Sherborne Times April 2022

APR IL 2022 | FREE

A MONTHLY CELEBR ATION OF PEOPLE, PLACE AND PURVEYOR

A BREATH OF FRESH AIR with Silvana de Soissons of Farm Soap Co.

sherbornetimes.co.uk

WELCOME

I

t seems we can, at last, relax our shoulders from their winter hunch and stand a little taller. The churn underfoot now firm, we are free to indulge and explore an ever-unfolding spring. From park benches and lawns, beatific faces track the sun, eyes closed, the warmth weighing heavy on our lids.

To close one’s eyes in a public space is a strangely liberating act and in order to inhabit this vulnerable state, we must first feel safe enough to do so. In stark contrast to the horrors we are witnessing on the news, to see people at such ease prompts a confused swell of guilt and gratitude.

And so to April… Samantha Henderson counts down the days to Sherborne Abbey Festival, Laurence Belbin is up to his easel in veg, Paul Maskell celebrates a pioneer of electronica and we go behind the scenes with The Royal Bath & West heavy horses. Wayne Winstone and Mike Burks do the honours, Guy Deacon goes it alone and Ian Bartle leads by example. Val bakes therapeutic Easter cookies, John Walsh turns the car around and Sherborne gains a new literary star.

Meanwhile, Jo and Katharine pop down to meet Dorset ‘soaper’ Silvana de Soissons and come back smelling, well, lovely.

If only these pages were scratch-and-sniff.

Have a great month.

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

CONTRIBUTORS Editorial and creative direction Glen Cheyne

Ian Bartle Sherborne Primary School Laurence Belbin

Design Andy Gerrard

Elisabeth Bletsoe Sherborne Museum

Photography Katharine Davies

Richard Bromell ASFAV Charterhouse Auctioneers and Valuers

Feature writer Jo Denbury

Mike Burks The Gardens Group

Editorial assistant Helen Brown

David Burnett The Dovecote Press

Social media Jenny Dickinson Illustrations Elizabeth Watson Print Stephens & George Distribution team Barbara and David Elsmore The Jackson Family David and Susan Joby Mary and Roger Napper Mark and Miranda Pender Claire Pilley Joyce Sturgess Ionas Tsetikas Paul Whybrew

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

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4 | Sherborne Times | April 2022

James Hull The Story Pig Annabelle Hunt Bridport Timber Lucy Lewis Dorset Mind Peter Littlewood Young People’s Trust for the Environment Chris Loder MP

Rob Bygrave Sherborne Science Cafe

Paul Maskell The Beat and Track

Paula Carnell Cindy Chant

Harriet McKay Sherborne Preparatory School

Geoff Cooke The Gryphon School

Claire Mason Sherborne Girls

David Copp

Tom Matkevitch The Green Restaurant

Rosie Cunningham Guy Deacon CBE Jemma Dempsey Elizabeth Dowler Mogers Drewett Solicitors Mgr. Canon Robert Draper VG Sacred Heart and St Aldhelm Church

1 Bretts Yard Digby Road Sherborne Dorset DT9 3NL

Richard Hopton, John Gaye & Martin Gibson Sherborne Literary Society

Jan Millward The Countrymen’s Club Hamish Murray Dorset Wildlife Trust Gillian Nash Mark Newton-Clarke MA VetMB PhD MRCVS Newton Clarke Veterinary Partnership

James Flynn Milborne Port Computers

Sally Ridout

Mat Follas Bramble Restaurant

Malcolm Scurrell Royal Bath & West Show

Simon Ford

Julia Skelhorn Sherborne Scribblers

Andrew Fort Fort Financial Planning

Val Stones

Nico & Chrystall Goodden

Emma Tabor & Paul Newman

Craig Hardaker Communifit

Hugh Tatham BA MA Sherborne School

Andy Hastie Cinematheque

Ryan Terren BA FSSA LifeHouse Feng Shui

Samantha Henderson Sherborne Abbey Festival

John Walsh BVSc Cert AVP DBR MRCVS Friars Moor Vets

Mike Hewitson MPharm FFRPS FRSPH MRPharmS The Abbey Pharmacy

Wayne Winstone Winstone Books Julia Witherspoon Julia Nutrition

82 6

Art & Culture

APRIL 2022 72 Antiques

128 Legal

20 What’s On

74 Gardening

130 Finance

24 Community

82 Farm Soap Co.

132 Tech

36 Family

90 Food & Drink

136 Short Story

52 Science & Nature

102 Animal Care

140 Literature

62 On Foot

110 Body & Mind

144 Crossword

66 History

122 Home

146 Pause for Thought

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

Art & Culture

ARTIST AT WORK

No.41: Sally Ridout, Melbury Fields, 40 x 45 cm, £275

A

s a small child on a farm in Wales, I remember being given a landscape ‘paintingby-numbers’ set one Christmas. I remember vividly how many greens there were and I believe now that this was the beginning of a lifetime love of painting, particularly landscapes and particularly the ‘green’ of the West Country and Wales.

This painting is of Melbury Beacon near Shaftesbury, a favourite subject of mine. Here I have sought out rhythms of pattern and shape in the landscape and expressed them in a balanced, cohesive composition using colour to lift and unify the design.

I like to show the evidence and application of the medium I am using, in this case, oil paint.

I choose specific places to paint. After my initial sketching on-site, my response back in the studio is semi-abstract in style; expressive rather 6 | Sherborne Times | April 2022

than representative. When people recognise my interpretation of a place they know well, I find it very rewarding as it means I have found the essence of a place through the work.

I grew up on a ranch in Africa with far horizons and big skies, so the relationship between land and sky is inherently important to me. I feel the influence of many ‘expressive’ artists of the past, the Canadian Group of Seven in particular, and I love the freedom of colour and energy which the contemporary painter Josephine Trotter brings to her landscapes.

Sally’s work will be exhibited at Elm Yard Gallery, North Wootton, during Dorset Art Weeks 2022: 14th - 29th May dorsetartweeks.co.uk @sally.ridout

A story of

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To find out more, please contact admissions@sherborne.com

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Art & Culture

ON FILM

Andy Hastie, Yeovil Cinematheque

The Unknown Girl (2016)

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’m on the South West region committee for Cinema for All, the British Film Institute national support and development organisation for community-led cinema and film societies. We usually organise 2 viewing days each year, to help film societies choose titles for their upcoming season of films, and also to network with other similar groups. Because of Covid restrictions, we have been unable to do so since November 2019, but at the moment we are planning a day in Bath this month to start up the service again.

Our biggest problem however, is not the quality or number of excellent films that have been made over the difficult past couple of years, but their availability.

So many films are now financed by an ever-increasing number of streaming sites these days who, once they 8 | Sherborne Times | April 2022

have the rights to a film, will make it available to view only on home television or, heaven forbid, smartphone.

Fewer and fewer films are being released on DVD because all the big money is in streaming. Back catalogues are also being picked up by these companies and many wonderful films are just disappearing from their lists if too few people want to watch them. Some say saturation point will be reached soon, but in the meantime, film societies and community cinemas who can’t afford, or find it impractical, to buy the expensive equipment needed to show streamed films in village halls or small venues, are left searching for those rare gems from a diminishing supply of films on DVD. I’m not against progress, but the ‘progress’ here is only driven by streaming sites’ profit, not the quality of

content provided. The experience of collectively sitting in a venue, with other like-minded people, watching a film on a big screen cannot be beaten, in my opinion.

This month at Cinematheque we’re back to 2 films again as our current season gets into its stride, the first a moral dilemma (we do love a moral dilemma!), and the second, an extraordinary documentary from Macedonia.

The two Dardenne brothers from Belgium have been writing, producing and directing their naturalistic films since the 1970s. The Unknown Girl (2016) showing on 6th April, tells the tale of a young female doctor, Jenny, played by the excellent Adele Haenel, who receives a late-night, out of hours ring on her doorbell, and ignores it. The next morning she discovers that the caller was a girl who has been found dead, and cannot be identified. Shocked and guiltstricken, Jenny vows to find out who the girl was.

This moral drama, an engaging and masterful social commentary, opens up like a traditional detective story, framed as a modern ‘film noir’.

On 20th April we show Honeyland (2019), a riveting documentary about Hatidze, a fifty-something woman living with her bedridden mother in a deserted Macedonian village. She scratches a living keeping wild bees. The scenes where she tends the hives on remote rocky hillsides are just astonishing film-making. When an itinerant Turkish family move into the empty village, Hatidze welcomes them, but finds her life slowly thrown into turmoil as their actions strain her own survival. This film could easily be read as well-crafted fiction, but remarkably is a true illustration, shot over 3 years, of the last female wild bee keeper in Europe.

These are the two very different but equally compelling films on show this month at the Swan Theatre, Yeovil. If you are interested, come as a guest, or take out a membership for the rest of the season. You will be very welcome. All details are on our website below.

PETER KUHFELD 1st – 20th April, 2022

JAMES GALWAY ROSES

OIL

DOGE’S PALACE, VENICE

OIL

cinematheque.org.uk swan-theatre.co.uk

___________________________________________ Wednesday 6th April 7.30pm The Unknown Girl (2016) Wednesday 20th April 7.30pm Honeyland (2019) Cinematheque, Swan Theatre, 138 Park St, Yeovil BA20 1QT Members £1, guests £5

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

___________________________________________ sherbornetimes.co.uk | 9

Art & Culture

CONFESSIONS OF A THEATRE ADDICT Rosie Cunningham

Griff Rhys Jones and Janie Dee in An Hour And A Half Late. Image: Marc Brenner 10 | Sherborne Times | April 2022

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saw An Hour and a Half Late, starring Griff Rhys Jones and Janie Dee, at the Theatre Royal Bath. It is a two-hander about a London couple, Peter and Laura, whose children have all left home and Peter is about to retire and sell his half of the accountancy business to his partner. They are due for dinner at his partner’s house to sign the deal and, just as they are ready to leave, Laura refuses to go. She feels undervalued, she has lost her focus, she is worried about the future. Peter, who obviously loves her, tries to cajole her into a more positive mood and then everything descends into chaos. Wine is consumed, home truths are exchanged, cushions are thrown, and food is consumed greedily and destructively. From a calm, serene beginning, no one could predict how the play could descend into such farce. Rhys Jones was at his absolute best and in fact, the play could have been written for him, to showcase his rich talents. No doubt he adlibbed like mad and, sadly, Dee who is the most fabulous singer and dancer, was not able to keep up. Her acting felt slightly wooden, and she stumbled over her lines, whereas Rhys Jones got more and more fluent and funny. I had forgotten how good he is. The play is worth seeing, as it tours, for its bitter-sweet insightful script which brings to life how couples deal with the empty-nest syndrome. This is described as a ‘relationship comedy’, written by French writers Gérald Sibleyras and Jean Dell, directed by Belinda Lang. Interestingly, Lang starred in the first outing of this play in 2006 with Mel Smith, Rhys Jones’s former comedy partner. This is touring until May 2022.

Fabergé in London: Romance to Revolution, is on at the V&A until 8th May 2022. Did you know that Fabergé had their own premises in London at 173 New Bond Street which opened in 1903? Items made by Fabergé included a cigar box with a view of the Houses of Parliament and a statuette of Persimmon, the famous racehorse owned by the Prince of Wales.

The exhibition is laid out beautifully, with lit boxes of exquisite items designed by Faberge, and made by his team of skilled craftsmen. Original pencilled drawings are placed alongside the finished piece, be it a necklace for a Russian princess or a tiara for a Rothschild. The final room, however, displays a stupendous collection of Fabergé eggs, many held in private collections that haven’t been on show for many years, and two of which are owned by the Queen. The stories behind each egg, many of which hold a hidden treasure, are fascinating. This truly was a world of opulence and exquisite craftsmanship, which quite frankly is awe-inspiring.

Can I just finish by saying how lucky we are to have so many amazing artists living nearby?

I recently visited Oliver Akers Douglas’s studio in East Knoyle, which I have to say is very much on a farmyard. His landscapes of Dorset and South Wiltshire are extraordinary. pwprods.co.uk vam.ac.uk olliead.com

OUT OF THE DARK

14 multi-media artists respond to a theme April 14th – 19th & 21st – 24th 10.30am - 4.30pm daily 2 West Walks Dorchester DT1 1RE 01305 260215 sherbornetimes.co.uk | 11

Art & Culture

SHERBORNE ABBEY FESTIVAL 29th April - 6th May Samantha Henderson

Jess Gilliam. Image Robin Clewley

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t is with enormous excitement that we announce the return of the Sherborne Abbey Festival in 2022 and what a return it is! With an impressive and extraordinary selection of music and musicians, we welcome everyone back to the beautiful Abbey and our other local venues to enjoy the pleasure of listening to live music.

There are several ‘firsts’ this year for the Festival our first festival selling advance tickets entirely on the phone or via our new website sherborneabbeyfestival.org and also the first time we have offered tickets to under 18s at a 50% discount - we really do want to encourage young people to come to our concerts. The Festival’s founding principle is to raise money and support young musicians and music-making in Sherborne and this year we are delighted to announce a three-year commitment to supporting the youth band section of the Sherborne Town Band. We also continue to support the Abbey Choir and are thrilled to be able to purchase a grand piano for the Abbey which will arrive later this year.

Whilst mentioning youth music, the opening night on Friday 29th April is absolutely not to be missed. Jess Gillam is the youngest presenter for BBC Radio 3 and hosts her own award-winning weekly show as well as presenting several BBC Proms on live television. She was 12 | Sherborne Times | April 2022

the first-ever saxophonist to reach the final of the BBC Young Musician and her performance at the Last Night of the Proms in 2018 was described as ‘the indisputable highlight’ by BBC News. She is joined by well-known violinist Ruth Rogers and the Iuventus Chamber Orchestra in a double-bill of Concertos - a concert full of musical fireworks and surely not to be missed!

Ruth Rogers returns with two more concerts; on Tuesday 3rd May the principal quartet from the London Mozart Players present an intimate, yet stunning, collaboration with Michael Collins MBE (clarinet), Artistic Director-in-Residence of the London Mozart Players, performing the gorgeous Mozart and Brahms Clarinet Quintets. There is the chance to hear Michael and Ruth talking about their concert and their work together in a pre-concert talk at 6pm. And on Friday 6th May, Ruth is the violinist for the Aquinas Piano Trio who will performa lively and varied programme. On Wednesday 4th May, continuing the Festival’s support of music students at conservatoires, the award-winning Sylva Winds, Royal Academy of Music post-graduate students, present a programme of Five Wind Quintets. For lovers of chamber music, these three concerts will surely be top of your list.

Michael Collins. Image: Ben Ealovega

For opera lovers, there is a real treat! Waterperry Opera presents a fully costumed, period-perfect production of Jonathan Dove’s Mansfield Park in the beautiful gardens at Leweston on Sunday 1st May. Bring a picnic to enjoy lunch beforehand. And for more opera and food combinations, The Plume of Feathers hosts two nights of amazing live opera with a delicious three-course menu. Or for jazz lovers, The Cross Keys recent joint winners of the Sherborne Business Awards Best Cafe/Pub Dining Award - closes the Festival with an evening of terrific jazz and fabulous food.

On Saturday 30th April, the stunning voices of Tenebrae make a welcome return to the Abbey with a programme of choral music from the 1600s to the present day celebrating Mary, Mother of God. Also on the Saturday, bringing beautiful, intimate early music to the Festival, is tenor Kieran White performing 16th century English songs accompanied by international lutenist Cédric Meyer. And on Monday 2nd May, the Sherborne Festival Chorus presents the magnificent choral work that is Elgar’s The Kingdom.

And of course, there are many more concerts from local ensembles including Sherborne Town Band and Wessex Strings, and wonderful contributions from Sherborne School, Sherborne

Tenebrae. Image: Sim Cannetty-Clarke

Girls and Leweston School. Most of these concerts have free entry and provide a superb opportunity to hear talented young performers showcasing their fine musicianship and talent.

Pick up our full-colour free brochure from the back of the Abbey, the Parish Office, the Abbey shop and many local stores or do look at our fabulous new website, produced by Dorset media company Wyke Creative, for full details of everything that is available.

This includes details of other ways in which you can get involved with the Festival. Our Patrons scheme is growing fast and our thanks must go to our many Patrons and supporters, who have continued to support the Festival over the years. sherborneabbeyfestival.org

___________________________________________ Friday 29th April - Friday 6th May Sherborne Abbey Festival Venues across town. Sherborne’s annual, week-long celebration of music welcomes people of all ages to experience a wide

range of performances and genres; from opera, choral and

classical music to jazz, swing and more. Tickets: 0333 666 3366 and via sherborneabbeyfestival.org

___________________________________________

SPRING EXHIBITION Original Paintings, Sculpture and Cards

by YEOVIL ART GROUP ILMINSTER ART CENTRE AT THE MEETING HOUSE, ILMINSTER Tuesday 29th March - Friday 15th April Unique Affordable Free entry Coffee, Lunch and Tea available www.yeovilartgroup.com Striped with Pride, Dora Carrington

sherbornetimes.co.uk | 13

Art & Culture

AN ARTIST’S VIEW

M

Laurence Belbin

arch and April this year are busy months for me, mainly preparing for the return of Dorset Art Weeks which I will be taking part in by opening my studio for the whole of the two weeks in May. That said I wasn’t going to put on hold my usual wanderings with my sketch pad.

I did a little pen drawing of the gateway going into the Bishops Palace whilst visiting the City of Wells but decided to show here a couple of sketches I did of a well-known shop in Cheap Street.

It is so easy to walk past these wonderful little shops if you are not at that time looking for anything that they sell within. I do make a point of stopping and looking, much to the amusement of passers-by who, I’m sure, must wonder what can possibly be so interesting in a stone wall!

Decorative wood and brickwork, chimney pots, stone mullion windows, shop fascias and old sign brackets all adorn our buildings in Sherborne. I have often admired the front of the Sherborne Market Store with the fruit and veg in boxes all labelled up like they were selling on

14 | Sherborne Times | April 2022

the parade. I like the window with its curved glass going into the shop. I set up opposite, under cover, outside Marshes with HB and 2B pencils and my very small watercolour kit. It was a quick sketch, just as I like them. I kept it simple with a suggestion of detail. I then moved inside where another subject presented itself. Boxes and boxes of produce stacked wherever there was space, each with hand-written signs on bits of cardboard giving tips on how to cook yams and what to do with Jerusalem artichokes and other such advice!

The best viewpoint was from the doorway and I tried not to block it but I must apologise to anyone who thought I was waiting to go in and started a queue behind me!

This subject was a little more involved so I took extra time on the early stage of the drawing, proportions and getting in what I wanted before using the ink. I wanted to keep the ‘market stall’ look of the scene and not tidy everything up.

It looked ok just in pencil but the colours of the chillies, carrots and the rest seemed too good not to exploit. I feel it is better for it.

Knowing when to stop is always a tricky thing but the thought of a cup of tea or a pint somewhere usually helps in coming to the right decision! laurencebelbin.com

sherbornetimes.co.uk | 15

Art & Culture

Image: Katharine Davies

ROOM WITH A VIEW

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Claire Mason, Head of Art, Sherborne Girls

n today’s digital age, it is important we find ways of reminding our pupils that the creation of art is a physical process that is made to be seen by an audience. As teachers, we encourage the girls to take as many opportunities as possible to see artwork first-hand in galleries and museums. This year I am pleased we have been able to organise study visits to London, and during the Easter holidays we are taking girls that study History of Art, Fine Art and Photography to Bilbao and Madrid. Being able to visit some of the world’s most important galleries is greatly beneficial to develop knowledge and understanding for their courses but perhaps more important is to foster the skill of really looking.

I am reminded of the current discussion about ‘slow looking’ and this advice given by the Tate – ‘A visit to a museum or art gallery can sometimes be an overwhelming experience. With so many works on display, trying to see everything can feel like a race against the clock. Studies have found that visitors to art galleries spend an average of eight seconds looking at each work on display. But what happens when we spend five minutes, fifteen minutes, an hour or an afternoon really looking in detail at an artwork? This is ‘slow looking’. It is an approach based on the idea that, if we really want to get to know a work of art, we need to spend time with it.

Slow looking is not about curators, historians or even artists telling you how you should look at art. It’s about you and the artwork, allowing yourself time to make your own discoveries and form a more personal connection with it. Remember, it’s not rude to stare at art.’

In school, I curate exhibitions for the pupils, staff and visitors, in the Wirth Gallery, situated in the Merritt Centre. Mostly the displays are of the girls’ work, in particular the End of Year

16 | Sherborne Times | April 2022

Show, which is undoubtedly one of the highlights of my year as it is an opportunity to celebrate the sustained efforts made by pupils to produce work of an exceptional standard. However, as restrictions have eased, I felt it was important to use the gallery to display work by professional artists, to provoke discussion and provide inspiration. I was lucky to be able to invite Sherborne artist, Andy Rollo to exhibit his work in the gallery.

Andy’s exhibition Approaches to Landscape shows a selection of his work ranging from paintings to relief sculpture. Having the opportunity to read about the placement of shape, the opticality of colour and how it behaves, has been inspirational for pupils of all years and has helped inform their own work. Andy’s practice focuses on the formal elements of visual language and the act of looking and responding to our world. Working in acrylics and oils, he explores shape and colour juxtapositions, together with repetition, creating pieces that evoke pictorial realities of stability and instability. Time and the wide variety of ways that one can evoke the passing of existence is fundamental to his practice both in terms of exploring layering and decision-making, but also with regards to the cause and effect of human history and geological forces on the Dorset landscape.

On describing his process, Andy says: ‘The act of producing an art piece is wholly absorbed in the process of creating stability from an unstable situation. Only when the piece is ‘completed’ does there appear a resolution to the striving. I am endlessly searching for stability – responding to visual and personal experiences – the tenuous nature of reality as seen through psychology, geology etc and hopefully fixing something, that in life would only be appreciable for a moment.’

This exhibition will be available to the Sherborne Girls community until May, which provides plenty of time to immerse themselves in the work at their own leisure – allowing them to connect and learn from the pieces in a totally different way, without time constraints. They could even experiment with a little ‘slow looking’.

We are currently in the process of appointing an artist/curator-in-residence who will be able to devote even more time and energy to this programme and make full use of the Wirth Gallery. It is a professional, contemporary space that genuinely allows the artwork to be seen at its very best. I am excited by the prospect of being able to organise a variety of different displays including community events and exhibitions with established artists that will be open to the community as we move forward. @sherborne_girls_art sherborne.com @adrolloartist andyrollo.com

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Look out for our DIRECTORY + APP + WEBSITE in early April

DATES FOR YOUR DIARIES

14 – 29 MAY 2022

dorsetartweeks.co.uk DORSET VISUAL ARTS sherbornetimes.co.uk | 17

Art & Culture

COUNTER CULTURE Paul Maskell, The Beat and Track

No.8 Delia Derbyshire: Sister with a Transistor

Image: Oyasumikisi

I

can pretty much guarantee that you’ve all heard Delia Derbyshire’s work but very few people have actually heard of her.

As a young girl, she was brought up in a workingclass family in Lancashire and showed a high level of intelligence at a very young age. This later culminated in gaining a place at Cambridge to study mathematics.

Having been bought a piano by her parents at the age of 8, music was something that also fascinated her and to this end, she changed her studies after a year and worked towards an eventual BA in Mathematics 18 | Sherborne Times | April 2022

and Music. With a considerable qualification and enthusiasm for music, she approached the University’s careers office telling them that she was interested in, ‘sound, music and acoustics.’ In response to this, she was advised to seek work within the field of ‘deaf aids’!

Unperturbed by this she applied for a job at Decca records only to be told that the company did not employ women in their recording studios! Interest and aptitude were unable to overcome the lack of equality in the 50s and Delia settled into a teaching role in a primary school in Coventry.

In November 1960 Delia applied and was accepted for the role of trainee assistant studio manager at the BBC. During her training, she heard about the radiophonic workshop and applied for a position there. This was looked upon by her colleagues with some amusement as the radiophonic workshop was somewhere ‘assigned to’, not ‘applied for’! She gained that position and for the following eleven years she worked producing music and sound for over 200 radio and television programmes.

