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South Gloucestershire
January / February 2016
Movie Magic
South Gloucestershire cinema-goers have never had it so good Finding the best school And how not to panic
Best nights out Your top guide
A taste of Italy 36 novels and still going strong
Passionate about food
New Year, New You The kit to help you get fit
Susan Lewis Our very own best-seller
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Inside & Out Magazine ~ January / February 2016
INSIDE & OUT
Welcome to the first edition of Inside & Out - South Gloucestershire
Contents
Inside & Out - South Gloucestershire is the area’s first lifestyle magazine and is packed with original features and the best information.
05 Wyatt’s World
We’ve called it Inside & Out because that is the way our glossy magazine will celebrate South Gloucestershire. Inside – all you need to know about the area’s events and entertainment, hotels and pubs and shops and homes. Out – we’ll explore the great outdoors and make sure you don’t miss a thing that’s going on.
HTV West’s “Young Richard” joins Inside & Out.
10 Boxing clever
Queensbury Rules and the classroom are perfect mix.
42 Getting in the swing
Editor KEVAN BLACKADDER features@insideandoutmag.co.uk Sales team sales@insideandoutmag.co.uk 01454 800 210
Meet top novelist Susan Lewis.
50 Riding the Gauntlett
Nick is living the dream.
A country tradition in safe hands.
30 First class
Who is more worried, the infants or the parents?
32 What’s On
Your What’s On round-up for January and February.
35 Gardening Gold Our Gary has one eye on Chelsea.
Publisher RICHARD DREW office@insideandoutmag.co.uk 01454 800 120 Production BRAVE BRANDS LTD inside@bravebrands.co.uk 07473 755 185
54 On the road
Volvo’s new SUV put through its paces.
62 Inside Chipping Sodbury
Past and present.
Disclaimer Inside & Out magazine in published by Brigstowe Media, an independent company.
Design CHRISTOPHER BIGSBY and LEIGH EVANS
Inside & Out magazine Distribution distribution@insideandoutmag.co.uk is published by Brigstowe Media Ltd. 01454 800 120 insideandoutmag.co.uk
Lou’s fitness troops love her Boot Camp.
23 Rising from the ashes
Golf is not only for the boys.
45 Bagstone’s best-seller
21 Fit as
www.insideandoutmagazine.co.uk Twitter: @insideandoutmag facebook: /insideandoutmag
We bring you the best holiday features.
From a pop-up cinema to a new six-screen multiplex.
Out – we’ll also highlight the very best of what’s going on in surrounding areas to create a package you just can’t afford to miss.
Kevan Blackadder, Editor, Inside & Out – South Gloucestershire
06 Movie magic
Inside – the focus of the magazine will be on South Gloucestershire, from Thornbury to Longwell Green and from Chipping Sodbury to Berkeley Vale.
We’ve ticked those boxes in our January/February edition with a great range of features. Has there ever been a better time for cinema-goers in South Gloucestershire? We lift the lid on three very different ways to see the latest movies. It’s a massive time of year for four and five-year-olds as their infant school places are decided - our education writer Linda Tanner has some great advice for parents on how to get it right. And did you know we had a best-selling novelist living in our midst? Susan Lewis’s 36th novel will be published in February. We have former HTV West favourite Richard Wyatt signed up as a columnist and will bring you food, motoring and holiday reviews. If you’ve been to an event lately, see if you feature in our “Out and About” pages. And if you’re stuck for something to do, our What’s On guide will provide the answer. We also want to know what you think of our new bi-monthly magazine and we want to get you directly involved. Give us your opinions and let us know about any events or features you’d like us to cover by emailing features@insideandoutmag.co.uk. This is South Gloucestershire’s magazine – and it’s your magazine.
40 Magical Galapagos
Opinions expressed in this magazine are those of the authors. We cannot take responsibility for the content or accuracy of advertising. Inside & Out is subject to copyright and is not to be reproduced in any form without the written permission of the publisher.
January / February 2016 ~ Inside & Out Magazine
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Inside & Out Magazine ~ January / February 2016
INSIDE & OUT COLUMNIST
WYATT’S WORLD
Richard Wyatt was once one of the best-known faces on local TV, fronting HTV West News. He went on to be the anchorman on BBC Radio Bristol’s Breakfast Show and now runs The Virtual Museum of Bath ~ www.virtualmuseumofbath.com As an Inside & Out columnist, he’ll be looking at all aspects of life, including, in his first column, his work a member of the Mayor of Bath’s Corps of Honorary Guides.
W
hat a New Year’s Honour! No - I didn’t get one from the Queen but rather from the editor of this magazine, who has asked me to write a column. I live slightly to the Bath side of the South Gloucestershire border but cross into it frequently. After years working and living in Bristol - and a spell in South Devon amongst the good people of Totnes - I have settled with my partner in a city we share with nearly 89,000 residents and around four and a quarter million day-visitors a year. I meet a goodly number of them every Tuesday when I am one of a group of people showing them around our World Heritage historic centre. We are all members of the Mayor of Bath’s Honorary Corps of Guides - a service that’s been operating for over 80 years. It’s a way of giving something back to the place in which l enjoy living. We don’t get paid or accept tips - which is probably why this civic-backed facility is number one amongst Bath attractions on TripAdvisor. You’re probably guessing that at my age - the ‘Young Richard’ label isn’t cracking it with full-time employment any more. However ‘retired’ is a word I never use. I don’t think what it means - ‘leave one’s job and cease to work’ is a state of being that exists anymore amongst us seniors. OK there is no regular wage packet coming in but neither am I - with respect to those who might be - stroking pigeons or cleaning fish hooks in the garden shed. My slippers don’t have pom poms and I don’t smoke a pipe over the garden gate. I think we re-invent ourselves. insideandoutmag.co.uk
It’s a bit like Dr Who and his ‘regenerations’ - though if only energy levels could be topped up at the same time! I was one of many television producers made redundant from the dying years of HTV West when they stopped making any programmes for us to work on. It’s all one big ITV now with a ‘local’ news service only. I tried my hands at many things - making DVDs for a company selling Spanish holiday homes, going back into higher education and a two-year stint as anchorman on BBC Radio Bristol’s Breakfast Show - before settling on my current occupation. Bath has 17 museums in one square mile but - unlike Bristol - it doesn’t have a Museum of Bath. One which embraces the whole city and its shared history. To open such a physical building would cost millions so - at no expense to the ratepayer - I started a cyber version. It’s called the Virtual Museum of Bath - www.virtualmuseumofbath. com to those familiar with computer addresses - and I run it like a daily newspaper of history and heritage. There’s no crew car anymore. I don’t have the support of cameraman, sound, lighting, producer and editor. Just me on a bicycle with a camera that shoots High Definition video - but it keeps me active and interested. I do my own editing ‘on-line’ as they say. Someone told me towards the end of 2015 - a year in which l was ambushed by shingles (something l wouldn’t wish on anyone) - that l had reached the age when Life stops giving and starts taking away. You’ll have to catch me first!
January / February 2016 ~ Inside & Out Magazine
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SILVER SCREEN
STARS OF THE SILVER SCREEN Spring 2016 will feature a series of big screen milestones in South Gloucestershire. James Garrett reports.
In April, the historic Electric Picture House in Wotton-under-Edge will celebrate a successful first year’s management by professionals. The previous month, Iron Acton’s pop-up cinema club will reach the end of its third season. And in May, at the blockbuster end of the scale, multiplex operator Cineworld is due to open six screens in Yate.
Pictures by Rob Scott
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Inside & Out Magazine ~ January / February 2016
SILVER SCREEN
Electric Picture House in Wotton-Under-Edge the voluntary project made good.
T
he Electric Picture House in Wotton-Under-Edge is a great example of how a volunteer-led project can grow into a professionallyrun cinema with a bright future. Between 2005-13 it was run by a group of volunteers, led by Jeff and Janet Walshe, who were convinced there was a market for a cinema in Wotton. Jeff said: “The cinema opened in 1913 in the stable block of the Crown Hotel but closed in the 1960s. It reopened between 1992 and 2002, when the then-operators closed it. When that happened we held a meeting at the Star pub across the road and 80 people turned up. Everyone put a pound in a bucket, which went towards a feasibility study aimed at seeing if we could reopen the cinema. “Three years later we were still fundraising when the Film Council came up with the idea of giving out £100,000 grants for digital projection equipment.” This was the cinema’s salvation and it became one of the early adopters of digital technology. “We built the cinema up to the point where a professional could take it over,” said Jeff. “We contributed more than £30,000 over eight years to other groups in the town while running the cinema. In 2016 we plan to add a further £20,000 to that total as a closing-out sum to recognise the original investment made by the residents of Wotton in those early days.” In 2014, Gareth Negus, who had been working as a freelance film programmer and marketer, agreed to take on the full-time management. He had previously spent six years running the Curzon cinema in Clevedon, made the arrangement permanent in April 2015 and this spring will mark the end of his first year in overall control. insideandoutmag.co.uk
That’s not to say the volunteers who helped ensure the survival of the Picture House no longer have a role. Gareth and his partner, Sam, are helped out by four paid members of staff, two duty managers and two box office assistants. But the ushers in the 100seat cinema are still volunteers. Gareth said that knowing your audience and its taste in films is crucial to running a successful cinema. The stand-out success of the past 12 months has been The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel. “Anything with one of the Dames, Judi Dench, Helen Mirren or Maggie Smith, does well. Put two of them together and you’re guaranteed an audience.” Spectre also did very good business, although blockbusters as a rule don’t. “We show short runs of some of them but Marvel, for instance, did no business for us at all.” Other initiatives have been Monday screenings at just a fiver a head, early evening shows and Saturday morning kids’ shows. Surrounding towns, whether of similar size or larger, lost their cinemas long ago. In Dursley, the Victoria is now a shop selling printer inks and a beauty salon. The town’s other cinema, the Regal, was demolished 20 years ago. Thornbury and Berkeley once had cinemas, as did Yate Shopping Centre. It helps that the cinema does not own the building, which could have been redeveloped or demolished. The cinema leases the premises from the local boxing club, which occupies the first floor. How bothered is Gareth by the prospect of a multiplex opening eight miles to the south? Not much; he already faces competition from a sixscreen Vue multiplex in Stroud. “Going to a venue like this one is a very different experience to a multiplex and some people will have a preference for one or the other. Multiplexes also have a one-size-fits-all programming policy and they may well drop a film if it fails to do the business in its first week. That can create an opportunity for us. “And anything that gets more people going to the cinema has got to be a good thing.”
January / February 2016 ~ Inside & Out Magazine
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SILVER SCREEN
Cineworld Complex, Yate Shopping Centre - the new kid on the block.
T
he new multi-screen complex, anchor development in the Riverside extension of Yate Shopping Centre, is due to open in time to show Captain America: Civil War, scheduled for release on 6 May. Shopping Centre manager Andy Lowrey said Cineworld would be fitting out the building from early January, a process expected to take four months. “Cineworld looked at our catchment area and thought six screens would work well,” said Andy. “An extra 3,000 homes are being built here, 500 of which have already been completed. It’s important that the town’s facilities grow along with increasing footfall.” The multiplex, which will seat up to 1,000 people, will share Riverside with new stores including Pets at Home and Next and chain restaurants like Prezzo and Frankie & Benny’s. A branch of American-themed restaurant chain
Deans Diner will also open. The restaurants were a vital ingredient,” says Andy. “To attract a cinema you need to have a minimum of three national restaurants – that was part of the pre-let agreement. Our three were found very quickly – they are quite happy to go where there’s a cinema.” The development is the latest stage in the revamp of the shopping centre, which first opened in 1965. Stage one for owners Crestbridge Corporate Trustees was persuading Tesco to build what may turn out to be the last of its giant Tesco Extra stores. Building the store on stilts meant rather than parking places being lost, there has been a net gain of 50 – further good
news for out-of-town cinema-goers. And Andy expects there to be plenty of those. “We expect people who usually go to Longwell Green or Cribbs Causeway to give us a try.” He reflects on the remarkable turnaround in the shopping centre’s fortunes in just a few years. “There were 26 vacant units during the recession,” he recalls. “Yet we managed to deliver the Tesco and the East Walk developments, which brought in Marks & Spencer, Costa and Sports Direct, and within six months the number was down to ten.”
Iron Acton pop-up cinema a once-a-month success.
S
imon Cross and Caroline Haslehan are watching the Cineworld development with interest. For six months a year they run a monthly pop-up cinema in Iron Acton village hall. On the first Saturday of the month between October and March they host a matinee children’s film screening followed by an evening showing for an older audience. Neither Caroline, who works in Yate as a medical administrator, nor Simon, a financial adviser in Bristol, sees the giant on their doorstep as a threat. The cinema club shows films on DVD that will have left Yate’s new multiplex long before. With the club coming to the end of its third season, Simon and Caroline are feeling buoyant about its future. Back in 2013 Simon arranged the hire of a film, and paid for a licence for it to be shown and the cost of hiring a projectionist and his kit. “It was costing us about £500 each time. I didn’t think we could charge more 8
than a fiver, so we lost money every time.” Acton Aid, which supports good causes locally, offered to cover the losses but Simon knew its generosity could not last indefinitely. There was a considerable goodwill, with 40-50 people turning up to each Saturday evening screening. So the club bid, to South Gloucestershire Council’s New Homes Fund. The £3,000 they were given paid for a DVD projector, sound system and screen. They could also operate it themselves, which allowed them to dispense with the projectionist and his kit. Caroline said: “We are not allowed to advertise or charge people to watch the films but we sell membership and only members can come to watch. That allows us to cover our costs and, in due
Inside & Out Magazine ~ January / February 2016
course, build up a contingency fund to replace the equipment.” The 2015 remake of Far From The Madding Crowd, along with The Imitation Game and Kingsman: Secret Service have been the most popular films. Caroline said: “We used to get very nervous, worrying whether enough people would come. Now it’s not a problem; we have people turning up each month and the community aspect is what’s really important.” The club now needs members sign up for the next season, in autumn 2016. So far, says Simon, the signs are encouraging.
