Sherborne Times November 2021

NOVEMBER 2021 | FREE

A MONTHLY CELEBR ATION OF PEOPLE, PLACE AND PURVEYOR

ABOVE AND BEYOND with Dorset and Somerset Air Ambulance

sherbornetimes.co.uk

WELCOME

I

was enjoying a rare moment of indulgence – coffee, a pecan slice and the Sunday papers in the courtyard at Oliver’s, when I noticed a number of missed calls from my wife. The phone rang again and my wife spoke in urgent economic bursts – ‘Ethan has fallen from a rope swing at the Terraces and landed hard on his head. He can’t move. His friends have called for an ambulance. Where are you?!’

I ran down Cheap Street, back to the car and then across the Terraces playing fields to the woods in a blur of restrained panic and burning limbs.

Soon I was lying with our eldest son in the damp earth, 15ft below a broken rope swing and telling him everything was going to be OK. Words of comfort as much for me as him.

45 minutes later and with no sign of the ambulance, I called 999. All crews, it transpired, were attending cardiac emergencies and would not be with us any time soon. Ethan had now been lying motionless for an hour and my parental words of encouragement were beginning to wear thin.

Imagine then the sound of not sirens but rotor blades and the whomping presence of a bright yellow helicopter through the trees overhead.

Within minutes Ethan was being tended to by the medical crew of Dorset and Somerset Air Ambulance – their levels of composure and professionalism a privilege to witness. Assessed, pain relief delivered via an IV and strapped to a stretcher with his head in blocks, Ethan was soon in the Accident and Emergency department of Yeovil District Hospital, where I was witness again to truly humbling levels of care and competence.

For the crew that day – Dr Jeremy Reid, CCP Neil Bizzell and pilot Paul Nolan – ours was a relatively unremarkable call-out. For us it was anything but, although thankfully Ethan escaped with only cuts, bruises and a healthy suspicion of other people’s rope work. A personal thanks then to our friend Scott Armstrong and his fellow crew members at Dorset and Somerset Air Ambulance. Friends in high places indeed.

Have a great month.

Glen Cheyne, Editor glen@homegrown-media.co.uk @sherbornetimes

CONTRIBUTORS Editorial and creative direction Glen Cheyne Design Andy Gerrard @round_studio Photography Katharine Davies @Katharine_KDP Feature writer Jo Denbury @jo_denbury Editorial assistant Helen Brown Sub editor Jemma Dempsey Social media Jenny Dickinson Illustrations Elizabeth Watson elizabethwatsonillustration.com Print Stephens & George Distribution team Barbara and David Elsmore The Jackson Family David and Susan Joby Christine Knott Adam May Sarah Morgan Mary and Roger Napper Mark and Miranda Pender Claire Pilley Ionas Tsetikas

Joe Arkwright Sherborne Prep School sherborneprep.org Elisabeth Bletsoe Sherborne Museum sherbornemuseum.co.uk Richard Bromell ASFAV Charterhouse Auctioneers and Valuers charterhouse-auction.com Mike Burks The Gardens Group thegardensgroup.co.uk David Burnett The Dovecote Press dovecotepress.com Paula Carnell paulacarnell.com Cindy Chant & John Drabik Sherborne Walks sherbornewalks.co.uk Emma Coate Mogers Drewett Solicitors md-solicitors.co.uk Ali Cockrean alicockrean.co.uk

01935 315556 @sherbornetimes info@homegrown-media.co.uk sherbornetimes.co.uk

Ann Horrocks Chernoyl Children’s Lifeline ccll.org.uk James Hull The Story Pig @thestorypig thestorypig.co.uk John Jackson Lucy Lewis Dorset Mind dorsetmind.uk Peter Littlewood BA (Hons), FRSA, Cert Mgmt (Open) Young People’s Trust for the Environment ypte.org.uk Chris Loder MP chrisloder.co.uk

David Copp Kim Creswell Dip.Herb.Med. MNIMH Goldberry Herbs goldberryherbs.co.uk

Sasha Matkevich The Green Restaurant greenrestaurant.co.uk

Rosie Cunningham

Gillian Nash

Jemma Dempsey

Mark Newton-Clarke MA VetMB PhD MRCVS Newton Clarke Veterinary Partnership newtonclarkevet.com

Simon Ford DWT Sherborne Group dorsetwildlifetrust.org.uk

Simon Partridge SP Fit spfit-sherborne.co.uk

Andrew Fort B.A. (Econ.)

CFPcm Chartered MCSI APFS Fort Financial Planning ffp.org.uk

Emma Plumb & Ed Sparrow Sparrow & Plumb sparrowandplumb.com

Andy Foster Raise Architects raisearchitects.com

Sherborne Times is printed on an FSC® and EU Ecolabel certified paper. It goes without saying that once thoroughly well read, this magazine is easily recycled and we actively encourage you to do so.

Imogen Frame MRCVS Kingston Veterinary Group kingstonvets.co.uk

Whilst every care has been taken to ensure that the data in this publication is accurate, neither Sherborne Times nor its editorial contributors can accept, and hereby disclaim, any liability to any party to loss or damage caused by errors or omissions resulting from negligence, accident or any other cause.

Sherborne Times does not officially endorse any advertising material included within this publication.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in any retrieval system, or transmitted in any form - electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise - without prior permission from Sherborne Times.

Dawn Handy

4 | Sherborne Times | November 2021

Richard Hopton Sherborne Literary Society sherborneliterarysociety.com

Paul Maskell The Beat and Track thebeatandtrack.co.uk

James Flynn Milborne Port Computers computing-mp.co.uk

1 Bretts Yard Digby Road Sherborne Dorset DT9 3NL

Mike Hewitson MPharm FFRPS FRSPH MRPharmS The Abbey Pharmacy theabbeypharmacy.com

Craig Hardaker Communifit communifit.co.uk Andy Hastie Cinematheque cinematheque.org.uk

Miroslav Pomichal MA BA Sherborne School sherborne.org Steve Shield Sherborne Town Council sherborne-tc.gov.uk Julia Skelhorn Sherborne Scribblers Val Stones bakerval.com Emma Tabor & Paul Newman paulnewmanartist.com Simon Webster Sherborne Science Cafe sherbornesciencecafe.com

76 6

Art & Culture

NOVEMBER 2021 66 Antiques

116 Legal

18 What’s On

68 Gardening

118 Finance

22 Events

76 Dorset & Somerset Air Ambulance

120 Tech

28 Community

82 Food & Drink

124 Short Story

34 Family

92 Animal Care

126 Literature

48 Science & Nature

98 Body & Mind

128 Crossword

56 On Foot

112 Home

130 Pause for Thought

60 History

We are looking to expand our portfolio With a local and enthusiastic team, Dorset Hideaways are well placed to make the process of sharing your holiday home easy and enjoyable.

We are dedicated to managing your property with the same care and attention you would and with tailored services to suit your needs, you can be as involved as you like.

01929 448 708 newowners@dorsethideaways.co.uk dorsethideaways.co.uk sherbornetimes.co.uk | 5

Art & Culture

ARTIST AT WORK

No: 36 Dawn Handy, Three Fish, Mosaic, 40 x 40cm, £250

A

rt has always been an essential part of my soul. My earliest memories are of the hundreds of Cape dwarf chameleons that lived in our bougainvillea in Cape Town. As a child, they entranced me with their vivid colours and curious movement. Memories of markets and street sellers of Cape Town enthral me to this day. I would sculpt air drying clay and decorate my work with empty snail shells found in the garden. They were likely my first mosaics.

The current focus of my art practice is mosaic art and sculpture using recycled materials, such as vintage crockery, mirrors, tiles, beads and found objects, which I then hand-cut, as well as mixed media paintings, sculpture and printmaking.

Using recycled materials in my work has always been a passion – growing up in South Africa with limited resources, as art materials were expensive and imported – I learned to adapt, incorporating alternatives into my work.

I normally work from a studio at the bottom of my garden and am a member of Yeovil Creatives and South West Mosaic Artists. @dawnhandyart DawnHandyMosaics

6 | Sherborne Times | November 2021

Spa FINE DINING | TASTING MENU | GREAT WINES | ALFRESCO DINING AWARD-WINNING GARDEN | COCKTAIL BAR | BOUTIQUE SPA | LIVE MUSICIAN

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“… a friendly team of staff, delicious food and walled garden” Sawdays 2019

Restaurant set in the heart of the easons is a multi award-winning lively historic town of Sherborne in the glorious countryside of Dorset.

Seasons Restaurant, The Eastbury Hotel & Spa, Long Street, Sherborne www.theeastburyhotel.co.uk Tel: 01935 813131 Book a table online

Art & Culture

ON FILM

Andy Hastie, Yeovil Cinematheque

W

e have all missed watching films together in an auditorium; we organise a film society because we love watching films communally on a big screen. Finally, after 19 months away, we are up and running again, back at the Swan Theatre. Cinematheque has returned!

An intrepid group of members (plus a few guests) watched Ken Loach’s Sorry We Missed You. This wellresearched film shocked many, and gave rise to much discussion afterwards regarding zero-hour contracts and the gig economy. By cleverly portraying the reality, and remaining open-ended, Ken Loach lets the audience make the connections and draw their own conclusions about how ordinary people, trying to better themselves, are ‘used’ in austerity Britain. Essential viewing.

South Korean cinema is slowly getting the 8 | Sherborne Times | November 2021

recognition it richly deserves, with international film festival programmers helping to expose South Korean film makers to Western markets. Finally free from Government censorship in the 1970s, and following the civil overthrow of the military dictatorship in the 1980s, new young directors have had the opportunity to find their feet internationally, and have been picking up awards and thrilling audiences ever since. We have shown Park ChanWook’s The Handmaiden’ previously to great acclaim, so our film showing this month is Lee Chang-Dong’s multiaward-winning Burning (2018) on 3rd November.

The avid ST readers among you may well be experiencing déjà vu at this point, and for good reason.

Burning was originally scheduled to be shown last March and previewed on these pages at the time.

Covid of course got in the way of things so I hope

Yoo Ah-in, Jun Jong-seo and Steven Yeun Burning (2018)

you’ll forgive my repetition!

This mystery thriller adaptation of a short story from Haruki Murakami concerns Lee Jongsu, an aspiring young novelist who one day bumps into Shin Haemi, a former classmate. They start a relationship which is cut short by Haemi’s holiday trip to Kenya. Anticipating their reunion, Jongsu is surprised at the airport to meet Haemi accompanied by the charismatic Ben, whom she met on her trip. No match for Ben’s obvious wealth, Jongsu’s jealousy builds as they form an uneasy love triangle. Then Haemi goes missing...

‘Burning is a character study that morphs with masterly patience, subtlety and nary a single wasted minute into a teasing mystery and eventually a full-blown thriller’ (LA Times). ‘Lee Chang-Dong has fashioned a lean slowburner, gripping, elliptical and intriguingly ambiguous...

controlling the tension until the breathtaking explosive finale’ (Tricia Tuttle, London Film Festival).

Intrigued? I hope so. If you haven’t caught a South Korean film before, Burning is a great one to start with.

Come along as a guest to Yeovil’s Swan Theatre on 3rd November and find out what we have to offer at Cinematheque. All details are on the website. cinematheque.org.uk swan-theatre.co.uk

___________________________________________ Wednesday 3rd November 7.30pm Burning (2018) 15 Cinemateque, Swan Theatre, 138 Park St, Yeovil BA20 1QT Members £1, guests £5

___________________________________________ sherbornetimes.co.uk | 9

Art & Culture

CONFESSIONS OF A THEATRE ADDICT Rosie Cunningham

I

finally saw Andrew Lloyd Webber’s World Premiere of Cinderella at the Gillian Lynne Theatre, the opening of which had been Covid-delayed. This is a story about Belleville where everyone is gorgeous, except for the loud-mouthed objectionable Cinderella, who is desperate to escape. Her only friend is Prince Sebastian who suddenly becomes heir to the throne and the target of every ambitious mother and daughter. It is a fast, fun-packed musical full of song and dance. Rebecca Trehearn, playing the flirtatious Queen, was an absolute delight, but it was Victoria Hamilton-Barritt who stole the show as the waspish impish Stepmother. The wise-cracking repartee between the two attracted much appreciative laughter. Ivano Turco, a young Michael Jackson in the making, played Sebastian in his West End debut, but sadly didn’t hit his notes in the beginning.

I felt that he lacked some of the charisma and charm needed to outshine the strong contingent of very able and talented female cast members. Carrie Hope Fletcher, the crowned queen of West End musicals, 10 | Sherborne Times | November 2021

was in sparkling form as Cinderella and pulled in the crowds. I was sat directly behind Jennifer Saunders, who very much enjoyed herself, what better recommendation could there be? Running until May 2022.

On to The Mirror and the Light, adapted from Hilary Mantel's latest novel, at the Gielgud Theatre. Somehow, I managed to be there on the first night and, lo and behold, met Hilary and her husband outside the theatre, chatted about the play and her books before settling into our seats. This is a magnificent production from the Royal Shakespeare Company, and, at the end, everyone knew that they had a hit on their hands. The audience was spell-bound throughout. The scenery is modern and stark and designed by Christopher Oram who has done all the Mantel plays. The strong cast is headed

by Ben Miles who knows everything that there is to know about Thomas Cromwell, and how to play such an intense role. Nathaniel Parker was fabulous as the limping, overweight, increasingly unbalanced Henry VIII, continually frustrated trying to find a wife who

Ben Miles as Thomas Cromwell in The Mirror and the Light. Image: Marc Brenner

could give him a son and heir. Personally, I found the Duke of Norfolk, played by Nicholas Woodeson, so vile and underhand that to me, this was a stand-out performance. You just wanted to hate him for eventually bringing down Cromwell with his incessant conniving.

That’s what good theatre is all about, stoking our emotions. Playing until the 23rd January 2022, do not miss it. P.S. Hilary was pleased too, she lives in Devon and loves Sherborne!

Bags: Inside Out is an exhibition on at the V&A. This is a fascinating exploration of the history of bags from makers such as Louis Vuitton, Fendi, Longchamp and Mulberry, spotlighting their unique design and craftsmanship, encompassing trends such as the Birkin, the dowry bag, the bumbag and the backpack. On until 16th January 2022. lwtheatres.co.uk/theatres/gillian-lynne rsc.org.uk/mirror-and-the-light vam.ac.uk/exhibitions/bags

EMILY WOOD & PAUL HENDY FOR EVOLUTION PANTOMIMES IN ASSOCIATION WITH THE OCTAGON sherbornetimes.co.uk | 11

Art & Culture

The Kitchen Cat 100cm x 78cm Oil on Canvas 12 | Sherborne Times | November 2021

THE ARTIST’S PERSONA interviews by Ali Cockrean

Toby Ward

O

f the many wonderful artists I’ve had the pleasure of interviewing this year, there are none that epitomise the versatility of approach or imaginative weaving of fantasy and reality like Toby Ward.

His fascination with people, the things that they do and places that they inhabit, forms the basis for all his work. He is a painter who is as comfortable standing in the corner of the kitchens at The Ritz Hotel, sketching and recording the frenetic activity of a lunchtime service, as he is creating a work of total fiction on the canvas, or undertaking a royal portrait.

He is also totally grounded, humble and matter-of-fact about the impressive variety of commissions he has undertaken. These include: working with the National Trust, recording the conservation of Chastleton House in the Cotswolds; the Royal Opera House, capturing for posterity the period before and during its redevelopment in the late 1990s; and the United Nations Peacekeeping Force in central Bosnia, drawing the life and work of the soldiers.

Toby’s drawings are exquisite. They are atmospheric, evocative and beautifully observed.

He knows exactly what to include and what to ignore and every drawing and painting, while faithfully recording historic details, also captures the elusive and intangible nature of whatever environment he’s in.

After serving for six years in the army, Toby studied at City and Guilds of London Art School where he won the Richard Ford Travel Award to study in Madrid. As an art graduate and needing a regular income, he explains that portraiture seemed like the best way to earn a living. It quickly became a passion and among a number of significant commissions have been portraits of HRH The Duke of Edinburgh, Lord Rothermere and Sir Sidney Kentridge.

Alongside these strands of his work as a painter, Toby also has another, equally intriguing, string to his artistic bow. Works of complete fantasy, in which he paints unknown people and places in a less naturalistic manner. These are forays into his imagination, where he creates his own narrative and builds a scene from remembered situations and people he’s observed while going about his daily life. One such example is his fabulous work entitled The Minor Delights of Jules De Loffre.

‘My wife and I were staying on a campsite in France some years ago,’ he explains. ‘As we sat relaxing on holiday and idly people watching, I noticed a man nearby who was camping with his wife. I couldn’t help but notice their daily routine, which included an ample lunch with wine every day, before a siesta in the afternoon. Later on, he would emerge from his tent in full lycra, stretched across a pretty ample frame, and head off for a cycle on his racing bike. >

sherbornetimes.co.uk | 13

Art & Culture

The Drawing Room at the Athenaeum 38cm x 57cm Watercolour on Paper

The Minor Delights of Jules De Loffre 60cm x 90cm Oil on Canvas 14 | Sherborne Times | November 2021

‘I started to wonder who he might be and built a narrative in my head. I decided he was a successful pharmacist and lover of gourmet food. Not long before, my wife and I had enjoyed a fruits de mer lunch experience, when we had been served a true celebration of the sea, including lobster, oysters and many other seafood delights. In my head I somehow weaved this event into the life of the man on the campsite, imagining him and his glamorous wife enjoying such a meal.

‘As a result, I created a painting of this scene and on completion wondered what I should call it. I decided that this lunch probably signified one of many ‘minor delights’ that he and his wife might share, so the title started to form. ‘The Minor Delights Of….’ But who was he? I needed a name, so, remembering his penchant for cycling in the afternoon, I picked up a very old listing of competitors who had taken part in the Tour De France. In among the names I found Jules De Loffre and decided that this well suited my character in the painting. The painting was titled The Minor Delights Of Jules De Loffre and in due course went off to a gallery as part of an exhibition. The gallery then picked this work for their advertising and marketing.

‘Remarkably, the surviving family of Jules De Loffre, the cyclist who had taken part in the Tour De France, saw the image and title and contacted me to ask if it was indeed based on their relative!

I then had to explain, somewhat sheepishly, how I had come to use his name in the work. Thankfully, they thought it was a wonderful story and explained that Jules had been a very slight man (not surprising given all the cycling he did) and had actually paid for his trip by performing acrobatics for the other competitors in the evenings, after racing all day. They were delighted to see him honoured in such a way! Clearly he was a character in his own right, if a little less rotund than my pharmacist!’

This fabulous painting is just one example of Toby Ward’s skill and mastery. Each one is a cornucopia of colour, life and story. I can only scratch the surface here, so do make time to visit his website tobyward.net.

And if you would like to hear my full interview with Toby, you can find it on Facebook. Just search for The Artist’s Persona and join our free membership. alicockrean.co.uk

ANN ARMITAGE CAROLINE FROOD BRYAN HANLON MHAIRI McGREGOR 22nd October – 10th November

MHAIRI McGREGOR

BRYAN HANLON

DAFFODILS

SHORE WALK, THE CAMEL

www.jerramgallery.com THE JERRAM GALLERY Half Moon Street, Sherborne, 01935 815261 Dorset DT9 3LN info@jerramgallery.com Tuesday – Saturday

sherbornetimes.co.uk | 15

Art & Culture

COUNTER CULTURE Paul Maskell, The Beat and Track

No.3 Trent Reznor

16 | Sherborne Times | November 2021

I

ndustrial metal? ‘Oh, yes please.’ I hear you say. Or maybe not…Nine Inch Nails is a band that has been labelled, correctly at times, an industrial metal band but it’s far more than that. In fact, it’s so far removed from that genre at times that it’s been known to flit from the industrial style (Throbbing Gristle, Test Dept) to synth-pop (Gary Numan) and everything in between. The band was conceived by and initially consisted of just Trent Reznor who played all instruments, sang and even recorded/produced the first Nine Inch Nails album. Reznor had been the only permanent member of the band since its inception in 1988 until the addition of English musician Atticus Ross in 2016.

Since 1988 the band has recorded 14 albums, the first being the genre-defining Pretty Hate Machine which has subsequently been included in the Rolling Stone top 500 albums of all time. The album bore little resemblance to what would follow though as its sound became heavier and themes grew darker. Followed by two EP’s Broken and Fixed, Reznor then embarked on his first ‘concept’ album, the Downward Spiral telling the story of a man’s destruction and eventual suicide. Soaked in self-loathing and drug abuse and recorded in a studio constructed within 10050 Cielo Drive L.A. (the location of the murder of Sharon Tate by the Manson Cult) the album became an instant success.

The record debuted at number two on the Billboard charts and went quadruple platinum in the U.S. selling more than 3.7 million copies. The album hit number nine in the British charts and went gold.

Not bad for an album that was initially labelled commercial suicide and only given 4/10 in the NME. This success was a sure sign of things to come and opened the floodgates for another 10 albums with songs spanning multiple genres such as industrial rock, synth-pop, drum & bass, solo piano, ambient and dark ambient. Nine Inch Nails, one of the most successful rock bands of the last 30 years…but this was just the beginning.

In parallel to recording such successful and genre-defining albums and playing some truly ingenious and original live shows, Trent Reznor has found time to score some of the biggest films of recent times.

In partnership with Atticus Ross, Reznor has scored nine films (The Social Network, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Gone Girl, Mank, Patriots Day, Mid90s, Bird Box, Waves and Soul) two documentary series (Before the Flood, The Vietnam War) and three seasons of a television series (Watchmen). The man who recorded an album depicting a man’s destruction while he himself was dealing with drug issues and alcohol abuse has, believe it or not, won an Oscar for his score to the Disney Pixar film Soul. The pair also won an Oscar for scoring the David Fincher film, The Social Network.

Reznor and Ross’s flexibility and pure talent when it comes to music production can hold a crowd of industrial metal heads and wow viewers of an animated Disney film in equal measure.

So, industrial metal? Absolutely. With a twist of Disney? Why not. thebeatandtrack.co.uk

NOW OPEN

Suppliers of both new and pre-loved vinyl, official t-shirts, merchandise and memorabilia.

Come visit and “Try before you buy”.