In 1963 she produced one of the most iconic pieces of music in British television history. She re-worked a score written by Ron Grainer and produced something unrecognisable to him but now recognised by millions of people the world over – the theme tune to Dr Who. This theme tune would be used for the TV show from 1963-1980 but Delia wouldn’t be credited with its creation until the 50th anniversary of the show. The BBC liked all members of the radiophonic workshop to remain anonymous.

In the late 60s, Delia’s prominence within the electronic music scene led her to take part in two concerts of British electronic music in London and Liverpool. She went on to soundtrack films and even live theatre. She is also rumoured to have collaborated with Brian Jones and Jimi Hendrix, and discussed potential arrangements for Yesterday with Paul McCartney. She co-founded the company Kaleidophon – a company dedicated to the development of electronic music and instruments – with fellow member of the radiophonic workshop, Brian Hodgson. Delia then went on to be part of a team that won an international competition for educational broadcasting – never turning her back on her teaching roots.

In 1973 Delia left the BBC and the radiophonic workshop. She cited workload, equipment issues and

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"In 1963 she produced one of the most iconic pieces of music in British television history – the theme tune to Dr Who." above all a lack of adventure and passion from the BBC directors. Delia’s own enthusiasm for music then fell into abeyance for a considerable time.

During this period she took on minimal musical projects, while she struggled with mental health issues and alcoholism. Three years prior to her premature death at 64, she briefly resurfaced collaborating with Peter Kember (Sonic Boom), founder of Spacemen 3.

She co-produced his two albums Vibrations (2000) and Continuum (2001), and worked with him to create the track Synchrondipity Machine. Kember commented that Delia’s ultimate resource was her limitless imagination.

On working with Kember Delia said, ‘Working with Sonic Boom has been an inspiration. Now, without the constraints of doing ‘applied music’, my mind can fly free and pick up where I left off.’

Delia Derbyshire died on 3rd July 2001 at the age of 64 – a massive pioneer in electronic music with very little credit. She has been the inspiration of some of the biggest electronica artists of today including Aphex Twin, Sonic Boom, the Chemical Brothers and Orbital.

Heard by so many, known by so few. thebeatandtrack.co.uk

THE FREE WESSEX ARTS AND CULTURE GUIDE

EVOLVER MAGAZINE

Pick up your copy at arts venues, galleries, museums, art shops, cafés, libraries and tourist information centres (etc) throughout Dorset, Somerset, East Devon, West Wiltshire, Bristol and Bath Or subscribe online at: evolver.org.uk Instagram: evolvermagazine

sherbornetimes.co.uk | 19

WHAT'S ON ____________________________

Saturday 9th - Sunday 10th

____________________________

Until Friday 15th

10am-5pm

Wednesday 20th 7.30pm

Yeovil Art Group Spring

Angels of Sound Voice Playshop

Yeovil Cinematheque –

Exhibition

Oborne Village Hall, DT9 4LA

Honeyland (2019)

the chakras and finding your soul note.

138 Park St, Yeovil BA20 1QT

Ilminster Art Centre, at the Meeting House, Ilminster. yeovilartgroup.com

____________________________ Friday 1st - Wednesday 20th (Tuesday-Saturday)

Pure Sound Therapy Module 1: toning

Cinematheque, Swan Theatre,

£70. Bookings only 01935 389655

Members £1, guests £5

ahiahel@live.com centreforpuresound.org

____________________________

____________________________

Thursday 21st 7pm

Peter Kuhfeld Exhibition

Wednesday 13th

Sherborne Literary Society

The Jerram Gallery, Half Moon St

The Probus Club of Sherborne –

- Explorer: The Quest for

01935 815261 jerramgallery.com

Sweet Vibrations with speaker

Adventure and the Great

____________________________

Paula Carnell

Unknown

Wednesday 6th 3pm and 7pm

The Grange Hotel, Oborne

Digby Memorial Church Hall,

John Hutchings (Club Secretary) 01935

will be speaking about his latest book.

Sherborne Arts Society - The History and Culture of Chairs Digby Hall, Hound Street.

A talk by Antony Spires, exploring the

New members always welcome. Contact 813448. probus-sherborne.org.uk

____________________________

convention of sitting and the cultural

Thursday 14th - Tuesday 19th

thrones. New members and visitors (£7)

10.30am-4.30pm

____________________________

2 West Walks, Dorchester DT1 1RE

significance of chairs, from benches to

and Thursday 21st - Sunday 24th

welcome theartssocietysherborne.org

Out of the Dark

Wednesday 6th 7.30pm

14 multi-media artists respond to a

Yeovil Cinematheque –

Digby Road. Explorer Benedict Allen Part meditation, part memoir, this is an enquiry into the mind of an

explorer and what it means to explore in the twenty-first century. Tickets

available from Winstone’s Bookshop

and sherborneliterarysociety.com/events.

Members £9, non-members £10.

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theme. 01305 260215

Sunday 24th

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The Sherborne Market

Swan Theatre, 138 Park St, Yeovil

Thursday 14th 7pm

Cheap St, Half Moon St, Digby Road

The Unknown Girl (2016) BA20 1QT. Members £1, guests £5

Sherborne and District Gardeners’

____________________________

Association Spring Show

Friday 8th 7.30pm

The Digby Hall, Hound Street

Ragtime meets Boogie Woogie Mike Denham and Julian Phillips

Judging of members’ entries will begin at

and Pageant Gardens. Local producers, suppliers, amazing food and crafts thesherbornemarket.com

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7.30pm. Visitors £2. Information from

Sunday 24th 1.30pm-4.30pm

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Digby Memorial Hall, Digby Road,

Richard Newcombe 01935 389375

Sherborne Folk Band Workshop

raymondwood1949@gmail.com

Saturday 16th

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Winstone’s Books 10th

DT9 3NL. Workshops are led by Julia

Saturday 9th 10am-1pm

Birthday Celebrations

(last repair 12.30pm)

8 Cheap St. Storytelling, face-painting,

Cheap St Church. Live jazz in aid of

The Rendevous. Bookings by email only

Repair Cafe Cheap Street Church Hall. Bring

household items to be repaired and avoid

cake, book offers, meet the Gruffalo! winstonebooks.co.uk

____________________________

landfill. Not for profit organisation.

Monday 18th 12pm

contact repaircafesherborne@gmail.com

Duck Race and BBQ

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£1.50 to sponsor a duck.

Volunteers and repairers needed please

Oborne Easter Egg Hunt,

or FB @repaircafesherborne

£5 per child (12 years and under)

20 | Sherborne Times | April 2022

Catovsky, who will teach tunes and

harmonies by ear. Suitable for all levels and all acoustic instruments. Notation and audio supplied. £10 on the door.

Tickets are cheaper in advance via the website sherbornefolkband.org info@sherbornefolkband.org Julia: 07527 508277

____________________________ Sunday 24th 2pm-4pm Divine Union Soundbath

APRIL 2022 Oborne Village Hall, Oborne DT9 4LA Pure sounds of a crystal and Tibetan bowl soundbath plus sacred vocal

available. In memory of Jenny Barnett.

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overtoning. £15. Bookings only

Sport

centreforpuresound.org

Friday 29th - Friday 6th May

Gainsborough Park

Sherborne Town FC 1st XI, Toolstation League 1 (3pm unless otherwise stated). Raleigh Grove, Terrace Playing Fields. sherbornetownfc.com

01935 389655 ahiahel@live.com

____________________________ Sherborne RFC

Saturday 2nd

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1st XV, Tribute South West 1 East

v Odd Down (A)

Terrace Playing Fields

Saturday 9th

sherbornerfc.rfu.club

v Oldland Abbotonians (H)

Sherborne Abbey Festival Venues across town. Sherborne’s annual, week-long celebration of music returns for 2022. Tickets: 0333 666 3366 and

Saturday 2nd

Friday 15th

via sherborneabbeyfestival.org

v Beaconsfield (H)

v Gillingham Town (A)

____________________________

Saturday 9th

Monday 18th 1pm

Saturday 30th 10.30am-12.30pm

v Bracknell (A)

v Welton Rovers (H)

St James Church, Longburton DT9 5PG

Saturday 23rd

Saturday 23rd

v Buckingham (H)

v Bishop Sutton (H)

pancreatic cancer research. Refreshments

____________________________

____________________________

(See preview page 12)

Bric-a-Brac Sale Good quality items for sale in aid of

Friday Lunchtime Recitals Cheap Street Church, 1.45pm

(unless otherwise stated)

April 22nd Soloists

May 13th Brass

April 29th Chamber Music Ensembles

May 20th Strings

Sherborne Abbey Festival (1.30pm, Sherborne Abbey)

May 27th Woodwind

May 6th Pianists

June 10th The Choral Scholars

FREE ADMISSION ALL WELCOME sherbornetimes.co.uk | 21

HEAVYWEIGHT CHAMPIONS Malcolm Scurrell, Heavy Horse Steward, Royal Bath & West Show

A

s winter finally comes to an end, thoughts turn to sunny days on the show circuit. At the beginning of March we have shoes put back onto the horses, ready to start daily driving to get them fit for the big rings of the county showgrounds; and start currying out their coats to remove the straggly winter hair.

We begin to train young horses which are coming to the shows for the first time, teaching them to walk out in a bridle, trot to command and back-up when asked.

Most importantly, we train them to be loaded onto the lorry ready for their career in the show ring.

All this happens alongside the daily routine of feeding, mucking out, grooming and picking up and cleaning feet. If you own Shire or Clydesdale horses work is increased in winter, as the lovely white feather on the legs needs careful care with daily washing out and oiling, so stains are removed and the feather does not rot off.

Moving toward the show season, we start to look at the show harness which has been cleaned and stored over the winter. It must be fitted onto the horses that will be worked in it, ensuring that the collars and harness fit and are adjusted correctly for when it is being hitched into a vehicle. It is essential to get this done at home and not on the showground, when time is of the essence and an ill-fitting and badly adjusted harness can affect safety and results in the show ring.

22 | Sherborne Times | April 2022

The harness is then stripped down, washed off, polished and stored until a day or two before the show, when the metal fittings are polished and the leather buffed up and wrapped in cloth so the brass does not tarnish, and put in a box ready to load onto the lorry.

At this point show vehicles (drays, ladies’ carts, agricultural vehicles etc.) are brought out from under winter covers, washed and given an initial polish. The wheels are taken off and the axels are greased.

Longer and warmer days are now here, and the long battles of pushing wheelbarrows in heavy rain and wind are forgotten in the excitement of the imminent shows and renewing of old friendships with people from all over the country.

As the day of the show approaches things start to get hectic! Lorries are loaded with all the essentials for man and beast including feed, hay and straw – sometimes enough for many days away. The long checklist starts: do last year’s showing clothes still fit? Have boots, ties, driving gloves etc all been remembered? We also check through the braiding boxes to ensure that the ribbons and flights for manes and tails are there and ready.

The day before the show the washing of the horses begins and they are shampooed and rinsed until they are squeaky clean. Manes and tails are thinned, and ergots and chestnuts on legs and feet are cut back ready for them to be presented in the show ring.

It is then time to put the horses on the lorry and set off to the showground. At major shows, exhibitors tend to arrive the day before, so that they are settled in for an early start on the day of the show. Vehicles will be unloaded and cleaned, ready for the following day.

Show Day

This is when the real work begins! From about 6am horses are fed, walked and mucked out, and overnight stains are washed off. Then manes and tails are braided up, hooves oiled, coats brushed, neck ribbons and numbers put around their necks for in-hand showing.

Grooms quickly change into their show ring clothes, so that they are as smartly turned out as their horses. Then it is off to the show ring, with the hope of returning with a prize.

With in-hand classes over for a day, it’s time for a quick lunch and cup of tea and then on to the driven classes. All hands are to the pumps now, as the horses are harnessed ready for hitching into the vehicles.

Stains are removed, and once hitched final checks are made to ensure the chains and straps are on the correct links and holes, and the horse is safe and ready to be driven. Grooms are standing at the head of the horse as the driver climbs into the high seat, puts on the seatbelt and takes up the reins with whip in hand. When s/he is ready, a nod to the groom indicates they should stand

aside, and they ask the horse to move forward and down to the ring.

On returning everything is done in reverse, with the horses washed off and back to their stable for a feed and rest. Meanwhile, the poor humans are left to strip down the harness and clean for the next day!

This may seem like an inordinate amount of trouble to go to, to present a horse for the show ring for half an hour. However heavy horse owners do this for the love of their horses, and a passion that drives them to try and reach perfection that can never be reached. Heavy horse owners are very proud of their animals and derive a huge amount of pleasure from sharing their passion with anybody who wants to watch and talk to us – which we are very happy to do. bathandwest.com

___________________________________________ Thursday 2nd - Saturday 4th June 9am-5pm Royal Bath & West Show 2022 Bath and West Showground, Shepton Mallet, Somerset BA4 6QN. The royal celebration of great British

entertainment, food & drink and countryside returns!

Group and advance ticket discounts available. Each

advance adult ticket includes free entry for two children aged between 5-15 years old. bathandwest.com/tickets

___________________________________________ sherbornetimes.co.uk | 23

Community

MARKET KNOWLEDGE Elly Harvey, Elly Harvey Silver

Welcome to The Sherborne Market!

What brings you here?

I love the concept of a local, carefully curated artisan market. Jules is particularly gifted at allowing new small businesses an opportunity to showcase their work in a friendly environment with a great mixedage footfall. It’s really important for my work to improve, to talk and respond to my clients at every age level so Sherborne is a great opportunity for me to do that.

then moved away to work, had a family and tried other mixed media in my spare time (when I had any!). I always kept a sketchbook though and then started having weekly tuition again in 2016.

Where have you travelled from?

Poole – my studio is in Ashley Cross.

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

All of them!

Tell us about what you’re selling?

Handmade sterling silver jewellery for men and women ranging from ear-cuffs at £10 to bespoke pieces in sterling and yellow gold.

Where and when did it all begin?

I began the journey of metal-smithing at school 24 | Sherborne Times | April 2022

What do you enjoy most about selling at markets?

Meeting other makers, chatting to new and previous clients, the buzz of getting ready for 10am which I find hard! It’s so well run that it’s actually enjoyable, which is great.

Where can people find you on market day?

Opposite The Cross Keys pub at the bottom of Cheap Street. @ellyharveysilver ellyharveysilver.com

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

2022 dates

April 24th May 15th June 19th July 17th Aug 21st

Sept 18th Oct 9th Nov 20th Dec 18th

Fol󰈗󰈗󰈗󰈗󰈗󰈗󰈗󰈗󰈗󰈗󰈗󰈗󰈗󰈗󰈗󰈗󰈗󰈗󰈗󰈗󰈗󰈗󰈗󰈗󰈗󰈗󰈗󰈗󰈗󰈗󰈗󰈗󰈗󰈗󰈗 or 󰉏󰉏󰉏󰉏󰉏󰉏󰉏󰉏󰉏󰉏󰉏󰉏󰉏󰉏󰉏󰉏󰉏󰉏󰉏󰉏󰉏󰉏󰉏󰉏󰉏󰉏󰉏󰉏󰉏󰉏󰉏󰉏󰉏󰉏󰉏󰉏󰉏󰉏󰉏󰉏󰉏

Flying the flag for local

w󰉒󰉒󰉒󰉒󰉒󰉒󰉒󰉒󰉒󰉒󰉒󰉒󰉒󰉒󰉒󰉒󰉒󰉒󰉒󰉒󰉒󰉒󰉒󰉒󰉒󰉒󰉒󰉒󰉒󰉒󰉒󰉒󰉒󰉒󰉒󰉒󰉒󰉒󰉒󰉒

Community

NOW WE ARE TEN Wayne Winstone, Winstone’s Books

L

ordy, lordy – ten years since we opened our doors…

It’s traditional to get nostalgic and reflective when writing a piece like this and looking back there has been some significant changes in the book business. As with other sectors consolidation has been the main feature with larger publishers hoovering up smaller ones and the same with chain booksellers, (just this week Elliots who own Waterstones have bought the previously family-run Blackwells) and the big five publishers have a huge share of UK publishing.

However, this oddly produces increased creativity and 26 | Sherborne Times | April 2022

drive in the independent sector – both small publishers and booksellers become more resilient in what they do and work hard to find niches and a point of difference.

This has resulted in publishing today being very strong and the production values better than they have ever been, particularly in children’s literature.

Independent presses like Pushkin are introducing readers to wonderfully compelling foreign fiction, particularly Japanese writers, and Flying Eye’s innovative nonfiction range for children featuring illustrators from around the world are fabulous to name just a few.

Let’s not forget the authors driving publishing too.

Image: Katharine Davies

Digital printing has been revolutionary in giving new writers a chance to express themselves, however, I am looking forward to the end of conversations starting with, ‘I wrote this book during lockdown…’

There have been great debuts from fiction writers like Nathan Harris’ Sweetness of Water breaking through proving that talent is as abundant as it has ever been and established writers such as William Boyd and Patrick Gale on top of their game.

What has been particularly pleasing over the years is to see the emergence of dustier categories gaining more prominence. Natural History for example, once

the domain of cardigan-clad academics now has a huge audience driven by leaps in science and a new appreciation of nature. There are compelling books about the life of micro-organisms, sustainable farming and insight into our most fascinating species. I would particularly recommend Merlin Sheldrake’s Entangled Life.

This is all good but publishers and booksellers are nothing without their customers. When I left Waterstones and the horrendous commute to London, I wanted to create a community-facing bookshop that supported local writers and encouraged a love of reading amongst children and, after shedding corporate clothing, have some big fun.

Well, it has been undoubtedly been a blast. In year one, we were coming out of a global recession and suffering from all the nervousness of a start-up and getting to know our customers. Much learning and a few mistakes later, we are in year ten and loving it.

Serving the good people of Sherborne and meeting intelligent, courteous, book-loving and sometimes eccentric folk has been hugely rewarding. I recall one older lady, recently bereaved, telling me that her constant four-legged companion knows when she is grieving and comforts her. She looked contemplatively into the distance and after a pause said, ‘he is like a psychic sponge.’ I looked down at the dachshund giving me ‘biscuit?’ eyes, and – biscuit in hand – thought: how else would he know we had biscuits!

Independent bookshops and their investment in the community is so important to market towns and we are all very excited about contributing further over the next ten years. There is certainly a buzz about books, bookshops and the personal face-to-face (or mask) experience internet retailers can’t provide. And all the while writers continue to produce innovative work and publishers ever-more-beautiful books.

This year we have lots of parties and promotions planned for our celebration year. There will be cake, more cake, Prosecco, author visits and features on books that have meant a great deal to us over the last 10 years. We will be prancing around in silly costumes, reading to your children and painting their faces – big fun to be had.

I would like to end this piece by saying a massive and sincere thank you to colleagues past and present and the excellent people of Sherborne. It’s been a pleasure and we could not have done it without you.

Here’s to the next ten! winstonebooks.co.uk sherbornetimes.co.uk | 27

Community

THE COUNTRYMEN’S CLUB Jan Millward

W

e’re into our 10th year of the Countrymen’s Club here at Rylands Farm (more on that later) and we became determined that the pandemic would not get us down.

While a pandemic is the last thing you need when you are supporting a group of men who may be socially isolated or suffering with Parkinson’s or dementia, we managed to stay open and continue providing the vital service which allows men to form friendships and take part in afternoon sessions on a farm which fits their individual needs. Even for those with mobility issues we do our utmost to provide for all in a safe and friendly outdoor environment.

During the first lockdown, we continued to support the members and their families. In some cases, we were the only contact they had all week. We provided weekly phone calls, packs full of puzzles and games, newsletters and photographs of the farm. On the VE Day celebrations back in 2020, two of our volunteers used their vintage tractors, beautifully decked out in union flags, to deliver essential supplies to some of our more local members. This was a very welcome sight in the middle of a national lockdown.

Slowly, we were able to welcome members back in very small numbers - the relief and joy was palpable.

Many were anxious to venture out again, but we became an oasis of normality in a very troubled world. The carers and wives also had the chance to have a few hours respite themselves – this was desperately needed 28 | Sherborne Times | April 2022

after months of isolation.

For the ones still unable to attend, we attempted some Zoom singalongs and catch-ups and we made sure that we maintained contact.

So, what goes on at Rylands Farm? Our sessions consist of checking the stock, feeding the pigs and goats and any other farm tasks as they arise. We have a polytunnel and vegetable patch and this last year we managed to provide some vegetables to Bishop’s Caundle community shop. We have a large barn which is ideal for woodworking and crafts as well as skittles and even crazy golf. All sessions end with tea and cake, a quiz or singsong or just a good natter amongst friends.

The farm is far removed from traditional daycare centres, and is open to all, not necessarily from a farming background. We have engineers, doctors, RAF personnel as well as builders and gamekeepers. We like to find out what the men did for work and what their hobbies are – vital life history information which enables us to tailor sessions to their individual needs.

We feel strongly that men should have the right to access the outdoors as a necessary daycare option and our aim is to establish three other farms across Dorset.

Back to our birthday – we turn 10 in July and are very fortunate to be one of Symonds & Sampson’s charities of the year. We’re planning an open day with lots of fun events and an auction of promises, so stay tuned! countrymenuk.org

813101

STURMINSTER NEWTON 01258 473856

SPONSORED BY

on gton

o.uk

FEATURING Jess Gillam | Michael Collins Tenebrae | Ruth Rogers Waterperry Opera | and many more...

29TH APRIL 6TH MAY

2022

For tickets go to: www.ticketsource.co.uk/sherborneabbeyfestival You can also scan the QR code or call 0333 666 3366

WWW.SHERBORNEABBEYFESTIVAL .ORG

Community

FROM FREETOWN TO CAPE TOWN Guy Deacon CBE

J

ust over two years ago, I set off from Sherborne for Sierra Leone in my camper van to prove that Parkinson’s disease need not stop you from living a full and active life. I was diagnosed with Parkinson’s 10 years ago but am determined to live normally.

I have been dreaming of such a journey since I was at school, and this dream became a reality in October 2019. I know Africa well and the challenges of the journey ahead, but the real challenge is not the journey or security, or the weather – all of which make things more difficult – but Parkinson’s, which can make things impossible.

The journey to Sierra Leone had gone largely to plan, and I began to consider how to manage the ‘tricky stretch’ from Sierra Leone round to the equator.

However, just as I arrived in Freetown, so did Covid and borders started to close. With all flights cancelled, and me running out of pills, I was lucky to be evacuated by the British Embassy leaving my vehicle in the care of somebody else in Freetown, the capital. Now, as the world tries to return to ‘normal’, I am resuming my expedition with more determination than ever.

There was one advantage of being repatriated because of Covid; I met a young film producer who will now be helping me to make a documentary of the journey. Together we will highlight the realities of having Parkinson’s, as I endure the day-to-day 30 | Sherborne Times | April 2022

difficulties of travelling, much magnified by having the disease. I will also be meeting people in Africa who have Parkinson’s.

Parkinson’s disease is not well understood and there is no particular cause or a cure. It also results in peculiar movements such as shaking and trembling. As a result, in many parts of Africa Parkinson’s is often believed to be caused by witchcraft and sufferers are deemed to be cursed. I am arranging to visit some of these ‘cursed’ people on my route who have Parkinson’s and those who care for them both domestically and professionally.

I will be revealing the fact that the associated stigma means many are not only having to contend with the condition but are also ostracised by their own communities. They certainly do not get the help they need. They do not have access to neurologists, of which there are not many, nor the necessary drugs which are very expensive. Life for them is difficult enough anyway.

My route has been planned to visit such communities with the backing of the charity ‘Parkinson’s Africa’ and I will be drawing their attention to the help that is available and how to access it. By including them in my documentary I will provide a platform for them to speak directly about their experiences and the problems they face and shine a light on the little-reported realities of Parkinson’s in Africa.

The countries I will be travelling through are little-

known to people in the UK. I am particularly looking forward to going to Benin, Togo and Gabon and relishing the chance to drive through Angola, which for many people is associated with nothing but civil war. I will pass through some vast and chaotic cities, but most of the journey will be along the beautiful Atlantic coast. Here there is everything from idyllic beaches fringed with coconut trees, to primary jungle where the elephants roam the beach. One of the highlights will be the coast of Namibia where the beach rises to become the grand dunes of the Kalahari and the southern coast of South Africa where penguins surf in the waves. Africa is a continent of contrast and I will be seeing it at its best.

