AUGUST 2022 | FREE
A MONTHLY CELEBR ATION OF PEOPLE, PLACE AND PURVEYOR
SHORE LEAVE
with artist and designer Richard Bramble
sherbornetimes.co.uk
WELCOME
W
hile we might on occasion lose ourselves in our work, local artist Richard Bramble is quite literally immersed in his. Whether studying triggerfish in warm Bahamian waters or painting puffins on the cliffs of Skomer Island, Richard’s work is inspired by real-life encounters in the field. The emotional connection Richard has to his wild subjects is evident in his determination to protect them. We meet Richard and his wife Sarah, at their home and studio on the edge of town in Silverlake. Elsewhere, Andy Hastie looks ahead to a new season of world cinema, Oborne continues to punch above its weight, Nick Sinfield strives to make a difference and Simon Ford celebrates a shift in mindset. The Gooddens fill their trugs, David Burnett takes us to the beach and David Copp pours a glass of something cold. Have a happy August. Glen Cheyne, Editor glen@homegrown-media.co.uk @sherbornetimes
CONTRIBUTORS Gay Barry
Mike Hewitson MPharm
Editorial and creative direction Glen Cheyne
Sacred Heart & St Aldhelms Church
FFRPS FRSPH MRPharmS
Design Andy Gerrard
Elisabeth Bletsoe Sherborne Museum
Photography Katharine Davies
Richard Bromell ASFAV
Feature writer Jo Denbury
The Abbey Pharmacy Laurence Belbin Richard Hopton
James Hull
Annabelle Hunt Mike Burks The Gardens Group
Social media Jenny Dickinson
The Dovecote Press
Illustrations Elizabeth Watson
Paula Carnell
Distribution team Barbara and David Elsmore The Jackson Family David and Susan Joby Mary and Roger Napper Hayley Parks Mark and Miranda Pender Claire Pilley Joyce Sturgess Ionas Tsetikas Paul Whybrew
The Story Pig
Charterhouse Auctioneers and Valuers
Editorial assistant Helen Brown
Print Stephens & George
Sherborne Literary Society
Bridport Timber & Flooring Lucy Lewis
David Burnett
Dorset Mind Peter Littlewood BA (Hons), FRSA, Cert Mgmt (Open) Young People’s Trust for the Environment
Cindy Chant Chris Loder MP Michela Chiappa Gary Lonsdale Malcolm Cockburn
Sherborne RFC
Sherborne Scribblers Paul Maskell Paul Collins
The Beat and Track
Geoff Cooke
Nigel Masters
Gryphon School
Opera in Oborne
David Copp
Sasha Matkevich The Green Restaurant
Rosie Cunningham Gillian Nash Jayne Dart Sherborne Girls
Mark Newton-Clarke MA VetMB PhD MRCVS
1 Bretts Yard Digby Road Sherborne Dorset DT9 3NL 01935 315556 @sherbornetimes info@homegrown-media.co.uk sherbornetimes.co.uk
Chris Dunseath
Newton Clarke Veterinary Partnership
Mary Flanagan
Alastair Poulain
Sherborne School
Sherborne Prep
James Flynn
Nick Sinfield
Milborne Port Computers
Teals
Mat Follas
Emma Tabor & Paul Newman
Bramble Restaurant Abigail Thurston
Sherborne Times is printed on an FSC® and EU Ecolabel certified paper. It goes without saying that once thoroughly well read, this magazine is easily recycled and we actively encourage you to do so. Whilst every care has been taken to ensure that the data in this publication is accurate, neither Sherborne Times nor its editorial contributors can accept, and hereby disclaim, any liability to any party to loss or damage caused by errors or omissions resulting from negligence, accident or any other cause. Sherborne Times does not officially endorse any advertising material included within this publication. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in any retrieval system, or transmitted in any form - electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise - without prior permission from Sherborne Times.
4 | Sherborne Times | August 2022
Simon Ford
Green Grove Designs
Andrew Fort B.A. (Econ.)
Nicki Tutton
CFPcm Chartered MCSI APFS
Dorset Wildlife Trust
Fort Financial Planning Simon Walker Nico & Chrystall Goodden
Mogers Drewett Solicitors
Craig Hardaker
John Walsh
Communifit
Friars Moor Vets
Andy Hastie
Samantha Welch
Yeovil Cinematheque
Oxley Sports Centre
78 6
Art & Culture
AUGUST 2022 68 Antiques
118 Legal
18 What’s On
70 Gardening
120 Finance
22 Community
78 Richard Bramble
122 Tech
30 Family
86 Food & Drink
126 Short Story
44 Science & Nature
96 Animal Care
128 Crossword
60 On Foot
102 Body & Mind
129 Literature
64 History
112 Home
130 Pause for Thought
We are looking to expand our portfolio
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01929 448 708 newowners@dorsethideaways.co.uk dorsethideaways.co.uk sherbornetimes.co.uk | 5
Art & Culture
ARTIST AT WORK
No. 45 Chris Dunseath, Palstave Axe Variation #8, 2021, 4 x 19 x 8cm, Bronze
T
he original development for this body of work started when I was invited to take part in the exhibition ‘New Dimensions – Contemporary Art Inspired by Hidden Objects’ in the Museum of Somerset, Taunton. I had full access to the Somerset Heritage Centre stores and was fascinated to come across drawers full of Bronze Age artefacts which had been excavated in Somerset. There were numerous forms of axes, which were the advanced technology of their time requiring considerable knowledge and skill to make. The logistics of acquiring the main ingredients of copper and tin showed that mining and trade were well established in 2,500 BCE. My response has been to develop a series of small
6 | Sherborne Times | August 2022
sculptures that extend the sculptural form of the axes and other objects by implying movement, animation and the passage of time in bronze and plaster. I have cast these bronzes locally and have been using techniques that would be familiar to people of the Bronze Age. My intention has been to use objects that have been below the ground for thousands of years as starting points to create a new series of sculptures for this age. chrisdunseath.com chrisdunseath Chris will be taking part in this year’s Somerset Art Weeks Event, 24th September - 9th October
Art & Culture
ON FILM
Andy Hastie, Yeovil Cinematheque
W
ith our 38th season at Cinematheque finally coming to an end, we look forward to our 39th, starting in September/October. It has certainly been challenging starting up again after the Covid lockdown for all venues. I swap stories when liaising with others running film societies and theatres, and everyone mentions how tough it has been getting audiences back through their doors. Our membership had halved when we returned last October which is a major drop and potentially damaging for us, but we go on, determined to show the best in world cinema to a local audience. I’m always banging on about it, but the Swan Theatre has a fantastic new ventilation system repeatedly changing the air in the auditorium, so we are as safe, if not safer, than anyone can be in an audience. We are all going to have to learn to live alongside Covid, as it is not going to disappear any time soon, and get on with the things that are important to our cultural wellbeing. The Cinematheque committee have started selecting films for our next season and have uncovered some gems. As previously noted, many new films are only available on streaming sites, and as such are out of our reach, for no DVD exists for us to show. We press on regardless! Amongst those chosen so far is Parallel Mothers (2021) the latest film from Pedro Almodovar, a firm 8 | Sherborne Times | August 2022
The Worst Person in the World (2021)
favourite of our members, and up to his usual brilliance, receiving a nine-minute standing ovation from the Venice Film Festival crowd. Starring, as usual, Penelope Cruz, it tells the tale of two pregnant mothers sharing a hospital room – now, what could possibly get mixed up?! Parallel Mothers reaffirms the familiar and unique pleasures of Almodovar’s film-making. Benediction (2021) is a biographical drama of the 1st World War poet Siegfried Sassoon, sent to a psychiatric hospital for his anti-war stance. It is directed by Terence Davies, in my opinion one of, if not, the best British director working today. The Worst Person in the World (2021) a Norwegian romantic comedy-drama concerning a female medical student’s tangled love-life, achieved widespread critical acclaim from the 2021 Cannes Film Festival, described as ‘one of Cannes best’ and ‘an instant classic’. Lamb (2021) a typically Icelandic folk horror film, where a childless couple decide to raise an unnatural newborn sheep as their own. This may have been a mistake! Petite Maman (2021) from French director Celine Sciamma (she of Portrait of a Lady on Fire fame) was Mark Kermode’s favourite film of 2021, calling it ‘an astonishing insightful and heartbreakingly hopeful cinematic poem’. If these don’t whet your appetite, nothing will! Just a selection of what’s coming
Lamb (2021)
Benediction (2021)
Petite Maman (2021)
Offside (2006)
Parallel Mothers (2021)
up at Cinematheque, with more to follow. Finally, with the Women’s Euro 2022 football tournament in full swing as I write, I’ve already seen mentions of Bend it like Beckham in the press. May I recommend though an Iranian film Offside (2006), a hugely enjoyable tale of a football-mad young girl trying to get into the Azadi Stadium in Tehran for a crucial World Cup qualifying match. Women are banned from the country’s football grounds, so she, and other
equally determined girls, must disguise themselves as boys to get in. This often hilarious and engaging comedy entertainingly illustrates the fight for women’s rights in Iran and is available to view on Amazon Prime. More of our film choices next month, but also check our website below. cinematheque.org.uk swan-theatre.co.uk sherbornetimes.co.uk | 9
Art & Culture
CONFESSIONS OF A THEATRE ADDICT Rosie Cunningham
Full cast of The Seagull.
T
heatre continues to be more and more impressive as new gems open in the provinces and the West End. The Seagull is on at the Harold Pinter Theatre until 10th September. This is a unique and modern version of Chekhov’s great play, reworked by Anya Reiss, and directed by Jamie Lloyd. The cast comprises of familiar names such as Emilia Clarke and Indira Varma from Games of Thrones, who, in their own way, dominate the action. The scenery, or complete lack of it, consists of a three-sided MDF box without any doors. The actors climb up onto the stage at the beginning and all stay there until the end, turning their chairs towards the audience to engage and turning their chairs back when not involved, all of which adds to the claustrophobic, stifling feeling engulfing the 10 | Sherborne Times | August 2022
group, isolated in a house in the country, as they spar continually with each other. For me, it was the considered pacing of the verbal exchanges, reflecting the importance of every word, which had me sitting transfixed because everything else had been completely stripped away. Love, longing, and rejection are the themes, and, by the end of the play, the audience has felt every one of the highs and lows. The play is fabulous, heartfelt, and insightful, and once again Jamie Lloyd is the darling of the West End. I took myself off to the Theatre Royal Bath to see Murder on the Orient Express. The cast was led by Henry Goodman, a two-time Olivier Award winner, who was outstanding as Hercule Poirot. This is an actor of the old school, in complete control of his craft. For a relatively small theatre, the scenery was magnificent,
Image: Marc Brenner
with railway carriages moving around with the speed and dexterity of skaters on ice. Sadly, this was a short tour, but I applaud the theatre for putting on a programme of interesting plays this season. There is much to enjoy and I am looking forward to The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel in November. The Royal Academy Summer Exhibition is back, and on until 21st August. The show seemed more coordinated this year with coherent themes in each room although the overall picture was erring towards the slow demise of planet earth, under the title Climate. There were many delights, such as the bejewelled botrytis lemon entitled Bad Lemon by Kathleen Ryan, Douglas White’s Black Palm made from blown-out tyres and steel, and Holly Fean’s Hot Dog, as well as the usual
scattering of contributions from well-known artists like Tracey Emin and Michael Craig-Martin. The majority of the work on display is for sale, with prices ranging from £60 to many thousands, with some of the proceeds going towards supporting the next generation of artists in the Royal Academy Schools. Alongside the Summer Exhibition, there are other installations in the locality, such as Mali Morris’s artwork flags, displayed down the length of Bond Street and pop-up activity in worldrenowned fashion and fine jewellery stores. haroldpintertheatre.co.uk theatreroyal.org.uk royalacademy.org.uk
sherbornetimes.co.uk | 11
Art & Culture
Eleanor Pennell-Briggs
Vivien Conacher
James Schouten
ROMANCE AND VIOLENCE, SEX AND DEATH: CARMEN COMES TO OBORNE
C
Nigel Masters
armen is the most stereotypical Spanish opera with gypsies, smugglers, militia and, of course, toreadors. It comes as a shock to realise it is sung in French, written by a Frenchman and designed for a French audience. ‘Exotic Spain’ was the fashion in 1870’s Paris and Georges Bizet was hungry for critical success. After a brilliant student career, his early professional work received negative reviews. Heavily influenced by Pauline Viardot – coincidentally profiled in Oborne’s April opera weekend – Bizet seized on Prosper Merimee’s novella Carmen. The management of the OperaComique in Paris, with its love of flamboyant Grand Opera, were enthusiastic and Bizet got his commission. Ironically, at the opening in March 1875, the opera was shunned by audiences and critics. It was described as ‘immoral’, ‘too realistic’ and, strangest of all, that the music was ‘scientific’. Bizet was distraught and withdrew from Paris. Three months later he died of a heart attack at the age of 36. This is all the more tragic because in the next ten years Carmen was to become a huge international hit in Vienna, London, and New York, returning to Paris in 1883 to begin a 1000 performance run. It has remained one of the world’s favourite operas ever since. It is equally ironic that the grand spectacle that is a major production of Carmen today is captured in just 12 | Sherborne Times | August 2022
sixty short pages in Merimee’s novella. But this is also the clue to why Carmen the opera can be returned to an intimate and very personal drama. It is this understanding of Carmen and Don Jose as doomed individuals, rather than cyphers for ‘Spanishness’, that has inspired Opera in Oborne’s forthcoming production. Well-suited to the immediacy and intimacy of ‘OinO’, the familiar music and story gain a fresh power and tragic insight in its compact setting. The production is created by Artistic Director Stephen Anthony Brown and Stage Designer Siobhan Chapman, who are well known to visitors to OinO for their work on La Bohème and The Goose of Cairo. The cast is led by Vivien Conacher as Carmen, with James Schouten as Don Jose, Pauls Putnins as the Toreador, Escamillo, and supported by OinO stars Maribeth Diggle and Eleanor Pennell-Briggs. Guests to OinO will remember Vivien from The Tales of Hoffmann, as well as her stunning cameo as Carmen in that year’s Gala Concert. (Readers are also recommended to visit the website for Vivien’s wonderful dementia charity, Songhaven.) Stephen, our Artistic Director, is also the moving force behind OinO’s second production, The Dream Lovers, by composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor. Among his many talents, Stephen is one of the UK’s leading scholars of Coleridge-Taylor. It is no surprise then that
Stephen has uncovered in The British Library perhaps the only UK score of this neglected piece. Written by Coleridge-Taylor in 1898, the piece has not been heard in the UK in living memory. Like Bizet, Coleridge-Taylor died tragically young, at the age of 37. In contrast, however, Coleridge-Taylor achieved huge success in his own lifetime. Born in London in 1875 to an English mother, Alice Hart, and Sierra Leonian father, Daniel Taylor, Samuel was brought up by his mother, who gave him the middle name Coleridge after the poet. As his career blossomed, the full name Samuel Coleridge-Taylor stuck in audiences’ minds. Recognising his prodigious talent, his family arranged for him to study at The Royal College of Music from the age of 15 under Charles Villiers Stanford. Both Stanford and Elgar championed his work and his hugely successful work, Hiawatha’s Wedding Feast, first staged in 1898, was still being performed annually by Malcolm Sargent at The Royal Albert Hall until 1939. Coleridge-Taylor’s mixed-race background brought him a certain celebrity. He was described, somewhat inaccurately, in the US as ‘the African Mahler’, and in 1904 was received at The White House by President Roosevelt. He embraced his father’s background – Daniel Taylor had descended from freed African American slaves - and this brought him into contact with Paul Dunbar, the leading African American poet of the period. It was Dunbar who provided the libretto for The Dream Lovers. Given his strong family background, it is very understandable that the theme of the mixed-race love affair at the heart of The Dream Lovers led ColeridgeTaylor to produce some of his most attractive and romantic melodies.
In the period after the Second World War, his work fell out of fashion, but Coleridge-Taylor’s considerable musical achievements and personal background have recently again been celebrated. Opera in Oborne is delighted to be able to give this first UK platform performance of The Dream Lovers after a century of neglect. operainoborne.org Opera in Oborne is a community-based venture that aims to make professional opera accessible, encouraging people who might not otherwise attend a performance to come to OinO. All performers are professional musicians while the experienced production crew are almost all Oborne locals. Ticket prices are set on a breakeven basis.
___________________________________________ Friday 19th and Saturday 20th August 8pm Carmen by Georges Bizet, abridged by Stephen Anthony Brown St Cuthbert’s Church, Oborne Tickets £40
Saturday 20th August 3pm The Dream Lovers by Samuel Coleridge-Taylor St Cuthbert’s Church, Oborne
A platform performance, with an introductory talk by Stephen Anthony Brown. Tickets £25. Sunday 21st August 3pm An Open-Air Concert of Opera Arias and Show Tunes. Oborne Playing Field (opposite the church) Tickets £20.
Book online at operainoborne.org
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BRUTON ART SOCIETY
69th Annual Exhibition Sat 20 - Sat 27 Aug 2022
Free Entry
10am - 4pm
Affordable Art from the best Regional Artists
King’s Bruton Memorial Hall, Bruton, BA10 0ED sherbornetimes.co.uk | 13
Art & Culture
AN ARTIST’S VIEW Laurence Belbin
14 | Sherborne Times | August 2022
I
have recently had a few days staying on the Isle of Portland. A very relaxing time just wandering about and doing a bit of drawing and painting. The variety of houses, small and large is fantastic and I spent quite a while observing them from both front and back. This pen and ink, with a bit of pencil, I did in Easton. It is typical of the backs of many of the buildings. Tucked out of the way down a little path I am amazed at how many roofs you can squeeze into such a small area and still have room for a patch of garden. They are all interlocked, overlooking each other without a hint of consideration for privacy! Obviously built when the only thing you did in your garden was grow veg and hang out the washing. It reminded me very much of Cornwall except for the colour of the stone. The original drawing was on an A5-sized pad so not very big at all. I had to think carefully about the scale to make sure I could get in all I wanted. The second drawing shown here is in Sherborne at the top of Back Lane by the Yeatman Hospital. Another view of the backs of houses. This little set of
roofs is a real mismatch and by the look of them very old. More privacy here with taller garden walls and garages sealing off access. Once again there was a lot to get in on a small page. The difficulty with this one was making sure the tiled roofs didn’t all merge into one. As they are viewed square on, without the help of obvious perspective, they could quite easily look flat. A little shading helped to separate some of them. Working directly with ink concentrates the mind somewhat. I started with the second chimney stack from the left and from there worked either side until I ran out of room! The two three-storey houses on the ends are important as they describe how the central buildings are set back so I was glad to get them in even though they are cropped a little. I could draw in and around Sherborne for the rest of my life and never run out of interesting viewpoints of equally interesting buildings. Every day I think how lucky I am to live here. laurencebelbin.com sherbornetimes.co.uk | 15
Art & Culture
COUNTER CULTURE Paul Maskell, The Beat and Track
No.12 Cover Stories: The Art of Music
I
f you’re a big fan of the vinyl album then you’re probably a big fan of the album cover, the artwork that’s job it is to reflect the feeling and genre of the music held within. The album cover, along with inner sleeve, liner notes etc are a huge part of the listening experience and are often held in as high a regard as the music itself. Some albums have actual works of art adorning their sleeves. Andy Warhol’s iconic banana for the self-titled Velvet Underground and Nico, Banksy’s stencilled artwork for Blur’s Think Tank and the Peter Blake-designed cover for the Beatles Sgt Pepper to name but a few. Others use photography such as the Beatles Abbey Road – this cover launched huge conspiracy theories regarding the wellbeing of Paul McCartney with the line of Beatles being likened to a funeral parade with Lennon in white as the priest, Ringo in black as the undertaker, McCartney barefooted as the corpse and the denim-clad George 16 | Sherborne Times | August 2022
Harrison as the gravedigger. Some covers became iconic while mimicking the style of others. London Calling by the Clash, unabashedly steals the 1950’s typography and black and white imagery of Elvis Presley’s debut album, replacing a howling Elvis with Paul Simonon destroying his bass guitar. Both album covers are instantly recognisable and each has become iconic in its own right. As with all forms of art, the album cover’s appeal will be subjective. Some will feel affected by seeing certain images while others will disregard them as fanciful or meaningless. Some art, however, transcends this and although you may not like the music and you may not even like the art, you are somehow aware of it. You’ve seen it somewhere before. Such LP covers may be Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon, King Crimson’s In the Court of the Crimson King and the Rolling Stones’ Sticky Fingers. We all have our favourites and with that said, here are some of mine:
Nevermind, Nirvana (1991)
When released in 1991, Nevermind catapulted alternative rock well and truly into the mainstream. The album is revered within the grunge and alt-rock scene and its now infamous cover art certainly added to this. An initial idea of an underwater birth was soon changed to an infant swimming underwater. A hook was added to the scene fishing for the child with the aid of a dollar bill as bait. Robert Fisher, the designer of the cover, had no idea that the album would be as big as it has become. As well as controversy at the time of the album’s release, with some stores selling it in a brown paper cover or with a strategically placed sticker, it has also been the subject of a lawsuit filed by the now-adult ‘Nevermind baby’. Rage Against the Machine, Rage Against the Machine (1992)
One of the most uncompromising and politically charged bands to come out in the 1990s, the debut album by Rage Against the Machine issued a 52-minute manifesto of revolution. The artwork to accompany such a derisive and aggressive album summed up its sentiment perfectly. The cover image is a crop of a photograph taken by Malcolm Browne in Saigon in 1963. The picture captures the Buddhist monk Thich Quang Duc as he commits self-immolation in protest against corrupt President Ngo Dinh Diem for oppressing the country’s Buddhist religion. The image is as powerful and shocking today as it was then. Reign in Blood, Slayer (1986)
Reign in Blood is the benchmark of thrash metal and in my mind has never been surpassed. The album is full of visual
and provocative themes that were intended to make the listener think about subjects that they’d rather push under the carpet and not address. Artist, Larry Carroll, came up with the perfect image to complement the hell-drenched 28-minute LP. It was nothing short of a modern Garden of Earthly Delights, Heironymous Bosch’s 15th-century depiction of hell. It depicts a goat-headed beast being carried on a throne by four demons wearing mitres. The beast is surrounded by horror on all sides. Carroll went on to paint several more Slayer album covers becoming as synonymous with Slayer as Derek Riggs is with Iron Maiden. Brothers, The Black Keys (2010)
A strange choice maybe but this cover to the Black Keys sixth album is one of those that has taken direct influence from an iconic design of the past. The cover was originally designed to be a total contrast to the illustration-based artwork of their previous albums. Designer Michael Carney simply stated the facts in bold lettering on a black background. The cover reads, ‘This is an album by the Black Keys. The name of this album is Brothers.’ Initially frowned upon, the cover was given the go-ahead and likened to that of Howlin’ Wolf ’s The Howlin’ Wolf. The artwork for this 1969 release comprised of black text on white, with the matter-of-fact statement: ‘This is Howlin’ Wolf ’s new album. He doesn’t like it. He didn’t like his electric guitar at first either.’ An early experiment in disruptive graphic design and one which ultimately backfired. An image or artwork can turn the album cover into a weapon of protest, a statement of intent or just a fine piece of art. This is a concept that has sadly been lost amongst the shift in the ways music is consumed. With the rise in popularity of vinyl over the last five years or so there is now more emphasis on the pairing of fine and controversial art with music, giving us, once again, the whole package. Tomorrow’s classics are being created today. Who will be our next Blake or Warhol? thebeatandtrack.co.uk sherbornetimes.co.uk | 17
WHAT'S ON Mondays 15th and 22nd 11am-1pm
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Messy Museum Mondays
Saturday 6th – Sunday 7th Great Dorset Chilli Festival
Sherborne Museum, Church Lane.