The Beat & Track, The Old Shambles, South Street, Sherborne, DT9 3LN

07730 356719

thebeatandtrack@icloud.com www.thebeatandtrack.co.uk sherbornetimes.co.uk | 17

WHAT'S ON Listings

Until Sunday 7th

____________________________

11am-5pm Thursday/Friday/Saturday

Every Thursday (term-time only) 1pm–3pm The Scribes Writing Group Sherborne Library, Hound St. Come

along to share your work, discuss how

to improve, and receive inspiration and ideas from others. 01935 812683

____________________________ Every Friday 10am–10.30am

11am-3pm Sunday

What Are You Looking At? OSR Projects, Church Street, West

Coker BA22 9BD. An exhibition of new work by artist Angela Charles

exploring notions of ‘seeing’ in art from the perspective of a visually-impaired painter. osrprojects.co.uk

____________________________

Rhyme Time

Until Wednesday 10th

Wednesday 10th 7.30pm

Sherborne Library, Hound St. Songs

Exhibition of Landscapes

Hannah Maxwell I, AmDram

and rhymes for children under 5.

and Still Lifes

Booking is essential 01935 812683

Piddletrenthide Memorial Hall £10,

____________________________

The Jerram Gallery, Half Moon St

2nd Tuesday of the month

DT9 3LN. Works from Ann Armitage, Caroline Frood, Bryan Hanlon, Mhairi

£6 u18s, £28 fam. 07786 880676.

hannah-maxwell.com artsreach.co.uk

McGregor. jerramgallery.com

Weaving storytelling, stand-up, live art

sessions with the Somerset and

Wednesday 3rd 3pm and 7pm

Dorset Family History Society

Beautiful, Beastly, Bizarre: The

theatre references, ‘I, AmDram’ traces

Sherborne Library, Hound St. Share

Art of Hieronymous Bosch

research – all welcome. 01935 812683

Sherborne Art Society lecture with

11.30am–1.30pm Family and Local History

____________________________

your stories and get help with your own

Digby Hall, Hound St, DT9 3AA.

____________________________

Paula Nuttal, Director of V&A

1st Saturday of the month (excluding Jan and Feb)

Medieval and Renaissance Year Course.

and a manageable amount of musical the distance between queer, quirky London and the rehearsal halls of

Home Counties suburbia; minding the gap between the identities we assert and the worlds we leave.

____________________________

Non-members £7. All welcome.

Wednesday 10th 7.30pm-10pm

theartssocietysherborne.org

The Sunset Café Stompers

____________________________

with Hamish Maxwell

Digby Hall, Hound St.

Thursday 4th 6.15pm-10pm

Cheap St Church, DT9 3BJ. Live jazz

____________________________

Leweston School, DT9 6EN. Live

9am-12.30pm Monthly Market Arts, crafts, food and more.

Leweston Fireworks

Wednesday 3rd 7.30pm

music, hot food, drinks bar and a

Burning (2018) 15 Yeovil Cinematheque, Swan Theatre, 138 Park St, Yeovil BA20 1QT

Members £1, guests £5. cinematheque.org.uk ____________________________

memorable display. Advance booking.

£15. Call 01935 815565 or email raymondwood1949@gmail.com

____________________________

Adults £7.80, children £5.40, under 5s

Friday 12th 7pm

free. leweston.co.uk/event/fireworks-night/

The Sea is Not Made of Water

____________________________

- a Sherborne Literary Society

Wednesday 10th November –

talk with author Adam Nicolson

Friday 24th December

Digby Memorial Hall, Digby Road,

Christmas at YAS Yeovil Art Space, 23 Vicarage Walk, Quedam Shopping Centre, Yeovil.

Unique art and handmade items for

sale. Creative workshops every weekend. yeovilartspace.uk/christmas

____________________________ 18 | Sherborne Times | November 2021

in aid of The Rendezvous. Tickets

DT9 3NL. Adam Nicolson is a highly regarded author on history, travel and

the environment. £9 members, £10 nonmembers (+ booking fee) available via sherborneliterarysociety.com/events (see event preview page 126)

____________________________

NOVEMBER 2021 exciting dance styles: Kathak, Hip

Hop and Contemporary dance, plus beatboxing, moments of live music,

comedy and physical storytelling. In this jam-packed show, three very different

dancers together conjure up a playful and Saturday 13th 3.30pm and 8pm Martin Carthy The Trooper Inn, Stourton Caundle DT10 2JW. ‘Arguably the greatest

colourful world for everyone to enjoy.

This is a feel-good dance show,

celebrating our individuality, diversity and the bonds which connect us all.

____________________________

English folk song performer, writer,

Wednesday 17th 7pm-9pm

(Q Magazine). 3.30pm (afternoon Combined ticket £20. 01963 362890

Digby Road, DT9 3NL. Dorset

The Princess and the Pea

£3 per person. dorsetwildlifetrust.org.uk

£6, £5 u18s, £20 fam. 07823 778758

collector and editor of them all’

Otters and the Stour Valley Way - A Talk by Ken Hutchinson

Sunday 21st 3pm

interview), £7. 8pm concert, £15.

Digby Memorial Church Hall,

Tutti Frutti -

____________________________

Wildlife Trust Sherborne Group.

Cerne Abbas Village Hall

____________________________

tutti-frutti.org.uk artsreach.co.uk

Friday 12th 7.30pm The Chesterfields North Down Farm, Somerset TA18 7PL.

Friday 19th 5.30pm–7pm

guests Mighty One + DJ Alan Flint.

Do We Coach Adults to Read?

____________________________

and talks with national charity Read

The 80’s indie darlings return with special

Read Easy Open Evening: How

Food and drink from 6pm. Free entry.

Digby Hall, Hound Street. Presentations Easy UK. readeasy.org.uk

____________________________ Saturday 20th 10am-1pm Sandford Orcas Village Hall Christmas Arts & Crafts Fair sandfordorcasvillagehallsec@gmail.com

____________________________ Saturday 20th 8pm Daoiri Farrell The Trooper Inn, Stourton Caundle

DT10 2JW. Magnificent Irish singer,

instrumentalist, twice BBC award-winner.

Sunday 14th 3pm

Tickets (advance only) 01963 362890

Set in the Museum of Forgotten Things, three musical curators, tell the amazing

tale of the museum’s artefacts including

the mystery of a little green pea and how it got there.

Meet a demanding queen, an array

of wannabe princesses, an unknown

girl who is blown into the palace by a

gust of wind, and an indecisive prince

under pressure to find his real princess.

A funny, original and beautiful

retelling of this familiar tale, packed

with humour and memorable songs,

including a romp through every type

of princess you can imagine, and with hilarious costumes to match.

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____________________________

Friday 26th 3pm-4pm

Sonia Sabri Company -

Sunday 21st

Exploring the Quiet Lanes

Same Same...But Different

The Sherborne Market

and Villages of West Dorset

Sturminster Newton Exchange

Cheap St, Half Moon St, Digby Road

Sherborne Library, Hound St. Author

ssco.org.uk artsreach.co.uk

local artisans, crafts and food producers

an accompanying photo presentation.

01258 475137. £6, £5 u18s, £20 fam.

A fun and magical show for children and grown-ups alike, mixing three

and Pageant Gardens. The very best

with over 150 stalls + free music and

entertainment. thesherbornemarket.com

____________________________

Jackie Winter talks about her book with Free event. Booking is essential

eventbrite.com or 01935 812683

____________________________ sherbornetimes.co.uk | 19

WHAT'S ON With a story that includes more

Friday 26th - Sunday 28th

than 20 years of music-making with the

10am-8pm Friday/10am-5pm Saturday/10am-4pm Sunday Open Weekend - Inside No.11 Unit 11, Old Yarn Mills, DT9 3RQ.

Contemporary art, antiques, mid-century

furniture, period lighting, and the curious and the quirky. victoriayj.com molecula.co.uk

traditions of the West African griot.

____________________________

likes of Seth Lakeman, Cara Dillon,

Saturday 27th 7.30pm

Hands, Kathryn Roberts and Sean

Charlton Horethorne Village Hall,

as pillars of modern British folk.

trios you will hear in the UK’ (Tango

Levellers, Kate Rusby and Show of

An Evening with Tango Calor

Lakeman have consolidated themselves

DT9 4FY. ‘One of the best tango

____________________________

Alchemy). A journey from the backstreets of Buenos Aires to the salons of Paris.

____________________________

£10 + £1 booking fee takeart.org/whats-on ____________________________ Sunday 28th 1.30pm-4.30pm Sherborne Folk Band Workshops Digby Memorial Hall, Digby Road, Fri 26th 8pm Friday 26th 7.30pm

Kuumba Nia Arts - Sold (+Q&A)

Kathryn Roberts & Sean Lakeman

Halstock Village Hall

Sandford Orcas Village Hall

£9, £5 u18s, £22 fam. 01935 891744

DT9 3NL. £10 on the door, £9 in advance when booked via sherbornefolkband.org

info@sherbornefolkband.org 07527 508277

____________________________

kuumbaniaarts.com artsreach.co.uk

Planning Ahead

artsreach.co.uk

Winner of Best Ensemble Edinburgh

Wednesday 1st December 3pm

Kathryn Roberts and Sean Lakeman

VAULT Festival 2020

Food and Art Through the

of the UK folk scene’s most rewardingly

extraordinary journey to overcome

Sculpture to 3D Printing

and innovative, mixing traditional song

a beacon for the British anti-slavery

Sherborne Art Society lecture with

£10, £6 u18s, £25 fam. 01963 220208 kathrynrobertsandseanlakeman.com

Fringe 2019 & Show of the Week

have long established themselves as one enduring partnerships. Always bold

arrangements with their self-penned material which reels from the bitter

When one woman tells of her

Ages: From Renaissance Sugar Digby Hall, Hound St, DT9 3AA.

movement. Through theatre, song, music,

Tasha Marks, award-winning food

of Black British theatre by Kuumba

political to the passive.

and 7pm

the brutality of slavery, she becomes

drumming and dance, this masterpiece

to the sweet, the wry to the sad, the

____________________________

Nia Arts is inspired by the storytelling

historian and artist. Non-members £7.

All welcome. theartssocietysherborne.org

____________________________

apple box music events present

THE CHESTERFIELDS

FREE GIG! FRIDAY 12 NOVEMBER with SPECIAL GUESTS MIGHTY ONE + DJ ALAN FLINT North Down Farm, Somerset TA18 7PL, food and drink from 6pm, music from 7.30pm 20 | Sherborne Times | November 2021

NOVEMBER 2021 An initiative made possible thanks to

422884 octagon-theatre.co.uk

will see a selection of BSO musicians

Sunday 5th December 10am-4pm

ensembles as the orchestra returns to the

Festive stalls, entertainment, church

the South West and bringing live music

grotto, lighting of the tree and more!

support from the Weston Culture Fund,

____________________________

playing in brand new chamber

Sherborne Festive Shopping Day

road, reconnecting with audiences across

services, live music, choirs, Santa’s

directly to local communities!

Join the BSO Principle string

____________________________ To include your event in our

players in a programme of two halves,

FREE listings, please email

from JS Bach and Corelli to Arvo Pärt

brief description/price/contact

audience of all ages.

5th of each preceding month

journeying through 450 years of music

details – date/time/title/venue/

and Anna Meredith, presented for an

(in maximum 20 words) – by

____________________________

to listings@homegrown-media.

BSO On Your Doorstep -

Friday 3rd December -

co.uk Due the volume of events

Music of Reflection

Sunday 2nd January

received we are regrettably

Sturminster Newton Exchange

Mother Goose

unable to acknowledge or include them all.

bsolive.com artsreach.co.uk

The Octagon Theatre, Yeovil BA20 1UX. Tickets £14.50 - £25. Box office 01935

Thurs 2nd December 7.30pm

£10, £5 u18s, £25 fam. 01258 475137

____________________________

Friday Lunchtime Recitals Cheap Street Church, 1.45pm 5th November Pianists’ Recital I

26th November Woodwind Recital II

12th November Singers’ Recital

3rd December Pianists’ Recital II

19th November Jazz Recital

FREE ADMISSION ALL WELCOME

10th December “Mince Pies“ Chamber Music Recital Tindall Recital Hall, Sherborne School

sherbornetimes.co.uk | 21

Events

SHERBORNE FESTIVE SHOPPING DAY Sunday 5th December

S

unday 5th December sees the very welcome return of Sherborne Festive Shopping Day – the time of year when Sherborne comes alive with festive fun.

Christmas lights twinkle around the town, carol singers delight locals and tourists alike and Sherborne Town Band remind us to, ‘Hark! The Herald Angels Sing’.

Festive Shopping Day is organised by volunteers from Sherborne Chamber of Trade and supported by Sherborne Town Council. Sponsored by Atkins Ferrie Wealth Management, The Hub, Sherborne Sports Centre, Sherborne School, Abbey104 and Rotary Club of Sherborne Castles. The town‘s increasingly popular‚ Love a Local Christmas‘ event is free to attend, takes place between 10am and 4pm and offers a fabulous family day out whilst raising awareness for many local charities.

During the day the town hosts a wide range of free musical, fun and entertaining activities for all ages. This year includes: balloon-modellers, face-painters and a stilt-walker; dancing from the Black Rock Dancers and Dance Academy; ukulele treats from Yeovil Ukulele Group; singing from the choirs of Sherborne Girls, Leweston School and members of Sherborne Chamber Choir, not to mention the wonderful Sherborne Abbey Choristers. Sherborne Town Band and festive bagpipes add to the musical extravaganza throughout the day.

The main shopping areas of Cheap Street and Digby Road will both be closed to traffic to allow for the street entertainment, market stalls and much more, with Abbey104 broadcasting live all day from The Parade.

Delicious local produce will be available with popup shops and stalls offering individual and imaginative gifts for all the family. Every year the shops outdo themselves with their beautiful Christmas displays and 22 | Sherborne Times | November 2021

window dressings and are full to bursting with gift ideas for even the most difficult gift recipient! Do take time to look for Christmas decorations made by local school children and displayed in the shop windows around the town. The town‘s many coffee shops, pubs and restaurants are alive with people enjoying delicious festive treats and the grown-ups can even enjoy a glass or two of mulled wine whilst soaking up the seasonal atmosphere. There’s the award-winning Christmas display at Castle Gardens too, just five minutes’ drive from the town centre.

Father Christmas will once again be taking up residence in his Grotto outside the Post Office with a little help from Santa’s elves and every child he sees will receive a gift from him (in return for an entry fee of only £2).

Carol services will be held in Sherborne Abbey throughout the afternoon. Visitors are welcome to attend and to enjoy the stunning backdrop of the spectacular ceiling-high Christmas tree. Cheap Street Church stages its ever-popular Christmas Tree Festival too, featuring dozens of twinkling trees, all delightfully and individually decorated.

At 4pm a parade of musicians and dancers will gather at the top of Cheap Street ready to make their way down towards the Conduit. Everyone is welcome to watch the town‘s Christmas tree being illuminated.

The day ends just in time for visitors to join Sherborne Abbey‘s annual Advent Carol Service at 5pm. It really is the most wonderful time of the year! @SherborneFestiveShopping @sherbornefestive @SherborneCOT

10am-4pm

SHERBORNE

FESTIVE SHOPPING DAY SUNDAY, 5th DECEMBER

Event ORGANISERS

@sherborneCOT @sherbornefestiveshopping @sherbornefestive ABBEY CHURCH SERVICES

MUSIC, BANDS CHOIRS

CHRISTMAS TREE LIGHTING

STREET ENTERTAINMENT

CHILDRENS COMPETITION

FESTIVE SHOPS & STALLS

SANTA’S GROTTO

LOCAL PRODUCE

ABBEY 104 LIVE BROADCAST

FESTIVE FOOD & DRINK STALLS EVENT SPONSORS

CHEAP STREET PARADE & LIGHTING OF THE TREE 4PM— AT THE CONDUIT

PLEASE NOTE: NO VEHICLE ACCESS TO CHEAP STREET OR DIGBY ROAD ON 5th DEC UNTIL 6PM ORGANISED BY SHERBORNE CHAMBER OF TRADE & COMMERCE, SUPPORTED BY SHERBORNE TOWN COUNCIL WWW.SHERBORNECHAMBER.CO.UK

Events

MARKET KNOWLEDGE Emily Plumb and Ed Sparrow of Sparrow & Plumb

Welcome to The Sherborne Market!

What brings you here?

Thank you! We live locally and visit Sherborne often.

We visited the Sherborne Market several times before we started exhibiting and loved all the unique quality stalls and buzz the town has to offer.

Where have you travelled from?

We live in Somerton which is approximately 25 minutes away and create our handmade products in Martock.

Tell us about what you’re selling?

We sell unique, handmade, quality furniture including ottomans, footstools, coffee tables, headboards, scatter cushions and lampshades.

Where and when did it all begin?

We launched Sparrow & Plumb in March 2020 at the beginning of lockdown with aspirations of creating beautiful furniture that will lighten up your home. We finally found ourselves with the most time we had ever 24 | Sherborne Times | November 2021

had and began creating our products.

What do you enjoy most about selling at markets?

We love that our customers can see the products in person. We mostly sell online and do not have a shop front in our workshop, so the market is a perfect opportunity for people to visit us and see the wonderful vibrant patterns and styles on our furniture.

If you get the chance, which fellow stallholders here at Sherborne would you like to visit?

We love the cowhide shades that Southwest Interiors create along with Charlotte England’s prints and Deepsea Resin’s serving boards. All very creative and talented individuals – check them out if you haven’t already!

Where can people find you on market day?

We are normally on Cheap Street, half way down the road near the Three Wishes cafe. sparrowandplumb.com

Flying the flag for local

Hand picked & selected artisan market featuring local producers, suppliers, amazing food, arts and crafts.

November 21st

TRENDLE YARD

Bespoke, contemporary furniture, made to order using timber sourced directly from local estates Trendle Yard, Trendle Street, Sherborne, Dorset DT9 3NT Tel 07900 645450 www.trendleyard.com

You can help create a

wilder Dorset

Silver-washed fritillary © Steve Davis

Following our acquisition of 170ha of land near Bere Regis, Dorset Wildlife Trust now has a unique opportunity to establish a large-scale rewilding project. This is a really exciting opportunity to create a special space for people and wildlife to thrive. But we can’t do it without you.

Baseline monitoring requires specialist expertise. Our volunteers need new tools, equipment and training. To rewild the site, we need over £100,000 worth of fencing, to prepare for the introduction of grazing animals and create visitor access.

Can you help? Every single contribution will help to achieve our ambitious rewilding vision.

Donate today, protect tomorrow. dorsetwildlifetrust.org.uk/wilder 26 | Sherborne Times | November 2021

Registered Charity No. 200222

JEWELLERS

a Family Run Traditional Independent Jewellers

Jewellery Repairs | Watch Repairs | Commissions | Restringing Clement White | 8 High Street | Yeovil | Somerset | BA20 1RG 01935 423 439 | www.clementwhite.co.uk | shop@clementwhite.co.uk

Community

A COMMUNITY LAND TRUST FOR SHERBORNE? John Jackson

A

ffordable housing is too expensive for some 200 people in Sherborne, according to Dorset Council data. The challenge has been around for years. It is time to take action.

During the summer, a small group of us started to explore how we might take a ‘community initiative’ to develop a Community Land Trust (CLT) as a way of developing ‘really affordable’ housing in Sherborne.

We formed an initial Steering Group and set out to learn more.

We met with the Chair of the National CLT Network Baroness Cathy Bakewell, the former leader of Somerset County Council. We also met with Alison Ward of Middlemarch Community Led Housing; she and her colleagues have been professionally involved in the development of more than 50 CLTs in the region, including one at nearby Queen Camel.

Sherborne Town Council has been kept informed, and several councillors have become involved. The Sherborne and District Society, the local group of CPRE, and Chris Loder, our MP, are all behind the idea.

The CLT will oversee the management of a ‘really affordable’ housing scheme, open only to Sherborne residents. Land needs to be found and grants are available to support such schemes; these will be explored.

A Steering Group will be established to oversee the development of the CLT. Middlemarch has offered to help manage the process professionally, including the liaison with the building company which will be selected because of its expertise in this niche market.

The CLT will be overseen by trustees who will appoint the necessary management and set the rules for buying into, and leaving, the scheme. The CLT itself will own the asset, and the homes will remain within its portfolio.

28 | Sherborne Times | November 2021

Next steps

For this kind of initiative, we believe that it is important to get the local community onside. To that end, we have made arrangements for a public meeting in the Digby Hall at 7pm on Thursday 11th November 2021. The meeting will include a presentation on CLTs – how they work, what the main challenges are, possibilities in Sherborne. Posters and flyers will be circulated beforehand and all interested persons are welcome.

The outcome of this public meeting will be two-fold: • Firstly, we hope to gain the endorsement of the meeting to take the CLT project forward.

• Secondly, if that endorsement is forthcoming, we will be asking for volunteers who would like to become members of or advisers to the formal Sherborne CLT Steering Group.

This new Steering Group will then be established to take the project forward to completion and create the trusteeship.

During the pandemic, Sherborne has demonstrated a wealth of ‘social capital’. It is about taking responsibility for ourselves and calling on our own resources. By taking action to tackle this challenge of ‘really affordable’ housing, Sherborne residents are once again depending on themselves.

There is every reason to be optimistic. ___________________________________________ Thursday 11th November 7pm Public Meeting - A Community Land Trust For Sherborne?

Digby Hall, Hound Street

All welcome. Pre-registration is requested;

please send an email, with your name and postcode to sherborneclt@gmail.com by 10th November.

___________________________________________

CHERNOBYL CHILDREN’S LIFELINE

T

Ann Horrocks, Chair, CCL Sherborne and Yeovil Link

he Sherborne and Yeovil Link of Chernobyl Children’s Lifeline is part of a national charity set up in the early 90s following the nuclear disaster that took place in Ukraine on 26th April 1986.

Many people may think the effects of that dreadful day have long passed.

Unfortunately, for the people of Belarus and Ukraine the legacy of this disaster, which dispelled amounts of radiation 90 times greater than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima, continues to this day. The high incidence of cancers, heart disease, physical deformity and effect on fertility will be felt for many more years to come, especially in children, where only 6% will remain healthy throughout their childhood. This is likely to continue for another 450-600 years due to genetic mutation caused by continuously living amongst low levels of radiation.

The charity’s aim is to offer ‘hope to live’. For several years the Link has been bringing groups of up to 12 children each year to the Sherborne and Yeovil areas for four weeks. The children stay with volunteer host families and are taken out Monday to Friday by volunteer drivers, escorts and their translator. These visits: eating uncontaminated food and water and being out in our fresh air all significantly improve the children’s immune systems and help to protect their health.

Unfortunately, due to the coronavirus pandemic the Link was unable to invite children either last or this year.

During these unprecedented times, the Link decided to help children in Belarus if they couldn’t host a visit.

