The Blackmore Vale February 21

NEVER PRINTED...

February ‘21

ISSN 2634-8810

POLITICS

POLITICS

Front cover: Hambledon Hill’s residents enjoying a dusting of snow. January 2021 by Marilyn Peddle LRPS

38

Animals

62

Art

70

Beauty

49

Book Corner

36

Brigit Strawbridge

65

Business News

50

Charity pages

89 84

Community News

61

Designed In Dorset

16

Education

40

Farming

54

Food & Drink

45

Garden Jobs

69

Health

33

Looking Back | Roger Guttridge

34

Meet Your Local

68

Mindful Minute

6

Deaths & Announcements

News

74

Night Sky

48

Oonagh's flowers

47

Paul Birbeck

32

Police news

88

Professional Services

90 76

Property Puzzles

72

Reader's Photography

14

Rural Matters

15

Simon Hoare

86

Situations Vacant

42

Take a Hike

32

Tales from the Vale | Andy Palmer

38

Then & Now | Roger Guttridge

22

Valentine's Messages

44

Voice of the Allotment | Barry Cuff

And so we made it to our 6th issue. Our half-anniversary if you will and as soon as we’ve slept off publication week, there’ll be I mean, you have to get out, don’t a small amount you? Even if it is miserably cold of celebration. & wet.

Wine may be raised.

It’s been an interesting six months; on the face of it, a blogger and a photographer really have no business trying to run a local magazine. One or two people were even kind enough to write and tell us so.

We were also told that ‘people round here won’t read a digital mag’.

And yet, here we are approaching 10,000 subscribers... (to be fair we knew a lot more than many gave us credit for).

But we knew what so many others have quickly learned over the last tricky year. Rural small businesses have to be flexible. Adaptable. We need a nimble and proactive approach, to see not only what’s next, but also what’s not. To let go of the old, embrace change, and always try and move forwards. You may have seen just this week a struggling Yorkshire farmer who added ‘Zoom meetings with goats’ to their website, half-joking and not sure if anyone would even be interested. They’ve now netted over £50k, kept Cronkshaw Fold Farm open, their staff in work, and also paid for improvements to the site.

So, here’s to the next six months - and let’s all look forward to some sunshine (please let the sun shine soon), hugging our families and going somewhere.

Anywhere. Just going out-out would be a start, wouldn’t it?

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NEWS

by Laura Hitchcock

Top Film Star Shocks Local DJ With Surprise Message!

When Steve Harris, DJ of the BBC’s Dorset Breakfast show, put a call on Twitter for a way to contact Russell Crowe, he didn’t actually expect an answer.

genuine good causes? And here’s me, a complete stranger, asking for him to send his best wishes to another stranger. I knew it was unlikely he’d reply.”

“I met Pip Hare on her boat last summer for a story for the radio about the Vendee Globe race and was instantly impressed by her” Steve said. “She’s a force of nature; very charismatic, and she’s made this race happen (or at least her part in it) through sheer force of will. I have enjoyed sharing her story with my listeners over the last three months, and with her birthday coming up I just wanted to do something special.

So I started approaching people to record messages for her. Sir Robin Knox Johnston was the first person to sail non stop single handed around the world - he’s a friend of BBC Radio Solent so he said yes straight away. Sir Ben Ainslie and Dame Ellen MacArthur were only a lilttle harder to track down - but as soon as their people heard it was for Pip, they couldn’t have been more accommodating.

However I never expected Russell to work out...”

Steve was astonished “So excited, but also a little concerned. Was he really asking if he could help?

And what if my 280 character pitch wasn’t good enough? Would he just stay silent? Would he let me know he wasn’t interested?”

So he used all the space Twitter allowed and pitched his best shot:

I was watching the Twitter thread as it built, and was amused by the ironic interaction between Steve and journalist Katie Clark:

Ha ha, we all thought. Steve agreed it was a long shot “I was hoping that someone on Twitter might know his cousin or something random, just a way that I could get a message under his nose inside a 48 hour time frame. But I didn’t expect a reply.

I mean, how many messages do even minor celebrities get asking for help or publicity for

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But then, less than an hour after Steve tweeted, I actually gasped as this popped up in my timeline:

Silence followed. Those of us watching kept checking... And then, just minutes later...

NEWS

if you’re in the fast-loading version of the magazine, this video won’t play: please click HERE to see it

Steve was suitably thrilled - but more so for Pip than for his own success.

“It’s crazy isn’t it? I mean, Russell Crowe! If you watch the video carefully, there’s his Gladiator helmet in the background, there’s an Oscar, and a Bafta and god knows what else. This guy has been a huge deal in the international acting scene since I was in short trousers.

But it seems fitting. Pip’s story is so impressive, and Russell seems like a good egg; it’s nice that the story gets this kind of ending.”

Pip Hare, 46, a professional sailor from Poole, is taking part in the Vendee Globe, the toughest test in sailing.

She is at the time of going to press lying in 20th position - you can read her story of the race so far in the Guardian here.

Steve knew from previous conversations that Pip is a huge Russell Crowe fan - and withhis role as Captain Jack Aubrey in the film Master & Commander: The Far Side of the World he seemed like the perfect person to send birthday wishes to Pip after a gruelling few months at sea.

Steve had planned to surprise Pip with the message i a love broadcast on Friday morning’s breakfast show: but of course social media isn’t exactly a secret space, and the news soon spread.

As the tweeted video’s reach

snowballed into the thousands, Steve feared his magnificent surprise would be blown before he had a chance to contact Pip. So he shared the motivating video with her as soon as he could, and she recorded a reply herself (which Russell Crowe has since re-shared).

Social media is often declaimed as a toxic mess of nastiness. But here it is at its finest - stretching across all barriers simply to connect people.

You can continue to follow Pip’s journey on her blog here.

if you’re in the fast-loading version of the magazine, this video won’t play: please click HERE to see it

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NEWS

Dog Napping - Is Your Pooch in Danger of Being Pinched?

Our four-legged friends play an important role for many of us as this pandemic continues to disrupt our lives.

For those living alone, their dog is often the only living being they see all day. And who can argue that a welcoming waggy tail or a cuddle with your canine doesn’t lift your spirits in a world where we can no longer hug each other?

But worryingly, our dogs are in danger. So called “dognapping” is reportedly reaching epidemic proportions across the country. Mark Shelford, Conservative Police and Crime Commissioner candidate for neighbouring county Avon and Somerset, is highlighting this increasing problem and holding online meetings with concerned community groups.

He explains: “This is a particularly heartless crime, cruel to the animal and cruel for their owners. Even working dogs, found in many parts of our rural region, become companions.

Losing them causes anguish, anger and despair. Lockdown has encouraged more families in our cities and towns to own dogs, while in rural communities the loss of working animals, such as gun dogs, can directly impact owners’ income.”

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Dogs are stolen for breeding, to sell, held to ransom, or even so thieves can claim the reward which many desperate families offer for the safe return of their canine friend. Worse still, some end up being used in illegal dogfighting.

Mark Shelford: “The criminals behind these cruel crimes are often highly sophisticated. They trail potential target animals, then watch their house or farm until the owners are away.”

People working from home and having bored children to entertain are two factors driving up demand for dogs, thereby encouraging an increase in dog thefts. Stolen pedigree breeds now sell for thousands of pounds.

A pet shop in Wimborne recently had an enquiry from a harassed father wondering if £2000 was the right amount to pay for a non-pedigree puppy!

by Tracie Billington-Beardsley

Research by Dogs’ Trust Salisbury shows demand for dogs is at an all-time high and prices for some of the UK’s most desirable dog breeds are at their highest in three years, and possibly ever, with the costs for some dogs increasing month on month since lockdown began. During 2020, the Kennel Club reported a staggering 168 per cent increase in people searching for puppies.

Throughout the first lockdown, the charity DogLost found an increase of 65 per cent in thefts between March 23 and June 1 2020.

Simon Perry, Inspector with the North and East Dorset Neighbourhood Policing Team told the Blackmore Vale: “Whilst dog thefts continue to remain low in Dorset at present, we understand that social media channels have reports of dog thefts across the UK with sightings of suspicious vehicles. As a crime trend, gun dogs appear to be desirable to offenders. Thefts have occurred when dogs were left unattended in vehicles or in back gardens. If

POLITICS NEWS your dogs are kennelled, are they out of public view? Also think about security lighting or CCTV and always lock garden gates.”

A spokesperson at The Margaret Green Animal Rescue at Church Knowle, Wareham told us: “We’ve heard of an increased amount of attempts of theft in Dorset from owners out walking their dogs and strangers coming up trying to get information about their pet. There’s also been an increase of dog owners reporting on social media of attempted thefts locally.”

This organisation, which helps home unwanted pets, advised: “Make sure your dog always has a tag on its collar and if your dog has a tendency to run ahead

on walks, keep them on a lead.

As required by law, make sure your dog is microchipped and the details kept up to date, if you move for instance, so that the chip company can be alerted if the dog goes missing. This way if the dog is found or sold on and the new owner gets a vet to scan it, the microchip will flag up that it’s a missing pet. There’s also a website called DogHorn. This not-for-profit organisation has lots of advice and products to deter dog theft.’’

When the theft of a beloved family member is ranked merely as a minor crime, similar to the theft of a microwave, it looks like a small fine will not stop greedy criminals. Dogs Trust Salisbury’s Rehoming Centre

Manager, Claire Rowe said: “Current sentencing does very little to deter thieves and doesn’t take into consideration how devastating it can be to have your dog stolen from you. Punishment for dog theft is determined by the monetary value of the dog, meaning perpetrators are often given fines which don’t reflect the emotional impact on the families involved.

“We fully support any action to introduce tougher sentences that will act as a deterrent for those committing these crimes. At the very least, a community order or custodial sentence being given, rather than a fine.”

Click for more information

My Puppies Were Stolen and Dumped In December of last year, a dog-loving Dorset resident from Marnhull (wishes to remain anonymous) went through the agony of two eight weekold Weirmardoodle puppies being stolen.

Here’s her story: “I’d let the puppies out in our garden, which is completely enclosed, to enjoy some early morning winter sunshine. I

One of the Weirmardoodle puppies stolen from Marnhull in December

went into the tack room nearby to do some chores for a few minutes. I just had a feeling I should check on the puppies and when I did, the two chocolate Weirmardoodles from the litter

were missing. I’d literally only been about 30 yards from where they were playing! It was such a dreadful feeling to discover they had just vanished in broad daylight.”

continued on next page

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NEWS I immediately rang my vet and the microchip company to report the dogs had been stolen. I also contacted the police.

I then posted on Facebook to alert people and within about three hours it had about 5000 shares. I’d shared posts in the past for other people about dog thefts so really hoped this would help.

I was just heartbroken. One of these puppies was going to be for my boyfriend and the other was going to a lovely old couple.

“The old couple had never owned a dog before.

They’d decided to call their puppy Hope – hope that they were doing the right thing to get a dog, and hope that we would get out of the pandemic ok. I had to let them know the sad news that Hope had been stolen.”

I spent an agonising day until later that afternoon I got a call

from a woman in Verwood.

She had found the puppies dumped just 150 yards from a busy main road. She alerted a nearby farm owner who had fortunately seen my post on Facebook.

When I went to rescue the puppies, they were crying with excitement to see me again. I was just glad they were together as I’d no idea what trauma they may have been through, snatched from their familiar surroundings. People who commit these crimes clearly have no feelings. And leaving them by a busy road just shows how cruel they are.

My puppies were only lost for a day but that was bad enough.

The culprits were never found – I think it was opportunists who then got scared when they saw the posts on Facebook. Dog theft needs to be addressed as a crime that warrants a jail sentence – it causes so much hurt behind the scenes for dog owners and their families.“

Safely returned - cuddles from a relieved owner

KEEPING YOUR DOG SAFE – tips from the Dorset Police Rural Crime Team Whilst cases of dog theft in Dorset are not as high as other parts of the country, DPRC are urging people to be more aware:

• In England, it’s a legal requirement for all dogs to be microchipped before eight weeks old. Failure to do so could resort in a fine of up to £500.

• All dogs should wear a collar with identification when in public. Don’t put your dog’s name on the tag, just a surname and contact number.

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• If your dog is neutered, it will reduce the chances of the dog being stolen for breeding.

• Consider having your dog tattooed in its ear with an identification number. This will provide a visual deterrent as well as a permanent mark.

• Change the location of where you walk and the times. Try to make sure that your dog is not out of sight during the walk.

• Make any kennels or outhouses that dogs are kept in as secure as possible by fitting a good quality padlock with security lighting, alarms and CCTV.

• Consider having CCTV and alarms linked to your phone to see what’s going on when you’re not at home.

• Make sure your dog’s microchip is registered and your details are up-to-date here https://www.gov.uk/getyour-dog-microchipped • Any concerns should be formally reported via 101 or via www.dorset.police.uk Dorset police officers are trained to offer crime prevention advice, particularly in rural areas. If you would like a bespoke crime prevention visit to your rural home or business send an email to the team at ruralcrimeteam@dorset.pnn.police.

New Clothing Collaboration Helps Women Across the County

by Tracie Billington-Beardsley

While most of us have spent some of lockdown clearing out wardrobes and clothing cupboards, Eloise Grant from Cranborne has established a brilliant way to make the best use of our unwanted garments.

This visionary 23 year-old has set up a volunteer-led, social enterprise called Wardrobe Foundation.

Eloise’s team includes her parents, along with many very creatively-talented volunteers.

Wardrobe Foundation, which operates out of two converted barn units in Cranborne, repurposes donated clothing to women in need of clothing support.

It collates donations of items you

would typically find in a woman’s wardrobe, such as jeans, hoodies, jumpers, skirts, trousers and coats. Wardrobe Foundation then creates a capsule wardrobe of foundation pieces presented in bespoke gift bags.

Eloise explains: “Our objective is simple - to work closely with women’s charities and local communities to support women who need clothing.

There are many women in the UK who are in desperate need of clothing - and many women who have a wardrobe full of clothes they no longer need; clothes they do not wear, no longer fit or have fallen out of love with.

We believe we can bridge the gap by supporting women as well as promoting sustainability.’’

Wardrobe Foundation launched in September 2020 and Eloise reports it has seen a huge increase from women needing its support: “We have provided clothing gift bags to more than 75 women so far – providing over 1,000 items of clothing and delivering across eight partner charities across Dorset.

“We’ve certainly Wardrobe Foundation founder Eloise with her experienced an parents Lisa & Stuart. uplift in urgent and

NEWS short notice requests for clothing parcels throughout January, especially with the impact of this winter lockdown now kicking in. We’re also aware how busy food banks have become during the pandemic so we’re now partnering with food banks across the region to identify women needing clothing.”

The donations have been phenomenal, with Wardrobe Foundation receiving 1300kg of clothing so far.

Eloise told the Blackmore Vale “We’re delighted with the amount and the quality of clothing donations we’ve received.

We need these donations to keep coming so we can satisfy demand – especially as the seasons change and we see again the significant effects of this pandemic on women.”

And if you haven’t got around to decluttering your clothes yet, Eloise advises: “When you consider the average garment is worn just 10 times and the UK is annually responsible for 300,000 tonnes of clothing going into landfill, recycling good quality clothes for the benefit of others is a win-win.”

“Every day we’re inspired by the wonderful women that we support and the brilliant charities who continue to work throughout this pandemic. While 2021 has already brought challenges, we’re excited to develop Wardrobe Foundation and continue to provide clothing support.”

Visit the website www. wardrobefoundation.co.uk or follow them on Facebook here or Twitter here to see how to donate. They regularly arrange doorstep collection dates.

Of course, all is in keeping with government guidelines and social distancing.

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NEWS

Public Consultation Launched for St Mary’s School Site

by Roger Guttridge

Dorset Council have launched a countywide consultation exercise following their multi-million pound purchase of St Mary’s School, Shaftesbury – but they made it clear their favoured option is an educational facility for children with special needs and disabilities (SEND).

The public have until midnight on March 18 to complete a short survey online or on paper by phoning 01305 225088.

Other options already suggested include: • • a centre for respite care offering a mix of specialist care and accommodation; • training and conferencing suite by leasing the site to a third-party tenant; • leasing to an independent provider of special needs education;

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•

innovation centre for start-up businesses.

Chief executive Matt Prosser said the council wanted to hear from residents, businesses, schools, service users and community and stakeholder groups across the county before making a final decision about the 55-acre site’s future.

But he stressed that the preferred option of quality special needs education made sense both economically and for the children.

In a press release the council said the number of children with special needs and disabilities had more than doubled since 2015, from 1,500 to 3,000.

Speaking during an online press briefing, Mr Prosser said many pupils were having to travel long distances to schools outside Dorset at an average cost of £60,000 per pupil.

This compared with £22,000 per pupil for similar provision at

one of Dorset’s ‘excellent special schools’.

‘Costs have grown by around £6.7 million a year since 2015 and this year independent SEND provision is likely to cost more than £14 million,’ said the press release.

Mr Prosser said that although the council paid over £10 million for St Mary’s, building a brand new school would cost several times as much and take several years to bring to fruition.

‘This has massive potential for up to 280 pupils or possibly more,’ he said.

‘This gives us the opportunity to reduce our costs in the future.’

