stupid! combines slick staging, innovative projection-mapping and magical storytelling, to reveal the true cost of low financial literacy in a money-dominated world.

Developed with and directed by Katharina Reinthaller, and produced by Worklight Theatre, this is a bold new play from the Fringe First winning creators of Labels and Fanboy. Last year the show premiered with a sold-out, critically acclaimed run at Edinburgh Fringe, before embarking on a national tour, which continues in 2025, before a transfer to London’s Soho Theatre.

Shiver, shake and shudder

HALF-TERM TOUR

CRAIG Johnson’s Squashbox Theatre comes to Dorset in the October half term for four performances with Artsreach at Child Okeford village hall on Sunday 26th at 3pm, Milbourne St Andrew hall on Monday 27th at 2pm, the Mowlem Theatre at Swanage on Tuesday 28th at 2.30pm and Buckland Newton hall on Wednesday 29th.

Shivers & Shadows invites a young audience to be ready to shiver, shake, shudder and scream ... Craig has just inherited a creepy mansion from his great Uncle Vladimir and you are invited to join him as he explores the mansion’s secrets and meets some of its spooky inhabitants.

What ghouls and spectres haunt the gloomy corridors of this old house? What are those eerie shapes moving through the dark forest outside? And what mysterious creature lurks in the cellar below?

Expect an overflowing cauldron of fun, brimming with delightful frights and hilarious horrors, bubbling with ingenious puppetry and comedy, seasoned with scary stories and tall tales, flavoured with live music and songs, loud noises and topped with a sprinkling of slapstick and silliness.

Home-grown musical

Exeter

EXETER’s Northcott Theatre has announced its first 2026 Made By Exeter Northcott production—Forever Young by Erik Gedeon is a musical play that blends big laughs, heartfelt moments and iconic songs. The cast will include South West actors from past Northcott productions and pantoomines and the production will be the first musical play to be directed by the theatre’s creative director Martin Berry (pictured). There will be a special 20 per cent discount for residents of Devon and Cornwall for the opening performance.

For this show, which the director describes as “gloriously silly”, the theatre will be transformed into a retirement home for older actors—but this lot aren’t living out their days quietly! The cast of local

favourite performers will return to belt out rock and pop anthems, reminisce about their stage days, and raise a little hell along the way.

The soundtrack will include I Will Survive, Barbie Girl, I Love Rock ’n’ Roll, Imagine, Respect and many more. Forever Young will run at the Northcott from 7th to 15th March.

Other highlights of the new season include a home-grown Jack and the Beanstalk, and The Jolly Christmas Postman, the Elevate Festival, the week-long, annual celebration of new work by south west artists, at the Barnfield Theatre in October, the Encompass community group presenting Roots of Us, a fun day of storytelling, dance, arts and crafts, and food, curated by members of Devon’s Caribbean, Hindu and Polish communities, and Devon-based, internationally renowned Richard Chappell Dance with BLOOM, a new programme which includes Challacombe Chronicled, a dance piece accompanied by original poetry by Saili Katebe celebrating the Dartmoor landscape.

What does it mean to be wild?

BROADMAYNE & WOOTTON FITZPAINE

WHAT does the word “wild” mean to you? Is it standing at the edge of a raging sea or being lifted up and spat out of a whirling tornado, running for your life through the streets or coming face to face with a wolf; the animal within that can’t always be tamed or the wilderness at the edge of your home?

Discover some exciting and unexpected answers when Black Country Touring brings a new show, Wild, to the village halls at Broadmayne on Sunday 26th October and Wootton Fitzpaine on Wednesday 29th, both at 7.30pm.

Wild explores the various meanings of “wild”—in the natural world, in our towns and cities, and within ourselves. Weaving together stories from more than 70 people, the performers create a journey of emotions from exhilarating fear to childlike joy.

Visit remote hills, mountains, dark forests and towns, and find out just how “wild” these places can be. Featuring original songs, immersive soundscapes and storytelling, this is a captivating show that will leave you wondering ... what is your “Wild”? GPW

The Young Lit Fix

Dracula & Daughters

By Emma Carroll Illustrated by Marta Bertello

Published by Faber & Faber

Paperback £7.99

Reviewed by Nicky Mathewson

AUTUMN is upon us and that means Halloween is just around the corner. What could be better than a gloriously gothic story to read which gives us a very twisty take on traditional tales of Dracula.

Mina is a feisty young girl who dreams of being the first female doctor in her home town of Temstown. Together with her pal Varney, the doctor’s stable lad, she is planning a very dangerous and illegal body exhumation to try to impress the doctor and find a way in to the all male dissection lecture.