For that reason, we asked head office to identify a single parent family with five or six school age children, one of whom was disabled, that we could help. With the help of a psychologist in the Minsk children’s cancer hospital, who has worked closely with the charity for many years, a mother with four boys and one girl was identified as urgently needing our help.

The youngest two children are four year old twins;

a boy and a girl, Luba, who has a cancer behind her eye. Luba was not responding well to her treatment (chemotherapy and radiotherapy) and was facing surgery to remove part of her face and head and was also on the brink of being sent home for palliative care.

The hospital was full – the portacabins in its car park and nearby hostel were also full. Luba’s mother was therefore taking Luba on a 140-kilometre round trip each week by public transport: exposing them to a higher risk of catching coronavirus and which was also exhausting for Luba.

Working with our head office and with funds we raised and some kind donations, we were able to arrange transport using volunteer drivers to and from the hospital. We also arranged for a delivery of highly nutritious food to improve Luba and her siblings’ immune systems as their diet was often poor, consisting of mostly potatoes.

At the time we started to support Luba, snow was forecast for the whole of Belarus and unfortunately the only form of heating in the home, a very old wood burner, broke down. Luckily, we were able to purchase a new one and have it installed before the snow arrived, as winter in Belarus often has temperatures below zero.

Luba recently showed signs that her cancer has shrunk slightly which is heart-warming news. However, she is not cured and urgently needs to be seen by a specialist, not available in Belarus. For this reason, we are now fund-raising to pay for her to make that journey once the Belarusian borders open.

We continue to fund-raise and have planned a craft day on 30th October in Sherborne. Further events such as our coffee and bacon baps sale are always a success.

We also welcome interest in helping to fund-raise, be a host family, minibus driver or escort. ccll.org.uk sherbornetimes.co.uk | 29

Community

QUESTIONS ANSWERED ABOUT YOUR LOCAL COUNCIL

T

Steve Shield, Town Clerk, Sherborne Town Council

own and Parish Councils are the first tier of Local Government. In a reorganisation of local government back in 1974, Sherborne Town Council was formed and is predominately here to help provide in-town services including children’s play areas, parks, The Digby Hall, The Terraces, cemeteries and allotments.

Sherborne Town Council has twelve elected councillors, six for each side of the town; the majority of whom are entitled to a small monthly allowance.

The Town Councillors will do everything they can to help the town, both directly and indirectly, and really do care about the town in which they live.

30 | Sherborne Times | November 2021

The town council raises its own form of Council Tax, which is known as the precept. This is collected on our behalf by Dorset Council and shown separately on your Council Tax bill.

Additional external funding opportunities are also sought, where possible. This funding, along with the precept, help deliver and improve various services across the town.

A mayor and deputy mayor are selected each year through an open process. The mayor’s main responsibility is to chair council meetings & to represent the council at civic events. Unlike mayors of large cities, the Sherborne Mayor does not have

decision-making powers and it is an unpaid position.

The town council is supported by a dedicated staffing team consisting of both office and grounds maintenance staff.

The main building owned by the council, is The Manor House on Newland. This is home to the staffing team and where the council hold regular meetings.

It is also home to the Dorset Registrars Service and Citizens Advice, but these two organisations are completely independent of the Town Council - they rent office space.

The ‘new’ Digby Hall in Hound Street which was given in trust to the council by the Digby Estate provides a well-used community facility, along with the library. It is grant-aided by the town council and The Simon Digby Trust subsidises it, to keep it running. The car park is predominantly there for users of the Digby Hall and Library, but residents and visitors are more than welcome to park there, with the money raised from the parking charges benefitting The Digby Hall.

Other buildings owned by Sherborne Town Council are the Westbury Hall, various buildings at The Terrace playing fields and the Cemetery Lodge.

The town council look after parks, open spaces, gardens, children’s play areas, the Quarr Nature Reserve, various allotment sites and the cemeteries. It has the responsibility for mowing the town’s grass verges and maintenance of the Bow Arch, The Conduit, Abbey Clock and the Abbey Close.

There are many street bins in the town which are emptied by the grounds team and some by Dorset Waste Partnership.

Recently we introduced a new and improved website which contains information, news and dates of future meetings, amongst other things. Along with this we regularly post on Facebook and Twitter. An annual report was produced and published earlier this year, and we are continuing to write articles for the Sherborne Times.

These measures have all helped the council become more transparent and provide the ability to promote local decision-making.

Soon we will be producing a seasonal in-house community newsletter and have invested in a premium microsite on the Visit Dorset platform aimed at supporting our local tourism/business sector by encouraging visitors to the town, following the recent loss of the Tourism Information Centre. It is hoped this site will go live before the end of the year.

All meetings, including committees, are open to

the public and we have recently extended the time of the public session for main monthly meetings; this has helped to make them more inclusive of the wider, local community. Please do come along – we would be pleased to see you.

We work closely with the principal authority, namely Dorset Council, regarding local matters. It is common for many residents to use the phrase, ‘The Council’ when talking about Local Government and Sherborne Town Council.

At times, we have been criticised about many issues within the town which we simply have either little or no control over such as highways matters and the other decisions taken by Dorset Council over the services it provides.

One of the main misunderstandings about the role of the town council involves planning. We are not a planning authority and therefore unable to make planning decisions. Yes, we do have a Plans Committee, but like other town and parish councils, Sherborne Town Council is a consultee and offers its observations to Dorset Council for their further consideration. The Town Council cannot and does not make planning decisions.

Enforcement, which includes areas of work such as parking attendants, dog wardens and building control are all the responsibility of Dorset Council.

The town council works closely with its statutory partners which include Dorset Police and the local health provision.

The town car parks have long been a source of frustration and are mainly managed by Dorset Council, who in turn, are responsible for parking charges and the types of parking permits made available. There are however two exceptions; the first being the Digby Hall car park, mentioned above, and the second being the car park at The Terrace playing fields, which of course is free.

We do have an opportunity to choose several free parking days to coincide with local events taking place, each year, in the town.

Within our role in local government, finances and staffing, we will continue to strive to maintain and enhance the facilities across the town, for the best interests of the local community.

If you have any questions for me, Steve Shield, Sherborne’s Town Clerk, please email on info@sherborne-tc.gov.uk sherborne-tc.gov.uk @SherborneTownCl sherbornetimes.co.uk | 31

Community

OUR MAN IN WESTMINSTER Chris Loder MP, Member of Parliament for West Dorset

T

he Conservative Conference was in Manchester this year. I thought we had one of the best policy fringe debates for a long time with important, and sometimes contentious, political discussions on policies for the future to address some of today’s most pressing issues.

In September, the queues to get into Young’s Garage (now Budgens) will likely not have escaped you as the country was gripped by an apparent ‘petrol shortage’ when, in reality, it was nothing of the sort. But it was, however, the beginning of a supply chain disruption which was the culmination of several issues.

Earlier in my career, I was a director of the Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport. I could see then, as I see now, that heavily centralised and commercialised supply chains have come to dominate the ways in which we get the goods and produce we need for daily life – and has been now for many years.

That significant centralisation might be lean and profitable, but it is not resilient and has a lot of risk – which gets riskier with each buy-out that demands still more centralisation – Morrisons being the latest victim 32 | Sherborne Times | November 2021

– and I thought they were too big as it is!

These supply chains have lost their resilience.

They have become ruthlessly focussed on profit at the expense of the environment, their staff and the farmers that supply them. In Sherborne, we have had our own journey. There was a Gateway supermarket where Matthews Opticians now is, and the Sherborne Antiques Market used to be Lo-cost! But Somerfield took over Gateway and moved to where Waitrose is now, which was the beginning of major change and the arrival of the big supermarkets. Sainsbury’s moved to its South Street store in the late 90s. Tesco tried to come here some ten years ago but was seen off after a spirited campaign by many locals. Of course, this massive centralisation has been enabled and accelerated by single-use plastics, which preserve food for longer and allow food to travel for many hundreds, if not thousands of miles, which is another reason why we should get rid of it.

Most people won’t remember that where Waitrose is now, used to be the local dairy where milk from surrounding farms was brought, bottled and distributed

to the town and villages nearby, often on electric floats.

In itself, this shows the degree of change we have witnessed in 50 years.

At the Manchester conference last month, at a future of British farming policy debate, I repeated my view that the disrupted national supply chain was an opportunity for local producers to shortcut the centralisation and to massively reduce food mileage. It would support our local shops, be better for the environment and better value.

And I stand by that statement, despite coming under sustained criticism and being misquoted in the national press. I simply cannot accept the argument where produce travelling hundreds, if not thousands, of miles is better for the environment than a delivery from the farm down the road. And when it comes to milk… you can buy it direct from the farms via their vending machines – Hollis Mead Farm outside Hunt’s Food Outlet on Digby Road and Castle Farm Dairy on Oborne Road.

Here you can buy fresh, local milk in a reusable glass bottle and at a price on par with the supermarkets.

The real reason we have seen supply chain disruption is the availability of HGV drivers, not a shortage of produce. The government does have some responsibility in my view, in respect of the licensing process for HGV drivers which has not been resilient since the beginning of Covid. But what the Prime Minister says about hugely profitable firms being addicted to cheap immigrant labour is right and it is also right that companies that make hundreds of millions of pounds in profit should pay a decent salary to HGV drivers and ensure they have proper facilities. Because what is clear, is that this group of staff have been taken advantage of for a long time, supplemented by awful facilities, poor conditions and being away from their families for long periods of time. And if the pay is poor – then you have a problem with retention – and here we are.

When some supermarkets announce they have made almost £1 billion in profit over the last financial year and former employees tell me that this is also a company that substitutes its own drivers in favour of agency HGV drivers at a cheaper labour cost, then clearly the balance needs redressing. And when these firms want to blame the government for their own commercial strategy failure, I shall advocate for local suppliers, farmers, independent shops all the way and call out the supermarkets for what they really are, which we don’t always see.

VILLAGE STOCKISTS Alweston Folke Golf Club Bishops Caundle The Village Store The White Hart Bradford Abbas The Rose & Crown Charlton Horethorne The Kings Arms The Village Shop Chetnole The Chetnole Inn The Telephone Box Corton Denham The Queens Arms Hazelbury Bryan The Antelope Inn The Red Barn Village Store Kings Stag The Green Man Leigh Post Office & General Stores Longburton The Larder The Rose & Crown Milborne Port The Clockspire Oborne The Grange Sandford Orcas The Mitre Inn The Story Pig Stalbridge Dike & Son Stourton Caundle The Trooper Inn Thornford Ellwood’s Stores The King's Arms Yetminster Old School Gallery The White Hart

sherbornetimes.co.uk

chrisloder.co.uk sherbornetimes.co.uk | 33

elizabethwatsonillustration.com

You are warmly welcomed to attend our:

Pre-Prep Open Morning Wednesday 1 December RSVP to Charlotte at admissions@sherborneprep.org | 01935 810911 www.sherborneprep.org 34 | Sherborne Times | November 2021

Follow our story

We help people to...

Give their children a great start For investment advice you can trust 01935 382620 | enquiries@church-house.co.uk | www.ch-investments.co.uk At Church House Investment Management, we only make recommendations from our range of investment portfolio services and associated accounts. Full details of the nature of our services can be found at www.ch-investments.co.uk/important-information or can be provided on request. Please note the value of investments and the income you could get from them may fall as well as rise and there is no certainty that you will get back the amount of your original investment. You should also be aware that past performance may not be a reliable guide to future performance. Church House Investment Management is a trading name of Church House Investments Limited, which is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority.

UNEARTHED Rose Grant-Peterkin, aged 11 Sherborne Prep

R

ose has played tennis since the tender age of six, mentored by coach Matt Long at Sherborne Tennis Club.

Supported by her coaches and a tireless commitment from her family – her three uncles and parents all play tennis - Rose now trains four times a week in addition to the other sports she loves including hockey, cricket, and karate, whilst also swimming for her school!

Rose is currently ranked 60 in the Under 11’s in the UK. She was the Lawn Tennis Association’s U11 Girls Somerset County Champion this year in addition to being a finalist in the age group above her own, also reaching the semi-finals of the U14 singles and winning the doubles! Inspired by Emma Raducanu and a familiar favourite, Roger Federer, Rose is clearly one to watch.

Away from sport, Rose enjoys drawing and painting especially cartoon characters, playing her guitar, reading and cooking and as many sleepovers as she can get away with…

Claim to fame – being featured in the Beano doing a backflip on her trampoline!

KATHARINE DAVIES PHOTOGRAPHY

Portrait, lifestyle, PR and editorial commissions 07808 400083 info@katharinedaviesphotography.co.uk www.katharinedaviesphotography.co.uk

36 | Sherborne Times | November 2021

Children’s Book Review

By Felix Hall, aged 9, Leweston Prep School

Everything under the Sun: A Curious Question for Every Day of the Year

by Molly Oldfield (Ladybird 2021) £25 hardcover Sherborne Times reader offer price of £23 from Winstone’s Books

E

verything Under the Sun by Molly Oldfield is a fascinating non-fiction book which tries to answer every question you may have. From dinosaurs to frogs and from penguins to planets, this book has it all!

The book is organised into days of the year and on each day a fascinating fact is revealed about a topic that children find interesting. My favourite day’s fact would probably be the one on February 21st, when the

'Independent Bookseller of the Year 2016’ 8 Cheap Street, Sherborne, Dorset DT9 3PX www.winstonebooks.co.uk Tel: 01935 816 128

question is asked, ‘Why do people speak different languages?’ The book goes on to explain that a language called Ainu is spoken in Northern Japan but it only has 10 people in the world that still speak it, so it will soon be a dead language (like Latin).

I would recommend this book to 8 -12 year olds.

This is my favourite non-fiction book that I have ever read and I think this would make a perfect Christmas present for inquisitive children everywhere.

Family

HOME FRONT

W

Jemma Dempsey

hen we renovated our house we ran out of money. This statement will be familiar to many who have trodden this well-worn and costly road. And it always happens at the end bit when you want to spend it on the nice stuff, like the kitchen. Those pesky foundations which ate up more concrete than you had anticipated, that hidden asbestos in the loft.

There are always ‘things’ when you renovate which devour the contingency budget and then want more. Now, we didn’t do a ‘Grand Designs’ affair, but the law of house renovating is the same the world over: it always costs more than you expect. So, when we crunched the numbers and had to decide between carpet on the floor or an island in the kitchen, it was a no brainer. Over the years my first world problem, the missing island, faded but was not forgotten and I lived happily with a table and chairs. But the longing remained, mostly driven by a need for more worktop space, and I squirrelled away money each month. A little windfall later, I contacted my kitchen man who brutally informed me that because of Brexit and ‘global supply chain issues’ (how many times will we hear that phrase over the next however long?) the cost of a drawer had doubled and that said island would cost me more than it would have done had I had the work done at the same time as the original kitchen. Harrumph, deep breath. Refusing to be deterred I told him what I wanted and to make it so. When a woman has been waiting years for something she is not a woman to be trifled with.

When the day came we were going to a wedding, a glamorous affair and I was almost late because despite putting masking tape on the floor to indicate the exact position of where I wanted the island I still had to talk over the height of the breakfast bar in relation to the bar chairs. I didn’t want people getting the circulation in their legs cut off while sat at the thing. As I turned to leave, my kitchen man quietly informed me that I’d still got the tag in my new pink skirt and he kindly cut it out for me. The wedding was lovely and amazingly the sun shone in what has generally been a sunless summer, but thoughts of my kitchen island were never far from my mind. Even as I laughingly tried to cheat my way through a round of crazy golf with the kids, I’m still sure that windmill on the third hole was impossible to get through, I found myself getting twitchy and wanting to call home to see how the kitchen was coming along. But displaying inordinate amounts of willpower I resisted the urge, although I did later drift off at one point thinking about how to arrange my Tupperware and baking paraphernalia in my new drawers when I should have been listening to the best man’s speech. Why was I getting so excited about more storage? Clearly, I needed to get out more.

After the toasts came the dancing and watching my dad freely discard his walking stick to slowly strut his stuff with his granddaughter bride on the dance floor was a particular highlight, not just of the day but of my whole summer. But then I could resist no more, it was time to get home.

The husband had already returned earlier with the boys and they were all tucked up in bed, so the house was dark and still. Tentatively, I turned on the kitchen light and there it was, in all its new glory, my Love Island, looking as though it’d been waiting for me forever. I’m sure I purred as I slowly ran my fingers along its smooth carcass.

Every day it gives me pleasure – it has transformed my kitchen and how it functions for our family. The husband thinks me quite mad, he is possibly right, but I genuinely think it helps to lower my blood pressure because it makes my life so much easier. Oh, and it was the perfect way to display all the cakes for my Macmillan coffee morning last month. The 24 hours leading up to that were frantic but so worth it and I raised £525. Not bad for some butter, sugar and eggs. jemmadempsey@hotmail.com 38 | Sherborne Times | November 2021

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Family

THE POWER OF MUSIC Joe Arkwright, Music Teacher, Sherborne Prep

N

ine years ago Musharaf ‘Mushy’ Asghar graced our screens in Channel 4’s Educating Yorkshire - a Year 13 student struggling immensely with a stammer that virtually left him mute. With an impending speaking exam to pass his English GCSE, his teacher Mr Burton, inspired by the film The King’s Speech where George VI overcomes his own stammer to lead his country through World War Two, guides Mushy to gain a C grade, which at the start of Mushy’s time at Thornhill Academy seemed insurmountable.

What brings Mushy Ashgar and George VI together is how they overcame their personal stammers through the power of music. They unquestionably prove to us the power that music can have on the brain. Music is powerful, it is emotive, it is an incredibly important part of children’s educational pathway and something we take great care to encourage at Sherborne Prep.

Since the middle of the 20th century, researchers and practitioners in music have increased their awareness of music and its relevance to young children, as well as the impact it can have on their further education. In the modern day, it is inspiring to see that cognitive research has increased dramatically using new concepts and ideas in order to develop suggestions and analogies into experiential research. Although progress may be slow, there are many studies that have transformed thinking – the impact of music upon the brain and the positive cognitive effects. Can music really make you smarter? Music helps to contribute to a broad and balanced school curriculum, but does it positively influence academic gain in other subject areas?

First and foremost, music is principally a mental ability, allowing for it to have a direct result on improving mathematical skills through the use of spatial reasoning tasks. Following different patterns, understanding shapes, differentiating between ratios are skills that have to be overcome by both musicians and mathematicians. The National Council of Teachers of 40 | Sherborne Times | November 2021

"Music helps to contribute to a broad and balanced school curriculum, but does it positively influence academic gain in other subject areas?"

Image: Katharine Davies

Mathematics are an advocate for using different ways in which to promote maths learning through other types of thinking and use music as part of their curriculum focal point. In 2008 the Council began to draw together ways in which maths can be directly related to music; the similarity between counting numbers with how many beats were in a bar, how geometry and identifying of shapes and spatial relationships are similar to notation and the organisation of pitch, and finally how the measurement of objects directly to detecting tonality and changes of tempo.

In addition to helping improve skills in mathematics, there have been several recent studies into the effects of teaching music on literacy skills in primary school aged children. Music and language are often closely

associated with each other; with music being a way of expressing a storyline or in some instances, a feeling, it is the language using music that helps this come across.

As early as 1871, Darwin considered how the relationship between music and language might have been the origin of our communicative abilities. Between 2012-13, an independent research firm conducted an experimental study into the effectiveness of the ABC Music & Me on the school curriculum. They found it greatly enhanced the children’s engagement in the classroom, cooperation with others, and development of vocabulary, as well as coordination and importantly their attitude towards learning. sherborneprep.org sherbornetimes.co.uk | 41

Family

THE SHERBORNE MISSAL Miroslav Pomichal MA, BA, History of Art, Sherborne School

Image: Katharine Davies

T

he fifth most expensive manuscript ever to be sold, the Sherborne Missal (made between 1399 and 1407) is the most lavish and artistically important book of the later Middle Ages.

The Missal was made in Sherborne, partly by a monk of the Abbey. Accordingly rich with local information, and with words written in the Dorset dialect, it is difficult to find an equivalent work of such artistic complexity and brilliance, but simultaneously a work of local selfconfidence effervescing a grounded pride in the customs of Sherborne and the surrounding area.

The British Library made the Sherborne Missal digitally available in its 347-page entirety in late August 2020, as part of its pilot project on Universal Viewer.

Every painted page is lovingly reproduced in highresolution detail. The Missal is a one-off, containing the equivalent of 347 exquisite individual paintings. Its visual extravagance, combined with a deeply thoughtful content that incessantly asserts the central importance of Sherborne to English statehood and culture through its associated Anglo-Saxon saints and abbots, was 42 | Sherborne Times | November 2021

intended to humble the relative ‘upstarts’ such as Salisbury or Westminster Abbey. No wonder that Janet Backhouse, whose monograph on the Missal remains the most important source, compares its importance without hyperbole to the Wilton Diptych, generally regarded as the most important and precious English panel painting of the Middle Ages.

The Sherborne Missal is inextricably linked with Sherborne School. The values it embodies in its pages - of learning, wisdom, faith, precision. The life-giving curiosity of empirical observation and joy in life, values that might surely apply to young life and scholarship today. It is stirring to know that this book, the jewel in the crown of the Abbey, and without compare in all England, would have been admired and shown to guests in spaces that are now the School’s Library and Chapel.

The Missal’s outlier status, exacerbated by its very late entry into the public realm (only entering the British Library from the ducal Northumberland collection in 1998, being elusive until then) can suggest a somewhat distant relation to the School today. But Sherborne >

Image courtesy of The British Museum sherbornetimes.co.uk | 43

School is the natural heir of Sherborne Abbey; the lovingly restored monastic buildings, regular services in the Abbey, and even legally its charitable mission binds it irrevocably to its ecclesiastical predecessor. The Missal is the product of the most sophisticated, learned, and subtle innovations in art gleaned from the courts of Europe. From the banks of the Moldau to the Seine it is an international phenomenon which weaves the latest fashions to suit the liturgical needs of Sherborne, depicting local saints (such as Saint Juthwara) and, indeed, the founder St Aldhelm. The latter demonstrates the sense of continuity that the community of Benedictine monks felt for the older Anglo-Saxon bishopric of Sherborne, as we should feel a continuity with the Abbey before its dissolution.

The Missal is both striking and enthralling; painterartist (‘illuminator’) John Siferwas painted his Abbot Patron Robert Bruyining almost a hundred times in the book, clothed in various rich and gilded vestments and copes, and even surrounded by his hunting hounds.