Stock Gaylard, Lydlinch DT10 2BG.
Free activities for children accompanied
A celebration of the chilli pepper,
by adults.
plus lots of excellent artisan food,
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homewares, competitions, chef
Sunday 14th 2pm
Friday 19th and
demonstrations, talks, live bands
Brainfools - Lucky Pigeons
Saturday 20th 8pm
and entertainment. Tickets:
Opera in Oborne – Carmen
greatdorsetchillifestival.co.uk
Stalbridge Village Hall Grounds.
by Georges Bizet, abridged
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A frustrated young businessman finds
himself turned into a pigeon, where he
by Stephen Anthony Brown
quickly learns about the playful world
of this misunderstood animal. A mix of
St Cuthbert’s Church, Oborne.
absurd and extravagant theatre, impressive
Tickets £40. Book online at operainoborne.org
Thursday 11th 7.30pm Sherborne and District Gardeners’ Association 77th Summer Show
acrobatics, empathetic and funny stories
Digby Hall, Hound Street. Admission for non-members £2. Further
information from Richard Newcombe 01935 389375
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and a pinch of satirical spice and puppetry.
Saturday 20th 9.30am-4pm
with friends and family. £10 / £5.
Digby Memorial Church Hall, Digby
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a wide range of secondhand books,
Pack a picnic and enjoy this open-air show
Quarterly Bookfair
01963 362355 artsreach.co.uk
Road. A variety of sellers offering
B/H Monday 29th August
Vintage, Artisan & Decorative Antiques Fair with Local Foodies EM_ST.qxp_Layout 1 05/07/2022 12:43 Page 1.thedorsetbrocante.co.uk @thedorsetbrocante www
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
18 | Sherborne Times | August 2022
AUGUST 2022 maps, postcards, and other ephemera,
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colinbakerbooks@btinternet.com
Opera in Oborne –
at competitive prices. Free entry.
Sunday 21st 3pm
____________________________
An Open-Air Concert of
Saturday 20th 3pm
Opera Arias and Show Tunes
Opera in Oborne –
Oborne Playing Field (opposite the
The Dream Lovers by Samuel Coleridge-Taylor St Cuthbert’s Church, Oborne.
church). Tickets £20. Book online at operainoborne.org
of mischief and hilarity as five
actors present an inventive take on
Shakespeare’s rip-roaring comedy, fit for all the family. Pack a picnic and
enjoy this open-air show with friends and family. £16 / £8. 01963 220208 artsreach.co.uk
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A platform performance, with an
introductory talk by Stephen Anthony Brown. Tickets £25. Book online at operainoborne.org
____________________________ Sunday 21st
Saturday 27th - Sunday 28th
The Sherborne Market
Sunday 21st 7pm
The Oak Fair
Cheap St, Half Moon St, Digby Road
The Three Inch Fools -
Stock Gaylard Estate DT10 2BG.
suppliers, amazing food and crafts
Higher Orchard, Sandford Orcas.
and Pageant Gardens. Local producers,
Twelfth Night
thesherbornemarket.com
Prepare for an open-air evening
Celebrating timber, conservation,
craft and the countryside. Tickets via theoakfair.com
Open
Sherborne Monday 24 - Friday 28 October 2022 Explore the secret corners of Sherborne School with a Custodian or our School Archivist and visit the hidden gem of Shell House during October half-term. This event is free of charge, however places are limited. To find out more and book tickets please visit: www.sherborne.org/opensherborne sherbornetimes.co.uk | 19
WHAT'S ON ____________________________
Sherborne Cricket Club
Saturday 2nd - Sunday 3rd
Wednesday 31st 7pm
The Terrace Playing Fields,
September
The Restoration
Dancing Hill, Sherborne.
Leweston Live
Digby Memorial Church Hall, Digby
Men’s Senior 1st XI
live music, DJs, street food, cocktail
of Spase Design. Glass of wine, followed
v Martinstown (H)
House AGM.
Saturday 13th 1pm
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v Wimborne (A)
Sport
Saturday 20th 1pm
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v Dorchester (H)
of Sherborne House Road. A talk by architect Stefan Pitman by very brief Friends of Sherborne
Family-friendly summer festival with bar, laser tag, bugfest, disco dome,
Saturday 6th 1pm
inflatables and much more. Tickets:
children from £10, adults from £16 via lewestonenterprises.co.uk/lewestonlive
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Saturday 27th 1pm
To include your event in our FREE
v Christchurch (H)
listings please email details – date/
____________________________
time/title/venue/description/price/ contact (max 20 words) – by the
Planning ahead
5th of each preceding month to
____________________________
PICMF
listings@homegrown-media.co.uk
Purbeck International Chamber Music Festival
freedom
1–4 September 2022 Natalie Clein cello & artistic director
A unique mix of classical masterpieces, improvisations and spoken words in 11 concerts over 4 days Come and enjoy exhilarating live music in beautiful venues across Dorset Concerts in Worth Matravers, Corfe Castle, Swanage, Lulworth and the Dorset Museum in Dorchester TICKETS & PROGRAMME
www.picmf.org
Extract from the graphic score ‘Fire, Phoenix, Waterfall’ by PICMF 2022 Composer-in-residence Deborah Pritchard
20 | Sherborne Times | August 2022
OR CALL
0333 666 3366
#PICMF2022
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MARKET KNOWLEDGE
ABIGAIL THURSTON, GREEN GROVE DESIGNS
Welcome to The Sherborne Market! What brings you here? Sherborne Market has an amazing, bubbly and buzzing atmosphere, making it a pleasure to trade at. It is a curated market, meaning that there’s plenty of variety from a bunch of amazing traders. When trading here you always come away feeling satisfied as it has such a community vibe to it. Everyone is your friend and supports you, wanting you to succeed just as much as they want to themselves. Where have you travelled from? We have travelled from Crewkerne in South Somerset, from one market town to another! Tell us about what you’re selling? We sell climate-positive, nature-inspired polymer clay jewellery which is all completely handmade. We make everything in small batches in order to stick to our strict zero waste policy. We are incredibly proud to be partnered with Ecologi where we fund 2 climate projects each month, while also planting a tree with every purchase both in person and online! Where and when did it all begin? I started on the website Etsy back in 2020 when Covid hit. After losing 3 jobs because of the pandemic, I decided it was the perfect time to start, 22 | Sherborne Times | August 2022
after wanting to for so long. I found that working in retail had completely blocked and restricted me from being creative, which makes up a huge part of my personality! Being on furlough for a few months gave me the time I needed as well as permission to be creative, enabling me to finally kick start my business. We have since opened our own website. What do you enjoy most about selling at markets? I love the community spirit and meeting other traders and customers. People genuinely appreciate the work that goes into your products and support you all the way! It’s also fulfilling to be supporting a new(ish) market (est. 2019) that has deservingly grown hugely since I first started trading there, (plus, it gives us an excuse to go to Oliver’s for amazing coffee). If you get the chance, which fellow stallholders here at Sherborne would you like to visit? Either Bake Box or Bayside Baker for amazing brownies, or Brothers Make who make products out of recycled plastic from the local community, schools and beach cleans! Where can people find you on market day? This month, we are on Half Moon Street. We hope that you can stop by and say hello! greengrovedesigns.co.uk @greengrovedesigns
Hand picked & selected artisan market featuring local producers, suppliers, amazing food, arts and crafts.
2022 dates
Aug 21st Sept 18th Oct 9th
Nov 20th Dec 18th Flying the flag for local
Community
Image: Gill Clark
SHERBORNE RFC
S
Gary Lonsdale, Junior Fixtures Secretary
herborne RFC is a young, vibrant club established in 1980 by a rag-tag bunch of players in The Digby Tap. Chats became discussions, discussions became meetings, until eventually some friendly fixtures were organised with established local sides. These games were always played away as it was not until the next season, 24 | Sherborne Times | August 2022
with the support of the Cricket Club and Sherborne Town Council, that they managed to gain a home pitch at the Terrace Playing Fields. From this small idea, the wonderful club we see today has developed. Renowned as a friendly and hospitable club, Sherborne RFC’s emphasis on enjoyment, involvement and good sportsmanship is
reflected right through to the youngest of our teams. The senior 1st XV will play the 22/23 season in the Regional 2 Tribute South West league, kicking off their campaign away against Teignmouth RFC on 3rd September, with the first home game against St Austell on 10th September. The 2nd XV will play in the Counties 3 Tribute Dorset & Wilts Central league with their first match being home to Melksham on 3rd September. All supporters, young and old are encouraged to join us at the Terrace Playing Fields. Come for drinks in the clubhouse before enjoying an afternoon of exciting grassroots rugby. If anybody feels they have hung up their boots too early, come for a tryout – this could be an opportunity to get involved again, please email contact@sherbornerugby.co.uk, for further details. Age Grade Rugby
A major focus of Sherborne RFC is its expansive and growing Youth and Mini sections, consisting of mixed teams from Under 6 (U6) – U11, the Minis and Youth Boys U12-U17 (Colts) and Youth Girls U12- U18. (Sharks). The Youth and Mini sections are chaired by our dedicated Chairperson, Caroline Durston. Being an English Rugby Football Union (RFU) accredited club we passionately champion its core values and operate with these at the heart of everything we do: Teamwork Respect Enjoyment Discipline Sportsmanship We train every Sunday morning at the Terrace Playing Fields in Sherborne throughout the season. If we are not training, we will be hosting opposing teams or travelling to away matches. The Youth section also has training sessions throughout the week, to provide as much fitness and skill training as possible, to minimise injury and keep the players fit and motivated for their Sunday morning games. We also try to play the occasional Friday night game with local teams, which provides the always popular and unique opportunity, to play on the club’s 1st team pitch under the floodlights. This is thoroughly enjoyed by all involved, particularly on those wet and windy winter nights! We are affiliated to the Dorset and Wilts RFU which runs a busy calendar of friendlies for all ages as well as league and cup competitions for the Youth
Sections. Last year’s U12s (undefeated), U14s and U15s won their respective leagues, even after the twoyear hiatus over lockdown, demonstrating the great commitment shown by all the Sherborne RFC players, coaches and managers. The teams also take part in other rugby events, such as Super Saturdays which see the teams join the Exeter Chiefs at Sandy Park or Bath at the Recreation Ground, for stadium tours, training from professionals and of course the chance to watch them play. We are always looking for new players to join our teams and welcome any newcomers with open arms, this year we are particularly interested in anybody in the U14 (Year 9) age group. For further details drop us a line at contact@sherbornerugby.co.uk, or turn up at the clubhouse at 10am on Sundays from the start of the season (4th September). Volunteers
As with the majority of sports clubs, we rely on a dedicated cadre of volunteers, including coaches and managers for each team, committee members, essential admin roles, and kitchen and support staff. All volunteers having responsibility for children are DBS checked. We are always on the lookout for more volunteers for the many roles that need to be filled, in particular the vitally important team coaches and managers. If you are interested, please email contact@sherbornerugby.co.uk and we will be in touch. sherbornerugby.co.uk Sherborne RFC Alumni
We are proud to boast a number of elite players who have come through our training system and continue to play with the passion and love for the game they first developed here at the very earliest stages of their careers: Will Carrick-Smith, Bedford Blues Ollie Devoto, Exeter Chiefs Tom James, Northampton Saints Tom Lawday, Harlequins Alice Lockwood, Bristol Bears Sam Nixon, Grenoble Jake Woolmore, Bristol Bears
sherbornetimes.co.uk | 25
West Country Cars – your five-star, family-run, friendly and independent used car dealer We offer a large selection of premium used cars and also pay good prices for quality vehicles. Why not pop along to say a West Country hello!
Barrows Hill Garage, East Chinnock, Yeovil, Somerset BA22 9ER
Monday-Friday 8.30am - 5pm Saturday 8.30am - 1pm
01935 863538 or 01935 862986
www.westcountrycarsyeovil.co.uk
CHARTERHOUSE Auctioneers & Valuers
Forthcoming Auction Programme
Silver, Jewellery & Watches 4th August Wine, Port & Whisky 5th August Coins, Medals & Stamps 1st September Model Cars, Trains, Clocks & Collector’s Items 2nd September Automobilia & Memorabilia 29th September Further entries invited
26 | Sherborne Times | August 2022
Automobilia Auction 29th September
Contact Richard Bromell for advice on single items and complete house contents Valuations for Probate and Insurance
The Long Street Salerooms, Sherborne DT9 3BS 01935 812277 www.charterhouse-auction.com
sherbornetimes.co.uk | 27
Community
OUR MAN IN WESTMINSTER Chris Loder MP, Member of Parliament for West Dorset
Image: Len Copland
I
write my column about three weeks before you read it, so there is a big caveat on this one that one week, let alone three, is a long time in politics! Since being elected in December 2019, I don’t think there has been a single period of political calm and definitely not during July! But the reason for that turbulence changed in November last year from being about policy and government matters to being about Boris Johnson. And that was continuous until he declared his intention to resign on 7th July. Slowly but surely, over this period the backbencher/ 28 | Sherborne Times | August 2022
Prime Minster relationship has eroded through the political turbulence about personal issues concerning Boris Johnson’s integrity, ring condensed into a repeat cycle of just a few days, concerning the former deputy chief whip. For me, it was just not acceptable for a retired civil servant to have to correct the record from the Prime Minister’s office. Back in January, I told West Dorset constituents of my view of the Downing Street parties. I appeared on national television and radio and I wrote in the Sunday Telegraph that my mission would be to restore trust
and honour to our government where that has been breached and now, I feel that we are now well on the way to pushing that reset button for the autumn. It’s been a turbulent time. I first went to see the Prime Minister on 15th December last year to share my observations about things that needed to get better. And I have had numerous meetings subsequently in the hope that a turnaround might be possible. But it became clear, when I felt the need to write in the Sunday Telegraph, that change was needed, preferably organically, but in the end, it was by the wider party and when I opposed Boris in the vote at the beginning of June. I know some people have thought that I should have been totally unforgiving and submitted a letter calling for the Prime Minister to go much earlier, but to be totally unforgiving is not an attribute I find readily. In the middle of 2019, this country was in gridlock. Parliament was thwarting the democratic will of the nation and with Mrs May in a political corner unlike anything we have seen before, certainly not in my lifetime. Boris Johnson has gotten us out of that gridlock. He has indeed got many of the big decisions right. Even though I didn’t agree with some of his lockdown votes, the investment decisions about a vaccine have saved this country and many people from serious illness. Heads of Government though are not simply interchangeable robots. They are human beings each with unique attributes and qualities that can make all the difference in world events. Boris Johnson is no exception. And whilst his shortcomings have been discussed in great detail in recent months, it is true to say that Boris’ greatest strengths at the beginning became his greatest weaknesses at the end. I want to pay tribute to Boris for the successes and big decisions that have helped us with Brexit and the pandemic. Few others could have
done that in my view. And there have been many other really good things that the Conservative government has achieved under his leadership. For example, ending live exports of animals for fattening and slaughter: a needless and cruel practice I have worked hard to put an end to. We have succeeded in the fastest vaccine rollout in the world, we are protecting British Steel, and we are now opening the doors for competition within our public sector procurements industry meaning small and micro-sized businesses will get a fairer bite of the cherry when it comes to competing for opportunities. When you read this, we should be in the middle of a contest to choose the next Prime Minister. But amidst all the turbulence, I’d like to assure you that ensuring West Dorset’s voice is being heard is of primary importance and that we continue the work I have already been doing to see more of the same. £62.5m of investment into Dorset County Hospital, £4.8m investment in West Dorset schools and colleges alone, as well as major boosts to our AONB funding, apprenticeship schemes and so much more. It is fair to say though, that we have seen unprecedented levels of bullying directed toward Boris. And I think it should be a matter that concerns us all, that the press, online and mob attacks have been relentless. Not because of a policy disagreement but because these extremist groups have wanted to bully and intimidate one person in the hope that they break. These are not behaviours we are used to in the UK and we need to be much more aware of them. When I was first elected as a Member of Parliament, I said that serving my constituents will always be my primary purpose. It is with these thoughts in mind that I voted the way I did. chrisloder.co.uk
EBBX is an independent non-profit networking group that brings together business owners from Sherborne and the surrounding areas. We meet for breakfast every other Wednesday morning, 7.00-9.00am at Castle Gardens, Sherborne. New faces and visitors are always welcome, so whether you are running an established business or thinking of starting a new venture, please do join us for an opportunity to meet supportive, like-minded, local business people. Email our secretary to book your place at the next meeting: info@sherbornebusinessexchange.co.uk www.sherbornebusinessexchange.co.uk
S H E R B O R N E The Early Bird Business Exchange
“Win the morning, win the day” Tim Ferris
sherbornetimes.co.uk | 29
elizabethwatsonillustration.com
‘the best of the best in the UK for sport’ The Week, 2022
www.sherborneprep.org 30 | Sherborne Times | August 2022
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A family business, for families
Montgomery Associates
Discretionary investments for private clients and their families since 1973
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UNEARTHED Tilly Jenkins, Aged 11
Thornford CE Primary School
T
illy is a member of not one, but two gymnastic clubs. She practices and competes in acro gymnastics at Spirit Gymnastics Academy in Yeovil and develops her tumbling skills with Gryphon West Gymnastics Club in Sherborne and Yeovil. In acro gymnastics, partnerships of gymnasts work together and perform figures consisting of acrobatic moves, dance and tumbling, set to music. Tumbling gymnastics meanwhile involves a series of acrobatic skills such as somersaults, flips and twists performed down a long sprung track. Through some excellent coaching and over 16 hours of hard training each week Tilly has recently qualified for two British championships. In March this year, Tilly’s acro partnership became the Grade 2 women’s group South West Champions, propelling them to represent the South West of England at the British finals where they came 10th. Again in March, Tilly represented Thornford School at the South West British School Gymnastics tumbling competition and came second. This qualified her to compete at Fenton Manor, Stoke on Trent at the British Schools Finals where she came 11th. Tilly continues to work hard and at the time of writing has just competed in a South West Club level competition where she came 1st. She goes up to the Gryphon this September with a spring in her step and her eyes on the next competition! thornford.dorset.sch.uk piritacro.com gryphonwest.org.uk
KATHARINE DAVIES PHOTOGRAPHY
Portrait, lifestyle, PR and editorial commissions 07808 400083 info@katharinedaviesphotography.co.uk www.katharinedaviesphotography.co.uk
32 | Sherborne Times | August 2022
SUMMER TENNIS CAMP 14 – 18 August 2022
Book a four-day summer camp this July and August to receive over 22 hours of professional coaching at Sherborne Girls. We are offering either a residential or non-residential day package. Children staying the night will be accommodated in one of Sherborne Girls’ boarding houses and will enjoy a full programme of activities (including swimming, indoor football, hockey, and karaoke disco) in addition to tennis coaching. All meals will be provided.