Commenting on the school’s location on the Wiltshire side of Dorset’s northern boundary, he added: ‘It’s an opportunistic purchase. We didn’t get to choose the site but it has such valuable resources.’

Council leader Cllr Spencer Flower: ‘We are very ambitious for this site and for our children and young people who have special educational needs and

NEWS

disabilities. St Mary’s has amazing facilities and we believe it could be used to provide excellent educational opportunities closer to home.

‘We believe that creating a school with high quality facilities closer to home would be better for our children and young people and could also save money in the future.

Theresa Leavy, executive director for children, said that as well as classrooms, science labs, study rooms, assembly hall and canteen, those facilities included an indoor swimming pool, medical centre, library, ‘Opportunities to secure sites like drama studio, art block, this for Dorset are very rare. gymnasium, sports hall, ‘This is a clear example of chapel, playing fields, investing to save. St Mary’s has sports pitches and former been well maintained and has lots of amazing modern facilities.’ boarding houses.

The buildings had been well maintained and many were already adapted for people with disabilities.

Cllr Flower added: ‘We now want to work with local people and groups to create a great facility that will be a community and perhaps an educational resource for Dorset.

‘It’s a fantastic place set in substantial grounds of about 55 acres. It offers exciting potential for many other community uses too.’

The purchase is being financed from the council’s five-year capital programme, which is funded by a combination of government grants and money from the sale of assets.

Share your views on the proposed ideas by completing the survey here before it closes on 18 March 2021.

Dorset Council will carefully consider all views before we make final decisions.

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NEWS

Wimborne Militia in Facebook furore A historical reenactment society in Dorset made national news when its Facebook page was suspended over suspected far-right links.

The Wimborne Militia is an historical re-enactment group that brings to life the history of the Dorset Militia circa 1685.

This community group is seen

by Tracie Billington-Beardsley

at many events throughout Wimborne Minster, sporting their bright red uniforms and firing their muskets.

Social media giants Facebook took down the militia’s page as well as suspending five of its group administrator’s personal accounts after an algorithm targeted them twice in a month.

With the rising civil unrest in America, it’s believed this small and extremely friendly group was mistaken for a US far-right militia.

It was only when regional news BBC South Today ran the story, which was also picked up by national news networks, Facebook withdrew the ban and reinstated the page and personal accounts of the Militia members.

A Wimborne Militia spokesperson wrote on the now fullyfunctioning Facebook page:

“A huge heartfelt thank you to the team at BBC South Today who against all odds have managed to get our personal accounts reinstated.

“It may seem trivial to some, but the bigger picture is how these social media giants control our personal data with impunity.

Had it not been for a media giant like the BBC championing our cause our voices would never be heard.”

Chris Brown, 64, who heads up Wimborne Militia said: “We’re not about open rebellion.

We’re about peace and community understanding and a group of eccentrics that like to dress up in fancy clothes! “ Wimborne Militia are pleased to be back on social media and looking forward to hosting events such as spoon-whittling competitions - clearly dangerous to democracy!

The Wimborne Militia Image by Darren Lovell https://www.darrenlovellphotography.co.uk/

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The Vale Pantry Needs Your Help - the only community pantry in north Dorset

by Laura Hitchcock

A month after the Vale Pantry opened its doors in Sturminster Newton last November to help struggling local families, Rachael Rowe visited to discover they were already helping around 91 local families in their first month.

Dorset Dairy Company, Root and Vine and local egg suppliers.

Oxfords Bakery donate all of their unsold bread and cakes to us on a Thursday for free they’re amazing!

“We originally set our membership limit at 150 Two months on, the Vale Pantry but due to the current is still opening just Thursdays situation with Covid, and Saturdays, but things are furlough schemes and busier than ever - an oddly conflicting statement. It’s redundancy there are so naturally wonderful news the many families in need Pantry is able to help so many that we feel we can’t turn more people; and yet at the same time disturbing that there is such people away.

Some of the stories are a need for them in our own local community. just heart-breaking, so many people are really I caught up with Jane Dawes, struggling.

Managing Parner for the Blackmore Vale GPs.

“We have set up a GoFundMe page to help raise some funds to help us expand our reach in the local community. We now have 174 members signed up who shop with us weekly, and we are helping to feed 580 people each week in the local area.”

“Members come from the whole of North Dorset” continued Jane “and we have 26 families from the Shaftesbury area on our books currently. Our plan has always been to set up similar facilities in the Shaftesbury area.

“We have a weekly supply of food from the national charity FareShare but then have to supplement this with top ups from local providers such as the

We have had an amazing response so far from people, they have been so generous with their donations, we raised over £5,000 in the first week and have now extended the amount to £10,000.

This will enable us to open a shop in the Shaftesbury area to help support more people on a permanent basis.

NEWS We are currently also applying for grants both nationally and locally to help us to continue this work. Our costs of running this service are approximately £1,700 per week, even while entirely run with volunteers.

Any amounts however small are much appreciated; as an example, however, £25 will help us to feed a family for a month. https://www.gofundme.com/ manage/the-vale-pantry-needsyour-help The Vale Pantry is a community project funded by The Blackmore Vale Partnership, GP Practice in North Dorset. It is a membership organisation where people pay a small weekly fee of £4.50 and are then able to select 16 items (usually £20£30 value) from our shop in the middle of Sturminster Newton.

We also provide free fruit and vegetables, free nappies, plus essential household items such as sanitary wear and toilet rolls.

We are part of the “Your Local Pantry”, Group who support communities in setting up Pantry’s to provide access to good quality food and household goods for anyone who may be struggling financially.

You can find more information on our website here - or pop over to our Facebook page here.

Inside the Vale Pantry

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POLITICS

THE FAILINGS OF DORSET’S LOCAL PLAN

Many people will be aware that Dorset Council (DC) has initiated the consultation process for its new Local Plan (LP), you can see it here and it will run until 15th March.

This Plan is very important as it will decide the future development of Dorset until 2038. However it has serious shortcomings.

The emerging LP appears to be made up of a mishmash of various plans from the previous District Councils, already out-ofdate. It consists of c.2,000 pages of unmanageable documents, which most residents will not read. Recent caveats may have been inserted into the Plan, but clearly the impact of Brexit and Covid - with its profound consequences for retailing and the hospitality sector - have not been factored in.

Why rush when the government’s much criticised Planning White Paper has not been agreed yet?

When it is, we expect it to force through dramatic changes to the planning system.

We realise that the consultation process will be limited due to Covid-19 restrictions, but we do question the absence of engagement over its scope. There is little discussion of realistic strategy options. Where does it cover the question of “housing need”?

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Residents are being consulted over the siting of developments, but not whether Dorset needs 30,000 new houses.

DC is kow-towing to central government over housing targets, insisting that numbers are non-negotiable. Last year Dorset CPRE commissioned an independent report, Dorset Housing Need Evidence that heavily criticised the government’s Standard Housing Method.

The LP compares unfavourably with the approach of Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole, who are consulting on Issues and Options. Dorset’s LP should contain a list of alternative strategic options to trigger a meaningful discussion with the public and parish/town councils.

Instead it suggests a fait accompli in strategic terms.

The Sustainability Assessment appears rushed and inadequate.

has landed elsewhere.

North Dorset residents now face thousands more homes being built over their beautiful countryside.

Dorset Council have targeted Stalbridge in particular with a housing allocation of 610 more homes.

We urge DC to extend the consultation period in the light of critical omissions and the impact of Covid-19, but we would also encourage everyone to fully engage in the consultation and share your concerns. Let Dorset Council know what you want for your family and Dorset.

Rupert Hardy, Chairman North Dorset CPRE

Looking at specifics, one extraordinary feature of this Plan is its bold reliance on a DC forecast of 21,000 new fulltime jobs being created over the twenty years to 2038. There is no chapter on economic strategy to justify this.

Despite the allocation of 1,800 houses to the Gillingham Southern Extension in the old NDDC Local Plan, none have been built yet. As a result of the loss of the 5 year land supply, much speculative development

Shillingstone house building site

There’s more to life than Covid…

POLITICS

by Simon Hoare MP As hard as it may seem there is more to life than Covid and governments must be able to demonstrate to their electorates that they can ‘walk and chew gum’ i.e do two things at the same time.

Perfectly properly the widest of bandwiths is being expended on tacking and controlling the virus that has bedevilled us all. Having seen for myself, at first hand as a volunteer, the testing efforts taking place in our schools and the Herculean vaccine efforts taking place through the auspices of our GP surgeries, I can tell you that there is a lot of incredibly impressive stuff going on.

We are all watching more television to help fill the time.

That said I have also resurrected my long forgotten love of jigsaw puzzles and am driving my daughters mad as we embark upon the search of ‘just one last piece before supper/ bedtime / breakfast’.

Hopefully you, like my family, sat glued to David Attenborough’s A Perfect Planet. As with everything he does I found it gripping, enthralling, enlightening and frightening.

Like many, my first ‘Attenborough experience’ was the ground breaking Life On Earth broadcast when I was just ten (41 years ago

for those who are interested). I wanted my daughters to see it so have purchased the DVD (the whole series is also available for free on iPlayer here - Ed).

We have watched some episodes, and Imogen my eldest remarked ‘that’s strange he didn’t mention Climate Change’. I had to explain that ‘back then’ none of us knew the term but that the harm was being done. We eventually heard about acid rain, but for the layman that was about it, wasn’t it?

If there is one policy area where governments need to walk and chew gum it is in addressing this issue of a changing climate and the massive impacts it is having on us all. We have to stop murdering our Planet and thereby committing a massed suicide, or perhaps genocide is the better word, of our own species alongside everything else that walks, crawls, flies or swims across our shared home.

It is great that the USA have returned to taking this issue seriously and rejoined the international community in this great and solemn endeavour.

The UK’s Presidency of the G7, and our hosting of the 2021 UN Climate Change Conference later this year in Glasgow, provide two incredibly powerful platforms not just to preach to the converted but to win converts to the cause.

Pollution, wind, our oceans do not recognise national boundaries or territorial

sovereignty. If we are to save our planet we must act as a planet.

I have great hope in the progress being made but there is so much still to do and for us all to do.

It is true that air quality has improved during lockdowns as fewer road and air trips have been made. It’s good news, but it’s a drop in the ocean when the global task is surveyed.

The urgency for personal and corporate behavioural change has not diminished. Covid’s economic consequences provide a rare opportunity, usually only seen after major war, to rethink and recalibrate our economy.

There is no merit in merely going back to ‘normal’ when we have the chance to reshape our entire economy focussed on low carbon, renewables and sustainability. We must use a large swathe of our aid programme to encourage environmental projects, use the tax system as an incentive to decarbonise and share our fast progressing technologies with those countries trailing the ‘First World’ in their economic development. They don’t have to echo the environmental impact of our Industrial Revolution.

Climate Change is not ‘green crap’. It is the biggest risk to our survival. Our Government gets it and we must all too.

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EDUCATION

New nursery to open in Okeford Fitzpaine

Okeford Fitzpaine CE Primary School has today announced plans for a new nursery provision in the village. The new nursery will cater for children from 4 months - 4 years old, and will be based at the primary school, benefiting from the use of their extensive school grounds as well as a dedicated nursery space within the school.

Experienced nursery provider, Sunbeams Day Care based in Poole, will run the nursery, and as well as caring for younger children, they will also provide wrap-around care for pupils at the primary school, and a holiday

£3.5million For The new University Centre and Rural Business Development Hub t Kingston Maurward.

Dorset Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP) has this week pledged £3.5 million towards the creation of a new flagship development, designed to enhance higher education opportunities for young people in rural Dorset while also enabling growth in small rural businesses.

“The combination of a University Centre with a Rural Business Hub will allow Dorset LEP to assist

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club for local children.

Headteacher Annie Dowling said “I am delighted that Sunbeams Day Care have chosen to open a nursery, wrap around care and holiday club provision on our school site. It is wonderful that we can share our beautiful grounds with pre-school children and their older siblings.

This will be a fabulous facility for families in Okeford Fitzpaine. as well as further afield. and will no doubt be of huge benefit to our working parents who need childcare both before and after school, as well as during the school holidays.

I am really looking forward to welcoming the Sunbeams team and working in future partnership.

“Despite these uncertain times we cannot wait to be involved in something new and positive for families within the community of Okeford Fitzpaine.

The nursery is expected to open later this year, and anyone interested in a place is encouraged to contact the school office on office@ okeford.dorset.sch.uk or phone 01258 860530

“We are very excited to be working with such a lovely school.” said Kirsty Lester, Sunbeams’ Managing Director. this exciting project to address the significant deficiency in HE provision in rural Dorset, help to plug the productivity gap and provide valuable support to the rural business community.” said Lorna Carver, Dorset LEP Director.

Luke Rake, Principal of Kingston Maurward College, added: “Kingston Maurward is extremely pleased to be prioritised by Dorset LEP for funding for our planned University Centre and Rural Business Hub. It has long been recognised that progression to higher education is less good from the rural part of the county.

This ambitious intervention, driven by the college, aims to help improve social mobility and opportunities for knowledge transfer.

“A dedicated rural business centre will both support businesses across the rural area and also increase opportunities with our new Rural Business, Tourism and Heritage Land Management programmes for Sixth Formers and University students from 2021-22. It is extremely exciting and a gamechanger for both the college, Dorchester and the rural county.”

POLITICS

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POLITICS EDUCATION

‘Get Outdoors for Children’s Mental Health Week’ suggests Local Head.

“The positive mental health of our pupils is rightly at the forefront of modern education,” says Clayesmore Prep Head, Jonathon Anderson, “but never more so than in the current Covid pandemic when children are under the combined pressures of remote learning, anxiety about the pandemic and not seeing their friends or participating in their exercise and getting outdoors usual activities.”

- all terrific ways to combat “Children’s Mental Health Week, which runs during the first week of February, is an excellent prompt for us all to talk with our own children, and our pupils, about the vital importance of mental health.

Better informed, we can then assess how we are faring and support if we need to,” explains Mr Anderson.

“At Clayesmore, while we are conscious of delivering a full remote learning experience for our children, we also have to ensure they are not spending too much time on screen and are getting to interact with their classmates in fun and interesting ways, as well as participating in interesting challenges that promote

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anxiety and boost positive mental health,” he says.

At Clayesmore Prep, the welfare of the children and preparing them to be confident, happy and resilient young adults, is central to the school’s ethos and in September a new, dedicated programme called LEX, named after the school’s founder Lex Devine, is being introduced.

“This programme will ensure our pupils get far more time outdoors, doing fun, healthy, creative activities like forest school, bushcraft, horticulture and looking after animals. Sport will remain a key element of the programme but we are also going to be offering a far wider

Mr Anderson, his wife, Mrs Anderson and some prep children toasting marshmallows in Forest School.

choice of personal development options including arts, creativity and culture. “ At the heart of LEX is the desire to ensure all our pupils experience opportunities far beyond the bounds of the curriculum, becoming well-rounded, interested and enterprising young people with positive attitudes and a ‘can do’ approach to life. We believe that positive mental health in our pupils comes from their personal development, their achievements in their own areas of strength and the support and encouragement of their teachers and peer group,” concludes Mr Anderson.

Clayesmore Prep have an Open Morning on 27th February, click here to register https://www.clayesmore.com/

EDUCATION

Outdoor Learning in lockdown Times continue to be difficult for many of us, and the pressure on parents to assist with remote learning has been at the forefront of the struggles many people are facing.

The education of our children is vital to the growth of our communities, and our positive future as a society.

The effort being put in by schools, colleges, and all the teachers and parents has been nothing short of monumental.

Those of you who know Thorngrove well will be aware that we are part of Employ My Ability – a college for young adults with special educational needs – and we’ve seen those effort first-hand, so with that in mind we want to send a huge thank you to all involved in making the continued education of children and young adults remain as uninterrupted as possible.

We’re spending more time in our gardens than ever and we wanted to offer a small set of tips and advice for helping to educate the little ones about gardening, and the benefits it can bring! So whether you’re at home with the kids yourself, or if you have grandchildren you can send the link to, we hope you’ll find the following information useful in lockdown and beyond.

How to get them interested: •

•

• • •

•

Keep it simple – easy things like herb planting, growing sunflowers and flowers that attract butterflies Give children their own garden space (even just a small plot, part of a border or their own planter) Remind them that getting dirty hands and knees while gardening is OK Make a scarecrow Install a bird bath or small water feature - then maybe keep a record of birds and creatiures you see visiting.

Set up a worm farm - you can buy them, but it’s also a fun project to make your own.

Simple instructions here.

Benefits • • • •

Exercise and fresh air!

Appreciation for and understanding of nature Helps develop patience, planning and task management Encourages nurturing and care for other living things

Hang in there folks. We may have a bumpy road ahead. Tending your gardens is proven to benefit your mental health too, so we cannot encourage it enough these days.

Visit www. thorngrovegardencentre.co.uk today, or find us on Facebook for info on our latest products and help keeping your garden looking its best!

LOOKING BACK

LOOKING BACK

get in touch with Roger: roger.guttridge@btinternet.com

Farmer Jesty’s Quantum Leap Edward Jenner usually gets the credit as the world’s first vaccinator but arguably the title should belong to North Dorset’s own Benjamin Jesty.