Siferwas even included two self-portraits, including a strange, almost romantic depiction of himself floating around on the page margin like an angel. It is one of the earliest self-portraits in European art history. It would be churlish to try to steal the crown from the Italian Renaissance and its claim to the rise of the individual artist from medieval obscurity; but the great Michael Levey himself, in his History of Western Art, included John Siferwas’ self-portrait as a strikingly early example of artistic worth and indeed ‘fame’, far from cultivated Mediterranean air.

The second and more famous instance of ‘empirical observation’ in the Missal is, of course, the collection of painted birds on its pages. Their revolutionary naturalism and delicate beauty of execution has made them mascots of Abbey merchandise and go-to Christmas cards! But dated to the very beginning of the 15th century, they are testament to a profound artistic independence and delight in natural observation. Nowhere else at the time do we find flora or fauna painted in such meticulous detail and with accompanying, almost scientific, identification, in this case written in Middle English.

Indeed, they were all feasibly local species, such as the ‘heyron’ or ‘kyngfishere’. Indeed, the robin is described as ‘a roddoke‘ – Dorset dialect for robin. As Janet Backhouse summarises: ‘The late fourteenth century is noted for the rise of realism in painting and for the development of portraiture and of the depiction of the natural world. It was also a great age of vernacular literature in 44 | Sherborne Times | November 2021

England. Both Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales and the final version of William Langland’s Piers Plowman were actually being written while Robert Brunyng was abbot of Sherborne, and John Wycliffe, whose name is synonymous with that of the English translation of the Bible, had died as recently as 1384. It seems entirely appropriate that the Missal, the outstanding English manuscript of the day, should include this extraordinary feature combining observation of the real, contemporary world with the everyday language of local people.’ What Backhouse omits is that these literary masterpieces were of eminently symbolic, medieval character. The birds in the Sherborne Missal rupture this convention, decades before comparable known works (such as Pisanello’s studies); the significance of this collection of paintings in establishing a bridge between medieval and the Renaissance outlook is yet to be researched properly.

In their accuracy and encyclopaedic and descriptive approach, these illustrations anticipate the taxonomic work of Enlightenment naturalists: or is that one comparison too far?

It is this combination of observation and traditional learning which leads experts to believe that the scribe, John Whas (who wrote the letters to John Siferwas’ pictures) was a local monk of Sherborne, again cementing that close relationship to create a happy and breathtaking marriage of the sublime and the modest.

Unsurprisingly, when it came to John Whas crediting himself with writing the manuscript, he chose to inscribe this: John Whas the monk has worked to write this book, and rose early, his body becoming much wasted in the process; a sentiment no doubt shared by some boys at Sherborne past (and perhaps present).

Writing this piece was as a source of inspiration and strength in a year where we were confined to screens, our world became very small, and it became difficult for eyes not to become glazed over and minds not to become jaded by the endless flickering imagery on a laptop or mobile. But imagine the razor-sharp focus of the painter of this book, sustained over whole years, to produce a work of lasting magnificence. Imagine also the social pain of a guest of the Abbot, forcing himself to admire with equal enthusiasm page 347 as he did page 1.

Sherborne Museum now has a fully digitised copy of the Missal; when it opens, Sherborne School’s Art History boys will inspect it and we hope to arrange a special viewing of the original in the British Library. sherborne.org

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DRAWN TO THE LIGHT Gillian Nash

Clifden Nonpareil (Catocala fraxini)

S

ometimes named the blue underwing, you may have been lucky enough to see this large beautiful moth during August and September, its usual flight season. A wingspan of up to 100mm makes this one of the largest and most spectacular moths to be seen in the UK, with the exception of some of our wellknown and more commonly encountered hawk-moth species.

The Clifden nonpareil moth, its name in part meaning ‘beyond compare’, seems never to have been common in the UK, becoming extinct by the 1960s due to habitat loss. More recently, having been regarded only as a very rare immigrant species from continental Europe, records indicate that it could now be breeding in Dorset and some other southern counties. The first record for Dorset was probably dated around 1740 from

the Cranborne area and the specimen is still preserved in a museum collection.

Identification is unmistakable, as the black, deep blue-banded hindwings are revealed in its rapid flight.

With its large size and striking colouration, it was highly prized by collectors in Victorian times. As with other species in the group, once settled its hindwings are instantly concealed by the forewings, forming a large triangular outline, well-camouflaged with a cryptically patterned zigzagged grey design.

Its habitat is broadleaved woodland, where eggs are laid to overwinter on the main food plant, aspen. The night-feeding dull-grey larvae hatch in early summer and when fully grown descend from where they feed high in tree canopies to pupate at ground level among leaf litter held together by a flimsy silken cocoon. sherbornetimes.co.uk | 49

Science & Nature

IS LOCAL ALWAYS BEST? Paula Carnell, Beekeeping Consultant, Writer & Speaker

Beekeeper, New Zealand

D

uring almost every Bee Safari, talk or honey tasting I run the following questions always get asked - should we eat local honey?

And is manuka honey really the best? Both are valid and interesting questions, with naturally not so straightforward answers. Many people, myself included, have taken local honey to ease or prevent the symptoms of hay fever, more often than not with excellent results. It used to really irritate me when someone would pipe up, ‘But the science says there’s no difference between local or not-so-local honey.’ As I learn more about honey, I can certainly understand that not all local honeys are equal.

If your local beekeeper is intensively keeping bees, using chemical treatments, over-manipulating and stressing out the bees, feeding them excessively with sugar, or even if their forage is exposed with toxic agricultural pesticides, then their honey is obviously going to be of a very inferior quality to a beekeeper using more natural techniques and in a toxic-free environment.

50 | Sherborne Times | November 2021

We all have an image of beekeepers as gentle (usually bearded) folk who potter at the end of the garden in their white bee suit with their rustic beehives, maybe puffing some smoke, surrounded by wildflowers and blossoming trees. Sadly, this is not such a common scene, particularly when we understand that 98% of our beautiful wildflower meadows have been destroyed.

Beekeeping now is often a high management battle to maximise honey production whilst using chemical treatments to prevent and treat diseases.

I was interested to get to the bottom of this disagreement regarding honey and hay fever. Oxford University has stated that, ‘Honey is more effective and less harmful than usual care alternatives and avoids causing harm through antimicrobial resistance,’ when used to treat upper respiratory tract infections compared with antibiotics. Hay fever is usually respiratory with symptoms from runny noses and eyes to difficulty in breathing. In 2002, Connecticut University produced a

Flyparade/iStock

study comparing local honey with nationally produced filtered honey and a fructose corn syrup. They found no difference between the results in the double blind trial. The idea is that by taking local honey you would be taking small amounts of the pollen that is perhaps triggering your hay fever. Although on many levels this makes sense, most people’s hay fever is triggered by grass pollen which bees don’t collect. So, why would people still improve from even taking a fructose corn syrup? The results of this study on 23 volunteers who completed the trial showed that actually the placebo group faired best. When further studies on the group included scratch tests on the participants to find which allergens they reacted to, only 14 were genuinely suffering with a pollen allergy. The other consideration was that participants only started taking the honey in March, which may not have been early enough to truly have made a difference.

A later study in Finland was undertaken to test

participants taking birch pollen honey to assist with the allergy which affects between 10 and 15% of the Finnish population. The dose of birch honey, non-birch honey and a fake honey was begun in November and increased gradually. The results showed that both the groups taking honey had substantially reduced hay fever symptoms compared with the control group. The birch honey group had a marginally reduced amount of symptoms (44%) to the other honey group (38%). This shows that there is something in honey which helps with allergic reactions.

Flavonoids and polyphenols, which act as antioxidants, are two main bioactive molecules present in honey.

Antioxidants help in neutralising the free radicals in the body. So I do believe that any raw honey is good for you, its quality determined by the quality of the plants the bees forage on.

This brings me nicely onto manuka honey. From what I’ve written so far, we can see that wild manuka plants growing on the rich volcanic and pure New Zealand soil is going to have quite an impact on the honey the bees produce whilst foraging on these plants.

In my book ‘Artist to Bees’ I discuss the importance of wildly-sown seeds and plants as they process deeply settled metallic minerals in the soil. Also, an abundance of a single plant source is important to the bees. Wild manuka-covered mountains are fine examples of a super environment to produce fine honey. Small clumps of relocated or introduced plants in the form of gardens, is not going to produce honeys of the same quality.

Our ancient trees, hedgerows and wildflower meadows are what the bees favour and thrive on as shown by the Welsh Botanic Gardens research (also mentioned previously and in my book).

However, there is an extra special ingredient found in manuka honey, not found in others. The compound Methylglyoxal (MGO) is only found in manuka honey.

MGO is derived from another chemical compound Dihydroxyacetone (DHA) which is found in manuka tree nectar. The higher the MGO content, the more medicinal the manuka honey. I am very excited to be increasing my range of honeys to include a pure manuka honey from a company of New Zealand beekeepers called Zealandia – they are also working on testing the bioactive components of other varieties of honeys from around the world. Wouldn’t it be fantastic if we found that our own local dandelions could produce a honey to compare with manuka? paulacarnell.com sherbornetimes.co.uk | 51

Science & Nature

A CHANCE FOR CHANGE, OR COP OUT? Peter Littlewood, Director, Young People’s Trust for the Environment

I

n December 2015, the then-President of the United States, Barack Obama, described the historic agreement setting out the world’s ambitions on tackling climate change as ‘the best chance to save the one planet we have.’ The agreement was reached at the United Nations’ 21st ‘Conference of the Parties’ on climate change, which took place in Paris (COP21).

During the first couple of weeks this November, COP26 takes place in Glasgow. It should be the time and place for national governments across the world to set out their plans for reducing greenhouse gas emissions in line with the terms of 2015’s Paris agreement on climate change.

Scientists tell us that to have a hope of keeping global temperature increases to below 1.5C, we need to halve the world’s greenhouse gas emissions by 2030.

But commitments tabled by the world’s governments in advance of COP26 will actually lead to a net increase in emissions of around 16% by 2030, so it seems we have a very long way to go.

With wildfires raging in Siberia and California; Cyclone Shaheen making landfall in Oman in early October - Oman’s first cyclone in 130 years; and with the Greenland ice sheet losing 8.5 billion tonnes of ice in one day alone this July, the signs of climate change are everywhere for us to see.

52 | Sherborne Times | November 2021

Boris has done his best to make us feel better, telling the United Nations in New York that he disagreed with Kermit the Frog when he sang ‘It isn’t easy being green.’ But his proposed solution - green growth - is a contradiction. To have economic growth, you have to make more widgets that people want. Now, those widgets might well have a green purpose, but obtaining the raw materials from which you make your widgets will almost certainly involve more environmental damage. For example, the climate crisis is now being used by some companies as a justification for mining the ocean bed for the minerals we need to build components for new, green machines.

Economic ‘growth’ - whether green or not - isn’t the solution. It’s actually the problem. Politicians around the world are constantly pushing for greater growth, for growing their economies, for increasing their countries’ wealth, but this growth almost always comes at the expense of the planet, and of future generations, who will be left to sort out the mess. How can we break this cycle of economic growth? Is it a challenge that humanity can collectively meet, or is it something that will only change when catastrophe strikes?

The ‘limits to growth’ theory, originated by scientists from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)

The Scottish Event Campus, Glasgow - host to the 26th UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP26)

in the early 1970s, warned that civilisation would collapse if the planet saw continuous economic and population growth. A recent study by KPMG analyst Gaya Herrington, published in the Yale Journal of Industrial Ecology, has re-examined the limits to growth theory and found its predictions to be right on schedule, with civilisation as we know it on track for decline, with a possible drop in living standards coming as soon as 2040 and reaching a low in 2050.

If you think about it, it’s something you can see coming. Preventing it from happening is one of the biggest challenges of the modern age, though it’s not something that’s getting talked about very much. But with levels of eco-anxiety - fear of environmental doom - running at 57% in England’s children according to a 2020 survey of child psychiatrists, the crisis we face is something that is troubling more and more young people. And as Greta Thunberg and many others have pointed out, the world’s governments don’t seem to be listening, and even if they do listen, they don’t act fast enough. Ms Thunberg dismissed the promises of the world’s leaders as ‘blah, blah, blah.’

And sadly, she appears to be right. COP26 should be a fantastic opportunity for our leaders to take a stand, to show real leadership and to map out the pathway

to a more sustainable future. A future in which young people can look forward in confidence to lives lived in a society that is more in harmony with the planet. But will they actually step up and make the commitments that will bring about real change, significant emissions reductions and begin to enable not growth, but recovery? By the middle of November, we’ll know…

As for eco-anxiety, the solutions appear to be arming yourself with as much knowledge as possible about climate adaptation and mitigation, connecting more with nature, making more green choices at an individual level and joining groups of likeminded people. YPTE has produced an information pack on climate change for parents ypte.org.uk/content/climate-change-forparents-the-facts, which you might find useful if your children are showing signs of eco-anxiety.

The good news is that we do all have the power to make a difference as individuals, and it’s already happening in so many ways. But changing the system – that’s a much bigger challenge and it often feels like we’re lacking the leadership to make it happen. ypte.org.uk YPTE is an official NGO Observer organisation for COP26. sherbornetimes.co.uk | 53

Science & Nature

THE SCIENCE OF PLANT DISEASES Simon Webster, Sherborne Science Cafe

BENPOL/shutterstock

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n a resumption of its usual, pre-pandemic schedule, The Science Café welcomed Professor Geoff Dixon, horticulturist, microbiologist (mainly of soil-borne diseases), keen gardener, owner of GreenGene International, providing consultancy to agricultural sectors, and member of the School of Agriculture at Reading University, to speak about plant diseases. His presentation covered the subject in general and specifically, clubroot (Plasmodiophora brassicae) in brassicas as a case study. Plant science is hands-on, demanding great investigative powers in the laboratory and excellent practical skills in the field, hence requiring scientists to have ‘one foot in the furrow, one hand in the laboratory’.

54 | Sherborne Times | November 2021

Like diseases and epidemics which occur amongst faunal populations, think Covid, plant diseases are similar agents of opportunity, targeting a population of susceptible hosts large and vulnerable enough for the disease to get a firm hold. Notable diseases today in wild stocks are Ash Dieback Disease (Hymenoscyphus fraxineus), Dutch Elm Disease (ascomycete microfungi) and Sudden Oak Death (Phytophthora ramorum). Even casual gardeners are confronted with agents of infection. At this time of the year, black spot on roses (Diplocarpon rosae) and pear scab (Venturia pyrina) are evident. Responses are initiated, in wild plants, through evolutionary change, but in agricultural crops, carefully husbanded by their

human protectors, once an infective agent is identified, many more options of control are available.

Historically, in agricultural crops, the ravages of disease are nothing new. The Romans contended with rust on cereals; ergotism, until modern times, was not an infrequent intrusion into the life of agriculturists causing St Anthony’s Fire; and European vineyards were hit hugely by insect and mildews attacks in the 19th century (investigated by Louis Pasteur).

Causative agents of disease include fungi, viruses, bacteria, mycoplasmas and protists. The first three are familiar, mycoplasmas and protists less so. Mycoplasmalike organisms are parasitic and generally considered to be somewhere between bacteria and viruses in size, shape and function with a lack of both cell wall and nucleus. A protist is a eukaryotic organism that is not a plant, animal or fungus, probably sharing a common ancestor, although as protists are a grouping of convenience, some may be more related to animals, plants or fungi than to other protists. Examples include amoebas, Phytophthora (cause of the Irish potato famine) and slime moulds.

Globally, brassicas are an extremely important crop, secondary only to cereals, and encompass cabbages, turnips, mustards, watercress, nasturtiums to name but a few.

Brassica crops provide the greatest diversity of agricultural products derived from a single genus. They deliver leaf, flower and root vegetables that are eaten fresh, cooked and processed; used as fodder and forage, contributing over-wintering supplies for meat- and milk-producing domesticated animals; sources of protein and oil used in low-fat edible products, for illumination and industrial lubricants; condiments such as mustard, herbs and other flavourings; and soil conditioners such as green manure and composting crops. Arabidopsis thaliana, another brassica, is a rather insignificant weed with little direct significance for agriculture, but several traits make it an indispensable model for understanding the genetic, cellular, and molecular biology of flowering plants. It was the first plant genome to be decoded.

To illustrate the challenges of disease identification and management, Professor Dixon used the example of the protist, clubroot (Plasmodiophora brassicae) in brassicas. Reports of clubroot extend back to the 13th century. It was first described in detail in 1860

by Russian scientist Mikhail Voronin, in response to a severe outbreak in St Petersburg. In the Russian

agricultural system, brassicas were critically important crops providing summer food for animals and a stored crop to get the population through the severe winters.

There are no licensed chemicals that can be used to control P. brassicae, at least in Europe, due to detrimental environmental effects. The concept of ‘Integrated Management’ is used to mitigate its effect.

With no single action able to tackle the problem, many different strategies, each giving the plant a slight advantage are advocated, with the expectation that when combined, or integrated, the overall effect will be significant. Studies are monitored by controlled field experiments, field trials and trudging through farmers’ fields to make the necessary observations. The best defence against P. brassicae is to avoid getting it in the first place by protecting against its importation to unaffected areas.

Historically, early farmers will have observed that P. brassicae is a disease of acid, not alkaline, soils and will have noted that liming the soil, thereby increasing its pH (i.e. increasing alkalinity) will have controlled the ravages of the disease. Modern science indicates that a pH of 7.2-7.4 is probably ideal – any higher restricts the availability of micro-nutrients, particularly manganese. For it to be immediately active, lime must be either CaO or Ca(OH)2, known as slaked lime.

Many now-defunct lime kilns can be seen today on ports along the South West coast, where limestone, brought in by ship, was burnt with coal to produce slaked lime for local farmers.

The science of plant diseases provides a key approach in maintaining crop yields in a world where human population pressures mean that a significant proportion of humanity is malnourished. Climate change is now happening at a rate much faster than for many tens of millions of years. However, plant diseases seem very adept at taking advantage of this.

Whilst effective techniques exist to mitigate against infective agents, plant diseases are currently winning the war of attrition with scientists. sherbornesciencecafe.com

___________________________________________ Wednesday 24th November 7.30pm The Geology around Sherborne A Talk with Professor John Wicher Digby Memorial Hall, Digby Rd, Sherborne DT9 3NL sherborne.scafe@gmail.com

___________________________________________ sherbornetimes.co.uk | 55

On Foot

56 | Sherborne Times | November 2021

On Foot

HOOKE PARK AND NORTH POORTON Emma Tabor and Paul Newman

Distance: 2½ miles Time: Approx. 1¼ hours Parking: Limited parking available on lane at the start of the walk.

Walk features: An easy, gentle ramble in this extensively wooded corner of West Dorset, exploring part of the grounds of Hooke Park. The walk is fairly straightforward with no steep sections but it is very muddy in a couple of places. The route also takes in the hamlet of North Poorton and its fine church.

Refreshments: The Three Horseshoes, Powerstock >

sherbornetimes.co.uk | 57

On Foot

E

ach month we devise a walk for you to try with your family and friends (including four-legged members) pointing out a few interesting things along the way, be it flora, fauna, architecture, history, the unusual and sometimes the unfamiliar. For November, we explore the quiet, secretive lanes of West Dorset, an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, delving into the woods surrounding the Architectural Association’s Dorset woodland site. It is an ideal autumn walk, gentle, with some wilder sections and there are some good prospects over other parts of West Dorset. It’s also wonderfully remote, with a sense of removal from everyday life.

This walk will link up with another nearby walk from Mapperton House (Sherborne Times March '21 edition), to make a more challenging figure-of-eight loop through this secluded corner of the county.

Directions

Start: SY 529 987. Find a space to park on the lane which leads from North Poorton around the eastern edge of Hooke Park. Spaces are limited so you will have to use your discretion as to where you park. Please park responsibly and observe any safety notices as you walk around the park.

58 | Sherborne Times | November 2021

1 Head uphill away from where you’ve parked and look for a footpath sign on the right-hand side of the road (marked Jubilee Trail). Turn right onto the path and head slightly downhill. The path is muddy in places. Keep heading along a grassy forest track for about ¼ mile, which is waymarked. Look out for jays and woodpeckers here. You will soon reach a broken stile; go over this and continue through mixed woodland towards open fields. Cross another stile with a Jubilee Trail marker into the field and then head straight across, aiming to the left of a line of trees and towards a stile in the hedge approximately 250 yards ahead. There are great views towards Lewesdon Hill on the right and the field is peppered with some lovely examples of solitary oaks.

2 Cross over the stile and then head across this next field towards another stile in the hedge about 100 yards ahead, keeping parallel with the hedge on the right. Cross this stile to enter another field and then start to head downhill, cutting diagonally across towards the left corner and to the left of a bungalow.

Look for a double stile in the corner. Climb this to enter a small paddock next to the bungalow. At the bottom of the paddock, go through a large metal gate and turn left onto a small road.

3 Pass by a beautiful thatched farmhouse on your right and, after a few yards, turn right just before the T-junction - this takes you towards the church in North Poorton, with its distinctive minaret tower and spire. The church, dedicated to St Mary Magdalene, was designed by Dorchester Architect John Hicks in 1861, using stone from the nearby ruined church of St Nicholas. After visiting the church, the road bends round to the right, passing the farm on the right. Where the road then bends to the left, take the track off to the right and in a few yards bear right again and follow the track back down towards the road to meet the bungalow you passed earlier. Here, turn left to follow the road downhill. After 100 yards, where the road bends left, turn right onto a bridleway, ignoring the path into the field ahead. Go through a tricky section of undergrowth, with a small brook - you’ll then see a small metal gate leading into a tree-lined holloway.

4 Enter the holloway, which is quite muddy in places but wonderfully enclosed and unexpected. The path starts to climb, with a small ravine to your right. The way is lined with a variety of tree species and ferns and has a magical, subterranean feel to it. At the top of this path, you emerge into a field through another

small metal gate. Bear slight left to the far corner - this is the far side of the same field you passed through near the beginning of the walk. Go through the large metal gate in the top corner into another field and then keep right, along the fence which borders the wood. This heads down until you meet a bridleway sign after 150 yards which takes you back into Hooke Park Forest. Go to the right of the sign, dropping down into the woods, keeping a barbed wire fence on your right and ignoring any paths off to the left. You will soon reach a small wooden footbridge at the bottom. Climb up the path on the other side, continuing to walk through woodland.