Sherborne Girls, Bradford Road, Sherborne, Dorset DT9 3QN sherborne.com
To book please visit www.sherbornetenniscoaching.co.uk 07590 579800
Family
Molibdenis-Studio/ Shutterstock
Children’s Summer Reads While the Storm Rages by Phil
You Can’t Let an Elephant
Earle (Anderson Press) £7.99
Drive a Racing Car by Patricia
A powerful wartime adventure inspired by real events. Noah and friends fight to save animals from being put down at the outbreak of WW2. From the author of When the Sky Falls Recommended reading age: 10+
Cleveland-Peck, illustrated by David Tazzyman (Bloomsbury Children’s Books) £6.99
A band of weird and wonderful creatures try to compete in the most unsuitable sports in this fifth title in the bestselling You Can’t Let an Elephant… series. Recommended reading age: 3+
Escape to the River Sea by Emma Carroll and Eva Ibbotson (Macmillan
Shifty McGifty and Slippery
Children’s Books) £12.99
Sam - Pirates Ahoy! by Tracey
Beautiful and full of adventure, Escape to the River Sea is Emma Carroll’s compelling novel inspired by Eva Ibbotson’s bestselling classic masterpiece Journey to the River Sea Recommended reading age: 9+
Corderoy, illustrated by Steven Lenton (Nosy Crow) £6.99
The detective dogs are back for a swashbuckling pirate adventure! With an action-packed plot, read-aloud rhyme and comic details galore. Recommended reading age: 3+
Seed by Caryl Lewis, illustrated by George Ermos (Macmillan Children’s Books) £7.99
An uplifting, big-hearted story by award-winner Caryl Lewis that shows the power of hope and imagination when you believe that wishes can come true. Recommended reading age: 9+
Sherborne Times reader offer: £1 off the above titles at Winstone’s Books. winstonebooks.co.uk
Screen-time Summertime!
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
Family
AT THE TABLE
MA’S MEATBALL SKEWERS – SPIEDINI Michela Chiappa
M
eatballs are an Italian classic – however did you know that 'Spaghetti with Meatballs' was a recipe introduced by the Americans? Italians usually enjoy meatballs (or 'polpette') in their own right with polenta or a creamy mash and tomato sauce. This recipe is my twist on the classic. My mamma’s polpette recipe but served on a kebab stick with veggies; perfect for a bbq, no knives or forks needed. My kids call them meatball lollipops! Prep: 20 mins Cooking: 8-10 mins Difficulty: easy Ingredients Serves: 6-8
500g minced beef 1 clove garlic, peeled and finely chopped 100g breadcrumbs Small handful of chopped parsley 1 – 2 zucchini cut into 2cm discs 20 small cherry tomatoes 100g freshly grated Parmesan cheese 2 medium eggs, preferably free-range or organic 1 teaspoon fine salt 1⁄2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper 1/2 a teaspoon of chilli powder for some heat – optional 1 tablespoon olive oil 36 | Sherborne Times | August 2022
Method
1 Soak several wooden skewers in water. 2 Mix together all the ingredients apart from the oil, tomatoes and zucchini in a large bowl and shape with your hands into walnut-sized balls. 3 Thread the skewers by adding a meatball followed with a piece of zucchini and then a tomato, repeating until the skewer is full and with 3cm either end to handle. 4 Place the prepared skewer on a baking tray. Repeat the process until all meatballs are used. 5 Drizzle with a little olive oil and seasoning. 6 Grill the spiedini for 8-10 minutes until golden and cooked through. @michela.chiappa TheChiappaSisters thechiappas.com Baby at the Table: A 3-Step Guide to Weaning the Italian Way (Michael Joseph) £16.99. Sherborne Times reader offer price of £14.99 from Winstone’s Books Simply Italian: Cooking at Home with the Chiappa Sisters (Michael Joseph) £22 (hardcover). Sherborne Times reader offer price of £20 from Winstone’s Books
Flexible, premium hot-desking in central Sherborne Available to rent by the day, week or month For information, please call 01935 315556 or email info@homegrown-media.co.uk
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W H I T E H O U S E G UA R D I A N S sherbornetimes.co.uk | 37
Family
NEXT LEVEL
Geoff Cooke, Maths Teacher & DofE/Ten Tors Challenge Manager, The Gryphon School
W
hen the late Duke of Edinburgh set up the DofE award in his name he wanted to help develop young people into the citizens of tomorrow, to keep Britain great. As well as training students to survive and cope alone, albeit in groups, in the great outdoors on expedition, they have to complete three sections: Volunteering: for the soul and giving something back to society, Physical: 38 | Sherborne Times | August 2022
for the body, keeping fit and healthy; and Skills: for the mind, learning something new or developing an existing hobby. In a previous article, we looked at how Liv was completing her Volunteering by writing to people for a charity. We will now look at the Skills section and outline some of the things students at the Gryphon School are learning to complete their DofE awards.
"The biggest e-Sports prize pool in 2019 was $34 million."
Many students who enrol are already learning to play a musical instrument so the award challenges them to reach the next level. Another popular skill is cooking, a valuable life skill, which students can practice at home with mum, or dad, and then be assessed by our Food Tech teachers, Mrs Baxter and Mrs Elsworth. Leaders and teachers enjoy sampling the occasional cake when students are baking. Others want to learn or develop their photography skills outside the classroom so embark on taking pictures on a theme set by our Head of Art, Craft & Design, Mr Fenton-Wilkinson. The traditional skills of knitting, sewing and crochet are also popular. The more sporty students learn to coach, officiate or referee their favourite sport which can lead to a lifelong hobby or career. Students who are drawn to animal care can develop handling and care skills at a rescue centre, while those who enjoy an outdoors lifestyle might join the Assistant Expedition Leaders Qualification run by the school. Some students turn to more technological topics such as coding or web design, all of which will help them in the IT and creative industries. This year is the first time ‘e-Sports’ has been included in the list of suggested options for the skills section and one of our students has decided to choose it as his Skill. What is ‘e-Sports’ you might ask? E-Sports elevates computer gaming to the level of international spectator sport with millions watching professional gamers play online. The biggest e-Sports prize pool in 2019 was $34 million – so we are talking big money. League of Legends is the biggest e-Sport game in the world, but it takes months of practice to be decently good at it. Over the last 6 months, Gryphon student Yao Yao (pictured) learnt how to develop his character and skills in the game. Yao Yao points out that the ‘gaming develops hand-eye co-ordination which is important for a lot of careers especially pilots’ and the game has developed his reaction time to almost Jedi reflex level. He also spends time playing with his younger sister so e-Sports is not always a solitary activity. Yao Yao hopes to enter the games industry as a career and possibly even become a professional eSports player with his own social media channels. It is great to see Yao Yao pursue his dreams – and remember, we knew him before he was famous! gryphon.dorset.sch.uk dofe.org sherbornetimes.co.uk | 39
Family
FORCES FAMILIES
‘W
Alastair Poulain, Director of Adventure, Community and Leadership, Sherborne Prep
e are all different!’
So said Brian of Nazareth, as he tried in vain to disperse the crowd from his bedroom balcony, and indeed we all are. So are our children and so, therefore, should be the decision-making process for your child’s boarding school. Long gone are the days of the same schools churning out the same characters to administer the colonies. And long gone are the days where parents had little to choose between them. Now, schools trumpet their qualities from glossy videos, websites, and brochures, offering all things to all people. Some schools tend to take more military families than others, in the same way that some schools tend to take more rugby-playing children or musicians. While the desire to play in a strong team with specific coaches or play in several orchestras in a school with a compelling reputation is understandable, the military logic is less obvious. Do children of a serving parent, or parents, want or need the same things as each other? More importantly, should these children be lumped into a cohort of other forces children, just by dint of their parent’s profession? Meeting new people and adapting to them, listening to others’ ideas and valuing them, enjoying other people’s company and learning about them, trying new things, and enjoying them (or not), being aware of differing opinions and being challenged by them: they are all character facets and skills that employers yearn for yet diminish with each generation. Greater still, these traits will build the character of your child and create a platform for their fulfilment and success in later life. They will make your child happier. Could it be possible that, rather than looking for the same school as all the other forces children, you could look for one that specifically isn’t the obvious? If so, what should you be looking for? Well to answer that: I do not know, and nor should I. Every family – forces or not – is different, with a different set of criteria for choosing a school for their child. But, if they feel at home, guided through any natural ups and downs, truly listened to and understood and are having fun, then achieving their full potential is going to feel natural and easy. Do you like the house parents? If they were your parents (a bit of a stretch) could you see yourself comfortable in their company? Could you confide in them something embarrassing? How about the other teachers around the campus – do they look happy? Do they look approachable? We know that for any child who boards with us, there are practical elements that aid positive wellbeing; a busy weekend programme will distract from any feelings of homesickness, homely spaces, cosy nooks, dedicated members of staff, as well as robust partnerships with the family and serving forces liaison officer. It is top-quality pastoral care to all children, regardless of their family circumstances, that elevates a school’s ability to nurture young people, with confidence, and equip them with the life skills required for the world beyond. Have a look around a few, keep your eyes open, be confident in your gut feeling and remember that for your child, variety could well be the spice of life. sherborneprep.org
40 | Sherborne Times | August 2022
Image: Lizzie Watson
Alastair taking part in the inter-house Colour Run, Trinity Term 2022 sherbornetimes.co.uk | 41
Family
Image: Josie Sturgess-Mills 42 | Sherborne Times | August 2022
THE GRADUATE
I
Mary Flanagan, Drama Graduate Residential Assistant (September 2020 – July 2022), Sherborne School
joined Sherborne School in September 2020 as a Drama Graduate Residential Assistant. I had been travelling for several months and pondering my next steps and so it was – I applied for the role from the top bunk of a warm room in a little hostel in Thailand! My route to Sherborne included some time before University as a Summer School Activity Leader, teaching sports and other activities, including drama, to EAL students from around the world, which gave me an appetite for working with young people. After moving on to study English Literature at university, I then spent an incredibly rewarding year as an Education Health Care Assistant in a School for children with Autism. I had loved drama since I was four years old and the thought of returning to education to work in a drama department felt like the perfect opportunity. I arrived home just in time to travel down to interview at Sherborne before the first lockdown started and when offered the role, I realised my ‘adventuring’ was ongoing as I moved 250 miles from my hometown of Oswaldtwistle in East Lancashire to start a new job in the middle of a pandemic, in an unknown town and living alone for the first time! Just when I thought teaching socially distanced drama was challenging enough, I had to learn to teach it remotely in only my second term at Sherborne! It truly taught me how important imagination and creativity are, not just for drama but for teaching. Becoming a teacher has involved a steep and rewarding learning curve; planning and teaching lessons, setting and marking work, writing reports and communicating with parents. In drama no two days are the same; I never thought I would be asking staff if they might possibly have props at home for our productions such as a dinghy and life jackets, hoping to recreate the Mediterranean Sea in the Drama Studio! I have had to become a dab hand at face painting, especially black moustaches on pupils (for practical exams). I might be spotted scurrying around Sherborne, carrying clothing rails and beer kegs, or velvet bonnets and top hats, which I will wear if my hands are full! I love these frequent reminders that drama is often strange and typically joyful, a form of escapism for pupils and staff alike. I try to find ways to bring this joy into the classroom, and also into the boarding house as a tutor. Assisting with the social programme has granted me the pleasure of playing guitar and singing with the Fourth Formers around the campfire, as well as running a children’s party games night for the Lower Sixth – no one is too old! Memorable moments for me this year have come from putting on Dealer’s Choice for The Green House play. One or two boys took a bit of persuading to audition but the performances they gave were fantastic and compounded for me the great pleasure that comes in providing opportunities for pupils to show their talents. The best bits are the moments that remind me why I am doing what I do – amongst the marking, report writing, and daily admin, it can sometimes be all too easy to lose sight of the bigger picture of why I have continuously been drawn to work in education. Term time is tiring but being in the classroom with my pupils energises me. As much as I miss being on stage myself, I have found a new sense of fulfilment in watching a pupil give a performance they can take pride in, perhaps discovering skills and courage they didn’t know they possessed. My role at Sherborne has also given me a career. In August 2021 I started my PGCE and I begin the next school year as a qualified Drama Teacher. I’m not sure where exactly this role will take me, possibly into other avenues of drama or education. What this has shown me is that education can and should be an experience grounded in joy and an opportunity to build self-belief, for my students and for myself. sherborne.org sherbornetimes.co.uk | 43
elizabethwatsonillustration.com © David Parkyn
Join now and help the wildlife and wild places we all love. dorsetwildlifetrust.org.uk/MembershipST Dorset Wildlife Trust manages 40 nature reserves and four visitor centres as well as undertaking vital conservation work such as the scientific study monitoring the re-introduction of beavers to Dorset for the first time in 400 years. We can’t do it without your help. 44 | Sherborne Times | August 2022
CELEBRATING SOMERSET GOODNESS, TEALS OFFERS RESPONSIBLY SOURCED GOODS FROM FANTASTIC LOCAL PRODUCERS. It features a restaurant, food market, butcher, bakery, cheese counter, bottle shop selling wine local cider, and beer, a gift shop with independent-label gifts and healthy food to go. A healthy kitchen will serve nourishing plates from across the region.
We can’t wait to welcome you, through our doors to sample the local produce and enjoy the orchard. If you fancy a trip out with a friend or an alternative to shopping in the supermarkets this is a great destination worth exploring.
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Science & Nature
ACTION STATIONS Nick Sinfield, Teals
Image: Ed Schofield
A
s I stood listening to Greta Thunberg at this year’s Glastonbury Festival, I found myself wondering how many of those 1000s gathered together for those 15 minutes in that sunny field would go on to answer her call for immediacy of action. I wasn’t hopeful. For although there was a remarkability about Greta that day, it was (for me) in the gaping contrast between the tininess of her form on that epic stage and the almost unbearably enormous scale of the challenge she so regularly asks us all to meet. 46 | Sherborne Times | August 2022
I understand the message and she communicates it with brilliant consistency. And yet for all its earnestness what was missing that afternoon was connection. I needed something (or someone) to help connect me more emphatically to Greta’s undeniable single-mindedness and anger and provide greater tangibility to the call-to-action. Instead, I left hungry for next year’s primetime slot to deliver far greater impact beyond the Somerset skyline. In contrast, Michael and Emily Eavis’ solstice gathering was remarkable for its sense of connection.
Between tent neighbours, between people and the land and most noticeably between performers and their audiences. Starved of this scale of crowd through the pandemic, the level of emotion in performances extended beyond the well-celebrated highs that Glastonbury so often delivers. The connection, realised in all the joy and tears, was next level. As a pending B Corporation* we have admired the Glastonburys of this world that have chosen to become a force for good and, like them, we hope to achieve this through the impact we too can make on people and planet. Our ‘home’ on the A303 at North Cadbury was built with materials that tread lightly on the environment, our solar panels carry the weight of much of our electricity and we don’t use gas. In time we’ll have electric vehicle chargers sitting alongside our bike hoops. We work hard to find good local people to work with, seek out small producers and makers from the region to represent, and cook with locally sourced ingredients from scratch. And yet we still wonder how much we matter? Do our guests recognise Ed Hawkins’ climate graphic behind our counter for what it is or do they just think it’s nice wallpaper? Have we done a good enough job informing our guests and where is the line between informing and pushing? Ultimately to matter more we’ve decided to set out this year to build an even greater connection between our team, guests and the spirit of our region. We now have a little gang of ‘B Keepers’ from all parts of the team. One afternoon this month they gathered amongst the trees in the orchard and worked up a list of tangible immediate actions we could take to improve our impact, along with a few slower burns. Last week the first of those became a reality – our used coffee grounds now go to Tom at The Apothecary Garden in Butleigh, to produce compost that will feed Somerset beds, at the same time reducing the volume and cost of our recycling collections. So was this Greta’s hope and aim? That even though the bigger challenge feels almost insurmountable, those listening to her go on to affect small behaviour changes (like compost recycling) that combined, add up to meaningful difference and by extension help to maintain awareness of the bigger challenge. Some lucky businesses are born to change the world. Belu (pronounced ‘blue’) encourages its restaurant partners to sell water and give 50% of the income back to them, which in turn they pass to Wateraid, who provide important respite to underserved communities in the
developing world. By extension, we and our guests make a valuable contribution and are positively reminded of the difference we collectively make to that cause. Other businesses are founded on a purpose and use it to build communities of like-minded people who together create change. Finisterre, the Cornish cold water surf brand, famous for its wetsuits made from recycled materials, continues to break new ground in the remarkable development of clothing and accessories produced better by people and for the planet. As with Patagonia, their voice is clear, well directed and impactful. In this respect at Teals, we anchor more strongly in ‘purpose’, than pure sustainability, seeing sustainability and community as important outputs of purpose. If we are purposeful in balancing the interests of all stakeholders, rather than simply owners or shareholders, we know the business of doing business can lead more readily to positive impact. Relationships with guests that are personal, informative and enriching, lead to more sustainable levels of loyalty and appreciation, which in turn preserve jobs and supply chains. Relationships with producers and makers that balance the interest of guests, producers and retailers enable all parties to benefit productively and improve the chance for producers to grow and create new jobs. Connecting producers with guests develops a stronger awareness and appreciation of the specialness of a region and builds community. The remaining days and hours in that field just south of Pilton were some to cherish. In the 5 days around the festival, the Eavis’ succeeded in connecting their guests to not only great music and performing arts, but also to nature, heritage and, most of all, community. Through their ongoing generosity and constant innovation, the annual pilgrimage to The Land of the Somer people brightens the lives of 1000s in fields and living rooms, builds important movements and raises millions for charity. What better example of using business as a force for good, what better platform for Greta to share her message. There’s definitely hope after all. teals.co.uk *B Corp Certification is a designation that a business is meeting high standards of verified performance, accountability, and transparency on factors from employee benefits and charitable giving to supply chain practices and input materials. bcorporation.net sherbornetimes.co.uk | 47
Science & Nature
Marek R. Swadzba/Shutterstock
DRAWN TO THE LIGHT Scarlet Tiger Callimorpha dominula Gillian Nash
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he aptly named Scarlet Tiger is one moth you are very likely to see as it flies mainly in daylight hours on sunny days as well as at night. Its weak, uneven fluttering flight often results in what appears to be a fall to the ground or into vegetation with little attempt to conceal itself. Strikingly white, orange, yellow dotted and blotched jet black forewings and truly scarlet black banded hindwings are revealed in flight to deter predators. Other rare forms with yellow or black hindwings are occasionally observed. The adult moth is particularly attracted to the nectar of knapweeds and valerian. Planting these species in gardens will certainly offer opportunities to see this beautiful moth during its early to mid-summer flight season. The equally attractive day-feeding larvae has black 48 | Sherborne Times | August 2022
background colour with jewel-like bands of yellow and white dots creating a vivid image as it feeds its way through an extensive range of plant species. Newly hatched larvae feed on common nettle, bramble, comfrey, hemp agrimony and various other wild and garden plants. In its final stage of growth its diet may also include woody hedgerow plants and trees. Partially grown larvae overwinter at ground level, emerging the following May to resume feeding and complete this larval stage prior to pupation. Found mainly throughout varied habitat in south west counties of England and Wales, the Scarlet Tiger moth is frequently encountered locally, with numbers boosted in some years by immigration. Statistics indicate increasing numbers since 1990 with many reports of its spread northwards.