Almost 250 years before covid vaccines hit the surgeries and 22 years before Jenner did his thing, Yetminster’s Jesty performed an extraordinary medical experiment on his own family.

As a farmer, Jesty knew of the country belief that people who’d had contact with cows that had cowpox were immune to the virus’s more serious cousin smallpox.

Smallpox was a ghastly disease that usually led to facial scarring and often death.

But people with cowpox escaped with a mild fever and lesions on the hands at the point where the virus entered the skin.

Dairymaids were known for their fair complexions in contrast to smallpox survivors, and Jesty had first-hand evidence of this.

His own dairymaids, Anne Notley and Mary Reade, had both been infected with cowpox by contact with the udders of cows they had milked yet both escaped smallpox even when nursing relatives with the disease.

of his family suffering the ravages of smallpox, and knowing the hazards of inoculation, he conceived an ingenious idea,’ writes Pead.

Inoculation had been practised for several decades but involved introducing one of the actual smallpox viruses.

Although it saved some lives, it claimed others due to a lack of control over the type of virus used.

Jesty’s ‘quantum leap’ was to borrow the inoculation method but replace the smallpox virus with cowpox.

Displaying amazing confidence in his plan, he took his family to Chetnole, where William Elford had some cows with the marks of cowpox on their udders.

Jesty then used a stocking needle to take a tiny sample of pus from an udder and insert it into the arm of his wife, Elizabeth.

He then repeated the When a smallpox epidemic broke procedure with sons out in North Dorset in 1774, Jesty Robert and Benjamin, made what his biographer Patrick then aged three and two J Pead describes as a ‘quantum respectively, but omitted leap’ in thinking. baby Betty.

‘Faced with the awful implications

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Jesty’s effort may never have

Michael Sharp’s portrait of Benjamin Jesty. Picture: Wellcome Trust

become known had it not been for a complication that arose.

While the infants suffered no significant ill effects, the Longburton farmer’s daughter Elizabeth developed a fever and was treated by the slightly disapproving Dr Trowbridge of Cerne Abbas.

She recovered fully and none of the trio ever succumbed to smallpox despite the boys being inoculated with it by Dr Trowbridge in 1789.

Jesty tried to keep a low profile but word soon got around and his fellow villagers proved seriously unsympathetic.

Suspicious of anything that did not conform to their existing beliefs and familiar with biblical warnings against contaminating the body with animal matter, people subjected Jesty to physical and verbal abuse.

Despite this, the Jestys continued living in their Yetminster farmhouse, called Upbury, until

LOOKING BACK

The commemorative blue plaque at Yetminster

Upbury, Benjamin Jesty’s home at Yetminster

1796, when Jesty moved them to Downshay Manor, Harmans Cross, near Swanage, which offered more land and more space for a family that now included seven children.

Coincidentally, 1796 was also the year that Jenner administered his first experimental cowpox vaccination on eight-year- old James Phipps at Berkeley, Gloucestershire.

Because he was a village doctor,

Jenner was better placed than Jesty to put the method on the medical map.

He also coined the phrase ‘variolae vaccinae’ – meaning ‘vaccine of the cow’.

This is the origin of the word ‘vaccine’ that we use today.

Jesty, meanwhile, continued vaccinating people in his new parish, where his method was better received than at Yetminster.

There’s a memorial inside Worth Matravers church to someone whose mother was ‘personally inoculated for the cow pox by Benjamin Jesty of Downshay’.

A Swanage clergyman, the Rev Andrew Bell, was so impressed that he campaigned for some recognition for a man ‘so often forgotten by those who have heard of Dr Jenner’.

Jesty’s gravestone at Worth Matravers

As a result, in 1805 Jesty was invited to the Vaccine Pock Institution in

London, whose members questioned him at length and tested his and son Robert’s continued immunity by inoculating them with live smallpox.

Both proved immune, and the Institution praised not only Jesty’s pioneering work but his ‘superior strength of mind’ in the face of ‘prevailing popular prejudices’ and the ‘clamorous reproaches of his neighbours’.

They also presented Jesty with a testimonial scroll, a pair of goldmounted lancets, 15 guineas to cover his expenses and a portrait

by Michael W Sharp, whose other subjects included the Duke of Wellington.

Jenner later acknowledged Jesty’s contribution as ‘corroborative evidence’.

Jesty died in 1816 aged 79. His gravestone at Worth Matravers (left) describes him as the ‘first person (known) that introduced the cowpox by inoculation’.

Elizabeth lived to be 84. Sons Robert and Benjamin died in their sixties in 1839 and 1838 respectively.

• This article was adapted from Roger Guttridge’s book Dorset: Curious and Surprising (Halsgrove, £9.99).

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FEBRUARY 14

LO VE VALENTINE'S DAY

The past year has seen us rely on our loved ones in ways we have never done before. So in honour of St Valentine, we're celebrating them (because frankly we think we all need a big virtual tight squeezy hug right now, in the absence of the real ones).

So we offered a proper old-fashioned local Valentine's message board - and you didn't disappoint. Nearly a hundred messages came flooding in - the warmth and affection palpable in every single one.

So let’s feel the love for a change, and spread some smiles across the Vale for Valentine's Day. We've loved every on of the thank you, love you or miss you's to special people.

All you need is love.

But a little chocolate now and then doesn’t hurt.

CHARLES M. SCHULZ

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PROPERTY SPECIAL

POLITICS

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POLITICS

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PROPERTY SPECIAL

POLITICS

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PROPERTY SPECIAL

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POLITICS

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TALES FROM THE VALE

Tales From The Vale with Andy Palmer

I really enjoyed the column of my fellow scribe Roger Guttridge in the last issue – read it if you missed it first time round. (handy link for your ease here. You’re welcome Ed) It kicked-off with a great story about a seemingly backward local boy who turned out not to be that backward after all.

But what got me was the absolutely accurate local vernacular that Roger used to describe the lad turning the tables on the arrogant motorist, when he said, ‘But I b’ain’t lost... ’.

Well, that rang a bell.

I used to talk like that.

I hadn’t heard – or read - that particularly rich slice of north Dorset vernacular since my family moved from Stalbridge to Weymouth in 1973, but it was an everyday occurrence until then.

Interesting that I move about 20 miles out of the area and there’s a new dialect. No longer did I hear ‘where be you to?’, or ‘they be doin’ a bit o’ ditchin’...’ or ‘we be off down Basils…’.

Basils was the site of a pond off the Milborne Port road just out of Stalbridge and opposite a climbable part of the Stalbridge Park dry stone wall, where Brian Trevis and I would cut out pieces of turf from the top of the wall to chuck onto the rare passing car.

I believe we pictured ourselves

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as Commandos hand-grenading ‘Jerry’ staff cars. You wouldn’t believe how many Jerry staff cars were in Dorset at the time. Used to shock me.

The nobility of our cause was lost on one motorist, as he clambered furiously up the wall only to see Bri and me survive a deathdefying jump down and scamper, hooting, into the parkland (think I’ve cleared up a 51 year-old unsolved crime – it was Bri’s fault, Officer, he was a year older than me).

It saddens me that our selfless and courageous exploits in freeing the world from the Nazi menace was never officially recognised (a knighthood, perhaps) – but that’s the lot of commandos, to serve is all.

After that exploit, Bri said, ‘that made I laugh’, which I still say now, with affection to my dear friend.

When I grew up in Stalbridge, not everyone had TVs, and if they had, they were black & white with poor reception – screen snowstorms were common - and only three channels to choose from. There was no local radio, only the, mainly dire, unpalatable porridge churned out by the far-off BBC and the parvenu ITV or Channel 3, as it was called. We only got a fourth channel on November 2, 1982 (I rather liked it that there was no fanfare, it just went straight in to Countdown).

And few presenters had regional accents. It was more of a classdefined society, and one’s class was appraised pretty much the minute you opened your mouth.

It was generally felt in the upper echelons of ‘society’ that one had to speak in the clipped tones of

Celia Johnson and Trevor Howard in Brief Encounter (spoiler alert: the final clip of the film where the not quite cuckolded husband reads out a crossword clue, to which the answer is key to the film, is deeply poignant but easily missed).

And we come to the question of the Dorset ‘be’.

‘I be going’.

I was explaining old north Dorset speak to a French woman and told her it was quite easy. Instead of saying: I am..

She, he, it is You are…

We are..

They are…

You just substitute ‘be’ for am, is and are.

It’s how I used to speak as a kid with my mates, many of which were farmers’ sons.

So, the, ‘I b’ain’t lost…’ from Roger’s tale was the lad merely shortening, ‘I be not lost…’ It is no more obtuse than French (from which 60-80% of our language stems), which uses the identifying negative to imply that another negative is shortly on its way. Je ne suis pas perdu... – ‘I not am not lost’, which has a double negative so could mean ‘I am lost’.

Confusing, eh?

When I moved back to Dorset, I was rather charmed that practicably everybody used the phrase, ‘to be fair’. I don’t think they were extolling L’Oreal hair products, but our brilliant plumber, Jonny Stuart, as I write this, said ‘to be fair, the pipe is rather old…’.

The great car mechanic Leon

TALES FROM THE VALE

The view from Rawlsbury Camp, with Bulbarrow ‘that girt big hill’ in the distance - image Courtenay Hitchcock

who runs Beechwood in Blandford would stare at the exhaust of my car and say, ‘to be fair, it was on its last legs’.

Our log man, Paul Courage of Hazelbury, thrilled us when he asked if we’d been up Bulburrow Hill yet.

‘What’s that,’ Kae asked.

‘That girt big hill,’ said Paul.

Again, as a kid I’d say ‘girt’ instead of ‘great’.

Years later, before going into journalism, I was in advertising (the difference between the two is that with advertising, you continually fretted about your job security but got paid a lot, and with journalism you continually fretted about your job security and got paid bugger-all, but it was much more fun). And I discovered the link between

regional accents and how they were ‘officially’ viewed.

There were some regional accents widely seen as ‘acceptable’ and even ‘trustworthy’, which included a light Geordie accent, a Hereford/ slightly Welsh accent and a mideastern Scottish, (Edinburgh/ St Andrews) accent, and a mild Yorkshire accent depending on the product.

Obviously, a Yorkshire accent wouldn’t sell a BMW 4x4.

Would sell a tractor, though.

The accents which one didn’t then use to sell products where Birmingham, Liverpool or Estuary.

A west country accent wasn’t in the running, unless it was used for selling agri/outdoors products.

A senior ad exec responsible for an expensive series of TV adverts pushing, I think, Cuprinol hired the top impersonator and actor Robbie Coltrane for the voiceover (between £10k to £40K+ for a couple of hours in a Covent Garden studio was the going rate - nice). His brief was along the lines of, ‘Welsh borders with a taint of North East England’. The girt big man did it perfectly and the ensuing ads resulted in a lot of well-protected garden sheds and fences.

I lament the disappearance of regional dialect and phrases. We be going to sound all the same and that b’ain’t good. Be it!

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POLICE

Voice of the Blue Light: Shaftesbury Rural Neighbourhood Team Monthly news from different voices within the North Dorset Police Team.

Our current 3 local priorities are: 1. Anti Social behaviour: dealing with persistent offenders and repeat victims 2. Drug offences: tackling County Lines and organised drug dealers and protecting Vulnerable Victims, 3. Rural crime: with a focus on Burglary.

Inspector Simon Perry 1656

The town of Shaftesbury and surrounding villages has a local Neighbourhood team stationed at Shaftesbury comprising of One Sergeant , One Constable and two town and two rural PCSOs. Details of the team and our current priorities can be found via our website here.

Neighbourhood officers work closely with Partner Agencies from other services including Housing Associations, Dorset Council, Social Services, Health and the local Town Council to look at providing sustainable long term solutions to local issues.

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One example of our targeted work focussing on priority issues in December was the identification and disruption of a Cannabis growing facility in Shaftesbury town centre.

A rented house had been converted without the landlord’s knowledge to facilitate the growing of cannabis throughout the property.

Community intelligence helped the local team identify the property and officers from the team were able to gain entry and arrest the occupier who was working as “gardener”.

This is believed to be the activity of a larger organised crime

group. The arrested male was charged and remanded to court. The dismantling of the operation inside the house required the whole of the North Dorset neighbourhood teams involvement with officers from Blandford, Gillingham and Sturminster involved as well as resources from Dorset specialist Police teams.

Now we have moved into Tier 5 Restrictions we receive a lot of contact around Covid 19 issues.

Guidance around our Police response can be found here.

These are clearly unprecedented and challenging times, and we are grateful for the Communities support around adherence to the current Tier 5 measures. Our team will patrol and respond to community concerns and will continue to Engage, Explain, Encourage and Enforce the current Measures.

As always for current updates on the work the team undertake please follow our Social Media page NORTH DORSET POLICE on Facebook and/or Twitter.

THEN AND NOW

Then and Now with Roger Guttridge Sansom & Son’s ironmongery in 1900

It’s not Wimborne’s prettiest building but what Church House lacks aesthetically it makes up for in prominence.

Standing alongside the Minster, the two-storey parish room is the scene of social and charity events and church admin in normal times.

Together, the Minster church and Church House dominate the view as you look down Wimborne High

Street from the Square.

But 120 years ago we’d have seen a very different building alongside the Minster.

In Victorian times the site hosted Sansom and Son’s ironmonger’s shop.

The oldest of my pictures shows Sansom’s in 1900. It was given to me 40 years ago by Bill Topp, who worked there in the early 1900s.

The property had been left to the Minster in 1617 but in 1905 they gave Sansom’s notice to quit to make room for the

construction of Church House.

Sansoms announced a sale of their ‘stock, ironmongery, furniture etc’ and later moved to new premises at 9 and 25 High Street.

One of these eventually became Bill Topp’s own shop, Topp & Bollen. Bill was also chairman of Wimborne Urban District Council in 1950.

Meanwhile Church House arose from the rubble of the original Sansom’s shop.

Mrs Bankes of Kingston Lacy House laid the foundation stone on September 13, 1905, and the Bishop of Salisbury dedicated the new building on July 25, the following year.

Building costs totalled £2,870 4s 11d, raised by public subscription.

Roger welcomes emails at roger.guttridge @btinternet.com

The grand opening of Church House on the same site in 1906. Picture from Wimborne Camera by Barbara and Derek Willis

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Church House in 2021

MEET YOUR LOCAL

Meet Your Local: The Cricketers, Shroton

by Laura Hitchcock

Our regular column in which you discover the faces and stories behind the pub sign. This month we’ve been chatting to The Cricketers in Shroton.

Aidan and Chloe outside The Cricketers in Shroton.

The Cricketers is run by husband and wife team Chloe & Aidan Macdonald.

How did you end up at The Cricketers?

Aidan & I started working at The Cricketers back in March 2019 as Training Assistant Manager and Sous Chef. We learned the logistics, as well as getting to know all the lovely local faces that came through our front door. In January 2020, the pub was sold to Punch Pubs, I was then asked to become General Manager and Aidan became Head Chef.

We threw everything we had into these roles, and were loving every second... until the Coronavirus Outbreak. Last June we were offered a Management Partnership to take on The Cricketers as our own business

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and of course we said yes... even in a pandemic!

What’s your favourite local place to visit on an afternoon off?

We absolutely love walking within the local area, especially with our Border Collie, Bentley.

Hambledon Hill is directly behind our pub so it is the perfect spot to spend the afternoon. We also have Hod Hill to the side of us and other small walks that lead to surrounding villages.

Sometimes we simply walk around Shroton - it’s a beautiful place to live in.

Tell us about your 2020...

2020 started out as a wonderful year for us, we were immersed in our new roles and were also enjoying living somewhere new as a fairly newlywed couple.

January to March was fantastic,

we were struggling to squeeze people in!

During the first lockdown we took time to renovate the garden for people to enjoy in the summer, and to spend some time connecting with the local community.

Bentley showing off his favourite Hambledon Hill route

MEET YOUR LOCAL

worked endlessly to ensure a safe yet enjoyable experience this year, and we cannot wait to inject a whole lot of fun back into pub life.

One definite plan is for outdoor benches & heaters, giving us more capacity year round whatever the weather.

Right now, clearly we are simply waiting to know when we can reopen.

Inside the restaurant in The Cricketers

July 4th 2020 and we reopened with a bang; we were busier than ever! All our locals were very present, and so supportive.

We are a small team and Eat Out To Help Out pushed all aspects of this industry to new limits.

We made it through successfully, and were extremely pleased with how business was going.

We started planning special nights again... and then came November 2020 and Lockdown number 2!!

This time we decided to put on takeaways three nights a week for the community of Shroton and surrounding villages. Once again we were again blown away by the support we received.

Shroton is just full of community heart; we love living and working here.

What are you most proud of?

pies are extremely popular. So popular, in fact, we have a night dedicated to them every week - Thursdays from 6pm-9pm is Pie Night!

But one of the most popular dishes on our menu is our Wicket Beef Burger served with all the trimmings.

However... our cheesecakes come highly recommended due to our array of flavours; there’s chocolate orange, toblerone, mars bar, cookie crumble...

What’s next - do you have big plans on the horizon?