Keep on this for about 150 yards until you reach the main track running through the park. Turn right onto this and follow the track back out towards the road, looking out for some of the incredible structures which have been built by students from the school but please respect the privacy notices as this track is not a public right of way. Keep straight on, ignoring where the track bends round to the left, to meet the road. Turn right onto the road and head downhill back to where you have parked. aaschool.ac.uk sherbornetimes.co.uk | 59

History

LOST DORSET

NO. 17 SHERBORNE

W

David Burnett, The Dovecote Press

est Mill, West Mill Lane, on the River Yeo, about 1900. Anyone taking a redundant sofa to the Sherborne Household Recycling Centre in West Mill Lane and curious as to the name should continue on to its end. There, they will find the subject of this postcard, now smothered in ivy, its mill wheel silent, and the building tragically all but derelict. The early 18th century flour mill closed in the early 1950s. As Sherborne’s only surviving mill, and Grade II listed, an attempt was made to ‘restore’ it by the boys of Sherborne School in 1979 with the intention of turning it into an exhibition centre. But 40 years have passed, the mill’s condition has worsened, so now perhaps is the moment for another generation of young people to pick up the baton and help bring one of the last survivors of Sherborne’s industrial past back to life.

Lost Dorset: The Towns 1880-1920, the companion volume to Lost Dorset: The Villages and Countryside, is being published in early November as a 220 page large format hardback, price £20, and will be available locally from Winstone’s Books or directly from the publishers. dovecotepress.com

60 | Sherborne Times | November 2021

D I S C O V E R | E AT | S H O P | S TAY | C E L E B R AT E

Welcome to Symondsbury Estate, set in the beautiful Dorset countryside just a stone’s throw from the Jurassic Coast. Join us for lunch. Browse our shops.

Visit the gallery. Explore our fabulous walks and bike trails. Relax and unwind in our holiday accommodation. Celebrate your wedding day...

DATES FOR YOUR DIARY Symondsbury Estate Christmas Market Saturday 4th - Sunday 5th December 2021 +44 (0)1308 424116 symondsburyestate.co.uk Symondsbury Estate, Bridport, Dorset DT6 6HG

History

DORSET’S WITCHES Cindy Chant and John Drabik

4LUCK/Shutterstock

D

uring the 16th and 17th centuries tens of thousands of innocent women were needlessly killed throughout Europe. The distinction between the malicious Satanic ‘Black Witch’ and the healing wise woman, or ‘White Witch’, was blurred. It did not take much to have the accusing finger pointed, and a cruel trial would await, with torture, beatings and coerced confessions, leaving little chance of escaping a horrendous execution. A guilty verdict meant the poor souls were burnt alive, sometimes throttled or hung, often within sight of an ignorant, baying crowd.

Miz Maze in Leigh, once an ancient ‘Hedge Maze’, is on high ground and was undoubtedly used for fetes and festivals. But Mazes were also used for meditation and empowerment, and here, it is reputed, witches would meet. Some say a witch was arrested at Miz Maze, taken to Dorchester for trial, and then suffered the inevitable execution by throttling and burning at Maumbury Rings. While others say a witch was hanged where the old cross stands in the village.

But who were these witches?

Being single, elderly or eccentric, or living off your wits and knowledge of the countryside. Or if you made tinctures and herbal drinks, or were the one whose skills were sought during childbirth. Or if you predicted 62 | Sherborne Times | November 2021

events which later came true, you would be in danger, as this was considered suspect behaviour and could qualify you as being in league with the Devil. Even owning a cat, or any other pet, could link you to Satan, as the animal was considered to be a ‘familiar’, assisting you in diabolical deeds.

A vindictive neighbour could bring accusations and charges, as in the tale of O’l Ann Riggs, who lived in poverty, in a ramshackle hut, in the shadow of Cheselbourne church. A local farmer objected to Ann trespassing on his land in her relentless search for firewood. Wanting rid of her, he claimed she rode his horses throughout the night, as he found them covered in sweat in the morning. Nine had died of exhaustion in one week! Ann was accused of witchcraft, and tried by ‘ducking’. This entailed being tied to a purpose-built ducking stool, or dragged along the river with hands tightly bound to the feet. Those who survived this barbaric trial were considered guilty, as the Devil must surely be involved. Most however, drowned. The stream in Cheselbourne was considered too shallow for this purpose, so poor Ann Riggs was taken further downstream towards Dorchester. She was buried outside of consecrated ground. Years later, the villagers regretted their actions and extended the

churchyard, to include her within it.

Amid the persecution of witches in the 17th century, people were encouraged to take matters into their own hands, arming themselves with a variety of charms and prayers to ward off spells and to keep witches away. Piercing a bullock’s heart with pins and nails, and placing this high up in a chimney was common, as was hanging a horseshoe above the front door. Placing a birch broom across a doorway, or ringing a bell, was also said to keep them away.

But for those believing they were ‘bewitched’ or ‘overlooked’ and who felt they needed to counteract the spell, the best course of action was to, ‘bleed the witch’. This would necessitate the use of sharp implements, knives, or horseshoe nails. In 1605 the unfortunate Joan Guppie, from Stoke Abbott, was subjected to the most horrendous attack. Joan was a reputable healer, but was accused of witchcraft by a neighbour claiming to be the recipient of her spell.

One day the neighbour, her family, and some friends, lay in wait as Joan rode to market. They attacked her, stabbing her about the legs and body before dragging her off her horse. Then they viciously and brutally set upon her. They slashed and stabbed, at her face, with needles and nails and then deeply scratched her by dragging thick thorny brambles over her body, leaving her badly bleeding and disfigured. Fortunately, many of the villagers sang her praises and the local farmers thought highly of her. Joan Guppie was found innocent and lived to tell the tale.

As late as 1884 there was an alleged case of ‘witchery’ in Coldharbour, Sherborne. Tamar Humphries, whose daughter was crippled with rheumatism was accused of a disgraceful assault on an inoffensive 83-year-old neighbour, Sarah Smith: ‘Oh! You Sal Smith, what’s thee done to my child?

You’re a witch, and I’ll draw the blood of thee’ And then she ruthlessly, and repeatedly, stabbed her with a darning needle, believing this would break any bewitchment. Tamar Humphries was found guilty and fined £1, a considerable amount of money in those days.

We no longer hear tales of screeching hags riding across the night skies on their broomsticks, but uncanny happenings and beliefs in the traditions of bygone days still abound a plenty in this ancient kingdom of Wessex.

Cindy and John are offering customised tours of Dorset’s Sacred Sites. Contact them on dorsetchikung@hotmail.co.uk for more information.

FREE HOME VISITS Specialist Matthew Denney will be in the Sherborne area on Thursday 25th November to value your objects & antiques

Consigning Now for our Winter Sales Silver | Vertu | Jewellery | Watches | Ceramics Oriental | Pictures | Furniture | Clocks | Rugs Books | Coins | Medals | Militaria | Collectors

FREE VALUATIONS ALSO AVAILABLE

Online | Phone | Email | Whatsapp To make an appointment call or email 01460 73041 matthew.denney@lawrences.co.uk Professional Valuations Available for Probate & Insurance Complete House Contents & Attic Clearances Arranged

lawrences.co.uk sherbornetimes.co.uk | 63

History OBJECT OF THE MONTH

THE JESTY PORTRAIT Elisabeth Bletsoe, Curator, Sherborne Museum

A

s we begin to return to a more usual way of life, enabled by our ‘double Covid jabs’ we should spare a thought for Benjamin Jesty (17361816), Yetminster farmer and pioneer vaccinator. Inspired by the old folk wisdom that dairy maids had notoriously clear skin because they rarely caught smallpox, Jesty worked on the principle that their exposure to the milder infection of cowpox was the answer.

Smallpox was a global virus, which resulted in frequent epidemics, with the young being particularly susceptible. The pustules which formed on the skin often led to severe scarring in survivors.

Jesty felt confident he could protect his family, by using an earlier method of inoculation that used matter from actual smallpox pustules, which was hazardous at best, but substituting this material with cowpox. During an outbreak in 1774, he took his wife and two sons to a field near Chetnole where he knew there were some cattle with pox marks on their udders and, employing a long sharp needle normally used for knitting hosiery, he introduced the infectious matter under his wife’s skin near the elbow. He then did the same for his sons. The local doctor pronounced that Jesty had, ‘done a bold thing’; word quickly spread, causing Jesty to be viewed with suspicion in his community, possibly because the introduction of animal matter into a human body broke many contemporary religious and ethical taboos. The three vaccinees, however, remained permanently free of the smallpox virus, despite further exposure to epidemics.

Jesty later moved from Upbury Farm in Yetminster to Downshay Manor near Swanage, and there is evidence he performed more vaccinations. During the 1790s, Dr. Edward Jenner, from Gloucester, who had been thinking along similar lines, was also beginning 64 | Sherborne Times | November 2021

to experiment. He published a paper on the subject, a pivotal event in his life, and, after initial disinterest, gradually gained more and more support so that vaccine lymph preparation began to be distributed throughout England and Europe. Jenner chose to make his work freely available, receiving two large sums of money from the government and world-wide recognition. Only later, after a medical acquaintance interceded on his behalf, was Jesty invited to The Vaccine Pock Institution near Charing Cross, London.

Typically, he went on horseback wearing his usual farming clothes. After close cross-questioning, 12 of the Institute’s examining officers signed a statement commemorating the efficacy of Jesty’s cowpox vaccinations. Despite both men initially receiving hostility towards their ideas, clearly Jenner had the advantage over Jesty because he was able to publish his work and be heard by influential members of his own class. He was also able to discuss his experiments and be supported in further work to prove them.

Benjamin Jesty died in April 1816 and lies, with his wife, in the churchyard of St. Nicholas of Myra, Worth Matravers. His epitaph gives posthumous recognition of his achievements. This portrait is a digital copy made from an original oil painting by M.W. Sharp, 1805, housed in the Wellcome Library Catalogue, No.654136i. It was kindly presented to the museum by several descendants of the family.

By the time of reading we sincerely hope that Sherborne Museum will be open, subject to the availability of our front-of-house volunteers. Please see our website for up-to-date details. sherbornemuseum.co.uk

CHARTERHOUSE Auctioneers & Valuers

Forthcoming Auction Programme

Silver, Jewellery & Watches 4th November Asian Art, Antiques & Interiors 5th November Coins, Medals & Stamps with Clocks, Model Cars, Trains and Toys 2nd December Clocks & Collector’s Items with Antiques and Interiors 3rd December Further entries invited

A large diamond solitaire ring of nearly 6ct in our November 4th jewellery auction £25,000-30,000

Contact Richard Bromell for advice on single items and complete collections Valuations for Probate and Insurance

The Long Street Salerooms, Sherborne DT9 3BS 01935 812277 www.charterhouse-auction.com

Affordable interior fabrics thefabricbarn.co.uk

01935 851025 sherbornetimes.co.uk | 65

Antiques

CLOCK THIS Richard Bromell ASFAV, Charterhouse Auctioneers

I

have always had more than a passing interest in timepieces, not that I am always on time.

In our sales we regularly hold specialist auctions of clocks and watches, but no markets stay the same.

Generally, over the past few years the values of watches has risen and the values of some clocks, by no means all, have softened – which is our code for fallen.

I have said here before that I do not have a crystal ball and can no more predict the future than the person standing next to me. As such, I have always bought what I liked rather than what The Joneses next door are into.

Recently, I had a bit of a change around at home and sold a clock I bought 21 years ago. For most of this the clock kept the time right twice a day – in other words it did not work. This always annoyed Mrs B as she could not see the point of having something in the house that didn’t work, but there again I do not understand the need for multiple hand bags, jackets and shoes.

Thankfully, I did not buy the clock as an investment.

Despite owning (and enjoying) the clock for over 20 years, it sold for less than what I paid for it, but this is where the market is in 2021 and where we need to help and give advice to our clients.

As in all markets, values go up and down. We generally remember when markets fall rather than when they rise, I guess it is just human nature, and yes, I have already bought another clock to replace the one I sold, 66 | Sherborne Times | November 2021

which I hope to get going, one day…

Recently, we were instructed to clear a property in Dorset. It was classically furnished with Georgian mahogany chests of drawers, Victorian wardrobes, Art Deco porcelain tea sets and the like. The family had been through the house and selected the items they wished to keep, either for the memories attached to the items or because they would be useful. The remaining items we were asked to put into a series of specialist auctions.

For me, one item stood out, literally. This was not because it was the tallest lot in the house, but because it was a clock and as said above, I do love a clock.

The clock itself is not particularly old. It dates to around 1905 in the Edwardian period, is in the late 18th century George III taste, and is in super working condition. In addition, it has the unusual feature of being a musical longcase clock.

It has the ability to chime on eight bells or sing Westminster chimes. Equally, you can choose the silent setting if you do not want to hear the bells and gongs going off throughout the night.

Entered into our December two-day auction, including a special clock section, Mrs B has already given me instructions not to come home with this clock, even though it works! charterhouse-auction.com

The Joinery Works, Alweston Sherborne, Dorset DT9 5HS Tel: 01963 23219 Fax: 01963 23053 Email: info@fcuffandsons.co.uk

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68 | Sherborne Times | November 2021

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sherbornetimes.co.uk | 69

Gardening

Bachkova Natalia/Shutterstock

70 | Sherborne Times | November 2021

CAN YOU DIG IT?

T

Mike Burks, Managing Director, The Gardens Group and Chairman, the Garden Centre Association

raditional gardeners will be turning their thoughts to improving the soil in their vegetable gardens prior to the winter. The thinking is that cultivation of soils in the autumn, particularly clay, will lead to the frost breaking the clay down over the winter.

But many gardeners see digging as either unnecessary, or worse, as something which will damage the soil rather than improve it. Certainly, trampling on the soil as we work messes up the structure and that is well understood. I remember a visit to an experimental horticultural station and looking at a trial of parsnip beds with different levels of compaction; from manual digging and cultivation, through rotovator and tractor, with the last plot being worked using a boom over the crop to avoid any activity around the produce. In the latter bed the size of parsnips were huge, showing how soil compaction can affect yield. It’s all about the spaces within the soil in which air, water and roots can easily move.

There is a ‘no dig’ revolution going on which sounds like a great excuse for the lazy, but in brief involves laying of natural mulches on the surface of the soil. Such mulches include wellrotted manure, bagged soil improvers, such as Bloomin’ Amazing and Rocket Grow, and your own garden compost from compost bins.

If you haven’t got a compost bin then invest in one immediately – or better still, three; one for this season’s debris, one that is composting from last season and one that you’re using on the garden now. It’s a great way of producing free material to improve your soil and is environmentally sound, not requiring expensive trucks to heave your waste to a land fill site.

Such material will keep the soil warm, reduce weed growth by preventing seed from blowing in and act as a protective layer against the pounding of torrential rain, while also gently breaking down and becoming incorporated into the soil. This will improve its structure and keep the soil alive with microorganisms, bacteria and mycorrhizal fungi, making the soil a living ecosystem which will lead to healthy and robust crops.

The importance of protecting the soil from erosion cannot be overstated in our current climate and many farmers understand this and adopt systems including not ploughing after some crops and just sowing directly into the stubble left by the previous crop. This not only reduces fuel costs but also preserves the soil structure stopping erosion from the heavy almost monsoon-like rain which is sadly a feature of modern times.

However, if you aren’t convinced and still enjoy a day outside with a garden fork (after all it’s better for you than a visit to the gym) then you might be interested in a few of my tips. The first of these is to stay clean. Especially in clay soils should your boots start becoming three times the size they were before you started, due to lumps of clay attaching themselves, then you are damaging the soil. To avoid this either stop and come to the garden centre instead, or wait for a drier day. Alternatively, spread lots of the organic material described earlier to a two to three inch depth on top of the soil and stand on that whilst you dig. You’ll stay clean and the soil will be improved. The garden can be a wonderful place on a crisp autumn day and it’s great to be out there, but choose your tasks carefully so that your garden improves at the same time. thegardensgroup.co.uk

sherbornetimes.co.uk | 71

Gardening

NEST BOXES

Simon Ford, Gardener and Land and Nature Adviser

I

t is the time of year when many of us start thinking about Christmas presents. My aim is to either buy them from our independent retailers in Sherborne or to try to make them.

This article will hopefully give you some ideas of things you could make for your friends and family for their gardens.

It’s not just the human race which has been having a hard time of it recently - nature too has been struggling and we need to do all we can to help provide a helping hand. In an ideal world, there would be ample places for animals, insects and birds to nest, roost or hibernate. However, this is often not the case, as we have felled the lovely old trees with hollows or converted barns to luxury dwellings or ploughed up the patch of rough grassland. This is our chance to put something back and in return, enjoy watching wildlife bring up a family in our gardens and fields.

Some people are very handy with saws and drills, while others are less so and therefore I will give some examples that everyone can have a go at. (If not, you can cheat and buy some great products at places like Castle Gardens!)

What probably first springs to mind are nest boxes.

These are quite easy to make with some basic carpentry skills and are an excellent project to involve children with. The RSPB and British Trust for Ornithology have useful instructions on their websites to help in your design. Some birds such as blue tits like boxes with small holes, while I have successfully used an old tea chest on its side strapped to a tree or in the crook of a barn for species such as the barn owl and birds of prey. Children might like to paint or decorate the bird boxes to personalise them. Remember though, boxes need to be out of reach of predators such as cats and should not be in full sun, as the young can get too hot and dehydrate.

One group of birds which are having a particularly torrid time are swifts, which we can see screeching around Sherborne Abbey like a gang of unruly teenagers during the summer. Our hermetically-sealed houses have meant that the voids under the eaves where they previously nested, are no longer available. However, 72 | Sherborne Times | November 2021

Gabor Tinz/Shutterstock

it is possible to make or buy swift nest boxes which can be placed under the eaves.

Bats are another group of animals which need a hand and their boxes are very similar to bird boxes, but instead of a hole at the front, a narrow slot is left under the box for them to squeeze through. If you are lucky enough to have woodland, especially hazel, you could make a ‘reverse bird box’, with a small hole at the rear, giving access for this beautiful animal to climb up the trunk and enter the box. Hedgehogs are a delight to have and would naturally nest at the base of an old shed or amongst fallen branches. You can buy purpose-built boxes, but you can also make them easily with a few old bricks, covered in a tile or slate, leaving an entrance for them and filling it with some old dry grass or leaves. Place it in a quiet,

shady position under some shrubs or under a shed.

Something you may have seen on your travels is a ‘bug hotel’. This can be as simple or complicated as you wish and is basically a cluster of twigs, bamboo, wood shavings or old crocks, put inside a wooden box or an old, clay plant pot and placed in a sunny spot where wild bees and solitary wasps can lay their eggs and seal the void with clay or leaves. A similar bug home can be made by finding a log or a domestic brick and drilling a series of holes of different diameters, about two or three centimetres deep.

One of the simplest wildlife homes you can make, is to find an old sheet of corrugated iron or a piece of carpet. Place it in a sunny spot and you might attract a mixture of animals, from slow worms to frog and toads to small mammals such as wood mice, which

will shelter underneath the warm protective covering.

Equally good is to create a ‘dead wood habitat’, by finding a cool, damp spot under a tree or shrub, where logs (or rocks) are piled onto the ground, making an excellent spot for newts and amphibians to hide.

I hope that this gives you some ideas of what you can do as a Christmas present and to help nature where you live. Believe me that if you create something, you will be rewarded by watching a range of animals, insects and birds rearing their young. simonfordgardening.wordpress.com rspb.org.uk bto.org bats.org.uk mammal.org.uk sherbornetimes.co.uk | 73

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74 | Sherborne Times | November 2021

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DORSET AND SOMERSET AIR AMBULANCE Words Jo Denbury Photography Katharine Davies

B

ack in the day when I was a journalist living in London, I witnessed a horrific accident involving a motorbike and a truck. It was at a crossroads in central London that is known as Cambridge Circus. As the poor injured motorcyclist lay tangled on the ground, an off-duty doctor stopped to help him. The rest of us stood, straining our ears for the siren of the ambulance, praying that the gridlocked, static traffic would somehow part and let it through. Instead, we heard a heavy, deafening hum, felt the downwash and looked up to see an air ambulance slowly lowering itself into the middle of the crossroads close to the patient. How that pilot brought the helicopter down between the tightly stacked Dickensian buildings I will never know but as soon as it landed out jumped a doctor and paramedic and within minutes the patient was on a drip, stretchered into the helicopter and rushing skywards to one of the city’s hospitals. I can only hope his life was saved. >

76 | Sherborne Times | November 2021

sherbornetimes.co.uk | 77

Dr James Keegan

Scott Armstrong 78 | Sherborne Times | November 2021

Dr Eimile Howlin

Matt Sawyer

Kirsty Caswell (L) and Jo Petheram (R)

That image sticks with me as I arrive at the gates of Henstridge Airfield to interview the team behind the Dorset and Somerset Air Ambulance. Not many of us know that most of the air ambulances in the UK are entirely funded by charity, not the government or the NHS. I am mulling on this fact as I sit in my car waiting to be allowed on to the airfield when I hear the same familiar heavy hum. Three people dressed in red are striding to a bright yellow helicopter, its rotors already turning and in seconds it is up, rising into the misty autumn sky and gone. When I get to the hangar, I discover that this is their second call-out today. It is 10am on a Monday.

The Dorset and Somerset Air Ambulance, through both its helicopter and the outreach car service provides a pre-hospital critical care service across the region. In the three months leading up to March this year, just over half (52%) of their work was defined as ‘trauma’, 23% related to cardiac, 23% was medical and 2% was the transferral of patients from one hospital to another.

In a rural community such as ours, we’re reliant on emergency services that can land in areas inaccessible by road. A farming or riding accident rarely happens somewhere conveniently reached.

Back at the hangar the helicopter has returned and while the critical care team go to restock the medical equipment I find the pilot, Scott Armstrong, checking over the aircraft. Sherborne-based Scott trained as a helicopter pilot with the Royal Navy. ‘I left school and was looking for something different to do,’ he smiles.

Scott promptly joined the Royal Navy and spent 26 years flying helicopters with the Fleet Air Arm, rising to the rank of Commander. ‘It took me four years to become fully qualified but the Navy has a system of constant assessment, so in effect you are passing the qualification every day.’ Scott retired from the Navy in 2017 and went about looking for a new role, ideally close to Sherborne, that would utilise the skills he had learned as a pilot. ‘The air ambulance appealed as it involves challenging flying while ultimately doing a lot of good for the community. Every time we fly, we’re on our way to someone in a critical state. Being able to help someone in that situation gives us all a massive sense of satisfaction – it’s probably my dream job.’ The navigational acumen required to pilot an air ambulance is clearly a forte as he enthuses, ‘The key is to get the Critical Care Team as close to the incident as I can in the safest manner. We have very little time to plan, > sherbornetimes.co.uk | 79

so we have to work out where to land for the team’s best route in and out (possibly with the patient) all from the air. To do that we need to make immediate decisions from overhead which can pose a real challenge. In effect we are bringing a hospital Emergency Department to the patient and that vastly improves the speed of access to critical care.’