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Science & Nature
WILD BROWNSEA
Nicki Tutton, Wild Brownsea Project Officer, Dorset Wildlife Trust
Summer solstice sunrise 2022
W
hen summer starts to turn towards autumn, the wildlife on Brownsea Island is as spectacular as ever. In August, the Brownsea lagoon starts to undergo significant changes as the breeding terns leave the nesting islands, where they have spent weeks raising their young in a cacophony of noise. The juvenile birds will follow their parents, learning to fish and to feed themselves, before departing for the warmer climes of south and west Africa for the winter. Wading birds will start to return at this time of year, with numbers of black-tailed godwit, redshank and dunlin slowly rising. Common sandpiper are routinely sighted in the harbour and lagoon, and spoonbill start to make a more regular appearance. During the summer holidays, the Wild Brownsea team organise a wide range of activities for families varying from pond dipping to bug hunts, guided walks and self-led activities. Wild Brownsea is a three year programme of investment in infrastructure and engagement funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund to enable people of all backgrounds and abilities to enjoy this special place. Once the holidays are over, the Brownsea team focus on the autumn tasks, such as mowing the flora-rich wet meadow, preparing it for the winter and for next year’s growing season, when the southern marsh orchids and other plants which grow there will flourish once again. By September, the red squirrels will be thinking 50 | Sherborne Times | August 2022
Image: Nicki Tutton
about the autumn, and will be moulting into their darker coats. This is actually one of the easiest times for visitors to see them, as they finish their breeding season and start to prepare for winter. In fact, September and October are an ideal time to visit Brownsea when there are less people but still plenty of wildlife around. There’s always something to see on Brownsea as the wildlife and the island itself change through every season. Visitors can follow our twitter feed @DWTBrownsea or speak to staff and volunteers on the day to find out the latest sightings and what they might expect to spot. The Dorset Wildlife Trust nature reserve on Brownsea Island is open until Sunday 30th October 2022 - please visit dorsetwildlifetrust.org.uk/Brownsea for more information. dorsetwildlifetrust.org.uk • Kingfishers start to return from September, having spent the summer at their breeding grounds further inland. • As the autumn birds start to arrive, there will still be butterflies, dragonflies and damselflies on the wing. • Red squirrels can often be on the ground in September, searching for food, caching supplies ready for winter.
Red squirrel
Black-tailed skimmer dragonfly
Image: Nicki Tutton
Sandwich tern chick
Image: Nicki Tutton
Black-tailed godwits
Image: Kevin Cook
Image: Nicki Tutton sherbornetimes.co.uk | 51
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Science & Nature
THE RE-FLOWERING OF SHERBORNE Simon Ford, Land and Nature Adviser and Gardener
C
ompared to many similar-sized towns, Sherborne is lucky to have a significant amount of ‘green space’, both within the town and also at the fringes. Parks such as Pageant Gardens, Quarr and Paddock Gardens immediately come to mind, along with the playing fields at The Terraces. However, there are also a large number of undeveloped areas, ranging from verges and meadows, to small plots of grass. These areas have traditionally been mown on a 54 | Sherborne Times | August 2022
regular basis, creating a tidy but sterile area of lawn, which may be green in colour, but does little for the environment and wildlife. With a small shift in mindset, these areas have the potential to do something special. Following similar projects in nearby villages, Nigel Spring of the European Conservation Action Network, (EUCAN) eucan.org.uk and his colleague, Adam Gale agconservation@outlook.com has been working with various landowners to provide advice on bringing back
flower-rich turf. EUCAN has already been doing some sterling work on the slopes around the Dancing Hill junction and at the Quarr Nature Reserve as well as at St Cuthbert’s Old Church at Oborne and Wheat Hill Meadow and East Hill at Milborne Port. After a bit of planning and some site visits, they identified some areas which had real potential. Many people will have noticed travelling around Dorset, that the County Council has been relaxing the management of many verges and there are colourful signs, saying ‘Pollinators, not Pollution’. Sherborne is following this approach, aiming to create a series of ‘stepping stones’ to help flowers and insects thrive. In the past, all of the meadows would have been full of wildlife, but sadly now many of these are devoid of flowers, meaning we need to look after these small pockets of land. Many of you reading this article may have tried the initiative known as ‘No Mow May’, where you leave the lawnmower in the shed and allow flowers to grow. This is not very different to what is happening in the Sherborne area. It is surprising what might still be lurking in the mown grass, waiting for a chance to flower and set seed without being regularly decapitated! I recently visited some of the areas within the scheme, such as at the top of Castle Town Way, Horsecastles, Wheathill Meadow and East Hill in Milborne Port, Lenthay Field, St Cuthbert’s Chapel, the verge beside Gryphon School and Dancing Hill near The Terraces – it is remarkable what can be found. Beautiful pyramidal orchids are now flowering on a number of sites and there are even amazing bee orchids growing in several areas. Golden bird’s foot trefoil, yarrow, red clover, ox-eye daisies, ladies bedstraw, field scabious and cowslips are now growing where before there was 1cm long grass. On a few areas, yellow rattle is thriving (it parasitises grasses and reduces their vigour). Of course, once you have wildflowers, then bees and butterflies will arrive and we saw marbled white, meadow brown, orange tip, small tortoiseshell and comma butterflies, burnet and cinnabar moths, honey bees, carder bees and buff-tailed bumblebees and even a red-tailed cuckoo bumblebee. Flying over the meadows were house martins, swallows and swifts, feasting on the insects. The long grass provides a perfect habitat for small mammals such as short-tailed field voles, bank voles and common shrew, which in turn are food for birds such as the barn owl and kestrel. In some areas such as
Bee Orchid Andi111/Shutterstock
The Terraces, yellow meadow ants have created mounds colonised with wild thyme and marjoram as well as chickweed, trefoils and medicks. These anthills are a favourite of green woodpeckers. In some areas, paths have been mown to allow people to enjoy the display and where it is next to a road, a narrow strip has been cut to help maintain access. In the late summer (once the flowers have set seed), the areas will be cut and raked which helps reduce fertility and will encourage more wildflowers the following year. It is even hoped that in due course, there may be a chance for the local community to come and learn to use a scythe. In addition, there will be opportunities to collect wildflower seeds to use to create more areas of wildflower-rich areas. Nigel and his volunteers, will harvest wildflower seed from some sites, as well as distribute yellow rattle seeds, which can be used to make other areas even more diverse in coming years. Maybe you will have areas that can be managed in a similar manner to help re-establish a patchwork of nature-friendly sites? Not only is this a fantastic way to help wildlife, but it saves money as the areas do not need to be regularly cut and it reduces emissions from lawnmowers and strimmers. To my mind, it also looks so much more beautiful. Go and have an explore and see what you can find. simonfordgardening.wordpress.com sherbornetimes.co.uk | 55
Science & Nature
SEEDS OF CHANGE
Peter Littlewood, Director, Young People’s Trust for the Environment Pilling St John’s CE Primary School, Pilling, Lancashire – UK Champions for their project ‘The Seed Bank’.
O
ver the last couple of months, I’ve had plenty of opportunities to find out about the vibrancy of environmental education in the UK’s primary schools. It’s all because of a competition YPTE has been running, called the Primary Awards for Green Education in Schools (PAGES), which is open to all primary schools in the UK. In its first year, we’ve seen entries from almost 19,000 children and it has been amazing to see all the fantastic work they’ve been doing, both to learn more about our environment and to take action to improve it. Take for example a school in Kent, where the Eco Team came up with the idea of setting the school a challenge to write the diary of a single-use plastic item. The levels of creativity and understanding shown by children from all the year groups were amazing and in fact, there were so many great stories entered that the school has decided to include them all in a book, which will be available for the parents to buy. At the same school, the children learned about consumerism and the Eco Team came up with another initiative – a sale of the children’s unwanted toys. Over 56 | Sherborne Times | August 2022
500 toys were donated by the children and they raised £500 from the resulting sale. The money is going to be used to buy a shed in which the Eco Team can store the stock for its sales of used fancy dress costumes, football boots and wellies. It will also be home to their reusable party pack – a set of 30 reusable cups, plates and cutlery, along with reusable table cloths, napkins and bunting, which is available for parents to hire for £5. This fantastic initiative prevents huge amounts of unnecessary disposable items being used once for parties and ending up in landfill. It’s these sorts of simple actions that make a real difference to the children’s attitudes – and that filters down to the parents as well! Meanwhile, it was a school from Lancashire that took the top spot in this year’s Awards, with a project entitled ‘The Seed Bank’. The inspiration for the project came, as is often the case, from real events that happened at the school. Back from lockdown during the summer of 2021, the children spent a lot of time in the school garden, planting and growing vegetables. They harvested what they could before the summer
Perry Hall Primary School, Orpington, Kent – Southern Regional Champions for their project ‘Marine Marvels’.
holidays, but by the time school broke up, a lot of the veggies were left and ended up going to seed. At the start of the new academic year, the vegetable seeds were used as a learning opportunity and the children were fascinated to have a detailed look at some broccoli seeds. This led them to thinking: could they start sharing their seeds with their parents and other members of the community, so that more and more people could start growing their own vegetables? That’s how the idea of the seed bank was born! The Eco Committee ‘hijacked’ an assembly to announce their plan to the school. It caused a lot of excitement and before long, the children had collected a huge quantity of seeds. They sorted them – alphabetically of course! - into a ‘library’ of seeds, ready to send out to anyone who wanted to start growing! They advertised their free seeds in the school newsletter and online and before long, the orders started to roll in! In fact, they were so successful with their advertising that they received a request for some of their seeds from someone living over 300 miles away. Many of their customers have committed to send back
some of their seeds at the end of the growing season, so that the seed bank can be re-stocked for next year! The children are fully intending that their Seed Bank is going to become an ongoing project, so that more and more seeds can be sent out to encourage people to start growing vegetables each year! This is a great example of how powerful a force for change primary schools and their children can be. But in judging the Awards this year, I got to see well over a hundred examples of inspirational projects, undertaken by incredibly enthusiastic children and their teachers. Even as schools recovered from the disruption of Covid, the environment has figured strongly in their work this year. YPTE has created a virtual awards ceremony, which gives details of all of the champions’ projects and you can watch it by visiting bit.ly/3zbHxZk You can find out more about the Primary Awards for Green Education in Schools by visiting primaryawards4greeneducation.org.uk ypte.org.uk sherbornetimes.co.uk | 57
Science & Nature
AN APPROPRIATE RESPONSE Paula Carnell, Beekeeping Consultant, Writer and Speaker
Irisha_S/Shutterstock
A
nyone involved with honeybees is familiar with the varroa mite. It seriously impacted beekeeping when first reaching our shores in the early 1990s. The latest issue of the British Beekeeping Journal has caused quite a stir with three features (out of their seven) on chemical-free beekeeping. There was another feature on Coloss which is the global network on bee losses led by scientist Dr Peter Neumann. I am often quoting him with his statement that the ‘biggest risk to bees is beekeepers’! Seeing so much evidence and shared experiences of bees thriving without the use of chemical treatments in Wales, Ireland and many parts of the British Isles is so heartening after thirty years of intensive miticide use. The problem has been in trying to kill an insect on an insect. After thirty years, managed bees still have varroa, and the effects of using miticides have been detrimental to male bee fertility. I was therefore interested by the news of varroa mite being found in two government sentinel 58 | Sherborne Times | August 2022
honeybee colonies in the port of Newcastle, New South Wales. Being the only country in the world so far free of varroa, it was a big shock to beekeepers globally. The bigger shock was their government’s response, to cull every colony of honeybees within a 10km radius of the port, regardless of whether or not they have varroa. This goes completely against the 30 years plus research from the rest of the world. The consequences of this action are devastating for the beekeepers, many commercial breeders and pollinator companies. As spring approaches, like in California, migratory beekeeping for pollinating many of the monoculture food crops would begin, starting with almonds. There will be no bees this season. A ban on movement (which is not a bad thing) and more worryingly, due to the agricultural system, a total lack of native pollinators, crops in this part of Australia will be severely affected. I’d love to think it would highlight the need for more regenerative and chemical-free agriculture, however, it looks like it is almost the nail in
the coffin for any natural food growth as the situation confirms the ‘need’ for lab-grown produce. The subject is as you can imagine very divisive, even amongst beekeepers, and my heart goes out to all those who will lose their businesses once their colonies are destroyed. I have been listening intently to the debates amongst beekeepers around the world. So many are volunteering to ‘sacrifice’ their bees for the good of the country, yet how will culling honeybees really help? One of the biggest lessons the rest of the world has found with honeybees and varroa is that yes, it destroys honeybee colonies, however, bees do adapt. They develop processes to protect themselves. Teams of scientists around the world, including our own Professor Stephen Martin from Salford University, showed how honeybees actually uncap a brood cell, remove the varroa that was feeding on the larvae, kill it, and then recap the cell! Joe Bleasdale, who is one of my bee team, has been keeping bees for over 45 years and his bees were included in the research. So we know that around Somerset and Dorset bees have evolved to have ‘hygienic behaviour’. I have been watching my own bees groom themselves and fellow bees, as well as removing deformed larvae and debris from their hives. Why then would the Australian Government be taking a ‘King Canute’ style approach? How long before another government sentinel hive is found to have contracted varroa, and another large area of honeybees are culled? The cull includes feral bees, which many have claimed not to be the leaders in varroa survival, but the spreaders of disease. Rewards have been suggested to school children who out walking spot a feral colony in a tree, so that officials may then come and destroy it. What message does that pass onto our youth about nature? New South Wales may seem like a very long way away, yet we are threatened by the small hive beetle.
It is chilling to be reminded that it would only take one government official here in the UK to decide that bees in the west country should all be culled – painful echoes of the TB, Foot and Mouth and BSE disasters that affected so many farmers in the UK during the 1990s. When will we start to have educated debates involving those whom disasters involve, as to the best way forward? I would love to see the beekeepers of the world come together to debate and agree on a free choice when it comes to colony management. Professionals who derive their livelihood from beekeeping need support and more crucially to be listened to. Many commercial beekeepers can no longer earn a living from honey production, unable to compete with the mass importation of cheaper adulterated honey. The pollination of crops is now their main income, a result of the agricultural system destroying native bees and now being dependent on honeybees. So the circle goes around. If we return to regenerative agriculture, restoring wildflower meadows to feed our bees, the pollinators would return, honeybees would be able to make an abundance of honey and they wouldn’t have to undergo the stresses of migratory beekeeping. Keeping bees in one spot would also help contain diseases. More wildflowers to feed the bees improves their nutrition and resistance to pests and diseases. I cannot even begin to imagine my world without bees, and so I am speaking out to do whatever I can to educate and inform those in positions of influence, which includes consumers. Thankfully I have been invited to speak at the Global Bee Conference Apimondia in Istanbul at the end of August. Let’s hope by then some common sense has prevailed and the Australian bees will be saved. paulacarnell.com
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sherbornetimes.co.uk | 59
On Foot
60 | Sherborne Times | August 2022
On Foot
SHUTE Emma Tabor and Paul Newman Distance: 2¼ miles Time: Approx. 1½ hours Park: National Trust/Landmark Trust car park behind the gatehouse to Shute House Walk Features: This is an easy walk in the gently rolling landscape of East Devon, firstly across open farmland and then through the woodland which covers Shute Hill. There is a steady climb up Shute Hill and a small descent towards the end of the walk. The middle section takes you through the grounds of Shute House and past the house itself; please observe any privacy notices. There is a magnificent turkey oak in the grounds of Shute House and good views towards Axmouth Harbour from Haddon Corner. St Michael’s church is also worth a visit. Refreshments: Various pubs and cafes in Colyton >
sherbornetimes.co.uk | 61
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 August we venture into East Devon with a route which starts from the imposing gatehouse at Shute Barton, managed by the Landmark Trust, before exploring the surrounding area and then returning through the woods covering Shute Hill. Medieval Shute Barton is owned by the National Trust. The house has one of the largest fireplaces in the UK. Built by the Bonneville family, Shute Barton passed on to Thomas Grey when he married Cecily Bonneville. The Greys were forced to sell the Shute estate to the Pole family due to loss of reputation when they attempted to gain the throne of England through Lady Jane Grey. Directions
Start: SY 252 974 62 | Sherborne Times | August 2022
1
Park in the small car park behind the gatehouse entrance to Shute Barton. Please note this only has space for a few vehicles. Walk down the track and at the end, on the main road to Colyton, turn immediately left up towards Woodend Farm, with Boarscroft on your right. With the bungalow on your right, you will soon come to a five-bar gate and a public footpath sign also on your right. Go through this into a field, keeping along the left-hand-side hedge until you come to a large metal gate with farm buildings ahead. Once through the gate, and in a few yards up the track, look for a small metal gate to your right into another field - please note there is a lack of visible footpath signs at this point. Through the gate, head diagonally up to the corner of this field, aiming for a telegraph pole. Here, go through an improvised gate into another field and now to the right of the farm buildings. Head across this field, just the right of a large oak tree, to another small gate and then
into another field. Head downhill across this field and to your left, looking for a pair of metal kissing gates which cross the track leading down from the farm buildings. Go through these, crossing the track, and head diagonally across the field, crossing a small wooden footbridge and going towards a stile at the edge of a copse. 2 Cross the stile and walk up the side of the copse, keeping this on your right; you soon come to a gravel drive. Turn left and then almost immediately right towards Shute House. Walk past the front of the house, keeping on the drive and then leave the house behind you on the right, passing through a wooden gate. After 150 yards you will reach the turkey oak. Keep on the drive, gently climbing until you meet the road at Haddon Corner. There are good views from this part of the walk towards the coast and Axmouth Harbour. 3 At Haddon Corner, head diagonally across the junction; the road soon bends sharp left and
after 150 yards you will see a private path on your left with permissible public access through Shute Woods. Take this path and keep to the right, climbing, roughly parallel with the road you have just left. As you get to the top of Shute Hill, keep straight ahead for 500 yards until you emerge on the far side of the woods, picking up the flinty track that is Ashes Road. You may need to go slightly right to access Ashes Road, which is bordered by a large bank, near the public footpath. 4 Head left along Ashes Road with the bank and the boundary to Shute Woods on your left; do not go back into the woods. You will soon have good views across the surrounding countryside towards Colyton. Keep on Ashes Road until it turns into a tarmac drive. The track continues to descend and, after 300 yards, you will drop back into Shute and see the gatehouse. nationaltrust.org.uk/shute-barton landmarktrust.org.uk sherbornetimes.co.uk | 63
History
LOST DORSET
NO. 26 WEYMOUTH
T
David Burnett, The Dovecote Press
he message on the back, written in August 1908, says it all: ‘My dear Chummy. This will give you some idea of the crowds here on August Bank Holiday. This is only half the beach. Most of the natives clear out on that day. There are no rocks. Free and easy bathing. Sammy.’ The current chaos at Britain’s airports may add to the numbers on all Dorset’s beaches this August, though few are likely to be as crowded as in the postcard. Weymouth owed its popularity to ‘Swindon Weeks’ – the annual closure of the Great Western Railway works in Swindon. By the mid-1880s, and on one day alone, 6,000 workers and their families disembarked at Weymouth Station on special ‘Trip Day’ trains before heading for one of the hundreds of family-run lodgings that sprang up behind the esplanade. Apart from the sands, the principal attractions were the Pavilion, which opened in 1908, musical concerts by military bands in the public gardens, and excursions by paddle-steamer to Lulworth Cove or round the battleships of the Channel Fleet anchored in Portland Harbour. 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 available locally from Winstone’s Books or directly from the publishers. dovecotepress.com
64 | Sherborne Times | August 2022
OBJECT OF THE MONTH
THE ‘ROMAN’ COIN MOULD Elisabeth Bletsoe, Curator, Sherborne Museum
A
curious object brought into the museum in its inaugural year is described as a coin mould, purportedly found in a ditch near Sherborne Castle by a Mr Wick who was clearing the drains in 1923. Our records show that it was initially identified, and indeed exhibited, as Roman and depicting the Emperor Gallienus, but is that entirely accurate? We can definitely say it is a stone fragment, smooth on one face, measuring 110mm x 65mm x 33mm. Four perfectly round indentations show the obverse of coins or tokens; these are linked to enable liquid metal to flow freely between them. An additional hole suggests a peg socket, indicating that this is only one half of the mould. The ‘coins’ have heads with radiate crowns and are clearly based on Roman coins from the third century AD. The legends read as a series of letters which are not reversed as they would be in a genuine mould. These words are indistinct and are dissimilar in each coin except for a three-letter grouping near the heads: SHe or possibly SNe. The coins form two pairs; one pair has a diameter of one inch, the other 7/8ths of an inch. The mould certainly piqued the interest of Gordon LePard, former county archaeologist, and he asked if he could study it in detail. He was able to confirm that it was almost definitely post-medieval in date since imperial measurements had been used. He believed the maker was unfamiliar with casting objects because the letters were not written mirror fashion as they would normally be. He was completely unable to locate any equivalent example, either to the mould or its ‘coins’, although he did hazard a guess at a few possibilities. It could have been a mould for the creation of token money, made on various occasions in British history, particularly when the circulation of official currency was inadequate. Notable insufficiencies occurred during the
English Civil War, when supplementation was known as ‘siege money’, and again during the late seventeenth and late eighteenth centuries. It is feasible that the readable letters were a mint mark for Sherborne, and the recorded find-spot might suggest associations with the sieges of Sherborne Castle. An alternative might be that it was for the making of gaming tokens in the form of adapted coins; a common practice in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. LePard, however, in the light of his earlier inability to find any comparable recorded examples, felt inclined to dismiss both theories. Another possible solution is that the mould is a ‘pseudo-antiquity’, faked and deliberately placed in a context where it might be discovered and assumed to date from the Civil War. While this idea seems outlandish, Gordon pointed to what he considered as one of the strangest episodes in Sherborne’s history; that of the so-called ‘Bone of Contention’. In 1911 a carved bone depicting a prehistoric horse was ‘found’ by some Sherborne schoolboys. Initially celebrated as a rare example of Paleolithic art, doubt was later cast on its authenticity causing a controversy lasting until the 1990s when it was finally revealed as a fake. Gordon still ponders the question of whether the two objects are connected, made by the same hand. The museum also houses a similar Bone, but whether it is the original fake or a copy of it remains uncertain. We shall probably never know the answers to either. sherbornemuseum.co.uk Sherborne Museum is open from Tuesday - Saturday 10.30am–4.30pm. During August, the museum opens on Monday 15th and 22nd 11am-1pm for Messy Museum Mondays; free activities for children accompanied by adults. sherbornetimes.co.uk | 65
History
A LOCAL TRAGEDY Cindy Chant
Stephen Barnes/Alamy
T
his is the story of Charlotte Bryant, an unfortunate girl of Irish gypsy origins, who lived in a little cottage in Coombe, Sherborne. It is an unhappy story and it was the death of her husband Fred Bryant that started a murder inquiry which led Charlotte to the scaffold in Exeter prison in 1936. Charlotte first met Fred when he was serving in the British army during the Irish troubles in 1922. She was an illiterate 19-year-old and believed that Fred, in his smart soldier’s uniform, would take her away from her life of poverty. He fell for her physical charms, married her and brought her back to his roots, where he obtained a job as a cowman on a farm near Sherborne. Soon the dream started to fade, and reality set in. She had just exchanged one life of poverty in Ireland for another in Dorset. Missing the excitement and the attention of the soldiers of the Northern Ireland barracks, she began finding local men who would pay for her favours. Her husband Fred became aware of what she was doing and surprisingly condoned and encouraged her behaviour, 66 | Sherborne Times | August 2022
as it was a struggle to survive on a cowman’s wage. He told a neighbour, ‘I don’t care what she does, £4 a week is better than 30 shillings.’ She was known locally as Black Bess or Killarney Kate and was thought of as promiscuous and a drunken slut. A businessman from Yeovil, thinking she was carrying his child, gave her £25 to have an abortion. Later she turned up with the child and demanded regular payments for her silence. Neither the businessman nor Fred was the father of this child. In 1933, Charlotte met her most serious lover yet, Len Parsons, a travelling horse dealer with a gypsy background. He also became friendly with Fred and was invited to be the lodger. However, he did not lodge there permanently as he already had a common-law wife and four children. He was also the father of Charlotte’s 5th child! Fred did not like this arrangement, as Parsons was now sharing his wife’s bed and he was having to sleep on the sofa. He was finally ordered to leave and moved to Dorchester taking Charlotte with him, and renting rooms in the town.
