Last Watch and eight bells for the

Weymouth is hosting a three-day celebration of our armed forces from Saturday, June 17 to Monday, June 19.

To mark this, historian ALVIN HOPPER looks back at the loss of the HMS Royal Oak during the Second World War and the Remembrance service held each year at its namesake pub on Weymouth’s quayside

Weymouth Town Council has been running veterans’ weekends since 1984, which was the 40th anniversary of D-Day. Since 2014, on the morning after the Sunday service and parade, the town council has raised a flag at the rear of their offices, heralding the start of veterans’ week. Every year – excluding 2020 and 2021 due to covid – a service called the Last Watch takes place at the Royal Oak pub on Weymouth quayside. After prayers at precisely noon, eight bells (four doubles) are rung out in memory of all those lost at sea, including those lost on the HMS Royal Oak.

A Revenge class battleship, the Royal Oak was sunk in Scapa Flow in 1939 by German submarine U-47. Some 833 crew members on board lost their lives. The quayside pub was regularly visited by many

Pupils grill MP

West Dorset MP Chris Loder met staff, students and Principal Mike Hoffman at Budmouth Academy in Chickerell following news their buildings will be improved as part of the Government’s School Rebuilding Programme. The MP was impressed after questions from students. He said: “The area is ranked lowest in England for social mobility. “Despite this, students are rightly determined to prove that one’s postcode doesn’t determine your prospects.” of those lost crewmen while she was still in service as a gunnery training ship at Portland. At the weekends, sailors would take the ship’s liberty boats to Weymouth Harbour and, upon seeing the namesake of their ship in bold lettering on the walls of the inn, made straight for it.

During these times when they were at liberty, the sailors formed a strong friendship at that lads’ watering hole, which was known by them to be a

Home monitoring for oncology patients

Oncology patients from Dorset have helped design a pilot service that allows their health to be monitored from home.

Dorset HealthCare’s remote monitoring team has launched their Oncology Monitoring @ Home service to help them manage their patients’ health without them having to go to hospital. The monitoring team will give their patients devices such as thermometers, scales, blood pressure monitors and pulse oximeters so they can feed back real-time information to the NHS online. Patients will also complete a questionnaire three times a week about their symptoms whilst on the oncology treatment. This information can then be accessed by the clinical team to help them monitor the patient’s progress, providing patients with self-care advice as required, keeping them safer but also ensuring early access to the hospital if required.

The service is accessible via a website and mobile app on smart phone and tablet devices.

For more information about this service contact: ourdorsetdigital @nhsdorset.nhs.uk