The helicopter is on call from 7am to 2am with shifts of ten hours by day or nine hours by night.

Scott works four shifts on and four shifts off. I ask if it is hard to land a helicopter in a rural area at night.

‘We use night vision goggles,’ he explains. ‘It takes a long time to gain experience of flying with night vision goggles, but all the pilots here have being doing it for over 20 years. The task is complicated further due the weight of having a whole critical care unit on board. On average each mission can take anywhere between 1-3 hours, which includes time at the scene of the incident and at the hospital. Our aim is to be airborne within six minutes of being activated, and we often do 3-4 missions a shift. The teamwork is my favourite part of the job. We are close-knit and it is very satisfying as a group to be able to contribute to saving someone’s life.’

I find the team sitting around a wooden picnic table, hugging mugs of tea and enjoying the autumn sun.

They’re relaxed and smiling, making it hard to believe that they have already attended a riding accident and 80 | Sherborne Times | November 2021

car crash this morning. Today the crew on shift is Dr James Keegan and Advanced Clinical Practitioner, Matt Sawyer. James joined the air ambulance in 2017 and Matt in 2018. Today they are joined by Dr Eimile Howlin, a PHEM (Pre-Hospital Emergency Medicine) trainee. I can only imagine the horrors that are presented to this crew on a daily basis. I don’t ask and I have the sense they’re happier not to discuss it.

When not on duty with the air ambulance, the medical team work in hospitals elsewhere. Matt is based at Queen Alexandra Hospital in Portsmouth and James is a Consultant in Critical Care and Anaesthetics at Poole Hospital. Needless to say, James was heavily involved in providing ventilator care during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic. What seems to draw them to this job is the challenge of the unpredictability. ‘Without wanting to sound too cheesy about it, when you get up in the morning you never know what is going to come next,’ says James. Matt adds, ‘I think it is delivering a high level of medical care in a clinically complex environment. It’s balancing the challenges within pre-hospital critical care which I find gives me the most satisfaction of working with the air ambulance.’ James agrees, ‘For example, being able to provide anaesthesia and a blood transfusion to a patient who has just come out of the tangled wreck of a car – it is a privilege to be able to deliver it. We have everything we need in the helicopter – it’s similar to a

hospital resuscitation room.’

Being able to bring the Critical Care Team to the scene of an incident provides invaluable consultant-led levels of service on the ground. James will diagnose and lead the decision-making, while Matt will work independently alongside him. ‘In effect it is a synergy model,’ explains Matt. ‘Absolutely,’ agrees Eimile, ‘it’s also a multi-team effort – we couldn’t do it without the support of other agencies such as the Police, Fire Brigade and most importantly the Ambulance Service .’

Following serious accidents many patients might remain in critical care for some time or suffer lifechanging injuries. Here the baton is passed to the charity’s Patient and Family Liaison Nurses, Kirsty Caswell and Jo Petheram. Both are critical care nurses with more than 10 years experience. Jo still works part-time as an intensive care paediatric nurse in Southampton while Kirsty, who lives in Sherborne, spends the rest of her time looking after her young family. ‘Information sharing is a very important part of care,’ explains Jo. ‘We reach out to the families who have been involved with the air ambulance. They might have been present at the scene of the accident or have loved ones who are in critical care, and we are able to provide information that the family might not know, or the patient is not well enough to know.’ Kirsty goes on, ‘We know the pre-hospital journey, what happened at the scene etc. We can provide a point of contact for

the patient and their loved ones so that they can ask questions. Basically, it’s a more holistic approach. When we started the role there were only three air ambulances in the country providing an after-care service like ours, now there are 10.’

‘Another important aspect is that we are able to give feedback to our critical care teams which is really important for their morale and learning for the future,’ furthers Jo. ‘And in the future, we want to build a peer support service,’ says Kirsty adding, ‘we are entirely charity-funded.’ These are nurses who have dedicated a large part of their lives to the NHS and are now using those skills to assist a charity in furthering its already mind-boggling levels of care. Sitting across the table from them all I feel compelled to say: ‘Thank you.’

As I finish my tea and wind up our chat, leaving the team before their inevitable next call, James says, ‘The NHS is amazing at looking after seriously ill or injured patients, and it’s fantastic that we have a charity that can work in partnership with the NHS for the benefit of patients. It is a privilege to be part of the structure.’

It has certainly been a privilege to meet these highly-skilled men and women and be given a glimpse into their world. The Dorset and Somerset Air Ambulance is a service we must all strive to support.

We are undoubtedly lucky to have them. dsairambulance.org.uk sherbornetimes.co.uk | 81

elizabethwatsonillustration.com 82 | Sherborne Times | November 2021

The American Songbook

AT CHRISTMAS Enjoy a delicious three-course meal and then be entertained by singer George Hewett performing classics from the early 20th century pop and jazz standards along with some well-known Christmas favourites.

A Cocktail on Arrival First Course Potato and sweetcorn chowder with smoked haddock Main Course Bourbon braised beef blade, creamed potato, roasted roots Dessert Baked lemon cheesecake, raspberry sauce Coffee Coffee and Warm Mince Pies Alternatives available for those with dietary requirements, please mention when booking.

Friday 10th December, 7pm £50 per person The Grange at Oborne 01935 813463 | www.thegrange.co.uk

Food and Drink

THE CAKE WHISPERER Val Stones

CHOCOLATE BROWNIE FLAPJACKS

Image: Katharine Davies

I

think brownies are the most delicious chocolate indulgence that can be made. They are so versatile too, in that once you have a basic recipe you can trip the light fantastic with flavours ingredients and toppings.

This is my basic brownie recipe that I have spread on the top of my basic flapjack to create something super delicious. If you are reluctant to use nuts, because of allergies or you just don’t like them, then leave them out.

84 | Sherborne Times | November 2021

The original version of this flapjack recipe is in the Hamlyn All Colour Cook Book, first printed in 1970 (I bought my copy in 1978). Mary Berry wrote the baking section and I loved her recipes. When I was on GBBO she very kindly signed my copy. Over the years I have developed the recipe to include lots of different ingredients. The addition of cinnamon adds warmth and the vanilla adds smoothness.

Flapjack What you will need

A pan to melt ingredients or a microwaveable bowl A 7½ inch square pan, greased with butter Ingredients

460g rolled oats 450g golden syrup 230g soft margarine (Stork in a tub) 70g granulated sugar 2 teaspoons vanilla extract 1 teaspoon fine sea salt ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon Method:

1 Set the oven for 150ºC fan, 160ºC conventional, 335ºF, gas mark 3 2 Grease the baking pan with a little butter.

3 Put the margarine and syrup in a pan and place on a low heat until the margarine has melted. If you are using a microwave place the syrup and margarine on medium setting and microwave for 2 minutes to melt the margarine.

4 In a bowl place the sugar, oats, salt, cinnamon and combine together.

5 Add the vanilla extract to the syrup mixture and pour onto the oats mixture and mix thoroughly.

6 Turn the mixture into the greased pan, press down well with a spatula and set aside.

Brownies Ingredients

200g butter 75g dark chocolate with 70 -75% cocoa solids 2 large eggs, beaten 225g granulated sugar 75g self raising flour 1 tablespoon cocoa powder 100g chocolate chips 2 teaspoons vanilla extract Zest of an unwaxed orange 1 teaspoon orange extract 140g chocolate orange broken into pieces, keep 40g of whole slices to place on the top of the brownie mix

Method

7 Set the oven at 160C fan assisted, 180C conventional, gas mark 4.

8 Meanwhile, cut the butter and chocolate into small pieces and place into a microwaveable bowl so that they melt evenly.

9 Microwave on medium heat for 1 minute then remove to stir. Repeat this again and it should be mostly melted (only ever microwave chocolate on low to medium and for one minute at a time to prevent it from burning).

10 When the butter and chocolate are melted beat the mixture until smooth then fold in the other ingredients (apart from the vanilla extract), blend gently but thoroughly so that you don’t knock the air out of the mixture. Stir in the vanilla extract.

11 Spread the mixture evenly over the top of the flapjack, decorate the top with the remaining slices of chocolate orange. Place on the middle shelf of the oven and bake for 25 minutes, the centre should be moist and if you gently shake the tin it should wobble slightly – the brownie mixture will continue to set out of the oven. The flapjack will be baked.

12 Remove the tin from the oven and allow to cool for 10 minutes then place in the fridge until cold. Cut into squares. The bake will keep well in an airtight tin (about a week if they last that long). bakerval.com sherbornetimes.co.uk | 85

Food and Drink

PAN-FRIED CORNISH HAKE WITH CAVOLO NERO, GARLIC AND PARMESAN Sasha Matkevich, The Green

O

ne of my favourite seasonal fish dishes. The earthy greens and aromatic garlic work so well with hake. The real trick is to achieve a nice crispy skin on the fish without overcooking it.

4

Ingredients

700g hake fillet 140g butter 1 kg cavolo nero 1 tablespoon good cold pressed olive oil 1 large banana shallot, peeled and finely chopped 3 cloves of garlic, peeled and finely sliced 150g parmesan 1 lemon 2 marinated anchovies, finely chopped Salt Pepper

5

6

7

8

Method

1 Preheat oven to 180 degrees celsius.

2 Cut the hake into four large equal portions making sure all the bones and scales have been removed, season well with sea salt but only on the skin side.

3 Heat ½ tablespoon of olive oil in a heavy-based ovenproof frying pan. Once the oil is hot and nearly 86 | Sherborne Times | November 2021

9

Image: Clint Randall

smoking place the fish in the pan, skin-side down without moving until the skin is crispy – this will take 5 to 6 minutes.

Place 40g of butter in the middle of the pan and cook in the oven for another 3 to 4 minutes.

Remove fish to a metal tray skin-side up and leave to rest for another 2 minutes in a warm place.

Wash the cavolo nero in cold water, then drain and cut out the tough middles leaving only the dark crinkly leaves.

Bring a large pan of well salted water to the boil and cook the cavolo nero for 2 minutes. Drain and refresh under a cold running tap until cooled, drain well.

In a separate pan melt 100g butter and add the shallot, garlic and a generous pinch of salt – cook gently for 10 minutes until the shallot is soft and translucent.

Add anchovies and cabbage into the shallot and garlic and toss well to evenly coat the cavolo nero, then, once the cavolo nero is warm, add the parmesan, mix well Arrange on four plates, placing the fish on top with a wedge of lemon on the side.

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sherbornetimes.co.uk | 87

Food and Drink

A MONTH ON THE PIG FARM James Hull, The Story Pig

A

s I sit outside on a beautiful Monday morning writing this a few weeks before you read it, it’s hard to believe we are in autumn. The last few days have been glorious here on the farm. Long morning shadows, dews heavy enough to drink, a chill in the air but the sun beating a path through. It puts a spring in my step – we know the cafe will be busy, the pigs are more than happy basking in the sun, not too hot as to be uncomfortable for them or us! The mud has temporarily been held at bay.

This morning I have had the second sow of a group of eight farrow – every time she gives birth she does 88 | Sherborne Times | November 2021

so outside, she makes a nest out of grass rather than use the lovely warm strawy beds and houses at her disposal. This may sound very natural and idyllic, but actually it’s far from ideal. They are at extreme risk from predators – already there was one piglet dead with its eyes pecked out by crows or magpies. Not nice to read but the truth. Later, I will have to try and move them inside, not an easy job; it involves subterfuge, cunning, speed, a bucket or two and a fair wind behind me to move them without the mother eating me, but her then finding the piglets that I have relocated and realising that they are hers and settling

Image: Katharine Davies

"It involves subterfuge, cunning, speed and a fair wind behind me to move the piglets inside without the mother eating me"

down with them. I have done it several times before and it’s unsettling for all.

As usual I hadn’t formulated what I was going to write this month, but I thought I must address the current issues in the pig sector of agriculture. By the time you read this the media circus will no doubt have moved on to more exciting topics, but at the moment we are hearing a lot about CO2 shortages, a lack of workers in abattoirs and a huge build up of pigs on farms. In the last week or so I have had many questions about whether this is affecting us – the simple answer is no, but why? Well, our pig food has gone up massively in price in the last 12 months, like every other farm’s animal feed. It was already our highest cost every month, so that element we can’t avoid, but we take our pigs to a small family-run abattoir on a farm a few miles from here, where of course the end result is the same, but they are handled with care and compassion and treated as individuals, not a commodity. They are not gassed in huge groups, so that part doesn’t affect us and as our abattoir is family-run with a small workforce it relies on local labour. And finally, thank God, we made our own way and produce something different and sell directly to you, the customers who care. We don’t produce thousands of pigs a week and rely on supermarkets or wholesalers to tell us our pigs are the wrong size to fit on their shelves.

As I write I can feel the anger and frustration well up in me knowing that this is the reality of farming these days, prices forever driven down, quality eroded, marketing budgets going up to spin a story of ‘Farmer Giles’ stood with a bit of straw in his mouth looking over a gate – this is so far from reality. Commercial large scale farms have no control over the product they produce and the price they get is pitiful – it’s a wheel they can’t get off. How the supermarkets have lead us all down this path of self-destruction as an industry and as consumers to settle for low quality food that all looks the same whether it’s tomatoes with no smell or flavour or pale insipid looking wet meat! If possible we must think about what we buy and from where – it’s our only chance of influencing this broken system.

On a slightly happier note, we are thinking about Christmas heading our way. If you want our meat for Christmas, please get your orders in early this year – we are expecting a busy one! thestorypig.co.uk sherbornetimes.co.uk | 89

Food and Drink

DECANTING WINE David Copp

D

ecanting sounds outdated. I can’t remember the last time I shared a decanter of port or even old claret or burgundy. It is true that old wines have most to gain from decanting. But I no longer have a cellar in which to keep them.

However, it is still relevant to raise the matter for those readers who still have a cellar and enjoy older wines. The main purpose of decanting is to separate sound wine from any sediment which may have formed in the bottle. While the sediment itself is quite harmless, it can leave a bitter note on the tongue and it does not look good in the glass.

The wines most likely to throw a sediment are mature clarets; Rhone wines, Chianti, Ribera del Duoro and some of the southern hemisphere wines made in the same style and kept in bottle for six or more years.

There are two other very good reasons to decant.

The first is to let the wine breathe after many years in the bottle. Top growers use the very best quality corks to exclude air. Thus it is not surprising that after say, ten years in bottle, wines appreciate the opportunity to breathe again. But do not be tempted to decant too early. Older wines are relatively fragile and are prone to oxidation if opened too early. For really old bottles, an hour before drinking (not an hour before any guests arrive) should be enough if you remember to put the decanter stopper in.

With very old bottles it is usually best to serve from the bottle. Leave the bottle standing upright in the dining room for at least 24 hours. Do be prepared for the wine to be a little less clear. The bouquet will be stronger and the wine will offer more character.

In some wine regions – Rioja is a good example – winemakers prefer to serve from the bottle. They like to see their wine evolve in the glass. A little oxygen opens up a wine and reduces the harder edges of ‘big’ wines made in very ripe vintages.

The other reason I like to decant is because I like 90 | Sherborne Times | November 2021

il21/Shutterstock

glassware on the table. There are some beautiful decanters on the market. Reidel, the Austrian glassmaker is hard to beat for elegance and style.

I tend to use simple, well-made but plain glass decanters simply because I like nice glass on the table.

Sometimes I will use a pichet for a light white, rosé or red wine simply because it looks nicer than a bottle.

Winemaking today is rather more nuanced than it used to be. Skilled winemakers pay a great deal of attention to every stage of the winemaking process

for the very good reason they want to express, dare I say show-off, the natural essence and flavours of their grapes.

I often decant white wines, and not just old ones, because they too benefit from a little bit of fresh air after several years in a bottle. I certainly decant white Burgundy in the £15-£20 price bracket, good Gruner Veltiner, older Gerwurztraminers and oak-aged white wines. I also prefer Tokay from a decanter.

The ideal way to decant an old wine is to bring the bottle into the room in which you are dining and let it

stand for a day or two. Make sure the decanter is cleaned with hot water (without any detergent) then pour steadily.

If it is dark, light a candle and watch for the sediment as you come towards the end of the bottle. If the cork is crumbly or the sediment very fine, use a muslin cloth.

One final tip: sometimes wines closed with a screw cap need more aeration than corked wines, so I like to use a simple decanter for them. If any wine remains, taste it the next day and see how you feel about it. You may have a pleasant surprise! sherbornetimes.co.uk | 91

elizabethwatsonillustration.com 92 | Sherborne Times | November 2021

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www.newtonclarkevet.com sherbornetimes.co.uk | 93

Animal Care

CLOSE TO HOME

Mark Newton-Clarke MAVetMB PhD MRCVS, Newton Clarke Veterinary Surgeons

Rebecca Ashworth/Shutterstock

94 | Sherborne Times | November 2021

I

have been a vet for over 36 years and although I think of myself as compassionate and caring as any other health care professional, it’s only when my own animals become ill that I fully realise the impact this has on owners. So, when Portia, our black labrador, developed a potentially serious condition when we were on holiday, my understanding of how stressful a sick pet can be for the whole family hit a new level. Oh, I knew the condition well, having successfully treated dozens of cases over the years but somehow that didn’t make much difference. The reaction was an emotional one and no amount of rational medical knowledge can give complete reassurance.

The disease is called haemorrhagic gastro-enteritis (HGE) and is essentially a severe inflammation of the intestines. Rare in cats but quite common in dogs, the cause is unknown although scavenging can act as a trigger and a variety of infectious agents are also potential culprits. Portia’s illness followed a common pattern, starting with a mild tummy upset but still happy to eat and run around the beach. When she refused to eat poached chicken the next day and took to her bed, things clearly had taken a turn for the worse. The next stage of HGE is really unpleasant for all concerned, as the poor patient develops high volume, bloody diarrhoea. This focuses the mind in any situation, but especially in quite a posh holiday house in trendy Polzeath.

Inflammation creates a reaction in the body that is similar, no matter what the cause, and we are all familiar with it; fever, malaise and lethargy along with symptoms specific to the organs primarily affected. In Portia’s case, vomiting and diarrhoea featured strongly, as the target of the inflammatory response was her gastro-intestinal system.

There was nothing for it but to cut our holiday short and head for home. Luckily we made it back without incident and dashed into the Sherborne clinic to seek help and medication. Both were on hand without delay and within a few minutes the dehydrated and miserable Portia was rigged up to intravenous fluids, pain relief and anti-inflammatories.

Just to be sure, we ran a blood profile to check for any organ damage and to see how the red and white blood cells were fairing under the onslaught. A glance at the

results did nothing to reassure me as the poor dog had almost no neutrophils. Now, most people won’t know what these are but essentially they are white blood cells involved in fighting infections. Drawn to sites of inflammation, neutrophils sacrifice themselves in the battle and the accumulation of their dead bodies is commonly known as pus. When the inflammation or infection becomes overwhelming, the body starts running short of neutrophils and blood levels fall, increasing anxiety levels in the attending clinician.

Less severe inflammation causes mobilisation of neutrophil reserves and numbers in the blood rise. So Portia was at a low ebb. For three days she lay under a heat lamp at home, without enough energy to even wag her tail.

It’s very difficult to wear two hats, the vet-hat and the owner-hat, at the same time. I felt the impatience all owners must go through when a recovery is prolonged, but as a vet knew that this condition takes several days before improvement is seen. Happy to report the tide turned at the end of the third day and the first signs were a tail wiggle (I wouldn’t call it a wag) and interest in going out for a wee in the garden. There was also a marked reduction in cleaning duties. By the end of day four, Portia was starting to look for food and was being given spoonfuls of a highly digestible recovery diet. This was increased very gradually over the following week as it was important not to overfeed too soon, despite some impressive weight loss. When the intestine has been so inflamed, the tiny finger-like projections (called microvilli) that absorb nutrients are all lost, taking ten days or so to grow back. Until then, full digestive capacity is lacking so little and often is the way to go and no fatty foods.

I’m glad to report Portia is now fully recovered but is still two kilos less than before her HGE episode.

Every cloud…

Mindful that I was going to discuss anaesthetics from a veterinary viewpoint this month, I decided to delay as our new monitoring machine (the CO2 analyser) has been held up. Should be with us shortly but don’t hold your breath... newtonclarkevet.com

sherbornetimes.co.uk | 95

Animal Care

CARING FOR THE ELDERLY HORSE

Imogen Frame MRCVS, Kingston Vets

T

he UK has a growing population of ageing equines, with horses increasingly being kept as companions once they are retired. Often forgotten, older horses come with their own challenges regarding husbandry and veterinary care, especially as we now head towards winter. Below are some of the most important areas of routine care for older horses: Vaccination

There is a persistent myth that it is not necessary to vaccinate older horses, particularly for influenza.

However, the recent equine flu outbreak has highlighted the vulnerability of our horse population.

Due to weakened immune systems, elderly horses have a higher likelihood of complications and death if infected with flu. Our advice is to vaccinate for flu even if they live in isolation, as the flu virus can travel distances of up to two kilometres. Tetanus vaccination remains vital for every horse as the bacteria are always present in the environment.

Dentistry

Older horses are more prone to tooth problems such as cavities, gaps between teeth, and missing teeth. It is much easier to prevent these problems than to treat them, so we recommend dental check-ups every 6-12 months to catch problems early and future-proof the mouth.

Exercise

Multiple factors need to be taken into account when deciding the right time to retire a horse – age is just a number, after all – and retired horses still benefit from a degree of exercise such as turnout or hand-walking to prevent stiffness. If arthritis is present, antiinflammatories or other treatments may help. Also, don’t forget the farrier; even if your older horse does no work and is unshod, regular hoof trimming is still essential.

96 | Sherborne Times | November 2021

Petri Volanen/Shutterstock

Nutrition

Much like elderly people, many aged horses struggle to maintain their weight, due to low appetite, tooth problems, or illness. Feeding goodquality forage and concentrates, such as a veteran mix can help deliver the calories and nutrients they need. Their weight can drop rapidly during the winter so extra TLC is needed during the cold months. Body condition scoring or using a weigh tape can help you monitor changes. At the other end of the spectrum are the horses who become overweight due to overfeeding and insufficient exercise, so it is important to feed for the type of horse you have.

Parasites

Older horses may have a weakened immune system so we recommend keeping up with routine parasite control. For the average older horse, this means treating for tapeworm and encysted redworm once yearly (usually after the first frost) then performing regular faecal egg counts throughout the year.