However, Charlotte missed her children and so she returned home, and to her husband. They discussed the situation and Parsons was allowed back into the house, due to Charlotte being completely besotted with him. But dark forces were at work and in May 1935 Fred suffered his first mysterious illness. He recovered from severe stomach pains but later that year he had another very painful attack. This time he was admitted to the hospital in Sherborne, but sadly died the next day on 23rd December. The doctors thought the death was suspicious and ordered a post-mortem. Arsenic was found in his body. These findings were reported to the Dorset Constabulary who then visited Charlotte and the children and removed them to the workhouse in Sturminster Newton, while they conducted an intensive search of the Bryant’s cottage and garden. This once sleepy little market town suddenly became a hive of activity which lasted for several weeks. Residents had to endure the presence of police, crime reporters and forensic detectives. The remains of a burnt-out tin, which once contained an arsenic-based weed killer, were found in the fireplace. With this vital information, the Police visited all the chemists in the vicinity. In Yeovil, they found a chemist who had sold some weed killer to a woman who could not read or write and had signed the drug register with an ‘X’. Charlotte was arrested and charged with the murder of her husband. This was a high-profile poisoning case and Charlotte’s young children were brought into court to give evidence. Their testimony was unintentionally very damaging to their mother’s case, in the way questions were put and answered. One wonders how much Charlotte’s lowly status and known promiscuity played a part in her trial. Sadly, in those days, Charlotte was virtually at the bottom of the social pile – considered illiterate and immoral. Her well-publicised trial was considered a good lesson to other women not to stray from the ‘straight and narrow path of morality’, as perceived by the male-dominated society of the time. Charlotte was taken to Exeter jail, and then to the gallows on the morning of Wednesday 15th July 1936. As was the custom then, it was an entirely private affair with no onlookers present. Only the Catholic priest, who reported, ‘She met her end with Christian fortitude.’ By lunchtime the same day, she was buried in the grounds of the prison. Her children remained in the care of Dorset County Council.
FREE HOME VISITS Specialist Matthew Denney will be in the Sherborne area on Thursday 25th August to value your objects & antiques
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lawrences.co.uk sherbornetimes.co.uk | 67
Antiques
DRINK AND BE MERRY
Richard Bromell ASFAV, Charterhouse Auctioneers
Charles II silver lidded beer tankard £2,000-£3,000
M
ost of us have a favoured vessel from which to drink our beverage of choice. This can be a vintage tea set for your Earl Grey, a dinky coffee cup for your cheeky little espresso or a big chipped mug for your lazy weekend Americano. For a glass of wine, you might be traditional and go for a Waterford glass. But the reality here is you’ll have your Ikea or Esso petrol station glass for ‘everyday use’(!) which, if you drop, makes a lot of mess and takes time to clear up but you’ll not cry over and will happily go through the dishwasher, unlike the Waterford crystal which requires careful hand-washing. And then there are beer glasses. Old school here being the traditional dimpled pint tankard against the modern pedestal lager glass. But there are alternatives. On special occasions at home, I have a favourite silver plated tankard. Dating to about 1820, it is worn and has several dents which all no doubt have a tale to tell from a night of merriment. Reasonably uncommon to see, although inexpensive, I found another one identical recently and bought this 68 | Sherborne Times | August 2022
for my son – it is one of the few ‘old’ things I have managed to get in to his contemporary, minimalist flat in London. And yes, he has used it having sent me photographic evidence via WhatsApp! However, in our 4th August specialist auction of silver, jewellery and watches, there is perhaps the ultimate item to drink a beer from, a silver lidded tankard. It dates towards the end of the 17th century when Charles II ruled the land. Handcrafted in London in 1672 it is a rare survivor. Over the centuries it will have moved house on numerous occasions, been inherited, sold or even given away as a present and perhaps more importantly, survived being melted down at times when silver has reached record prices. Now entered into our silver sale having been inherited, it is estimated at £2,000-£3,000. Too rich for my taste, but it would be great to think that the successful buyer might use it as it was indeed intended! charterhouse-auction.com
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A month of maintenance
The garden is a busy place in August, with the children off school and barbeques fired up on a regular basis, so it’s important to find a little time to keep everything ship-shape.
Regular watering, feeding and deadheading will allow pots and borders to continue bursting with colour, as friends and family visit on those long summer days. A whole host of fruit and vegetables will also be ready for picking, so make the most of the harvest for some memorable al fresco dining. For watering cans, feeds, tools or any other gardening supplies, you can visit us any day of the week: Open seven days a week
Castle Gardens, New Road, Sherborne, Dorset DT9 5NR www.thegardensgroup.co.uk
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70 | Sherborne Times | August 2022
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Gardening
MEMORIES OF THE MED Mike Burks, Managing Director, The Gardens Group
Bougainvillea
O
n holiday recently in Sardinia, our hardnosed, tough engineer friend was struck by the beauty of the oleander and bougainvillea in full flower! His awakening to the joys of plants happened to an extent sufficient for his phone to pick up this interest and to start to automatically recommend gardening websites and apps! Of course, the question was ‘can I have these in my garden?’ and the answer is still ‘no’, despite climate change. Both oleander and bougainvillea can be grown outside from the late spring into the autumn but then they will need frost protection. Essentially, I would describe them as conservatory plants but it is 72 | Sherborne Times | August 2022
Kerrick/iStock
amazing how long such plants can be left outside now compared to, say, 20 years ago. A good example of this is the large lemon trees that live in our restaurant garden. Through pressures of space caused by Covid, in the Butterfly House, which is their winter home, they have been left outside until the week before Christmas for the last two years with no adverse effects. In fact, they have benefitted from much lower pest levels as a result but leaving them out all winter would not be possible without their health being badly affected. There were though, many plants in the Sardinian garden where we were staying that will grow happily
year-round in the UK. These included abelia which flowers for many months through the summer and autumn with white flowers when in bud. The variegated and golden-leafed varieties also look good throughout the winter months. Also in the garden were arbutus commonly known in the UK as the Strawberry Tree because of the fruit although they look more like lychees than strawberries to me. These are very useful trees for us because they are evergreen but also have white spring flowers followed by the fruit and an interesting bark. More flower in the garden came from lantana, which we use as a bedding plant whereas in warmer climes they are shrubs. The spectacular clusters of tubular yellow, red and orange flowers are loved by butterflies and there was no shortage of butterflies demonstrating this. Plants with scented foliage such as basil, myrtle and rosemary were in abundance. Basil is of course used in cooking but is also a deterrent for bothersome insects such as mosquitoes. The myrtle was used heavily for hedging and, where it was left unpruned, was in full white flower. The scented foliage is a bonus. Most of the rosemary was prostrate forms that love the warmth but are also very easy to grow in the UK. The flat, groundhugging and cascading shapes are very pleasing, and the blue flowers make for very ornamental plants, but the foliage still can be used in cooking. There were a number of shrubs in the garden that could be grown in the UK by using hardy varieties and this included gardenia which we mostly come across as a houseplant. The scent from the white flowers is exquisite and whereas the houseplant forms that we know would be unsuitable there are hardy varieties including Kleim’s Hardy which will do well in a sheltered spot and also in a pot. Also in the garden were pomegranates and whereas I wouldn’t hold out for huge crops of fruit in the UK there is a dwarf variety Punica granatum that will be hardy enough in a sheltered garden. I have to say, though, that I don’t see our ability to be able to grow plants from warmer climates as something positive. What underlines it of course is the warming climate and what it demonstrates is that as gardeners we get to see first-hand that the climate is changing and we are in a position, in our own little patch and in our own small way, to do something about it. thegardensgroup.co.uk sherbornetimes.co.uk | 73
Gardening
LIVING THE GOODDEN LIFE Nico and Chrystall Goodden
Dryad’s saddle mushroom.
A
ugust is the month of abundance in the garden. The focus shifts from tending and protecting to non-stop harvesting and processing. We see our relationship with our plants as a reciprocal one and this is the point where the tides shift, after months spent taking care of them, they take their turn to take care of us. Courgette gluts, tomatoes by the trugful and runner beans aplenty – it all seems to come at once. We like to celebrate the seasonality of ingredients and for unmatched freshness and flavour, we enjoy our fruit and veg as close to harvest as possible. You just won’t see us eating a tomato salad in December or strawberries in January. The challenge is to find creative ways to preserve our bounty, in a way that won’t end up lost forever to the deepest darkest corner of the larder. The garlic harvested in July has been curing in the cool, dry and dark of the potting shed and is ready to 74 | Sherborne Times | August 2022
Image: Nico Goodden
be braided up and hung for the winter. This year we’ve grown French purple garlic and for the first time, elephant garlic, known for its milder flavour and giant bulbs. We’ll save the biggest and best of each variety to plant out the cloves again in just a couple of months. Confit garlic has become one of our staple ingredients for this time of year. We make one large jar and use the oil in deliciously garlicky dressings and dips, drizzled over wood-fired pizzas and to create unctuous pestos for pasta. The cloves, oil and our roasted aubergines will be whizzed together to make baba ganoush. It’s our first year of success with growing corn. They were indeed ‘knee-high by July’ and we tried the technique of saving pollen from the early male flowers to pollinate the tassels of the female flowers below that that come later. Each cob is destined for the BBQ, after which it will be slathered in salted chilli butter, made
from our own dried chillies. Summer doesn’t taste much sweeter than that first bite. As the weather heats up, so do my chillies in the greenhouse. The sheer range of size, shape and flavour is impressive. Each year a new variety or two makes it to the list that we’ll grow again. The ‘Aji Lemon Drop’ is a forever favourite and its close relative, the ‘Sugar Rush Peach’ is irresistible – its perfectly peach-coloured fruits are beautiful and the taste is great too. We’ve been enjoying our new potatoes, but our main crop are still maturing in the ground. It was this time last year that they succumbed to blight which spread like wildfire to our potato plants. Surrounding beds were watered with Chrystall’s tears as she endured the grim job of cutting away the diseased vegetation and destroying it. But those tears soon turned to tears of joy. Catching it early meant that it had not yet reached the tubers themselves and we unearthed upwards of 30kg of potatoes. They stored well and we were still enjoying them into April. We’re also lucky to have enjoyed a second flush of Dryad’s Saddle mushrooms fruiting from two large stumps we brought into the garden from the surrounding woodland. They must be harvested when they’re young or they become inedibly tough but having them just steps from the door means we can keep a close eye on them. We enjoy them the same way we enjoy so many things, fried in butter, garlic and parsley and served atop a thick slice of crunchy toast! Chrystall’s cut flower patch is delivering a feast for the eyes and completing the table-scape at meal times. The need to keep on picking to prolong their flowering means that every spare vase, jar and vessel is being used for small bouquets and distributed throughout the house. Between the houseplants and jars of blooms, the inside becomes more and more like the outside and
that’s just the way we like it. It’s tempting to get wrapped up in the beauty of this time of year, to sit back in the sunshine and forget that there is work to be done if we want to be enjoying our own veg year-round. Our goal this year is to improve our winter veg game and we’re off to a good start. Chicory, spinach, chard, leeks and beetroot sown in July is now ready to be planted out. We have sown a tray of purple-stemmed broccoli but we’ll hold this back until September. We’re reluctant brassica growers as cabbage whites are a menace here but we’re hoping that by planting them out later we’ll be just outside of their egg-laying season. Will we be serving our purple-stemmed broccoli at the Christmas table? Only time will tell. Another area that we can certainly improve on is in the seed saving department. While a seed packet seems inexpensive, they quickly add up and it’s an expense we can largely avoid if we put in the effort. We’re leaving the last fruits of our top-performers to go to seed to collect and sow next year. By doing this each year, what we grow will be better adapted to our unique conditions. Our ‘Champion of England’ peas were sown from seed we saved last year and they certainly outperformed themselves! The pods are now drying on the plants and have turned a crispy golden brown, the next generation waiting in the ranks. The potting shed is fuller than ever with trays of seedlings, seed pods and herbs hanging to dry. Growing our own food means working year-round and while there is always something to do, we always find the time to enjoy the fruits of our labour and August is the best month for it. Nico: @nicholasgoodden Chrystall: @thegooddenlife creativebritishgarden.com
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RICHARD BRAMBLE Words Jo Denbury Photography Katharine Davies
A
rtist and designer Richard Bramble is feeling landlocked. It’s a hot and dusty day when we meet and I guiltily admit to having already been for a dip in the sea. Immediately his eyes light up. Richard grew up by the coast in Bournemouth and spent his childhood in, under and beside the sea. Still very much a water baby, the ocean’s pull on Richard is powerful and it rewards his excursions with a fathomless source of inspiration. >
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Today we are 20 or so miles inland at his home and studio in Silverlake, just outside Sherborne. I am surprised to discover, that considering the global appeal of Richard’s instantly recognizable work and the huge product range, this is very much (and quite literally) a cottage industry. Richard is helped with the dayto-day running of the business by his wife Sarah and graduate Ed. The studio space is divided neatly in two. At one end stand huge towers of plates, pots, mugs, bowls, platters, cheese boards and homewares. Each one displaying Richard’s iconic, brightly illustrated observations of marine and wildlife. When I ask him to estimate how many of these paintings he has produced he can’t remember and picks up a brochure to count. It’s around 80 but probably more. ‘I enjoy the design element,’ he says of the ceramics. ‘Getting the colours right. As it is mostly done in pen and ink with watercolour, using the white of the paper as a highlight, it has the same medium effect as ceramics.’ The work is then screen-printed from the originals using 12 or more colours. That’s a lot of colour when it comes to screenprinting. Usually, it would be around four. But Richard is keen to accurately represent the many colours that appear on the scale of a fish or the feather of a bird.
Once screen-printed it is then applied to the porcelain and fired into a glaze. ‘When sketching fish, I try to capture the essence of a subject using my knowledge from fishing and diving,’ he explains, surrounded by mountains of sketches and paintings from throughout his career – the chaos of a creative mind. Richard won an art scholarship to Sherborne School in 1980 and later went on to study fine art at the Slade School of Fine Art in London. He hadn’t intended to get into ceramics, but circumstances presented a unique opportunity. Richard was fresh out of Slade as the London foodie scene was in its ascendancy. The likes of Marco Pierre White and Gordon Ramsay, among others – were making a name for themselves and Richard was drawn into the electric energy of their kitchens. I suspect that in another life Richard might have been a chef. ‘I have always foraged, fished and enjoyed cooking,’ he adds. We swap notes on Sherborne’s eateries (he’s looking forward to visiting fellow forager Mat Follas’ Bramble Restaurant). Amidst the fire, frenzy and ego of 90s London restaurants, Richard found himself working on a series of sketches of the chefs at work. Then came a commission that changed his course as an artist. > sherbornetimes.co.uk | 81
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‘From time to time, chefs began to ask me to create plate designs,’ he explains. One of his first bore an aubergine, for Gordon Ramsay’s restaurant that went by that name. But another chance encounter helped Richard’s ceramics take off. At the time, Borough Market was making the slow move from a trade food market to a ‘farmer’s market’ as they are known today. ‘It had been one of the oldest wholesale markets in the country but was down to its last few wholesalers,’ says Richard. ‘It was at the time that Henrietta Green was working on the concept of the farmer’s market – a once-a-month thing when the public would come and fill up their cars with produce. I was in the kitchen of one of the chefs I was sketching when Fred Foster from Turnips came in to deliver the veg. It was him who suggested I joined a new market in Borough which was being set up for the public, so I did and began to sell my sketches and ceramics there. The camaraderie among traders and its sense of community makes Borough Market a nice place to sell the work.’ Richard explains. ‘When I travel, I always look for the local market to see the ingredients and explore the cuisine.’ Richard enjoys market life and has been part of the Borough Market scene now for over 20 years. The frenetic kitchens of 90’s London now a fond memory, Richard and his family divide their time between Dorset and the Hebrides, where they are currently renovating a croft. The plot sits in close proximity to the sea allowing Richard free access to the shoreline and Hebridean wilds. A keen kite surfer when he gets the chance, Richard also dives and loves
to fish. In fact, he has just returned from a fishing trip in the Seychelles. These activities serve as more than simple ‘sport and recreation’ however. They offer Richard abundant opportunities for research and privileged interaction with his wild subjects in their natural environment. As he grows older, Richard has become more concerned with conservation. ‘I have been lucky enough to snorkel with basking sharks in the Outer Hebrides and it is truly a life-affirming moment. These gentle giants need protection and we still do not know that much about them,’ he explains. With this in mind, Richard recently designed a mug featuring the shark, the first design in a series of ceramics that donates 50% of the profits to the Marine Conservation Society. When I ask about the future, Richard is reflective. ‘I did think of being a doctor like my father,’ he muses (which might explain the almost scientific attention to anatomy in his work). ‘My career has grown organically but the challenge is in knowing when to change direction. I need to follow my passions and work more on my conservation-inspired paintings and coastal landscapes,’ he says. This summer then will see Richard back and forth to the Outer Hebrides where work continues on the croft and the Atlantic Ocean beckons. richardbramble.com mcsuk.org Studio visits welcome, where Richard can personalise ceramics with inscriptions. 01935 812212 sherbornetimes.co.uk | 85
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86 | Sherborne Times | August 2022
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Food and Drink
CORNISH COLEY FISH
COOKED IN SALO WITH NEW POTATOES, ROCK SAMPHIRE, PARSLEY AND RED WINE Sasha Matkevich, The Green
T
his is a sustainable choice of fish that has a little image problem – while its strong and meaty flavour is not great in fish and chips, it works beautifully with red wine vinaigrette, garlic and a good Ukrainian salo (cured pork fat). Ingredients Serves 4
800g fresh coley fillet, boneless and skinned 8 long, very thin slices of salo or Italian lardo 1/2 bunches of mint 1 tsp flat leaf parsley, finely chopped 3 cloves garlic, finely chopped 50g salted butter 450g new potatoes, washed and scraped 200g rock samphire, prepped and blanched in salted water 1 large banana shallot, finely chopped 200ml red wine 200ml red wine vinegar 200ml extra virgin olive oil Dorset sea salt and black pepper for seasoning Method
1
Portion the fish into four equal pieces and wrap salo or lardo neatly around each one, securing it in place with cocktail sticks. Refrigerate for at
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Image: Clint Randall
least two hours. 2 In a large pan of slightly salted water cook potatoes for 14 minutes. Add butter, mint, 1/2 of the chopped garlic and continue to cook on a low heat for three-four minutes or until just tender. Set aside. 3 In a small saucepan combine red wine, red wine vinegar, chopped shallot and 150ml of olive oil. Bring to the boil and then reduce slowly by half. Set aside and add the chopped parsley. 4 With the remaining olive oil cook the fish in a large frying pan on a medium heat. Do not add any seasoning at this stage. Fry for 4-5 minutes on each side. 5 Remove from the frying pan to a suitable tray and put in a warm place to rest for 4 mins. Add samphire and the remaining chopped garlic to the frying pan, season to taste and cook for 3 minutes. 6 Remove potatoes from the water and slightly crush with the back of a spoon. 7 To serve, pile the potatoes in the middle of 4 warmed plates and arrange samphire around them, place the fish on top of each potato pile and generously dress with the slightly warm vinaigrette. greenrestaurant.co.uk
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Our Tamworth pigs are bred for quality and flavour. They are outdoor-reared and home-butchered to the highest welfare standards here at our farm in Sandford Orcas, just outside Sherborne. Sausages, joints, bacon and burgers available to buy online for home delivery, click-and-collect or direct from the farm every weekend. BUY LOCAL!