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January / February 2016 ~ Inside & Out Magazine
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Jacob Croot Pictures by Olivia Woodhouse 10
Inside & Out Magazine ~ January / February 2016
LOCAL HEROES
The eyes have it ~ Jacob is in the box seat With a satisfying thwack of leather on leather, 18-year-old Jacob Croot celebrates completing his second year of the AASE boxing course at SGS College in Filton. His target in the boxing ring is his course tutor at the WISE Campus. Nigel Turner reports.
A
ASE stands for Advanced Level Apprenticeship in Sporting Excellence and Jacob, or Jake to his friends, has certainly achieved that having recently been selected to represent England. The course is Government funded as part of the apprenticeship scheme, from the same pot of money which funds courses such as bricklaying or plumbing. SGS is one of six centres around the country offering the course and has a catchment area from the tip of Cornwall to the Midlands. The new Autumn intake saw 18 more hopefuls embark on the two-year course, which is aimed at promising young boxers who have the potential to become elite performers. They have to be members of an affiliated amateur boxing club. Alongside the boxing training they have education goals to achieve too. It’s a remarkable turnaround for a sport which had been virtually barred from state schools in the 1980s and 90s but has again proved its worth in giving disadvantaged young people a focus in life. Course tutor Craig Turner is a former Avon and Somerset police officer who has devoted his new career to helping youngsters. In his previous job in Bristol and latterly in Chipping Sodbury, Craig had day to day dealings with youngsters who were in danger of going off the rails and was instrumental in setting up a boxing club in Yate to give them something to do. “The uniform would come off, the boxing gloves would go on and we
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found that the kids who previously wouldn’t engage in anything came flocking to the gym in big numbers,” he said. “That it itself showed that it was needed and it is proven that boxing is a delinquency and anti-social behaviour deterrent. All of a sudden in my professional life I would hear whispers that they were starting to engage in school.” So how did the sport persuade the education system that boxing should be reintroduced and could actually be a positive influence in schools and colleges? Craig, who also runs Downend ABC in Bristol, gives much of the credit to former Sports Minister Gerry Sutcliffe who persuaded Parliament that amateur boxing was an effective tool among disaffected young people and could help bring them back to education. He also credits Audley Harrison’s gold medal at the 2000 Sydney Olympics as a turning point. “It was a masterstroke in terms of publicity because the media made a hero out of him and subsequently Nicola Adams has carried it on,” he said. “So with positive role models it made amateur boxing widely socially acceptable once again.” Jake admits that he never imagined that boxing could help him progress in the education system and give him opportunities in the work place. In fact he didn’t take school too seriously. “I was a bit of the class clown really, although I did do most of the work reluctantly. The sports side was excellent but anything else that I didn’t enjoy meant I didn’t take much notice.
January / February 2016 ~ Inside & Out Magazine
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LOCAL HEROES
Jacob Croot (centre) with, from left, Tobais Hacker, Jack Castles, Adam Arkell and course tutor Craig Turner
Jacob Croot & Adam Arkell
“Positive role models made amateur boxing socially acceptable again” I was young and immature. “I had 2 Ds in Maths and English and they gave me the option to retake them on this course which was good. I also had a B in PE. “If this course didn’t exist I would probably have been a plumber with my Dad, but that’s never been anything that I’ve been interested in. “I would like to run my own gym, or be a dietician. I am always helping people in my family lose weight. I just like helping people. I’ll be doing a nutrition course next year and then look to see if I can go to university perhaps. The fact that I enjoy this course says the most about it.” Although the AASE course is specifically aimed at youngsters who have the potential to become elite boxers, Craig describes it as the “carrot and stick approach”. Students are given the opportunity to move into further education and better themselves academically while at the same time being provided with specialist coaching and the opportunity to experience what it is like to be a full-time athlete. “They know that if they drop their academic work, they will lose the boxing coaching,” he said. “It’s bit of kidology really, but by the time they leave they are superbly fit, intelligent people.” Of the initial intake five years ago, 12 students have moved on to further and higher education without having had 12
any intention of doing so when they first signed up for the boxing course at SGS College. Not everyone will make it as a boxer but they have the chance of making it in the work environment because they now have a Plan B. Craig reckons that 98 per cent of the first intake thought they were joining some sort of boxing club and it would be an easy option. They all got a rude awakening. “What we are running is an elite programme,” he said. “It’s a slightly condensed version of what the GB squad go through at the English Institute of Sport in Sheffield. Each year we lose a few because it is quite simply too tough, although most of those will still stay on as a student and do their academic work.” A typical week gives each student 16 hours of boxing training. This is hard physical exercise including lots of track work, sprints, longer runs, 3k time trials, then gym work including forensic analysis of each boxer’s technique, how they move their feet, their head, balance etc. The rest of the week is taken up with class work doing a variety of courses including compulsory English and maths. Jake estimates he spent 11 hours a week in the classroom. But Craig makes clear that this is not a case of adopting the American model where potential sports stars
Inside & Out Magazine ~ January / February 2016
are sometimes given university scholarships even though they are not educationally qualified. “The chance of success in boxing at the highest professional level is so small,” he said. “On courses like this the majority of success comes from further education where they eventually enter the work place with a good work ethic.” Despite that, Jake believes he is a far better boxer now than he ever would have been if he hadn’t signed up for the course “Without the strength and conditioning and the amount of time we have on the track and with technical coaching, I would never have got to this level and had the chance to represent England,” he said. So is this a good use of taxpayers’ money? Craig believes so. “Who are we to stop young people pursuing what they want to do? We do not have the right to decide if they wish to study boxing, cricket or plumbing, that’s their choice. As long as it’s a focus in their lives and they are not in the criminal justice system, which costs a lot more than the course, then we are saving the taxpayer money and helping give direction to young lives.” Although he has finished the AASE course, Jake has decided to stay on for a third year. The portfolio of evidence he produced at the end of Year 2 is the equivalent of 2 A Levels so he is well set up to gain further qualifications. And his advice to teenagers looking for a new challenge: “Definitely do it. If it is something you want to do, go for it. I have and I know I don’t regret it.”
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January / February 2016 ~ Inside & Out Magazine
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Neil James, Claire Sansum, Nicola Sansum, Holly Sansum, Andre Sansum, Steve Ashley, Trish Ashley, Julian Hayne and Misa Hayne of AG Sansum
Claire Sansum of AG Sansum Morris & Sue Sansum and Sue & Colin Sansum of AG Sansum
OUT AND ABOUT
Sian Norris and Bev Stokeman of The Chipping Surgery
Photography by Olivia Woodhouse
Jenny Lewis, Helen Berwick, Gaynor Brown and Deb Phillips of The Chipping Surgery
Businesses and friends and families had Christmas celebrations at The Park in Falfield. The hotel’s Christmas Party Nights ran throughout December, with another planned for after the Christmas season on January 9. Staff from AG Sansum and Sons, The Chipping Surgery, Troupers Beauty Salon and Protos Packaging were among those who enjoyed a night out.
Employees David and Sue Tarling of AG Sansum
John & Annie Edwards and Claire & John Bennett Richard Pool and Amy Pool of AG Sansum
Graham & Healther Read, Tony and Sally Millard of AG Sansum
Natalie Hicks, Mel Grey, Katya Slavashevskaya, Michelle Fowle and Ellie Beauty~Salon, Thornbury Insideof&Troupers Out Magazine January / February 2016 14 Mackman
Tim Weaving, Matt Alway and Matt Boyce of Protos Packaging
OUT AND ABOUT Photography by Dave Betts
Friends of Thornbury Carnival spice up their AGM
Barry Williams (Chair, Carnival Committee and representing Thornbury Rotary Club) and Donna Henstridge (Europa Group)
We all know that Annual General Meetings can be, well, a bit boring. The Friends of Thornbury Carnival decided to make their event a bit more enjoyable and enlisted the help of Thornbury Castle. They held their event at the historic hotel, and as well as getting though the necessary business, took time out to make some cocktails.
Ian Walker (Chair Friends of Thornbury Carnival)
Chloe Sanders assisting David Trovao (Food/Beverage Manager) with cocktails
Castle staff gave a cocktail masterclass and then let those attending have a go at making one of their own. Ian Walker, the chair of the Friends organisation, said: “We thought we’d try to lighten up the rather dull contents of the average AGM and make it a bit more fun.” The Friends of Thornbury Carnival aims to raise funds to support the carnival should bad weather mean the event makes a loss on the day. If you’d like to get involved, you can email chair@fotc. org.uk or phone Ian on 07771 908939. David Trovao (Food/Beverage Manager), Katerina Pippi (Sales Manager), Zoe Wickham (Inspire Arts Trust) and Izzy Rollin (Inspire Arts Trust)
Dave Goldring (Carnival Organiser) with Garry Holden (Thornbury Camera Club)
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Donna Henstridge (Europa Group) and Barry Williams (Chair, Carnival Committee and representing Thornbury Rotary Club) talking to Ian Walker (Chair, Friends of Thornbury Carnival) January / February ~ Inside & Out Magazine 15 and Chris2016 Saich (Membership Secretary)
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Performance small team bag. By Adidas
Sport-Fit Armband. By Belkin
Defier sports shoe. By K-Swiss
NewYear, NewYou
Wrist Water Bottle, 270ml. By Ronhill
Ace Wristband. By Nike
Vivoactive GPS Smartwatch. By Garmin Hand Weights. By John Lewis
Team Woven Training Trousers. By Nike
Track VX400 Exercise Bike. By Nordic
Running Hoodie. By Adidas All Access Soleday Backpack. By Nike
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Inside & Out Magazine ~ January / February 2016
FASHION
Key Flex Women’s Cross Trainers. By Adidas
Response T-Shirt. By Adidas
JLT Treadmill. By John Lewis
Gateway Beanie. By The North Face
Pro Victory Compression Sports Bra. By Nike Sequencials Climalite Running Top. By Adidas MX686G In-Ear Sports Headphones. By Sennheiser
New Gear? Gym Ball. By Reebok
GEL-Galaxy 8 Men’s Cushioning Running Shoes. By Asics
Medicine Ball, 3kg. By Reebok
insideandoutmag.co.uk
It’s a bit of a cliche, but once the excesses of the festive period have been swept away, we are all expected to become fitness fanatics. Just google ‘getting fit in the New Year’, and see how many hundreds of thousands of hits you get. There are probably as many ways to get fit. Locally, the Fitquest bootcamp we visited on page 21 comes highly recommended, if it might be a bit of a shock to the system. Getting into golf is a gentler option as we found out on page 42. If you decide to act on your resolutions, you are going to need some kit, whether you are trying to be the new Bradley Wiggins, Mo Farah or Serena Williams. We’ve picked out some of the best on offer at John Lewis. Their sports department in the basement of the store at Cribbs Causeway has a wide range of sporting goods so there’s no excuse for not acting on that resolution. Apart from a lack of willpower and that bag of crisps in the cupboard.
Eco Mendhi Print Yoga Mat. By Manuka
Epic Dri-FIT Running Tights. By Nike
January / February 2016 ~ Inside & Out Magazine
19
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Inside & Out Magazine ~ January / February 2016
HEALTHY LIVING
FIGHTING FIT at Fitquest Boot Camp
Fitquest is an exercise programme for adults, run by Lou Rowe-Alleyne. She and her team run 60-minute boot camp classes costing ÂŁ4 several times a week at both The Manor School Playing Field, Coalpit Heath, and The Ridge Junior School in Yate.
insideandoutmag.co.uk
January / February 2016 ~ Inside & Out Magazine
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HEALTHY LIVING
“The beauty of the classes are that every class is different. It is a different experience every time. “We have someone who is 17 and someone who is 63; we’ve had triathletes in the house. But nobody feels intimidated.”
Becky Williams pulled on her training shoes to try out Fitquest.