Wow, we have so many things planned. It’s just a case of when we are given the green light to go, COVID has definitely put a hold on so many things but it has not stopped our positivity or strive to do more. Our team have

We are continuing with our takeaways on Friday & Saturday evenings but we are working on various projects for when we reopen.

We do currently have 2 fantastic competitions on: 1. We are looking for our ‘Community Hero’ and they could win up to £1000, simply follow www. pubcommunityhero.com to enter your nomination 2. Simply like and follow our Facebook page to be automatically entered to win a meal for 2 and a bottle of Prosecco.

http://thecricketersshroton.co.uk/

We are both so proud of the diverse experience we have created here, from allowing dogs in our bar area (plus an outside dog bar and a plentiful stock of dog biscuits!). We have also worked hard on our restaurant area, meaning we can offer the cosy pub feel in the bar and a more formal dining experience in the restaurant.

Which dish is your most popular?

It’s so hard to choose! Our

The Cricketers’ charmingly comfortable bar area (I LOVE this floor - Ed)

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POLITICS image: Buff-tailed bumblebee (Bombus terrestris).

Brigit Strawbridge.

Bombus Terrestris Our local wildlife columnist is north Dorset resident Brigit Strawbridge Naturalist, wildlife gardener, well-known British environmentalist and bee advocate.

I used to think of February as a bit of an ‘empty’ month… the month between January and March, Winter and Spring, when nothing really happened.

How wrong I was.

February is in fact a month full of hope and promise. Life is stirring beneath and above the ground, buds are tentatively coming into leaf, Robins are pairing up and checking out nesting sites, and the evenings are becoming noticeably lighter. The sense of anticipation is almost tangible.

February also happens to be the month when enormous queen bumblebees begin to emerge from their long winter sleep. Although there are one or two species which have recently begun to raise broods over the winter, most of our 24 species of UK bumblebees have been

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hibernating, deep beneath the soil, since last Autumn.

With bumblebees, it is only the brand new (mated) queens, produced towards the end of the colony’s lifecycle, that hibernate beneath the ground and survive the winter. Apart from those occasional winter active colonies, last year’s males, the colony’s founding queen, and all her female workers will have died out long before winter set in.

So, if you happen upon an ENORMOUS bumblebee at this time of year, she will be one of last year’s new queens just emerged from hibernation - most likely a Buff-tailed bumblebee (Bombus terrestris), which are one of the first species to appear in the spring.

Our newly emerged queen urgently needs to forage for nectar to build up her strength after her long winter sleep... and for pollen, to develop her ovaries.

Hopefully she will have chosen a hibernation site close to a plentiful supply of winter flowering plants such as winterflowering heathers, honeysuckle and clematis, gorse, crocus, dead-nettles or pussy willow.

However, if the sun has tricked her into emerging too early, and there is nothing for her to feed upon, she will starve. This is why these and other early flowering plants are literally life savers for our early rising pollinators. Other early spring favourites include hellebores, snowdrops, green alkanet and lungwort.

The ground is still too cold and hard to plant out right now, but if you are able to visit a garden centre to purchase any of the above plants, please do!

They will be just as attractive to our hungry spring pollinators in their pots, whilst you wait for the soil to heat up to plant them out.

Next month…

Hairy Footed Flower Bees!

Brigit

WILDLIFE

Hugebert at the Hazelbury Bryan Hedgehog rescue

A Prickle of Hedgehogs in Hazelbury Bryan

By Jeanette Hampstead Last year, 2020 was an extremely busy one for us here at the Hedgehog Rescue. We reached our third birthday and although we were not able to celebrate, we did manage to redecorate and completely revamp our little rescue.

Another milestone was admitting our 500th hedgehog. The Rescue has come such a long way since we started taking in sick and injured hedgehogs. We could not have achieved this without the support of Friars Moor vets.

We are so busy now that we need volunteers each morning to help keep the hedgehogs clean and our rescue tidy. Being wild animals, hedgehogs have not learnt to keep their area clean!

So we have assistance from three lovely and dedicated people.

David works three days a week, Penny one day a week and Ian two days but fills in when needed. We are actively looking for another person to cover Saturday mornings.

One of our volunteers cleans the cages, while the hedgehogs are weighed and medicated as necessary. It can take up to three hours with two people working to get all the hedgehogs cleaned out and ready for the day with fresh bedding, food and water.

This time of year we are full to capacity so we also have friends who overwinter hedgehogs for us until the spring.

One of our recent success stories is Hugebert, who was happily sleeping in his nest when he was cut on both sides of his body by a hedge trimmer.

The wounds were extensive, but clean and fairly superficial.

On a Sunday night Friars Moor vets sutured him back together, and the same night he came home to us for nursing care. We gave him antibiotics, lots of quiet time and kept him warm while he gently recovered.

Hugebert is now living up to his name – weighing in at 1290 grams, he is one of our big boys!

He has not yet decided to hibernate as some in the Rescue have, but is a gentle giant who to my great relief can curl into a ball now his injury is healed. This means we can release him in the spring so he can live out his life as hedgehogs should.

Ed - Jeanette’s far too polite to ask for support direct, so I’m doing it for her. Last year the British hedgehog was officially classified as ‘vulnerable to extinction’ . If you’d like to support the hedgehogs there are a number of things you can do.

Firstly, go and follow the Rescue’s Facebook page - where you are not only kept up to date with news, but upon which there is also a gratuitous supply of cute hedgehog videos.

Secondly, Jeanette has an Amazon wishlist set up for items she’s in need of - purchase from the list and the item will go automagically to the Rescue.

Finally, you can donate here.

“Without your help we would not be able to continue our valuable care of these beautiful, grumpy, smelly and endearing little creatures.”

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ANIMALS

Lockdown: A Dog’s Tail...

By Carly Tempany BSc (Hons), RVN Small Animal Team at Damory Vets, Blandford

England is in its third lockdown and people are spending more time at home and with their dog. It is important, therefore, to think about the dog’s perspective on lockdown and the implications it has, not just now but for when life does return to normal.

Being home all day with your dog should be a good thing right?

Not necessarily.

It’s important to keep in mind that any change in routine can be stressful for all animals, human and non-human. Dogs Trust has found that owners are seeing at least one new problem behaviour during lockdown1 So how can we help? Well routine is key. Although there has been a massive change to all of our

(No, this cat is NOT actually drinking antifreeze, I promise - Ed)

Carly Tempany with her crew.

routines, try to keep it as similar to your old routine as possible. For example, getting up at the same time, walking the dog/letting them out into the garden at the same time, feeding at the same time. The more predictable their day is the more secure they will feel after a change and the closer to your old routine the better as it will mean less of a change when lockdown rules are lifted or eased. Of course, you can still keep to your normal weekend routine.

Alone time is a good thing, it gives dogs the time and space to relax, unwind and sleep.

It is important for them to feel secure and happy without you. Prevention of problem behaviours such as separation anxiety will be a lot easier than treating them. Therefore, if your dog is used to being alone, be

sure to still give them their alone time. They may seem like they are much happier with you around but keeping up their ability to cope without you will make both your and their life a lot happier when you are able to go back to work, or have evenings/days out without them.

Dogs can also become bored and frustrated when there is a decrease in the amount of exercise they are having, and there are plenty of interactive toys and games you can get or make at home to help with this.

There is plenty of information and help out there; the most important thing to remember is this is a very stressful time for us all, including our pets.

Some helpful websites to check out are: www.dogstrust.org.uk/ changethetale www.battersea.org.uk www.bluecross.org.uk Reference: 1

. Research by the Dogs Trust 4-12 May 20, 6004 respondents.

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ANIMALS

Send some love...

Registered charity number: 1167990

Send the gift of love with an animal e-card this Valentines day.

Make a donation, choose from cat, dog, pig, donkey, horse, goat or rabbit designs, download and send to your giftee. You will not only be sending and sharing the gift of love to those who matter most to you but will also be helping us to care for rescue animals.

Why not donate what you would normally spend on cards and postage to really make a difference this year.

Donate and choose your e-card at: www.margaretgreenanimalrescue.org.uk/Valentines_Ecards.html

Take a look at our awesome animal Valentine’s Day e- cards – perfect for the animal lover in your life.

By donating, downloading and sending your love you will be helping rescue animals in our care. Every donation goes towards looking after cats, dogs, farmies, horses, donkeys, chickens and small furries while they are in rescue.

A donation helps to pay for veterinary costs, regular flea and worm treatment, food and bedding so really does help.

Thank you for your support Happy Valentine’s Day from all the staff and animals XXX Go on share some love!

Local Pony Club Branch helps Pony Club Centre Riding School Some Riding Schools are ‘Pony Club Centre Riding Schools’, where young people can join the Pony Club without owning a pony, and they allow members to access Achievement Badges, Progressive Awards and Efficiency Tests as well as have fun.

During Lockdown 3 all Riding Schools are shut, meaning they have no income. The summer lockdown was easier as the ponies could be in a field with sufficient grass but at this time of year they are stabled, needing more care, bedding and feed; this can cost about £100 every week.

Those members of the local Branch of the Pony Club, the Blackmore and Sparkford Vale, with their own ponies have

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been running a second hand Equestrian saddlery, equipment and clothes sale to raise money.

They have offered to donate some funds to their local Pony Club Centre Riding School to help them get through this tricky time.

Thank you to Lucy Procter for organising the Second Hand Sale.

A socially-dstanced cheque for £200 was presented to Alison

Tytheridge, Proprietor of Pevlings Farm Riding School.

Alison expressed how incredibly grateful she is - not just for the donation which will reall aid her in the care of the poniues, but for all the support from the Pony Club.

Her Centre members are looking forward to being able to get back to riding and caring for the ponies.

FARMING

Voice Of A Farmer

A new regular column from James Cossins a 5th generation farmer in the Tarrant Valley.

I am the fifth generation of the Cossins family to farm at Rawston Farm, Tarrant Rawston.

Our family took on the tenancy in 1887, moving from Somerset to do so, and in 1919 had the opportunity to purchase the farm.

We are what is described as a mixed farm, or some may call us traditional, in that we have cattle and we grow crops.

We have milking cows and beef cattle, and we grow wheat, barley, oilseeds and beans.

We rotate the fields between grassland and crops using the manure from the cattle to maintain soil health and the fertility of the land.

I think in this modern era this might be what is called ‘sustainable farming’, but it is difficult to get a definition of what exactly sustainable means!

using tractors. Let’s hope we can continue to stay safe.

Unfortunately for my wife Barbara her hospitality business has had to close for the time being, with no indication as to when it will reopen.

As we move into February there is always some optimism on the farm as the days get longer, the weather may improve and we can start preparing fields for spring sowing. The cattle also start looking over the gates from their winter accommodation, hoping the grass will soon start growing so they can be back out grazing .

My family has always been very good at keeping a farm diary, and I have the entire library of them. Referring back 100 years to 1921, the farming events at the beginning of February included

hedge laying, wheat thrashing, and taking the wheat to Blandford and Webb in Blandford in sacks with a horse cart.

Blandford and Webb were a local agricultural merchant who had a presence in our local town for many years.

This month’s picture shows our waterwheel house on the river Tarrant in the summer. This was built by my Grandfather in the 1930’s, where a water-driven wheel drives a pump to draw up water from a borehole to the farms reservoir for cattle drinking. Early thinking of renewable energy!

I think the picture was taken in the early 1940’s as in the background is the ‘new’ road to the Tarrant Rushton Airfield, built during the second World War. Let’s hope by the time I am writing next month Spring will be with us, and we can all look forward to better times!

James

In the current covid pandemic crisis the farm has thankfully not been affected too badly. Our milk and grain collections have continued as normal, and there have been no issues obtaining dairy feed from local mills.

The demand for beef seems largely unaffected, with the farm continuing to supply our farm shop on a weekly basis.

Our staff largely live in the quiet village here, and at work can spend time working alone - especially during the busy planting and harvesting periods

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Growing Organically at Gold Hill Phil Cross has been involved with the family’s organic farm since he was young enough to pull a carrot out of the ground and eat it, according to his mother.

“That’s what she tells everyone,” he smiled.

off.

The Cross family had a British White cattle herd for several years before focusing solely on organic vegetable growing.

It has meant they have a number of outbuildings which has enabled the farm to diversify.

Phil is one of several younger people working in farming in North Dorset and is passionate about local food and his work at Gold Hill Organic Farm.

“The organic movement got hijacked by the healthy eating brigade but actually there are really important environmental benefits when growing in this way.”

The organic farm at Gold Hill in Child Okeford has always been there for Phil. It’s how he earned his pocket money and now where his agricultural career is taking

“We have a plumber, a glass blower, a cheesemaker, artists and a cafe that serves the best food around,” says Phil.

His experience comes from working outdoors all the time and being embedded within the farm from childhood. He is passionate about organic farming.

So how has Covid-19 affected business?

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“We have been busier since the Covid-19 pandemic as people look for healthier ways of eating.

More people are shopping for

YOUNG FARMER

by Rachael Rowe

vegetables. And in winter we actually have more vegetable varieties on sale than at other times of the year.

“Some things we have are more expensive, but they are organic.

We have so many regular customers who come for specific things like our bags of salad leaves or kale. And there’s a footpath on one of our fields so people can actually see the food growing.”

Some items in the shop are sourced locally such as chickens from Hazelbury Bryan, and eggs from local Vanessa Moggridge.

I asked how the people of North Dorset can support local farmers?

“Buying even a few items from the farms helps. It doesn’t have to be a full weekly shop, although some people do use Gold Hill for their supplies.

Just buying one or two items genuinely helps a farmer.”

If there’s one thing Phil is most proud of, it is inspiring others.

“We had someone come and work with us called Stephen Atkinson. He met his wife here and they moved to just outside Hastings. And now they are doing what we are doing here. We’re really proud of him.”

He’s also appreciative of the support for the farm shop from locals.

“It’s like a community. We swap recipes and get to know our customers - all of which is lost in a supermarket. Our customers feel like friends.”

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POLITICS Good grief last month’s hike was popular hundreds of you clicked to explore it.

Sadly we’re still restricted by Courtenay’s knee (*bored of it now, frankly - Ed), so we’ve dipped into a favourite from last year.

It’s 11 miles as we walked it - we know the shorter ones are more widely accessible, but this one has an obvious path to take from Chetnole back across via Calfhay Farm which would chop the distance for you (and allow you to walk along ‘wriggle river’ which can only be a bonus.

Clearly we all need to think about what ‘local’ is during lockdown - this walk may need to wait until we’re all moving around more freely again.

But do please bookmark it and go try it.

Take a Hike...

The routes we feature have always been created and walked recently by ourselves, so you know you can trust them - we aim for unpopulated routes with as little road and as many views as possible!

You can always see the route and follow it yourself via the free Outdoor Active app see all our routes here. (you need to click the ‘contents’ tab - the dropdown box above lets you see the ‘tracks’ of every single walk we do, and the ‘routes’ of those we choose to actually publish)

CLICK THE MAP TO SEE THE INTERACTIVE ROUTE ON OUTDOOR ACTIVE

Even on a dull day this was a pretty walk with only one stiff climb. Lots of wide views from the hills, and empty farmland. Watch out for a few boggy spots, especially where joining the Hardy Way. There’s a pretty bridge over the railway to look out for, too, and the finishing stroll down the tree avenue of a drover’s track is wonderful.

The paths aren’t always well signed, so keep an eye on the Viewranger GPS tracking - download the full map before you leave, signal is very patchy!

In association with OUT OF DOORS

The Voice of The Allotment Frosts and 4 inches of rain kept us from working the soil on our plot.

A few of our neighbours cover their soil with black plastic sheeting to protect it enabling them to dig after wet spells.

We have little to dig during January as at least one third of the area is still cropping. Most of the remainder is either dug or mulched with manure and compost.

These plants should continue cropping through February, followed by a second variety (Red Arrow) during March and April.

The Autumn salad leaves are now depleted and have been covered with cloches hoping they will produce new growth.

At home we have cut the first chicons grown in the dark from the roots of Witloof chicory lifted from the plot in November.

We continue to lift leeks, parsnips, celeriac and carrots.

The carrots were sown in August (Early Nantes) and were fine apart from a little slug damage.

We also continued to pick two varieties of Brussels sprouts (Brendan and Trafalgar).

Our stored potatoes and onions are keeping well. The potatoes were checked mid month when any sprouts were removed. We still have a plentiful supply of peas, broad beans and French beans in the freezer.

The fist pickings of Rudolph purple sprouting were delicious.

During the month we have started off sweet peppers and chilli peppers in a heated propagator, and sown broad

beans and sweet peas in the cold greenhouse.

Our potatoes bought mid month are all stood up in trays. This year we have Foremost, Charlotte, Elfe, Rooster, Picasso and a few International Kidney.

Our seed was ordered back in September from Kings who offer a 40% discount on vegetable and flower seeds to Allotment Associations who are members of The National Allotment Society.

Our allotments in Sturminster Newton are managed by our local association and at the moment have a waiting list of those who require a plot. Since Covid many are turning to ‘Grow Your Own’ and seed companies are seeing a big demand as more turn to producing their own veg, fruit and flowers.