Temstown is known for having overcome an outbreak of vampires 20 years ago and the residents still remain vigilant under the watchful eye of Guildmaster Van Helsing. Silver and garlic are ever present and careful rituals of burial are performed to avoid any corpses raising up.

When Mina and Varney try to carry out their plan, something goes terribly wrong and a new contagion of vampires appears to be a real threat.

Full of family secrets, strong female characters and a splash of magic, this latest offering from top author Emma Carroll is completely captivating Gothic brilliance! I really couldn’t put it down and devoured it hungrily. The characters are wonderfully developed, the mystery is tantalising and to know that this is the first of a new series makes me incredibly happy. I loved every moment of it and highly recommend it for confident readers age 9+

10% off for Marshwood Vale readers at The Bookshop on South Street, Bridport. 01308 422964 www.dorsetbooks.com

Find out what ‘Wild’ means at Broadmayne and Wootton Fitzpaine in October

Tales of War and Vengeance

John Davis looks at two novels as seen on television

The Narrow Road to the Deep North Director: Joseph Kurzel; screenplay: Shaun Grant; based on the novel by Richard Flanagan; BBC IPlayer 2025; five episodes.

BECAUSE of the greater immediacy of news reports from Europe and the Pacific, the Second World War campaign in Asia assumed the nomenclature of ‘The Forgotten War’ and the soldiers fighting there ‘The Forgotten Army’. Added to this list of ‘forgottens’ is the fact that many of the troops engaged there came from parts of the then British Empire including India, Africa, Australia and New Zealand.

It is the experiences of an Australian army officer, before, during and after the war in Burma that come under scrutiny in this television series released to coincide with the eightieth anniversary of V-J Day in 2025.

Adapted from Richard Flanagan’s Pulitzer prizewinning novel of the same name (2013), The Narrow Road to the Deep North is partly based on the conditions endured by his POW father, one of those forced by the Japanese to work on the 480km railway link between Thailand and Burma (Myanmar). The project, often referred to as The Death Railway, resulted in the loss of some 2,800 Australians more than one in five of the men enslaved. The central character is Dorrigo Evans, a surgeon in the Australian army who is also the senior officer in the camp in which he is interned.

At times, this is a harrowing watch. Several camp scenes depict some of the bleakest dramatized events seen on mainstream television, authentic no doubt as they are. The inter-changing timelines work very effectively otherwise the intensity of the middle section—that which focuses on life in the camp— might have been unbearable. Overall, this is good television drama, a powerful, thoroughly researched

and well-written story of love, loss and endurance compellingly told in which horrors have been witnessed and agonising choices made.

Jacob Elordi, playing the younger Dorrigo, and Ciaran Hinds, in his older years, are both excellent in portraying the complexities faced by the central character. Which is really the true Dorrigo, the hedonistic youngster pre-war or the often arrogant yet also morose and guilt-ridden man of later life? Furthermore, to what extent has the trauma suffered during his captivity shaped or re-shaped him as an individual?

To me, Dorrigo is at his most considerate, his most compassionate, his most in tune with the frailties, difficulties and inner torments of other human beings while he minsters to his charges in the camp. Is not history, thankfully, replete with similar examples?

(Nightingale in Scutari, Schweitzer at Lamberene and Bonhoeffer and Nazi Germany.) It is during times of the greatest adversity that the qualities of tolerance, sympathy and humaneness so often shine most brightly. Regrettably, the traumas and mistakes of Dorrigo’s past will forever be part of him. War hero he may be, but a man very much at odds with his own history.

The Count of Monte Cristo

Director: Bille August; Outline and screenplay by Sandro Petraglia and Greg Latter; based on the novel by Alexandre Dumas; U&Drama; eight episodes.

THIS nineteenth century period piece has less ‘swash and buckle’ than Dumas’ famous stories about The Three Musketeers and more to do with the whole gamut of human emotions, love, hate, envy, jealously, avarice, pride and betrayal to name just a few.

The latest iteration of The Count of Monte Cristo is a joint venture by several international production companies. It is directed by the Dane, Bille August, and stars Sam Claflin in the title role.

In short, Edmond Dantes, a well-respected seafarer

Books

is lined up for promotion. Unfortunately, for differing base motives, a colleague, Danglars, an admirer of Edmond’s fiancée (Mercedes) called Fernand Mondego and a conniving magistrate de Villefort, conspire to have him locked up and the key thrown into the Mediterranean. Well, not literally.

In prison Edmond is ‘adopted’ by wise, old ‘lag’ turned mentor, Abbe Faria (Jeremy Irons), who unravels the dastardly plot, formulates a possible plan of escape and reveals the location of a vast hoard of hidden treasure.