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obody would describe me as fit. I hated PE at school and get bored in the gym. I know as well as anyone else that exercise is good for me and that we should all do our best to stay active, but, it can be intimidating to join the fitness elite when you lose your breath climbing the stairs. With that in mind, I joined the class with a mounting feeling of trepidation, certain I would never keep up. I needn’t have worried. Whether you are a fitness fanatic looking for a new way to lose weight or a fitness-phobe who just needs a push in the right direction, Fitquest works for everyone. The class is a genuine mix of people: all genders, all backgrounds and a range of abilities from triathletes and police in training, to mums trying to get fit between school runs. The trainers push people to do their best, but always within their own limits, so Fitquest is what you make it. Lou said: “I like people to come and try as hard as they can. We take exercise seriously but not ourselves. People hear the words ‘boot camp’ and think ‘that’s awful’, but it’s only as hard as you make it and, in time, people take on more.” The class started with a warm up – a jog around the playing field. We then got into pairs and took our place at the stations lined up across the width of the field. At each station you take on a different set of workouts, from stretches, to press-ups, burpees and squats; through to exercises with weights. At the end of each exercise, the class sprints to the bottom of the field and back, before moving to the next station. The great thing about this format is that it is diverse, working different muscles but also giving you the variety to prevent it becoming repetitive. It also means that the 60-minute class flashes by in no time at all. But it was the positive encouragement of the friendly class and the excellent trainers that kept me going for the full hour. Even after the training, the encouragement continued, with advice from Lou on what to eat, how to stay active and how to disperse the build-up of lactic acid. One of the regulars, Kerry Brickwood, has been attending Fitquest classes for a year after a friend recommended she join. She said: “They were able to fit in with my fitness skills, 22
Inside & Out Magazine ~ January / February 2016
rather than me fitting in with them. In my opinion, it’s the best exercise – it’s so diverse but you don’t realise you are doing it. You use bits of your body that you think you use every day, but clearly you don’t. You know it works because you feel it the next day.” Mum-of-three Lou started Fitquest in 2011, when her husband (former Gloucestershire and England cricketer Mark Alleyne) encouraged her to follow her dream. She achieved her Level 3 Personal Training qualification and set up a partnership with The Manor School in Coalpit Heath, which was keen to work on its community links. Lou had just 11 people in her first session but the company has since grown from strength to strength. She now runs seven sessions a week and the clear proof of Fitquest’s value is in its popularity. Forty-five people turned up to join me at my class, on a wet Tuesday morning in Coalpit Heath. I was stunned at the number of people who wanted to get fit on a rainy week-day, but was told that this was the ‘quiet class’. With 300 people being put through their paces each week, some attending multiple classes, Fitquest is getting something right. For Lou, the true evidence is in the personal stories of those she has put through boot camp: “I’ve seen people make such amazing gains. The class is so friendly; they all know each other and we all know what their individual journey is.” Lou knows the limitations and the personal aims of all her customers, and she does what she can to help them achieve their goals. Exercises are adjusted to cater for individual needs. Those wanting to step up their fitness can take on the heavier weights and run faster. The man who has a bad back can do an alternative exercise to avoid straining specific muscles. As Lou says: “The beauty of the classes are that every class is different. It is a different experience every time.” The people in the classes are different too: “We have someone who is 17 and someone who is 63; we’ve had triathletes in the house. But nobody feels intimidated.” As for me, I left the class warm and aching, but full of a sense of achievement. So, whatever your ability, if you are looking for a new challenge, it might just be worth giving Fitquest a try. If I can survive boot camp, anyone can. If you would like to find out more, or give Fitquest a try, visit the website: www.thefitquest.co.uk
HEALTHY LIVING
Victoria Low
Becky (reporter) & Lindsay Coles
Emma Cotterell, Lou Alleyne & Phil Edwards
“I’ve seen people make such amazing gains. The class is so friendly; they all know each other and we all know what their individual journey is.”
Azzie Norbury & Jayne Loughlin
Vicky McManus & Sarah Kempson
Lou Alleyne
James Hardiman
Maria Hunt (grey top), Lisa Irmiger, Jenny Lewis, Jeanne Worgam, Tracy Wilcox, Caroline Newland, Helen Smith & Helen Croker
insideandoutmag.co.uk
January / February 2016 ~ Inside & Out Magazine
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Pictures by Rob Scott
They take us an hour-and-a-half to make and last for eight to ten years
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Inside & Out Magazine ~ January / February 2016
ROB GOVIER
NO WEEPING WILLOW for former engineer Rob James Garrett tells how a traditional craft is alive and kicking in Winterbourne
S
uccess didn’t come overnight for Rob Govier. There were days when he wondered, as he laboured under a gazebo in the back garden of his home in Watleys End, near Winterbourne, if he’d made the wrong call. Indeed, he could have been forgiven for hankering after his old job with all its certainties – salary, pension, sickness benefits, paid holiday and the companionship of colleagues. However, Rob persevered and is now Britain’s leading maker of traditional willow hurdle fences. He set up in business in 1998 after taking redundancy from Rolls Royce at Patchway, where he had spent 16 years as an aircraft engineer. Leaving no stone unturned in starting to build a customer base, he made replicas of traditional Severn salmon traps, or putchers, for Almondsbury Garden Centre. Sunday car boot sales provided another sales opportunity, while the annual Bristol Flower Show gave him a chance to exhibit his craft skills in front of a large audience. Back in those pre-internet days building the brand meant trying to get on BBC Radio Bristol’s gardening show or into the pages of the Bristol Evening insideandoutmag.co.uk
Post. “It wasn’t an overnight thing by any means,” he said. “In those early days it was very quiet.” Every so often he would be buoyed by the occasional order from a celebrity client. “We had an order from the actress Jane Seymour in the second year,” he said. Others have followed, including one from the multi-millionaire jeweller, Laurence Graff, who wanted some of Rob’s willow hurdles to enhance his 18th Century mews house in Kensington, west London. The internet, that most modern of business tools, changed Rob’s fortunes by revolutionising his most traditional of businesses. Today, between two-thirds and three-quarters of his orders come via online inquiries. A quick look at the testimonials on his website (www. winterbournewillows.com) confirms that satisfied customers are as likely to come from East Anglia or Scotland as Bristol. Jane from Leeds says: “Many thanks for my two willow gates which were delivered this morning. It is a pleasure to do business with a firm that does what it says it will.” A customer from Nottinghamshire is in complete agreement: “I just wanted to let you
know we›ve just received the fencing and it looks fantastic.” Customers, who used to be from just down the road, now come from further afield – sometimes much further. “I’ll get a couple of inquiries a year from the USA,” said Rob. Rob first learned how to make willow hurdles – a skill he’s now passing on to his son, Ben – from his grandfather, Harry Mundy, a ranger on Durdham Down in Bristol. “We used to make them to pen the sheep who grazed on the Downs when it was time to shear them,” he said. He put the skill to one side while he built rather more complex structures for Rolls Royce but says he had no problem picking it up again. “It’s just like riding a bike really.” While demand for the natural, sustainable product he produces has grown, along with interest in the ethos behind the business, the number of craftsmen has not. Even now, Rob estimates that there are no more than 20 willow hurdle makers in the UK. He puts this down to a general reluctance to put in the long hours of hard graft required by the trade. The Goviers’ basic output is a framed
January / February 2016 ~ Inside & Out Magazine
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ROB GOVIER
willow hurdle measuring six feet square, which sells for £77. “They take us an hour-and-a-half to make and they last for eight to ten years,” he said. “We’re now making replacement hurdles for some of our older customers.” To ensure that they last the course, some of Rob’s customers have asked him to customise their hurdles. “We’ve had to make them with a badger gate for some customers,” laughed Rob. “Either that or the badger just goes straight through the
hurdle, smashing it to pieces!” Eighty per cent of customers are individuals, with the remaining orders coming from professional landscapers. Rob’s biggest single order to date, for five dozen hurdles, came from a firm landscaping a new housing development. As business started to pick up, the back garden in Watleys End became too small. For the last dozen years Rob’s workshop has been the mediaeval barn next to Winterbourne parish church. Of course, his signature hurdles still surround the garden pond and wheelie bin at home. Dating from 1342, the barn is now owned by South Gloucestershire Council, which, said Rob, was looking for “someone who would work in sympathy with the barn, which is unique in this part of England.” As well as being the building’s sole permanent occupant, he is a member of the barn’s trustees, who are seeking a grant to fund major improvements. “It would allow us to put in better
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flooring, heating, lighting and security to let us do much more with the building and put on more functions,” he said. “We had three wedding receptions last year and already have two booked in this year. “I would also like to see more rural craftsmen here, working alongside what we do, people like basket-makers, a saddler or a smith, or people making willow sculptures.” The raw material for Rob’s hurdles comes from his own piece of land, located off Swan Lane in Winterbourne. Planting, maintaining and then harvesting the willows, or withies, can be back-breaking work. Rob and Ben planted the first two acres in 2009, pushing ten-inch willow rods into the ground, 12 inches apart and with 26 inches between rows. A further two-and-a-half acres were planted in 2013. That’s getting on for 80,000 withies, all of which need harvesting. During the growing season the ground between the rows has to be mown, to prevent grass and weeds strangling the young withies. They are cut – and stacked in bundles of 250 - from November, once the leaves have fallen, through until the end of February. Rob and Ben have developed another product line, producing living willow tepees, igloos and tunnels. “They are becoming firm favourites with infant and junior schools,” said Rob. Willows are planted in situ in the shape of the required structure in the winter and by the summer they will be covered with foliage. Indeed, it seems there’s no project too small or unusual for Rob to undertake. He recently made a tortoise run for a neighbour of BBC natural history presenter Kate Humble. Rob has now been a professional willow hurdle maker for longer than he was an aircraft engineer and, with customers now waiting up to 12 weeks for orders to be completed, that gamble he took in 1998 seems to have paid off.
Inside & Out Magazine ~ January / February 2016
Rob Govier at the medieval barn which has become his workplace
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January / February 2016 ~ Inside & Out Magazine
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www.thornburycastle.co.uk | 01454 281182 28
Inside & Out Magazine ~ January / February 2016
ADVERTISING FEATURE
Taking private dining to another level On your doorstep there is an extraordinary Tudor castle, a hotel that offers the perfect luxurious retreat.
I
t’s a place to de-stress. You can take a stroll around the manicured lawns and landscaped grounds, book a massage in your own bedchamber and relax over a delicious meal in our exclusive restaurant or just a coffee with a friend. But you wouldn’t expect a dungeon that plays host to the hotel’s bonded cellar – something that is taking private dining to the next level. The idea of being imprisoned by candlelight with your favourite people might not have appealed in Tudor times. But nowadays, surrounded by an award-winning wine collection from some
insideandoutmag.co.uk
of the best artisan wine makers and estates in the world, and with the help of the talented Sommelier, an enchanting evening is assured. Our chef will design a sensational menu to enhance the wine choices and ensure the perfect balance is created. It’s a rare and intimate opportunity to spend a very decadent evening in a Tudor dungeon, steeped in history and with an atmosphere that you can feel and touch to create lasting memories. For bookings, please call 01454 281182 or visit www.thornburycastle.co.uk
January / February 2016 ~ Inside & Out Magazine
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THE EARLY YEARS
EMBARKING ON SCHOOL LIFE CAN BE DAUNTING – FOR PARENTS Education writer Linda Tanner reports.
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have been dreading this for a long, long time,” said the mother, her sadness at the thought of leaving her precious four-year-old in the care of others five days a week clear in her eyes” “But now that I have visited some schools and talked to the teachers, I am feeling more hopeful that everything will work out for the best” Thousands of families in South Gloucestershire, like others across the country, are currently applying for reception class places for children due to start school in September. The deadline date is January 15. Whether their little ones have been cocooned at home since birth or have been in full-time nursery, parents know the move to “big school” is a major step and one they are desperate to get right. Of course, for many families, it is simple. There is one local school and that’s where their offspring will go. But the concept of parental choice can make some of them wonder if they should be driving their child to a highly acclaimed state school further away – or paying for
their son or daughter to attend an independent school. Families in built-up areas face additional challenges: pressure on places might mean their children cannot get in to the nearest school, let alone to a more desirable one further away. This means parents have to do their homework before submitting the application form to their local authority, outlining their three preferred schools. The first thing to understand is that it is not a free choice – you don’t have an automatic right to a place at your favoured school. Many other pitfalls can trip you up along the way too. Not all schools have the same admissions criteria. Academies and church-run schools, in particular,
Laya loves every minute Laya Budding, who was five in December, started at one of South Gloucestershire’s newest primary schools, Wallscourt Farm Academy, in September. She lives five minutes’ walk away with her mum Holly, dad Shane and three-year-old sister Demi. She loves school and has made friends, some of whom she scoots home with every afternoon. Holly, 31, said she and her husband looked at a couple of others but really liked their local school and are happy to be part of the community.
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“Laya had a bad start, when another child bit her, but that was just part of that child’s settling in process. She absolutely loves every minute of school. There was that moment when the realisation hit her that she would have to go every day, but she is fine with it, although she does get very tired.” Laya attended pre-school for two days a week before starting reception and Holly said that had helped her to prepare for school. “I love that the school really focuses on what each child is good at and can achieve,” she said.