Lavender Cafe & Shop Open Every Thursday to Sunday 10am - 4pm
Enjoy our beautiful views, lavender field, garden and animals together with our homemade cakes, warming drinks, sausage rolls, scotch eggs and much more! 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 sherbornetimes.co.uk | 89
Food and Drink
Image: Tory McTernan 90 | Sherborne Times | August 2022
WESTCOMBE CHEDDAR AND ROSEMARY BISCUITS Paul Collins, Chef
T
his recipe is one of my favourite little snacks. Most of the time I double the recipe and keep it in the freezer. If you have a few guests round for a nice glass of rosé in the garden, you could get these out of your freezer and cook them in 10 minutes – a lovely little nibble for the summer. One of the other lovely things about this recipe is that it uses so many local ingredients including Westcombe Cheddar from just up the road from us, a cheddar with a real punch of flavour. Local yogurt is another of those Somerset ingredients and then I use the rosemary out of my garden, so if you don’t have that, just use what you do have growing! Ingredients
150g unsalted butter, diced 180g plain flour Pinch of salt Couple of twists of black pepper 125g Westcombe Cheddar cheese, grated 40g natural yogurt 2 sprigs of rosemary
Method
1 Add the flour and the butter to a food processor. 2 Whizz up with a pinch of salt and the black pepper. 3 When it looks like breadcrumbs add in the rosemary and the cheese and blend again until it starts to come together. 4 Stir in the yogurt. 5 Wrap up the dough in clingfilm in a small log about 1 inch circumference and 6 inches long. 6 Rest in the fridge until it is firm enough to cut into ½ cm thick rounds. 7 Place onto a baking tray that has been lined with a non-stick mat. Rest for a further 10 minutes. 8 Bake at 180ºc for 10-12 minutes until golden brown. 9 Once out of the oven allow to stand for 2-3 minutes on the tray then grate a little bit more cheese over the top of the biscuits. Finish with another twist of black pepper. chefpaulcollins.co.uk
Corton Denham
Open 7 days a week www.thequeensarms.com | info@thequeensarms.com | 01963 220317 Group bookings welcome sherbornetimes.co.uk | 91
Food and Drink
SAMPHIRE TART WITH BROWN BUTTER DRESSING Mat Follas, Bramble Restaurant
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e’re well into the growing season for samphire and there’s lots to be found around the beaches of Portland but please only take it for personal use. We buy ours from a specialist grower for the restaurant. Samphire can usually be found in the fish section in supermarkets and fishmongers. Its sweet, salty flavours balance well with chilli, onion and nutty butter. If you can’t find samphire, this recipe will work well with asparagus but you’ll need to add a good sprinkle of sea salt. Preparation time: 15 minutes Cooking time: 15 minutes Serves: 4
Image: Steve Painter © Ryland Peters & Small
3
4
5
Ingredients
6 shallots, thinly sliced 100g unsalted butter 200g ready rolled puff pastry 150g samphire 4 red chillies 100g cubed feta cheese Method
1 Preheat the oven to 200°C. 2 Put the shallots in a saucepan with the butter and set over a medium heat. Heat until the butter is foaming. Leave on the heat until the foaming starts to reduce, then remove immediately and 92 | Sherborne Times | August 2022
6
7
allow to cool. You should get a distinctive nutty aroma from the cooked butter. Unroll the puff pastry onto a floured baking sheet and trim with a sharp knife to 30cm x 20cm. Bake in the preheated oven for ten minutes until the pastry is just starting to turn golden and has risen. Allow to cool for a few minutes, then using a sharp knife, cut a line halfway through the pastry about 2cm in from the sides. Press the inner pastry down using a fish slice to flatten slightly. Check the samphire shoots for any woody bases and remove them. Tear the samphire into 2cm pieces and set aside. Scoop the shallots out of the butter in the saucepan. Scatter around the inner pastry section along with some of the butter. Scatter the samphire, and chillies (use as many or as few as you like) around the tart and crumble over the feta. Return the tart to the oven for 5 minutes, until the feta starts to melt and the pastry turns golden brown and crispy. Remove from the oven, drizzle a little more brown butter over the tart and serve immediately.
bramblerestaurant.com Recipe from Vegetables by Mat Follas (Ryland Peters & Small) £14.99.
D I S C O V E R | E AT | S H O P | S TAY | C E L E B R AT E
Welcome to Symondsbury Estate, set in the beautiful Dorset countryside just a stone’s throw from the Jurassic Coast. Join us for lunch. Browse our shops. Visit the gallery. Explore our fabulous walks and bike trails. Relax and unwind in our holiday accommodation. Celebrate your wedding day... Come and meet the team at Melplash Show on Thursday 25th August 2022 +44 (0)1308 424116 symondsburyestate.co.uk Symondsbury Estate, Bridport, Dorset DT6 6HG
Food and Drink
A MONTH ON THE PIG FARM James Hull, The Story Pig
M
y shorts are on – it’s 5.30am. I have come outside to write my August copy, after all, surely in July it should be nice enough for that. I pace around the garden to try and find a nice spot to sit, but it’s a chilly morning so I have settled in the tipi, looking out through the garden path, blanketed in purple catnip, to a froth of overflowing flowers beyond. The radio is on next to me, quietly enough to soothe me into another day without distracting me from writing. The news is on and Boris is clinging to power. By the time you read this, he is likely to have disappeared into exile and we will be in a frenzied jostle to find a new ‘leader’. Behind me in the paddock next to the cafe I can hear the gentle banging of the feeder as a large group of growing piglets take an early morning feed. The grass is long, way higher than the piglets, and it’s brown and seeding. Often it is hard to see the pigs as they meander through the Savannah-type landscape. There is no way I can count them at the moment. After I write this I will feed the rest of them. Having finally reached our herd total of 500 pigs, that’s quite enough! Quite incredibly, apart from a few boars that we have to buy in so that we don’t inbreed, all our pigs have been bred from our original pair. Animal selection is important as with any breeding, although our approach is far less scientific than the large commercial pig farms. Of course, our main criteria is shape and speed of growth, but also big considerations for us are temperament and ease of loading! As I carry out nearly all the pig work on my own, pigs that work with me are a big help. We have sows farrowing every day at the moment, one a day, in a paddock just over the brow of the hill. The sows make their nests and gently pop their piglets out, one by one. I have been checking them through the night quite often as we have a pesky fox trying to steal 94 | Sherborne Times | August 2022
the piglets under the cover of darkness. Cunning as a fox they say, very true – there is no way I would sneak into a pig ark and try and steal a piglet away from a sow. We have one paddock that is empty of pigs at the moment and with the rains that we have had lately suddenly the ground is covered in field mushrooms. Mushrooms like pig poo it seems and it shows the soil is healthy. I haven’t seen mushrooms growing like this since I was a child when I can remember picking baskets of them with my mother. We have decided to change sheep breed. Ours, although beautiful to look at, really are hard to manage (catch!). I dread having to do anything with them as it’s never easy. So we are going to find a new breed of lawnmowers, the criteria, being easy to handle, at the top of the list. Down at the cafe we have put up our second tipi to provide extra seating for if and when the weather turns We have just built a most beautiful woven hazel fence to help protect us from the breeze and enclose our seating area. If anyone is looking for that type of fence, come and have a look at ours and we can put you in touch with Paul who built it for us. Our list of jobs never seems to go down. I am as ever struggling to keep up with the garden, although thank goodness for Julia who comes every week and helps us. She also nearly always brings the sunshine with her. She is great at telling me that the garden looks good when I think it looks messy. That’s the thing with gardening, it’s very rarely as we want it – maybe about 2 weeks at the beginning of June it looked perfect to me. As I write Charlotte has just glided past with freshly homemade quiches for the cafe – it never stops, and on that note, I must go and feed pigs and count the new piglets. thestorypig.co.uk
PRETTY IN PINK David Copp
Matteo Nicolas/Shutterstock
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ot so long ago rosé wines were dismissed as lighthearted summer alternatives to more serious white and red wines produced In France, Italy, Spain and Portugal. However, in recent years growers have paid greater attention to providing wine drinkers with real alternatives for their summer drinking. The recent remarks of the head of the Frescobaldi company, one of Italy’s leading winemakers, reveal something of the fresh approach to the production of more distinctive and stylish rosé wines to the extent that Italy has vaulted the list of other leading exporters to become the third-largest European exporter of rosé wines. Really good pink wines are being made all over Europe and they are beginning to win more serious consumer attention than ever before. Growers have found that Grenache Noir and Cinsault combine well to make wines of great character. They have also found that the drier Pays d’Oc climate encourages the full ripeness of more traditional varieties such as Pinot Noir. I retain my fondness for the best rosé wines of
Provence and the Loire but I heartily recommend readers to make their own investigation – trying wines from different regions at different price points to determine what best suits their palette and their pocket. Most of the pink wines I have tasted recently are refreshing, light aperitif-style wines that pair well with antipasti, light summer salads and grilled fish. They are generally fruit-forward wines with crisp minerality which are ideal for lunch or early evening refreshment. Certain supermarket wine buyers have an affinity with this style of wine. Morrisons have a particularly good record for offering good value for money white and rosé wines. Tesco, ever competitive, also have some attractive bargains. Sainsbury and Waitrose are always reliable. Good wine merchants know their customers and tend to look for smaller, more particular growers. Despite the wider range on offer, Provence rosé remains a firm favourite, but I have recently been tempted to cast my net wider and I can assure you that there are a lot of wines that will be fun to try for yourself over the next few weeks of what I hope will be a warm and pleasant summer. sherbornetimes.co.uk | 95
elizabethwatsonillustration.com
Independent veterinary services for livestock in Dorset, Somerset and Wiltshire Collection points for livestock medicines and supplies at Sherborne, Sturminster Newton, Blandford and Shaftesbury Please call the office on 01258 472314
www.friarsmoorvets.co.uk 96 | Sherborne Times | August 2022
KINGSTON MAURWARD EQUESTRIAN WORKING LIVERY
Pa c k a g e s s t a r t f ro m £ 4 0 f o r 7 d a y s ’ f u l l c a re o f y o u r h o r s e T o fi n d o u t m o r e p l e a s e c a l l 0 1 3 0 5 2 1 5 0 3 8 Dorchester | Dorset | DT2 8PY
Independent family run business offering a very personal, caring pet cremation service to bereaved pet owners. • Collection Service • Farewell Room • Out of Hours Service provided Sherborne Surgery Swan House Lower Acreman Street 01935 816228
Yeovil Surgery 142 Preston Road 01935 474415
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Located in a rural countryside setting on the Somerset Dorset border
Contact us on: 07900 654 440 www.companionsatpeace.co.uk sherbornetimes.co.uk | 97
Animal Care
HERE COMES TROUBLE Mark Newton-Clarke MAVetMB PhD MRCVS, Newton Clarke Veterinary Surgeons
D
ogs, as we know, come in all shapes and sizes. Not so much cats, which is just as well because if there was a similar size variation in our domestic felines as in pet dogs, we could have 80kg cats roaming around. Pure breeds apart, our domestic pussy cats are an outbred population which has mixed up genes for generations. As a result, inherited disorders are rare in the moggy cat and with modern nutrition and veterinary care, our cats’ longevity is clearly significantly increasing. The same cannot be said of our pure-breeds, neither dogs nor cats. In fact, certainly for the short-nosed (brachycephalic) and short-legged (chrondrodysplastic), the anatomical challenges facing these pugs, Persians and dachshunds are getting worse, not better. The Kennel Club, who set breed standards for dogs in the UK, are making some efforts to write healthier breed 98 | Sherborne Times | August 2022
descriptions in the hope that these improvements will filter down the generations and eventually result in healthier dogs. It’s going to be a long process and their task is made much more difficult with the unregulated and uncontrolled breeding that has gone on in the past couple of years, driven by record-high puppy prices. So what is it about pugs and Persians that causes so many problems? It centres on the squashing of tongue, larynx, nasal chambers and eyes into too small a skull. The effect on breathing is obvious and this gets markedly worse with age and obesity, the former inevitable but the latter not so. Dogs and cats should not make a noise when they breathe, even ones with short noses! A scoring system has been developed by vets at Cambridge University for the disability suffered by brachycephalic dogs, giving grades from 1 (least severe) to 4 (in need of surgery to restore some quality of life). By only breeding
e-Kis/Shutterstock
from dogs with grades 1 and 2, it is hoped the direction of travel for pugs and others is reversed and new-style no-snorting future generations result, which is in fact the old style. In the meantime, as a profession, we need to raise awareness of the disability some shortnosed dogs and cats suffer and offer ways of helping. Sometimes just widening the nose can make a difference, as it can with human snorers who use those nose-spreading devices (they really can work well!). If the respiratory tract is one Achilles’ heel, the pug eye is another – too big to fit into its socket and exposed to the point of not even being covered by eyelids during a blink. This can be a massive problem as the tear film is not renewed efficiently in the centre of the eye, causing the cornea to dry out. The resulting ulcer can develop over a few hours and many go into melt-down, literally. The ‘melting ulcer’ is not
unique to pugs but it really is an eye-threatening issue for any animal, especially those with a short nose. The process of ‘melting’ is one of self-destruction, caused by enzymes that can destroy and perforate the cornea. Early and intensive medical treatment can prevent surgery but many eyes are lost or permanently impaired as a result. Next time your pug is asleep (hopefully not snoring) have a close look at their eyelids and if you suspect even the slightest gap between them, it’s definitely time for eye lubricant. Even if you don’t see a gap, it will never do any harm to lubricate anyway. We can advise you on the best ones to use as waxier preparations are better at night and clear gels by day. Just like a minor nose-job can be helpful for breathing, a little eye-lid shaping can work wonders for bulging eyes that refuse to close properly. All it involves is making the gap between the eyelids (the palpebral fissure) smaller so reducing the exposure of the cornea. Almost every pug could benefit from this procedure but it almost never happens until an ulcer has developed and by that time, it’s often too late. I know I’ve focused on one very small item, the pug head, but it contains enough medical and surgical conditions to fill a textbook. I should not overlook anatomical issues in other breeds, some of which can be fixed with surgery and some that perhaps, should not be. A defect that affects an animal’s quality of life or that causes a high risk of significant harm is arguably one that should be pro-actively addressed for the individual and be the target of genetic improvement in the long term. Other ‘defects’ are questionably due to fashion or tradition, such as long tails in working dogs of certain breeds. The tail docking debate continues within the veterinary profession as it does among breeders and owners and will probably never be resolved to everyone’s satisfaction. Is there a real difference in doing corrective eyelid surgery on a pug to prevent an ulcer compared to shortening a working dog’s tail to prevent trauma on a shoot? Well, as a practice, we think there is, as retrievers with long feathered tails are never docked and almost never suffer tail injuries as a result of retrieving! The consensus is now in favour of only shortening tails that have suffered trauma, to help prevent recurrence. Other forms of cosmetic surgery, such as ear-cropping, are illegal in the UK and rightfully so. Surgery is a powerful tool and must be used selectively, wisely… and very skilfully. newtonclarkevet.com sherbornetimes.co.uk | 99
Animal Care
DAY IN THE LIFE OF A VET A Trip to Groundswell Regenerative Agricultural Show and Conference John Walsh, Friars Moor Vets
Y
ou may have read last year, that on the dairy farm at home we have started to implement regenerative agricultural techniques enabling us to grow the crops we feed to our herd in a more sustainable way. We have been growing cover crops to protect and enhance the soil over the winter months and trying new ways to grow maize with minimal soil disturbance. The trials are continuing, and we still have a lot to learn. As a result, I am always trying to find sources of information and to meet like-minded people who are further down the road with these methods. If you just stayed on the farm and didn’t venture out to see other farmers, you would literally only have forty harvests to learn all you need to learn in your working life. By accessing information and attending conferences you can learn from thousands of people’s mistakes, successes and experiences to put these into practice on your farm. In fact, someone once told me, ‘I have learnt so much from my mistakes that I am planning on making a few more!’ Groundswell Agricultural Show is held on a mixed farm in Hertfordshire, growing crops and keeping beef animals. The farm’s owners, The Cherry family, converted their farm to a ‘No Till’ system in 2010 and have been running the show for the past seven years to help bring like-minded people together to learn about regenerative 100 | Sherborne Times | August 2022
farming techniques. The show runs over two days and attracts people from all over the UK and the world. There were so many interesting talks this year, it was impossible to make them all. I learnt about dung beetles from Claire Whittle, a vet who used to work at Friars Moor but since has moved to work in Cheshire. Dung beetles provide useful services to farmers by helping to recycle the dung, taking nutrients into the soil and reducing the parasite burden on the pasture. I also learnt about a new fertiliser that has been made from digestate potato peelings from a crisp factory and uses 90% less CO2 production. With the crisis in Ukraine, the price of fertiliser on farms has tripled but adopting this new method would mean we could produce much more here in the UK and in a significantly more sustainable and cost-effective way. The same product was also featured on the BBC’s Country File. The show is getting busier every year and the regenerative farming movement is growing. If you would like to know more about regenerative farming there is a lot of information available online and in print. One such book, Gabe Brown’s Dirt to Soil, is a must-read in my opinion. friarsmoorvets.co.uk
DOG WALKING & PET SITTING SERVICES
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New class timetable coming this September. osc_info@sherborne.com
www.oxleysc.com
102 | Sherborne Times | August 2022
TRANSFORMATION
Respecting the past, embracing the future In the 231 years since we were established, The Abbey Pharmacy has seen many changes in our society. We continue to evolve and are now, more than ever, committed to meeting the changing needs of our customers. Our vision for the transformation of The Abbey Pharmacy invests not only in the health of our community but also our high street – we need your support in making this a reality. To find out more about our exciting plans and to register your support, please visit www.theabbeypharmacytransformation.com
Established 1790
Body & Mind
HOTTING UP
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Mike Hewitson MPharm FFRPS FRSPH IP MRPharmS, Pharmicist, The Abbey Pharmacy
ow, the sun is out and it is HOT. Firstly let me say, please be safe: check on elderly neighbours or relatives. Please drink plenty and stay as cool as possible. By the time you read this, you will probably be laughing as the school holidays will have started and we will most likely be looking for the umbrellas and electric blankets. But for now, please stay hydrated and cool. Something which is starting to look very cool is the new Abbey Pharmacy which is approaching the final stretch before we are back up and running fully. Thanks to everyone who has been understanding while we had to temporarily decant ourselves from our existing building into number 85 for a few weeks while we had flooring and fit-out work completed. Last weekend we moved back into our forever home, which was no mean feat in its own right. Our dispensary carries hundreds of different lines of tablets, inhalers, creams and potions, each of which required careful packing and moving into our brand new enlarged dispensary. I have described this process as ‘like moving house on steroids’, except we are literally moving the steroids. We have to remain trading at all times in order to comply with our NHS contract, which has meant that the entire team had to come in on Saturday and Sunday to move everything. We just about managed this in the time available, but it was a close-run thing. Now we are back we can see how the new premises is going to transform the way that we work, and most importantly what we can do to support patients and the public. Number 83 Cheap Street (our original building) will house our flagship consultation room, and our healthcare activities including our dispensaries, 104 | Sherborne Times | August 2022
over-the-counter medicines and medical retail. We’ve restored some of the original period features including the original cornicing which can now be seen throughout. We’re really pleased with the look of the new building as it is modern, but also pays a big debt to the look of Victorian pharmacies with a checkerboard porcelain tiled floor, and our pharmacy counter is now framed by the beautiful original archways. We’ve always tried to use quality materials because we want this project to last, and we want everyone who comes into contact with it to get a strong sense of the care and attention to detail we have employed throughout. Patients and customers that I have come into contact with seem very happy with the finished product, but the exciting bits are still to come… Work has now transferred to number 85 Cheap Street, a.k.a. the old Phase 8 shop. We are waiting for our brand new Clarins installation which should be with us in early August. But the premises will otherwise be open to the public shortly. We are looking at adding new ranges and would be happy to hear from local residents about any particular brands which they would like us to stock. I can’t promise that we will be able to accommodate these requests as many fragrance and cosmetics houses are extremely fussy about where and who can stock their products, in some cases preferring an outdated department store distribution model. The public have largely moved away from the big department stores, preferring more personal service and smaller independent retailers as well as online retailers. Here in Sherborne, we will be well placed to help customers with a wide range of health and beauty needs.
