Ludlow Ledger (Issue #11)

ISSUE 11 – JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2016 – FREE

Televised baker: experiencing the Victorian way Vintage Guns of Corve Street Inspirational Nicola North Winter gardening Macbeth Woodyard Gallery Wimbledon to Ludlow The Dog Hangs Well Walking football

“I ask John if he ever wanted to do something else. ‘Gospel truth: watching Dad when I was younger, I wanted to do anything else but baking – it looked too much like hard work to me’.”

SPENDING a number of hours in the company of renowned baker John Swift is akin to being in the eye of a hurricane. Fast-talking and full of ideas, energy and passion, he’s a veritable human whirlwind.

A fifth generation baker from the Swift family, this baby-faced chap (actually 35 but looking a decade younger) is currently wowing millions of viewers across the country with his starring role in Victorian Bakers, a BBC Two reality-TV series in which a handful of bakers recreate the life of Victorian breadmakers.

Stepping outside of his regular work at Clee Hill-based Swifts Bakery has been a bit of a revelation for John. When I meet him he’s already done dozens of media interviews, as the interest in

the show has been so high. He must be exhausted but looks wide awake, fit and happy – and he doesn’t even touch coffee “or energy drinks – just tea and water. I’m trying to give up the beer too,” he says with a grin.

“John Foster from the show (one of the other bakers) said it would be my downfall. He bet I couldn’t do it and I did three weeks without a drop and now only drink a bit at weekends so, y’know, I won.” What was the bet? “Pride” he says, and bursts out laughing.

Like most bakers, John’s day starts frighteningly early – he’s at work by 2.30am. By 6am, the ‘bake off’ is finished and the produce is off to the Swifts outlets in Ludlow, Clee Hill and elsewhere, on the vans and out to wholesale. “My granddad always said ‘get it out

there, bread won’t make you money sitting on the shelves’.” After the day’s bread is out, they then gear up for making the next day’s bread – and an average day for John Swift ends at around 4pm or 5pm, well over 13 hours.

Up on Clee Hill, Swifts bake around 2,000 loaves a day with more at weekends, and up to 7,000 on special occasions such as Christmas. They make everything from standard white loaves to speciality loaves (like honey & sunflower, and the malted Shropshire brown), French breads and sourdoughs.

“We’re a jack of all trades,” John says with a grin. “Sourdough, speciality breads, French breads ... all are scratch dough and we make them and bake them, sticking to

– www.ludlowledger.co.uk –

how they would be made in the regions they come from.”

They have some clever gear to help them along the way with their regular loaves too – the wonderfully named “Koma machines, which use cold fermentation to allow the dough to ferment very slowly over a period of 10 or more hours.”

This is quite different to the big brand bakeries, John explains. “Big bakers will make a tonne of dough, will hot steam it so it’ll be proved for maybe half an hour and then it will be baked. They’ll use enzymic technology, pick out the enzymes that they most want, chuck it in their dough and use it in their bread. It’s made for a market; people want white sliced loaves that are cheap.”

Continued on page 12 >

2

Come and see why we’re Shop of the Year

ks oc S g tin .99 oo £19 h S ly On

To Neoprep Ratd ne Only £7 Wellies 4.95

New Kids L Coats – Troines...

– Waterpro users ofs – Gilets

AND MUCH MUCH MORE...

Unbreakable Shotgun Cartridge Flasks Only £12.99 Classic & Fleece … Country Shirts

Unit 7, Laundry Ind Est Seifton, Ludlow SY8 2DH

www.dhustone.com 01584 861266

The Tipsy Tart is hosting a fun

knees up dance charity night in aid of Alzheimer's Society - West Midlands y, 2016 r a u r b e F h t e 27 Saturday, th rewery B e h T t a m p 7.00

We make over 50% of the food we sell on site

We champion our local food and drink suppliers

We serve locallysourced, fresh seasonal produce

Visit Ludlow Food Centre and celebrate the region’s food and drink heroes.

01584 856 020 ludlowkitchen.co.uk

01584 877 775 ludlowpantry.co.uk

01584 856 565 theclive.co.uk

01584 856 000 Bromfield, Ludlow, Shropshire, SY8 2JR

ludlowfoodcentre.co.uk

Shop of the Year 2015

Voted Butcher of the Year 2015

CORVE BRIDGE GARAGE

Corve Bridge, Ludlow, SY8 1DN 01584 872878 Email your Reg number and requirements to Darren or Chris at: corvebridgegarage@yahoo.co.uk for a FREE quote

Monday to Friday – 8am to 5.30pm Saturday – 8.00am to 1pm SERVICING & REPAIRS TO ALL MAKES OF VEHICLES HGV REPAIRS & RHA INSPECTIONS GEARBOX AND CLUTCH FITTING SERVICES CAM BELT REPLACEMENT AIR CONDITIONING SERVICES & REPAIRS MoT TESTING

Swing / / 's 0 5 / o sing 40's ssy voices. h w s t o D a a tastic Polk o Swing with their s n fa e h t h wit / Electr Rockabilly Ticket £10,00 w hich includes entra nce, finger food buffet a nd a free Tipsy Tart co cktail.