Barry Cuff’s Allotment, with his impressive stand of Brussel sprouts

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with Barry Cuff

OUT OF DOORS

Garden Jobs for January

Snowdrops - named after earrings, not drops of snow are symbolic of Spring, purity and religion - there are more than 2,500 varieties!

with Pete Harcom Head Gardener at Sherton Abbas Gardening

Whilst February can be a cold and wet month there is plenty to do in the garden.

‘Now’s the Time’... to continue planning, preparing, pruning and looking forward to the Spring which is just around the corner! Primroses and Daffodils will be opening soon - (if not already).

PREPARE

Check recently planted trees, shrubs and roses, as these may have loosened by wind.

Having said that, there is still time to plant barefooted plants February is regarded by some as the best time to do this, as the soil will soon be starting to warm up and this will give the plants a good start when the sap starts to rise.

Organic fertilisers - there are many different types of organic fertiliser, each with different characteristics. With the benefit of having tested your soil (please refer to my January article in this magazine), take a number of soil tests from different locations in your garden. This will give you a good overview of the soil nutrient levels in your garden soil and consequently your organic fertiliser needs.

Some of the more common examples of organic fertilisers are: garden compost, well rotted

cow and/or poultry manure, blood, fish and bone meal.

Seaweed fertiliser is one of the most beneficial fertilisers and is also good for soil conditioning.

All potted plants will benefit from a top dress with organic fertiliser.

PRUNE

Prune winter flowering shrubs if they have finished flowering - eg Winter flowering heathers, Jasmine and late flowering Clematis and Buddleia Davidii (butterfly bush) can all now be pruned.

Cut back old stems of herbaceous perennials.

Also overgrown hedges and shrubs can now be cut back before birds start nesting so as to not disturb a nesting bird later in the Spring.

GARDEN BIRDS

February can be a particularly hard time for birds. Ensure your bird feeders are clean and regularly stocked and maybe put up some nest boxes for garden birds to pick themselves a home.

Some birds will use nest boxes as a place to roost and beat the winter chill.

I have seen 8 wrens inside one nest box all snuggled up together. There have been recordings of more than 20 in one nest box!

Pete pete@shertonabbas.co.uk

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Old Places, New Adventures

OUT OF DOORS

By Paul Birbeck, Blue Badge Tour Guide with

Developing a Sense of Place Tour guiding during the pandemic is getting more difficult so Sherborne Walks is having to adapt.

Whilst the lockdown continues, researching new topics and delivering Zoom talks have been useful diversions. Currently, most people are following Government guidelines and are not travelling; the up side being more people seem to be gaining a deeper appreciation of their surroundings, whether that be from inside their homes or outside whilst they exercise or simply ‘take the air’.

The increased media attention upon our mental health, highlighting the benefits of appreciating and gaining contentment from interacting with our environment is fundamental to having a ‘Sense of Place’.

Decades ago, I was a member of group of teachers who developed a GCSE course called ‘Environment’. This involved encouraging teenagers to appreciate and value their surroundings and understand how our decisions and actions have consequences upon the health of the Earth and our everyday lives.

I remember taking a group of 15 year olds on a ‘landscape appreciation’ visit to the Iron Age hill fort at Oliver’s Castle, near Devizes. We sat on top of the hill looking out westwards over a ‘stunning’ view of the White Horse Vale and the River Avon valley.

This view could easily be Hambledon Hill overlooking the Blackmore Vale.

The youngsters were asked to score different aspects of the view and create a score ranging between -5 to +5. All except one student gave a high plus score; one boy, who had recently moved into the area from Middleborough, gave ‘

-5’.

When asked why he disliked the view he explained that his ‘special place’ was next to a steelworks, deep inside a vibrant, busy industrial city.

Roundway Hill Fort with Oliver’s Castle, nr Devizes

He hated the openness, the feeling of being exposed and the monotony of the field pattern.

An important lesson learnt - not everyone has the same reaction to place.

Luckily, for those who live in the Blackmore Vale, it’s likely we are pleased to have access to our ‘doses of nature’. Whether viewed through a window, looking at the garden and associated wildlife, or directly experiencing outdoors, place is an amazing tonic. The infinite variety of shapes, colours, and sounds create characteristic ‘patterns within patterns’ which anyone can appreciate – whether it be the micro structure of a plant leaf to a grand vista. We all have places that make us feel happy.

Luckily, we also use different ways to reflect our sense of place, whether it be through art forms, music, poetry or simply actively experiencing the diversity of our surroundings. Many more people are now volunteering to help restore damaged sites, clear rubbish and some are actively voicing their concerns and demanding change from the decision makers. We all belong to a special place, but do we always understand its special features, value it and look after it as well as we could?

As the Lockdown continues to limit our enjoyment of the world, Sherborne Walks post a number of Zoom presentations that look at the beauty and interesting aspects of our local area. A catalogue of journeys around the area with booking details is available at www. sherbornewalks.co.uk.

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FLOWERS

Flowers in February Well, it has finally arrived, the shortest month of the year and one that offers a chance for romantic gestures on the 14th.

Valentine’s Day has its origins in the Roman festival of Lupercalia, celebrating the coming of spring, including fertility rites and the pairing of women and men.

Outlawed by Pope Gelasius I at the end of the 5th century it became ‘St. Valentine’s Day’, celebrated as a day of romance by the giving of handwritten notes and tokens of love, replaced today by the giving of red roses.

I am often asked why roses are so expensive to buy for Valentine’s Day and the answer is due to supply and demand.

The roses are grown abroad predominantly in Ecuador, Kenya

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and Colombia - and they are then shipped to auction in the Netherlands where wholesalers purchase them in large quantities to be delivered to the likes of me.

Unfortunately, commercially grown flowers clock up air miles and by the time they arrive in my studio they have undergone many sorting processes including treatments to stop insects and diseases being imported into this country.

All of this adds costs, and at times when demand is high the auction price increases, which in turn is passed onto you the customer.

The advantage of commercially grown flowers is their quality; the floriculture industry has been around for a very-long time and is a technologically advanced, producing exceptional products.

Flower varieties have been developed over many years to withstand transportation and still have a long vase life (the length of time they continue to flower after being cut).

There is a rising trend for locally grown flowers, for which you will pay a premium and although they have less impact on the environment they do have a very short vase life. I like to think there is a place for both, and that choice has to be a good thing.

I will be kept busy this Valentines Day putting together gorgeous natural-looking bouquets and delivering them to lucky recipients throughout the area.

To order yours, go to my website to order online or give me a call.

Oonagh Langrishe The English Florist www.theenglishflorist.co.uk

BOOK CORNER POLITICS

Voice of the Books “...Why is he here?

Newfoundland home of his ancestors.

Why is my dog lying at my feet in the shape of a croissant as I write this? How have I come to cherish his warm but lightly offensive pungency?

How has his fish breath become a topic of humour when friends call round for dinner? Why do I shell out more than a thousand pounds each year to pay for his insurance? And why do I love him so much?

But of course Ludo is a unique animal to me and the rest of his human family. He is now an elderly gentleman aged twelve and a half, and we would do almost anything to ensure his continued happiness. We willingly get drenched as he tries to detect every smell on Hampstead Heath. We schedule our days around his needs – his mealtimes, his walks, the delivery of his life-saving medication (he has epilepsy, poor love). We spend a bizarrely large amount of our disposable income on him, and he never sends a card of thanks. (If you’re reading this at a point where you’re thinking of getting your first dog and consider a purchase price of £1,500 a little dear, then all I can say about the costs to come – vets, food, dog-sitting, accoutrements both essential and superfluous – is ha ha ha.) ”

Ludo is not a special dog. He’s just another Labrador retriever, one of approximately 500,000 in the UK (he’d be one in a million in the United States, the most popular breed in both countries). Ludo has a lot in common with all these dogs. He loves to play ball; obviously he’s an expert retriever. He could eat all the food in the universe and leave nothing for the other dogs. He is prone to hip dysplasia. He looks particularly attractive on a plush bed in a centrally heated house very far from the

(excerpt from Dog’s Best Friend by Simon Garfield)

Dog’s Best Friend by Simon Garfield £16.99 One of the most welcome changes to lockdown is being able to get out and discover the countryside on your doorstep, often accompanied by a dog. So I thought it would be interesting to discover how this relationship began. Simon Garfield has done just that.

One of the first words we learn. Perhaps the best friend we’ll have. An animal so much part of our lives that we speak to it like a child and spend small fortunes on its wellbeing and wardrobe.

DOG’S BEST FRIEND investigates this unique bond by revisiting some of the most important milestones in our shared journey. It begins with the earliest visual evidence on ancient rock art, and ends at the laboratory that sequenced the first dog genome. En route we encounter the first Labradoodle in Australia, a misguidedly loyal Akita in Japan, an ill-fated Poodle trainer in the United States, and a hilariously disobedient Romanian rescue dog named Kratu at the Birmingham NEC. We will also meet Corgis and Dorgis at the Palace, the weightless mutniks of the Soviet space programme, a Dalmatian who impersonates Hitler, and an owner who claims his Border Collie can remember the names of more than a thousand soft toys.

DOG’S BEST FRIEND is as entertaining as it is informative, as eccentric as it is erudite, and all told with Simon Garfield’s irrepressible gift for witty and insightful storytelling.

Wayne CLOSED FOR BROWSING, OPEN FOR BUSINESS We are temporarily closed for browsing but remain here for all your book-ish needs. Please contact us by phone, email or order online - the books can be picked up from kerbside (nearest car park) or posting at cost. Stay well, stay well-read.

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In association with

CHARITY PAGES

This month’s charity: Your Mental Health Matters according to Dorset Mind.

Not surprisingly, almost half of the UK’s population have felt anxious or worried recently, which increases to 64% in people with pre-existing mental health conditions. Loneliness and isolation of lockdown has largely contributed to this and local charity Dorset Mind believe that they have a range of support that can help people through this challenging time… But this requires extensive funding.

Through the pandemic, Dorset Mind has continued to support Dorset Residents who are vulnerable or at risk of developing mental health illness because of COVID-19. Delivery of their face-to-face support moved online or by phone – a move that saw referrals for support increase by more than 80%.

Dorset Mind’s Adult Services offer 1-2-1 and group support and interventions countywide.

Support includes: active monitoring (CBT style coaching), counselling, mentoring, befriending, peer-based groups and alternative social prescriptions. These all aim to empower people to gain confidence and improve their wellbeing.

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“…during the COVID-19 lockdown the online meetings have proved vital to my mental wellbeing as I live alone…”

These services are available to everyone, but the charity also offers targeted support to minorities and communities at risk – who face considerable stigma - such as BAME and LGBT+, people who live with eating disorders, carers and young people.

Young people need additional support to stop mental health conditions worsening during lockdowns. Early intervention is key. The charity works closely with schools countywide under their ‘Dorset Mind Your Head’ umbrella to help students, staff and parents. Support includes 1-2-1 counselling, a wellbeing check-in service and wellbeing support groups.

“I’ve really missed being at school because I don’t get to see my friends...

I’m anxious about going back but I have a really nice person from Dorset Mind I talk to every week about how I feel, and it helps me think that I’m going to be OK.” Dorset Mind’s workplace wellbeing training programmes supports employees

and employers of local businesses - with content tailored for home working and the current climate.

Their expert training team is due to launch Mental Health First Aid Training Courses at the beginning of March, joining their repertoire of mental health training courses, including ‘Stress, Anxiety and Burnout’ and ‘Courageous Conversations.’

Dorset Mind is an affiliate of the Mind network, but remains independent and responsible for their funding. All donations made to them enable the charity to provide support for people in Dorset’s better mental health.

- Make a donation to Dorset Mind’s vital work by texting ‘DORSETMIND3’ to 70460 to donate £3.

- Alternatively, find out more about the charity or volunteer for them by visiting their website dorsetmind.uk.

Dorset Mind Volunteer Mark at Dolphin Centre

Ward Goodman specialises in the charity, community and not for profit sector.

Ward Goodman has a dedicated team of accounting and auditing professionals delivering a comprehensive range of services to registered charities, community groups and not for profit organisations. The team are trained specifically to carry out charity accounting, auditing and reporting and to communicate effectively with Trustees, management and volunteers. Contact the team today for a free consultation.

This month’s charity: Shine is the only UK charity that supports adults in their 20s, 30s and 40s who have experienced a cancer diagnosis.

There is never a good time to have cancer, but we know that younger adults face different issues than their older or younger counterparts – Work.

Fertility. Finance. Insurance. Sex. Dating. Mental health. Every single aspect of life is affected when you receive a cancer Dorset Mind diagnosis.

Volunteer Mark at Dolphin Centre

Young adults with cancer: people in need

An estimated 210,000 adults in their 20s, 30s and 40s are living with and beyond cancer in the UK. That’s 10 times the number of children and teenagers living with the disease. Yet most cancer support services target older people, while services that do include young adults stop at age 24. A cancer diagnosis can have devastating consequences for young adults.

“It’s been lovely to meet up with others who were going through a similar thing. I felt less alone.”

Shine Cancer Support is the only charity in the UK exclusively focused on supporting this group of people. We started in Dorset as an informal support group and have grown to become a national organisation, supporting thousands of people across the UK. We are

also patient-led, all of our staff and most of our volunteers have dealt with their own cancer experience so we truly ‘get it’ and design all of our services with patients involved.

The current Covid-19 pandemic is having an unprecedented impact on all of us. Our community is particularly impacted because of shielding guidance for those who are most vulnerable to infection.

“Shine has been a lifeline for me when I’m struggling.”

What we are doing to support our community

With all face-to-face events postponed or cancelled, we are already providing online versions of meet ups and workshops. For example, we are replacing our regional network meet ups with facilitated Zoom calls, allowing our local communities to stay connected with people in their areas. We’ve reached over 1400 people so far though our online events.

We have also created some new online activities for our community, including a book club and film club. We’ve created

some completely new programmes too, aiming to provide the type of connections and support usually found through our residential ‘Great Escapes’ and have so far supported nearly 50 people through these six-week events.

How you can help

If you know anyone living with any type of cancer diagnosis who is in their 20s, 30s or 40s, please let them know about us. As a small charity, we have limited ways to spread the word about what we do and a lot of our members find us through word of mouth.

The pandemic has had a huge impact on fundraising so, if you’re interested in making a donation or supporting us in any way, please do get in touch. We’d love to hear from you at hi@ shinecancersupport.org or visit our website for more information www.shinecancersupport.org “Shine has been a great way to connect with others. I love the vibe and approach. Everyone is so friendly!”

Shine Great escape Manchester

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CHARITY NEWS

Shy Lilymay’s 8th Birthday Foodbank Wish When mum Debbie asked Lilymay what she’d like to do for her 8th birthday last week, she did not expect to hear “Can we go shopping in Morrisons and get food for the food bank?”

Lilymay is a shy young girl from Blandford St Mary who has been struggling with the current lockdown - she misses her family and friends, though she’s lucky to have two older brothers at home with her.

“Lilymay has been increasingly

72yr old Winston’s Skydiving for STARS! Winston Leese, a well known musician from Spetisbury who spent 22 years working for the Dorset Music Service teaching trumpet and piano to 8 to 18 yr olds, is fundraising for local Dorset charity STARS. “I turn 73 next month; I’ve been priviliged to be able to help lots of charities throughout my life both via my music and my Churchill Productions local theatre company. I strongly feel that smaller local charities deserve a lot of support, now more than ever.”

STARS provides dedicated free services for people of any age

aware of how many families are struggling over the last year.”

Debbie told The Blackmore Vale “She’s such a shy little thing, but she has been thinking a lot about people who are suffering, and the ways she might be able to help.

“When we saw a Facebook post of the things that the Blandford food bank had run out of, Lilymay decided immediately that’s what she’d like to do.

“So on her birthday we did indeed head to Morrisons and bought milk, tinned fish, tinned fruit, tinned vegetables and rice.

The next day we took them to the food bank.”

Lilymay with her birthday cake

Blandford Food Bank Manager Gail was touched by Lilymay’s gesture “It shows incredible empathy. selflessness and kindness for such a young person to think of other people rather than themselves. This was such a generous gesture.”

Lilymay’s mum agrees “We are so very proud of her.”

in Dorset who have experienced sexual violence.

“During 2019 almost 2,000 people were supported by STARS, and many of these were children.” comments Winston “Having worked with children of all ages, I realise that in the current difficult situation children are potentially more vulnerable than ever before.”

Like many charities STARS are struggling to raise funds during the pandemic, and are currently looking for some brave souls to join Winston on Friday 16th July 2021 (COVID restrictions willing) to take on an ultimate challenge, a 10,000ft or 15,000ft sky dive to help raise vital funds.

Winston set himself a £500

Winston Leese

fundraiser target which he has already surpassed - he’s now aiming for £1000: “It appears I’m going to launch my 73yr old body out of a perfectly good plane to support STARS’ work, so I’m hoping people will donate to such a necessary and worthwhile cause.

You can support STARS via Winston’s fundraising page here

Guys Marsh Prison and the IMB: might you be interested?

The HMP Guys Marsh community is ‘Home’ to 430 men and a workplace for 200 plus local people.

It is rarely spoken about and hardly celebrated, which given its growing strengths as noted by the Prison Inspectorate in their latest report, is a shame.