The other final pieces of the physical jigsaw are finishing off our new consultation rooms which will be something very special, showcasing technology which is not used in any other pharmacy in the country. We know this is going to add a serious amount of wow factor, but to be honest with you the big thing is what it allows us to do. We’re hoping to be able to utilise some or all of our consultation rooms for COVID vaccinations in the autumn, which will help to take some of the pressure off our hard-pressed GP practices. We’ve already delivered more than 17,000 vaccinations from our other pharmacy in Beaminster since October last year, and are eager to help the local community to access the vaccine from The Abbey Pharmacy. We are also hoping to be able to work with a range of other health providers such as physios, mental health professionals, nutritionists, etc, to create a community health hub that will give people access to a range of treatments. If you are a healthcare professional or complementary therapist and are interested in using our rooms, please feel free to get in touch with me: michael.hewitson1@nhs.net and we can talk about what we may be able to offer each other. The very last thing that we are waiting on will then be our new robot which will help us to produce tailored medication packs for patients. These are sometimes called blister packs or compliance aids, Nomad boxes, Dosette boxes or Monitored Dosage Systems. The robot is due for installation in September/October and will be a really exciting addition, making us more efficient and safer at the same time. We would like local schools to help us to come up with a name for our robot and will be launching a competition in the autumn once it has arrived to get the whole community involved. We’ve had a few new arrivals with new members of staff joining us in July and August who will I’m sure become really important members of our team, and hopefully the wider community. I know you will make Kim and Mark feel very welcome. We’ve also got everything crossed for our trainee pharmacist Olivia who sat her very final exam to become a pharmacist in June. With any luck you’ll be seeing her as a brand new pharmacist in August, working alongside our brilliant pharmacist Adam to help look after you. theabbeypharmacy.com
NESS LEE
MINDFULNESS COACH & COUNSELLOR
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The Communifit Sprint Triathlon 400m swim • 20km cycle • 5km run
Sunday 14th August @communifit
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YogaSherborne Sherborne, Milborne Port and Trent • Hath Yoga outside when possible • Relaxation and guided meditation Contact Dawn for more details 07817 624081 @yogasherborne hello@yogasherborne.co.uk Yoga Alliance qualified teacher sherbornetimes.co.uk | 105
Body and Mind
ECOTHERAPY Lucy Lewis, Assistant Psychologist and Dorset Mind Ambassador
W
ith the long, bright days of summer, now is the perfect time to enjoy the many benefits of being outdoors. Spending time in nature can provide a whole host of benefits to both your physical and mental health. Benefits include reduced stress and anger, boosted confidence and self-esteem, increased relaxation, and improved fitness. Additionally, a study by the Wildlife Trust found that 95% of their participants with mild mental health difficulties experienced improved wellbeing after just six weeks of volunteering outside. Time outside provides ample opportunity to improve your physical health, connect with friends and give back to nature. Dorset Mind also offers opportunities to improve your wellbeing or volunteer in nature. Here are some ideas and suggestions for getting back to nature: Work with your interests
Don’t force yourself to do something you don’t enjoy. Take some time to try different activities and see what works for you. Spend time with others
Spending time with others will make time outdoors fly by. Instead of meeting in a coffee shop, why not try a walk and talk with takeaway coffees? Hiking, picnics, and outdoor games are great activities to share with loved ones. Plan ahead
Research local beauty spots and check out the weather forecasts beforehand for the best results. Choose a time of day to go for a walk when you usually feel most energised. 106 | Sherborne Times | August 2022
Eco in Mind
Dorset Mind delivers an ecotherapy group to those with mild to moderate mental health and wellbeing challenges. These sessions run all year and involve a range of outside activities, including planting fruit and vegetables, planning outdoor spaces, upcycling, and creating wildlife habitats. If you are interested in taking part, please email ecoinmind@dorsetmind.uk. Try volunteering
The Five Ways to Wellbeing is an evidence-based approach that anyone can use to improve their mental health. By volunteering in nature, you can experience all five Ways to Wellbeing in one go: by getting active, learning new skills, giving back to nature,
Gajus/Shutterstock
connecting with other volunteers, and taking notice of nature’s beauty. Keep checking our volunteer vacancies at dorsetmind.uk/get-involved/volunteer-for-us/ for new opportunities to get involved with Eco in Mind or other roles. Experiment with a range of activities
Whilst walking or jogging in the park is enjoyable for many, don’t forget to try other activities in nature. You could watch the stars, draw, paint, eat meals, walk a friend’s dog, or listen to a mindfulness podcast whilst soaking up the benefits of nature. Be kind to yourself
If you are struggling with your mental health, it can
sometimes be difficult to motivate yourself. Take small steps and work towards your wellbeing goals. Dorset Mind offers 1-2-1 and group support that can help with your wellbeing. Our support helps reduce the stigma around mental health by normalising conversation about it. Find out more online at dorsetmind.uk/help-and-support dorsetmind.uk If you are struggling to cope with your mental health in general, please talk to your GP. If you’re in a crisis, treat it as an emergency. Call 999 immediately or The Samaritans, FREE on 116 123. sherbornetimes.co.uk | 107
Body and Mind
LEVELLING THE PLAYING FIELD Jayne Dart, Director of Sport, Adventure & Leadership, Sherborne Girls and Samantha Welch, Oxley Sports Centre Manager
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nyone nudging their car over the speed bumps on Sherborne’s Bradford Road might have the opportunity to observe the regularity with which the sliding doors of Oxley Sports Centre open and close to a stream of visitors of all ages. From pupils letting off steam in the fitness suite to members of staff scuttling over the road for a lunchtime boxercise or spin class; from senior Sherborne residents trying low-impact aqua aerobics to fledgling swimmers and budding climbers, there is something at Oxley for everyone. As the ‘home of Sherborne Girls sport’, it is not surprising that Oxley has an active female membership. Even taking that into account, however, the strong numbers and broad age range of its female members bely a more depressing national picture. Since Oxley first opened in 2007, there has been a growing body of research showing that many more men than women take part in sport and physical activity in almost every age group. Nearly 40% of women aged over 16 are not active 108 | Sherborne Times | August 2022
enough to derive the full benefits of sport and physical activity. Even more shocking, a staggering 64% of girls will have quit sport by the time they finish puberty. What these disappointing statistics do not show, however, is the ambition among many women to do more physical activity. In a survey by Sport England and Savanta ComRes last year, 57% of women stated that they wanted to engage in more physical activity, compared to 44% of men, a finding which translates into a huge opportunity for sports centres like Oxley to respond to this demand by catering better for this audience. As an all-girls full boarding school with a state-ofthe-art sports centre and 25m six-lane pool located in the heart of a thriving town, we are well equipped to make the most of this opportunity and transform women and girls’ experience of sport – not only in our school but also in our community and beyond. We are proud of the pioneering contribution we have already
made to the national effort to identify and tackle the barriers to sustained female engagement in sport and physical activity. Now, we want to leverage this success to go even further. In September 2021, we teamed up with The Well HQ, experts in the world of female sport, to launch the ‘Sport in Her Shoes’ programme. Currently being rolled out across the country, the programme aims to educate all those involved in youth sport in the specific needs of girls and the reasons why so many stop participating in sport and physical activity when they hit puberty. It might mean explaining the impact of the menstrual cycle on athletes, changing the fabric and colour of sportswear, including ‘caught-short’ sanitary supplies in team first aid kits for away fixtures or changing training approaches to reflect the finding that girls need to feel they ‘belong to a team to perform’, unlike most boys who ‘need to perform
before they start to feel they belong’. This programme is working. At Sherborne Girls, over 90% of our current Upper Sixth are actively engaged in organised physical activity on a regular basis and 66% of girls in their final year at Sherborne Girls have represented the School in one of our competitive sports teams – in stark contrast to the national trend. Although the focus of ‘Sport in Her Shoes’ is teenage girls, we know that the reasons why so many disengage with sport and exercise at puberty persist into adulthood and older age. We have also learned that simple changes made after applying a female lens to every decision in sport generate huge rewards. Together with Oxley sports centre, we have an exciting opportunity to build on these insights to develop a sport and fitness space in Sherborne that is uniquely sensitive to the needs of women of all ages. The changes we have made resulting from the application of a ‘female lens’ at Oxley are already reflected in our membership and staff numbers – 70% and 60% respectively are female. As well as focusing on helping girls to develop a lifetime habit of regular physical activity and to acquire confidence in the use of fitness equipment, we also plan to tailor more of what we do to encourage other age groups. For example, in September we plan to begin pre- and post-natal fitness classes and female-led strength and conditioning classes for women over fifty, an age group which is all too often neglected in fitness provision. We know that many women enjoy the social aspect of exercise too and so our friendly staff go out of their way to be welcoming, sociable and interested in our members. Consequently, Oxley members benefit from a feeling that they belong every time they walk through our doors. We have introduced physical activities and classes with a uniquely social emphasis such as ‘Walking Netball’ and ‘Loose Women’ (a predominantly swimming, aquafit, chatting and cake-eating group). We believe that the social appeal of creative new initiatives like these encourage more women to participate in some form of activity and, importantly, keep going with it. We are looking forward to finding many more ways, either through our facilities or through new classes and activities, to support women and girls with sport and fitness provision that caters for them by design. oxleysc.com sherborne.com sherbornetimes.co.uk | 109
Body and Mind
HEALTH IS WEALTH Image: Stuart Brill
Craig Hardaker BSc (Hons), Communifit
W
e invest in many areas of our lives, but do we invest enough in our health? After all, our health is possibly the most precious thing we have and a sufficient amount of time, effort and money should be invested in maintaining it. Here are some quick and easy daily suggestions that will help your overall health:
each day. That may seem a lot and indeed drinking so much for some can be quite difficult to do. However, different people need different amounts – you could in fact need more! The amount needed also increases with strenuous activity. Staying hydrated can boost both mood and physical/mental performance. Keep a glass of water by your side each and every day
Walk
Stretch
You don’t need to visit the gym or run a marathon to stay healthy. Short walks are a great way to positively impact on your cardiovascular system, whilst helping to improve your mental health. If you find yourself sedentary at a desk for long periods, a short walk can help to clear your mind whilst enhancing your performance on return. Take time out and walk!
Morning stretches are really effective in wakening the body and preparing for the day ahead. They will relieve muscle stiffness whilst increasing your range of motion. Too many of us wake up with stiff and achy muscles as we lie mainly in a sedentary body position for approximately 8 hours. Stretching and getting the body moving will help you wake up, clear your head and help start the day right
Breakfast
Make sure you eat breakfast, too many of us skip it. Kick-start your metabolism by eating a healthy breakfast, one that will set you up nicely for the rest of the day. Try eating a cereal with at least 10 grams of fibre and top it off with Greek yoghurt and raspberries. Greek yoghurt can include up to three times more protein than normal yoghurt, while raspberries are packed with tummy-filling fibre. This will make you less likely to visit the snack cupboard before lunch time! Hydrate
You will know from June’s article that we are supposed to drink approximately two litres (6-8 glasses) of water 110 | Sherborne Times | August 2022
Exercise
Try and attend at least one exercise class each week. Most classes will target all key areas of the body, so you know some muscle groups won’t get missed out during your weekly exercise routine. It is also a great way to meet like-minded individuals. You will make friends, train harder and ultimately have more fun – making exercise more sustainable. Most of the time, small changes make big differences. The five pointers above are very realistic for most of us. Invest more time in your health and you’ll soon reap the rewards. communifit.co.uk
PROUD TO SUPPORT SHERBORNE TOWN FC THIS SEASON
FOOTBALL IS ALL ABOUT FAMILY... AND SO ARE WE • INDEPENDENT, FAMILY-RUN HEARING CARE • Experienced, RHAD qualified audiologists • Professional hearing tests and ear care advice • The very latest in hearing aid technology • Choose from a range of leading manufacturers • Accessories to suit your lifestyle and budget • Guaranteed aftercare for the life of your aids • Trial your aids at home before you commit
t: 01935 815647
SHERBORNE FAMILY BUSINESS OF THE YEAR 2022 HEARING AIDS + ACCESSORIES | HEARING TESTS | EAR WAX REMOVAL | HCPC REGISTERED
Girlings Complete Hearing | 4 Swan Yard | Sherborne DT9 3AX
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The West Country is Stags Country Our highly successful Yeovil office conduct the sale of all town, village and country property and is ideally positioned on the Dorset/Somerset border. If you are considering selling your property, start your journey today and contact a member of our team. 01935 475000 | yeovil@stags.co.uk
CORNWALL | DEVON | SOMERSET | DORSET | LONDON
The simpler way to move house Stressed about a house move?
Competitively Priced, High Quality Carpets, Vinyls, Woods & Rugs SHERBORNE SHOWROOM NOW OPEN Unit 12, Old Yarn Mills, Westbury, Sherborne, DT9 3RQ A family run business established in 1998, we promise a highly professional level of service Tel: 07733 101064 or 01935 817885 www.lsflooring.co.uk
Wayne Timmins Painter and Decorator • • • • •
Interior & Exterior Fully Qualified 20 Years Experience Wallpapering & Lining Residential & Commercial
01935 872007 / 07715 867145 waynesbusiness@aol.com 112 | Sherborne Times | August 2022
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
At Bill Butters Windows Ltd we offer total window, door and conservatory solutions. Based in Sherborne we design, manufacture, supply and install high quality aluminium and uPVC products using market leading suppliers to service both the retail and commercial sectors.
For more information visit our website or come down to the showroom. Unit 1a > South Western Business Pk > Sherborne > Dorset > DT9 3PS T: 01935 816 168 > sales@billbutterswindows.co.uk > www.billbutterswindows.co.uk
Home
IF A JOB’S WORTH DOING… Annabelle Hunt, Colour Consultant, Bridport Timber and Flooring
Image courtesy of From the Anvil
R
edecorating is often at the bottom of our ‘to do’ list at this time of year, somewhere below keeping children entertained, holidays and days out. Although we may not have time to get out the brushes and dust sheets, it is a great time to start mulling over ideas. I once worked for an Iranian gentleman who would often say, ‘I cannot afford to buy the cheapest.’ He was a charismatic salesman and obviously this was a sales ploy, but there is wisdom in it. I would expand on it by saying ‘do it once and do it well’. If something is well planned, well made, and is something you absolutely love, it will be far more enduring than something which is simply an ‘of the moment’ trend. 114 | Sherborne Times | August 2022
If you are decorating on a tight budget, it is a good idea to keep in mind a useful tip to prevent your project running away from you – it is far better to allocate the greater part of your budget to areas that you use daily, such as the kitchen, rather than a little-used spare room. Or in other words, save where you won’t notice and spend where you will. In nearly every home certain things might feel like an afterthought left over from a previous owner or property developer, basic items which can look cheap or stand out for the wrong reasons. They may seem like small details, but these touch-points, such as door handles, drawer pulls, and light switches are a necessity and something that you will use every day.
Farrow & Ball Blue Ground No. 210 Estate Eggshell
A tired, dull kitchen can be completely transformed with a coat of paint and a new set of good quality ironmongery in a beautiful finish, and your daily routine will be all the more pleasurable for it. If you are just after one or two door handles, vintage bits and pieces can be found in local markets and online, or you could go and speak to your local blacksmith. But if you’re looking for a full set of matching doorknobs and drawer pulls, whether your style is traditional farmhouse, rustic, vintage, eclectic or cool and contemporary, From The Anvil offer an amazing array of different styles and finishes. For a traditional look, try painting cabinets in a classic navy or deep green like Farrow & Ball’s Hague Blue or Studio Green, finishing with aged brass or bronze ironmongery. Or for a more modern country style use natural materials and bright, vibrant colours. Try F&B’s vibrant Stone Blue complemented by beeswax or pewter hardware.
The warm glow of polished bronze or hammered copper looks super glamorous with cool, contemporary monochrome schemes or jewel-bright blues and vivid greens like Stiffkey Blue and Verdigris Green from F&B. For a more laid-back rustic style, try light, neutral tones of F&B’s timeless School House White and Shaded White paired with pewter ironmongery. For the greatest impact, I would always start with paint. Generally, a room has more wall than anything else, so paint is a quick and relatively inexpensive way to update any space. It is also brilliant for making smaller changes without the need to redecorate an entire room. Giving a flea market find, or a piece of furniture you’ve had for a long time, or indeed your entire kitchen a new lease of life with a coat of delicious colour and a new set of knobs is not only an affordable and sustainable way to update your home, but it is also immensely satisfying. bridporttimber.co.uk sherbornetimes.co.uk | 115
Affordable interior fabrics thefabricbarn.co.uk
01935 851025
Coming Soon Lettings & Property Management
Independent Letting Agent representing town and country property throughout Somerset and Dorset
1 Horsecastles, Sherborne, Dorset DT9 3FB T: 01935 816209 E: info@stockwoodlettings.co.uk
www.stockwoodlettings.co.uk
116 | Sherborne Times | August 2022
Abbotsbury
Substantial barn conversion offering spacious accommodation, located within a short walk of the coast. Permission of occupancy only as a second home but can be let in the longer term.
Beaminster
Exceedingly well presented town house, away from the main road, recently refurbished to offer two reception rooms, modern kitchen, small rear courtyard, four bedrooms and two bathrooms.
Sherborne
Town centre flat, close to Abbey, two bedrooms, modern bathroom
Shaftesbury
Second floor apartment, presented in very good order, two double bedrooms, modern kitchen / living
Sherborne
Exceptional maisonette, modern kitchen, large bright sitting room, two double bedrooms, study (bedroom 3), two bathrooms, roof terrace, allocated parking
Nr Gillingham
Lovely barn conversion presented to an excellent standard, kitchen with bifold doors opening to terrace, large sitting room, three bedrooms, bathroom with shower and separate bath, paved terrace, parking for two cars
Commercial Development Management Sales
IN V FO ES R TM SA E LE NT PO T UN O L DB ET UR Y
SP FO AR R S K F AL O E RD SH T ER O L BO ET RN E
SH T ER O L BO ET RN E
SP FO AR R S K F AL O E RD
Chesters Harcourt have been managing commercial property in Sherborne for well over 30 years. If you have an interest in commercial property or land do give us a call or visit our website.