When to call the vet

Unfortunately elderly horses are prone to a variety of illnesses. One condition which is especially common in older horses is Cushing’s syndrome, which affects 15% of horses aged over 15 years old. Symptoms include a long or curly coat, delayed moulting, increasing drinking

and urination, and lethargy. Cushing’s can predispose the horse to laminitis and weaken the immune system, so it is important to be vigilant for the condition – a blood sample confirms the diagnosis and treatment involves daily tablets. If your horse shows any symptoms of Cushing’s, is becoming stiff, or is otherwise unwell please do not hesitate to get in touch with your vet.

Elderly horses are often the forgotten members of the yard, but require more time and effort than their younger herd mates. With just a little extra input, we can vastly improve both the lifespan and quality of life of our geriatric horses. kingstonvets.co.uk sherbornetimes.co.uk | 97

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Body & Mind

A HEALTHY RESPECT

Mike Hewitson MPharm FFRPS FRSPH IP MRPharmS, Pharmacist, The Abbey Pharmacy

A

s a pharmacist I spent five years studying all aspects of medicines, from their development, through to how they work and the law. During that training the focus was largely on traditional medicine, but we were also taught to have a healthy respect for herbal medicines as plants are very often the basis for many medicines (and some poisons!). Now, when I speak to some patients who have a preference for alternative medicines, it can feel like they are on a covert mission behind enemy lines as soon as they step foot in the pharmacy! It is almost as if they think I will throw a pill at them if they stand still for long enough!

So, it might be useful to clear up a few misconceptions, to look at the role of herbal medicines and understand the long history between medicines and plants.

Firstly, I should say that I am not setting out to change anyone’s mind here – there are people for whom anything other than a ‘natural’ product is anathema.

That is fine – it is their choice and I respect that. I would merely like to present a different viewpoint.

Pharmacognosy, which is the study of drugs obtained from plants and natural sources, is the oldest branch 100 | Sherborne Times | November 2021

of pharmacy, stretching back more than 3,500 years to the ancient Sumerians and Egyptians to the Chinese Emperor Shen Nung, around 2,700 BC. Through empirical observation he was able to classify the effects of more than 350 herbs and plants. The Ebers Papyrus from ancient Egypt is the first known ‘prescription’ containing details of more than 700 drugs and dates from around 1,500 BC. The use of willow bark is one of the earliest medicinal discoveries which was found to help with pain and fever, the latin name for the willow genus is Salix. It was not until 1828 that the active ingredient was first identified and named salicin, after the willow tree from which it was produced. Within a decade a stronger version of salicin had been produced – acetylsalicylic acid or as we call it today, aspirin.

The biggest misconception I face is that herbal medicines are safer than licensed medicines. The truth is that plants are like tiny chemical reactors, producing hundreds, if not thousands of different chemicals. In traditional medicine our approach is to identify the substance which exerts the desired effect and to isolate and refine that single active ingredient. We support

Image: Katharine Davies

this with a range of inert substances called excipients which help to keep the medicine stable, to make it palatable, etc. In herbal medicine the approach is to use the whole of the botanical e.g. rhizome (root), leaf, bark, seed, etc. The relative yields of the active ingredient can vary from batch to batch, depending on when and how the product was harvested and how it has been stored – this can make a big difference to the potency of the finished product. The system of medicines regulation does not allow these sorts of variances, because we are dealing with very potent molecules which can often require thousandths, millionths or even billionths of a gram in order to exert its biological effects. Foxglove (Digitalis) can be used as a poison or as a medicine, the difference is largely a question of dose.

The study of the actions of medicines is called pharmacology. During the approval process we must understand how medicines work down to the microscopic level – how, for example, they interact with the individual cell. Although we have potentially thousands of years of empirical observation with

herbal medicines, sadly, we do not have the same level of understanding of how herbal medicines work. That is not to say that they don’t work, but it is not clear how well used the reporting system for side effects of herbal medicines is, and we have only limited knowledge of interactions with prescribed medicines. There are some very well established interactions between prescribed and herbal medicines with St Johns Wort (Hypericum) and warfarin being a clinically significant example to be avoided. Due to the lack of evidence to say that combinations of herbal and prescribed medicines are safe, as a healthcare professional I am left to caution against the use of combined therapy because I cannot say that it is safe. This can be misunderstood as being against the use of herbal medicines, which is not the case, but with all medicines we should set out to do no harm. Don’t forget that morphine is derived from the opium poppy (my predecessor at Beaminster Pharmacy used an antique block of opium resin as a paperweight!).

Cocaine, cannabis and tobacco are all ‘natural’ products, each of which can have serious and harmful effects.

Frequently, I recommend the use of herbal medicines such as valerian and peppermint oil capsules which are useful as an alternative to sleeping tablets and antispasmodics for Irritable Bowel Syndrome.

Sometimes, I will recommend St Johns Wort for low mood, but in doing so we need to be very careful to watch for known interactions – there are many that we simply do not know about because there is inadequate information to make an informed opinion in either direction. In addition, to those taking other medicines the NHS advises patients with serious health conditions (patients who are to undergo surgery, pregnant or breastfeeding women, the elderly and children) to potentially avoid taking herbal medicines, mainly for the same reason that we cannot say categorically that they are safe. They recommend for those who do want to try a herbal medicine to look for a Traditional Herbal Registration (THR) mark on the packaging which will ensure that the product meets a minimum quality standard. This does not guarantee a product is effective or completely safe, but it is infinitely safer than buying online or by mail order.

Plants are crucial in the development of medicines – they can produce very potent chemicals with a range of pharmacological effects. It is precisely because of that we should all treat them with the respect they deserve. theabbeypharmacy.com sherbornetimes.co.uk | 101

Body & Mind

DIABETES TYPE 2 AND THE ROLE OF HERBAL MEDICINE

Kim Creswell Dip.Herb.Med. MNIMH, Goldberry Herbs

O

ur high energy brains demand glucose to function but the healthy blood range is narrow - too much or too little glucose can result in coma and death. In order to keep a healthy balance our pancreatic cells respond to increased levels by releasing the hormone insulin, a chemical messenger which, amongst other actions, signals cells in the body to take up blood glucose for energy production. When insulin levels are high the liver stores excess glucose and when 102 | Sherborne Times | November 2021

insulin levels are low the liver releases it back into the bloodstream. Our beautifully evolved bodies have created a balancing system which means we can maintain energy levels without having to constantly graze!

Diabetes mellitus (DM) is characterised by persistently increased blood sugar levels and comes in two types. The less common Type 1 (DMT1) is caused by destruction of vital pancreatic cells by toxicity, autoimmune reaction or viral infection. This results in

insufficient insulin production and the inability to mop up blood glucose.

Type 2 (DMT2) differs in that insulin is produced but cells around the body do not respond to the message to absorb surplus glucose from the blood. This insulin resistance often results from our unnaturally constant grazing of refined carbohydrates. There is a huge genetic component to the development of DMT2. It has been hypothesised that insulin resistance may be an evolutionary survival strategy, to cope with times of famine, in particular the adaptation of humankind to survival in ice ages when diets consisted primarily of proteins and fats.

There is emerging evidence which links insulin resistance to environmental toxins, including plastic packaging, pesticides and exposure to some chemicals found in manufacturing and agriculture.

Our evolutionary survival mechanism has become pathological in ‘developed’ countries. Globally, it is estimated that 552 million people will have diabetes by 2030. Development of insulin resistance is usually slow and low level hyperglycaemia can be present for a long while before symptoms are outwardly noticeable.

Unseen damage may be caused to our small and large blood vessels due to chronic inflammatory effects of plasma sugars. Insulin resistance is also linked to many other conditions, such as impaired cognitive ability, or polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) in women.

Although the predisposition to DMT2 may be great in some people, development is certainly not inevitable! Under the right circumstances even genetic development of DMT2 may be avoided, reversed or controlled. Diet and lifestyle will be the first consideration and the basis of a treatment plan, with the emphasis being on adequate exercise and meals containing plenty of fresh, leafy vegetables for their high fibre and antioxidant micronutrient content.

Controlled ‘window fasting’ can also be extremely helpful in the reversal of insulin resistance, as it allows the body a rest from the consistently high levels which lead to cell tolerance.

Some people find that herbal medicine can reduce their reliance on pharmaceuticals. Others find that herbal medicine prevents deterioration of a condition, or associated physiological damage. The beauty of herbal medicine is that it is not a ‘one size fits all’ system. A medical herbalist will take the time to go through each body system and formulate a prescription which suits an individuals needs. Cultures from all over the world have

a plethora of plants which offer medical benefits to both types of diabetes - far too many to list here.

As a Dorset herbalist I favour plants which can be found or grown in the locality, and there are so many to choose from. One of my favourite hypoglycaemic herbs is bay (Laurus nobilis) - there must be hundreds in the gardens around Sherborne. A 2008 clinical study concluded that bay leaves reduce glucose levels, low density lipoprotein (LDL), otherwise known as ’bad’ cholesterol, and triglycerides in the blood of those participants with DMT2. When treating the individual, it may be necessary to improve the patient’s microcirculation, so rosemary (Rosmarinus officinalis) or gingko (Ginkgo biloba) could be included - especially for cerebral circulation. Bilberry (Vaccinium myrtillus) may be used to prevent, or slow, inflammatory damage to vessels of the eyes.

With diabetes the kidneys must always be considered.

For kidney support I am a huge fan of nettle seed (Urtica dioica) - there are plenty of nettles in my garden! If looking to support the macro-circulation - the heart and big blood vessels, we are blessed with the efficacious fruit and flowers of the hawthorn (Crataegus spp.) which grows abundantly locally. It may appear that there is an exacerbating accumulation of toxins, in which case we may turn to the Jurassic coast and include the excellent herbal chelating agent, bladder wrack (Fucus vesiculosus).

Dandelion (Taraxacum officinale) root, or the seeds of milk thistle (Carduus marianus) have been shown to reduce high levels of LDLs, and there is certainly something to be said for the old adage ‘an apple a day…’ as the fruit’s high levels of pectin have a beneficial effect on cholesterol and blood sugar control.

This brief list of locally-found herbs is in no way exhaustive, in fact we have only brushed the surface.

The art of the herbalist is to listen to the patient and offer the plants which that person’s body is asking for, in appropriate quantities and preparations. However, prevention is always better than cure, so when you are cooking your meals please do not under estimate the role of regularly-included organic herbs and spices in maintaining good health.

Please consult your doctor prior to the use of herbal medicines. For the inclusion of herbs as part of a health care regime, please consult a medical herbalist who will be knowledgeable about potential side effects, drug interactions and allergies. Full list of references available at goldberryherbs.co.uk sherbornetimes.co.uk | 103

Body and Mind

BULLYING AND MENTAL HEALTH Lucy Lewis, Ambassador, Dorset Mind

F

rom 15th to 19th November, it’s Anti-Bullying Week 2021, where schools and organisations across the UK get involved and raise awareness about the harmful effects of bullying.

This year, the theme is ‘One Kind Word’. The idea is that kindness is contagious and can be passed on; one kind word leads to another. Kindness is important now more than ever. Why not use Anti-Bullying Week 2021 to spread even more positivity and help us fight against bullying?

Although bullying is commonly associated with classrooms and playgrounds, anyone can be bullied, in any setting that has people or access to 104 | Sherborne Times | November 2021

the internet. While there is not currently a legal definition of bullying, it is often defined as harm caused by another person, whether it’s emotional, physical, or otherwise. The Office for National Statistics looked at data for English and Welsh children aged 10-15 for the year ending March 2020. It found that 19% of young people were cyber-bullied; more than half of these children did not know the behaviours were considered bullying, and over a quarter did not tell anyone.

Unfortunately, people who are different or diverse are often at higher risk of being bullied. This could include people of different race or cultural

backgrounds, or those with diverse gender identities, sexualities, physical health or religion. Furthermore, NHS England conducted research which indicated that young people with a mental health condition are approximately twice as likely to be a victim of bullying compared with the general population.

Therefore it is no surprise that bullying is interlinked with, and has a colossal impact on, mental health. A study published by Statistica Research Department examined 2020 UK data about people who had experienced bullying: 44% reported feeling anxious as a result of bullying. Additionally, 36% felt depressed; 33% thought about suicide; 27% selfharmed; 18% avoided education; 12% developed an eating disorder; and 11% attempted suicide.

Bullying is unacceptable, damaging, and entirely unnecessary. If you have experienced the detriments of being bullied, know that it is wrong, and there is help available to you. You do not have to face this alone.

So, What Can We Do?

ThomasDeco/Shutterstock

“The Office for National Statistics found that 19% of children aged 10-15 were cyber-bullied and over a quarter did not tell anyone.”

Schools and Organisations: • Develop a zero-tolerance culture towards bullying.

• Provide resources, offer support, and take it seriously when someone raises an issue.

Parents: • Emphasise the importance and necessity of kindness.

• Do not tolerate your child being hurtful towards others.

• Be an example of kindness for them to follow.

• If your child is being bullied, talk to the school immediately. Keep a paper trail and copy in important staff from the school board, making them more likely to action your concerns. Find mental health support for your child.

Yourself: There are many resources and a wealth of support available. Whether you’re a child, teenager, or adult, anyone can be bullied and everyone deserves to be treated with respect. Visit bit.ly/DMBullying for our list of the support available for those experiencing bullying.

Remember, you are not alone. There are people out there who can and want to support you.

If you feel as though you need support for your mental health, talk to your GP or another mental health professional, or visit dorsetmind.uk for a range of mental health resources.

If you find yourself in a crisis, call 999 or The Samaritans free on 116 123. Dorset also has a 24/7 helpline called Connection, you can call it on 0800 652 0190. sherbornetimes.co.uk | 105

Body & Mind

MOTIVATION

Image: Stuart Brill

Craig Hardaker BSc (Hons), Communifit

I

t’s dark, cold and most likely wet – it certainly is early October as I write this! Our sunny outdoor workouts seem a lifetime away. The days are getting shorter, lethargy and perhaps even a bit of ‘winter blues’ kicks in and the motivation to exercise can be at a seasonal low. It doesn’t however have to be like this! No doubt motivation and focus can fluctuate throughout the year and many of us struggle during these colder and darker months. As easy as it is to lose motivation, we can quickly get it back. So let’s do just that!

We need to focus on our What, When and Why. Let me explain…

What

We need to prioritise what we do. There are many exercise options available to us, but we need to focus on which exercises will provide the biggest gain. If motivation to find the time to exercise is low, this becomes even more important. If you are a runner, for example, it may be more difficult to fit in a long run because there are fewer daylight hours. But even if you can’t complete your usual run, don’t fall into the trap of doing nothing, focus instead on what you can do to help keep yourself in good shape. Maybe some strength conditioning in your legs to help you stay ‘run-fit’ and some stretches to release muscle tightness. The ‘what to do’ needs to be planned, then carried through to completion to help keep your sense of purpose going.

When

If you don’t like training in the dark, plan when you can when it is light. Alternatively, take a look at what indoor exercise classes you can attend. Creating a 106 | Sherborne Times | November 2021

weekly exercise timetable is always important, so give it a go! Plan when you will exercise throughout your seven day week. If it takes you longer than most to wake up on dark, cold mornings – maybe consider an evening work out. If you prefer training at a certain time of day, or a particular exercise class helps keep you motivated, be sure to plan the days when you will participate. Don’t take the ‘leave it until later to decide’ approach!

Why

This is obviously the most important. Why are we exercising? – and on a cold, damp, miserable day it is easy to forget! Why we exercise is personal to us, but for most it is for one or more of three reasons.

The first, is to improve our body’s physical well-being to achieve certain tasks. The second, is for the social benefits that exercise gives us. The third, is to give us that sense of achievement and mental well-being that having completed exercise can provide. This can be particularly important in winter when light in general, and sunshine in particular, can be in short supply. All of these are incredibly important to us for our physical and mental well-being. During these less pleasant days never forget why you exercise, as a slight reminder can be the difference between exercising and not!

Follow the what, when and why to help improve your motivation to exercise during these more challenging months. Your physical and mental wellbeing is well worth the investment. Stay strong, stay healthy, stay motivated! communifit.co.uk

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sherbornetimes.co.uk | 107

Body & Mind

DO YOU RUN? WHAT IS FARTLEK TRAINING?

L

Simon Partridge BSc (Sports Science), Personal Trainer SPFit

ast month I explored why people might use a personal trainer and how important it is, as a PT, to listen to each client’s specific goals. Running continues to grow in popularity as a form of exercise – the various lockdowns cementing its place in the fitness hall of fame.

There are many different forms of training which can be used to put a programme together to help us run faster and further. ‘Fartlek training’ is one of my favourite ways to train, but I confess to not using it enough.

Have you heard of fartlek training? In my experience many people have, but they are often put off because it sounds strange or too technical. It is actually very simple, translated from Swedish as ‘speed play’. I like to think of it as ‘random changes of pace for any distance you like’.

As such, it is an unstructured form of interval training, alternating between bouts of fast then slow (or hard then easy - where you can use a heart rate monitor or a simple score of how hard your rate of perceived exertion is for example). This is different to structured interval training, which I admit to using much more often – this involves running for set time durations or distances. This is where my random explanation helps make it much less regimented.

An example training session is when we use a fartlek run before our yoga for runners’ workshops. We may run fast from SPFit to the railway station, jog around Purleigh, sprint to the Toy Barn, walk up the hill, jog along the A30, run fast back down Acreman Street to the vets and then jog back to SPFit. You can use any landmarks you like such as trees or lamp posts – you can use it on the trails and on the roads.

As with any training programme, the pace you set and the distances depend on your goals and fitness levels. You can choose short distances to run at a really fast pace, or longer ones to run at a threshold effort (80 – 90% max HR).

In my opinion, the best thing about fartlek training is that you do not need a watch and the intensity and duration of every session is down to you. Beginners can also use it more easily than a structured interval session. Start with just a few changes of paces and then add more as you become fitter and stronger.

Try putting fartlek training into your weekly training programme and see what results it produces after, say, eight weeks. Next month, I will discuss why runners need to include weight-training in their training plans. But above all, enjoy your running whatever and wherever you run. Good luck. spfit-sherborne.co.uk

108 | Sherborne Times | November 2021

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elizabethwatsonillustration.com 112 | Sherborne Times | November 2021

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Home

WE ALL NEED A LITTLE HELP Andy Foster, Raise Architects

114 | Sherborne Times | November 2021

A

t the front of my notebook is a page with 12 headshots. I keep it partly for inspiration and partly as a ‘don’t give up yet’ strategy. It changes a little over time but this is what it currently looks like. The artist Austin Kleon said, ‘I hang pictures of my favourite artists in my studio. They’re like friendly ghosts. I can almost feel them pushing me forward as I’m hunched over my desk.’* It’s a bit like that except I don’t keep pictures of my favourite architects. My friendly ghosts are there because they’ve remained creative and productive for a lifetime or because they can do things I can’t but would like to. Others are in my book for just being different or for doing something special or because they keep going despite the abuse they receive.

There are many great writers to learn from but Horatio Clare, Laura Barton and Tanya Shadrick are also accessible and generous with their time. (Have you heard Horatio’s Sound Walks on BBC R3? Or Laura’s Notes From a Musical Island on BBC R4? Are you aware of Tanya’s forthcoming memoir The Cure For Sleep?) The thing I admire about them is their own development as writers is intimately connected with helping other people to develop too. And this makes them naturally good teachers.

I first came across David Olusoga as a result of his ‘A House Through Time’ programmes. Amongst other things, these emphasised how Britain’s great cities are the product of our colonial past. I have subsequently watched all of his available TV output and read as much of his writing as I can. It has made me realise that our identity is much more complicated than we think and the extent to which we have been sold a grossly distorted national history. He receives a lot of abuse for attempting to correct that history and I love the way he responds. Every troll answered calmly, rationally, with great eloquence and a deep understanding of the facts.

When I first became aware of a thing called ‘art’ as a child, David Hockney was already a world famous artist. It seems he has always been around, drawing, painting, developing, trying new things. Even at the age of 84 he keeps doing what he has always done. What a life! Similarly, the New York dancer and choreographer Twyla Tharp keeps going but she is also in my notebook for writing The Creative Habit - a book that is a beautiful reminder that creativity (and a creative life) doesn’t happen by chance. It requires planning, routine and hard work.

Marvin Rees is the elected mayor of Bristol, a complex role in normal times but made even more so with the need to deal with a health crisis, a climate

crisis, Black Lives Matter protests and the removal of a contentious statue. I have never been drawn to politics or a role in public life, but I admire anyone who can successfully lead a large population through difficult times with great skill, confidence and dignity.

Famous early on in his career for his ‘Lipsmackin’, thirstquenchin’...’ Pepsi advert, Dave Trott is a guru of the advertising world. His trade is copywriting but he also writes books in which he openly explains the extent to which he learned from the masters that preceded him.

This grounding provides him with incredible insight regarding his profession and the way it changes, for better or worse, in response to new societal issues and the latest technologies; insights that are transferrable to most other professions, including architecture.

Although their specialist subjects are different, Professors Devi Sridhar and Alice Roberts share a common talent in being able to communicate complex issues and technical subjects to a general audience.

Throughout the pandemic, their frequent contributions have been calm, insightful and mostly correct. It’s just a shame they weren’t in charge.

Alistair Humphreys makes a living from living adventurously. He’s been involved in a number of major expeditions but is, perhaps, best known for creating the concept of micro-adventures. These are small adventures that we can all do in the gaps in our normal lives or, as he says, in our hours of ‘5 to 9’. For instance, after work climb up a hill and sleep out overnight or paddle to a remote beach and cook a meal or swim in a river or lake or high tarn. I have him to thank for many small adventures of my own and, at the same time, for helping me save a fortune on hotel bills.

‘Self Esteem’ (also known as Rebecca Lucy Taylor) is on my list for doing only one thing - but for doing it exceptionally well. She wrote and performed a song entitled I Do This All The Time and then she created a video to support it. Her work reminds me that although we might be inspired by others, and we may have stolen, borrowed or copied, the best way to be refreshingly original (possibly the only way) is to be your self.

Those are my 12. Every day I open my notebook and I glance at their faces and I think about them. I wonder what they would do if they were me, if they shared my ambitions and if they were confronted with my challenges - and it helps, a little. Who would your 12 be? *Steal Like an Artist by Austin Kleon raisearchitects.com sherbornetimes.co.uk | 115

Legal

ALL CHANGE WITH THE TRUST REGISTRATION SERVICE? Emma Coate, Associate Solicitor, Private Client Team, Mogers Drewett

A

s part of the continuing global effort to enhance tax transparency, the EU passed the Fourth Money Laundering Directive (4MLD) in 2015. The Directive set out a requirement for Member States to establish a central trust register. Under these regulations, trustees of certain trusts were required to maintain up-to-date records of all the beneficial owners of the trusts, including potential beneficiaries.