Inside & Out Magazine ~ January / February 2016
may have additional requirements. Nor are all local authorities the same: for example, an important difference between Bristol and South Gloucestershire concerns siblings, with South Glos only giving priority to brothers and sisters of existing pupils if the family lives within two miles of the school. Then there’s reputation to consider. What do you do if your nearest school has had a poor inspection report, is regularly criticised by neighbourhood parents on social media or is in a “rough area”? The best way to allay fears is to go to the school and see for yourself. Helen Butcher, senior lecturer in early childhood policy and research at UWE Bristol, is clear. “Be cautious of the rumour mill,” she says. “One person’s grumpy morning or personality clash with a teacher is not grounds for rejecting a school.” She is also forthright about relying on what you can read about an educational establishment. “Being influenced by SATs test results is the worst thing parents can do. Those are not your children’s results. It’s the same with Ofsted reports – discard them straight away. They are historic; as soon
THE EARLY YEARS
“Being influenced by SATs test results is the worst thing parents can do. Those are not your children’s results” “It’s the same with Ofsted reports – discard them straight away. They are historic; as soon as they are published they are out of date”
as they are published they are out of date. A lot can change in a school in a few years.” That’s not to say that all schools are great, just that you have to look at the whole picture. What about creativity? Emotional health? Are children and adults in the school smiling? Helen Butcher advises parents to look at the quality of the relationships in the school and be aware that they will be building a relationship with the head and teachers over seven or eight years. Ask questions, but trust the professionals and trust your instincts, she says. Wherever you look, be prepared for things not to be the same as they were when you were at school. Education policy is constantly changing and teachers and schools have to adapt, but the best will ensure that children remain at the core of all they provide. Most children start school in the reception class in the September before they turn five. This is part of the Early Years Foundation Stage, from birth to five, which provides a framework for learning and development. Children’s physical and emotional development and their communication and language skills are measured, as is their progress in literacy, maths, understanding the world and expressive arts and design, to build their Early Years Profile. The emphasis is on child-led learning, supported by adults. To find out more, look online for the excellent “What to Expect, When” booklet from the charity 4Children. From September 2016, all children entering school will have a Baseline Assessment of their abilities (some are piloting it this year). Opponents say it is wrong for children to be formally tested at such a young age, but schools will no doubt implement it sensitively. Some parents whose children start school at barely four years old worry that they may fall behind and never catch insideandoutmag.co.uk
up. The Government has recognised this fear and is due to carry out consultation this spring on allowing summer-borns to start reception class a year later, but a timescale for any changes to legislation is not yet known. So what can you do to give your child the best possible chance at school? Any reception class teacher will tell you that talking to children is vital, as is reading with them. Sadly, there’s already a 15-month language skills gap between five-year-olds from disadvantaged
backgrounds and their peers. But it is social, rather than academic skills, that will help them most. That means making sure they can dress themselves, go to the toilet independently, and take responsibility for their possessions. Encourage them to be independent and prepare them – and yourself – for the separation so that when that first day comes in September, there are no tears from your child - or from you.
“It’s the right school for us” Daisy Bodnarchuk’s parents, Jenny and Paul, by their own admission, “really went to town” over selecting a primary school – they visited seven. “We wanted to find somewhere that would value her spark,” said Jenny. “She’s lively, energetic and creative and we wanted a school that would embrace that and not stifle it.” The couple did not read Ofsted reports but followed their gut feeling, seeking out a school that put her ahead of “chalk and talk”. Fortunately for them, Daisy,
who’s five this month, got a place at Wallscourt Farm in Cheswick Village, quite a distance from their home in north Bristol. “It’s not convenient – we drive past two schools to get here – but it’s right for us,” said Jenny, a family support worker. “Daisy has found it difficult to let us go in the mornings but the teachers have dealt with it really well and are very reassuring. She’s mostly very happy and has a real light about her. She was out with binoculars before breakfast this morning, collecting bugs to take in to school.”
Children enjoying their first weeks of the reception year at Wallscourt Farm Academy in Cheswick Village, South Gloucestershire January / February 2016 ~ Inside & Out Magazine
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DIARY DATES
Our look at What’s On ~ from theatre to dance and from music to film. If you have an event you’d like to tell us about, get in touch at features@insideandoutmag.co.uk
Inside & Out in January... FAMILY Sherry and Mince Pie Specials Friday 1st Avon Valley Railway, Bitton THEATRE Snow White Friday 1st (to 3rd January) Bristol Hippodrome Sleeping Beauty Friday 1st (to 17th January) Bristol Old Vic Aladdin Christmas Panto Saturday 2nd ~ 2pm Yate Sports Centre Aladdin Christmas Panto Sunday 3rd 2pm Bradley Stoke Sports Centre
Kingwood Players in Tom’s Quest Friday 22nd ~ 7.30pm Also 23rd, 29th and 30th
Alexander Armstrong A Year of Songs Wednesday 20th ~ 7.30pm
Kingwood Community Centre
Colston Hall
DANCE
Paul Carrack Saturday 23rd ~ 7.30pm
The Nutcracker Tuesday 5th ~ 7.30pm
Colston Hall
Russian State Ballet and Orchestra of Siberia, Bristol Hippodrome
SOCIAL
The Snow Maiden Wednesday 6th ~ 7.30pm Russian State Ballet and Orchestra of Siberia, Bristol Hippodrome Swan Lake Thursday 7th ~ 2.30pm Russian State Ballet and Orchestra of Siberia, Bristol Hippodrome MUSIC
Vampires Rock - Ghost Train Friday 8th ~ 7.30pm
Burns Party Night Saturday 23rd ~ 7.30pm
Bristol Hippodrome
Horton and Little Sodbury Village Hall
Sodbury Players in Mother Goose Saturday 16th (to 23rd January)
Burns Night Charity Ball Saturday 23rd
Chipping Sodbury Town Hall The Bodyguard Musical - Photo by Paul Coltas
Chipping Sodbury Folk Club Thursday 7th ~ 8pm
Bristol Marriott Royal Hotel FILM
The Beaufort Hunt, Chipping Sodbury
I Wish (PG) Friday 15th ~ 7.30pm
Frampton Folk Music Club Friday 8th ~ 8pm
Thornbury Picture House, Cossham Hall, Thornbury
Crossbow House, School Road, Frampton Cottrell
NT Live: Les Liaisons Dangereuses Thursday 28th ~ 7pm
Thornbury Country Music Club Saturday 9th ~ 8pm
Electric Picture House Cinema, Wotton-under-Edge
Armstrong Hall, Thornbury
COMEDY
The Bodyguard Musical Wednesday 13th (to 30th January)
Slapstick Festival Thursday 21st ~ Various times. Runs until 24th
Bristol Hippodrome Jane Eyre - Photo by Manuel Harlan 32
The Gables Hotel, Falfield
The Park Hotel, Falfield
Sunday Night at the Hippodrome Sunday 10th ~ 7pm
Bristol Old Vic
Retro Christmas Party Night Friday 8th ~ 7.30pm
Christmas Party Night Saturday 9th ~ 7.30pm
Bristol Hippodrome
Jane Eyre Thursday 21st ~ 7pm plus matinees (to February 6th)
Celebrate at a Burns Party Night
Inside & Out Magazine ~ January / February 2016
Colston Hall
DIARY DATES
...and February Clown Theatre Tuesday 9th
The Glenn Miller Story Tuesday 23rd ~ 7.30pm (to 27th February) Bristol Hippodrome
WADCA, Watleys End Road, Winterbourne
DANCE
THEATRE
Anton and Erin - Just Gotta Dance Sunday 14th ~ 3pm
The Last Tango Tuesday 2nd ~ 7.30pm (to 6th February)
Bristol Hippodrome
FAMILY
Bristol Hippodrome Avenue Q Monday 8th (to 13th February) Bristol Hippodrome Counter Acts Friday 12th ~ 7.30pm Bristol Old Vic Thriller Live Monday 15th ~ varied times (to 20th February) Bristol Hippodrome Pink Mist Tuesday 16th (to 5th March) Bristol Old Vic
MUSIC Chipping Sodbury Folk Club Thursday 4th ~ 8pm The Beaufort Hunt, Chipping Sodbury
Richard Lowe as Princeton in Avenue Q Photo by Matt Martin Photography
90s Music Night Saturday 6th ~ 8pm
Rebecca Ferguson Wednesday 17th ~ 7.30pm
WADCA, Watleys End Road, Winterbourne
Colston Hall
Bristol Chamber Choir Tuesday 9th ~ 7.30pm Chipping Sodbury Town Hall Frampton Folk Music Club Friday 13th ~ 8pm Crossbow House, School Road, Frampton Cottrell
Lady Nade Saturday 27th ~ 7.30pm Rockhampton Village Hall SOCIAL Chinese New Year Monday 8th Wedding Fayre Sunday 28th ~ 11.30am Tortworth Court FILM Belle (12A) Friday 19th ~ 7.30pm Thornbury Picture House, Cossham Hall, Thornbury COMEDY Paddy McGuinness Wednesday 3rd ~ 8pm Colston Hall
Pink Mist at Bristol Old Vic. Phil Dunster (Arthur) and company insideandoutmag.co.uk
January / February 2016 ~ Inside & Out Magazine
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RESTAURANT REVIEW
Taste of Italy Positioned at the top of the cobbled high street that runs through Chipping Sodbury, La Passione could scarcely be situated in a more English setting. But, inside is pure Italy ~ with authentic Italian food, served by Italian waiters, writes Becky Williams.
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had high hopes for the awardwinning La Passione. It claims to be a firm favourite among the locals, which was soon confirmed by the number of diners. From the front the restaurant looks small but the bar leads through to a very large room. This is unfortunate if you happen to be an early bird because the vast space doesn’t create the best ambience for an intimate meal. However, as the diners arrive in their droves the place is transformed, creating a vibrant and lively atmosphere. THE DÉCOR I was a little disappointed on arrival – the décor has seen better days; with peeling signage, a threadbare carpet and rusted radiators in the WC. This, coupled with uninspiring place settings and plastic menus, leaves you with the impression that La Passione is a little unloved. But these issues could be easily solved with a lick of paint and some matching crockery. Fortunately, the love is where it matters - in the food and in the friendly service, by genuine Italian waiters who are prompt and helpful, but who still find time to laugh with the locals. THE FOOD The age old expression says ‘When in Rome, do as the Romans do’ so I decided to shun the English offerings and go for the Italian menu choices. These are varied, from pizza and pasta, 34
to risotto and fish dishes. My Tortellini Alla Crema was soft and creamy delicate parcels still bursting with flavour in a delicious mushroom and tomato sauce. The Spaghetti Arrabiata, sampled by another fellow diner, was a generous helping of meaty spaghetti in a red wine and Bolognese sauce, providing a kick, with its subtle chilli heat. What each dish has in common is the fresh and wonderfully authentic flavour. Though the ingredients are sourced locally, the way they are cooked transport you to Italy. Simple dishes with simple ingredients they may be, but the pasta doesn’t taste the way you make it at home. The presentation of these dishes is simple, choosing generous portions over the elegant but dainty plates you see in some top restaurants. But, if presentation is important to you, the highlights are the desserts – beautiful explosions of chocolate work and cream. My soufflé al cioccolato looked like a work of art – but it was light and delicately flavoured, with lashings of hot chocolate sauce oozing from the centre. If you don’t have a sweet tooth, you could choose from a long list of liqueur coffees. The meal was rounded off with a free, boozy shot of Limoncello. THE SERVICE The service at La Passione is very efficient – each course is delivered promptly and with a smile. The waiting
Inside & Out Magazine ~ January / February 2016
staff are always on hand for whatever you need and are happy to answer questions. La Passione is a good choice for anyone looking for a family friendly eatery – the restaurant had that rare quality of being able to convincingly cater for all types of people. All in all, La Passione may need to spruce up its walls, but the restaurant is atmospheric, friendly and comfortable, with uncomplicated but tasty food and jovial staff, who will keep you laughing without keeping you waiting.
Would we recommend? What: La Passione ~ Award winning Italian restaurant Where: 66 Rounceval Street, Chipping Sodbury, BS37 6AR Price: Very reasonable, with main courses ranging from £7.45 to £14.95 Rating: ★★★✩✩ Do we recommend? YES
The gardener who is proud to be mad as a hatter
He’s Blooming Marvellous It’s not every day that a garden novice comes away with a gold medal from the prestigious Royal Horticultural Society’s Malvern Show. But that’s what Gary Bristow from Frampton Cotterell has managed. His show garden drew heavily on the village’s hat industry. Now he’s got his eye on the Chelsea Flower Show.
Photos: Olivia Woodhouse insideandoutmag.co.uk
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GARDENING Gary Bristow is a quiet, unassuming man. Even so, when he met Richard Drew for lunch there was an unmistakable glow of pride that he had won a gold medal from the Malvern Show. It’s only just arrived and is reward for his first ever show garden. It’s a just recognition for what has been a remarkable journey; a journey that is just beginning.