01935 415 454 info@chestersharcourt.com www.chestersharcourt.com
Legal
Laura Somoza
Simon Walker
Rebecca Silcock
AN AMICABLE END Simon Walker, Mogers Drewett, Family Team
Elizabeth Dowler
T
he introduction of the no-fault divorce earlier this year meant that separating couples no longer had to blame each other to instigate divorce proceedings. While this change has seen one of the biggest changes in family law for over 50 years the government has for many years encouraged advanced dispute resolution (ADR) as an alternative to court in respect of divorce or sorting out arrangements for children. If couples are not able to justify their position for not considering ADR prior to making an application to the court the application might be rejected. The question, therefore, has to be ‘what sort of ADR suits me?’. A common ADR process includes mediation but it’s important to understand that a mediator is not able to advise you during the meeting. If you and your partner get stuck on an issue then the mediator will have to refer you back to your solicitor, but that is only if you have one. When you reach an agreement via mediation you will then need someone to help you draft the agreement that will be filed with the court. 118 | Sherborne Times | August 2022
Victoria Cobham
Our team of experts can help both prior to, and following mediation, we can recommend a mediator, ensure you understand the process and importantly what an appropriate agreement would look like. If mediation is not for you, then you could consider collaborative law. Collaborative law is a form of ADR for couples who need legal representation but are happy to sign an agreement in advance to agree not to take matters to court. This way of reaching agreement has been available for about 10 years and requires both parties to have legal representation and enter into a series of four-way meetings. Agreements are usually reached in two to three sessions, and usually parties leave the relationship with a sense of positivity rather than regret. Given the support that you receive and the speed in which a resolution can be achieved this route to separation via ADR is becoming more popular year on year. mogersdrewett.com
WE UNDERSTAND THAT LIFE ISN’T ALWAYS PLAIN SAILING. If you find yourself in uncharted waters, our family team are here to guide you through.
ON YOUR SIDE, AT YOUR SIDE FOR: Starting a relationship
• Divorce
Children
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• Domestic Abuse Support
• Child Abduction
• Financial Resolution
• Surrogacy Legal Planning
• Complex Financial Settlement Including Business & Pension
• Adoption Legal Planning
Ending a relationship • Alternative Dispute Resolution • Mediation
Our family experts are here to help – get in touch today.
mogersdrewett.com | 0800 533 5349 | enquiries@mogersdrewett.com
Finance
BE PREPARED
Andrew Fort B.A. (Econ.) CFPcm Chartered MCSI APFS, Certified and Chartered Financial Planner, Fort Financial Planning
A
real financial planner helps a person to identify the life that they wish to lead at some point in the future, typically during retirement. Part of this entails building a picture of this future life and then analysing which pieces of the jigsaw puzzle are relevant to that future. Analysis of existing assets is undertaken to see whether these assets are the best available to meet future goals; if they are not, they need to be changed. In a similar manner, a thorough catastrophe analysis has to be undertaken. This might include a thorough cash flow analysis of the situation if one of a couple was to die prematurely – to make sure that they have sufficient assets, such as life assurance, to ensure that they can live without undue worry and financial concern. A real financial planner will be able to calculate how much life assurance is needed, a beneficial process as nobody wants more life assurance cover than is actually required. As part of this analysis, a review of existing wills should be undertaken. Surprisingly, a significant portion of the population has never taken out a will. Many more have never reviewed their will. There are increasing numbers of second marriages, arising as a result of being widowed or divorced. Many people choose not to marry again. Many people assume that their new partner will inherit many of their assets. Many people assume that their children would automatically inherit. Without a will these assumptions will frequently be very costly mistakes. Put very simply, a will ensures that the right people inherit the right assets at the right time. Do not assume anything; make sure you have an up-to-date will. Many people also mistakenly assume that if their partner is incapacitated for any reason that they will have the right to manage their assets. This is not the case unless a power of attorney has been set up. Even a married couple needs a power of attorney for both property and financial affairs as well as health and welfare. While they are not easy to set up, they are straightforward. Not surprisingly, many people choose to ignore taking these steps, hoping everything will be all right. It is, to be frank, a boring but essential administrative task. A real financial planner will be able to assist you in this regard, consulting other legal professionals if and when necessary. They should then be able to help you to ensure that you never ever run out of money in any financial circumstances, even if a catastrophe occurs. ffp.org.uk
120 | Sherborne Times | August 2022
Your Life, Your Money, Your Future Trusted, professional, fee based advice We live in a complex world. At FFP we aim to remove complexity, replacing it with simplicity and clarity so that our clients can enjoy their lives without worry
FFP is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority
Telephone: 01935 813322 Email: info@ffp.org.uk Website: www.ffp.org.uk
ON YOUR BIKE Your daily commute doesn’t have to be as sweaty or costly as you think. By using a Cycle to Work scheme, employers can reclaim the VAT on e-bikes and employees can hire their new wheels as a pre-tax deduction from their salary. It’s time to change gear! 01935 815 008 | huntsaccountants.co.uk
sherbornetimes.co.uk | 121
Tech
WHAT TO LOOK FOR WHEN BUYING A COMPUTER? James Flynn, Milborne Port Computers
I
n my opinion, there are 3 key parts of hardware inside a computer. Processor, memory (RAM) and hard drive. Obviously, there are many more parts to a computer, but these are the 3 that determine what tasks you will be able to achieve and how quickly and effectively you can achieve them. There is a fourth, but it is only relevant if you buy a laptop, and this is the battery. I am going to discuss the main 3 as a ‘normal’ home user – you can of course go much deeper into the rabbit hole, but for the majority of computer users, you don’t need to. Processor
The processor, also known as the CPU, provides the instructions and processing power the computer needs to do its work. The more powerful and updated your processor, the faster your computer can complete its tasks. Now comes the minefield! There are 2 main companies that supply processors, Intel and AMD, and between them, they have well over 20 different models and generally bring out a new version of these models every year, give or take. Now what to buy or rather what NOT to buy! If going down the Intel route you don’t want to buy anything under an i3 Processor – we would never sell anything under that, and the order of their processors to remember is i3, i5 or i7. In my opinion, anything lower than an i3 is underpowered for the normal home user. I don’t have as much knowledge with AMD but I wouldn’t buy anything less than an AMD Ryzen 3, and again their order of processor is AMD Ryzen 3, 5 or 7. Can you see the trend? 122 | Sherborne Times | August 2022
Memory (RAM)
Memory (RAM) stands for random-access memory. Your computer RAM is essentially short-term memory where data is stored as the processor needs it. The way I normally describe it is the more you have the more things you can do at the same speed for longer. When it runs out, it must stop doing something else to enable you to do what you want. Hard Drive
Now I bang on a lot about how most of our work is upgrading HDD (Hard Disk) to SSD (Solid State Disk), but when buying a new computer this is a 100% must. Your computer will be much more responsive, start-up faster, and be better at multi-tasking. Now size doesn’t matter as much as people think with an SSD, unless you have 10,000 photos, then it does. The sizes go in gigabytes 128GB, 256GB, 512GB, 1TB & 2TB. Most users require 128GB or 256GB for normal home use. Always good to check how much data you have used before you buy a new computer because if you don’t have enough space, you’ll need to upgrade your SSD to a bigger size, and if you do this after your purchase it may invalidate your warranty. So, as you can see, considering there are only 3 key parts to a computer, it can still be confusing as to what to buy! Think about what you’ll be using it for now and potentially in the future, and as ever, if you need any advice you know where to come! computing-mp.co.uk
CREWKERNE & DORCHESTER OFFICE
GREAT PEOPLE TO WORK WITH… At Humphries Kirk solicitors we like to keep it simple, and we like to keep it personal. It’s an approach that has served us and our clients well for over 300 years. Our local experts in Crewkerne and Dorchester can help you with: • • • •
Family Law Commercial Law Private Client Property Law
Call them on
01460 279100 or 01305 251007 to arrange a chat
…that’s refreshing |
www.hklaw.uk
Poole House, 17 Market Street, Crewkerne, Somerset, TA18 7JU 01460 279100 crewkerne@hklaw.uk
www.hklaw.uk
40 High West Street Dorchester DT1 1UR 01305 251007 dorchester@hklaw.uk
www.hklaw.uk
Yenstone Walling Ltd Covering South Somerset & North Dorset Small Business Support
Networks & Cabling
New PCs & Laptops
Wireless Networks
Repairs & Upgrades
Broadband Setup
Virus Removal
Disaster Recovery
Dry Stone Walling and Landscaping All types of stone walling undertaken Patrick Houchen DSWA member CIS registered
01963 371123 / 07791 588141 yenstonewalling@btinternet.com www.yenstonewalling.co.uk
The Weighbridge • High Street • Milborne Port • DT9 5DG www.mpfix.co.uk
01963 250788
DAVE THURGOOD Painting & Decorating interior and exterior
07792 391368 NO VAT www.sherbornedecorators.com michellethurgood@sky.com
Award-Winning Dog Behaviour Specialists covering Dorset, Somerset & Wiltshire Muntanya is an independent trekking and outdoors shop offering clothing and equipment from major suppliers. 7 Cheap St, Sherborne, Dorset DT9 3PT david@muntanya.co.uk 01935 389484 • 07875 465218 www.muntanya.co.uk
Suppliers and Manufacturers of quality Signage, Graphics and Embroidered Workwear
T: 01935 816767
info@swsigns-sherborne.co.uk www.swsigns-sherborne.co.uk
Unit 14, 0ld Yarn Mills, Sherborne Dorset DT9 3RQ 124 | Sherborne Times | August 2022
• New Puppy Training Package • Dog Behaviour Packages • Online Video Classes • Advice Line • Pack Walks
naturalbalancedt.com
Contact Sarah on 07769 705807 or sarah@naturalbalancedt.com
Free registration appointment for new clients when accompanied by this advertisement Kingston House Veterinary Clinic Long Street, Sherborne, Dorset DT9 3DB Mon-Fri 9.00-10.30, 16.30-18.00 Sat 9.00-10.30 T: 01935 813288 (24 hours) E: sherborne@kingstonvets.co.uk kingstonvets.co.uk
Enjoy a two course lunch for just £5
Supporting Sherborne’s most vulnerable Enjoy a delicious 2 course lunch delivered fresh to your door
(Provided in microwavable containers to reheat at home)
Call our team on 07561 067381 or email communitykitchenteam@gmail.com to find out more
A big Thank You to our partners
Sherborne Community Kitchen is a charitable incorporated organisation. Charity number 1190451
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
Choice of Hearses available including our Land Rover Hearse
A J Wakely& Sons
Independent Family Funeral Directors – 24 Hour Service –
Helping the bereaved of Sherborne and Yeovil for over 30 years
Sherborne 01935 816 817 ˙ Yeovil 01935 479 913 Pre-payment plans available www.ajwakely.com Please contact Clive Wakely, or a member of our dedicated team for any advice or guidance. sherbornetimes.co.uk | 125
Short Story
THE WALL HANGING
‘M
Malcolm Cockburn, Sherborne Scribblers
other, mother, there’s a man at the door.’ ‘Well, he will just have to wait a moment. I don’t have two pairs of hands you know. I dare say it will be the painter your father has sent down from the castle.’ ‘Please come in sir. As you see we are in a bit of a mess here. Oh, this is my daughter Betty – she’s um…. We are in the middle of re-plastering this damp wall and my husband thought you might add a bit of colour. He said you did a wonderful job down in the servants’ hall. Of course, we couldn’t afford real tapestry but… It is George isn’t it? May I offer you a glass of ale, George?’ ‘Thank you Ma’am. Pleased to meet you, and you, young lady. Betty, you said? Please don’t get up Betty – I will just come and sit with you at the table.’ The ale was drunk and the weather remarked upon and finally, the subject of the painter’s visit was broached. ‘We, Betty that is – and of course, her father and I agree with her – feel that a little colour would brighten the room where she spends so much time, and a country scene (which is so fashionable is it not?), would please us all. Perhaps you could make a few sketches. I understand you paint on linen.’ ‘Indeed I do Ma’am and I have brought some paper and crayons with me. I am sure Betty and I can outline various possible scenes to brighten the new wall, while you make yourself busy.’ It soon transpired that Betty had strong ideas of the country scene she wanted. She had studied the history of Dorset and even seen a copy of the county map by John Speed; on this map was shown a well and she knew it to be the Lady’s Well under High Stoy Hill where pilgrims would come and be cured of their ailments. In her picture, she said there must be lots of foliage, health-giving bushes and flowers, with a little church near the middle and above it, on the hillside, you will see the Holy Well. In her mind’s eye, this was the scene she described to the painter and in little time the crayons were hard at work. ‘I will paint in a horse and rider from mountains far away on the left of your picture,’ said George, ‘and this will carry you to the Holy Well.’
126 | Sherborne Times | August 2022
Meanwhile, Betty secretly surmised, ‘then my foot will work again and I will be able to help Mother in the kitchen and maybe soon meet a husband.’ Within a week George had returned with a roll of linen. He stretched it over a frame made in the castle workshop, tacked it with pins and applied size to stabilise the cloth. Then he set to work painting the scene described by Betty. He put tiny spoonfuls of the dry paint colours (ground up earth, rock and vegetable dye) into little pots and then add linseed oil to make the right consistency. Betty sat by his side keeping the mixtures stirred and passing each colour as it was needed. She watched intently as he worked. That night, Betty recalled the care of George’s hand as his brush touched the cloth and his occasional sigh of satisfaction when the effect pleased him. George meanwhile, lay on his straw mattress above the workshop, the curve of Betty’s shoulder, her gentle voice and the fall of her hair occupying his mind the night through. Finally, the finished painting lay on the parlour floor waiting for the day when the wall plaster was dry. Betty would sit at the table reading her books and from time to time glance and admire the work. Each day George called in on his way to work and then one day he said, ‘today we will hang the painting,’. It was also the day he asked Betty to be his bride. Betty and George were married in the little Hermitage church; a troop of horses and carts carried friends and relations the six miles from Sherborne. It was harvest time, the fields were golden with stooks of corn, the oak trees heavy in late summer leaf, blackberries and curls of old-man’s-beard festooned the hedges. George carried his bride up the field to the Lady’s Well under High Stoy Hill and there she dipped her twisted foot into the cool, clear water. The stained painting described above was found at ‘Donore’ on Long Street, Sherborne in 1967. Fourteen layers of paper dating back some 250 years were pasted over the linen design. Hangings such as these were common in medieval times until the 18th century. The stained painting can now be seen at Sherborne Museum.
sherbornetimes.co.uk | 127
Suppliers of both new and pre-loved vinyl, official t-shirts, merchandise and memorabilia. Come visit and “Try before you buy”. The Beat & Track, The Old Shambles, South Street, Sherborne, DT9 3LN
07730 356719
thebeatandtrack@icloud.com www.thebeatandtrack.co.uk
EVENT PUBLICATION SPECIALIST W: hitop.design
|
Posters Flyers Programmes Signage Social Media templates Adverts And anything else you need for your event. All for one fixed price.
robin@hitopdesign. com
JULY SOLUTIONS
ACROSS 1. Become firm (8) 5. Leave out (4) 9. Self-evident truth (5) 10. Character in Hamlet (7) 11. Fully extended (12) 13. Religious leader (6) 14. Less attractive (6) 17. Untimely (12) 20. Brook (7) 21. Doglike mammal (5) 22. Quantity of medication (4) 23. In the open air (8)
128 | Sherborne Times | August 2022
DOWN 1. Absorbent pad (4) 2. Time off (7) 3. Nationally (12) 4. Powdery (6) 6. Mixture that insulates soil (5) 7. Back and forth (2,3,3) 8. Cameraman (12) 12. Came into possession of (8) 15. Malady (7) 16. Doorway (6) 18. Rescues (5) 19. Light circle around the head of a saint (4)
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Literature
LITERARY REVIEW Richard Hopton, Sherborne Literary Society
Illuminated by Water: Nature, Memory and the Delights of a Fishing Life, by Malachy Tallack (Doubleday) £16.99 hardcover
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Sherborne Times reader offer price of £14.99 from Winstone’s Books
ishing is one of the largest participatory sports in Britain; solitary men – and they are mostly men – sitting rod in hand by the side of canals, lakes, and rivers are a common sight the length and breadth of the country. Fishing also boasts a fine literature which may not be as extensive as cricket’s but is certainly older: the earliest treatise on the subject in English dates from 1496, centuries before cricket was played in any recognisable form. Likewise, Izaak Walton’s celebrated The Compleat Angler was published in 1653, a century or so before the emergence of the modern game. Malachy Tallack’s new book is a worthy addition to the canon. Ostensibly, Illuminated by Water is a memoir of Tallack’s fishing life; he caught the bug as a boy and it has never left him. Most of the chapters describe particular fishing trips, many of them in Scotland - the rivers Clyde, Don, and Devon as well as the lochs of Shetland he fished as a boy - but he also casts his line in England, Canada, and New Zealand. As a life-long fisherman, Tallack is good at articulating the attractions of the sport, what motivates fishermen, what keeps them coming back even in the face of prolonged failure to catch a fish. ‘A trout,’ he writes, ‘conjured into existence on the end of my line, is one of the most remarkable, thrilling things I know.’ ‘Fishing is fuelled by hopeful tension and the ever-present possibility of success.’ Essentially, he concludes, its appeal relies on anticipation, often overlain with dramatic possibilities: ‘A day’s fishing can feel like a story unfolding, with suspense, revelation,
disappointment, and occasionally triumph.’ Part of the appeal of fishing lies in the opportunities it offers for solitary communion with nature: ‘Angling is a way of exploring,’ Tallack says and he writes lyrically about the beauty of the places where he has fished and the fisherman’s heightened awareness of his surroundings. He has a good turn of phrase, too: bullrushes with ‘their flower spikes like fat cigars impaled on skewers.’ But Illuminated by Water is more than simply an entertaining memoir of one man’s fishing life. Among other things, it explains the bifurcation in the fishing world, the, as Tallack puts it, ‘wholly eccentric division between two kinds of fish and two kinds of fishing: coarse and game.’ It’s a split which makes no sense he writes, ‘except when viewed through the prism of class.’ It also investigates the fact that fishing is, in Britain at least, a largely male-dominated sport. Central to any book about fishing is, of course, the fish itself. Tallack himself is a trout fisherman and clearly very knowledgeable about the species which he regards with something approaching reverence. Likewise, the plight of our rivers and their ecologies loom large in the book. Illuminated includes a prolonged and reasoned meditation on the vexed question of cruelty in fishing, concluding that fishing, ‘is an active engagement with moral ambiguity, a leaning towards rather than a flinching away.’ sherborneliterarysociety.com
Talk and signing with Peter James 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
Creator of the legendary detective Roy Grace, now a major ITV drama starring John Simm Wednesday, September 28th 12.30pm Cheap Street Church, Sherborne Tickets £5, redeemable against the book, available from Winstone’s
PAUSE FOR THOUGHT
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Gay Barry, Sacred Heart & St Aldhelm Church
asks have been used for centuries for a variety of reasons. It’s well documented that in the ancient world of Greece and Rome actors on stage wore head masks – their intention to identify ‘dramatis personae’ to the audience. While a mask would conceal the actor’s own identity, in wearing this disguise would be the hope of informing spectators or arousing emotion in them, while perceptions of characters’ personalities were revealed or their lifestyles made apparent. From the literary world, comes the information that the Bible is the ‘most read book worldwide’ – during the last 50 years, apparently 3.9 billion copies were sold. For the Judaeo-Christian peoples, texts from many centuries ago describe God’s presence as a pillar of fire or a cloud, a gardener, a warrior, a shepherd, a king, a lover. The deity’s being and power were also expressed as occurring within extraordinary events or ‘miracles’, alerting the reader to the relationship between the deity, the world and universe. While each story articulates, for the believer, something of the truth about the supreme being, none fully describes God. It’s interesting to me that even in sacred literature, while God is revealed, God is also presented as somewhat ‘masked’. Daily choices of fashion in dress, hairstyle and cosmetics, music, dance or pastimes appeal to ‘current social mores’; choosing them might be made with the intention of enhancing beauty or masking blemishes. Formal garments such as military uniforms, or vestments worn at a religious service, identify those who have a particular status, ministry, or leadership role at that moment. Often they express the corporate nature of the group, sometimes worn to instil pride within the group, or elicit admiration from spectators, personal traits, lifestyles and preferences being masked so as to highlight the group’s unity. Masks recently became a major feature of daily life. In our own experiences the mantra, ‘Hands, Face, Space’ put masks firmly on ‘centre stage’. Recently, just as I was going out, I automatically picked up an almost redundant mask; this had become a habitual action, one difficult to shed. By doing this I was led to reflect on ‘masks’. Certainly, when going to public spaces, I hadn’t worn one for fashion (although I admit that I did buy two of the decorative kind) nor with a view to a prospective acting career. My intention wasn’t to conceal myself, to look formal, to elicit admiration or fear, or to arouse emotion. Together with so many others, masks had become the means of both personal protection and that of others. I wonder if the wearing of an insignificant piece of material became a symbol of care? Has wearing a mask encouraged us to be more alert to others’ needs? If so, is this a passing phase – or do we continue to retain and exhibit this care?
130 | Sherborne Times | August 2022
‘the best of the best in the UK for sport’ The Week, 2022
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