Whilst on the journey I will be recording each day on Polar Steps and each week publishing a podcast summing up the week’s events. Because I am spending most of the time travelling alone, I am very keen to have as many supporters back in the UK as I can, as they provide me with great encouragement and support when I need it.

Parkinson’s disease is the fastest-growing neurological disease in the world yet still there is no

cure. Many families in the UK have been touched by the disease and the outward characteristics are well known. Fewer know what it is like to have Parkinson’s and how corrosive it is. Throughout the film, I will not shy away from revealing my innermost feelings and revealing what it is really like to have the condition.

If you are inclined to support my efforts to raise awareness of Parkinson’s disease and the need to find a cure, there are two ways in which you can help. You can support the making of the documentary ‘Freetown to Cape Town with Parkinson’s’ by donating to my crowdfunding page. Or you can donate directly to ‘Cure Parkinson’s’ through my Justgiving page.

I look forward to reporting to you all when I get back.

Follow Guy’s journey via Polar Steps: polarsteps.com/ GuyDeacon/2732274-sierra-leone-and-beyond Contribute to the making of the film: indiegogo.com/projects/ freetown-to-cape-town-with-parkinson-s-disease--2 Help to find a cure: justgiving.com/fundraising/guydeacons-journey

sherbornetimes.co.uk | 31

Community

OUR MAN IN WESTMINSTER Chris Loder, MP for West Dorset

I

n late February, the Russian Federation invaded sovereign Ukraine with terrifying force. As I write this in early March, not only has much happened within the span of a few days, but I imagine there will have been many other developments before you come to read this. I only hope those developments are not too severe on the Ukrainian people.

Russia’s actions are an obvious show of disregard for the rules of international order and a complete, uncaring attitude towards peace in Europe. Many of us remember the horrors of the Bosnian War in the early 1990s following the breakup of the former Yugoslavia, the insidious fear that characterised the years of the Cold War, and fewer of us still remember the Second World War which left scars across the landscape of Europe and from which many nations are still recovering. Yet for the youngest generations of Europe, peace is all that they have known; President Putin has chosen to steal that innocence from them.

Ukraine, home to around 41 million people, is a country full of culture, with a history dating back millennia. The area which is now Ukraine has been inhabited by humans since 32,000BC and as the modern world developed Ukraine became a jewel in 32 | Sherborne Times | April 2022

Image: Len Copland

the crown of Eastern Europe, with literature, culture, and wealth all flourishing. With her great area of fertile land, Ukraine is the world’s fifth-largest exporter of grain, providing about 7% of the world’s supply.

After centuries under different administrations, including the Tsardom of Russia and the USSR, Ukraine voted overwhelmingly for their independence from the Soviet Union following its fall in 1991. What emerged, over time and after many years of struggle, was an independent, democratic state – similar to our own.

For generations, no one born and living in the United Kingdom – the home of the mother of Parliaments as John Bright remarked in 1865 – has ever known anything other than government by democracy in this country.

It is perhaps difficult for us to fully appreciate what the threat of occupation and impending autocracy feels like.

Western politicians speak often of our love for and commitment to hard-won values of freedom and democracy. It is said so often that, sometimes, it comes across as insincere. We occupy an extraordinarily privileged position in that we extol the virtues of democracy without feeling we are at risk of losing it, like it is something that we just ‘have’ rather than something we ‘do’. Russia’s actions remind us that

democracy is fragile and that Ukrainians haven’t that privileged position right now.

Democracy is not perfection and there are many flaws in that imperfect system. It can be inefficient, it can be bureaucratic, it doesn’t always please everybody, it can seem faceless and convoluted. Yet time and time again, it has shown itself to be the fairest, most inclusive system, where each one person has one vote with which they can voice their opinions or grievances. The people of Putin’s Russia have no such luxury, severed himself as he has from the checks and balances of the Duma and written himself the constitutional right to remain president ad infinitum.

In his July 2021 essay, ‘On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians’, Putin writes verbosely of his love for his supposed fellow countrymen, arguing that Russians and Ukrainians are one and the same people.

‘You want to establish a state of your own,’ he writes, ‘you are welcome! But what are the terms?’ He explains his terms – ‘when you leave, take what you brought with you’, referring to Russian territory made part of Ukraine during the time of the Soviet Union and suggesting, not all that subtly, his intention to retrieve it. Now, it seems, his intention is to take the whole of Ukraine by force.

For much of the world, this imperialist and buccaneering modus operandi has been long thought confined to the history books. To Putin’s mind, such backwards tactics apparently seem entirely acceptable.

We cannot know the mind of Vladimir Putin, but he is not behaving as a rational actor. He has raised his nuclear deterrent in response to mere words from leaders abroad – an unacceptable escalation. He has promised to de-escalate and then done the opposite.

We must consider Ukrainians our fellows in democracy. They too have lived lives of personal freedom in a sovereign nation just as we have, except now they stand to lose that and instead fall under the control of a man who clearly – despite all claims to the contrary – has no sense of affection for them. If he did, he would not be aiming to subjugate them.

I was pleased to meet with the Ukrainian Ambassador in early March, and to join the standing ovation for him in the House of Commons Chamber.

Normally, applause is not allowed in the Chamber, but Mr Speaker allowed it on this occasion to let us demonstrate the strength of support from the United Kingdom to Ukraine. chrisloder.co.uk

70th Anniversary 1951 – 2021 Reflecting on our past – Planning for your future

AN INVITATION FROM THE FRIENDS OF THE YEATMAN HOSPITAL The Yeatman Hospital is at the centre of Sherborne, and the town’s own charity, ‘The Friends of the Yeatman,’ is its lifeblood.

Now more than ever, the Friends need more than your money – it needs what money can’t buy – YOUR TIME!!!

If you have ever thought about supporting the Friends, think about becoming a Trustee.

You will find all of the information you need to become a Trustee on our website – www.friendsoftheyeatman.org.uk The Friends of The Yeatman Hospital – Registered Charity Number 1031326

This month if you are able, please consider visiting the Just Giving website to donate money, which you can gift aid. Your cash donations are valuable and enable us to buy items for babies, children and people with special dietary needs. www.justgiving.com/sherborne-foodbank Thank you.

www.sherbornefoodbank.org 07854 163869 help@sherbornefoodbank.org

Enjoy a two course lunch for just £6 Supporting Sherborne’s most vulnerable Two course sit down meal cooked on the premises every Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. Open at 11.30 for coffee and tea, lunch served at 12.30.

Call our team on 07561 067381 or email communitykitchenteam@gmail.com to find out more Raleigh Hall, Digby Rd, Sherborne A big Thank You to our partners Sherborne Community Kitchen is a charitable incorporated organisation. Charity number 1190451

sherbornetimes.co.uk | 33

Community

S

GET COMPOSTING The Recycling Team, Dorset Council

pring is a perfect time to think about making compost for our gardens, hanging baskets and window boxes. Composting is great for the environment. It improves soil – helping to create healthy plants and reducing the need to water and fertilise. It’s easy to make, can save money and you only need a small outdoor space.

Like any recipe, your compost relies on the right ingredients to make it work. Good things you can compost include teabags, plant prunings, cut flowers, vegetable peelings and fruit waste (add citrus peelings sparingly). These are considered ‘Greens’. Greens are quick to rot and they provide important nitrogen and moisture. Other things you can compost include cardboard egg boxes and scrunched up paper, which are considered ‘Browns’. They provide fibre and carbon and also allow important air pockets to form in the mixture.

Twigs, grass clippings and leaves can also be added, but they will take a long time to break down if large

quantities are added at one time.

Items that are best avoided are meat, fish, dairy and any cooked food. Dog poo and cat litter, as well as diseased plants and pernicious weeds (e.g. bindweed), should be also be kept out.

The compost is ready when it’s brown and crumbly. Dig into the soil in early spring or late autumn to improve the soil structure and act as a slow-release fertiliser.

Dorset Council is offering compost bins at prices as low as £6 and there is an extra buy-one-get-one-half-price deal (plus delivery). This is for a limited number of bins so hurry whilst the offer lasts. See getcomposting.com for details.

Free compost bins are also available to schools. Dorset Council is offering up to two compost bins and two caddies, plus a visit from a team member. Visit dorsetcouncil.gov.uk/ recycle for more details.

Buy a composter from £6 A delivery charge of £6.99 per order applies

Buy one at £6, get a second one at half price

getcomposting.com

Or call 0844 571 4444 quoting reference DOR22L 34 | Sherborne Times | April 2022

THE DORSET OPERA

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The home of Country House opera in South West England featuring renowned soloists and full orchestra

Marquee bar | Picnics | Formal Dining Giacomo Puccini

MANON LESCAUT 25, 28, 30 July at 19:00 | Matinée 27 July at 14:00 Sung in Italian with English surtitles

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

THE MAGIC FLUTE 26, 27, 29 July at 19:00 | Matinée 30 July at 14:00 Sung in English with surtitles

Coade Theatre, Bryanston, Blandford Forum

Box Office: dorsetopera.com 07570 366 186

elizabethwatsonillustration.com

‘the best of the best in the UK for sport’ The Week, 2022

www.sherborneprep.org 36 | Sherborne Times | April 2022

Follow our story

We are creative Join our Open Morning on 28 April at 10.00am to find out more about life at Leweston A co-educational Prep, Senior and Sixth Form Flexi, weekly and full boarding options Daily buses across Dorset and Somerset 01963 211015 | www.leweston.co.uk | admissions@leweston.dorset.sch.uk

UNEARTHED Will Hodges, aged 12 Hazlegrove Prep

W

ill comes with a wonderful write-up from his teachers, described by one as ‘being a reminder as to why I came into teaching’ and by another as ‘being an absolute joy’.

His natural enthusiasm for the world and all that it offers is clear to see. His real passion is food, described as a natural and enthusiastic chef who enjoys trying new recipes and flavours, he achieved wonders throughout the lockdowns, entertaining both his family and school chums with his various creations.

A love of food, mixed with the ability to be creative and experimental means that Will is looking forward to a future where cooking is central. Hearing Will talk about his passion for food is inspirational and often mouth-watering.

However, Will is more than just a budding chef, with plans to open his own restaurant when he gets older – his sense of humour and approach to life is refreshingly open, honest and creative. His ability to affirm and encourage others over the years is demonstrative of a young man who has a wonderful way of looking at the world, which causes great amusement to all those around him. Will is one to watch for the future. MasterChef – get ready! hazlegrove.co.uk

KATHARINE DAVIES PHOTOGRAPHY

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

38 | Sherborne Times | April 2022

ENTERTAINMENT • FOOD & DRINK • COUNTRYSIDE

2nd, 3rd & 4th June, 2022 Kaleb Cooper

Thursday, 2nd June

A Great Day Out

BOOK YOUR TICKETS NOW! VISIT www.bathandwest.com/tickets Group & advance ticket discounts available. Each advance adult ticket includes free entry for two children aged between 5-15 years old.

Dean Edwards Friday, 3rd June

Children’s Book Review Tilly Wilson, aged 8, Leweston Prep

Little Country Cottage: A Spring Treasury of Recipes, Crafts and Wisdom by Angela Ferraro-Fanning (Author), AnneliesDraws (Illustrator) (Ivy Kids, Mar 2022) £9.99 (Paperback) Sherborne Times reader offer price of £8.99 from Winstone’s Books

A

Spring Treasury of Recipes, Crafts and Wisdom is all about nature, craft-making and interesting facts. It is also an amazing read for all age groups from pre-school (with their parents reading it!) to Year 6. I like how the book is all about the environment and I love the beautiful illustrations which draw you right in. I really like how the book is printed on recycled paper too as looking after the

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO US!

environment is very important. I have learnt a lot from reading this book and have enjoyed sharing interesting facts with my family. I found so many of my favourite topics in one book. I have really enjoyed reading this book and would give it a score of 9.5/10 and would recommend it to anybody! It is a book you can keep going back to year after year. I will definitely be asking my mummy to buy me this book!

Celebrating 10 Years as Sherborne’s Independent Bookseller 2012-2022 8 Cheap Street, Sherborne, Dorset DT9 3PX www.winstonebooks.co.uk Tel: 01935 816 128

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Family

HOME FRONT Jemma Dempsey

T

here is a big hole in our family, one which can’t be filled and it all happened so quickly. One minute she was there, then she wasn’t. Yesterday we said goodbye to our dog Lolly and my heart is so broken, I can barely write through the tears, but I have to because I can’t do anything else. She was my baby girl.

I grew up with a dog, he was a bit of a mongrel and died when I was at university. So, after getting married and as a prelude, or practice run, to having kids I suggested we get a dog. The husband wasn’t so keen at first as he suffered with asthma, but I discovered this relatively new breed of labradoodle (it was more than 15 years ago) which didn’t shed hair and was hypoallergenic.

I found a reputable breeder and made contact. There 42 | Sherborne Times | April 2022

followed our two-month pregnancy; pictures of the parents and life at home and then the litter, all named after Santa’s reindeer as they were born around Christmas time. ’Prancer‘ was her kennel name, but we soon renamed our chocolate brown, ball of fluff ‘Lolly’, because she was so sweet. There followed the usual puppy madness - frantic toilet training, sleepless nights, tellingsoff - oh, the time I came home to find the floors covered in chewed up loo rolls and her sorrowful face looking up at me: ‘Why did you leave me?’

How something so small could have so much energy was beyond me. We called her Tigger sometimes because just like Winnie The Pooh’s friend she would bounce along the pavement when we’d take her for a

walk and even at the age of 10, most people thought she was still a puppy. Every time she met another dog it was like it was for the first time – she got so excited and just wanted to play with all of them. She was the most good-natured dog you could wish for and never, ever bared her teeth or growled, not when the kids tried to ride her, drag her by the collar or crash into her as they raced around the house. Not even at the end when the arthritis had well and truly set in.

She was the perfect family pet. And she was the best companion; when I had my cancer last year she used to just come and sit with me while I was in bed, lie next to me for hours, both of us snoring gently away.

But she was still playful and would often have a fruity

half hour where she’d go a bit nuts with a toy, usually around five o’clock. And if there wasn’t a toy lying around she’d get the blanket out of her bed and thrash around with that instead.

She was the worst scavenger though and not at all fussy – remnants of dead birds or chewing gum on the street, anything dropped on the kitchen floor apart from grapes. She wasn’t overly fond of fruit, but she was the perfect kitchen cleaner-upper. Making sandwiches one morning I once dropped a block of cheese, she was there in a flash and had I not dived down quick smart she would have had that. Her favourite food though, without a doubt, was a Sunday roast and I would always save her some meat and potatoes, carrots and gravy. She would dance about and almost cry with excitement as I prepared it in her bowl. I’d make her sit as I place it down and then occasionally I’d time her as she wolfed it down. Two minutes 50 seconds I think was the record. She would follow me round the house like a bad smell, which sometimes she was because the odours she could produce were well and truly something else.

And her unfailing ability to position herself in the most inconvenient place never ceased to amaze me, corridors and busy thoroughfares were her speciality.

Her favourite place, without a shadow of a doubt, was the beach. As soon as we got close and she could smell the sea air she’d start to twitch and once she got out of the car she’d be pulling at the lead trying to go in every direction at once. It didn’t matter what time of year it was she’d bound into the sea, have a paddle and run out again, her little legs looking like chicken drumsticks. And then she’d roll around in the sand, a quick exfoliate we used to think, before running off to do it all over again. Followed by frantic hole-digging while the kids made sandcastles, all while the husband and I watched on. This is etched permanently in my memories of Studland, Weymouth and all the other beaches we visited.

It’s taken me a while to finish this, we’ve got her back home now, the team at Newton Clark Vets was so lovely, sent us a card after we took her in to be put to sleep, and sorted out the cremation for us. Today we planted a tree for her in the back garden – she loved just being outside under a tree. People have asked if we’ll get another dog to which the answer is no, not now at least. Lolly was our dog. They say the price of love is grief. After two weeks I’m still crying. jemmadempsey@hotmail.com sherbornetimes.co.uk | 43

Family

DOING THE RIGHT THING Ian Bartle, Headteacher, Sherborne Primary School

W

hat does it mean to ‘do the right thing’?

What is the right thing? Who do we do it for? For others, for your community,

for yourself ?

These questions are so important in the field of education (an area in which I have been fortunate enough to work within for nearly thirty years). I have always felt that schools are the centre of the community and the ‘moral high ground’ for all of society. When teaching our next generation the values of ‘right and wrong’ or ‘doing the right thing’ is the main purpose of schooling and continuing to 44 | Sherborne Times | April 2022

develop and maintain our society.

‘Doing the right thing’ is easy to model in many ways as adults. Whether we like it or not every adult in our community is a role model for children. This can be your behaviour when driving, when dealing with a complaint in a shop, when walking down the road and observing road safety (e.g. not crossing the road whilst on your phone!).

In education, this is even more focused as adults within schools role model every minute of the day with behaviour and activities and input. For example, at Sherborne Primary we aim to provide bespoke activities

to build a society to ‘do the right thing’. This can take the form of a number of facets and activities. One of these is not only fun for the children, but also supports the development of their social skills (which we all know is so important!) – this takes the form of ‘Random Acts of Kindness’. Our local community, namely our amazing retailers, other kind benefactors and parents/ carers, generously donate flowers, chocolates and cakes and then the children walk along Cheap Street and pass these gifts to random passers-by. The endorphin feedback for children and the community, who receive the gifts, is incredible and immeasurable!

This then cascades into a feeling of ‘doing good’, helping others, being kind and being part of something.

The research in education and psychology is clear that if people feel part of something (in this case a community) then they feel secure, regulated and have much higher self-esteem. ‘Doing the right thing’ and being kind makes you a better person both physically and mentally. For children, this is part of their fundamental developmental journey. The move from the ego-centric stage to the empathic stage (this was part of the famous research by a Swiss psychologist from the 1930s called Jean Piaget) means that when the child moves to become a young adult they start to think of others.

Let’s face it, we ALL wish our young people (and all people) think of others first. The outpouring of support for the many recent and ongoing humanitarian crises demonstrates how important it is for us to show we care. We have a human need to want to help others, to ‘do the right thing’. When others are in trouble we do actively (mostly) wish to help and support. This is no different in schools for our young people. It is always heartwarming when fellow pupils either help another child get up when they fall over or play with someone who appears to be on their own. Yes, this can be intuitive from a young age, but it is more than this. ‘Doing the right thing’ has to be taught. It has to be modelled. We ALL need to have systems and thought processes in place to ensure that children develop into well rounded, kind and caring adults. This is not just about schools, but about parenting, society and community.

This leads me to my next point of binding various elements of society, whether this is socio-economic or age for example. We are proud of our lovely town for having a huge range of ages within our rural setting.

However, to ‘do the right thing’ we must ensure that all of our bond together for the common good. One way

"The outpouring of support for the many recent and ongoing humanitarian crises demonstrates how important it is for us to show we care" we try to do this at our school is to bond with several local old people’s homes to share experiences between the young and the old people within our society. This can take the form of a choir concert, an interactive art class or cooking activity. Not only do the older members of our community reminisce about their younger days, but our youngsters realise that they can learn much from the life experiences of our older generation. They also begin to develop a respect for each other and how all groups need one another to make society work and function effectively. ‘Doing the right thing’ makes society more effective, more cohesive and a great place to be part of. When my children take part in these workshops within the amazing old people’s homes in Sherborne, they come away with a natural and lasting ‘buzz’, a feeling they have ‘done a good thing’ for good reasons. Speaking to the staff of the residents of the older people, they have informed me that their clients were more animated and engaged than ever, despite many having dementia.

In conclusion, ‘doing the right thing’ is crucial in everything we do, everything we say and the thoughts we have daily! This needs to be thoroughly modelled, taught and talked about to our youngest in society if we are to maintain our values and breed our next champions of a kind, caring and loving community.

Kindness empowers more kindness. Even children realise that if you are kind to others, this will explode with acts of kindness to all and so the school, home, town, community, country and world become a better place. sherbornepri.dorset.sch.uk randomactsofkindness.org sherbornetimes.co.uk | 45

Family

RISING TO THE CHALLENGE Geoff Cooke, Maths Teacher & DofE/Ten Tors Challenge Manager, The Gryphon School

A

t The Gryphon School, we run a very successful Duke of Edinburgh Award and Ten Tors Challenge programme for students. But why does a state school, judged by the Government in league tables focussed on academic achievement, want to support and encourage students to undertake extra-curricular activities like DofE and the Ten Tors Challenge? The simple answer has to be that schools aren’t just pipelines for academic degrees — schools play an important part in developing the citizens of tomorrow through personal, social, health and economic education and extra-curricular activities.

When our previous DofE leader left in 2016 to live nearer the mountains, we decided to broaden the intake of students who could apply for DofE. It’s not just for those that can eloquently fill out an application.

46 | Sherborne Times | April 2022

We realised that every student could benefit from the programme and that those who previously wouldn’t have made the cut, would, when they completed it, have made the biggest journey of discovery.

We are all a product of our upbringing and our experiences. Giving more students the chance to do DofE sees students maturing, learning about themselves, and understanding they can do more than they ever thought possible. It builds resilience, confidence and leadership skills. As part of the DofE students commit to volunteering an hour of their time a week for charities and community organisations.

Over recent years The Gryphon students will have contributed thousands of volunteer hours to the Sherborne area, helping the young and old alike.

The Award also requires students to continue or

start undertaking regular physical activity; this could be anything from walking or running, to martial arts or parkour — an activity that might just spark a love of keeping fit that will last a lifetime. The final section requires students to learn a new skill; for example cooking, learning a language, improving their photography, taking up knitting or even e-sports.

Once all these sections are completed, the students are sent out on their own to survive 2, 3 or 4 days in amazing places like the Purbeck Hills, The New Forest, Cranborne Chase, Dartmoor, the Brecon Beacons and Snowdonia — hopefully instilling a love for the great outdoors. It is all worthwhile when the leaders hear and see students amazed at the power and beauty of the mountains. Here at The Gryphon, we try to include walks that take students to see places

they might not have seen before, so that every walk is an experience — visiting places like Westbury White Horse, King Alfred’s Tower, Cadbury Castle, Fovant Badges and Molwyn Mawr, from the top of which they can see Mount Snowdon.

The most adventurous students also take on the challenge in May of visiting Ten Tors across Dartmoor in just under 48 hours. Just like DofE, the numbers have increased steadily from two teams to five teams, taking on the Dartmoor challenge of 35, 45 or 55 miles. Although many might think the Ten Tors Challenge is only for the athletic, outdoor types, we are always surprised each year by a few students who break that mould and then go on to successfully complete the challenge. The Ten Tors Challenge is for any student with the heart.

Our aim is to take everyone who applies, but our vision is to have 50% of every year group start their DofE journey with us at the beginning of Year 9.

Last year saw 96 students enrol, which is our biggest cohort yet and almost 40%. We hope students will then continue their journey with us all the way to DofE Gold, which ends with a day out at Buckingham Palace to collect their award, alongside their proud families.

This growth in numbers shows that even the iPhone generation want to be outdoors and want to improve their CV, whilst having the experiences of a lifetime — experiences many of them wouldn’t otherwise get.

The final part of this success story, and the reason so many students can gain these awards, is our amazing team of volunteers. Whilst many schools use outdoor education providers, here at The Gryphon School we have trained over twenty Mountain and Moorland Leaders, enough to take 240 students out walking on a single day. These volunteers, our unsung heroes, are teachers, retired professionals, ex-military, parents and even family who give up their time freely to ensure the programme is a success and affordable for all.

Today The Gryphon School DofE programme has nearly 100 students doing the Bronze Award, over 50 doing Silver and Gold Awards, with another 40 plus training to take on the Ten Tors Challenge in May. We firmly believe the programme will develop valuable members of society, and provide a fantastic skillset that will serve them well in life. As they say in the film Field of Dreams: ‘If you build it, they will come’, and keep coming they do. gryphon.dorset.sch.uk dofe.org sherbornetimes.co.uk | 47

Family

AN INTERVIEW WITH… Paul Curran

Gardener, Sherborne Prep, Sherborne School and Sherborne International

Zoe Sheffield

Y

ear on year, season by season, the grounds of Sherborne Prep look immaculate. They are admired at matches and sports days and the children love to run and play on them. However, the work that goes into keeping the grounds at perfection all year round is endless and our grounds staff are the unsung heroes of our beautiful spaces.