A
traditional mid-life crisis can take many forms, but gardening is not normally one of them. Gary may not have been suffering from a middle aged malaise, but he does agree that he’s at the right stage of life for what he hopes will be his new career. “I think gardening is traditionally something you perhaps arrive at a little later in life and it’s also very therapeutic as a way to get away from the office and the computer screen,” he said. “It’s fantastic to be able to work creatively but using plants just combines a whole range of my interests”. His journey to medal winning garden designer was a circuitous one. He took a fine art degree at the University of Wales and specialised in sculpture. After a couple of years of sculpting, he decided to move to London and got a job at Madame Tussaud’s, which included time in the robotics workshop. His experience of kinetic sculpture also got him to the Brit Awards, where he worked on special 3D effects for the likes of Michael Jackson and Simply Red. Like many people, London life became too much for Gary, who grew up in the country. His sister was at university in Bristol and so began his love affair with South Gloucestershire and Bristol. “There’s lots going on, it’s very laid back,” he said. “Bristol is a very vibrant, creative centre outside of London. I think it’s the second best place to be, but it’s a lovely green space with laid back friendly people”. For 15 years Gary worked as a graphic designer, but said it was something of an epiphany that made him take his drastic change of course. “There was a point in January a couple of years ago where I realised I needed to get back to working in a 3D sense with
Gary Bristow at his home in Frampton Cotterell 36
Inside & Out Magazine ~ January / February 2016
people and with colour and form and texture, which to some degree graphic design provides but not in a way that creating gardens does. I’ve always loved gardens; I’ve always really loved creative gardens - artist’s gardens, and wherever I’ve gone in the world I’ve always visited gardens. It just suddenly occurred to me that that was what I wanted to do, and that’s where it all started”. The ball started rolling when Gary decided to give himself a birthday present. “I signed up for a garden design course in Bristol with John Wheatley, who has won twenty RHS gold medals. I loved every minute of if it, and he invited me to go on the RHS Bristol Britain in Bloom garden at Hampton Court [in 2014]. I spent two weeks up at Hampton Court with them, building and planting up the garden and it was just a fantastic experience. Watching all the other designers develop and create their own gardens in just two weeks was sheer bliss. It wasn’t like work at all because I was working on structure and plants and creating an amazing garden. Once you’ve been through that, you just get the bug”. It was a bug that he acted on, deciding he had the ability and it was just a matter of confidence. “On a whim” he put in an application to the RHS which was accepted. He didn’t have to go far for his inspiration - the old hatting industry of Frampton Cotterell. He said the well known phrase ‘as mad as a hatter’ was his starting point. The factories that still stand in the village were dark places full of noxious chemicals used in the hatting process. The hatters inhaled the fumes during their long working days. “There was a serious drinking culture and it was thirsty work,” Gary says. “They could drink up to ten pints of beer a day while at work and then re-locate to the Live and Let Live pub and spend the weekend continuing to drink, so they were quite a wild bunch and that is where the phrase ‘as mad as a hatter’ comes from - from the physical effects on their health of their work and also their drinking. Frampton Cotterell was a wild and exciting place with these eccentric characters”. Gary’s ideas came from talking to local historians. He was also helped by local people who lent artefacts, and by hat makers Christies who once had factories in Frampton Cotterell. “The garden was one of two halves. Half of the garden was quite a dark, textured, rich planting scheme with lots of plants meshing together representing their dark days at work and the other half was much more exuberant flamboyant planting, using oranges, yellow, lime green. This was their mad side outside of work. “I used plants that were used in the manufacturer of hats and dying, things like woad and weld and the local teasels, using local pennant stone as well. The hatters attracted the attention of the Wesleyan movement who came to Frampton and encouraged them to build chapels, of which there are several, so I used elements of stained glass”. Designing a well regarded garden is one thing - building it turned out to be
GARDENING
Out in the
Garden
W MasterChef’s Gregg Wallace, with, left, Leonie Bell and Emily Dennis, both of Christys’ Hats
another all together. The British weather did its best to increase the stress levels; baking hot when the patch of ground was being dug, then torrential rain and gale force winds off the Malvern Hills when the delicate flowers had to be planted. Despite that, the garden was a triumph. The plants Gary had been nurturing in his garden conservatory and even the dining room were, as he put it, “perfectly well behaved”. Some 90,000 visitors saw Gary’s garden, including Joe Swift and the BBC Gardener’s World crew. But the most important visitors were the judges. Gary had no idea he’d won a gold medal. He had walked past the result pinned to the front of the garden. It took a fellow designer to enlighten him. “It was quite overwhelming,” he said with a smile. “A quite emotional experience to be awarded a gold medal in your first garden.” His experience though, and his garden, came to quite an abrupt end. “On the Monday we had two days to rip everything up and get it shipped out of the show ground, to return it to a patch of earth, so that was actually quite traumatic. I’d spent six months working on it, and a tense couple of weeks making it look absolutely perfection. We had a grand sale of plants on the Sunday, so pretty much in half an hour the garden was gone. It’s not normal for a garden, usually you get to live with it for a while”. The success has been a springboard for other projects. His mentor John Wheatley invited him to help on his design for a Mexican garden at this year’s Chelsea Flower Show. He helped with initial designs and mood boards and then spent time at Chelsea planting up. The garden got a gold medal. Gary is now back at college, attending a RHS course at Bristol Botanic Garden. People are encouraging him to try his luck at Chelsea. If he can find funding, he’s mulling applying for 2017. It remains what he describes as “an incredible dream” given the regard for the Chelsea show, but with his track record who would count it out. Whatever happens, he’s determined to make this midlife career switch stick. I asked him at the end of our lunch what is so thrilling about designing a garden, and after a characteristically considered on pause he told me. “It’s a real state of mind,” he said. “When I’m planting you have to go into a kind of creative state and so it’s getting into that creative zone and that shuts out the whole rest of the world. Your focus has to be on what you’re creating; for me that’s a feeling you can’t beat”. insideandoutmag.co.uk
by Gary Bristow
ith the cold dark months pretty much behind us, the cheeriest of gardeners can now allow themselves the first tantalising thoughts of the glorious Spring just around the corner. As the garden begins to stir, it is time for us to come out of hibernation and venture back in to the garden. The scouting motto “Be Prepared” applies well to the gardener at this time of year. Prepare the Earth If you catch a dry and warmish day, a good mulch of organic compost for borders will work wonders. Clear any weeds first and apply a generous mulch. Also consider an application of organic fertiliser and lightly work in. Feed the Mind The most important thing I’ve learnt about gardening is that you never stop learning. Stoke Lodge Adult Education offer great courses including design, pruning and planting (www.bristolcourses.com) and check out the courses and free talks by the ever inspiring Derry Watkins over at Special Plants (www.specialplants.net). New Beginnings With the garden clear and its structure visible, your blank canvas ready, now is a great time to take stock and plan some changes. Make a cup of tea, light the fire, pull out a sketch book and let your imagination run riot. Be bold. We are blessed with a climate to grow a huge variety of flowers, herbs and vegetables, so why not try something new this year and take a few risks? Last year I dug up my front lawn and planted it up with perennials, grasses, bulbs, herbs and veg and was rewarded with an uplifting riot of colour and texture. Seven Jobs 1 – Clean pots and tools. Give the greenhouse an early spring clean. 2 – Pot up over wintered Dahlia tubers and store pots somewhere frost free. 3 – Chit potatoes in February and plan your vegetable patch. 4 – Browse seed catalogues and plan for maximum summer colour. 5 – Keep on top of weeding and finish digging. 6 – Cut back any perennials that have been left over winter for wildlife. 7 – Continue to feed the birds and provide them with water. To find out more about Gary’s garden design, visit his website www.garybristowdesign.co.uk or contact him with your gardening questions at gary@garybristowdesign.co.uk
January / February 2016 ~ Inside & Out Magazine
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The Old Vic is celebrating its 250th birthday – and you’re invited 2016 is a big year for the Bristol Old Vic. It marks its 250th anniversary with plays from across all those years, but the highlight is a chance for local people to perform.
Bristol Old Vic
n Craig
ography by Jo
at night. Phot
Timothy West and Olwen Fouere in The Master Builder (1989) at Bristol Old Vic. Photographer: Allen Daniels. Image courtesy of the University of Bristol Theatre Collection. 38
Inside & Out Magazine ~ January / February 2016
THE OLD VIC
B
ristol Open Stage takes place over the May Bank Holiday weekend, with the theatre, the studio, foyer and the street outside given over to individuals and groups to show what they can do. The birthday weekend culminates in an Open Stage Showcase in the theatre on the bank holiday Monday – the actual anniversary of the theatre’s opening in 1766. Open Stage days will be running
beforehand to give people a chance to show their ideas. The first is on Sunday, February 7. Invitation forms are available at www.bristololdvic.org.uk/birthday If you prefer to watch rather than take part, there’s plenty to look forward to, including Shakespeare, for whose work the theatre was designed. King Lear is the Shakespeare offering in June, and it sees Timothy West return to an old haunt. West and three other veteran actors share the stage with a young cast of graduating students from the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School. The school also celebrates its 70th birthday in 2016. Timothy West has been involved with the Old Vic for almost 50 years and led the theatre Still going strong after all these years; another full house at the Bristol Old Vic. PhotographyBrave-HI-180x132.pdf by ShotAway company through 1 22/12/2015 09:49
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the 80s and 90s. The Rivals is the play selected from the 18th century and heads to the Old Vic in September, whilst there are two plays from the 19th century – Jane Eyre and The Massive Tragedy of Madame Bovary!, which plays in April and May. Long Day’s Journey Into Night is sure to be popular in March and April, with Jeremy Irons and Lesley Manville headlining and Richard Eyre directing. There are three modern plays lined up during the year; the excellent Pink Mist, The Flying Lovers of Vitebsk, and The Grinning Man. The Grinning Man which debuts in October is a new musical, based on The Man Who Laughs by Victor Hugo. It’s written by Carl Grose whose previous credits include Dead Dog in a Suitcase and the magical Tristan and Yseult. Tom Morris (who has directed War Horse) is in charge of this production which no doubt will be looking to prove that the Old Vic’s future will be as distinguished as its illustrious past.
It’s time for you to get noticed Inside & Out South Gloucestershire did, now it’s your turn Visit www.bravebrands.co.uk or email: tellmemore@bravebrands.co.uk to find out more.
insideandoutmag.co.uk
Bringing Brands to Life
January / February 2016 ~ Inside & Out Magazine
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GALAPAGOS ISLANDS
Up close and personal with magical creatures of the Galapagos by Steph Kitchin
M
agical, remote, unique, all words commonly used to describe the Galapagos Islands archipelago. All well and good but actually what is it really like to experience a Galapagos cruise? I love mountains and the freedom to wander wherever I want. I’m not so keen on the sea and was apprehensive about being in such a controlled environment where every day is so tightly planned. So armed with sea-sickness tablets, not enough vest tops and too many warm clothes I set off. Around 615 miles off the coast of Ecuador on the equator, the Galapagos Islands are made up of 13 islands and over 100 islets. The inspiration for Darwin’s theory of evolution, the Galapagos Islands are one of the best places in the world to experience wildlife close up. Some 170,000 tourists visited the Galapagos Islands last year. For this reason tourism is now extremely tightly controlled. All visits to the islands must be accompanied by a guide, you must stick to the paths at all times and remain a two-metre distance from the birds and animals. As it turned out this was sometimes difficult to achieve as we found ourselves tip toeing around snoozing sea lions that had draped themselves over the path, and I wasn’t convinced that the white tip reef shark I ran into was familiar with the two-metre rule. I was met at Quito’s new swanky airport and whisked off to check in where my boarding passes were already waiting for me. It was overcast but warm when I stepped off the plane on San Cristobal island. Groups were briskly sorted and I met my fellow companions of the 20-passenger motor yacht Letty. Now it really felt as though the adventure was starting. Letty, along with Eric and the soon-to-be-launched Origin, are owned by Ecoventura, an Ecuadorian company pioneering environmental work in the Galapagos. There is a rule of a 16:1 ration on all Galapagos boats and so many of the small 40
Inside & Out Magazine ~ January / February 2016
ones only carry a maximum of 16. Letty is unusual in having 20 passengers and therefore two guides which makes for smaller groups for the excursions; a definite advantage. Lunch was a delicious array of ceviche; fish marinated in lime and chilli. One taste and I knew I was back in Latin America. Other favourites that featured during the week were Yuca bread, ‘Econcado de camarones’ (prawns in coconut sauce), and the best banana cake I have ever tasted. Ecoventura boats are known for having superb food and I was astounded at the quality and variety that the crew produced out of such a small kitchen. After lunch there was time for a brief rest while we disembarked on ‘pangas’ to visit La Loberia. At this beach just outside the main town locals co-exist with sea lions and marine iguanas. Sea lions have the run of the place though, with everyone else having to fit around them. We watched a baby sea lion pup playing in the shallow water under the watchful gaze of its mother just a few metres away. Back on board we enjoyed dinner while Letty cruised to the northern end of San Cristobal. Every day was planned down to the last detail, from the morning wake-up call to meal times and excursions. We obediently appeared on time to don life vests, snorkel gear in hand if appropriate, eager to see what lay in store at the next stop. We snorkelled with turtles at Post Office Bay on Floreana, watched a Blue Footed Booby feed its hungry teenage chick at Punta Pitt and on North Seymour at dusk watched the enormous flocks of red breasted Frigate Birds gathering their chicks and settling down for the night. I wasn’t surprised to see all the different species of birds, fish and animals. This is a world renowned wildlife spot after all. But what I hadn’t anticipated was the magical feeling of being so close to these creatures going about their daily lives. Right in front of us, a mother sea lion was feeding her
GALAPAGOS ISLANDS
All you need to know: the Galapagos Islands Into Latin America offer a 10-day tailor-made holiday to Quito and the Galapagos Islands from £3,999 per person based on two people sharing. Price includes all domestic and international flights from Bristol (via Amsterdam), all meals on board and a tour of Quito city. For every Galapagos booking £10 is donated to the Galapagos Conservation Trust. Into Latin America: 0117 214 0247; www.intolatinamerica.com
pup, a Booby chick was practising how to fly and turtles were mating, all as if we were not even there. We had a harsh dose of reality when our guide James told us that many of the sea lion pups we were fondly watching would probably die this year due to the ‘El Nino effect’. It was a stark reminder of the fragile nature of this place and how everything is interconnected. James is Galapagenan and grew up on San Cristobal. He is concerned that the government is soon to change the laws which will increase the amount of land that can be built on. He points to a hill behind the beach and says “maybe one day soon there will be a resort here”. Aside from the flora and fauna, the volcanic landscapes are incredible and fascinating from a geological perspective. At Chinese Hat it looks as though the lava flow could have happened only months ago, so black and crusty are the rocks. In February 1825, an explorer called Benjamin Morrell reported that his ship became trapped when Fernandina erupted shooting lava 2,000 feet into the air. The sea reached a temperature of 37 degrees, the air was a stifling 45 degrees. On older Santa Cruz there is cloud forest and fruits and coffee are cultivated. Wolf volcano has been active this year on Islabela island. Scientists report that it could alter the size and shape of Isabela, the largest of the Galapagos Islands, as it could eventually join with close by Fernandina. This is a place where nothing stands still. The week was perfectly rounded off when snorkelling around Pinnacle rock. I put my head above water to see three Galapagos penguins perched together on a rock looking inquisitive and completely unfazed by the clumsy swimming efforts of us humans. The tables were turned and we were being observed. A reminder that we are guests in this most special environment that rightly belongs to the animals and birds. insideandoutmag.co.uk
Five ways to reduce the impact of your visit 1. Stick to the rules. Always. 2. Take home any empty plastic bottles you use and recycle them at home. 3. Use the refillable water pouches provided and don’t buy bottled water. 4. Use the environmentally friendly toiletries when provided in the bathroom. 5. Support the local economy by buying souvenirs, drinks and food when you get free time on the islands. Did You Know? Where: the Galapagos Islands are 600 miles off the west coast of Ecuador. How to get there: Fly with KLM from Bristol via Amsterdam to Ecuador’s attractive colonial capital, Quito. Or straight to Guayaquil. From here it’s a domestic flight to and from the islands. When to go: Year round although August and September have slightly rougher seas. Some species or events are best at certain times of year so let us know if there is something you would especially like to see. Cost: From £3,999 including a seven-night cruise, all flights and land arrangements. Shorter cruises are available. Insider tip: take waterproof sandals or shoes, sometimes landings are straight onto rocks. Combines well with: Ecuador’s mainland is often over looked but offers Andes culture and scenery, lush cloud forest and the Amazon. The Galapagos can also be combined easily with Machu Picchu in Peru. Did you know? You don’t have to do a cruise. If you prefer you can stay in hotels and do day trips from there. You can stay in one hotel or do an island hopping program.