Fast forward several decades and Dantes is free, very rich and hell-bent on retribution. Using the guise of the Count of Monte Cristo, he integrates himself into Parisian society. Danglars is now a wealthy banker, Mondego a leading politician and de Villefort the royal prosecutor. And Mercedes? Well, alas, believing Edmond long dead, she has married Mondego.

The series is visually appealing on all fronts while Claflin is a plausible leading man, full of patience, aloofness and steely determination, with no lapses into pantomime villainy. Jeremy Irons (Abbe Faria) is his consummate self although perhaps too lucid, optimistic and chipper for one incarcerated for so long. Strong female characters are an important part of modern dramas so a pity Ana Girardot (Mercedes) comes across somewhat lukewarm and insincere.

The cosmopolitan background of the cast leads to a mismatch in accents at times and some of the dialogue sounds stilted. Example: When shown a watch that Edmond had been given by Mercedes, the Abbe comments, “And you’ve kept it all this time?” Well yes, it’s difficult to get rid of something when you’re confined in a sixteen square metre stone cell for years with just a bed and a bucket.

The novel is renowned for its excessive length and, although this production is obviously an abridged version, there are times when divergent sub-plots draw attention away from the core theme.

The story was initially published in serial form. Perhaps that is why, never an adherent of ‘binge watching’ anyway, I persuaded myself to view each of the eight weekly instalments as they were shown. A thought-provoking tale then to remind us that, as in life, revenge often brings only a hollow reward.

Local author shortlisted for national comedy award

LOCAL author Ruth Foster has been shortlisted for the national Comedy Women in Print Award (CWIP ) 2025. Her debut novel, A Perfect Year? is one of six finalists.

A Perfect Year? charts the unpredictable adventures of three neighbouring families entirely through their annual round robin letters. Set in 1990s and 2000s England, it chronicles 21 heady years in this country: everything from Britpop and the Poll Tax riots to the death of the Princess of Wales and the Iraq War protests. But we hear about these through the perspective of the letter writers, alongside the arrival of the pet hamster or the latest in the school PTA wars.

CWIP is the brainchild of well-known comedian, author, actress Helen Lederer. Founded in 2018, its aim is to recognise, celebrate and encourage witty women authors. The award winners will be announced at a ceremony in London in November. To learn more about the awards visit www. comedywomeninprint.co.uk

Author of The Perfect Year? Ruth Foster lives in Membury, East Devon. She said: ‘I am thrilled to be shortlisted for this CWIP award. I had the original idea for A Perfect Year? back in the 1990s, when round robin letters would thud through the letterbox and onto the mat along with Christmas cards every year. We’d sit round the kitchen table as a family reading them out, laughing at the funny bits and reflecting on the sad bits. I found myself wondering if I could construct a novel out of them—and A Perfect Year? was born. It’s wonderful that the book has made the judges laugh enough to get onto the shortlist: there is nothing more rewarding than being able to bring a smile to people’s faces.’

For further information about Ruth visit www. ruthfosterauthor.com.

A Perfect Year? is available from the Archway Bookshop in Axminster and other bookshops; and from online retailers as a paperback or ebook nationwide.

ISBN: 978-1-0687773-0-1 Paperback 978-10687773-1-8 ebook.

Rembrandt’s masterpiece arrives in Dorset

Kingston Lacy in Dorset will be the first stop on a nationwide tour of one of the National Trust’s most treasured artworks—Self-portrait wearing a Feathered Bonnet by Rembrandt van Rijn— inviting visitors to experience the power of ‘slow looking’ and mindful engagement with art.

From 12 September to 16 November 2025, and again from 12 January to 22 March 2026, the celebrated painting will be on display in the house at Kingston Lacy—first in the Spanish Room, shown alongside seventeenth-century masterpieces by Murillo and Velázquez, and later in a newly-created, accessible exhibition space. This marks the beginning of a year-long journey through National Trust properties, with stops in Cheshire and Warwickshire before the painting returns to its permanent home at Buckland Abbey in Devon.

The initiative encourages visitors to pause, reflect, and connect emotionally with the artwork. Seating and audio guides featuring meditative prompts will be available to help viewers slow down and engage deeply with Rembrandt’s self-portrait—a practice shown to support mental wellbeing by reducing stress and fostering emotional resilience. While the mental health benefits of being in nature

are widely known, the National Trust is encouraging people to discover how art and heritage can offer similar restorative effects.

The average museum or gallery visitor spends just eight seconds looking at each artwork. The Trust is challenging that norm by offering seating and audio guides with meditative prompts that encourage viewers to linger with Rembrandt’s masterpiece. The painting will be shown with room to allow people to focus on the work on its own, allowing space for uninterrupted contemplation.