Paul Curran joined Sherborne Prep as Assistant Groundsman in January 2007 after studying Countryside and Environmental Management at 48 | Sherborne Times | April 2022

Kingston Maurward College. Passionate about learning, Paul later studied for an NVQ2 in Horticulture and Sports Turf and later completed the Institute of Groundsmanship level 2.

Paul enjoys the wide variety in his work each day.

He takes pride in maintaining the sports and athletics pitches and especially enjoys preparing Lower Paddock for Sports Day. Often unnoticed perhaps is the weeks of preparation for the one day of celebration but Paul’s sense of pride is clear when he describes the feeling of

Image: Katharine Davies

"The work that goes into keeping the grounds at perfection all year round is endless and our grounds staff are the unsung heroes of our beautiful spaces."

the whole school community gathering in a remarkably visually aesthetic place.

Keeping track of the events and matches that are coming up and the specific preparation for them is managed by a ticket system as part of the wider Sherborne School grounds team but the ‘everyday jobs’ don’t stop! The extensive regular jobs range from watering hanging baskets and window boxes, to cutting the lawns and pitches, pruning, weeding (and more weeding!), marking sports pitches, setting up marquees for events, planting flower beds, trimming hedges and much more.

Having to work around daily sports lessons and being at the mercy of the weather can make things tricky for the grounds team however there is a tangible sense of humour and fun that exudes from the grounds staff. Ever cheery and smiley, they tend to be seen in a bunch, tackling tasks as a team and certainly, enjoying the range of vehicles essential for different jobs!

There are long days and hard graft but as the seasons change so do the challenges. Whether the inclement weather of the Michaelmas and Lent Terms or the longer days in the Trinity Term requiring significant cricket pitch maintenance, Jack Robins (Head Gardener), Paul and the team have a great rapport.

Paul is also a firefighter for Dorset & Wiltshire Fire & Rescue – a commitment that means he could be called to respond to emergency calls at any time. Committing to around 130 hours a week on duty, Paul has to be able to respond to the fire station within 5 minutes and is grateful to the Sherborne Group for their continued support of his commitment to the fire service.

Clearly someone who goes beyond, Paul assisted the NHS and the South Western Ambulance Service during the pandemic by volunteering to join paramedics on front-line ambulances and after receiving additional training from the NHS, he was soon seen driving ambulances all over the South West! Incredibly unassuming however, Paul draws note of the admiration he has for the paramedics and emergency care assistants that do this job day in and day out.

Paul’s best quick and easy gardening tip? ‘Use soluble fertiliser in your hanging baskets and potted plants to make them better than the neighbours!’ sherborneprep.org sherborne.org sherborne-international.org sherbornetimes.co.uk | 49

Family

Image: Josie Sturgess-Mills 50 | Sherborne Times | April 2022

‘SNOWFLAKES’?

I

Hugh Tatham BA MA, Housemaster, Abbey House, Sherborne School

ndependent school boarding houses are fascinating places, full of diverse, interesting and accomplished young people. In Abbey House at Sherborne, for example, we have a member of the Bath Rugby Academy, the First Sea Lord’s Cadet, and a boy who’s just been awarded a place at Pembroke College, Oxford – to mention just a few. Most extraordinarily of all, we have a 16-yearold, who will shortly set off on his world record attempt to become the youngest person ever to fly solo around the world!

What these boys – and many others in the house – all have in common is their desire to make the best of their skills and their opportunities, and to really make a difference in their lives. Crucially, they believe that they can do so now – as young people – not just when they are ‘grown up’. And, from the moment the boys arrive at Sherborne, this is a message which we want them to recognise and absorb.

It starts very gradually, of course: at first, the boys are more focused on settling into their new home and new routines but over time, as the bonds of friendship (which will often last a lifetime) start to form, a shift occurs. They come to realise that their lives are not just defined by their own achievements but also by the quality of the relationships they form, by the manner in which they look out for others as well as themselves, and by their growing awareness that with the undoubted privilege which they enjoy comes both responsibility and opportunity to have a positive impact on others and the world around them.

Some of this happens organically, but some of it is also more deliberately and purposefully driven. Part of my role as Housemaster is to encourage the boys to try new things and to think of the needs of the wider community, seeing themselves as part of a much bigger picture, to which they can contribute hugely. This might be by joining the Environmental Action Group or by representing their peers on the House Council. Or, they might get involved in the house charity, perhaps by donating money or – even better – by committing their time to help out. They might join a sports team, play cast or musical ensemble (or several!). Or, it might just be something as simple as sitting down to chat with a younger boy who is feeling homesick and who just needs to be encouraged to give an activity a go.

Maybe they were in this same position themselves just a few years earlier and remember the difference that someone’s genuine care and interest, or friends rallying around at this moment of uncertainty, made to them.

A final thought: when I see the boys showing prospective parents around the school, proudly telling them about the friendships they have made and about all the wonderful opportunities they have taken, I can’t help but wonder if it isn’t perhaps really rather unfair to label our young people ‘snowflakes’.

sherborne.org

sherbornetimes.co.uk | 51

elizabethwatsonillustration.com 52 | Sherborne Times | April 2022

JEWELLERS

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Science & Nature

THE TAWNY MINING BEE Hamish Murray, Conservation Officer, Purbeck and East Dorset, Dorset Wildlife Trust JGade/Shutterstock

B

ees are a welcome sign that spring has arrived – or, at least, is just around the corner. Most people are familiar with bumblebees and honeybees, but they represent only a small fraction of the 270 or so species of bee that can be found in Britain. While some bees live in social colonies, most of them lead solitary lives. With 67 species recorded in Britain, Andrena (mining bees) is our largest genus of solitary bees. Most mining bees are rather difficult to identify but one of the most distinctive species is the tawny mining bee (Andrena fulva). The female is particularly striking with dense reddish-brown hair covering most of her body while the head and legs are black. The male bee is less obvious but can often be identified by the pronounced tuft of white hairs projecting from its face.

Like most solitary bees, each female tawny mining bee digs her own nesting burrow, typically in light soils.

The distinctive burrow entrances look a bit like worm casts and are often found in lawns, flowerbeds or mown banks and field margins in farmland and orchards.

Tawny mining bees are found over much of Dorset and are frequently seen in parks and gardens from March to June where they feed on a variety of blossoms including blackthorn, cherry laurel, dandelion and various fruit trees. The female collects pollen and nectar for the larvae which develop underground over the winter and 54 | Sherborne Times | April 2022

hatch in the spring. The nests are sometimes parasitised

by Panzer’s nomad bee (Nomada panzeri) or, more rarely, the nationally scarce broad-banded nomad bee (N. signata). The familiar dark-edged bee-fly (Bombylius major) will also lay its eggs in the burrows of tawny mining bees.

Spring is a good time to study bees and there are several excellent online resources available while the Field Guide to the Bees of Great Britain and Ireland (Falk and Lewington) is an indispensable book for anyone wanting to extend their knowledge of these fascinating insects.

• Although measuring less than half an inch, female tawny mining bees can dig nesting tunnels a foot long.

• Tawny mining bees can be seen from March to June - the males usually emerging well before the females.

• In 2018, as part of the Irish Native Bee Species collection, the one Euro postage stamp featured the tawny mining bee – even though it is an extremely rare species in Ireland.

dorsetwildlifetrust.org.uk

DJTaylor/Shutterstock

DRAWN TO THE LIGHT Hebrew Character (Orthosia gothica)

F

Gillian Nash

or those with an interest in recording moths, the Hebrew character is always a welcome sight as one of the earliest spring species. It has a flight season of March until the end of May in southern counties, later further north and is resident and commonly found throughout the British Isles.

A close look at what on first sight can appear a rather mundane species, it is in fact a very attractive rather thickset moth, with intricate patterns in shades of cream, brown, buff, black and sometimes with a purple hue. It is thought by some that its common name refers to the black marking on each forewing, which although variable, often resembles the fourteenth letter of the Hebrew alphabet 'nun'. However its scientific name may refer to the marking's similarity to a Gothic arch. It has the similar form and outline of many moth species that will be on the wing now right through until late autumn, that fall with the largest group of UK macro moths, namely Noctuidae, of which there is in excess of 300 UK species.

It may be found in almost any habitat where its wide range of foodplants grow, such as wasteland, moors, small urban gardens and uncut busy roadside verges. Many tree species such as oaks, limes and birches, together with an even wider range of low-growing native plants are amongst those larval foodplants on which eggs are laid. Whilst the adult moth is easily distinguishable from other species by its unique markings and early flight season, the smooth night-feeding pale green larvae could easily be confused with other similar species. The lateral white or yellow lines along its sides may be broken or continuous.

Once fully grown the larva forms a pupa just below ground level where it remains well hidden until the emergence of the adult moth the following early spring. sherbornetimes.co.uk | 55

Science & Nature

PLASTIC - NOT SO FANTASTIC!

D

Peter Littlewood, Young Peoples Trust for the Environment

id you know that we’ve produced about 9.2 billion tonnes of plastic since 1950? It’s a pretty staggering amount. Ever since Leo Baekeland successfully patented Bakelite in 1909, we’ve been making all kinds of objects from plastics.

And it’s undoubtedly phenomenally useful, but we’ve got into the habit of thinking that because it’s cheap and easy to make, it’s disposable.

The result of this is that some 7 billion tonnes of it has now been discarded and is now waste. It lies in landfill, on pavements and roadsides, in our streams, lakes and rivers and of course, there are huge amounts of it in the sea. In fact, it’s thought that by 2050, the plastic waste in the world’s oceans will weigh more than all of the fish!

Plastic doesn’t decay naturally, like say fruit peel or wood does. When exposed to strong sunlight for extended periods, it can ‘photo-degrade’, becoming brittle. So in ocean currents, bobbing around on the waves, plastic debris knocks together, creating small 56 | Sherborne Times | April 2022

chips of ‘microplastic’ that now litter beaches on Pacific islands. Henderson Island, for example, with a human population of zero, was found to have around 18 million tonnes of plastic waste washed up on its beaches. The Pacific Ocean has ‘gyres’, currents that gradually gather floating debris into specific areas of ocean. There are now two ‘garbage patches’ - areas of floating plastic rubbish that are in places up to 10 metres deep and cover an area of ocean more than twice the size of France.

But you can find microplastic, along with undamaged plastic objects on all of the UK’s beaches too, even – as recently discovered near Swanage – the occasional 70-year-old washing-up liquid bottle!

Good news

So it’s great that early last month, at the UN Environment Assembly in Nairobi, Kenya, ministers from 173 countries agreed to draw up a legally binding treaty on plastics, covering the ‘full lifecycle’ of plastics from production to disposal. The treaty could take up

Images: Envato

to two years to develop, so in the meantime, there’s still plenty that we can do to help.

Reduce, reuse and recycle

Reducing, reusing and recycling your plastic waste is a good way to start. Cut down on the amount of plastic - especially plastic packaging - that you buy, try to use it again if you’ve had to buy it and make sure it gets properly recycled when it’s no longer useful.

Reusing bottles to create a vertical garden

A great way of maximising limited garden space, or turning a blank patch of outdoor wall into an appealing display is to use recycled plastic bottles to create an amazing ‘vertical garden’. These work well for growing flowers, herbs and small vegetables. They can also look very attractive and provide an eye-catching feature in your outdoor space. So as spring is now on the way, you could have a go at creating a vertical garden on a wall or fence outside your home, while reusing some old plastic bottles in a really creative way.

You’ll need to retain the bottle cap and make sure it’s screwed on before you start filling the bottle. First, cut a rectangular hole in the side of a bottle (children

will need adult supervision/assistance) to create your growing area. You’ll be hanging the bottle horizontally, as in the pictures, which is why the hole you cut needs to be in the side of the bottle. It is very important to add some drainage holes on the opposite side. Use scissors to poke holes in the side of the bottle directly beneath your growing area. Then fill with potting compost and plants.

You can even construct labour-saving, self-irrigating gardens by placing your bottles directly above each other.

Then the water you pour into the top bottle drains down through the holes into the bottles beneath it, and so on!

Georgina, a young contributor to YPTE’s website, made her own video guide in which she showed how she created her own ‘hanging garden’. You can watch it here: ypte.org.uk/videos/making-a-hanging-bottle-garden.

Of course, you don’t have to reuse bottles to make a vertical garden. There are plenty of commercially-available wall-mounted plant holders too. But by making your own with some plastic bottles, you’re reducing the amount of plastic that ends up as waste, by at least a small amount and you’ll save yourself some money too! ypte.org.uk sherbornetimes.co.uk | 57

Science & Nature

Image: Georg Berg/Alamy

Honigpumpe (Honey Pump) by Joseph Beuys, Documenta 6 in Kassel 1977.

ART, BEES AND BALANCE Paula Carnell, Beekeeping Consultant, Writer and Speaker

‘If you want to gather honey, don’t kick over the beehive.’ Abraham Lincoln

I

saw this quote the day that the situation between Russia and Ukraine began to heat up. By the time this goes to print, who knows what will have passed.

I have every confidence in humanity that peace will prevail, as long as we all remember, that in order to keep the peace, we need to actively protect and demand it.

Still on the subject of conflict, I met a charming gentleman artist a few weeks ago at a friend’s birthday party. He shared with me a story about a German artist who was a pilot in the Second World War. He was shot down in a Stuka dive-bomber over the Crimea and rescued by local villagers. Joseph Beuys suffered serious burns and the nomadic tartars who rescued him swaddled him in fat and felt to keep him 58 | Sherborne Times | April 2022

warm. They also treated his burns with honey and so post-war, much of his artwork included, felt, fat and honey. Further research makes for interesting reading – I even found his assistant and biographer Caroline Tisdall mention ‘His life is his art’. This was a quote that inspired me after my personal health recovery as I moved from an artist to a ‘bee guardian’.

The piece of work that my new friend Michael wanted to share with me was in a large beautiful book, The Essential Joseph Beuys. The book itself reminding me of my extensive collection of art books now collecting dust as my bee and herb books take precedence.

Honey Pump in the Workplace, 1974-1977 was an installation at Documenta 6 for 100 days. The piece was

intended to be a powerhouse for education and action through a convention. He had viscous amber honey coursed through rubber veins, strewn across the room in coils and ribbons. He believed that the only way to look at a total work of art is as the emergence of a social order, which in turn would become a work of art.

Beuys’s installation, carrying the full name Honey Pump at the Workplace [Honigpumpe am Arbeitsplatz], consisted of three components. A progressive cavity pump capable of handling the fluid’s viscosity carried 106 litres of honey, diluted with no more than 18 litres of distilled water, from a metal reservoir in the stairwell through a metal pipe to the 17-metre high ceiling of the rotunda. From this apex, the honey travelled through transparent plastic tubing, exiting the stairwell and circulating through a neighbouring room. The tubing ran around the walls of this space before it returned the honey to the rotunda and its reservoir. Next to the honey pump, without any immediate connection to it, Beuys installed two three-phase standard motors facing each other, which drove an axle that was embedded in 100 kilograms of margarine. The friction and heat of the rotating axle degraded the margarine over time.

And finally, in a corner of the rotunda, Beuys had placed three empty pitchers made from bronze. There is much written, as you can imagine, about the hidden, or even more obvious, meanings of his piece, especially in relation to the goings-on at the time and the ‘cleaning up’ of unfinished cold war and WW11 crimes. He was said to explain that the honey pumping around the exhibition represented the central ‘organ’ and a ‘verified engine, transporting elemental significance’.

I have found learning more about Beuys fascinating, with the comparisons to our lives. During his recovery from his crash he refers to it as his ‘cocoon’ phase where he was able to observe civilisation and life purpose from a different perspective, particularly as a wounded airman fighting for a cause he’d been part of from an early age – his adulthood finding him on the wrong side of history, resulting in a complete breakdown.

The consequences of conflict has a dramatic impact on both sides, helping us realise there are never really any winners. As long as people have a passion for a cause, there will be an opposing passion for an opposing cause.

I wonder how bees, with their 150 million years of evolution, have resolved this.

Bees will have the odd conflict, they will ‘rob’ a failing or weak hive for their honey. Generally, bees of many species live together in harmony, unless a balance

"He had viscous amber honey coursed through rubber veins, strewn across the room in coils and ribbons. " is lost, either with food supply or increased stress.

Humans are mostly responsible for the increased stress, and the loss of available and healthy forage – beekeepers putting their bees under repeated stress with opening the hives and ‘fiddling’, removing their healthier honey and replacing it with processed sugar.

Then, with our loss of 75% of our wildflower meadows across the UK, the 270 species of solitary, bumble and the single honey bee, are all competing for whatever is left in our hedgerows, gardens and the few remaining mature trees.

I can’t help but see a reflection of the bees’ challenges in our own human existence.

In April, the bees should be ready to burst at the seams. The queen having been productively laying eggs since mid-winter, now with an overflowing brood of 40-60,000 bees. As a sign of health and abundance, the scout bees will be searching for a new home so they can expand – the old queen leaving the colony with half the adult bees. She will start afresh, the bees carrying with them the honey needed to start making fresh wax. The young bees and larvae are left behind to raise a new queen, and so the species continues.

This is how nature works – when it’s in balance and healthy, it can reproduce. When the balance is out, they become diseased and die. I am hopeful of a restoration to balance and I will close with a last quote from artist, philosopher and fellow honey lover, Beuys: “Art is, then, a genuinely human medium for revolutionary change in the sense of completing the transformation from a sick world to a healthy one. In my opinion only art is capable of doing it.” paulacarnell.com sherbornetimes.co.uk | 59

Science & Nature

Sherborne Science Cafe Lectures Rob Bygrave, Chair, Sherborne Science Cafe

DEBATE ON THE USE OF NUCLEAR POWER Dr Alister Scott and Dr Nigel Knee

I

n a departure from the usual pattern of Science Café meetings we held a debate with two speakers, one supporting and one opposing the motion that ‘this house believes that the risks involved in the generation of electricity by nuclear power make it unusable’. A vote was taken before the debate started which showed a clear majority in favour of the use of nuclear power. The intention was to see if opinion could be changed by the arguments put forward by the speakers.

Dr Alister Scott, visiting Fellow in the Science and Technology Policy Research Unit of Sussex University, argued in favour of the motion.

There are three main risks. Firstly the technology is so complex, with so many components closely interdependent, that it is impossible to ensure a completely safe system. Despite assurances from the nuclear industry that safety design and planning make the chance of an accident vanishingly small, there have still been four major incidents in the past 54 years: Windscale in the UK, Three Mile Island in the US, Chernobyl in the USSR and Fukushima in Japan. All technologies go wrong; failures in complex, interacting systems can lead to catastrophic consequences. Secondly there are security risks, not only from terrorism and political activism, but from lack of infrastructure investment. Nuclear power is inflexible and unable to respond to short-term changes in the demand and supply of energy sources. Finally, the economic risks of very high construction and operating costs and the cost of a major accident are unsupportable. Only governments can carry such risks, and in doing so they distort the economics of the energy market by unfairly subsidising nuclear power. The combination of 60 | Sherborne Times | April 2022

technology, security and economic risks make nuclear power unusable.

Dr Nigel Knee, Head of Nuclear Policy at EDF Energy, spoke against the motion.

He addressed the issue of risks, arguing that we live in an uncertain world, and that those nuclear accidents that have occurred led to far fewer deaths than from other accidents, and from natural disasters.

Modern nuclear power stations are much more reliable and safe. The main risk from not using nuclear power is to ignore the role it can play in the decarbonisation of energy supply as part of a diverse energy mix. The UK is now a net importer of natural

Hinkley Point Nuclear Power Station, Somerset

gas, and its electricity generation is still dominated by the use of fossil fuels. Our energy consumption is predicted to rise from 363 TWh in 2010 to 470 TWh in 2030 while we are committed to reduce the fossil fuel component from 75% to 20%. The only way this can be achieved is by major investments in renewable sources, and in nuclear power. Dr Knee described his company’s current range of generating systems, and its work on new nuclear stations at Hinkley Point in Somerset. His ‘nuclear vision’ was for safe, reliable and sustainable nuclear power bringing maximum benefits in jobs, for business and with planning to mitigate its environmental impact.

A lively session of questions was followed by a second vote on the motion. The number still in favour of nuclear power was reduced, and there was a shift in opinion against nuclear power in those previously undecided. sherbornesciencecafe.com

___________________________________________ Wednesday 27th April 7.30pm The Lusi Mud Volcano A talk with Dr Paul Webster

The Church Hall, Digby Road, Sherborne

___________________________________________ sherbornetimes.co.uk | 61

On Foot

62 | Sherborne Times | April 2022

On Foot

WEST MILTON Emma Tabor and Paul Newman Distance: 3½ miles Time: Approx. 2 hours Park: By the bus shelter and phone booth in Ruscombe Lane Walk Features: This walk consists of a gentle climb from West Milton along Ruscombe Lane, then along a deep holloway before emerging on Ridgeback Lane.

From here there are some great views across to Hooke Park and down towards the coast, with Shipton Hill and Tulk’s Hill in the distance. The return section skirts South Poorton nature reserve, taking a winding route back down towards West Milton.

Refreshments: The Three Horseshoes, Powerstock Caution - the outward and return sections can be quite tricky and care should be taken; the sides of the holloway can be unstable with slips and rockfalls after wet weather and some of the section from Ridgeback Lane towards West Milton follows the bed of a stream so, as ever, stout footwear is a must. >

sherbornetimes.co.uk | 63

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 April, we explore some of the sunken lanes and close-knit hills near West Milton. The route takes in Beningfield Wood, a small Woodland Trust wood named after the artist Gordon Beningfield, and also provides the opportunity to explore a particularly dramatic holloway. West Milton is pretty and the remains of St Mary Magdalene’s church make an interesting diversion. The route along Ridgeback Lane is airy and has some good views before turning off by Spring Hill Farm and descending down into a wild and twisting valley through South Poorton Nature Reserve, following the Ant Hill Trail.

Directions

Start: SY 502963 1 Park in the small layby behind the bus shelter.

2 With the bus shelter behind you, walk up Ruscombe Lane following the sign for Leigh Gate.

The road soon turns into a track and, after the last few houses, the track becomes a holloway with 64 | Sherborne Times | April 2022

steep sides clad with ferns. Just after the track bends round to the left, look for the entrance to a deeper holloway on your right. (As we set out on this walk, it was early spring and the valley resounded to the noise of rooks, busy carrying twigs and branches as they began their nest building).

3 Turn right into the holloway (there were ‘Road Closed’ signs at the entrance when we did the walk).

You are now flanked by impressive sandstone walls, with an incredible array of trees and plants reaching and stretching overhead. Make your way up the holloway but be careful as the sides are prone to occasional slumps and slips especially after heavy rainfall. Look out for the exposed roots from the trees above, which have been left hanging as the walls of the holloway are weathered by torrents of water. The formative processes which have created the holloway are very much in evidence; the floor of the holloway is littered with lumps of rock and the discarded limbs of trees. Keep heading up, soon to meet Beningfield Wood. Here, the holloway becomes a tree-lined path with views to the left across the valley. After walking alongside the wood for 750 yards, the path goes back into a holloway and the way becomes more challenging with a

narrow, flinty channel which has been eroded by rainfall. At the top, you meet Ridgeback Lane; leave the holloway and turn right onto the lane.

4 Follow Ridgeback Lane for ¾ mile until you reach Spring Hill Farm on your right. Look for a footpath sign on the right and turn sharp right to descend steeply into a wooded glen. Here, part of the way is along the bed of a stream. Leaving the stream behind, the path bends right and after 250 yards you reach a wooden stile. Cross this to enter a field and then turn immediately left to now walk along the outside edge of the wood. Go through another gateway with a huge tree to the side of it and stay on the well-trodden footpath. The path bends gently to the right. At the next large gateway, bear left and downhill, following the Ant Hill Trail sign.

5 With the stream on your left the path now descends, with a fence running along a large field on your right. This part of the walk is particularly picturesque with some good picnic spots. You soon reach another large gate with a smaller gate to the left of it, again with the Ant Hill Trail sign on it.

Go through this, keeping parallel to the bottom of the valley and the stream. This is a good spot to see jays flitting between the tree cover, with buzzards

and ravens overhead. At the end of this field, go through a small wooden gate onto a narrow path then through a small section of undergrowth into another field covered with bracken. Keep on the footpath through an overgrown section, over a wooden stile, staying with the Ant Hill Trail signs and parallel to the valley bottom, into a field with gorse. After 400 yards, go through a large metal gate with a wooden stile on the right. Cross this field, straight on the footpath for 300 yards then through another metal gateway, still on the Ant Hill Trail.