January / February 2016 ~ Inside & Out Magazine
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WOMEN’S GOLF
Swinging women You might think that your local golf club is something of a male bastion. Certainly, historically, it’s been a man’s game. The home of golf, the Royal and Ancient Club at St Andrews only allowed women members in 2014. Things are changing fast though, and an initiative in South Gloucestershire is laying down the red carpet for potential women golfers. Vicky Drew headed to The Kendleshire to find out more.
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hen I first found out that I was being sent on a golf adventure, my first thought was, what do I wear? I haven’t a polo shirt, I live in jeans and the weather outside is awful. Can I still swing in a raincoat? On arrival I had no idea where to go, needed to ask for directions and suddenly realised that the world of golf was a complete unknown for me. Luckily, help was at hand. There are not enough women playing golf, it’s a fact. Only 13% of golf memberships are held by women, but Sarah Claridge at The Kendleshire Golf Club is set to change that with her women-only golf coaching sessions. 42
The taster session is free with the incentive of a free glass of wine at the end. If you like what you see you can sign up for a five-week course that will teach you all you need to know. Setting foot in a golf club can be a daunting affair, which Sarah acknowledges. “Women are worried about what they are wearing, which door do they go through and is the right person going to be there for them to ask where to go, “ she said. “This can stop a women taking that first step to start playing golf.” Luckily The Kendleshire is a welcoming club and all you need for your first session is a pair of jeans, some trainers and a t-shirt or long sleeved
Inside & Out Magazine ~ January / February 2016
top. The Kendleshire will provide the rest. To some golf seems to hold a language of its own. Terms such as par, handicap, wedge, driver and marker are banded around leaving non-golfers confused. Recognising this Sarah ensures that her coaching sessions take women through all the stages. By the end of the first course you should be able to find your way round the pro shop, be familiar with a golf score card - and hopefully hitting some balls. “We have fun along the way,” she said. “My jokes are terrible, but you get used to them”. Essentially, it’s important that women enjoy the golf. The sessions strike the right balance between learning golf etiquette and learning the skills so that women feel comfortable in all areas of golfing life. So, having rolled up to The Kendleshire in my jeans and trainers it was about time I had a go at hitting something. The weather was against me, providing the perfect excuse for the ball not travelling very far, and, in the kit list for next time I will definitely
WOMEN’S GOLF
“The ball headed off in the right direction. Watching it twirl magnificently into the hole was just the icing on the cake”
Vicky Drew learns the ropes from Sarah Claridge
include a woolly hat. Golf club in hand we headed off, though surprisingly, we didn’t head to the driving range, but the putting green. “We want women to succeed quickly,” Sarah said and so the first experience of hitting a ball will be on the putting green. The skills of swinging from the shoulders, correct stance are all transferred more easily to the big shots, so it makes sense to start small. Sarah takes time to explain why we need to stand in a certain way and how a golf pro approaches their shots. This helps the beginner like me realise why taking your time to get it right is important. Learning how lines and arrows on the putter and ball help improve accuracy almost made the whole game of golf seem a lot less daunting. It is an approach that agreed with me, as within five shots I had my first ball in a hole. It felt good. Starting on the putting green I managed to make contact with the ball on every shot and the ball headed off in the right direction. Watching it twirl insideandoutmag.co.uk
magnificently into the hole was just the icing on the cake. The benefits of playing golf go beyond the satisfaction of hitting a ball into a hole. Once the basics are mastered, mixed ability groups can play together using the handicap system. “It means that all the family can be involved and play together,” said Sarah. It seems that golf is moving away from the image of men only, or ladies who lunch, to become a whole family affair. If you want to take golf more seriously, competitions are held in the week and also at weekends so that working women aren’t excluded. For those among us who are interested in the fitness angle it is worth noting that a round of golf can burn up to 900 calories, with the course taking you well beyond the recommended 10,000 steps. For those of us wanting to watch our weight, this may be incentive enough but Sarah points out that it is the social side of golf that really helps to keep people playing. The women golf sessions are proving popular. The weekend following
our meeting Sarah had 21 women signed up for a taster session. I can understand why. Having visited The Kendleshire, it is a welcoming club and knowing that Sarah is by your side to navigate you through the rules and etiquette really helps. Sarah has over twenty years experience at coaching across all levels and prides herself on her personal approach. With everything you need probably already in your wardrobe, there is really no excuse for not giving it a go. If the golf bug hits you Sarah says that £200 is enough to get you fully kitted out to start playing golf more. Obviously, you can spend more, but a bag, some clubs and shoes is all you really need once you have the basics sorted. The women golf sessions run throughout the year and details can be found at www.englandgolf.org, and www.sarah-claridge.co.uk The Kendleshire’s website is www.kendleshire.com
January / February 2016 ~ Inside & Out Magazine
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XES??? O B … E s S E e H i T d La ICH SPORT TICKS ALL WH
BURN UP TO
0S 90 LORIE CA
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10k
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ED IT… S S E U G U YO Bring your best friend to a completely free women's golf taster session, to find out more of this fascinating game. Sarah Claridge & Tom Gillespie will be your PGA Coach hosts for the session. It will be fun and entertaining introducing you to golf in a gentle way. We’d love to see you there!
OUR USE ALL Y
9 63 SCLES
THE GET OUT IN
FRESH AIR
NISH YOUR
FI T WITH DAY’S SPOR
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Date:
Time:
Venue:
Booking:
BESTIES WITH YOUR
Saturday 19th March 2016 2pm (for 2 hours) The Kendleshire, Henfield Road, Coalpit Heath, Bristol BS36 2UY Please email Sarah on sclari@sarah-claridge.co.uk or ring Tom Gillespie on 0117 956 7000 (option 2)
The Kendleshire offers a great variety of memberships to appeal to every level of player, starting with our “9 hole option” for only £30 per month. Please ask for more information, or call 0117 956 7007 (option 1).
Kendleshire.com
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Inside & Out Magazine ~ January / February 2016
SUSAN LEWIS
THE GIRL WHO KEEPS COMING BACK As February comes around the twice-yearly, well-oiled machine that is the process of publishing one of the UK’s best-known writers of commercial fiction is in full swing. James Garrett reports.
O
n 25 February the 38th book – and 36th novel – by Susan Lewis will be published by Penguin Random House. On the same day as The Girl Who Came Back comes out in hardback, No Place To Hide will appear in paperback, having first been published in hardback last autumn. Susan, who lives in Bagstone, South Gloucestershire, has a vast following of devoted readers across the UK and the wider English-speaking world who will have pre-ordered their copies of The Girl Who Came Back, often months earlier, in order to receive them hot off the press. Another book, as yet untitled, has already been delivered to the insideandoutmag.co.uk
publisher, ahead of its release in hardback this autumn. At that time, The Girl Who Came Back will be published in paperback. Meanwhile, Polish readers of Susan Lewisova will be reading whichever of Susan’s books is the most recent to have been translated into their language. They are also translated into Russian, Portuguese and Czech. Each UK publication is virtually guaranteed entry in the prestigious Sunday Times Top 10 lists of hardback and paperback fiction sales. However, Susan won’t be found poring over the bestseller lists in February and March. She’ll be in New Zealand, researching the next book, due to be published in spring 2017. It is to be the January / February 2016 ~ Inside & Out Magazine
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SUSAN LEWIS
sequel to a highly successful pair of books, No Child Of Mine and Don’t Let Me Go, which dealt with the harrowing subject of child abuse. In any case, Susan never looks at the charts, anxious that if a book ‘only’ makes the lower reaches of the top ten it hasn’t made the top five. A top five finish is frustrating because it’s not top three, while a top three finish is all very well but, if it can get to number two or three, then why not number one? Don’t bother to point out that most authors don’t make a living from their writing, let alone see their books regularly make the literary equivalent of Top of the Pops. As her husband, I’ve tried, often…. It doesn’t wash. Almost 30 years after making her debut as a writer, she refuses to take success for granted. As well as being a best-selling author, Susan is among the most-borrowed authors in the UK and always attracts a large audience to her talks at public libraries. I have witnessed the extraordinarily close relationship she has with her readers, whether on a damp autumn night in libraries across Britain, from Yate to Gateshead and Walsall, or in the American Mid-West.
“An amazing number of people, some of whom had never heard of me before, attended the talk… every one of them bought a copy of No Place to Hide” She regales them with stories; how her happy 1960s childhood in Kingswood was turned upside down by the death from breast cancer of her mother leaving Susan, aged nine, brother Gary, then five, and their father, Eddie, to cope with their grief alone. Of how her unhappiness at being sent to board at Red Maids School in Bristol led her to rebel in an – ultimately successful – bid to be expelled. And of how her determination to succeed, despite a less than ideal start, took her to the south of France, where she took a shine to one of the FBI’s Most Wanted, and, later, Los Angeles, where George Clooney was a neighbour. In a story which always brings the house down she explains how she would take her dogs, Casanova and Floozy, for their daily walk in a nearby canyon past the Hollywood superstar’s residence. “One morning, Cassie caught a whiff of the potbellied pig which George used to keep as a pet and shot under the hedge into his garden. “So there I was, crawling under the hedge into George Clooney’s garden and calling out “Casanova! Casanova!”” While Susan and her publicity team knew how close her relationship with UK readers was, they couldn’t be certain how well her books would sell in the USA. Yes, she had been on successful publicity trips to Australia, New Zealand and South Africa in the last three years, but would an American audience also warm to her stories? With her books now being marketed in the USA, as well as the rest of the English-speaking world, she decided to test the 46
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Jacket design courtesy of Penguin Random House
Susan with Susie Mahler, owner of Café Max, Culver, Indiana, who hosted the launch of No Place To Hide.
SUSAN LEWIS
Susan beside a sign advertising her talk at the Culver & Union Township Public Library, Indiana.