Guys Marsh Prison, immediately below Shaftesbury, is a Category C Adult male prison currently with a capacity of 466 men, but this is likely to be expanded over the next few years. Category C prisons house those offenders considered unlikely to pose a risk to the General Public.

The word ‘Prison’ tends to bring out some very different responses in people: some positive, many negative.

Whatever you feel about the purpose of prisons, most people

would agree that they ought to be institutions which are safe and where the occupants are treated in a decent way.

Prison Life, despite all the myths, is not much fun. Most men at Guys Marsh deal with their incarceration in a pragmatic way; the crime is committed, the consequences of it need to be dealt with, and then move on.

However, some find it much harder to cope with loss of family, friends and freedom.

In normal times, prisons are busy places during the day.

Guys Marsh, being a training and resettlement prison, has workshops, farm and garden teams, kitchens and Education courses (both for trades and literacy/numeracy) all providing valuable experience and preparation for release.

Sadly, at the moment, all this activity is in abeyance, but we all look forward to happier future days. During an earlier lockdown,

CHARITY NEWS

a team of prisoners were charged with the production of ‘scrubs’ for PPE.

So who are the IMB (Independent Monitoring Board) and what is their connection to Guys Marsh?

The IMB is a voluntary organisation appointed by the Ministry of Justice, to ensure that prisons are safe and run in a humane way. All prisons have an appointed Board made up from members of the local community.

The role is entirely voluntary, but it is one way of ensuring that what goes on in prisons is visible to the general public. The board has no role in managing prisons, but members have a right to go into all areas of the prison and observe what is going on. Prisoners who feel that the prison service has acted unreasonably can appeal to the IMB to intervene on their behalf.

The Board publishes a report annually to the Minister of Justice and is made public for all to read.

The role of the IMB is to be the eyes and ears of the public. We need to recruit more members to the current Guys Marsh IMB team of nine. Might you be interested?

The commitment would be no more than three days a month at a time to suit you. We would welcome applications from all those who are interested.

Applications are entirely online at https://www.imb.org.uk/joinnow/current-vacancies/.

No qualifications are necessary, other than an open mind and clear thinking. Closing date for applications is the 28th February - we look forward to hearing from you.

Rob Norton, Chair, IMB Guys Marsh

image: Heather Brown (I’m just ruining Heather’s image to shout CONGRATULATIONS to her for winning Dorset Tourism’s ‘Unsung Hero’ Award this week.

So well deserved - well done Heather!)

Heather Brown is a food writer and home economist with a passion for Dorset’s brilliant foodie scene. Heather runs Dorset Foodie Feed which helps to champion Dorset’s food and drink businesses, as well as working with clients to recipe test, write food based copy, help foodie businesses with their online presence and make food for digital content.

IG: @HeatherBrownUK

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PANCAKES

by Heather Brown

With Pancake Day approaching on Tuesday 16th February, these delicious treats are not only easy to make, with no special equipment needed, they are also simple to tweak to be vegan friendly or gluten free and are a vessel for all sorts of delicious toppings.

Most standard crepe recipes, like the one below, take the form of plain flour, cow’s milk and eggs; but all sorts of tweaks still produce tasty pancakes, as long as the ratios of flour, milk and egg/egg replacement stay the same.

It is also simple to source local ingredients to make, if you should so wish.

There are a number of milk vending machines

across Dorset giving 24/7 access to milk (almost) straight from the cow, certainly direct from the farmer. You can find local eggs in most butchers or farm shops and Stoate & Sons flour mill near Shaftesbury sell their flour online as well as a wide range of local stockists.

If you are looking for some delicious local toppings, then Ajar Of have their handmade Dorset sea salted caramel to adorn your pancakes and you can find a number of delicious fruit curds from From Dorset With Love.

If a savoury pancake is more your jam, then there are a plethora of local cheese companies to choose from, including the Book & Bucket

This recipe makes 4 large pancakes (which is usually plenty for one person). If you are feeding more than one person, then simply multiply the recipe, keeping the method the same.

Ingredients • • •

4oz plain flour 1 egg 50-100ml milk

Method • • • • • • • •

Place into a bowl the flour and add the egg and some of the milk. Begin to mix with a whisk (you can use a mixer if you have one but start slowly so as not to decorate your kitchen in flour).

Continue whisking until all the lumps are whisked out. This should result in a thick, smooth paste.

Gradually add in more milk, mixing between each addition, until you have a batter the consistency of a good smoothie.

Place your frying pan onto a high heat. The hardest bit is now to wait until the frying pan is nice and hot. If you don’t wait, your first pancake will be limp and clammy.

Once your pan is hot, drizzle or spray into the pan some oil. Swill the oil around the pan and then pour off any excess into a bowl. The oil is there to make sure the pancake doesn’t stick, but it needs to be the barest coating.

I find a ladle the best at spooning the mixture into the pan but if you have a jug then that works too. Ladle or pour the mixture into the pan and gently move the pan around to help the mixture create a thin coating over the entire base of the frying pan.

As it cooks, you should see the colour of the pancake changing. When the whole pancake has changed colour, ease a spatula underneath to loosen and either flip over with the spatula or obviously you can ‘flip’ the pancake into the air.

Cook the other side of the pancake just enough to brown (this won’t take more than a few seconds) and tip out onto a plate.

Tips 1. Pancakes are best eaten hot from the pan but if that isn’t possible, then stack the pancakes on top of each other and they will collectively stay warm until you have finished cooking the last one.

2. For gluten free pancakes, switch the plain flour to gluten free plain flour.

3. For vegan pancakes, replace the egg with 5tbsp of oil and the milk with a plant based alternative. You might find you need more milk than I suggest above. Just keep adding until you get the consistency of a good smoothie.

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POLITICS

Ross Huey at home in the Dorset Farm Butchers shop image: Rachael Rowe

Ross Huey A Lifetime in Master Butchery

By Rachael Rowe 56

FOOD & DRINK

“When we started up, meat was sold in last night’s Echo with a bit of greaseproof paper.

Can you imagine what Health and Safety would say today.”

Ross Huey has been a master butcher for just over 60 years, and runs Dorset Farm Butchers at Sturminster Marshall. He is 79 years young and works with colleagues John (age 85 and about to retire) and the younger of the trio, Andy who is 66.

headhunted to run Dorset Farm Butchers and returned to the trade. When an opportunity arose to buy the business in 2013, he jumped at the chance.

“I have control of what I sell.

Most of my meat comes from the Broadlands Estate near Romsey.

I know the life it has had, and the quality. My venison is from Dorset. And our products like faggots and sausages are all homemade here.”

Ross has seen many changes in the butchery business. “I’m still working in pounds and ounces.

It’s what people understand.

“My dad had a big farm near Ringwood and we kept lots of pigs. When I left school I planned to be a draughtsman at Hurn Airport but within two weeks of me leaving, De Haviland went bust.

Dad said to me, if I get a small van I could drive it round and sell our pork. So I did that and I passed my driving test on my seventeenth birthday. Well I was driving a tractor at nine!

And I remember when chicken was a luxury meat. People didn’t kill chickens as often because they produced eggs.”

I noticed the mark up in the butcher’s shops. We were selling at 1 shilling, and their price was 4s! I went back to Dad and suggested we sell our own meat. At the time he had a greengrocers shop, and we converted that to a butchers shop. At nineteen years old I had my own business.”

So how has the Covid-19 pandemic affected business?

He has noticed the method of meat being cut has changed too.

“Now they cut all the fat off and its more lean, which is good I suppose. But I was brought up on bread and dripping because that’s all we had.”

“My trade has doubled.” Ross shares an infectiously impish grin “People are cooking at home and they can’t go out. It’s the husbands too. They can use shopping as an excuse to get out of the house! And after they

have tasted my meat, they keep coming back for more.”

Ross and his team usually make 150 pounds of sausages each week but have recently increased it to 250lb so they can keep up with demand.

“A good sausage has high quality free range pork, natural casings and is well seasoned.” advises Ross. In summer they have ten varieties on sale.

He is open seven days a week, and is looking for a new butcher to help with the increase in demand.

I can’t help but spot the ‘Wanted’ poster behind Ross’ head as we talk. He’s looking to recruit a replacement for the now-retiring 85yr old John.

And the poster? ‘...would suit a semi retired person”.

Chatting away to Ross, it’s obvious it suits him and his team, anyway. For someone with the right attitude there are opportunities in becoming a butcher.

“After all these years I’m doing exactly what I wanted to do - to be a master butcher selling quality locally sourced meat.”

Rachael Rowe is a freelance food, health and travel writer in North Dorset. Her portfolio is at www.rachaelrowe.com

It took six years for Ross to become a Master Butcher. His certificate - dated 21 June 1960 hangs proudly in the back of the shop.

Ross has not always been in Sturminster Marshall.

“I had two shops in Christchurch.

And then mad cow disease put paid to them. That was terrible.”

He has retired twice, but was

Dorset Farm Butchers produce image: Rachael Rowe

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FOOD & DRINK

THE ROMANCE OF WINE We often talk about the best food to pair particular wines with but, on this occasion, I am prescribing a pairing with love.

Very apt considering Valentine’s Day is around the corner.

Popular culture is alight with references to wine and love; there are many magical moments in films, classic literature texts littered with clinking glasses and songs across the ages and genres that mention the ‘good stuff.’

Why? Maybe it’s the endorphins that are released when we have a glass, or maybe it’s the fact that the ‘theatre’ of opening and sharing a bottle of wine can be romantic in itself.

Domaine de Nizas ‘Le Clos’ Rosé, £15 p/btl From grapes grown on the heights of the medieval town of Pezenas in the Languedoc region of France, Domaine de Nizas’ rosé is a fresh and delicate expression of red berries, fleshy peach and a touch of blossom. If you like the more elegant and dry style of ‘the pink stuff’ this is definitely worth a try. Lastly, it looks divine; a very pretty pink hue and a glass bottle with glass closure that frankly, looks the business.

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by Sadie Wilkins, Indie Wine Merchant, Vineyards of Sherborne

Whatever the reason, sharing a good bottle of wine brings about its own ‘moment.’

historical and mythological references that empower the actual wine itself.

Hollywood has tapped into the pairing of wine and love for years; one of the most memorable scenes in Casablanca (1942) is when the iconic line ‘Here’s looking

WLet’s take a look at the Zibibbo grape (also known as Muscat of Alexandria). Not only is it said to have been the grape of choice used for ‘wooing’ one another amongst ‘the Gods,’ but it is colloquially called ‘The Grape of Love,’ arguably as it was Aphrodite’s favourite grape and she was the Goddess of Love.

at you kid’ Is delivered by Humphrey Bogart in a joyful Champagne toast to Ingrid Bergman in Paris, with a Champagne saucer in hand and ‘As time goes by’ playing on the piano. Ticking all the boxes there, Bogart.

We often drink wine in a celebratory way and what better to celebrate than the notion of love. However, there are

Rivani Chardonnay, £10.75 p/btl Made by a Prosecco producer, but not Prosecco.

This sparkler is something a little different and a true gem; it’s a stunning little wine for those who like a bit of structure to their fizz.

Lush apple and pears at the forefront, but followed up by some biscuity goodness. It’s a fizz that simply delivers on everything that its dinky and voluptuous looking bottle promises - plus it doesn’t break the bank.

www.vineyardsofsherborne.co.uk

With all this said, at Vineyards we believe that a love for wine is enough reason to crack open a bottle. So, whether you are raising a glass to yourself or you are creating your very own ‘magical moment’ with someone you love, we’ve got three delicious suggestions this month:

Pellegrino Passito Pantelleria Liquoroso 50cl, £15 p/btl Cantine Pellegrino is one of Sicily’s most important and prosperous wineries.

Today, they are one of very few families who can trace their lineage back to the original 19th Century founders of the Marsala trade.

These luscious passito styles made from Zibibbo ‘Grape of Love’ are widely regarded as Italy’s finest sweet wines.

Produced on the tiny, volcanic island of Pantelleria 100km southwest of Sicily and 60km east of the Tunisia. Pair this ‘nectar of the Gods’ with a liplicking dessert for a real ‘magical moment’. Bellissimo!

Notes From An Epicurean Hello, January has gone already, hope the New Year’s resolutions are continuing!!

February is marmalade time if one makes one’s own, Seville oranges should be available now, traditionally the best as they have a bitter flavour.

Marmalade is thought of as British, but the name comes from Portuguese, “marmelo” which means “quince”. Originally it was a solid quince block, similar to membrillo, cut into pieces rather like Turkish Delight, and sold in wooden boxes.

In the 17th century recipes started to appear in the Royal Court and grand houses of England, Oranges would have been a luxury and awfully expensive and so the first marmalade as we know it would be served in the wealthy homes

often as an accompaniment to other meals or an ingredient. At that time, it was considered by herbalists to benefit digestion:

FOOD & DRINK

Godminster’s Heart-Shaped

Vintage Organic Cheddar Godminster

“warme the stomack, digest, and breake winde”.

It was James Keillor who popularised marmalade building the first factory to mass produce the preserve in 1797. He also spread the rumour that his family created it after a ship carrying Seville oranges sheltered in the harbour in Dundee to escape a storm, they bought the oranges at a cheap price, chopped them, and boiled them in syrup.

Although still expensive it was more affordable and so our obsession with marmalade was born!

Other notable dates this month?

Valentine’s Day, obviously; a chance to purchase cour de Neufchatel, French heart-

shaped soft cheese, similar to camembert and Godminster’s wonderful cheddar, in their heart shaped dark red wax.

On the 16th of February, this year it is Shrove Tuesday, the day preceding Ash Wednesday, the start of Lent. This day marks the day when, traditionally, people would visit their priest to be shriven, absolved of their sins, before Lent began. The eating of pancakes was a way of using up indulgent foods such as eggs and milk before the period of abstinence. As is often the way with Christian Holy days, there is a link to pagan times when eating round pancakes represented the sun and the approach of Spring.

Happy pancake day!!

Simon Vernon Food consultant & Great Taste Awards Judge

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FOOD & DRINK

The Love Local Trust Local Awards are back!

The 2020 Love Local Trust Local Awards were a huge success and behind the scenes plans are already being made for the 2021 Awards.

been possible without the encouragement and support from our sponsors and judges to whom we are indebted, including the support from The Blackmore Vale (*waves hand* - Ed)

As the Covid-19 pandemic continues to unsettle all our lives, being able to provide food & drink with known provenance is vital for our health and wellbeing.

Everyone at LLTL is passionate about sharing British farmers and the food they produce and championing buying locally produced produce.

Our 2020 Judges had nothing but positive comments on their judging experience but what does being a sponsor and judge of these awards entail?

The inaugural Love Local Trust Local Awards would not have

Our own food writer Heather scooped a Runner up last year she said “I just like the philosophy of the LLTL awards. It’s genuinely about good food and real stories.”

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Bill Meaden of Cranborne Chase Cider scooped 3 LLTL awards in 2020

The hard work is carried out by The Cossins Family, founders of the Love Local Trust Local Label and the Dorset Love Local Trust Local Food & Drink Awards.

drink offerings from our entrants!

A great networking day for our sponsors and an opportunity to discover some fabulous Dorset Food & Drink too!

They take their role very seriously and study and investigate every entry. Each sponsor is then given a category on which to judge, and provided with up to five “finalists” entries to contemplate.

Finally comes the hard bit making a decision on a Category Winner and a Category RunnerUp. Such was the quality of the 2020 entries this took many hours of deliberation!

Judges then go out to visit each entry, an opportunity to really understand and appreciate the hard work and dedication that goes into creating a local and sustainable product.

Then there is the “tasting day” when sponsors and judges gather to savour the delicious food &

We’re proud and excited to be the official media partner for 2021. The Love Local Trust Local team are currently encouraging new sponsors to join them in championing Dorset Farmers, Dorset Fishermen and Dorset Food & Drink Producers.

Do you think you have what it takes to join them on their journey and to celebrate all that is local and all that is Dorset? If so please contact Barbara Cossins at awards@ lovelocaltrustlocalawards.

In association with

DORSET PRODUCERS

Designed in Dorset is an online marketplace that showcases some of the best artisan businesses across this lovely county.

Together with our 70+ vendors we are helping to boost the local economy, reduce our impact on the environment and support small business in Dorset. With no joining fees and small commission for any sale, it makes sense to join us as both a customer and a vendor. Buy anything from a kitchen table to handmade jewellery, safe in the knowledge that you are helping a small business owner achieve their dreams.

FEBRUARY’S FEATURED VENDOR Pip Natural Skin Care, founded by Catherine Thomas, are located in Tarrant Monkton and are proud to be part of the Designed in Dorset family.

Their plant inspired products really care for your skin and respect the environment.

On the website you can choose from a range of intensive Handcreams, anti-ageing Moisturisers, beautiful face oils and palm oil free soaps.

Great care has gone into choosing ingredients that are sustainable and ethically sourced as well as using packaging that is recyclable and as plastic free a possible.

We have also put together some lovely gift tins which make really nice presents.

“Kindness to you and to nature is very important to us, and so is making skincare that is affordable, and really works.”