6 Now follow the contours of the field around to the right, heading towards the large, old redbrick barns and farmhouse, looking for a sunken gateway in the far hedge and not the obvious gate downhill in the left-hand corner. Go through the sunken gateway onto a farm track. Turn left onto the track, towards the farm buildings. Pass between the buildings, through a large metal gate with Church Farm on your left to meet Ruscombe Lane and head back towards the start. It is worth taking a moment here to see the remains of St Mary Magdalene Church.

With thanks to Mace Bryant for suggesting this walk. sherbornetimes.co.uk | 65

History

LOST DORSET

NO. 22 PORTLAND David Burnett, The Dovecote Press

T

he most dramatic changes to anywhere in Dorset during the 19th century occurred in its most isolated corner – the Island and Royal Manor of Portland. When Queen Victoria came to the throne in 1837 its population was under 3,000.

To reach it, visitors either trudged two miles along Chesil Beach or trusted a hazardous rope-operated ferry at Smallmouth. Fast forward to her Diamond Jubilee in 1897 and Portland was unrecognisable. A bridge and railway linked it to the rest of Dorset. Two enormous breakwaters, built by convict labour with the one material Portland had in abundance, stone, sheltered the battleships of the Channel Fleet. The population of 15,000 included the 1,500 inmates of the prison awaiting transportation to Australia. In this postcard, passengers disembark at Castletown from

66 | Sherborne Times | April 2022

a paddle-steamer. A pleasure trip to Portland was a popular day out for Weymouth’s holidaymakers. There were four sailings a day in the summer, allowing time for a glimpse of the convicts in the quarries, and visits to the new lighthouse on the Bill and the batteries of heavy guns fortifying the Verne. Two smartly-dressed ladies about to board for the return crossing have been temporarily distracted by the penny-in-the-slot machine at the pier entrance. dovecotepress.com Lost Dorset: The Towns 1880-1920, the companion volume to Lost Dorset: The Villages and Countryside, is a 220-page large-format hardback, price £20, and is available locally from Winstone’s Books or directly from the publishers.

Making Wealth Management Personal

For investment advice you can trust and personal support you can rely on 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.

History OBJECT OF THE MONTH

THE ROMAN TILE Elisabeth Bletsoe, Curator, Sherborne Museum

O

ne of the more curious artefacts displayed in the museum, and one of my personal favourites, is a tile or tegula, one of two types used for roofing by the Romans.

It is impressed with two clear dog’s footprints complete with claw marks and another fainter one coming from the opposite direction all of which would have been made when the tile was laid out to dry before firing. Our records show that it was discovered during an archaeological excavation, led by John Leach in the late sixties, at one of the villas at Thornford or Lenthay, which were strung out along the base of the fertile Yeo valley.

Animal, bird and even human footprints have been found in this way, and archaeologists have recorded a whole range of impressions including mice, shrews, weasels, foxes, cranes, hares, pigs and cattle. Dogs appear to account for roughly 75% of the prints from domesticated animals. The type of print found can offer a wealth of information about the location of the brickyard, its proximity to water or woodland and also the time of year. The making of bricks and tiles would have been a seasonal activity; forming and drying would take place in summer or early autumn while other related activities such as clay extraction, weathering and collecting wood to fire the kilns would occur over the winter months. The tiles were made using removable mould boards and allowed to dry in a roofed area open at the sides. After achieving ‘leather-hardness’ they were then fired, making permanent any marks acquired in their softer state.

Throughout the countries that were once part of the Roman Empire, such tiles have been found set in courtyards and roofs or built into walls, retaining the preserved footfall of animals long since departed.

68 | Sherborne Times | April 2022

The Romans incorporated dogs into every aspect of their lives, caring for them as family members and honouring them when they died with tombs and epitaphs. Although the dog did not feature in the afterlife (as with Persian cultures), it was considered an earthly protector and avenger with the supernatural ability to warn its owner of the invisible approach of Trivia, the Roman goddess who presided over ghosts, witchcraft, the undead, graveyards and crossroads. It is not so surprising, therefore, that such paw prints were believed to be lucky and that they brought blessings to the house they adorned. There are, however, rumours of brickyards that kept animals for the purpose of deliberately placing their feet on the wet clay; it has been suggested that often there is only one neat print, regardless of whether the tile was big enough to accommodate the animal’s stride – so was this a purposeful act, to imbue the tile with extra significance?

Or was the ‘superstition’ a cunning marketing ploy, connived by the makers after the fact in order to avoid wasting expensive damaged stock?

One visitor to the museum was particularly interested in our canine-printed tegula. He owned a contemporary villa in Sicily that incorporated one such tile within its roof, and he informed us that the ancient tradition was still strong locally – however, the impression had to be completely accidental since the good fortune was invested in the serendipity!

Sherborne Museum is now open from Tuesday to Saturday 10.30am–4.30pm. For all volunteering opportunities currently available, please visit their website. sherbornemuseum.co.uk

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

www.fcuffandsons.co.uk

DESIGNERS AND MAKERS OF BEAUTIFUL FINE BESPOKE JOINERY SINCE 1897

History

SHERBORNE SILK MILLS Cindy Chant

O

utside the main door to the Abbey, and just to the right, you will see a large Table Tomb, containing various members of the Willmott Family. But who were they? The Willmotts became well known in the town for silk throwing, and for giving employment to many hundreds of people. The history of silk weaving here in Sherborne goes back a long way and Sherborne Museum holds excellent examples of the striped silks and patterned ribbons produced in the town in the 1930s.

To start at the beginning of this story – in 1749, a silk thrower from Whitechapel in London settled in Sherborne. He was John Sharrer and he leased a water grist mill and a dwelling in Westbury, from Lord Digby. This was on the site of the current Riverside Nursing Home and industrial complex of Valmiera Glass. Besides having relatives in Sherborne, Sharrer appears to have settled here because of the availability of cheap labour in the town.

Silk throwing is the process of spinning raw silk into 70 | Sherborne Times | April 2022

usable yarn. In the 18th-century raw silk was imported from China, Italy, Spain and France by London silk merchants who farmed it out to silk throwers to be spun into yarn. The throwing was done mostly by waterpowered machines, but some qualities of silk could only be thrown by hand. Either way, it was very labour intensive and did give employment to hundreds of local people, mostly children. The silk remained the property of the London merchants and the throwers were required to return both the spun silk and any wastage.

By 1764, John Sharrer took into partnership two of his nephews William Willmott and George Ward.

George was more interested in the silk mill in Bruton, but it is William who is the personality of this story.

William Willmott’s roller-coaster operations are extremely well documented. A collection of out-letter books and account ledgers survive, dating from the late C18th which can be consulted at the museum. It tells of the troubles he had in maintaining a regular supply of raw silk to throw, and sometimes he had no work at

all. At such times he implored his London merchants to send him work, but at other times he had more than he could handle. That was the time when he extended his mills and introduced new machinery.

Water seems to have been particularly difficult, and the summer months brought their own set of problems such as not enough water in the river to drive the water wheel.

A request to Lord Digby to release some water from the lake at Sherborne Castle was refused, ‘…for no other reason than her ladyship wishes to see the pond always full.’ At other times he found many of his workers would rather help out with the harvest, or attend the summer fairs in Sherborne. And in the summer of 1779, there was the fun of watching hundreds of French prisoners being marched through the town. Not surprisingly, little work was done that day, or even the next few days.

William Willmott was a charitable man, and very well-liked. The efficiency with which he ran his mill, the care for his workers, his love for his family, and good deeds and kindness to those in need, made him very popular in the town. He and his wife Mary had a large family but, as was common at the time, a number of them died young in some cases, as his letters sadly record, from smallpox. His two eldest sons were called John and Thomas, but John soon disappears from our story, and not much is known about the silk mill during Thomas Willmott’s time. However, in the 1840s the business flourished when a range of factory buildings were erected in Ottery Lane - now used as commercial units. Originally the machinery there was worked by water power, through a shaft under the road, supplemented by the ‘horse mill’ in the yard.

Thomas must have been reasonably prosperous as he lived in Sherborne House, and it was from there that his funeral took place in 1851. He was succeeded by his two sons Percival and Robert, and it was Robert (1814-1875) who built the row of worker’s cottages in Horsecastles so that the workers could be decently and comfortably housed. He also built eight cottages on the east side of South Street between Wallace House and Duck House. By 1875 John and Robert had died and John’s son Albert took over. But Albert did not seem to have the same flair or enthusiasm as his predecessors.

Perhaps his heart was not in it as by 1885 the business was in a bad way and the silk mill was closed. This was very serious for the town, as the silk industry had become the principal employer.

To be continued…

FREE HOME VISITS Specialist Matthew Denney will be in the Sherborne area on Thursday 28th April to value your objects & antiques

A Ruby, Diamond & Natural Pearl Necklace Estimate: £20000-25000 to be sold 7th April in our Spring Fine Art Auction

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 | 71

Antiques

TIME TRAVELLER Richard Bromell ASFAV, Charterhouse Auctioneers

I

t has been pretty busy recently at work, always a good problem to have. Being busy for me entails travelling around visiting clients looking to have their items valued and entered into one of our specialist auctions. Most of the time I am driving around the West Country, along with trips up to London and the Midlands.

Recently we carried out some work for a client in Greece. He consigned a bike to our March classic and vintage motorcycle auction. Using email he sadly did not need me to travel to see him, a bit of a shame really although I am not sure Mrs B would let me go there alone!

Many of the lots we see, value and auction have travelled far and wide. In our 8th April Asian Art specialist auction, we have lots of lots from China and Japan with pottery, porcelain, bronze and pictures going under the auctioneer’s gavel. And then sometimes items never seem to have moved far from where they started life, just like a pocket watch in our 5th May specialist auction of watches, jewellery and silver. I have been in and around Sherborne since 1970 when my parents moved here and I was a child. Having worked in auctioneering as a career I have managed to acquire a few bits and bobs relating to Sherborne, and recently another Sherborne item came in through the reception 72 | Sherborne Times | April 2022

door for valuation. Unlike the motorcycle which travelled to our salerooms from Greece, a distance of some 1,400 miles as the crow flies, this watch was made in Sherborne and has spent some 220 years in and around the town.

The watch, in a silver pair case, has an enamel dial with Roman numerals and a subsidiary calendar dial.

The movement, with wonderful pierced and engraved decoration, is inscribed John Bishop, Sherborne and numbered 585. John Bishop is noted as a clock and watchmaker in Cheap Street, Sherborne, being active in Sherborne 1786-1852.

Today we take knowing the time for granted. You can easily and quickly see the time on your phone, tablet, computer, watch or in the home, work or car, but back in the 18th & 19th centuries there was no tech about and generally, people in Sherborne relied on The Abbey clock to tell them the time.

Spending 220 years anywhere is quite a feat to achieve. Having survived the post-industrial revolution with the mobility of labour and two world wars, quite whether it will remain in Sherborne for another 200 years only time will tell, but it is certainly welcome to spend a year or two with me. charterhouse-auction.com

CHARTERHOUSE Auctioneers & Valuers

Forthcoming Auction Programme

Automobilia & Mantiques 1st April Pictures & Sporting Antiques 7th April Asian Art, Interiors & Antiques 8th May Silver, Jewellery & Watches 5th May

From a Collection of Modern Art from a client in Derbyshire in our April Auction

Wine, Port & Whisky 6th May Further entries invited

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 | 73

elizabethwatsonillustration.com

Spring into action

As the seasons change, the longer and brighter days provide an increasing range of gardening tasks.

Now is the time to plant shrubs, herbaceous plants, soft fruit and vegetables, as well as sowing seeds for summer bedding plants and potting up plants for tubs and hanging baskets. Keep those little visitors in mind to create a wildlife friendly haven along the way and make sure to put some time aside to give your lawn some love.

You can pick up your trees, shrubs, seeds and pots any day of the week.

Monday to Saturday: 9am – 6pm Sunday: 10am – 4:30pm

Castle Gardens, New Road, Sherborne, Dorset DT9 5NR www.thegardensgroup.co.uk

thegardensgroup

74 | Sherborne Times | April 2022

01935 814633 www.thegardensgroup.co.uk

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Gardening

ROOTS AND SHOOTS Mike Burks, Managing Director, The Gardens Group

O

n Thursday 7th April we will be celebrating Castle Gardens’ 35th anniversary. We had started work on the almost derelict site on February 12th 1987, building a large greenhouse, several polytunnels and display areas for the plants outside. The front buildings, which had originally been stables, were in the process of being converted and we moved into these during the August of 1987.

We started with a team of five, plus two cats and Cindy the dog. Today, we have a 50-strong team at Castle Gardens, with different cats and two different dogs!

Over the years, the overall layout of the site has changed, but it is still very much defined by being the 76 | Sherborne Times | April 2022

walled kitchen garden of Sherborne Castle, built during Capability Brown’s redesigning of the grounds of the Castle in the 18th Century.

There are still many of the original features – we keep discovering some of the old infrastructure and have just recently started reusing a beautifully bricklined water tank for harvesting rainwater.

Also being repurposed is the building which we now call the Victorian Greenhouse which was originally sited elsewhere in the walled kitchen gardens. Although when we arrived on site in 1987 it was still standing, the glass was falling out and it was very overgrown.

By 2017 very little timber was left but the metalwork

was intact and so the preservation began. F. Cuff and Sons came to dismantle the structure and it was taken away for renovation. All parts were saved and the timber that remained gave enough clues for the timber to be cut to exactly the right lengths and forms.

We had clues as to what the timber looked like because Cuffs had renovated another greenhouse in our private garden a few years earlier. We also managed to find plans of the structure in an original catalogue!

This was possible because under the rust we discovered the name of the manufacturer – Messenger and Son of Loughborough – and after much searching on the internet, a catalogue was found. In it was the design of this structure and then, we were delighted to find, in the list of customers in the back pages, The Wingfield Digby’s of Sherborne Castle.

Having obtained planning permission to build an extension onto The Walled Garden Restaurant, we decided to move the fallen down greenhouse to its new position to preserve history and to be in keeping with the site.

There was a greenhouse in this position, which can be seen by the change in the bricks above the gutter; the bricks below the gutter are in good condition whereas those above are more worn showing the line of a long-forgotten glasshouse.

The building against which the Old Greenhouse leans was partly a fruit store and at one end there were two rooms that had been a bothy where an undergardener lived. A few years ago, a customer (in their senior years) visited who remembered his uncle living there some time before the war.

The Head Gardener lived in The Garden House alongside the old Greenhouse. This building was extended in the mid-19th century at the time around the railway coming through (1852) and when New Road was built. The front extension faced the New Road rather than the old Toll Road which runs alongside the Lake in Sherborne Castle.

Behind The Walled Garden Restaurant, the garden is built above some tumbled down cold frames and greenhouses. The plan is to excavate these to reveal some of the former pathways. Below the whole site run tunnels carrying heating pipes for the extensive greenhouses dotted around the site.

So even after 35 years, we are still unearthing treasures at this fascinating site.

Just ask If you’re thinking about how to improve your garden and give it and yourself a boost, we can help.

Based in Sherborne, we, at Castletown Landscapes, provide complete garden care and landscaping services that can breathe new life into your garden projects, whatever size they are.

No job is too small. We do it all.

So, whatever’s on your mind, just ask.

Competitive rates and free, no-obligation quotes.

Please call Paul to get the conversation started.

M: 07739 121430 E: paul@castletown.uk

thegardensgroup.co.uk sherbornetimes.co.uk | 77

Gardening

HEDGEHOGS

O

Simon Ford, Gardener and Land and Nature Adviser

ne of our best recognised wild mammals is the hedgehog. They are well-liked and of course, were immortalised by Beatrix Potter as Mrs Tiggywinkle. As a child, they were a reasonably common sight, although sadly were mostly encountered squashed on the road. However, like so many species of wildlife, they have suffered a catastrophic decline in numbers in the last 50 years. They are believed to have suffered a 75% decline since 2000 from an already low base and this is seen in particular in the countryside.

Hedgehogs are found across Britain (with the exception of the Scottish islands and some upland areas) and are also found in much of Europe. As their name suggests, they like hunting in the base of old hedges and areas of rough grass. They hibernate in piles of leaves and under sheds and in the base of old trees.

The causes of hedgehog decline are many, but particularly relate to agricultural intensification, loss of old hedges and rough grassland, increased use of pesticides and slug pellets and roadkill. Badgers will also eat hedgehogs, but are not considered a significant factor in their decline. Interestingly however, there are signs that hedgehogs are holding their own in gardens and this may be partially due to people making space for wildlife and actively creating suitable safe areas for them to thrive.

Hedgehogs have between 5000 and 7000 one-inch long (2.5 cm) spines on their upper side for protection and of course can curl into a ball if threatened. They can live for 3 to 8 years. They are nocturnal, although I have found them feeding in the day in very dry weather, when there is little food available. They have a varied diet, which includes earthworms, caterpillars, berries, slugs, snails and beetles and they can have a very beneficial impact on pest control. They are surprisingly agile and can forage as far as 1 mile in a night. They hibernate usually between November and March, depending on the weather, but they do need to have built up enough body fat in the summer and autumn to sustain them over the winter.

78 | Sherborne Times | April 2022

ImageBroker/shutterstock

I am often asked by people how they can attract hedgehogs to their garden. One of the difficulties can be that we are generally too tidy. They need areas to hide and in particular to hibernate safely. This does not mean that everyone should abandon their gardens, but they should at least leave some corners for wildlife. This in turn will provide the food they need and hopefully encourage other beneficial species.

Remember, hedgehogs have big territories and that can mean they visit many gardens in a night. However, they need to be able to get access – to do this, consider cutting a small hole, about 13cms square, in fences and encourage your neighbours to do similar.

Some of the biggest threats in the gardens include ponds and swimming pools without shallow ramps, if they fall in. Hedgehogs are good swimmers, but cannot get out from a vertical edge or where there is a slippery

plastic liner. The use of slug pellets (metaldehyde) and rat/mouse bait has poisoned countless hedgehogs, although the use of slug pellets is banned in Britain, as of this month. Dogs can attack and injure them, especially at night when they are moving around and so particular care is needed. Netting, such as that used for strawberries and to protect vegetables from birds can be a death trap – they can get wrapped up in it if not securely fastened. Strimmers and brush-cutters are also a danger, if used to clear undergrowth or at the base of hedges. Bonfires are very attractive places for hedgehogs to hide or hibernate and so real care is needed before lighting one to make sure a hedgehog has not made a home at the base.

Some people will put out food for hedgehogs, which can include proprietary food from pet shops or cat or dog food. Never put out bread and milk – that

can make them ill. It is important to provide a shallow saucer of fresh water, particularly in dry weather.

Another thing which is worthwhile, is to install a hedgehog box in a quiet, sheltered area under a hedge or tree and place some dead leaves or grass in it. They can be bought from garden centres such as Castle Gardens or can be made, with templates available from the Mammal Society.

It is lovely to see a hedgehog. We live on Cheap Street and had a pair of hedgehogs with three babies in our small garden and in the night, often saw one shuffling up the road. It would be great if Sherborne Times readers can make some changes to make their gardens and farms suitable for hedgehogs (and other wildlife) and help reverse the decline. simonfordgardening.wordpress.com sherbornetimes.co.uk | 79

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FARM SOAP CO. Words Jo Denbury Photography Katharine Davies

I

am late and eventually have to ask the postman for directions. I find the white wooden garden gate as described and know instantly that I am at the right place. Herbs at various stages of growth are stacked in every available receptacle and soon-to-bud lavender lines the path. Standing at the door to Silvana de Soissons’ workshop – home to the Farm Soap Co. – I ready my senses, but I am unprepared for what I find.

White. Everything is white – the monochrome providing an appropriate backdrop to the many towers of soap stacked in immaculate rows. The air is almost tangibly thick with the scent of lavender, rosemary and thyme. It feels like my kind of heaven. I find Silvana, dressed in a white lab coat, at the counter preparing calendula petals in the ‘laboratory’ end of her studio.

‘Come in, come in,’ she calls, and I’m straight into learning about the traditional artisan methods of soapmaking, using local ingredients. >

82 | Sherborne Times | April 2022

sherbornetimes.co.uk | 83

84 | Sherborne Times | April 2022

While the calendula soaks there is a knock at the door and Sarah from Dorset Seaweeds arrives with a bucketload of freshly foraged seaweed. Sarah is licensed by the Crown Estate and harvests the seaweed largely from the shores at Osmington and Ringstead. Silvana gets to work washing the seaweed free of grit in one of her giant steel sinks. It is then taken to a smaller workshop where it is hung out to dry. Silvana uses the dried product in her Seaweed Hair and Body Soap and Seaweed and Thyme Bath Salts. The salt – hand-harvested by Dorset Sea Salt – travels only a short distance from Portland. ‘I would put a little in a small cotton bag,’ Silvana recommends, ‘and let the water from your bath taps run over it.

Alternatively, you can pour it into your bath and use the salt as a skin scrub while bathing.’

The Farm Soap Co. began in 2020. ‘I had the idea for the business and then Covid came,’ says Silvana.

‘By then we were all washing our hands constantly and there wasn’t a better time to start a soap company,’ she adds. ‘But the thing is most soaps are very drying and so it was important to make a soap that is good for the skin.’ Silvana is diligent about the content of her soaps.

‘Our skin has its own microbiome – good bacteria – and you don’t want to change that. Many products

contain aggressive derivatives of petrochemicals. The industrial toiletries industry is massive, but we don’t need its consequences. On average it’s estimated that we put 2 kilograms of chemicals on our skins and scalps per year,’ she explains. ‘Instead, we can look after our natural microbiome with a simple soap, a cloth and an oil to moisturise.’

Silvana, now in her mid-50s, maintains a youthful glow and provides living proof of the truth in her own mantra. So what’s her secret? ‘Dry skin brushing takes years off your skin,’ she says. ‘But really, skin minimalism supports the natural biome – as the skin matures, it’s beneficial to use an oil after washing.’ She uses a mixture of oils. ‘Flaxseed oil, almond, rosehip, calendula and evening primrose oil are all high in antioxidants that soak up the damaging free radicals.’

She has created a number of skin balms which can be used after washing. My personal favourite soap is the Dorset Sea Salt which contains no essential oils and literally melts into your skin leaving it soft and smooth – particularly useful if you suffer skin allergies.

‘To be honest,’ continues Silvana, ‘this is all part of the ‘solid revolution’. It used to be on the edges of society but now, slowly, people are realising that > sherbornetimes.co.uk | 85

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sherbornetimes.co.uk | 87

we don’t need all these bottles of chemicals in our home. Good things are coming to the forefront.’

She is referring of course to our use of solid soaps, both cosmetically and domestically. The Farm Soap Co. produces a solid soap that is as effective at washing floors as it is your clothes. You simply grate it and add hot water. The products we use in our home environment should be as important to us as healthy eating. Breast Cancer UK has called on the government to reduce public exposure to the harmful chemicals found in everyday household products. The list of offending products makes for scary reading.

Thankfully, Silvana and fellow artisan ‘soapers’ are determinedly producing natural, chemical-free alternatives. We can be safe in the knowledge that Silvana has tested each product in her own home. ‘My favourite scent is what we Italians call the profomo del pulito – the irresistible scent of spring cleaning and laundry day. But really, people associate cleanliness with bubbles and it isn’t the case.’ Cleanliness and 88 | Sherborne Times | April 2022

orderliness are traits close to Silvana’s heart. ‘I have worked in retail for 30 years. The last thing you do before you close for the day is to organise for the morning. Nowadays, the night before, I clean my way out of the building then I go home and do all the supplier orders for the next day. The next morning, I know I can hit the ground running.’

As we chat, Silvana explains the benefits of many essential oils used in her products, such as lavender, which is anti-bacterial, and also rosemary, bay and sage, which all contain anti-bacterial and antimicrobial properties. She enthuses too about lemon and white vinegar, which will clean away dirt and a host of stains. Silvana is animated throughout, picking up soaps, sniffing them, passing them to me to try and then on to the next one.