Historically, this has meant that only tax-paying trusts needed to formally register with HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) using their online Trust Registration Service (TRS).

All change

The Fifth Money Laundering Directive (5AMLD), significantly extends the scope of the TRS, and it is estimated that up to ten times as many trusts will be affected with lots of small or non-tax-paying trusts now needing to register which hadn’t previously.

The changes will mean that all express trusts will now need to be registered with the TRS by 1st September 2022 or penalties will be imposed on the trustees.

What needs to be done?

The online TRS system, accessed via the Government Gateway, now requires trustees or their agent to enter basic details about the trust, including the persons 116 | Sherborne Times | November 2021

involved (settlors, trustees and beneficiaries). The TRS must also be updated regularly with any changes to the trust, for example a change of trustees.

Exemptions

There are some trusts that will continue to be exempt from registration, but the list is small. It includes life policies that are held in trust, charitable trusts which are registered as a charity in the UK, or which are not required to register as a charity, and co-ownership trusts set up to hold shares of property or other assets which are jointly owned by two or more people for themselves as ‘tenants in common’ (but not where anyone else owns an interest in that property).

Trustee responsibilities

If you are a trustee, you are responsible for registering the trust with the TRS. Failure to do so is likely to result in penalties being charged by HMRC, so it is important that you are aware of your obligations and make sure you have complied by the deadline of 1st September 2022.

New trusts will have 30 days in which to register with the TRS. Once registered, trustees will have 30 days from when they are made aware of any changes to update the details. mogersdrewett.com

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Finance

THE POWER OF COMPOUND INTEREST

T

Andrew Fort B.A. (Econ.) CFPcm Chartered MCSI APFS, Certified and Chartered Financial Planner, Fort Financial Planning

his month I would like to explain why it makes sense to invest in shares rather than holding everything in cash. Many people are scared of investing in shares because they know that the value goes down as well as up.

Since 1988 the annualised return from global shares has been around 10.5%*. Over the same period of time cash gave returns of around 2%.

Cash is guaranteed not to fall in value but the same is not true of shares. Indeed, from November 2007 to October 2008 a global portfolio would have fallen in value by 38%. In other words, £100,000 fell to £62,000. This partly explains the adage that a minimum five year time span should be anticipated whenever investments are made in shares.

Albert Einstein once said, ‘Compound interest is the eighth wonder of the world. He who understands it, earns it … he who doesn’t … pays it.’

To illustrate this point the table below shows how long it would take to double your money.

Asset type

Annualised return

Years to double money

Cash

2%

36

Global shares

10.5%

7

To put it another way, £100,000 held in cash would have doubled to £200,000 after 36 years.

The same amount of money invested in global shares would have grown to £3,200,000. Such is the power of compound interest. Of course, inflation would have had a significant impact on both numbers.

A sound investment strategy combines many different asset types. Cash should always be included in an investment strategy, depending partly on an individuals attitude to risk but also on their likely requirements over the next five years. The important point to note is that risk and return are related; they have to be as no one would take additional risk if there wasn’t at least the prospect of greater return.

A sound investment strategy considers many different aspects but timing is one of the most important. The earlier one starts to invest the greater the benefits of compound interest in the long run. *Please note that returns vary; over the last 20 years the annualised return was 7.24% ffp.org.uk

118 | Sherborne Times | November 2021

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sherbornetimes.co.uk | 119

Tech

PRINTERS

James Flynn, Milborne Port Computers

H

ere we go again (puts head in hands!)… but what do you look for and what do you buy?

There are really two types to go for: inkjet printer and laser printer.

Inkjets squirt dots of coloured ink onto the paper as the print head passes over it; they are relatively slow and, cost per sheet, expensive on ink but good for low-volume home use. They are also excellent for home printing of photographs. They don’t require any warmup time but the ink is prone to drying out if not used regularly. They are also cheap to buy.

Laser printers fuse coloured powder onto the paper with heat; they are fast and much cheaper on consumables per copy in a high-volume environment.

However, they can’t use special papers for photographs and can take several minutes to warm-up for the first copy. But they will print perfectly after months in a cupboard. Historically, they have been relatively expensive to buy compared with an inkjet printer, but they continue to become cheaper.

As a rule we don’t really deal with printers. When I say this, I mean we don’t mechanically fix them as generally speaking there isn’t much to fix and the parts are rare and hard to get hold of. So, what are you to do? Generally, the advice is, ‘Spend as little as possible and replace as often as necessary’. I would recommend spending around £50 and this will get you a couple of extra features that cheaper printers don’t have but the printing quality will be the same.

The main extra being a navigation screen on the 120 | Sherborne Times | November 2021

actual printer which helps with setup, connection, maintenance and when the printer has an error. There is nothing more irritating than a flashing error light and not knowing what the problem is.

Should you buy cheap replacement ink and toner?

I do! The cost of a set of genuine cartridges for an inkjet can be almost as much as the cost of the printer itself. I take the same approach as when buying wine in a foreign country; never buy the cheapest, buy the second cheapest! There is a risk, however, that if your printer is still under warranty this will be invalidated if you have not used genuine ink or toner. I could never ‘recommend’ you do it but I consider the risk to be worthwhile as the savings can be huge (T&Cs apply!).

We are increasingly getting more phone calls about printers and this is normally because they won’t print anything from the computer or when it does you just get a blank page. The problem with not printing at all is normally down to connection issues, so the advice is printer off, router off and restart computer and then turn everything back on. 9 times out of 10 this fixes the issue. The blank page issue is normally due to printheads drying out and you need to clean them either via the navigation screen or printing preferences on the computer. Sometimes it takes several cleans to get this sorted.

As ever, if you need help you know where to come! computing-mp.co.uk

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NO FAULT DIVORCE Darren Francis, Solicitor, Humphries Kirk

T

he Divorce, Dissolution and Separation Act 2020 represents the biggest reform of divorce law in 50 years. The aim behind the reform is to reduce conflict between divorcing and separating couples who are ending a marriage or civil partnership. The reforms will come into force on 6th April 2022.

Currently, the grounds for divorce or dissolution of a civil partnership is that the marriage or civil partnership has irretrievably broken down. There is a requirement to demonstrate one of five “facts”: adultery, behaviour, desertion, or a relevant period of separation (two years or five years).

These facts represent “fault”, particularly where adultery, desertion or unreasonable behaviour are concerned. These “fault” criteria have contributed to a blame culture between separating parties, fuelling the distress and upset for the parties and their family. The blame culture can lead to the later discussions about financial matters or children becoming more difficult and contentious.

4 The current stages of a divorce and dissolution Application (Decree Nisi and Decree Absolute) will be retained, but a new minimum time frame of 26 weeks will be introduced where possible. The application for Decree Absolute may be postponed until such time as an agreed financial settlement is reached.

These changes seek to remove the blame culture often seen by parties, particularly when citing unreasonable behaviour and remove some of the acrimony associated with it.

These changes may prevent practices being misused or abused by parties choosing to continue their coercive and controlling behaviour by unreasonable delay.

Divorce law will move towards online digital proceedings.

This will further streamline the process and allow the parties to achieve their mutual goals with less acrimony.

These reforms retain what is considered to work well in existing divorce law and will help to resolve difficulties more amicably.

Key Changes 1 The requirement to provide evidence of behaviour or separation will be replaced by a Statement of Irretrievable Break Down.

2 A Respondent would no longer be able to defend a divorce or dissolution application or dispute a “fact” in normal circumstances.

3 A new option of a mutual joint application. One spouse alone may initiate the legal process of divorce or dissolution, or by agreement the parties may make a joint application.

Joint applications can change to sole applications, in the event the other party changes their mind.

To discuss how Humphries Kirk’s family law team may be able to assist you please contact Margaret Baker (Partner), Kay Levene (Partner), Leanne Weatherill (Partner), Darren Francis (Solicitor), Debbie Roper (Associate) or Michell Holt (Paralegal). We have expertise in all our offices.

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01935 872007 / 07715 867145 waynesbusiness@aol.com 122 | Sherborne Times | November 2021

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Short Story

A GOOD IMPRESSION

T

Julia Skelhorn, Sherborne Scribblers

he taxi trundled along the country lane at an unhurried pace. It was early afternoon at the end of February; a magical winter day of heavy frost and a pale cloudless sky. The sun cast long shadows but there was little warmth in it and the ploughed fields lay hard as iron. Helena gazed through the window, amazed that she had never seen the familiar countryside looking so beautiful. She was relieved to be home and wondered how she had survived forty years of living in the heart of the city.

As she fumbled with the key in the lock, her mobile rang. Pushing open the heavy door, she retrieved the phone from her handbag. A polished voice on the other end of the line addressed her. ‘Mrs Latimer?’

‘Yes, who is that?’

‘Penelope Long, Personal Assistant to Toby Manners at Bonhams. Would you be free to take a call from Mr Manners?’

Helena caught her breath. ‘Oh, yes. But could you give me five minutes please. I have literally just arrived home and let myself into the house.’

‘I’ll ring back in five minutes Mrs Latimer.’

Leaving her bags in the hall, Helena went through to the sitting room and opened her desk.

The article from ‘The Times’ was exactly where she had left it following a positively irritating Sunday lunch with her daughter and son-in-law the previous month. She would never have seen the article had the paper not been left behind on the train by the grey-suited gent sitting opposite her on a return journey from London. As he grabbed his briefcase and departed at Reading, the paper slipped to the floor and on retrieving it, Helena noticed it was folded to reveal an article on a forthcoming Bonham’s Fine Art auction in New York.

Helena had been up for hours on the day of the irritating lunch, cooking Sara’s favourite roast, baking a sumptuous blackberry bakewell pudding and uncorking a couple of her best wines for Jasper. Her intention had been to share some of her ideas after attempting to sort out what the family referred to as ‘junk’ in the attic. Conversation was amenable until Jasper suddenly said, ‘The kids always tell everyone that Granny’s house is like a musty old museum.

They can’t understand why old people keep so much dreadful rubbish.’ Sara stifled a giggle.

Helena was furious. ‘You really should teach your children some manners, Jasper. It’s all very well sending them to posh, fee-paying schools, but good manners begin at home. I would never have dared to say anything like that about either of my grandmothers.’

‘Oh Mum, we’re only joking,’ Sara said. But Helena knew they were not. Comments about her museum-like home had been flying around for quite some time. Well, she’d had enough of this – the grandchildren were ungrateful and their parents were as bad. ****** Picking up a pen and paper from her desk, she made her way to the kitchen and pulling out a chair at the table, waited for the call from Bonhams. A few minutes later, the phone rang and she heard Toby Manners’ distinctive voice.

‘Good afternoon Mrs Latimer. I trust you are well?’

‘Very well indeed, thank you.’

124 | Sherborne Times | November 2021

‘I thought you would like to know that our experts have taken a good look at the painting you left with us a few weeks ago. As you know, it was in a rather dirty condition, so much so, that the artist’s name could not be seen. When you gave permission, we managed to get the Courtauld Institute to do some scientific testing on it.’ Helena’s hand shook as she made some notes. Manners continued, ’Although it’s painted in the style of Manet, I am afraid it is not one of his.’

Trying not to sound too disappointed, Helena asked, ‘If it’s not a Manet, then who is the artist?’

‘Does the name Morisot mean anything to you, Mrs Latimer – Berthe Morisot?’

‘Not immediately. I’m afraid I’ve always been into literature and music rather than art. My aunt was the art buff in the family.’

‘Well, in that case, you might not have heard the news a few weeks ago? A Berthe Morisot portrait of a young redhead was sold at a Christies auction in London for 10.9 million dollars!

Morisot was the first female Impressionist – she worked with Monet, Degas, Sisley and Renoir. Your little painting is of the harbour at Lorient and the female with the umbrella is most probably her sister, who was living there. Morisot stayed with her for a while. So you see, it was extremely important to carry out the testing.’ Helena couldn’t believe what she was hearing. Surely Aunt Ella couldn’t have owned a painting by an Impressionist. She’d never been short of money, but was certainly not in that league.

‘The article you read in ‘The Times’, referred to an auction which takes place next week in New York. If you wish to sell, Mrs Latimer, we are probably too late for this as the catalogue is already in print.’

‘When is their next auction of Fine Art?’ Helena asked.

‘I think in about three months’ time.’

‘Oh dear, I really would like to sell sooner than that if I can.’ Toby Manners detected disappointment in her voice. She hadn’t given the impression, when he met her in London, that she was in need of money, although he didn’t know her circumstances.

‘If you don’t want to wait another three months,’ he offered, ‘we could try to find a private buyer - there are many of them – all collectors. Someone out there will certainly want this painting.’

‘How much are we talking about, Mr Manners?’

‘Difficult to be precise,’ he replied. ‘If a private collector is interested, he will have a good idea what a painting like this will bring at auction and very often they will offer more. It could raise at least a million dollars; possibly two.’ Helena gripped the edge of the table. Had she heard correctly? A million dollars?

‘In that case, I should be most grateful if you could find me a private buyer.’

Still in shock, she remained at the table for a few minutes. The warmth from the Aga radiated round the kitchen but she knew that the rest of the house would be exceptionally cold.

Finding the matches, she went through to the sitting room and lit the log burner which soon cast a rosy glow around the cluttered little room. ****** Helena drained her glass and closed her eyes, listening to Mozart’s ‘The Magic Flute’. In the last hour she had done all she could. Now all she could do was wait. Her dream of establishing a Trust to provide bursaries for talented young musicians was now a reality. Sara and Jasper were no longer a priority. ‘… like a musty old museum’ they’d said. She smiled to herself. Indeed!

They would soon be eating their words.

sherbornetimes.co.uk | 125

Literature

ADAM NICOLSON Life in a Rock Pool

Richard Hopton, Sherborne Literary Society

A

dam Nicholson is a renowned author whose talents know few bounds. He has written 17 books which range across subjects as varied as the King James Bible, architectural, social, and naval history, poetry, ornithology, Greek literature, the natural world and travel. Such is his virtuosity and breadth of knowledge that he could almost be accused of being a polymath. A scion of a wellknown literary family, writing and literature course through his veins. His father, Nigel, was an author and publisher, his grandfather, Harold, a biographer and diarist and his grandmother, Vita SackvilleWest, a celebrated writer and gardener. On Friday 12th November he will be talking to the Sherborne Literary Society about his new book.

In his 18th book, The Sea is Not Made of Water (William Collins, £20), Nicolson returns to the natural world, specifically to a remote corner of the Western 126 | Sherborne Times | November 2021

Highlands of Scotland, which he has known well for a long time. His purpose is to examine the intertidal zone, the foreshore, the area between the low and high water marks. ‘The intertidal’, Nicolson writes, ‘is rich but troubled; as no coincidence, it is one of the most revelatory habitats on earth.’ Study of the intertidal zones has given rise to many of the most significant discoveries in the science of nature. ‘It is’, he writes, ‘where you can look beyond your own reflection and find the marvellous an inch beneath your nose.’

In order to study the intertidal zone in his particular corner of the Western Highlands, Nicolson made three rock pools of his own. The first one took him three days to dig: ‘It was hard, slow and dirty, as sloppy as a Flanders trench, the process as graceless as the churning of a concrete mixer.’ The first visitors to his new rock pool were five common prawns. The second pool was an altogether more complex undertaking, involving a dam

Jan Holm/Shutterstock

with a flap-valve to keep the water in the pool at low tide. Crabs were the first visitors. The third pool was built further down the foreshore by forming a circular concrete dam against a rock buttress.

This book is a stimulating mixture of science and practical observation leavened with history, literature, personal anecdote, folklore, and a transparent love of the natural world. It has a calm wisdom and an unhurried elegance to it, as if Nicolson is fully aware of his - and our - place in the scheme of things. He marvels at the wondrous complexity of the natural world, the life-giving, lifesustaining purpose which lies in the smallest detail.

The book is full of zoological and botanical science but Nicolson’s knowledge is lightly worn; he writes so well that the book is a delight to read. His talk to the Sherborne Literary Society promises to be a fascinating evening, one not to be missed.

___________________________________________ Friday 12th November 7pm The Sea is Not Made of Water A Talk with Author Adam Nicolson Digby Memorial Hall, Digby Road, Sherborne DT9 3NL Tickets £9 members, £10 non-members (+ booking fee) available via sherborneliterarysociety.com/events

___________________________________________ sherbornetimes.co.uk | 127

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OCTOBER SOLUTIONS

ACROSS 1. Act of saying farewell (11) 9. Protective cover (3) 10. Unwarranted (5) 11. Makes musical sounds (5) 12. Mountain cry (5) 13. Represents in a faithful way (8) 16. Warily (8) 18. Wild and untamed (5) 20. Excuse or pretext (5) 21. Avoided by social custom (5) 22. Unit of weight (3) 23. Holland (11) 128 | Sherborne Times | November 2021

DOWN 2. Summed together (5) 3. Evenly balanced (5) 4. Bring forth (6) 5. Table support (7) 6. River in South America (7) 7. Eg Queen of Hearts (7,4) 8. Very successful (of a book) (4-7) 14. Throw into disorder (7) 15. Cast a spell on (7) 17. Warm up (6) 18. Plants of a region (5) 19. Ranked (5)

Literature

LITERARY REVIEW Richard Hopton, Sherborne Literary Society

Silverview by John Le Carré (Viking, £20 hardcover) Sherborne Times reader offer price of £18 from Winstone's Books

J

ohn le Carré was one of the most important English novelists of the last sixty years, responsible, singlehandedly, for the invention of the literary spy thriller. Since The Spy Who Came In From The Cold, published in 1963, rocketed him to international attention, le Carré’s 25 novels have gripped the reading public with their multi-layered tales of the idealism and cynicism, loyalty and treachery of our secret security services and the human fallibility, the sheer ordinariness of its operatives. None of le Carré’s heroes are suave hitmen like Fleming’s Bond. It is no accident that le Carré’s hero should be played by Alec Guinness, Fleming’s by Sean Connery.

Le Carré died in December 2020 leaving Silverview as his last complete, full length novel, his 26th. As in so many of le Carré’s novels, it glides from an apparently mundane opening - in this case a young woman in an anorak walking down South Audley Street with a pushchair in the rain - into an intricate web of intrigue, where the past is never far below the surface and the explanation never straightforward. Turning the pages, the reader can see a nimbus of complexity on the horizon and thinks, ‘I’d better keep my wits about me, this is le Carré’.

Most of the novel’s protagonists are present and former members of the British security service. Stewart Proctor is the service’s mole-catcher-in-chief, charged with investigating a breach in security; Deborah Avon is the service’s former Middle East expert, married

'Independent Bookseller of the Year 2016’ 8 Cheap Street, Sherborne, Dorset DT9 3PX www.winstonebooks.co.uk Tel: 01935 816 128

to Edward, who is hard to place and harder to fathom. Julian Lawndsley, the principal civilian, is a City spiv who made a rapid fortune and retired in his early thirties to run a provincial bookshop. There is a supporting part for another favourite le Carré character, the retired spook, in this case a couple, Philip and Joan, living in genteel poverty in Somerset.

The background to the story lies in the sectarian horrors of the conflict in Bosnia in the early ‘90s but the novel itself is centred on an unremarkable East Anglian seaside town. It is here that Lawndsley opens his bookshop, here that the Avons live in retirement and here that Edward Avon befriends Lawndsley. The novel has an air of decline and mild disappointment; for most of its protagonists, life hasn’t quite lived up to the expectations of earlier years. Even the top-secret conference room at a formerly vital airforce base is not immune; it is, Procter decides, like ‘a ship abandoned, slowly sinking. A stench of decay, age and oil.’ It is wholly appropriate that one of the climatic scenes of the novel should be a funeral.

Silverview is a story about loyalty. How do we decide to whom we owe loyalty, and why? Can loyalties change or are they, once formed, eternal? It’s an enjoyable novel, a worthy coda, albeit in a minor key, to le Carré’s life’s work. The master is dead, but his books will live on. sherborneliterarysociety.com

Talk and signing with historian and broadcaster

Saul David

Tuesday 23rd November 7.00pm Winstone’s Books

Tickets £2 (in advance) including glass of wine

PAUSE FOR THOUGHT

W

John Crossman, St Paul’s Church

hen I messed up my dad would say, ‘Well, what have you learnt?’ Often the answer was, ‘Just how annoying parents can be!’ Well, what have you learnt from the last two years? For me it is: just how dependent we are on others for our lives, our happiness, our very existence. Interviewed for the Guardian, Greta Thunberg said ‘… I really see the value of friendship. Apart from the climate, almost nothing else matters.’ She now has friends around the world. She too is making the point of connectedness. ‘No man (or woman) is an island’ wrote John Donne - we are all connected.

In the ‘Winter of Discontent’ of 1979 I thought the highest paid workers should be the street cleaners and coalminers. Now again we realise how hugely dependent we are on those in low-paid jobs to clear our waste, harvest our potatoes and deliver our petrol. My friend drives an HGV: it is a lonely, taxing job with very unsocial hours. When you see a lorry parked up with its curtains closed, think of the person sleeping inside, away from their family, unlikely to find a decent toilet or shower.

The emergence of a new virus in China has killed 2 million people worldwide as I write and has impacted all 7 billion of us here on Earth. Earth, where everything, be it cutting down the rainforest or using pesticides that kill bees, directly affects our lives and our weather; even how my parsnips grow.

At the heart of the Christian faith there is a strong and relevant message: we are all important; we are all part of this place we call Earth, a small green ball within the vastness of creation. Creation? Many people have rejected that idea - there is no God, so no creator.

Christians believe the world is created: and humanity is called to look after it. I first preached on this theme 50 years ago in downtown Manchester. I helped get global warming into science exams in the 1980s. I am a passionate believer in the delicacy, beauty and fragility of our wondrous created world.

Christians recognise and praise God the Creator and care about His world; we believe we are called to value every person, whatever their background – we need each other and must love each other. That message – loving creation, and working with others (even those who are different) – is a message for us all regardless of belief.

When you read this the COP26 meeting of world powers in Glasgow will be making key decisions, committing nations across the world to action against climate change. What will our leaders do? Will it be enough? We have a desperately short time to achieve the limitations on pollution and CO2 needed for a sustainable planet.

John Donne’s poem finishes, ‘And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee’. Each of us is affected by what happens to others. How can you and I do more to love other people and save our world? spcs.church

130 | Sherborne Times | November 2021

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