Jacket design courtesy of Penguin Random House
Susan chatting with readers at a recent event at Highworth Library, near Swindon.
insideandoutmag.co.uk
water and in July 2015 launched No Place To Hide in the small town of Culver, Indiana (pop 1200). She had visited Culver on a research trip the previous year and had been blown away by the town, set beside Lake Maxinkuckee and surrounded by hundreds of square miles of cornfields. “The book was set in Culver, so it seemed the obvious place to launch it, “ says Susan. “Culver itself doesn’t have a bookshop but fortunately, Susie Mahler, the owner of the local café where we hosted the book launch, made sure there were plenty of copies available in the days leading up to the launch and for the party itself. “At the same time Craig Mitzell, a local resident who had helped enormously with the research, ordered a large supply of books from Walmart and Barnes and Noble, once again making sure we didn’t go short.” She said: “The café was doing a roaring trade, with some people buying up to ten copies each for friends and family, also to send all over the States to those who had attended the Culver Academies, a very grand school on the lake’s north shore. Meanwhile, a library in Carmel, Indianapolis got in touch to ask if I’d give a talk. I was overwhelmed and immediately agreed. “An amazing number of people, some of whom had never heard of me before, attended the talk where I spoke about how I had been inspired to write my book during my trip to Culver the previous autumn. Every one of them bought a copy of No Place to Hide; some bought three or four. They were all so interested and asked questions about my career. The same happened at Culver Library, where there was another amazing turnout.” The process of charming readers in America’s Conservative and Christian cornbelt seems to have had the desired effect. Elizabeth Hamilton, director of Carmel Public Library Foundation, says, “As you could see, our patrons were very excited about meeting a famous British author. I’m so happy we had a large crowd for her to speak to. She was amazing!” Within a week of publication, No Place To Hide was topping Amazon USA’s list of newly-published British contemporary fiction. Plans are afoot to set another book in North America once the New Zealand–based sequel to Don’t Let Me Go has been delivered. British readers should not think, however, that Susan is ditching her homeland – and, especially, her West Country roots - as the primary source of her inspiration. Recent books have frequently been set in Kesterley-on-Sea; readers might consider that it is not entirely unlike Weston-Super-Mare. Susan explains her choice of a fictional location; “Sometimes a book might be critical of the authorities and it’s easier if a real local authority, police force or hospital doesn’t feel its actions are being questioned.” For a change, Kesterley is not the location of No Place To Hide. The book published in paperback in February is set in fictional Chippingly Vale, a spot which just might have been inspired by somewhere Susan walks her dogs, Coco and Lulu, each day before sitting down at her computer. But there again…
January / February 2016 ~ Inside & Out Magazine
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The Beat Goes On GoGo Penguin
King King
Thunder
48
Inside & Out Magazine ~ January / February 2016
NIGHTS OUT
Enjoy some good music over Christmas? Looking to keep the beat going in 2016? Our music writer Dave Preece has some top tips on what is available without travelling too far.
T
he start of any new year is rarely synonymous with great going out options; cold weather, dark evenings and the almost mandatory January detox can signal tough times for music promoters. On the face of it this seems to ring true for 2016, as we see a few tired tribute acts doing the rounds and a whole host of older artists resurfacing with little apparent purpose (do Showaddywaddy really need another tour?). Dave Preece reports. However there’s no need to despair just yet, scratch the surface, remain open minded and it soon becomes clear that there is actually more than enough to keep even the most avid music fan occupied during the bleak winter nights. It must be said that Colston Hall and their internal sister venue The Lantern in Bristol seem to be the leading lights on this occasion, with a diverse and intriguing array of acts booked in. First up let me draw your attention to what 20 years ago would have been considered (and in certain circles probably still is) a colossal double header of Thunder and Terrorvision. Indeed, flash back to the early nineties and these were both household names in their own right; Thunder with their very indicative of the time brand of guitar heavy rock, and Terrorvision for their hard hitting grunge. Two British bands with very American sounds but in both cases doing it very well. It should also be mentioned that the line-up is completed by the fantastic Glaswegian blues-rock outfit King King. Hotly tipped, and after only a few years on the scene they have already amassed a string of awards. If bluesy rock is your thing then this really is a band you should be paying attention to. Tuesday February 16 promises to be a roofraising affair. If guitar-based, riff-heavy rock isn’t your thing then fear not, on Wednesday 24 February Colston Hall are again amply catering for your needs with the slightly more obscure Gogo Penguin. These guys are a recent discovery of mine and somewhat of a revelation too. Blending post-rock sensibilities into what is essentially a progressive jazz sound, and doing so with blistering effect. The Manchester trio are relative newcomers on the scene but an act I’d expect to see doing the rounds for a long while yet. This is the sort of music that engulfs the listener taking them on a rollercoaster journey of emotive peaks and ambient soundscapes, a thing of beauty when it’s done properly, and it’s safe to say that Gogo Penguin do it properly. The band will inevitably draw comparisons with the likes of Portico Quartet or maybe even the legendary Nils Frahm, both of which are huge compliments, and do not undermine the fact Gogo Penguin are a fantastic act in their own right. Yet that’s not all for the beginning of this new year. The Fleece in Bristol sees somewhat of a psychobilly revival with Demented Are Go and King Kurt back to back in February, whilst the current British persuasion for country music is being pandered to when the actually quite excellent Lindi Ortega headlines Thekla on Tuesday 2 February 2016. Now, I’m not going to advocate ditching the detox and painting the town red just yet, but if you’re looking for ways to beat the Winter blues then look no further and you may find this season’s offerings on the music scene could be just the tonic.
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January / February 2016 ~ Inside & Out Magazine
49
EQUESTRIAN
WINNING BY A CLEAR HEAD
~ the hobby that became an obsession
Photos: Olivia Woodhouse 50
Inside & Out Magazine ~ January / February 2016
EQUESTRIAN
As a late starter to all things equestrian, Nick Gauntlett had a lot of catching up to do after getting hooked on riding. Now, after being awarded one of the most respected coaching qualifications in the world, Lynne Hutchinson went to meet the international eventer at his Chipping Sodbury home.
I
t could all have been so different for Nick Gauntlett. When he was 11, his sister Frankie thought she would like to either have a riding lesson or go trampolining. The riding lesson won, so off went the siblings to the White Cat Stables in Mangotsfield, where brother and sister then spent many a Saturday morning. Trampolining was forgotten. After their weekly lessons they would stay on at the stables to help, learning about horses and stable management along the way and, for Nick, getting the early grounding that would ultimately provide him with his career. Until that first lesson, there had been no horses in the lives of Nick, his sister or parents Mike and Jane, who lived at the time in Old Sodbury. But eventually a little pony called Shandy was loaned to the youngsters, followed by the family’s first equine purchase – 14.2 hands palomino Gold Harvest, otherwise known as Harvey. The proceeds of Nick’s three paper rounds contributed to the cost and he and Frankie continued to fund their riding as they got older through a variety of jobs such as bar work and waiting at tables. They joined the Beaufort Pony Club and it was on Harvey that Nick got his first taste of the prestigious Badminton Horse Trials – as a mounted “runner” collecting riders’ results on slips of paper from the fence judges. Years later he would return as one of the competitors, achieving his ambition to take part in the world’s best known international horse trials. Nick said: “The Beaufort Pony Club
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was brilliant with us. We didn’t know anything when we first started but it helped us a lot.” With Nick and Frankie’s increasing enthusiasm for riding, the family also took the decision to move to Chescombe Farm, Chipping Sodbury, where five stables were built, despite questions being asked about the need for so many. Today, with the farm being used by Nick not only to train his own event horses but also as a base to teach other riders, the five stables have turned into something like 40. Nick’s teenage days riding small ponies also didn’t last long as he shot up to about 6ft 4ins seemingly overnight and had to move up to horses. Harvey was sold and went on to become a star showjumper with other under-16 riders, including helping win European gold medals for the British pony showjumping team. By then the riding bug had well and truly taken hold of Nick and although he went to college after leaving Chipping Sodbury School, he decided to take a year out part way through his course to spend more time riding. Now 37, he said: “I’ve just carried on ever since. I’ve been very lucky in that Mum and Dad bought this place and supported me in what I wanted to do. I’ve always been competitive. I have to try to win. But I then found I really enjoyed teaching, which led me to become a coach.” Nick’s competitive career has included a number of successful completions at Badminton since his first in 2006, which have earned him a coveted Armada Dish - presented to riders for finishing the
January / February 2016 ~ Inside & Out Magazine
51
EQUESTRIAN
Nick and Amanda Gauntlett with 19-month-old Henry
event five times. He has also been a regular at other major events such as Gatcombe and Burghley horse trials on home soil, as well as at many overseas fixtures, and been selected for the British Nations Cup squad. Meanwhile, his talent for bringing on horses has seen eventers he has produced go on to major successes with other riders. When British eventing team stalwart William Fox-Pitt won Badminton 2015 on the stallion Chilli Morning, one of the first things he did was praise Nick for a six-year involvement with the horse. It was Nick who had found “Chilli” and progressed through the ranks with him to the highest four-star level of the sport, including completing Burghley in 2011. Chilli’s owners then moved the horse first to Mary King – another long established Team GB member - and then to William’s yard. William said Nick had done “a brilliant job” with Chilli, the first stallion to win the international, and that he felt privileged to be able to take him on. Nick also produced Grand Manoeuvre, who was ridden at the 2015 European eventing championships by Laura Collett. But while he still has ambitions for his own sporting success - and a string of horses to compete in the 2016 season - coaching has become a major part of Nick’s life, giving him enjoyment whether teaching established riders or pony club youngsters. As an accredited coach, he has 52
Head stable girl Ellen Cameron with Party Trick
already earned respect as a trainer and is in demand both in this country and overseas. But he was encouraged to climb even higher and work towards the prestigious title of Fellow of the British Horse Society. Fewer than 80 people have achieved the standard globally since it was initiated in 1949 and now Nick has joined their ranks to hold one of the most important coaching qualifications in the world. The British Horse Society said the fellowship was the highest recognition
“I find teaching great fun but I would still jump at the chance of being in a British team. It would be lovely especially to get to a big event on a home-bred horse. To represent Britain on a horse I’d bred myself would be amazing. “We have bred a lot of young horses and I’m really excited about one in particular, Party Trick, who is by Chilli Morning.” Party Trick will be four-years-old in early 2016 and has been kept entire in the hope that he displays the same good temperament and trainability as Chilli.
“I find teaching great fun but I would still jump at the chance of being in a British team. To represent Britain on a horse I’d bred myself would be amazing” of professional standards across the equine industry. Candidates had to “display in-depth knowledge and effectiveness in all aspects of equitation and horsemanship” and be someone to who others could turn to for advice in all equestrian activities. Considering his complete lack of horse-related knowledge when a schoolboy, Nick recognises he has made a great deal of progress in the last 26 years to now hold such an accolade. He said: “I feel very honoured to have been awarded the title. It feels brilliant. Although it involved two days of exams, I’ve probably been working towards it for five years. The amount of knowledge required was huge and learning the history of the horse in particular was really interesting.
Inside & Out Magazine ~ January / February 2016
If he eventually proves himself on the competition circuit, that would put him in demand as a breeding stallion himself. Having now established Chescombe Farm as a centre for training clinics, Nick would also like to bring more young riders in through an academy-type set-up to give them the helping hand that he once needed. But it all has to fit around his own family. He and his wife Amanda have already introduced their toddler son, Henry, to the saddle but have deliberately kept his pony away from the farm so riding is regarded as a special treat. Nick said: “I’ve had a lot of fun riding, competing and coaching. If Henry wants to ride, then that will be brilliant but we certainly won’t be pushing him.”
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January / February 2016 ~ Inside & Out Magazine
53
MOTORING
Big Beast shows a sophisticated side Be it a quick school run or some hard core off-road driving, 4x4 driving has never been more popular. Volvo is aiming to cement its place in a competitive luxury SUV market with a re-vamped XC90, as Richard Drew found out.
A
few years ago, when I lived in Dubai, drivers were living their dream in sports cars. Porsches and Lamborghinis were run of the mill, even for the police. I, on the other hand, sided with the school mums and wanted a big SUV. I got lucky, first with a work Toyota, then a Ford Explorer - the ‘Big Red Car’ as my then small kids dubbed it; an all American secret service style vehicle with a big four-litre engine. That was all well and good in the taxfree, cheap petrol and cheap finance world of the Middle East. It wasn’t an option when we moved back to South Gloucestershire. Imagine my excitement then, when I got to try Volvo’s updated monster, the XC90. And it really is a monster, with enough space inside to more than comfortably accommodate the seven seats. Everything seems super sized; 54
at 6’2”, I still had to hop to the ground from the drivers seat. Inside even the controls are big. The centre piece is the touch screen that is as big as an iPad. It may be large, it may even have a sleek, aggressive looking exterior, but this is still a Volvo through and through. Safety is in its DNA. From the lane departure warning system to the rather scary collision alarm (bells and flashing red lights on the dash), this car wants to protect you. If it fails to stop a crash, there is a big red SOS button that will contact the emergency services for you. My man at Volvo pointed this out, saying: “If you end upside down in a ditch, press this.” He then fixed me with a measured stare and added: “But you won’t be in a ditch”. This is a safe car and it’s a comfortable and comforting car. Inside, it’s quiet, the diesel engine a mere murmur. If you do want to make
Inside & Out Magazine ~ January / February 2016
some noise, there are speakers for the entertainment system in every nook and cranny - even the roof. The seats are big and heated, although I’m not sure the beige leather seats I had would be a sensible choice for any length of time with my messy family. It may be a big statement car, but it also does the little things well. The interior is easy on the eye; refined and well designed. It’s the small things that makes a car of this quality stand out. The glove compartment can be opened at a flick of a switch, wiggle your foot under the back of the car and the boot magically opens, and there is a tow bar that can be swung out from the underbelly of the car. Then there’s that iPad style entertainment system; you can touch and swipe to your hearts content. Volvo have recognised you might have to keep your hands on the wheel though,
MOTORING
and the buttons there are simple and well placed. If you are using the sat nav, it’s displayed not only on the touch screen, but also on the dash display, a nice touch. The drive itself may not be as smooth as those American ocean liners, but it is very good. There is a tiptronic gear change should the eight-speed automatic gearbox be a bit too slow off the line. If you want to throw caution to the wind (a very un-Volvo thing to do), you can change the drive mode and even change the dash display to a dashing red. It certainly enjoyed being let off the leash for a blast along the Cotswold Edge. It is at heart though a family car, and certainly my nine-year-old daughter enjoyed it. “The air vent is bigger and better, the mirror is bigger and better!” she squealed when I picked her up from school. My 12-year-old was a bit insideandoutmag.co.uk
Would we recommend? Model tested: XC90 momentum D5 2.0 Diesel AWD Price: £46,300.00 including metalic paint Top speed: 137 mph MPG: Urban 45.6, Extra Urban 52.3, Combined 49.6 CO2 emissions: 149 Road Fund licence: £145 per year Do we recommend? YES
more pre-teen about it, complaining that it was two metres longer than my car, people were staring and “it smelt like an aeroplane”. If it had a whiff of aviation about it, surely it was the first class cabin.