Soft & Beautiful Frankincense Face Oil - £12.50 A night oil for mature and dry skin. Suitable for all skin types, even sensitive skin, this is an intensely nourishing and complex combination of Frankincense, Camelia, Rosehip Seed, Evening Primrose and Argan beauty oils

Hard Working Handcream with Lavender and Geranium - £8.50 A Shea Butter rich, and deeply moisturising cream to heal, soften and protect your hands.

Citrus Trio Gift Set - £20 This gift tin contains the Frankincense, Neroli and Tangerine Moisturising Serum, the mini Face Oil with the same beautiful essential oils, and the soothing Mandarin Lip Balm.

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ART

Elm House Studio Pottery Catherine and Jeremy Broadway

by Edwina Baines edwina@theblackmorevale.co.uk

When Dutch elm disease swept through southern Britain in the 1960s and 70s, over 90% of elms were lost; an estimated 25 million trees. Cath and Jerry Broadway told me there used to be many elm trees around Elm House Studio, their home in Child Okeford where the couple lovingly create handmade pottery and ceramic products, beautifully hand painted with designs inspired by nature.

The elm trees have returned, and Jerry informed me that as long as the hedgerows are kept well below 15 feet the saplings will thrive. The insect responsible for the disease flies at that height so the smaller trees are safe.

Passionate about passing on his extensive knowledge not only of pottery but also of the lovely countryside surrounding their home, he also coaches individual students in his spare time.

The current lockdown has given the couple more opportunity for exercise, photography and simply time to ‘stand and stare’ at the masterpieces of nature - from a shattered puddle of ice to frosty seed heads in the hedgerows.

Having nature on one’s doorstep, helps not only with lockdown but also a means of improving mental health and clinical depression. Describing it as similar to Churchill’s ‘black dog’, Jerry has personal knowledge of this. The structure, processes of glazing and different firings involved in throwing a pot have helped to give him the tools to cope.

“Artists are privileged people because they’re able to see the world in ways that perhaps other people cannot. That’s why it seems selfish to keep this skill to myself and why I always like to do some form of teaching.

It almost feels like a moral responsibility. I dread that if art is not kept alive it will cease to enrich people’s lives.

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Jerry Broadway at work

It’s so important for artists to be approachable” he says, giving me an endearing example:

“One day at the local fete I ran a workshop for children to experiment with clay. One little girl was working for a long time on her own, wetting and smoothing a small piece of the clay. She told me it was finished and I tentatively asked her what it was.

‘It’s a pond!’ she said.

So I suggested we place a little duck on it!”

Cath attended Art College at Kingston, Surrey where she gained a first-class BA Honours Degree in Fine Art. She further developed her skills at Chelsea College of Art, gaining a Master’s Degree in the field of Fine Art and training as a printmaker. Her husband introduced her to the art of pottery and thus it became a true ‘marriage of convenience!’

The duo are complementary,

ART POLITICS

“Just one glaze may have up to eight ingredients which must all be weighed, sieved and measured, including felspar, flint, talc, bone ash and china clay. All these recipe ingredients are carefully guarded secrets.”

Cath and Jerry Broadway outside their Elm House Studio Pottery in Child Okeford

each with their own distinctive approach. Cath’s artistry is in the imaginative surface decoration, whilst Jerry’s skills lie in the making and the chemistry of the glazing.

Cath made an interesting comment: “A painter’s colours are ready made, whereas a potter must mix and sieve his raw ingredients. Firing is an art in itself, it brings life to the work.

Potters often wonder why they put themselves through this.

Ultimately it is to find the ideal balance between surface and form.”

The couple encourage each other to take more risks with their work. With Cath’s love of colour and line, she hopes to incorporate some new ideas into her mainstream production – enforced isolation has enabled a period of what Cath calls “bonkers experiments” in the studio.

For example, Jerry showed me a pre glazed pot where he had taken electrical cable wire and road chippings (containing basalt

and broken glass!) and was expecting them to melt into the glaze when fired in the kiln.

What can look random is carefully chosen. Potters are famous for guarding their recipes and Jerry admitted it would feel like cheating to buy in ready mixed glazes. Donning an alchemist’s hat, he has spent many years building up a series of precious notebooks for different recipes, some of which are 45 years old.

He is also very knowledgeable about the 4000 year history of pottery: “There was a sincerity and honesty in traditional pottery but it changed with the Industrial Revolution”.

The Japanese, and to a lesser extent the Chinese, have always been esteemed potters. Bernard Leach, born in 1887, was much influenced by the Japanese, but heralded a revival and was known as the ‘Father of British studio pottery’.

“However, today the final nail in the coffin is that the Chinese can now mass-produce cheap good quality pottery which looks handmade.”

I was then introduced to the Japanese concept of Wabi-sabi. Its simplified meaning is ‘to take pleasure in the imperfect’.

Cath Broadway working on one of the popular Elm House Studio Pottery jugs

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ART Wildflower inspired jugs from Elm House Studio Pottery

When a pot is taken from the kiln, the potter can accept the defects - perhaps leaving the fingerprints and ignoring something unexpected that has occurred during the process. It is a notion of appreciating beauty that is ‘imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete’ in nature.

However, as Cath cautioned, “You have to know when to stop.

Sometimes it can be frustrating when you work really hard in the studio and something comes out of the kiln that you were not Some of the Aqua Pottery range from Elm House Studio

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Then the glaze is mixed, added to the porous surface and the water is absorbed with the minerals staying on the surface. When the process works you know the effort has been worthwhile.

When we make a pot we want to make something that is beautiful.

It goes beyond functionality and purpose into art.”

expecting and the glazes are not quite right. There is a subtlety.

It cannot be intentional but it is exciting.”

Cath and Jerry believe that art should be affordable. “If you don’t encourage people to start admiring and enjoying art at a young age you exclude people. We’d rather make less money and have a customer who truly appreciates the work.”

Jerry continued: “The programme for firings in the kiln must be just right. For example, a firing will go up from 0 to 200ºc very gently to get rid of the moisture in the pot and to avoid blowing the pots apart. Further slow heating allows all the particles to melt together and it is taken up to 1000ºc in the first firing.

Elm House Pottery has it’s own website, and customers can also look out for their pottery in National Trust shops; FirstView Gallery Stourhead, Gallery on the Square, Dorchester; The Workhouse Chapel and hopefully during Dorset Art Weeks in 2021.

We will all be in need of some ‘bonkers experiments’ by then!

BUSINESS NEWS - with Andrew Diprose of DORSETBIZNEWS

The power of one hour: Rosie wins support for campaign to embed music into dementia care.

Blandford-based Musica Music and Wellbeing CIC is winning nationwide support for a campaign which aims to spark a cultural change in dementia care through music.

The community interest company is urging care homes and caregivers to join its Just One Hour campaign - and already 277 care homes have signed up including the Hallmark, Four Seasons, Brighterkind, and Meddyg Care groups.

Rosie Mead, Chief Executive and Founder of Musica, said the campaign was inspired by research which suggests that people living with dementia in care homes experience just two minutes of social interaction each day on average.

She added: “We are seeking to change this and increase that social interaction to at least one hour per week by enabling carers to embed music into the daily care of people living with dementia.”

Care homes and caregivers can sign up to the #JustOneHour pledge via the Musica website to help improve the lives of people living with dementia.

Sign-ups will receive a digital pack with information on why music is beneficial in dementia care, how to use music in individual care, as well as all the tools required to deliver meaningful music in short tenminute bursts.

The pack also includes prompts, which can be displayed around the home to encourage all caregivers to provide social interaction through music.

Musica’s #JustOneHour campaign is supported by British cartoonist, Tony Husband, best known for his regular cartoon strip Yobs in Private Eye. Tony, an active dementia campaigner, said he had witnessed first-hand the joy music brought his father while he was living with dementia.

He said:

“My dad was a brilliant boogie woogie player and he took his keyboard into the care home.

“One day I was in his room, and he was playing something I’d not heard before.

“I said ‘Dad, is that your tune?’

“Without stopping playing, he said ‘Yes, music gives me freedom’.

And it did, I know that.”

Musica is considered one of the leading music and health organisations in the UK. Founded by Rosie in 2010, it delivers online support, training, coaching and meaningful music activities for healthcare providers and family caregivers across the country.

Rosie, who was named a Woman of Inspiration in the 2020 top 100 WISE (Women in Social Enterprise) list, said: “The benefits of music in dementia care are significant.

This isn’t magic, it’s science.

We have realised the importance of being in the moment with people living with dementia. This campaign will empower carers all across the UK to do the same.”

Find out more about #JustOneHouse here.

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BUSINESS NEWS - with Andrew Diprose of DORSETBIZNEWS

They’re back! It’s the Nick, Mary & Rich Show as DGH Podcast returns with more great advice.

A second series of the acclaimed Dorset Growth Hub Podcast hits your ears this month (February).

With a line-up of online workshops to complement areas covered in the episodes, February follows a Sales & Marketing theme, March is about Strategy & Planning and April covers all things Finance & Growth. All key focuses for businesses right now.

To kick-off the Sales and Marketing month, the podcast features local guest speakers: • Kasia Bigda, Marketing and Comms Director at Mr Lees Noodles • Stephanie Carswell, Founder and Creative Director at

Make tracks for a very unusual wedding venue by choosing to say ‘I do’ at The Tank Museum!

It’s Dorset’s newest, and probably most unusual, wedding venue. Couples can now walk down the aisle at The Tank Museum.

The county’s top tourist attraction has officially launched Tank Museum Weddings with the first booking already confirmed for September.

Rosanna Dean, Events Manager, said: “It might seem like a quirky place to get married, but we know there are lots of people looking for something a little different on their wedding day.

Whether it’s a 1940s rustic wedding with an intimate

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Hawthorn Handmade Chris Chapleo, Associate Professor at Bournemouth University Podcast co-hosts Nick Gregory, Mary Lloyd and Rich Burn from DGH chat to Dorset businesses.

Their guests share insights, perspectives and strategies which have led to successes and failures in recent times.

•

February will cover what has worked in marketing to impact business growth and increase sales, from international marketing campaigns to personal branding, Instagram and email.

Alongside the podcast episodes, you can also join free, interactive and expert-led workshops.

Rich Burn said: “It’s been a real honour to be able to explore the minds of some great local talent. guestlist, or a classic contemporary white wedding design with up to 1,000 guests, The Tank Museum’s experienced events team says it can create a unique day.

Couples can even tie the knot in front of their favourite tank!

And a photoshoot among the tanks will be a permanent reminder of your day with a real difference.

All profits from the weddings will go to support The Tank Museum charity, allowing a couple’s special day to help preserve history for generations to come.

“The interesting part is to hear how people are adapting what they do in these current times.

Dorset is full of innovation, ideas and talent.

“I hope whoever listens gets a small inspired moment that could change their work world for the better.”

To find out more about the upcoming events and catch-up on series one of the podcast visit the DGH website here.

Dorset Growth Hub ran over 100 online events in 2020, supporting more than 3,000 businesses.

Rosanna added: “We’ve had a number of requests for weddings over the years and we’re pleased to finally be able to offer people the chance to get married at The Tank Museum.”

Find out more about holding a wedding at The Tank Museum here.

BUSINESS NEWS

A-One Insurance Group launches FREE business content for customers A-One Insurance Group (AOIG), one of the top 50 UK independent commercial insurance brokers, are now offering their business clients a resource content library for free!

Available to existing commercial clients of AOIG free of charge, the range of content is hugely varied and covers all the areas midern businesses need to be competent on: risk management, compliance, insurance guidance, employee communication, health

and safety training and guidance as well as education materials, risk insights and workplace policies.

Content will be specifically filtered for your trade to keep everything relevant, and is designed to help businesses that do not have such resources available and would otherwise have to pay third parties to produce.

Ian Penfold, AOIG Managing Director said: “The content library is useful for both large and small businesses, either as a template provider, for example a disaster recovery template, or

Local Mum Launches Her Holiday Lets Changeover Business... During A National Holiday Lockdown!

Local Mum of two Kayley Raymond was looking for a new opportunity that would allow her to be her own boss whilst working around her young children.

encouragement of her friends and family, last Autumn she took the plunge - and then Lockdown Two happened in November!

She chatted it through with a friend, who asked why, when she was so good at her ‘part time job’ managing holiday let changeovers she didn’t simply make that her own full time business?

With the support and

Now that UK holiday bookings are on the rise again, Kayley is looking to expand her bespoke and unique ‘changeover property management experience’ to those wanting to take the hassle out of letting their holiday homes.

“It wasn’t great timing!” admitted Kayley “but it has actually forced me to slow down, and do more planning and preparation, which can ony be a good thing.”

Ian Penfold

as useful information to educate staff.

It’s fully compliant and a great reference tool which could potentially save business owners thousands of pounds in third party costs such as consultant fees or indeed through reduced staffing.” http://www.aoig.co.uk/ “It’s so much more than simply going in once a week to clean” Kayley explained “Property owners need more than that - they need a responsible head who’ll pop round after a stormy night to check for damage, who’ll spot when the gardener is needed, see when a lightbulb needs changing.

They need someone local who’ll know a reliable electrician or plumber, book them - and then stay in and wait for them! We can even organise the PAT testing.

And yes, of course we do the deep cleaning and laundry services too.”

Kayley currently has space for a few new properties, so if you’ve been thinking that renting out your holiday home might just be a bit too much hard work, try giving her a call! https://northdorsetchangeovers. co.uk/

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MINDFULNESS Stop.

There’s no shortage of research telling us the benefits of spending time outside. All manner of studies highlight things like how access to the outdoors is better for our vision and improves our mental health. The benefits are quantifiable – said to feel as good as getting a £10,000 raise or even feeling seven years younger.

But the interesting thing is it appears that our access to nature doesn’t even have to be real for us to reap at least some of these benefits. Recent studies are showing that just looking at still images of nature is enough ‘natural’ stimulus to lower our stress levels.

18mths ago a nasty virus swept through the house (no not THAT one) - we shared sympathetic groans as all six of us were felled one by one. An afternoon found five of us slumped sorrowfully in the living room, and our 17yr old offered to put a YouTube video on the television. We groaned in horror - and yet he persisted. Suddenly the room filled with the gentle sounds of a Norwegian forest as we watched a solitary man chopping wood, collecting water and building fire. No speaking, no music, just the quiet sounds of the environment.

It was the most soothing, calming and peaceful ‘television’ we had expereinced - and we stayed there for hours as he shared his favourite YouTube channels of ‘slow’ viewing with us. We all felt refreshed and cooler.

We’re fortunate to live in abeautiful place, with easy access to the natural world. But there’s a need to just stop. Take a minute. Breathe slowly, and simply be.

So here - this is by kind permission from one of my favourite Twitter accounts, @Lampsie1.

Claire has a small pond, and every day she shares a short one miunte clip of who’s been visiting: be sure to have your sound on, press play below, sit back, and enjoy.

if you’re in the fast-loading version of the magazine, this video won’t play: please click HERE to see it

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Simple Food Swaps to help Lockdown 3.0 Blues

HEALTH

by Karen Geary, a Registered Nutritional Therapist DipION, mBANT, CNHC at Amplify

Did you know that if you choose the right foods you can lift your spirits?

Nutritional Psychiatry is a growing field and significant research on the power of food and mood, along with other lifestyle medicine approaches is emerging fast.

In one study (The Smiles Trial), remission in depression was achieved with over 30% of the control group. The findings indicated that the changes were likely due to two reasons: 1. cutting out the rubbish from the diet (inflammatory foods) 2. eating foods that nourish gut flora.

The gut and the brain are connected by a kind of wifi link - called the vagus nerve - and it is this bromance that make the chemical signals (called neurotransmitters) happen effectively.

•

•

Heard of the neurotransmitter serotonin, one of our ‘happiness chemicals’? Did you know that over 90% of it is synthesized by gut • flora?

With that in mind, here are some simple food swaps that are healthy for our brain and may help lift spirits.

Swap flavoured yogurt for kefir. Kefir has one of the highest amounts of probiotics, whereas flavoured or low fat yogurts are often full of added sugars which can reduce the impact of what little probiotics they have.

Swap juice from a carton for a piece of fruit. Choose the whole fruit not the juice because it is more satisfying and is full of fibre. Fibre slows down the digestion of blood sugar so you don’t get an inflammatory blood sugar spike. Fibre also feeds good bacteria in your gut.

Swap industrial seed oils, eg ‘sunflower’ or ‘vegetable’ for cold pressed olive, coconut or avocado oil.

Industrial processed seed and vegetable oils are highly inflammatory, especially when heated to high temperatures. Their poor omega 6 to omega 3 balance

is unhealthy and over time, can lead to many health conditions.

•

Swap breakfast cereals for oatmeal or sourdough. If you like your carbs in the morning, even ‘healthy’ cereals like muesli are full of sugar and others full of processed grains. Add protein, eg an egg or some nut butter, to help you feel fuller for longer.

•

Swap trail mix or roasted nuts for plain unadulterated nuts. Nuts are a great snack for getting in essential omega 3’s and low levels are linked to depression. Sadly roasted nuts or trail mix have added sugars, and vegetable oils which are all inflammatory.

If you want to read more about foods to support mental health, I have a free download together with a seven day meal plan and shopping list available here.