Silvana’s Italian heritage is there in the lilt of her accent. She was born in Italy but spent her childhood in Africa. ‘In the heat and the dust,’ she says. ‘My family lived by the coast and then Rhodesia.’ As Silvana

recounts the experience it’s clear that she didn’t find the move to rainy Britain easy as a child. ‘I came to Dorset in 1979 on a school geography trip and we went to the beach at Burton Bradstock. It was a hot day and we stood by those cliffs, and for me, it was the trigger. The Jurassic coastline reminded me of Africa – the land, the heat and the dust. It was transforming. I remember thinking this place [England] isn’t so bad – I want to live here.’ She laughs. ‘It took me 40 years to get close to the Jurassic Coast but now I am here.’

By now it’s lunchtime and we take the short stroll to her cottage, where we sit down to a delicious homemade soup and plate of cold cuts with bread and salad. ‘Well I am Italian after all,’ she laughs. As we eat I learn more of Silvana’s route to Dorset. ‘I studied Economics in Bath before moving to London in 1987 to work in retail. I lived in a little cottage in Spitalfields, before it became trendy,’ she adds. Silvana returned to Bath where she and her husband ran the much-loved Foodie Bugle, before selling the business in 2017 to

pursue other interests. For a while, she worked at The Newt in Somerset and then began the Farm Soap Co. Drawn back, years later, to Dorset’s coastline, it clearly serves as a source of inspiration to Silvana. Who would have thought that the simple act of washing one’s hands could bring to mind with such clarity the wilds and wonder of this beautiful county? Come the summer, on a hot dry day, with the heat shimmering on the Chesil, Silvana may well again be transported to her youth in Africa. But here on the Dorset coast, she has, in a sense, come home. @farmsoapco farmsoapco.com Natural Skincare for all Seasons by Silvana de Soissons (Pavilion Books) is published on the 5th May, RRP £20.

Sherborne Times reader offer price of £18 from Winstone's Books. sherbornetimes.co.uk | 89

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Please contact James and Charlotte Tel 07802 443905 | info@thestorypig.co.uk The Story Pig, Lavender Keepers, Great Pitt Lane, Sandford Orcas, Sherborne DT9 4FG See more at www.thestorypig.co.uk 90 | Sherborne Times | April 2022

Easter Weekend Activities Friday 15th – Monday 18th April

Join us for Lunch, Afternoon Tea, Dinner and an Easter Egg Hunt!

The Eastbury Hotel & Spa, Long Street, Sherborne www.theeastburyhotel.co.uk Tel: 01935 813131 Open to non-residents, 7 days a week Call us or book online

Food and Drink

THE CAKE WHISPERER Val Stones

EASTER OAT COOKIES

92 | Sherborne Times | April 2022

I

ced Easter cookies are a true labour of love – by that I mean the crisp shortbread biscuit dough lovingly shaped and piped in pastel spring colours. If this isn’t your style or you simply don’t have time then this is a recipe for you. Also ‘bashing’ the eggs is a therapeutic thing to do if you have had a tough week at work. Adding a little caster sugar gives a slightly crisper consistency to the cookies.

Makes 25 small or 15 large cookies Preparation time - 15 minutes to prepare and 15-20 minutes to bake What you will need - 2-4 greased baking sheets or you can use silicon sheets on top of the baking sheets Ingredients

225g unsalted butter softened 350g soft brown sugar 75g caster sugar 3 teaspoons vanilla extract 2 large eggs, beaten lightly 300g plain flour 1 level teaspoon cinnamon 2 teaspoons bicarbonate of soda 200g rolled oats 350g mini sugar-coated chocolate eggs Method

1 Set the oven for 150C fan, 170C, 335F, gas mark 3 2 Place 200g of the chocolate eggs in a plastic bag and seal, use a rolling pin to break up the eggs into smaller pieces and set aside 3 Beat the butter, sugars and vanilla extract until light and fluffy then beat in the egg a little at a time 4 Sift the flour, cinnamon and bicarbonate of soda into the butter mixture followed by the rolled oats 5 Finally, stir in the broken chocolate egg pieces 6 Weigh 50g of the mixture at a time then roll into a ball and place on the baking sheet making sure you space them roughly 5cm apart as they will spread (I place 6 cookies per sheet) 7 Press 3 of the whole chocolate eggs into each cookie 8 Bake for 15-18 minutes until a little risen and just beginning to colour around the edges. Leave on the baking sheet to cool for 5 minutes then transfer to a cooling rack. These cookies will keep well in an airtight container for a week and freeze well.

Image: Katharine Davies

bakerval.com sherbornetimes.co.uk | 93

Food and Drink

LIVING THE GOODDEN LIFE Nico and Chrystall Goodden Clematis

L

ast month, unable to hold back any longer, we began sowing our slower germinating seeds.

This month will only see us ramp up the pace.

Frost-hardy seedlings are transferred outside when large enough to fend for themselves, and that includes our favourite heirloom peas, while tender ones such as tomatoes wait a little longer indoors, under grow lights until mid-May. The many chilli plants we sowed very early, back in early February under T5 grow lights, are doing well yet slow-growing and not ready to brave the cold spring nights. Chillies do not enjoy the cold.

At a time when the garden isn’t producing much, it has been a joy to regularly enjoy freshly cut salad leaves from the greenhouse. The best way we have found to enjoy salads is harvesting the outer leaves and not the whole plant. This is a far more productive way to grow salads as they’ll keep growing new leaves for months until the summer heat eventually causes them to bolt. What could be better than a delicious crispy garlic-roasted chicken with golden french fries and a homegrown side salad with a vinaigrette? Not much if you ask me!

We’ve also experimented with the popular ‘Aqua Dulce’ broad beans in the greenhouse. They were started in October in cells/plugs (against popular advice) and 94 | Sherborne Times | April 2022

are doing very well. Already flowered, they should be ready for a May harvest. Strawberry plants which sent out armies of suckers (young plants) last year were repotted in March and placed in the greenhouse. By the end of April, our young plants already bear fruit, albeit small and unripe. The thought of eating our first plump and sweet strawberry in a month’s time is exciting to say the least. Even better when slightly warmed by the sun.

New this year, we have a few ‘beds’ for oyster mushrooms. In December we foraged them wild and locally, cut their stem ends (or stipe) and layered them between sheets of wet cardboard in large ziplock bags in the dark. Just like taking a cutting. This prompts the mushroom mycelium (think ‘roots’) to regrow by populating and digesting the cardboard which is made of tree pulp. Observing the strands of mycelium grow at such incredible speed is something I’d recommend anyone should try, especially if you have children. After a month the cardboard is fully populated by mushroom mycelium and is then transferred outdoors, layered like a lasagne, with wet straw and covered with a tarp for another month to populate the straw bed in a similar fashion. We will see oyster mushrooms pop up soon – for us the best mushroom there is with its subtle aniseed smell and meaty texture. Plus, cultivated like

Unripe strawberries

this means 100% free food.

The daffodils, primroses, bluebells and snowdrops which brought us much cheer in February and March are now being gradually taken over by apple blossoms, clematis and forget-me-nots. We never miss an opportunity to lift many and propagate them elsewhere in the garden. What will it look like in ten years, I wonder.

Last year was a bad year for carrots. We sowed them in April but a cold snap that followed prevented all germination but one (sad) single seed. Carrots like warm soil to germinate. So this year we have carrot seedlings growing in trays until they are strong enough to plant in our raised beds or perhaps buckets, which I hear is a reliable way to grow them.

We’re increasingly learning that if we want to be eco-friendly and not kill any wildlife (all the way down to slugs and snails) seeds must be started indoors or in the potting shed. Direct sowing is really not a good idea when your garden is invaded by hungry pheasants, pigeons, deer and all sorts of birds interested in sampling the all-you-can-eat buffet.

By mid-April what’s left of our seeds (tomato, parsnip, cucumber, beans and various pumpkins…) will be sown, giving them a month indoors before heading out – that’s plenty. For a little exotic variety, we will

be growing fuss-free Yakon for a second year, also known as ground pear – a sweet juicy tuber from South America that has savoury and sweet uses while never losing its crunch. Its flowers resemble small sunflowers and the leaves can be used in cooking in the same way one uses vine leaves.

I’m also looking forward to the Goji berries and Szechuan pepper. This is the beauty of gardening. We do not want to follow a step-by-step guide of what we should or should not do – life has enough rules and constraints.

We experiment and along with successes of which we have many, there is an incredible amount of things that don’t quite work out or, to be honest, simply fail.

Gardening has brightened our lives, it gives us hope for the future, it is meditative, helps us live in the moment, keeps us fit, helps us reconnect with nature and has that tremendous power to help us deal with everyday life – reframing its failures as merely lessons.

The miracle of life is a seed you sow, help grow and eventually end up eating the fruit of while keeping a seed to sow again next year. Nothing in the world tastes better than homegrown food. Sow a seed today, nurture it, watch it grow and enjoy all the benefits it brings.

Nico: @nicholasgoodden Chrystall: @thegooddenlife sherbornetimes.co.uk | 95

Food and Drink

POACHED PEAR WITH TOASTED MERINGUE AND HAZELNUTS Tom Matkevich, The Green

Wow Pho/Shutterstock

T

his simple yet elegant dessert is a firm family favourite. Serves 4

Ingredients

4 Conference pears 1 cinnamon stick 2 cardamom pods 2 cloves 1 large orange 1 small lemon 250g sugar 2 egg whites 1 teaspoon vanilla paste 4 tablespoons toasted chopped hazelnuts For the pears

1 2 3 4 5 6

Fill a medium saucepan with 1 litre of water and add 3 tbsp of sugar, cinnamon, cardamom and clove.

Remove the peel from the orange, add to the poaching liquid and bring to a boil.

Peel the pears and trim the base of the pears so that they stand freely.

Add the pears to the poaching liquid and reduce to a simmer.

Poach for 7 minutes or until cooked through but still firm.

Remove from the heat and set aside.

96 | Sherborne Times | April 2022

For the sauce

7 Zest the lemon then juice it along with the remaining orange.

8 Add 3 tablespoons of sugar to a small saucepan with the zest, orange and lemon juice and vanilla.

9 Simmer until the sugar is dissolved then set aside.

For the Italian meringue

10 Add the remaining sugar and 1 tbsp of water to a saucepan and bring to the boil.

11 Meanwhile, whisk the egg white with an electric whisk until the soft peak stage.

12 Once the sugar syrup reaches around 115 C, drizzle into the meringue while whisking constantly. Take care to not splash hot syrup.

Continue to beat until cool.

13 To serve, scoop a generous tablespoon of meringue onto each plate and toast with a blowtorch (or under the grill for 1 min). Remove each pear from the poaching liquid and place next to the meringue, then top with the hazelnuts.

14 Drizzle the pear with the sauce.

Bon appetit! greenrestaurant.co.uk

Pesto:

200g of mixed wild greens (I use a mix of wild garlic, hogweed shoots, celandine, sweet cicely and cow parsley) 50g pine-nuts or cashews or hazelnuts Blitz in a food processor with just enough virgin rapeseed oil to hold together Tomato broth:

500g large tomatoes 50ml balsamic vinegar 100g fennel, thinly sliced (save the fronds for decorating the dish) 20g white sugar 20g table salt

TOMATO BROTH WITH WILD GREENS PESTO AND HERITAGE VEG

A

Mat Follas, Bramble Restaurant

t the time of writing the warmth still seems a long way off but I love the clean, warm days of April and May when the hedgerows come to life and the birdsong can be deafening.

I’m often asked why I live in the UK rather than my native New Zealand and a ‘proper’ spring is definitely one of the reasons.

A vegetable broth is good at any time of year and now that UK-grown tomatoes are available so much of the year I have done a light tomato broth to accompany pesto and heritage vegetables to create a comforting but classy meal.

This is a bit of a crossover dish with the pesto being very much a nod to a classic Greek horta dish made from wild greens. Do not pick any wild greens unless you are completely sure of what they are (we do run foraging courses, contact us for details). You can use spinach and other leaves from the supermarket instead.

1 Preheat oven to 220C. 2 Place the tomatoes whole and fennel on a baking tray then drizzle the balsamic and sprinkle the salt and sugar over.

3 Place the tray in the oven for 15-20 minutes until the tomatoes are just starting to blacken.

4 Carefully put all of the ingredients in a larger saucepan with 200ml tap water, gently simmer and squash everything together for 30 minutes or so.

5 Squeeze the liquid through a sieve then simmer again, skimming any froth and bits off the top, until you are left with a thin red broth (many recipes call for egg whites to be added here to make a consommé but I think this detracts from the flavour and excludes anyone who wants an animal-free meal).

Vegetables:

200g mixed heritage carrots, peeled and poached with some star anise in the water 100g mini tomatoes 4 spring onions, trimmed and roasted (roast with the tomatoes for the broth) Use alternative vegetables as you prefer.

To serve:

6 Portion the vegetables on the plate with some of the fennel fronds.

7 Heat the broth and stir plenty of pesto into the bowl.

When served with vegetables this broth makes a satisfying and pretty lunch or starter for dinner. bramblerestaurant.com sherbornetimes.co.uk | 97

Food and Drink

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

S

pring is finally springing – I can hardly believe it.

Another winter survived as an outdoor pig farmer.

Although I write at the beginning of March as the east winds blow through us and shrivel and burn the grass that has continued to grow all winter, the days are noticeably longer. As one that is ruled by the seasons, I am awake earlier and outside until it’s too dark to see. The winds in March miraculously dry the mud overnight. It’s incredible – areas that have been muddy for months retreat quickly and if not caught quickly and levelled, become rock hard craters and can be there for months for me to bump and bash my way 98 | Sherborne Times | April 2022

over. The pigs themselves love this time of year. They rise early too, ranging across their paddocks from first daybreak. It’s not too hot for them and they soak up the spring sunshine.

I have just come inside after a full-on day in the pig fields. The wind has been battering us all day and the ground has visibly dried in front of us. Once a fortnight on a Wednesday I have help on the farm from one of my best friends, Len. We work well together and he is great with the pigs. This morning I had a long list of groups of pigs I needed to move. This is like a giant puzzle – every paddock has pigs in them at the

moment, so where to start? We use our tractor and stock box to move them in groups, backing up to the electric fence as straight as I can and turning the fence off with one of our many switches. You don’t want to do this too early otherwise the pigs will push through the fence and escape. Depending on which groups I am trying to load we may need my trusty pig hurdles – these can be joined together with metal pins. They are sheeted for pigs so the pigs can’t lift them with their noses and escape. Escape is a recurring theme with Tamworth’s – they will always escape given half a chance!

To start with we were moving heavily pregnant mothers – no hurdles needed. Just opening the tailgate and the side gates, quickly – they are trying to barge their way in before I have them open. I throw a bit of food to the front of the box and in they waddle. Pigs are strong and rough. You have to be tough to work with them and quick – they will knock you over in an instant if food is involved and you are on the wrong side of it! I shut the side gates, pick up my never-tobe-without piece of plyboard that is my pig board, shut the tailgate and deliver them to the maternity unit – a paddock surrounded by trees and with lots of individual places for them to give birth. They fly out of the box and quickly start to explore their new area. Then it’s back to load the next group. They too are pregnant and are quickly loaded, apart from Martha – she is our oldest sow and never walks into the box without a lot of skulduggery. No amount of food and coaxing or waiting will load Martha, so to move her we have to take all the hurdles and make a long pen – big enough so she feels no threat. Then, once she knows she’s cornered, in she trots, but instead of taking 5 minutes to load a group, she takes over half a precious hour. We drop off the next group and then watch out – mixing pigs is always tricky.

They fight to re-assert their pecking order. You need to be careful now as they are heavy, weighing upwards of 200kg each, and when they are fighting they will not stop for anything until one gives in and runs off. The beauty of our system is that they can run away!

Then we have to pick out and move some of our growing young pigs – this always needs hurdles. They are in much bigger groups, often 40 or more in a paddock.

They too are strong and boisterous. We set the hurdles up – this in itself is a battle. They all scream around us, trying to knock everything over as we set them down.

Once they are set up, a bit of food and they start to stream in. This is Len’s finest moment – once they are all in he swings the hurdles closed with a leap and we have them. We mark the ones we are moving and make a passageway to let the others out. Patience is needed now – the ones you want are facing the wrong way and the ones you want to keep in are always by the opening, trying to dive past me. This is why I need my pig board – they can’t go through it and you can channel them the right way. So we moved 11 groups today and I am very tired now. Off to have a bath and then supper with my wife. Glamorous life, this pig farming! thestorypig.co.uk sherbornetimes.co.uk | 99

Food and Drink

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY

B

David Copp

uying a present to mark a special occasion, birthday or event is sometimes quite difficult for somebody who has most things. But I have a recommendation to make.

Turn to drink.

Few people I know would object to sharing a decent vintage of claret or burgundy, a bottle of old vintage port or Madeira, or a fine single malt whisky such as Macallan or Glenmorangie, or for those with a taste for great sweet wines, a Trockenbeerenauslese, Sauternes or Tokay. And those that can afford to, should think big. Wine keeps better in large bottles. A magnum would allow eight people to have at least two good glasses at dinner.

And while I am dishing out advice, I would strongly urge those who do choose to buy a special bottle of wine, to buy from a merchant they know and trust. In recent years there have been a number of people making a good living selling fakes.

If you are not sure about vintages, ask. Some vintages last longer than others: what may have been a brilliant year in Bordeaux is not necessarily so in Burgundy. Sometimes, a certain vintage may be slow to come round. Vintage port, which is fortified, will last longer than most table wines.

When I first started cellar work in London in 1957 a well-known but elderly customer returned 11 bottles of Chateau Lafite Rothschild 1945, not because it was bad, but simply because the tannins were so powerful, they would not ‘come round’ in his lifetime. As it was not company practice to sell open cases of classified growths my father bought the eleven bottles and on my twenty-first birthday, I received two of them. Rather more exciting than the ‘key to the door’ or another silver tankard.

My only wish in retrospect is that it was not Mouton Rothschild 1945. Mouton was only a second growth at that time, but many knowledgeable critics considered that in 1945 it out-performed the first growths. Interestingly, the property was then under German control. But the winefuhrer appointed knew what he was doing. He was helped by a late frost which reduced the size of the crop. Thereafter there was magnificent weather and low yields produced a magnificent wine which is still going strong.

However, if you can find a bottle it will set you back about £15,000 a bottle. The late Michael Broadbent MW (Master of Wine), critic, writer and auctioneer at Christie’s, wrote in a tasting note in 2001 that it had been late to mature, was still vivacious and charming and reckoned it still had fifty years to go.

Since the Mouton vineyards are next to Lafite, it is not unreasonable to assume that the same comment applied to the Lafite wine I was given. The wily old wine lover who returned the eleven bottles of Lafite knew what he was doing.

Old bottles of wine can tell some interesting tales.

100 | Sherborne Times | April 2022

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Animal Care

TAKING GREAT PAINS Mark Newton-Clarke MAVetMB PhD MRCVS, Newton Clarke Veterinary Surgeons

A

pril has for me the best celebration of the year, Easter – a ‘movable feast’ as of course the date varies between 21st March and 25th April. I like a bit of unpredictability but wouldn’t it be easier if the same date was set every year, like Christmas Day? We could put the clocks forward on Good Friday and enjoy the extra daylight over the holidays. What do you think?

My secular thoughts about religious festivals aside and as uplifting and happy as Easter is, it strikes me that it has a darker element. I refer to Christ’s crucifixion and the pain he must have suffered along with countless others condemned to the same fate.

So I wanted to write about the alleviation of pain and how to recognise it in animals, who of course, cannot speak. I am sure my human medical colleagues face similar challenges with patients who cannot communicate verbally.

Different species respond very differently to pain, 104 | Sherborne Times | April 2022

mainly due to evolutionary adaptations that help survival. Frequently, when animals are victims of road traffic accidents, they are able to run away from the scene despite serious injuries. It’s thought this response helps wild animals escape a predatory attack, the pain delayed for a period of minutes or hours to allow the victim time to reach safety. I have personal experience of this after a surfing accident a long way from shore when I broke two ribs and didn’t feel any pain for an hour or so. At least it gave me time to get back to the beach and remove my new wet suit that I worried would be cut off me at Truro hospital!

So our patients fall into two broad categories; those that come in already painful and those that face a potentially painful elective procedure, for example, neutering or removal of lumps and bumps. Unless you are bringing your pet in for a routine vaccination or check-up, I take the view that all sick animals are in some degree of pain or discomfort, no matter how

Motortion Films/shutterstock

‘trivial’ the underlying problem might be. Think about how badly your head or joints ache with a simple cold virus, not to mention the effects of Covid!

This brings us to the question of how we detect and measure pain in animals. There has been plenty of research trying to find objective markers for pain (i.e. blood tests for adrenaline etc, heart rate and blood pressure) but factors like stress and excitement affect the results. Instead, we use behaviour to guide our assessment, as it clearly changes with the type and severity of the pain. But there are problems here too, so let’s consider what happens when your dog has its annual vaccination, usually under the skin at the scruff of the neck. Some will feel it and maybe just flinch, many can be distracted from reacting at all with food but some react violently and occasionally, aggressively. Given that the ‘stimulus’ is the same, this illustrates the variation in response. Also consider what sometimes happens when I try to give a kennel

cough vaccine up your dog’s nose! This really is not painful and yet it often evokes extreme reactions. So clearly behavioural responses are not influenced only by the degree of pain – individual stress and fear play an important role.

How does all this affect our efforts to assess pain and so treat it effectively? Obviously it doesn’t make it any easier but vets and nurses are now much better at recognising the more subtle signs of pain in dogs and cats. Like many animals, dogs and cats become quiet and depressed with chronic, unremitting pain and this used to be interpreted as peaceful resting. We now know these animals need more analgesia and we are quick to supply it. Quite often, of course, the signs are not subtle at all, especially if the pain is sudden and sharp. Most vets develop quick avoidance reactions but the real trick is to read your patient, be gentle and provide good pain relief as soon as possible. For those about to undergo an operation, we give pain relief before the procedure as we now know this reduces postoperative discomfort.

The sensation of pain is also not a single entity and all of us appreciate the difference between hitting a thumb with a hammer and the nagging pain of chronic arthritis. This is not just a matter of degree as there are very different nerves involved – sudden sharp pain being transmitted by ‘A’ fibres and dull, chronic pain by ‘C’ fibres. The process of detecting pain by nerve endings and transmitting signals to the brain via the spinal cord is called ‘nociception’. These signals undergo complex modification on their journey up the spine that can result in either amplification or suppression. We obviously want to suppress pain in our patients and the morphinebased analgesics are now widely used in almost all situations, alongside non-steroidal anti-inflammatories and paracetamol (for dogs only) – all of which can be given in combination and intravenously for rapid effect. The most difficult pain to control is ‘neuropathic’ pain, where there is no detectable tissue damage. This is well known in human medicine and we recognise it increasingly in animals. Luckily there are new ways of controlling this sort of pain, one of which is an antibody to a neurotransmitter involved in nociception.

Pain relief is an essential part of medicine. Palliation is now a speciality subject in human medicine and it needs to be given similar recognition in the veterinary profession. I am glad to say we are getting there. newtonclarkevet.com sherbornetimes.co.uk | 105

Animal Care

LEARNING ON THE JOB John Walsh, Friars Moor Vets

W

e have recently welcomed to our practice team two newly qualified vets, Becca and Martha. They have been a great addition to our team and have really fitted in well to our busy practice life. Fresh from university they have come with some great new ideas and boundless enthusiasm. It has not been the easiest time for new vets to qualify, as many of their learning experiences were severely hampered by the effects of Covid. Normally, they would come and see the practice with us and gain lots of hands-on practical experience to prepare them for the new career ahead of them.

When new vets join the practice, it always reminds me of the challenges and experiences I had to face in the first daunting year of practice. Some say, that these first few years of work are where you will learn the most.

As you encounter new cases and situations on a daily basis, your rate of learning takes an exponential trajectory. You also learn a lot about yourself as a person and the resilience you need to deal with challenging situations that you will face when treating sick or injured animals which usually occur in the middle of the night!

My first job was in Wiltshire and luckily for me, I had joined a very supportive practice in my development as a new graduate. Nothing however, even as an experienced vet would have prepared me for one of my very first weekends on-call. I set off for calls at 8am and worked non-stop seeing sick animals until 11pm the same day – I travelled nearly 150 miles and visited 11 different farms. This was certainly an accelerated learning experience and lesson in time management!