Of course it comes with a first-class price tag, the most expensive version coming in at over £60,000, but if you have deep pockets you will be deeply satisfied. There are a couple of drawbacks down to its size. Parking the XC90 can be a bit of nightmare, although if you spend enough you can have 360 degree camera and the technology to park it automatically not only parallel but also into bays. It can be a bit of a nerve wracking experience squeezing through the narrow lanes of places like Frampton Cotterell whilst the collision alarm goes off, but it’s a minor irritation and I was reluctant to return the XC90 and return to economy class motoring.
January / February 2016 ~ Inside & Out Magazine
55
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35 28 | Sport, Page What’s on, Page
ed schools New man in charge of troubl excellence ing group confident of achiev at the A NEW overall principal helm of the troubled Ridings it said Federation of Academies a centre was capable of becoming West, of excellence in the South despite recent turbulence. Adam Williams has been appointed chief executive which principal of the federation, runs Yate and Winterbourne academies, international and Woodlands Primary Phase and Yate Woodlands Nursery in Sixth also has Cotswold Edge Sixth Form and Winterbourne Form Centre as subsidiaries. He takes over from Beverley for Martin, who held the role in left only seven months and of October after facing criticism her leadership style. to Mr Williams now has of improve the Ofsted ratings the Yate and Winterbourne both academies, which were be in need found by inspectors to of improvement. an He has already achieved at one assessment outstanding and academy in Kingswood out brought a school in Bath
Road closures for rail work near Chipping Sodbury work on Dodington Road Night time bridge
Page 2 Noisy neighbour shut out from home until Yate woman barred February
Page 4
Former Yate honoured councillors honorary aldermen in Pair made South Glos ceremony
Page 9
The chair of trustees Laz Lazarides welcomes new principal Adam Williams
of special measures, winning the confidence of the Ridings Federation trustees who appointed him to his latest position.
Mr Williams said his job the now was to “re-galvanise” involved federation so everyone full in it could “realise their 7. potential”. More, Page
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43 34 | Sport, Page What’s on, Page
continue Summer traffic trouble to
New Sainsbury’s set to open doors at Convenience store to open end of month
MOTORISTS in Winterbourne are set to suffer more as frustrations this month essential bridge maintenance Beacon work on the M4 keeps
Page 7
Manor Hall to get new pre-school
Ofsted is last hurdle for replacement operator
Lane closed. Diversions are causing long tailback at busy times, particularly on the Old routes Gloucester Road. Bus by the have also been affected to work, which is scheduled month. finish by the end of the closed Beacon Lane has been M4 bridge. to enable work on the to coThe closure was timed holidays. incide with the school
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Festival Frenzy and South Glos Show Frampton Festival prove big hits
Pages 10 -13 Drink up ye zider Yate
Full story; page 3
Wurzels to help celebrate Shopping Centre’s 50th anniversary
Page 41
new league
Hard yards get pre-season
Page 37
Ryan Cater in T20 cup Flashing blade: Frampton’s 43. Photo courtesy of John Kelland action. More cricket, page
Frampton’s footballers underway
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Filton’s Asda store celebrates second anniversary Page 7
School nativities, Pages 31-33
How Filton food outlets rate in hygiene stakes
Inside & Out Magazine ~ January / February 2016
has rated The education watchdog Bromley Heath Infant School polite as good, highlighting the behaviour of the children.
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Full story, turn to Pages 2 and 3
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Resound THESE volunteers at the are raising foodbank in Mangotsfieldbe a happy a glass to 2016 – may it everyone. and prosperous year for in wishing We’d like to join them of all our readers the compliments the season.
to It is a pleasure and privilege of report on the fantastic number place positive activities that take during in our area. It was a delight many 2015 to meet some of the people who make our communities a great place to live.
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January / February 2016 ~ Inside & Out Magazine
57
LOCAL HISTORY
Chipping Sodbury’s High Street
Iain Dunnett, of The Rotary Club of Chipping Sodbury, with Time Team’s Mark Horton, right
Every issue, we’ll be examining the history of a different town in South Gloucestershire. Here, Mark Lloyd tells the story of the medieval market town of Chipping Sodbury through to the present day. Photos: RichMcD Photography The Jack Russell Gallery
Chipping Sodbury’s Town Crier at the town’s annual Victorian Day
Frome Valley Walkway view to St.Johns Church
58
Inside & Out Magazine ~ January / February 2016
Melbourne House once home to Edward Jenner
LOCAL HISTORY
CHIPPING SODBURY The Best Medieval Market Town
A
rchaeological evidence places human activity in the Sodbury parish centuries before the Norman Conquest. In 1086, at the time of the Domesday Book, there were two estates, or manors, known as Sodbury. One centred on Little Sodbury and the other on Old Sodbury. By the 12th Century, Old Sodbury was in the hands of the Crassus family. William Crassus was granted the right to hold a market on his land. Markets were jealously guarded, being one of the most significant ways goods were distributed in medieval society. Chipping Sodbury came in to being when Crassus decided to hold the markets away from his manor house in Old Sodbury. The site to the western end of his lands became the town we know today and it continues to host a farmers market on the second and fourth Saturday of each month. Crassus built his town on raised ground, close to the River Frome, and at an important crossing on the Bristol to Cirencester road. This was also along the ancient salt route from Droitwich and the Pilgrims Way. Crassus obtained the right to hold an annual fair on the name day of St John the Baptist, June 24th. The town was also granted the right to hold ‘mop’ fairs for recruitment of agricultural labourers. Both fairs continue to this day. St John the Baptist Church was built in 1284 on a small site close to the river. As congregations swelled over the centuries it became a substantial church. As a market town, Chipping Sodbury soon became known as a borough. Effectively it was its own manor surrounded by the greater manor of Old Sodbury. It enjoyed a degree of self-governance under the direction of a bailiff and a team of the town’s burgesses. The burgesses lived chiefly in houses fronting the main street that had long, narrow plots stretching behind them. Those plots have changed very little over the centuries and are largely laid out in the same way today. insideandoutmag.co.uk
From the outset, Chipping Sodbury was dominated by agricultural produce. By the 13th and 14th centuries, wool from the Cotswolds was being traded. There is evidence that weaving also became an important industry in the town and that the tanning of leather was also being carried out. In the 15th Century, the early travel writer Leland described the town as “a pretty little market town” and was praised by Daniel Defoe for having one of the largest cheese markets in England. When the coaching era began in the Elizabethan period the town benefited greatly. The rise of the merchant class and a requirement for travel boosted trade and there is to this day much evidence of the many inns that sprang up as a result. Some of these continue to trade as public houses.
summoned the Lord of the Manor William Crassus and insisted that he name the unnamed road Rounceval to ensure that he remembered to take better care of the roads leading to the entrance of the town. The incident reminded the Prince of a similar accident and delay at Roncevalles in Northern Spain on his way to meet his new bride Lady Eleanor of Spain. One WG Grace, Dr William Gilbert Grace, the most famous cricketer that ever padded up, played for the local cricket club. The Grace family have a long association with the club, which extended over its first 50 years. No fewer than ten members of the Grace family have taken the field to represent one of the country’s oldest established clubs. The link began shortly after the club was founded in 1860. Dr Alfred Grace
“No fewer than 10 members of the Grace family have taken the field to represent one of the country’s oldest established clubs - Chipping Sodbury Cricket Club” The facades of many of the buildings in the town date from the 18th and 19th Centuries, many often hiding far older structures. The predominantly rural character of Chipping Sodbury means that it is still the centre for hunting. It lies within the territory of the Badminton-based Beaufort Hunt. Recently Time Team’s Mark Horton described Chipping Sodbury as the best example of a medieval market town in the UK. As Professor of Archaeology at Bristol University, Mark conducts an annual Heritage Walk around Chipping Sodbury for his students. Some famous names are often associated with the town not least of all one Prince Edward (Longshanks) who is credited with coming up with the name for Rounceval Street. One spring morning back in 1258, the Prince and his entourage suffered an accident travelling through the town en route to London via Chippenham. He was so vexed by the delay that he
had moved to the town to practice medicine and had taken over the practice of local physician and surgeon Dr Brookman at View House, now known as the Moda House. Continuing the medical theme, one Edward Jenner came to live in Sodbury in 1763, apprenticed to local apothecary and surgeon Dr George Hardwicke. The former England wicketkeeper Jack Russell runs an art gallery in the town. His life-long interest in art was turned into a full-time profession upon his retirement from cricket, although he is still involved with Gloucestershire CC in a coaching capacity, Today, Chipping Sodbury is a popular destination for shoppers and visitors. It retains the feel of a village, with many local families having been there for hundreds of years. The numerous fairs and festivals as well as the diverse range of societies and groups all play a part in making the town a successful and vibrant community.
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PROPERTY
Tardis territory All good Doctor Who fans know the basic truth of the Tardis; it’s bigger on the inside than the outside. It would appear that this is true not only of police telephone boxes. In our property pages, we feature a South Gloucestershire house that will surprise you once you walk through the front door. We also give you not one, but two chances to live on the green at Tockington, and if you have around three-quarters of a million pounds burning a hole in your pocket, we might have just the home for you.
32A Watleys End Road. £599,950
I
n true Tardis tradition, this house in Winterbourne is almost twice as deep as it is wide. Perhaps unprepossessing from the front, the house in Watley’s Road was shortlisted for building excellence award for a new home in 2014. A look around the house, being offered by MacKendrick Norcott, will make it clear why. There are five bedrooms on the top two floors as well as stunning bathrooms. But it is downstairs that will really impress. There is a spacious lounge, and the open plan kitchen, living and dining area will make you sit up and take notice. There are clean lines and lots of brightness, but it still manages to create a cosy atmosphere. The full width bi-fold doors open on to the south-facing garden, seamlessly making it another room in summer.
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PROPERTY
Hillside, Holly Hill, Iron Acton. £750,000
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ou might think that a house that dates back to the 1600s would be one of the oldest in a village, but for Iron Acton it’s more par for the course. After all, Acton House is a tudor manor house that played host to Henry VIII. Of course Hillside, the house in question, is far from being average. The grade two listed building was originally a farm cottage, but several extensions later, it’s a bit more grand than that. It now spreads over three floors, with the master bedroom on the second floor. The property, on sale with Milburys, certainly has modern comforts, but it retains its old world charm over the extensive downstairs and the five bedrooms. It’s near to the local pub and primary school and, in May, you can join hundreds of others on the village green for traditional celebrations around the maypole.
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PROPERTY
Tockington Green, Tockington. £475,000 & £440,000
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ockington Green is pure rural south Gloucestershire. Pretty cottages sit around an equally tidy green and the well regarded local pub, The Swan Inn, is just a stone’s throw away. Picture perfect it might be, and there are not one but two chances to be part of this largely commuter community. Lisa Costa estate agent has two cottages for sale that both look out on the green. The first has its own Tardis effect, having been extended out to the back. There’s still space for a pretty walled garden, and inside the grade two listed cottage there are three double bedrooms. Across the green is another cottage being offered by Lisa Costa. It’s a bit cheaper at £440,000, but still has three bedrooms and potential to stamp your mark on a property that couldn’t be in a better location.
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Inside & Out Magazine January 2016 Official64fuel consumption for the all-new ~Volvo XC90/ February in MPG (l/100km) ranges from: Urban Urban 28.8 (9.8) 45.6 (6.2), Extra ExtraUrban Urban 40.4 (7.9) 52.3 (5.4), Combined Combined 35.3 (8.0) - 134.5 28.8 (9.8) - 45.6-(6.2), 40.4 (7.9) - 52.3-(5.4), 35.3 (8.0) - 134.5 (2.1). (2.1). COâ‚‚ E m is s io n s 186 1 8 6 -- 49g/km. 4 9 g / k m . MPG M P G figures f ig u re s are a re obtained o b t a in e d from f ro m laboratory la b o ra t o r y testing t e s t in g intended in t e n d e d for f o r comparisons c o m p a ris o n s between b e t w e e n vehicles v e h ic le s and a n d may m a y not n o t reflect re f le c t real re a l driving d riv in g results. re s u l t s . C O Emissions