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BEAUTY Caroline is a multi-award winning Dorset makeup artist, who runs ‘Amazing Face’, sharing professional secrets from inside her beauty box.

2021 Makeup Trends Believe it or not yellow and grey are the 2021 Pantone colours for the unfurling year.

Some will love it, of course, but many others will think “Yellow? Oh no!”

It’s definitely not the best colour for everyone! But with a little playfulness, and moving around the yellow spectrum we can also use oranges and sunset colours which are far more flattering and youthful.

It’s a known social and economic phenomenon that in times of hardship women go out and treat themselves to a new lipstick - the “lipstick effect” can be traced back to the Great Depression of the 1930s. In the four years from 1929 to 1933, industrial production in the US halved, but sales of cosmetics rose.

And this year more than ever you should go and treat yourself!

Think bold as brass lips - the reds with a winged eyeliner for that Hollywood siren look, or go bright orange with a hint of pink for that sun-kissed glow.

Also think about lip stain and matte lips for a longer last (it does have to come off sometime, but with a lip stain your lips won’t ever be bare). My top tip? Try Bourjois Rouge Velvet, it lasts for hours.

Always use an exfoliant on your face, bringing it over your lips to

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get that perfect pout. Also nourish day and night where possible.

Try the amazing Australian Papaya Gold enriched with Bio Active Manuka Honey - it’s awesome, utterly perfect for this weather and so comforting.

Hopefully you are still all looking after your skin so we can get into the bare faced neutral natural look; think dewy skin for the ultimate glow.

Naturally eyes play an important part this year - being the only part of your face you can dress up with a mask on!

Soft grey tones on eyes, mixed with a little teal or blackberry eyeliner look amazing. Add plenty of mascara - Max Factor Masterpiece is a terrific budget option at under £7. For a bit of luxury, I suggest splashing out on the amazing Hourglass Caution Extreme - £37.

And for the ultimate gift for Valentines Day if you want to learn how to apply makeup correctly and get out of that makeup rut, try a makeup lesson with me (gift vouchers available!).

Stay safe, and see you next month.

Caroline x

HEALTH Experienced Trainer & Gym Manager Roger Teasdale shares his personal tips and recommendations.

Press Ups

The press up is a simple but very effective upper body strength exercise.

It works a range of muscles including chest, shoulders, triceps and abdominals. Although simple, there are many people who claim not be able to do any.

The Press Up Start on the floor on your hands and knees; position your hands on the floor roughly shoulder width apart with your fingers pointing forward.

Step your feet back one at a time, coming onto your toes to form a straight line from your feet to your shoulders.

Maintaining your straight line lower yourself down towards the floor by bending at the elbow (allow the hips to go with you).

Pause about an inch above the floor, or as far as you can manage, and then straighten your arms to return to the start position. Your arms should form a 45-degree angle with the body.

If you are one of those who struggles (*cough* Roger’s shamelessly cheating here - I may have acknowledged this to him last month whilst wailing for help in how to do them Ed), and you wish to learn how to Press Up then try one of the methods below and progress as you improve.

1 Incline Press Up Place your hands on a stable surface raised off the floor – kitchen counter, table, stairs. The closer your body position is to vertical, the easier the exercise is.

Find the height that challenges you and then as you progress you can lower this closer to the floor.

2 On knees Press Up Start on all fours as before but this time shuffle your hands out forwards so that you form your straight line from knees to shoulders. As before, lower your chest and hips down towards the floor, stopping when they are about an inch above it.

Not quite there? Try one of the next two options.

If you want more of a challenge then try a decline press-up by elevating your feet to a higher position than your hands.

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POLITICS

A flooded River Lydden, just below Kings Stag on the 21st January, just after Storm Christoph passed through - Meyrick Griffith-Jones

Cheeky cows spotted near Shillingstone, end of January - Julie Little

POLITICS

The Wolf Moon from Wincanton on 29th January - Nick Dibben

January Frost on the Milldown, Blandford - Pat Catley

POLITICS

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POLITICS

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PUZZLES

CROSSWORD

JIGSAW

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Simply click to complete on your tablet, computer or phone - or there’s a download option if you prefer pen and paper.

To complete the jigsaw simply click the image and the interactive jigsaw will pop up.

WHAT’S ON

Touring Arts Will Survive In Our Rural Communities:

Dorset Council Commits To Artsreach

Dorset based touring arts charity has been successful in its application to the Dorset Council Organisational Revenue Support Fund, securing the future of rural touring for Dorset’s communities for the next three years.

Artsreach Co-Director Yvonne Gallimore said: “The continued support Dorset Council is invaluable in enabling us continue to programme our much loved variety of quality live performances, reaching out to the heart of rural communities across the County. Our volunteer promoters work tirelessly to

make these events happen all year round, and this funding recognises both the work they do, and the quality of the work Artsreach tours, and has toured over the last thirty years.”

Since 1990 Artsreach has been dedicated to providing people living in rural Dorset with access to professional live performance, co-ordinating around 150 professional events every year, usually in village halls and often in rurally isolated communities.

This funding will ensure that the scheme is able to continue; the Artsreach programme also brings much-needed income for

vital community assets such a village halls, with over £33,000 retained by rural communities through Artsreach activity in 2019/20.

Cllr Jill Haynes, Dorset Council Portfolio Holder for Customer Services and Communities said: “I’m delighted Dorset Council will continue to support Artsreach we’re committed to supporting Dorset’s cultural and community organisations, despite increasing pressures on our budgets, as we know they play such a key part in the health, wellbeing and learning of so many people.”

Artsreach digital productions coming soon:

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WHAT’S ON

Seeking New Blood!

Shaftesbury Arts Centre strives to be the cultural hub of Shaftesbury and its surrounding villages.

You may already be a member, but if not, perhaps you’ve glanced at their website; visited or even exhibited at their highly acclaimed Gallery; joined one of their groups to practise art, dance, Pilates, yoga, poetry or writing; watched or performed in one of their homegrown shows; lost yourself in a film, live streaming event or a visiting tribute band; or maybe you’ve attended a lecture.

Their auditorium is a wonderful showcase for entertainment and

the foyer is the perfect venue to meet with friends or make new ones, enjoy a drink or an ice cream, or browse in the Gallery.

Chairman Jenny Parker says ‘What you may not know is that behind the scenes, The Arts Centre is a very large, selfsupporting business, being run for the community by a band of loyal volunteers.

Over recent years, this business has grown out of all proportion and we’re now looking for some fresh blood to widen our pool of expertise, maintain the health of the Centre and drive things forward in the years to come’.

They are currently looking for: • • • •

New Trustees Membership Secretary Buildings’ Manager Theatre Hire Manager

They’re also seeking individuals with skills in IT, Social Media, Building Maintenance, DIY, Capital Fundraising and Administration... in fact anything that would help steer the Centre forward so it can continue to provide a mixture of culture for the community.

Jenny says, ‘At the moment, COVID 19 has put a stop to all our activities, but as soon as it’s safe to do so, we will open our doors again with renewed vigour so, if you think you will have some time on your hands, please consider what you may have to offer this vital mainstay of Shaftesbury life’.

For more information contact Jenny Parker at chairman@ shaftesburyartscentre.org.uk

Financial advice made personal We recognise that talking about money and finances is personal – sometimes sensitive. So it’s reassuring to know that there’s someone on hand who can help you address your needs, understand your goals and realise your dreams.

We offer a friendly and approachable service, backed by the strength and security of FTSE 100 company, St. James’s Place Wealth Management; and being local means we’re here to help whenever you need us.

Let’s start a conversation.

WALKER WEALTH MANAGEMENT LTD Partner Practice of St. James’s Place Wealth Management

Lee Walker

DipPFS

Director Tel: 01202 087499 Email: lee.walker@sjpp.co.uk www.walkerwm.co.uk

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The Partner Practice is an Appointed Representative of and represents only St. James's Place Wealth Management plc (which is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority) for the purpose of advising solely on the group's wealth management products and services, more details of which are set out on the group's website www.sjp.co.uk/products.

The 'St. James's Place Partnership' and the titles 'Partner' and 'Partner Practice' are marketing terms used to describe St. James's Place representatives.

SJP11693e V1 (12/19)

Funding Care

FAMILY LAW

Expert help on common legal issues from the team at Porter Dodson LLP. This week: thinking about funding care for elderly relations.

With an ever-increasing population, more of us are looking for help when preparing for old age and managing finances.

Preparation is key and the importance of Lasting Powers of Attorney for both for Property and Finances and Health and Welfare cannot be underestimated.

Social care is means tested and Social Services must charge for the care they provide if a person has over the threshold of capital assets.

When shouldn’t you pay?

1. If you have primarily healthcare needs and are therefore eligible for NHS Continuing Healthcare (CHC) Funding. This is not for life.

It can be and is reviewed. Assets and income are not assessed and the entire care package is funded.

2. If you are eligible for Section 117 Aftercare Funding. This is not for life and is available to very few.

3. If you are eligible for an Intermediate Health Care package. This is generally for up to 6 weeks, allowing the patient time to recover, avoiding hospital and hopefully long-term care needs.

4. If you are eligible for NHS Funded Nursing Care. If you do not qualify for NHS CHC Funding you may qualify for a weekly payment towards nursing costs. Beware of nursing homes increasing their fees to cover the

extra nursing care, thus losing the benefit.

5. If you have social care needs and less than £23,250 in capital assets and do not qualify for funding under points 1 to 3.

Unfortunately, your income will be taken into consideration.

Paying for care A person’s ability to pay for care will be assessed on their income and capital assets. If these assets exceed £23,250 self-funding is inevitable. A partner’s savings and assets are not assessed, and it is important not to cash in Life Assurance bonds as they will no longer be disregarded. Beware of buying bonds or making gifts if it’s reasonably foreseeable that care is likely. Social Services will argue that this is a deliberate deprivation and seek to reclaim the funds.

Sadly, Social Services are not willing to pay more than a set weekly contribution and people residing in expensive care homes who have depleted their capital assets may find that they must move, although a third party top up can be made. Legal advice should be sought if moving to another care home is likely to cause significant distress to someone who is settled.

All in all, care funding can be a minefield. Professional advice is available and can be invaluable as care costs continue to increase.

If you need further advice please contact Robyn Greenway on 01823 652114 or robyn. greenway@porterdodson.co.uk.

EMERGENCY COVID 19 SOCIAL CARE SUPPORT PACKAGES. Discharge from hospital and changes to NHS Continuing Healthcare (CHC) implemented due to COVID-19 (coronavirus).

During the emergency period, if you are in hospital for any reason and your health team decides you no longer need hospital care, you will be discharged. This will happen quickly, normally within three hours of the decision that you are clinically safe to be discharged.

There will not be time to discuss your preferences for long-term care and once you are in your immediate placement after discharge, you should be given the opportunity to have these conversations with your care coordinator.

This care and support will be paid for by the NHS for the duration of the emergency period, allowing you to move out of hospital quickly and reduce pressure on acute services.

The government has agreed that the NHS will fully fund the cost of new or extended out-of-hospital health and social care support packages during the emergency COVID-19 period.

This applies to new care packages and enhancements to existing care packages agreed on or after 19 March 2020.

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POLITICS

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FAMILY LAW

Battens Solicitors

Business Lasting Powers of Attorney

More and more people are now appreciating the importance of preparing Lasting Powers of Attorney ensuring that trusted individuals can, in the event of unforeseen events, make decisions about their personal affairs, whether concerning their finances and/or their health and welfare.

However, in their absence, a Business LPA could appoint fellow Partners or Shareholders to act as Attorneys for each other.

However, far fewer people consider the benefits of an additional Business LPA and the consequences of a key individual within said business suddenly being temporarily or permanently unable to act. Especially in these turbulent times we find ourselves, many businesses are having to evolve, adapting to an ever changing playing field. The tried and tested regimes relied upon previously are suddenly stretched by self-isolation requirements, by travel restrictions whether abroad or closer to home, or perhaps a prolonged illness or lack of capacity. A Business LPA could be equally adept at solving the smaller operational issues or indeed the larger more strategic ones.

If the individual is a sole trader then they should certainly consider preparing one as the business is effectively them.

In a business partnership, a “Partnership Agreement” may include provisions to deal with the above dangers. Equally, a “Shareholders Agreement” will assist Limited Companies.

For more information contact Adam Hillier on 01935 846165 or email adam.hillier@battens.co.uk

enquiries@battens.co.uk

Without a Business LPA, it would be necessary to make a costly and time consuming application to The Court of Protection. They would then be tasked with deciding whom should be appointed to act. This application could take months to conclude thus affecting the stability of your business and potentially its very existence.

www.battens.co.uk

0800 652 8373

Offices in: Yeovil, Sherborne, Castle Cary, Dorchester, Wareham, Bath and London

Solicitors

Specialist Legal Advice and Solutions for whatever life brings - at home or at work

Agricultural Matters • Business Services • Commercial Property Construction • Debt Recovery • Dispute Resolution Employment • Family Matters • Immigration • Landlord & Tenant Lasting Powers of Attorney • Matrimonial • Moving Home Medical Negligence • Personal Injury • Planning • Probate • Tax Planning Wills, Trusts, Estates

Contact us today to speak to our expert team enquiries@battens.co.uk 0800 652 8373

www.battens.co.uk Offices in Yeovil, Sherborne, Castle Cary, Dorchester, Wareham, Bath and London

SENIOR LIVING

During Autumn 2020, whilst managing the additional pressures of sourcing PPE and managing rotas to accommodate isolating staff, Candlelight Care undertook an additional project.

The management and staff (ably helped by some willing clients) created a series of videos to raise the profile of Candlelight Care with prospective clients and staff. The videos also highlighted issues which apply to the entire sector, such as loneliness in older people, and show how care workers perform such a vital role because of it.

Deborah Puxty, Candlelight Care’s Operations Manager, explains the idea behind the films: “Social Care has been in the news a lot throughout the pandemic, and for the first time it has been seen

as an important service just like the NHS. These videos showcase the important work we do every day, and the difference we make to people’s lives.”

The films have now been completed and are being launched on Candlelight Care’s website and social media channels. It is hoped that they will encourage more vulnerable people to seek help if they need it, and also attract new staff to the sector.

Roxanne Brown, Recruitment Officer at Candlelight Care, explains why now is a perfect time to consider a career in care:

“With the UK’s unemployment rate rising to 5% at the end of January and young people at most risk of redundancy, it’s never been a better time to think about working in care. Our videos show the reality of social care, and how rewarding it can be as a long-term career choice.”

Candlelight Care has even more reason to look towards the future with confidence, as staff in its five regional branches have begun receiving their Covid-19 vaccinations which will protect both themselves and the people they support during 2021 and beyond.

if you’re in the fast-loading version of the magazine, this video won’t play: please click HERE to see it

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PROPERTY SPECIAL

POLITICS

DEATHS

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OBITUARIES

Sylvia Spooner Regular readers will remember original Blenheim girl Sylvia Spooner’s 100th birthday just a few months ago.

It was with sadness that I heard from her son Edward this week that Sylvia had passed peacefully at home: Sylvia Spooner (née Blest) passed away peacefully in her 101st year on Sunday, January 31st in Blandford.

The family thank the exceptional staff at Whitecliffe House Nursing and Residential Care Home for caring for Sylvia over the last two years and, in particular, the care and nursing professionals who kept her company last Sunday morning.

She was deeply loved by her husband, Arthur, and her two sons and her daughters-in-law, Charles, Edward, Jane Gall and Jane Hadsel. She will be deeply missed by her grandchildren Rosie, Amy, William and Katharine; wider family; and her many good friends especially in the Tarrant Valley and the Blandford area.

Sylvia worked for Military Intelligence in WWII —she was one of the original ‘Blenheim Girls’, the secretarial and operational staff of internal intelligence (MI5). Part of ‘D’ section, responsible for gathering intelligence on attempts to disrupt transport.

Sylvia Spooner celebrating her 99th BIrthday

‘My mother’s office was originally a prisoner’s cell in Wormwood Scrubs,’ says son Edward, ‘but during the Blitz was moved to Blenheim Palace. After the war she worked in Ghana, West Africa.

Available 24 hours Personal service day & night.

A private funeral service will be held at Salisbury Crematorium on Wednesday, February 24th. at 11:00 a.m. with a webcast available; please contact Lesley Shand Funeral Service, Blandford (01258 453425) for more details. Flowers can be sent directly or via Florabunda or Sweetpea to Lesley Shand to take to Salisbury.

Pre-payment plans, memorials, private chapel of rest.

A service in St. Mary’s, Tarrant Gunville and a Celebration of her Life will be held when possible.

Water Street Mere BA12 6DZ

“At the going down of the sun and in the morning

01747 860361

we will remember her”.

www.lchillandsonfuneraldirectors.co.uk

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ANNOUNCEMENTS

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SITUATIONS VACANT

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PROFESSIONAL SERVICES

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POLITICS

POLITICS PROPERTY SPECIAL

PROPERTYPOLITICS SPECIAL

POLITICS

THE IMPORTANT BITS:

Next Publication Date: 5th of March Submission Deadline:

1st March Next Publication Dates:

2nd April 7th May Further forwards - publication always first Friday of the month.

Copy deadline always the Monday prior to publishing

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editor@theblackmorevale.co.uk

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