‘Slow looking is about more than just taking your time,’ said Amy Orrock, National Trust curator. ‘It’s a way of being present, of noticing the details and the emotion they generate that might otherwise pass us by. You’re not just seeing you’re feeling, thinking, connecting.’

The painting itself has a remarkable story. Once thought to be the work of a follower, it was reattributed to Rembrandt himself after extensive conservation and scientific analysis in 2013. It is now recognised as one of the great treasures of the National Trust’s collection.

More information is available on www.nationaltrust. org.uk/kingston-lacy

Rembrandt slow looking (C) National Trust Images - James Dobson

David Bushrod’s Marshwood Vale

A Tapestry of Nature, Faith, and Memory

This year marks the 30th anniversary of the publication of David Bushrod’s anthology of poetry, ‘Marshwood Vale: Songs of Wayside and Woodland’. As David says in his ‘Foreword’, the poems are inspired by the beauty of the Marshwood Vale.

Poet and musician Robert Eshelby describes them as ‘couched in a deliberately traditional form, whose accessibility to every Dorset reader is guaranteed through the masterly technique and unfailingly observant eye of the poet.’

Seeing that no-one had ever attempted a scholarly review of Bushrod’s poetry in thirty years, Robert Eshelby decided to write one himself. ‘The more I tried to evaluate the poems, the more has been my regard for the poetry’ he explained.

In his review, which is fully published on our website (www.marshwoodvale.com) Robert says that through David’s writing he saw ‘the countryside around Bridport and Dorchester as a living and breathing combination of the present and the past, stretching back to the days of the ancient hill forts, the Roman invaders, the mediaeval abbey of Abbotsbury and the more recent, agrarian nineteenth century.’

David Bushrod, he says ‘has presented to us a portrait of Dorset.’

One of the most powerful themes in Bushrod’s poetry is ‘the loss of faith and traditions in the Dorset countryside.’

The subject of redemption says Robert ‘is another theme, closely allied to that of faith. Can man redeem himself after a fall from innocence?’ Can man start afresh like the fresh leaves of spring? ‘Christianity and optimists might say, yes; the poet is not so sure.’

Robert Eshelby concludes that the poetry is rich in emotion and imagery saying: ‘The poetry in Marshwood Vale seethes with potent images, to the extent that, if you read the poems through in one hit, as I have done recently, you will reel from the intensity of the emotion it evokes.’

A talk by Robert Eshelby at Dorset Museum, scheduled for the 27th October 2025, has been postponed. It was planned to be in association with Mark Damon Chutter, Chairman of the Thomas Hardy Society on the subject of Marshwiood Vale: the Complete Poems

Details of the new date and venue will be announced when available.

To read the full appreciation of David Bushrod’s peotry by Robert Eshelby visit: www.marshwoodvale.com.

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WRITING

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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

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

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 May 26

Marshwood+ October 2025

Marsh wo o d

Alastair Braidwood

in your Marshwood Vale Magazine

DONATIONS

Contributors

EVENTS October

Friday, 3 October

Sunday, 5 October

Tuesday, 7 October

Wednesday, 8 October

Saturday, 11 October

Sunday, 12 October

Wednesday, 15 October

Friday, 17 October

Sunday, 19 October

EVENTS IN NOVEMBER

‘Every Brilliant Thing’ comes to Bridport’s Lyric Theatre

POSTPONED

Tuesday, 28 October

SNature Studies

Part of the Point of the Pint

The Art of the Photograph

This month featuring Pete Millson

Late summer or early Autumn outing

October in the Garden

Dinner with a View

Ilaria’s Italian KITCHEN

Local Talent at Melplash

Unassailable to UNELECTABLE

– 15 November

18

- 15 November

Until 10 January 2026

Under Open Skies A Group Show of Dorset Painters

Questions on Friendship

FROM THE BESTSELLING

Soft Tissue Damage

JOIN AUTHOR ANNA

Kingmaker in Dorchester

McCall Smith visit

PREVIEW October

Remembering The Poor Man’s Friend in Bridport

Hits and myths with Living Spit TOURING

What’s up, nurse?

BRIDPORT

LYME REGIS

How reggae changed the world CHETNOLE AND WEST STAFFORD

Live music for everyone

DORSET AND BEYOND

Screen Time

Top Six at the Flix

What does it mean to be wild?

BROADMAYNE & WOOTTON FITZPAINE

The Young Lit Fix

Dracula & Daughters

Tales of War and Vengeance

The Count of Monte Cristo

Books

Local author shortlisted for national comedy award

Rembrandt’s masterpiece arrives in Dorset

David Bushrod’s Marshwood Vale

A Tapestry of Nature, Faith, and Memory

WRITING

RESTORATION FURNITURE.

SPECIALIST BUILDING

DISTRIBUTION