One of the calls really stands out in my memory. I had operated on a cow with a right displaced abomasum (a life-threatening twisted stomach).

The operation had gone well, and the cow was left to recuperate in one of the farmer’s stables. An hour later, I got a call from the farmer who was very concerned because his very friendly German shepherd dog had found its way into the stable unbeknownst to the farmer and started licking the operation site on the side of the cow. The cow was oblivious to this attention due to the prolonged effect of the local anaesthetic we used for the operation; she couldn’t feel the dog licking her! The dog had managed to remove some of the skin stitches I had placed in the skin. So, on this very busy day, I had to return to the farm to restitch the operation site. Luckily, the cow made a full recovery, and the dog was kept well away from any future operations on the farm! friarsmoorvets.co.uk 106 | Sherborne Times | April 2022

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Body & Mind

HOLIDAY PLANS

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

F

or the last 2 years, our world has gotten a whole lot smaller – lots of us have been confined to either our own houses or a small radius around it.

I think the most exotic my life got between March 2020 and January this year was a trip to Birmingham! While it may have more canals than Venice, the impact was not quite the same. Over the last few weeks, we’ve started seeing more and more people enquiring about travel health, with people planning trips to some very exciting 112 | Sherborne Times | April 2022

destinations. We’ve partnered with the website traveljab.co.uk to provide a convenient way to book appointments for this service. At the moment we are only running from Beaminster Pharmacy, but we will be expanding this to include The Abbey Pharmacy after we have completed our refit which is now only a short number of months away. If you are planning a trip to somewhere exotic it is worth thinking about whether you need any extra protection. For most developed countries

no vaccinations will be required for the majority of travellers, however, those with weakened immune systems could still be advised to check before they travel.

However, even if your trip doesn’t require jabs, there are some basic things that you should think about: sun protection is a must, especially for young people as this will help to protect against short-term discomfort from sunburn, but also longer-term problems through skin cancers. It is a good idea to consider SPF 30+ in most lighter skin types. If you are travelling long haul you may want to think about using flight socks or compression stockings to reduce the risk of Deep Vein Thrombosis (DVT - blood clots). DVT is more likely if your flight is longer than 4 hours and you are 22 times more likely to have a blood clot than with a short-haul flight. If you or a close relative have previously had a DVT or a Pulmonary Embolism (blood clot in the lungs), are aged over 60, have an active cancer, varicose veins, or are even very tall or very short you may be at a greater risk than other travellers. Fortunately, the use of a compression sock may help to keep you safe, and for some people, aspirin may be a good idea (but not for everybody).

Most travellers do tend to take a small amount of medical supplies away with them as there is nothing worse than being ill when you are on holiday or trying to find a pharmacy open late at night in Botswana!

In my bags when I travel I would always take a few essentials: paracetamol, some plasters or dressings, antihistamine tablets and cream and perhaps some treatments for an upset stomach as this is very common for a lot of travellers. If you are going further afield, are backpacking, or working very remotely I would suggest a first aid kit might be a good idea.

With Covid, the travel advice changes very frequently, so I would always suggest keeping an eye on your destination in the run-up to your trip to check the latest information. At the moment most countries seem to accept people who have had two coronavirus vaccines, but some, such as France are a bit more cautious and may require three. If you need to take proof of your vaccination status you can use the NHS App or you can call 119 and ask for a Covid pass which they can send to you, detailing your vaccination information. Please be aware that if you have had one or more vaccinations abroad this information won’t necessarily show via either of these routes – you will need to book an appointment on the NHS website to arrange to have the information added to your records.

If you are travelling to somewhere exotic, I would

"If your flight is longer than 4 hours you are 22 times more likely to have a blood clot than with a short-haul flight." spend a few minutes checking whether you need any vaccines – the best start is to find out from your practice what vaccines you already have. Again if you contact your practice they may be able to add this information to your NHS app if you use it, but sometimes they will print off a list of your vaccination dates. The reason this is important is that some vaccines may confer good long-term protection without the need for boosters, whereas others, such as typhoid, may have to be readministered every 3 years. We will also need to know where and when you are travelling and it is useful to get an overall sense of what you will be doing and where you will be staying while you are there. This helps us to perform a thorough risk assessment, which will be different if you are sleeping in a tent in the jungles of Laos from staying in a modern resort in South Africa.

Once you have this information we will be able to help you. Generally, you will need an initial appointment to work out which vaccines you require, then a second appointment may be required to administer those vaccines. If you are in a particular hurry I would communicate this upfront and we will try our best to help you by pre-ordering vaccines.

Malaria still kills around 600,000 people every year and is responsible for some 200m cases worldwide.

The patterns of drug resistance and the predominant strains of malaria which are active in an area do change from time to time. The National Pharmacy Association updates our professional guidance twice a year, so it is always worth checking if antimalarials are required.

Finally, I would like to give you a brief update on our plans for The Abbey Pharmacy. Works will start in the next few weeks and will hopefully be complete by around June. We will look forward to welcoming you to our exciting new facility soon. theabbeypharmacy.com sherbornetimes.co.uk | 113

Body and Mind

SELF-INJURY Stigma and Coping

Lucy Lewis, Assistant Psychologist and Dorset Mind Ambassador

Trigger warning: This blog has references to self-injurious behaviours and may be upsetting in nature. If you need to talk to someone after reading this article, please contact the Samaritans FREE 24/7 service on 116 123.

What is Self-Injury?

Self-injury refers to any behaviour intended to cause harm or pain to the self. Self-injury is not a mental health condition, but a common symptom of a range of mental illnesses. Despite stereotypes and common misconceptions, self-injury is very rarely done for attention, as a ‘cry for help’, or to fit in with others; self-injury is commonly a hidden behaviour. Being visible doesn’t sit easily with us, hence why there’s stigma around it.

The reasons for self-harm can vary between individuals, but common functions can include releasing difficult emotions, or to ground, distract, or punish oneself. Self-injury habits can function in the same way as addiction, making it very difficult to ‘just 114 | Sherborne Times | April 2022

stop’. Self-harm can be the only way for some people to deal with their distress; however, it is possible to replace this maladaptive coping strategy with adaptive, healthy coping skills.

Coping Skills to Help Manage Self-Harm Urges

Here are our top coping skills to manage urges to self-harm: 1 STOP STOP is a skill taught in Dialectic Behaviour Therapy (DBT). It is an acronym that can be used when experiencing a strong urge to hurt oneself. Often, when experiencing a strong self-harm urge, adrenaline can cause us to think more quickly and less clearly,

as a ‘wave’ that will fade can better prepare us to ride them out. This means accepting the associated distress and temptation of the urge but knowing that this does not mean that the urge has to be followed. Each time someone ‘surfs’ over the urge and does not engage in self-harm behaviours, it becomes easier. Like with quitting smoking or anything addictive, we gain power each time we are able to tolerate the distress of the urge without giving in to it. Over time, the urges should become less powerful and distressing and should be easier to ignore.

3 TIPP TIPP is another skill taught in DBT. The ‘T’ is for Temperature: try using an ice pack to self-soothe.

Reducing body temperature can make you feel calmer and more in control, and function as a grounding technique in a similar way to self-harm. The ‘I’ is for Intense exercise. This can help to work off the excess adrenaline that causes uncomfortable symptoms and distract from the urge. The ‘P’s are for Paced breathing and Paired muscle relaxation. These exercises both work to counteract the effects of adrenaline on the body, which can make you feel agitated, restless, and on edge.

Take Away Message

Although these techniques can be helpful in managing urges to self-injure, it is vital to seek help for any selfharm difficulties. Recovery is possible and always easier with appropriate professional support.

Jaromir Chalabala/Shutterstock

leading to us acting impulsively. Therefore, the ‘S’ is for Stop, where the user is encouraged to slow down and be mindful. ‘T’ is for Take a step back. This can include going into a different room or just physically separating yourself from the situation where you may hurt yourself. ‘O’ is for Observe where the user is encouraged to be mindful of their emotions and thoughts. Finally, ‘P’ is for Proceed mindfully. Using your awareness of your thoughts, emotions, and goals, consider carefully how you would like to proceed.

2 Urge-Surfing Like with addiction, self-harm urges tend to follow a pattern. Urges tend to build gradually, before peaking, then fading away. Considering these urges

Help and Support

Talk to your GP or medical professional if you are struggling with self-injurious ideation or behaviours.

In a crisis, visit A&E, call 999, or call The Samaritans on 116 123. Visit Dorset Mind’s help and support pages for resources, signposting, and information about their individual and group mental health services at dorsetmind.uk/help-and-support Additional Resources:

Harmless: harmless.org.uk user-led support and information.

NSHN (National Self-Harm Network) nshn.co.uk - moderated online forum SelfharmUK: selfharm.co.uk - supports young people Dorset Connection 24/7 Helpline: 0800 652 0190 dorsetmind.uk sherbornetimes.co.uk | 115

Body and Mind

Navigating the Menopause

MOVE

Julia Witherspoon, Nutritional Therapist Image: Barbara Leatham

T

his pillar in my four-step system for managing the menopause mayhem is, I am sure you will guess, about exercise but it is also about the specific types of exercise that are so important for women once they reach their 40s, head into perimenopause and their bodies start changing.

Lack of exercise puts everybody at risk of numerous health problems, not least heart disease, cancer, type II diabetes and neurological diseases. It has been said 116 | Sherborne Times | April 2022

that if the benefits of exercise could be put into a pill, it would have the potential to reduce almost every chronic illness – it is that important. It also reduces stress and lifts mood, supports brain health, helps the body detoxify as well as improving insulin sensitivity, so our cells are responsive to smaller amounts of insulin (yes, that blood sugar balance again..!).

The importance of regular exercise for women as they transition through menopause cannot be

underestimated, just at a time when low energy, low mood, lack of sleep and little motivation to do anything can make us less inclined to exercise than perhaps ever before. There are benefits that women probably hadn’t had to consider in their twenties and thirties, relating to heart and bone health and muscle mass. Exercise can also help mitigate the potential (and common) weight gain around the middle caused by declining oestrogen levels and has also been shown to reduce some perimenopausal symptoms, so it’s a win, win all round!

Most women should still have decades to live post menopause and the stronger and healthier our bodies, the higher our chances of having a long healthspan and being able to continue doing all the things we love and want to do.

I am not a qualified personal trainer so am unable to give individual exercise advice, but there are several different types of exercise women should try and incorporate into their lives to get real results and build a strong, healthy body and mind: Aerobic/cardiovascular training

This is important at any age as it elevates the heart rate and helps burn fat. It doesn’t have to be high-intensity exercise (although it can be) so find something you enjoy that gets your heart pumping. It can be anything from dancing, swimming, cycling, jogging/running, tennis, badminton etc. Low-intensity cardio like brisk walking or water aerobics is also good and more gentle on bones and joints.

While cardio is fabulously beneficial to the body, it is important not to just do this form of exercise. I am guilty of having been a cardio-only exerciser for the majority of my life, before understanding – during my own perimenopause – that this isn’t the way to exercise ‘smart’. I had spent years and years trying to lose weight and it really never budged or stayed off, until I switched up my exercise routine and started doing other types of training as well (see below) – the weight came off for the first time in my life, without me having to even try, and has stayed off ever since. This was revelatory to me and I cannot stress enough, please do not just do cardio-based exercise, even if you don’t want or need to lose weight. This applies to women of all ages!

Weight-bearing exercise

This is any exercise where you are doing cardio work on your feet, with your bones supporting your weight, unlike swimming and cycling. This will help to build

"The importance of regular exercise for women as they transition through menopause cannot be underestimated" and maintain bone density (something which decreases steadily with a woman’s loss of oestrogen). Women are at increased risk of osteoporosis from mid-life onwards and really working on bone strength as early as possible, preferably before natural bone density loss starts in earnest at perimenopause, may mean you are not the one in two women who develop osteoporosis in their lifetime. You only need to do this type of exercise a couple of times per week to reap the benefits.

Strength/resistant training

This is also really important for women post 40 to both keep bones and joints strong and also to increase muscle mass (blame declining oestrogen again for reduced muscle strength). This includes lifting some weights/dumbbells/ kettlebells, using resistance bands, or even using your own body weight (push-ups for example). This kind of training speeds up a slowing metabolism and having more lean muscle mass encourages fat burning even at rest.

Flexibility

Yoga and pilates are great options here as they encourage muscle stretching and mobility, improve posture and balance, as well as promoting better muscle function.

To get going with some of these forms of exercise, there are lots of online videos freely available on YouTube, although if you are starting from scratch, I would recommend getting some guidance from a personal trainer to make sure you don’t end up with any injuries. And start slowly, gradually increasing duration and intensity.

For maximum benefit from the exercise you choose, remember to also eat a nutritious, wholefoods diet and get plenty of sleep and rest. And most importantly do something you don’t hate and that you are happy to do long-term!

Next month: Detox julianutrition.co.uk sherbornetimes.co.uk | 117

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DUMBBELLS

Craig Hardaker BSc (Hons), Communifit

I

am personal trainer for several clients, some of whom live close to Sherborne Abbey. The other day, whilst in the area at around 7.15pm on a Thursday, the bells starting ringing as the campanologists started their weekly practice. This triggered the idea of writing about dumbbells for my April article! But how can dumbbells be possibly linked with church bells!? Well, let me explain…

Sherborne Abbey apparently has the world’s heaviest peal of 8 bells, but in reality all bells are notoriously heavy – making bell-ringing very challenging. To build strength in order to ring handbells effectively you are best practising the actual movement involved. This causes lots of sound so clappers (the bit in the bell that moves to create a sound) can be removed. This enables a bell-ringer to practise the movement without making the sound. To practise without having to go to church, the clappers were a perfectly weighted object easily held, that bell ringers could take home. This motion could be practised anywhere, helping campanologists build strength for church bell-ringing. The clapper was soon modified and turned into a dumbbell, a fitness tool that we are all familiar with today. ‘Dumb’ also means silent. Silent church bell-ringing – dumbbell. Following a quick Google search you will notice dumbbells and clappers look fairly similar!

Dumbbells are a wonderful piece of apparatus for us all to use, not just church bell ringers! They are used in a wide variety of exercise classes up and down the country, and certainly used in nearly all Communifit sessions.

Dumbbells are of particular importance as they help activate a number of different muscles and stimulate muscle growth. Using dumbbells, a variety of movement patterns can target multiple muscle groups from head to toe. If you don’t have dumbbells at home, weighted objects such as tin cans or water bottles will suffice. Here 120 | Sherborne Times | April 2022

Image: Stuart Brill

Body and Mind

are some simple to follow exercises for you to try: Bicep curl – upper body:

Either sitting or standing, place your arms down by your side with a dumbbell in each hand. Slowly lift one arm up towards the shoulder, and then return downwards at the same speed. This can be performed alternately, or with both arms at the same time.

Lengthen your spine, engage your core muscles, look forward and clamp your elbows close to your side.

Squat – lower body:

In a standing position, let your arms hang down either side with a dumbbell in each hand. Slowly bend your knees so they cover your toes, keeping your torso straight and core engaged. Send your hips down to your lowest point and then push back upwards leading with your heels.

Lateral raise – upper body:

A similar starting position to the squat, however we now raise our arms sideways away from the body. Keeping your knuckles facing upwards reaching the maximum shoulder height but reducing range of motion if needed.

Keeping your head upright, your feet shoulder at width apart, and torso engaged throughout the movement.

With all the above exercises always remember not to attempt them over too long a period of time in one session, or use heavy weights that you are not yet ready for – always build up intensity of exercise in stages.

So there you have it, three simple exercises for you to try with dumbbells or weighted objects. Dumbbells really are a good piece of apparatus and you don’t need to be a church bell-ringer to benefit from using them! communifit.co.uk

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sherbornetimes.co.uk | 121

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122 | Sherborne Times | April 2022

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Home

AS ONE DOOR CLOSES… Ryan Terren BA FSSA, Feng Shui Consultant

124 | Sherborne Times | April 2022

A

lan May bought Newton Manor Hall in Swanage one year ago with the intention of making a home, charity hub and healing clinic.

It had been a difficult time for him, battling leukaemia, and having lost his wife two years previously. He had made extraordinary improvements to his health using complementary medicine, learned to practice it himself and became interested in Feng Shui en route. He contacted me shortly after the purchase.

In Chinese metaphysics, time, space and the human mind are measured using the same parameters. By cross-referencing the building’s construction date with its orientation and Alan’s birth data I could access a wealth of information before my first visit. His chart clearly shows a dramatic shift in 2018, the time of his wife’s passing. This was the beginning of an important new chapter for him, one that needs the support of his environment. Running the analysis, I find that Alan – like many of my clients – has already chosen the ideal building to balance both his inner nature and his current circumstances. Contrary to popular misunderstanding, Feng Shui is not a design overlay but a living connection between people and place, often unconscious. As a practitioner, I work with this connection to harness opportunities and minimise problems.

Driving down to see the house, I cross the Purbeck Ridge which arcs from Lulworth Cove to Old Harry Rocks, just north of Swanage. In Feng Shui theory, this is a dragon line - synonymous to a ley line but less conceptual, surging as it is with magnetic energy that runs under the earth’s crust. Corfe Castle sits right on it. Ancient Chinese metaphysicians advised us to build our temples on ‘the spines of dragons’ and our towns just oblique to the ‘dragon’s head’ and before a body of water. Swanage is ideally positioned in that regard.

This is not a coincidence by any means; we have gone backwards in our connection to the landscape.

Newton Manor Hall once formed part of a larger house dating back to the 1600s. It was remodelled in the late 1800s by Sir Charles Robinson who had worked for the V&A and was looking for a retirement project. His tastes were – as you would expect – eclectic and international, and he sourced his material from stunning architectural salvage across Europe.

Alan has recently moved in and the house is fitted out with garden furniture, stacks of framed pictures and open suitcases. Despite this, it is breathtakingly atmospheric. We speak of the loss of his wife Jane. He tells me she is always by his side. I ask him what she

would think of the new place. His face lights up. She would love it – particularly the impact the projects will have for the local community.

Choosing the right site is 70% of the work of Feng Shui, akin to casting the right actor – get it right and the rest is a formality. Tommy Lee Jones as a grizzled manhunter works, as Juliet not so much. I often assist people in this ‘casting process’ but here we are already off to a good start. The challenge is to channel the site’s beneficial energy, or qi, into the house. As the original building was converted and split into separate dwellings, an awkwardly placed side door became the main entrance. When houses are built with said innate talent for good Feng Shui, later interference can cause a fair bit of disruption. The new door is effectively closed even when open and sure enough, the entrance hall has a heavy cold feeling to it – yin where it should be yang – and that drags into the interior. If the entrance is the mouth of the building (it is), we have a problem with our actor. Then there is the lack of furniture, some blocked stairs and a badly thought-out extension. It’s a big canvas, and even 30% is a fair bit to do.

I work with Alan over the coming months configuring internal and external spaces, installing cures to clear stagnation and invite fresh energy into the house. I focus on his creative ventures, while also supporting his health in the background. I advise on furniture type, material and placement for optimal qi flow through the house.

Since the building is listed we can’t actually move that troublesome front door, but the magic of metaphysics is that with some careful calculation and focused intention, I can make it act like it’s somewhere else, effectively opening it energetically. Meanwhile, Alan has the actual door carefully and expertly restored – it is a Portuguese 19th century carved wood affair and no easy job.

Everything starts to knit together, and there is now lightness and bounce to the front entrance. Fresh, vibrant energy flows strongly into and around the house. Alan’s community projects start to take off as he meets likeminded folk in the local area. Live music events and local meet-ups follow – activating still more beneficial energy for the building. His health improves dramatically too, and it is good to know that Feng Shui may have played its part there. Along with this, his local client list is growing.

The hard work has paid off and the house is fulfilling its purpose for its new guardian. May it continue to be a happy and mutually rewarding partnership. lifehousefengshui.com sherbornetimes.co.uk | 125

Home

MAKE A SPLASH Annabelle Hunt, Colour Consultant, Bridport Timber

I

f I were a mathematician, I might be able to tell you how many colourful permutations can be picked from the 132 colours on Farrow & Ball’s standard colour card. Unfortunately, I was probably daydreaming during my maths lessons and even now I tend to glaze over at the very thought of algebra. What I do know is that a well-planned colour scheme can do wonders for your mood and no two colour consultancies are alike. Whatever size or stage of project you’re taking on, from stately homes to studio flats, pristine newbuilds to well-worn family homes, there are a few key things to take into consideration.

Firstly – location, location, location. Are you in the town or countryside? Do you have a view of a compact courtyard garden or across a dramatic sweeping landscape? How does the location of your home influence the way it feels? I have seen so many neutral interiors which feel completely at odds with the property and its owners. Often colour can far better 126 | Sherborne Times | April 2022

reflect the location and character of a house and can be the key to making somewhere feel like home. Don’t feel bound by rules though. An old, characterful cottage can be decorated in a clean, minimalist style just as a sleek, concept home can be filled with a riot of pattern and colour. Your home should be a direct reflection of your personality and style rather than someone else’s.

Next, consider what natural light there is – which direction does it come from and at what time of day?

Does your home have a particular architectural style or any interesting or quirky details? It is always best to work with, rather than against, what you’ve got.

Used cleverly, colour can be used to enhance lovely features and disguise less attractive ones. Create a sense of continuity by framing a view from one room into another. A picture or a bold splash of colour that draws the eye can help to link spaces.

Finally, what do you need and what do you love? So often I get calls from people who love colour and want

The simpler way to move house Stressed about a house move? to use it in their home but are worried about making a mistake. It just takes a little confidence. Pinterest and Instagram can be invaluable sources of inspiration, but the more we scroll and click save and ‘Like’, the algorithm feeds us more and more of the same, so it can feel like we are falling down a rabbit hole of homogenised ideas. Having grown up with the internet, Generation Z, or Zoomers, are ‘digital natives’, and to me, they certainly seem to be much more influenced by the online content they consume. There is more of a tendency to follow trends or faithfully recreate a look, whether it is fashion or interior design. I don’t know if it’s just that our confidence grows with age and experience, or if it’s that we simply worry less about what others may think, but often it is my older clients who surprise and delight with their desire to be bold and really embrace colour. bridporttimber.co.uk

Now fast forward and imagine it’s done.

All unpacked and organised; everyone relaxed and all without lifting a finger.

How? All you have to do is call and ask.

Unpacking Decluttering Downsizing Concierge House Move

Call Nin at The Homemover now on 01935 581047

www.thehomemover.co.uk sherbornetimes.co.uk | 127

Legal

SECURE YOUR CHILD’S FINANCIAL FUTURE Family Team, Mogers Drewett

O

n average the cost of raising a child, to the age of 18, can be upwards of £160,000, so when parents separate, agreeing on how to divide up the children’s costs can be a minefield.

If an agreement cannot be reached between separated parents, then usually the first port of call is the government-run Child Maintenance Service (CMS).

Taking into account the circumstances of the parent who will pay the child maintenance, the CMS will assess how much child maintenance should be paid. This is based on a formula which includes their income, how many nights they care for the children and whether they have other children (perhaps from a new relationship) in their care.

If the paying parent’s income exceeds £156,000 gross a year, then the family court can decide on some additional payments for children, known as ‘top-up orders’. These payments are in addition to the payments recommended by the CMS assessment.

Unmarried parents can face additional difficulties when they separate and need to consider financial provision for their children; this is because cohabitants who separate are not given the same protection which applies to married couples who divorce. This is where Schedule 1 of the Children Act 1989 can become particularly useful.

Schedule 1 enables a parent, for a child under the age of 18, to make an application to court for financial support. This can include: • Periodical payments: these are regular payments that can be made for the benefit of the child; for instance, for educational expenses.

128 | Sherborne Times | April 2022

• Lump-sum orders: the court has the power to award a lump sum to meet expenses incurred in maintaining the child.

• Orders relating to property: the court can consider whether a property should be provided for the resident parent and the child; this usually applies until the child is 18.

When the court is asked to consider a financial application, there will be several factors that they will consider, including: • The financial resources of the parents; • The financial needs, obligations and responsibilities of the parents; • The financial needs of the child; • The financial resources of the child (if any); • Any physical or mental disability of the child; and • The way the child was being or was expected to be educated or trained.

For parents who are separating this is a difficult time, both emotionally and financially, and therefore the concept of applying to the court for financial support can be overwhelming. However, what many parents do not know is that there is provision within the law for the parent making the application to court, to also ask for assistance in meeting their legal costs. Therefore, a parent can have the opportunity to improve the financial circumstances for their child’s future without necessarily incurring all of their legal costs. mogersdrewett.com

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Finance

STICK OR TWIST?

D

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

espite nearly two years of living with the consequences of Covid, by the time 2022 began many of the world’s stock markets had reached the highest levels ever seen.

For the first time in nearly 3 decades, the western world is now seeing soaring inflation. And it’s not just energy – it’s having an impact on nearly everything.

As this article is being written, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has entered its third week. In addition to the dreadful consequences for the innocent people that are being caught up in this conflict, the world’s stock markets have, in response, fallen significantly in value.

Many of my recent articles have related to the uncertainties of stock market investing. They have argued that in difficult times it becomes essential to have a sound strategy for investing and to stick with that plan even in difficult times.

Many people with stock market investments will be tempted to sell them and wait for a more favourable outlook to buy them back. Some will feel that there will be an investment guru, somewhere, who will hold all of the answers to this current uncertainty. Over the years researchers have examined wide-ranging strategies based on analysis of earnings, dividends, interest rates, economic growth, investor sentiment, stock price patterns, and so on. If someone could develop a profitable timing strategy, we would expect to see some funds employing it with successful results. But a recent Morningstar report (Tactical Asset Allocation: Don’t Try This at Home) suggests that investors should be wary of those claiming to do so.

We should not be surprised. Successful timing requires two correct decisions: when to reduce the allocation to shares and when to increase it again. As most of us do not have perfect foresight, it is highly unlikely that both decisions would be correct. The evidence tells us that when markets do rise again the recovery is often sudden and unexpected.

The conclusion that evidence-based investors reach is that it is much better to stick to the long-term plan. The long-term plan involves the patient accumulation of wealth and a strategy that accepts that while markets go down from time to time they do generally recover and achieve a return in excess of inflation.

The long-term plan will certainly cause some pain during uncertain periods.

As the infamous Corporal Jones said to Captain Mainwaring ‘Don’t panic.’ ffp.org.uk

130 | Sherborne Times | April 2022

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sherbornetimes.co.uk | 131

Tech

WINDOWS 11

James Flynn, Milborne Port Computers

W

e were all told back in 2015 that Windows 10 would be the last version in terms of Windows updates and the future would be ‘Windows as a service’ (whatever that means). Since the release of Windows 11 in October 2021, there has only been a 16% uptake in installing it, and in my eyes, this isn’t really a surprise from our point of view as this could be because consumers are buying new laptops/ desktops with Windows 11 preinstalled. (FYI on some new machines you can reinstall Windows 10 as long as you do it before you set up and transfer data as it must be a blank/clean install.)

Now machines that can upgrade from Windows 10 to Windows 11 are ‘prompted’ or ‘pushed’ to upgrade to Windows 11 because they meet the ‘requirements’ and clearly in Microsoft’s eyes 10 is better than 11… Right?

What you need to bear in mind is that if you agree to upgrade to Windows 11, it won’t happen as soon as you click GO – sadly it will probably happen when you least want it to. ( Just note, when the upgrade process starts, let it finish, because if you interrupt it, it will be more than likely an unbootable/startable machine.)

Windows 10 was ‘in my opinion’ based on Windows 7, or some of the behind-the-scenes features and the control panel were, and therefore most programs that worked on Windows 7 still work on Windows 10.

The control panel is still the same in Windows 11 including Back up and Restore (Windows 7). The rest of the appearance of Windows 11 has changed from Windows 10 and most people have just got used to the big changes from Windows 7 or 8 to Windows 10.

One of the biggest but simplest changes in Windows 11 is the taskbar icons, where Microsoft have decided to move all the pinned icons from the left side to the centre 132 | Sherborne Times | April 2022

on the taskbar (like a well-known fruit-based company operating system) but haven’t completely committed to this as they give you the option (somewhere in the settings) to move them back to the left side. The next is the right-click menu, which is now called a ‘simplified right-click menu’. They have removed from this menu the only real things people use it for, Copy, Paste and Delete. Instead, you have to click on the bottom option (Show more options) to be able to perform these simple tasks. You can go deep into the system and change this, but it seems like a slight faff considering since Windows 98 these options were available when right-clicking.

They do have some new, better features in Windows 11, like when the computer is required to complete an update it gives you the amount of time it will take to complete the update before you commit to clicking install. However, in my mind, that’s about it. They do claim to be able to run Android apps, but this is still in the Beta/Development stage and who really wants this feature? I’d think less than 5% of my clients. The overall new design does look nice, but I wouldn’t go and buy a new computer for this feature just because my current computer didn’t meet the large list of minimum requirements to upgrade.

So, before I start to sound even more like a grumpy old man at the age of 33 with 2 small children (Lily Flynn born on 4th Feb 2022) I’ll leave you with the reality that just because something new is available it doesn’t mean it’s better and you must have it straight away, even with the persuasion of Microsoft.

As always, if in doubt or if you need help, you know where to come! computing-mp.co.uk

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Short Story

THE LIGHT-FINGERED PIANIST

E

Julia Skelhorn, Sherborne Scribblers

lizabeth Threadgold closed the door. Her last pupil for the week had departed.

‘Go straight home Daniel,’ she’d called as he latched the gate and hung onto his cap. ‘I think there’s a storm brewing.’ A menacing wind tossed leaves and bits of paper into frenzied circles and chased angry black clouds across the sky. She inhaled deeply. Although turbulent, the wind smelt surprisingly of spring, primroses and promise. * The following Friday the doorbell rang at precisely four o’clock. She knew it would be Daniel. After his first lesson she’d said, ‘Next Friday? Same time?’ He’d replied with a polite nod. She found his shyness almost a pleasure, unlike the endless chatter of some of her more tiresome pupils.

As he passed the hall-stand, he deposited his cap but politely declined removing his blazer.

He was a delicate-looking boy, she thought. Fair hair, quite long, falling in a fringe. His face was pale as paper. On the breast pocket of his navy blue blazer was an embroidered badge depicting a golden eagle on a red background. The blazer, although clean, looked as though it had been handed down several times. She wondered whether he was cold in his short trousers; his knees looked bony and vulnerable above his grey, knee-length socks.

In the sitting room, Daniel retrieved several sheets of music from a battered leather case and handed them to her. ‘Ah, the Chopin waltz,’ she said. ‘Shall we give it a go?’ He nodded, saying nothing, but looked at the silent metronome. Then, smiling a little, his fingers touched the piano keys. When she heard the first notes, Elizabeth Threadgold knew that she was tutoring a genius.

As the Chopin came to an end, she commented, ‘Just a little fast, Daniel. And remember the pianissimo.’ She pointed with a pencil to the place on the music sheet. He nodded.

She knew nothing of the boy’s background other than the fact that his mother had mentioned he’d had several music teachers. This hadn’t been enlarged upon when pressed, in a quiet and professional manner, by Elizabeth Threadgold.

No more pupils were due that evening. She was relieved and looked around the sitting room.

It was always a pleasure to feel it was her own again after a week of tutoring. The piano, the sofa, an armchair and a sideboard crowded the small space. A Royal Doulton huntsman sitting astride his horse, took pride of place on the sideboard, surrounded by six fox-hounds. Several faded watercolours, inherited from her father, adorned the walls.

When the room was tidy, she switched on the electric fire and poured herself a glass of sherry. She secretly hoped that Daniel’s mother would not yet ring to see how the boy was getting on, wanting to share this secret only with Daniel at this stage. After years of encouragement, for the most part offered to children with little talent or interest, Elizabeth Threadgold had a feeling that at last she was being rewarded. Closing her eyes, she listened to the wind which was raging down the street. The wind that curiously smelt of promise. Maybe Daniel’s genius was just that?

After several years of liaison with a man who she had believed would one day free himself from a loveless marriage, there had been painful disappointment; a loss which she had borne

136 | Sherborne Times | April 2022

with dignity. But right now, in this little room, it was as though a marvel had occurred. Could this really be true? One of her pupils, a genius?

As twilight fell, she switched on a table lamp, closed the curtains and crossed the room towards the sideboard where she immediately noticed something strange. There were only five fox-hounds surrounding the huntsman. Over the months, several small items disappeared – a ceramic kingfisher, a pretty oval-shaped box, another fox-hound and a small patterned cloisonne egg. Although she had her suspicions, she wondered whether she could be mistaken.

Maybe it was one of her other pupils who was light-fingered. Or had the missing items been taken over a period of time without her noticing? If it was Daniel, she had no idea how he did it. She watched, and saw nothing. Nor did she say anything, for if she spoke, he might not return and suddenly, all her newfound pleasure would evaporate.

Spring gave way to a summer heatwave which stretched to the end of September. Each Friday at four o’clock, the doorbell rang and Daniel was there; the same pale-faced, quiet boy who handed her his cap, declined to discard his blazer, then sat down at the piano and transported her to paradise.

November, traditionally a month of Christmas fairs, arrived with lashing rain. On the last Saturday, with her close friend, Charlotte Pitt, Elizabeth Threadgold visited a bazaar at the local community centre. A pale-faced woman wearing an over-large green sweater was setting out bric-a-brac on a table at one end of the room. As they passed the stall, Elizabeth caught her friend’s arm and leaning close to her said quietly, ‘I think I’ve found my fox-hounds. And the kingfisher too.’

Charlotte looked aghast. ‘Are you sure?’

‘As sure as I can be.’ Elizabeth moved to one side so that the woman in green could not hear.

‘What are you going to do?’ Charlotte whispered.

‘Buy them back,’ she replied. ‘Before someone else buys them.’

‘But…the blazer scenario..!’

‘I know what you’re thinking Charlotte, but don’t say a word!’

The woman in green carefully wrapped the hounds and the kingfisher. Suddenly, she looked quizzically at Elizabeth Threadgold. ‘Don’t I know you?’ she said. ‘Aren’t you the piano tutor?’

Elizabeth smiled at her. ‘Yes, I am. I’m sorry. I didn’t immediately recognise you. You’re Daniel’s mother aren’t you? We only met once.’ Taking the parcel, she added, ‘He’s a very talented boy.

I’ll see him again next Friday, at four.’

Explorer:

The Quest for Adventure and the Great Unknown

A TALK WITH THE AUTHOR BENEDICT ALLEN

Part meditation, part memoir, this is an enquiry into the mind of an explorer and what it means to explore in the twenty-first century Rescheduled to Thursday 21st April 7pm Digby Memorial Church Hall, Digby Road, Sherborne Tickets £9 members £10 non-members available via www.sherborneliterarysociety.com/events and Winstone’s Books sherbornetimes.co.uk | 137

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Literature

SOPHIE IRWIN

Dorset’s Latest Literary Star Richard Hopton, Sherborne Literary Society Image: Stephanie Alcaino

S

ophie Irwin’s first novel, A Lady’s Guide to Fortune-Hunting, is the stuff of writers’ dreams.

Snapped up by Harper Collins, it has already been sold in at least twenty-four countries and is being touted, punningly, as the ‘Debut of the Season’.

The novel tells the story of Kitty Talbot, at twenty the eldest of five daughters from the Dorset village of Biddington who, in the spring of 1818, find themselves on the verge of bankruptcy and homelessness. Both their parents have died, leaving the family home, 140 | Sherborne Times | April 2022

Netley Cottage, heavily mortgaged. The mortgagees have announced that they will take possession of the cottage at the beginning of June, ‘not three months away’. Kitty had been engaged to Charles Linfield, the wealthy son of the local squire, a marriage which would have removed the girls’ financial worries. However, Linfield breaks the engagement, leaving the five sisters, who have no other income, facing ruin. Kitty realises that the family’s best hope of salvation lies in her finding a rich husband so, to that end, she embarks on

a London season.

A Lady’s Guide to Fortune-Hunting is a thoroughly enjoyable comedy of manners, a Regency Romance, a genre popularised, even invented, by Georgette Heyer.

Sophie has been a fan of Miss Heyer’s novels since she was young; she vividly remembers reading her grandfather’s copies of them in their battered yellow dust jackets. Such was her devotion to the Heyer novels – she describes them as ‘Jane Austen meeting P.G. Wodehouse’ – that while at university she wrote a dissertation on how Georgette Heyer helped to win the Second World War. It is a matter of fact that her novels were passed around British prisoners of war in the camps. Heyer herself said of her writing that ‘I think I should rather like it if I were sitting in an air-raid shelter’. In other words, it was good for the nation’s morale.

The Regency Romance may have spawned the clichéd world of lantern-jawed heroes and fainting maidens beloved of Mills & Boon but do not make the mistake of imagining that A Lady’s Guide to FortuneHunting is a mere pot-boiling bodice-ripper. It is a modern version of the genre by a serious author. The novel conjures up the atmosphere of upper-crust Regency society most convincingly: the way the characters dress, how they dance, what they eat and, above all, the social conventions of the time have all been exhaustively researched. Sophie spent a great deal of time reading a variety of historical sources: letters, diaries, magazines, vade-mecums, and etiquette manuals.

The novel’s use of language also helps to bring the Regency era to life. The use of early nineteenth-century vocabulary and sentence structure is cleverly handled – for example, Sophie uses Regency slang such as ‘facer’ (a blow to the face) or ‘set down’ to mean a put-down – so that it gives the narrative and dialogue a contemporary feel without irritating or overwhelming the modern reader. It is, as Sophie says, ‘a conversation between what it was like then and what we think it was like.’

A Lady’s Guide to Fortune-Hunting differs from its forebears in that it is a cliché of the genre that the principal female protagonist is rewarded for her virtue.

Kitty Talbot is the opposite; she is rewarded for her persistently manipulative, materialistic approach to the business of finding a husband. There is no question whatsoever that Kitty would contemplate marrying for love: money is the only consideration.

Sophie’s determination to treat the genre on her own terms is further exemplified by the absence of sex scenes in the novel. It was a greater creative challenge

to summon up a sense of physical attraction or erotic tension without resorting to writing sex scenes.

Including them, she says, ‘would have made the novel more niche.’

Likewise, there is a striking lack in the novel of physical description of the characters. This was a deliberate choice on Sophie’s part to avoid assigning moral value to the characters by describing how they look. Indeed, during the process of rewriting and editing the novel she was encouraged to incorporate more physical description of her characters but, by and large, stuck to her decision to avoid it.

Sophie was born and brought up in Sherborne where her parents, Mike and Louise Burks, own and run Castle Gardens. Sophie attended The Gryphon School before going up to Mansfield College, Oxford, to read English. After Oxford, she got a job at Harper Collins as a fiction editor, which ‘gave me the confidence to write for myself,’ as she puts it.

A Lady’s Guide to Fortune-Hunting was largely written in Sherborne during the pandemic. As she was still working full-time at Harper Collins, she wrote the novel at a thousand words a day between five and seven o’clock every morning. Indeed, the family dog became so accustomed to being taken out at this hour of the morning that it took to waking her up at a quarter to five each day by howling outside her bedroom door.

Now that she is a freelance editor her working day is a little more relaxed.

This novel is ideally suited for adaptation to the screen – large or small – and when I ask Sophie whether there have been any proposals for this, she smiles and says, coyly, ‘I’d love that …’ but declines to elaborate.

A Lady’s Guide to FortuneHunting will be published by Harper Collins on 12th May. The Straits of Treachery by Richard Hopton (published by Allison & Busby) is available now in paperback.

___________________________________________ Tuesday 17th May 6.30pm-7pm Talk and Signing with Sophie Irwin The Butterfly Room, Castle Gardens. Tickets £2

redeemable against the book, available from Winstone’s

___________________________________________ sherbornetimes.co.uk | 141

Literature

SBS – SILENT WARRIORS: THE AUTHORISED WARTIME HISTORY Saul David

John Gaye, Sherborne Literary Society

142 | Sherborne Times | April 2022

T

here is something about ‘Special Forces’ that always titillates interest. The media love to make the most of that interest, whether it is clandestine operations by the Army’s SAS or other intelligence-gathering units, highly sensitive deployments by the Royal Navy’s submarine service in defence of our national assets or, rather less well known, secretive maritime operations around the world by the Royal Navy’s Special Boat Service (SBS). A great deal is written about these organisations, made up of extraordinarily brave individuals but, until recently, not a lot was actually known about them and their history. Saul David has certainly done his bit to fill that lacuna with his latest book SBS: Silent Warriors.

This history of its formation and operations throughout the Second World War was originally started by the late Paddy Ashdown, who himself served in the SBS but, when he died in 2018, Saul David was invited to take on the project and he decided to start again from scratch. Most importantly this account of the highly secretive unit was initiated and authorised by the SBS which provided access to its previously unavailable archives and laid bare the stories of its involvement, hitherto not well known, in operations from its inception in 1940 right through the war. But, as the author makes clear, this is not an ‘official history’ so he has been allowed to retain his usual highly readable style throughout the narrative which ensures a fascinating series of exciting stories of derring-do and extreme physical courage.

The unit has had various titles over the years, its original formation having come about through the initiative of various maverick individuals who identified certain skill-sets that were lacking amongst mainstream forces in gathering the intelligence required for the success of conventional operations. Throughout the war, it was involved in some total disasters but most importantly it played hugely significant roles in ensuring the success of a vast range of operations that were pivotal to the outcome of the war both in Europe and in the Far East.

Saul David’s accounts of the silent warriors’ activities during the Second World War bring alive the extraordinary courage and quiet heroism of these talented and frequently eccentric individuals, who often had to win battles with their own conventional commanders before setting out to demonstrate their unusual skills in adverse conditions against the enemy. Each story reads like a novel but is lavishly illustrated with maps, charts and diagrams of the actual event, often supported with photos of those who took part, which ensure that the reality of the operation is central to the overall narrative. sherborneliterarysociety.com

___________________________________________ Friday 13th May 7pm Saul David – SBS – Silent Warriors: The Authorised Wartime History The Digby Memorial Hall, Digby Road, Sherborne, DT9 3NL The Sunday Times bestselling military historian, novelist and broadcaster discusses his latest book.

Tickets £9 members, £10 non-members available via sherborneliterarysociety.com/events and Winstone’s.

___________________________________________

sherbornetimes.co.uk | 143

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ACROSS 1. Sent by (4) 3. Memorial (8) 9. Mournful (7) 10. Very foolish (5) 11. Characteristic of the present (12) 13. Of the greatest age (6) 15. Dual audio (6) 17. Regretfully (12) 20. Eg spaghetti (5) 21. Endless (7) 22. Author (8) 23. Chair (4) 144 | Sherborne Times | April 2022

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Literature

LITERARY REVIEW Martin Gibson, Sherborne Literary Society

Tales of a Country Parish by Colin Heber-Percy (Short Books, Feb 2002) £12.99

Sherborne Times reader offer price of £11.99 from Winstone's Books

A

memoir of lockdown does not sound very appealing. Many of us surely want to forget the twelve months between March 2020 and March 2021.

Colin Heber-Percy’s book is, however, a delight, radiating humanity, holiness, and humility. Its genesis lies in a daily email of reflections that he wrote for the parishioners of the Pewsey Deanery in Wiltshire. Unsurprisingly he starts with the legally enforced closure, and then the locking of his churches.

He continues to write over a year, and the book is divided into four sections, one for each season. An unusual country parson, possessing a PhD in medieval metaphysics. Although raised as a Christian, he was ordained in middle age following a career as a successful screenwriter.

His book contains much theology, prayers, and scripture, but for the non-religious, there is just as much philosophy, poetry, and music. He is neither preachy nor pompously pious, and there is much humour in his reflections. I particularly enjoyed the anecdote that the white cardboard inserts in Bounty bars are useful as makeshift dog collars; he once took a funeral wearing one. When his churches re-open for private prayer, three young boys run amok inside one and film themselves and post the video on social media. He is conscious of himself being a boy once and prays that he retains a sense of fun and playfulness. His erudition

is plain; and at one point he muses, perhaps tellingly, about the decline in the importance of knowledge in modern-day Christianity and its replacement emphasis on being loving - rather than being right.

He also reminds us of the benefits of lockdown; the stillness, the absence of aeroplane vapour trails, the enhanced pleasure derived from pets (in his case a cat which adopts him) and having the time for long walks in the glorious Savernake countryside, observing the seasonal changes in wildflowers and birdlife.

While plainly struggling, like many of us, with the logic and wisdom of the Covid rules and he obeys them ‘because I love my neighbour’. On Remembrance Sunday 2020 he notes the rules permit members of the public ‘to stop and watch the event as spectators’ but he records, with pride, his packed churchyard and that no one there is a mere ‘spectator’. On Christmas Day, as his reflections are nearing an end, he celebrates communion outside around the lychgate. He uses a makeshift altar, and carols are sung heartily while unaccompanied. If only there were more of this ‘can-do’ spirit within the current Church of England hierarchy. sherborneliterarysociety.com Primrose Path: The Gilded Life of Lord Rosebery’s Favourite Son by Martin Gibson (Arum Press)

Talk and Signing with Sophie Irwin Tuesday 17th May

The Butterfly Room, Castle Gardens 6.30pm for 7pm

Celebrating 10 Years as Sherborne’s Independent Bookseller 2012-2022 8 Cheap Street, Sherborne, Dorset DT9 3PX www.winstonebooks.co.uk Tel: 01935 816 128

Join us for a glass of wine to celebrate the launch of ‘A Lady’s Guide to Fortune Hunting’ by local author Sophie Irwin.

A deliciously entertaining and sassy novel about women’s self-advancement in the 19th Century.

Tickets £2 redeemable against the book, available from Winstone’s

PAUSE FOR THOUGHT

T

Robert Draper, Parish Priest, Church of the Sacred Heart and St Aldhelm

wo phrases that seem to have become much used over the last two years are ‘opening up’ and ‘closing down’. We seem to have spent a lot of time moving from one to the other and then back again, and everyone seems to have an opinion of whether we are opening up (or closing down) too fast or not fast enough! This is not a moan, just acknowledging that we’ve been in an uncomfortable place, and people in general (especially me I think) don’t like being unsure of what is going on – and when those whom we deem ‘experts’ tell us quite clearly that such and such appears to be the case, but it might not be quite so, well, that brings out all sorts of insecurity and frustration and perhaps fear – which can easily be suffocating. We were all told clearly from the beginning that the situation was ‘unprecedented’, but I suspect we didn’t quite believe that. The insecurity and frustration and sense of being uncomfortable is unsettling of course, and so the human inclination is to find someone to blame and so ‘solve’ the matter.

That, of course, doesn’t work – or at least it certainly hasn’t worked for me or anyone I’ve talked to. An alternative to blaming someone else is a sad fatalism, which is also uncomfortable.

I suppose there are two things I’ve tried to hold on to during this time. The first is a simple one: I personally cannot do a great deal about the whole pandemic and its innumerable effects in all aspects of life today. I can and do, follow the best guidance offered but the area I can do something about is looking at my own response to the frustration and insecurity that goes with it. I can feel sorry for myself, allow my frustration to nurse grudges and feel bitter – none of which is helpful to anyone, all of which are harmful to me. I can try instead to be helpful to others who are more affected than me. I can try and look beyond the inconvenience and fear that crop up for me and look around. I suppose we could say that my response can also be either ‘closing down’ or ‘opening up’. I can close down into myself and self-pity, or I can open up to others and to opportunities and respond.

The second thing I’ve held onto during this time is trying to get a bigger view, a larger vision. Most days when I can, I find myself walking through the delightful Pageant Gardens here in Sherborne, and it is always an uplifting experience to trace the course of the seasons.

The last month has been especially wonderful as the flowers appear, the birds have started calling, the ducks and squirrels are around and there is frogspawn in the small pond. Spring is the great ‘opening up’ of nature – and always lifts my spirits – but it is part of the cycle of nature, and so the ‘closing down’ of winter should not be as devastating as I sometimes allow it to be. And, of course, for many of you reading these words, we are approaching a season when we are conscious of the ultimate ‘opening up’. In a couple of weeks, the Abbey and all the churches in Sherborne and beyond will be filled with those who gather to celebrate Easter and the Resurrection of the one who has definitively opened up life and has done so eternally.

146 | Sherborne Times | April 2022

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