Tickets can be bought from The Brewery at Railway Shed, Station Road, Ludlow on 01584 873291 or from The Tipsy Tart at 01584 872078

From just £58 to £285 + VAT www.ludlowledger.com/advertising advertising@ludlowledger.co.uk 01584 872381 and 07795 244060 Issue 12 deadline – 20th February, 2016

.........................................................

Available free at independent shops, cafés, pubs and community spaces, in and around Ludlow

.........................................................

Distributed through 79 outlets 34,974 impressions on digital editions

3

Contents QUESTIONS & ANSWERS 4

Geoffrey Adams, of the Woodyard Gallery: lingerie, cameras and Concorde

5 The inspirational Nicola North: home and away PAST, PRESENT, FUTURE 6-7 LUDLOW HERO

8

5

Rose & Crown open day, fallen tree at Ludford Bridge, micro pub of Old Street, and Ludlow’s long-forgotten nuclear bunker to get a Georgian make-over

PROFILE 8-9

Diggory Hadoke: the man behind Corve Street’s Vintage Guns

LETTERS 10

Ludlow swifts update, Sandpits pub concern, remembering the Ludlow School vinyl record, Crash magazine, and Shakespeare in Trouble

CROSSWORD 10

7 down: Started at home with computers, with one worried daughter

cartoon 10

Off the Ledge: focussing on the ignored views of Ludlow

OBSERVATIONS 11

10

“That is one of the attractions of living in a town with some age, like Ludlow.

As you walk the streets and look at the doors, you can be sure there are some that open, almost literally, into another world.”

GARDENING

11

“How about that physical, muddy, wheelbarrowing job of spreading compost and digging over vegetable beds?”

12 BBC Two’s Victorian baker: John Swift SPOTTED 13 Where Ludlow Ledger’s parlour pub got its name: The Dog Hangs Well FINDING LUDLOW 14 Edward Cooper’s long love of our town’s half-timbered buildings ART 14-15 Ludlow’s Dinham Bridge – by Pepper House Studio’s Andy Nash REVIEW 15 Two Score Years and Ten’s Macbeth SPORT 16 COVER STORY ... continued

14

Gary Seymour dusts down his kit and signs himself up for walking football

Editor’s notes, hello again EVERY now and then I embark on a magazine cull, where I attempt to thin my collection (including multiple copies of my featured work) only to return from the paper bank (on many an occasion) armed with more than when I left. And, so far, 2016 has been no different; my 12 copies of evo magazine so nearly became one of January’s strikes …. but no. And add to this a Christmas present, from a dear reader, of a healthy stack of old Shropshire Magazines, which clearly hasn’t helped...

There are 36 editions in total, representing a snap-shot of the county, from September 1970 to the same month in 1978 ... though remarkably lacking in Ludlow stories – instead concentrating on Shrewsbury, Telford, Oswestry, and Whitchurch. That said, The Feathers Hotel feature as an advertiser in every issue, airing their 20 rooms (some with bathrooms and heating they say) and their willingness for wedding receptions, luncheons and dances. Clarkson’s of Wolverhampton, on the other hand, advertise their Minty Playboy Chair with a matching stool of

polished aluminium. Walter Danks & Co Ltd of Shrewsbury showcase their 33-strong range of Barwell showers in 1974, with the aid of a woman raising both hands awkwardly to ensure that both breasts are on full show.

Surprisingly Oakley’s didn’t adopt the same methods to market their Frozen Food Centre.

A couple of pages prior is a double spread of Ludlow’s Gate House cottage once hidden (almost entirely) behind a ghastly garage, with beforeand-after pictures documenting the transformation from a “...run down twostorey building with battered corrugated iron roof lapping the Gate House itself,” to a building, later described as: “In a few years it will look as though it has been in Ludlow forever. A very good thing to achieve in a conservation town.” The author, Roy Beard, uses this piece to mirror a complaint I’ve heard recently: “If there is one fault to be found (with Broad Street) it is the cars which park continuously on either side, from top to bottom, and introduce a garish note in a street remarkable for its urbanity.”

A picture, courtesy of Peter Bartlett, in July 1971, captures the Sealed Knott Society and Army Cadet Force auxiliaries then turning the clock back 300 years – depicting the Roundheads and Cavaliers – battling it out over Dinham Bridge for Ludlow Castle.

There is also a full-page in June 1972 dedicated to Ludlow Festival’s production of King Lear, under the directorship of Nicolas Young, with former-Royal Shakespeare Company actor David King in lead role. But that’s about that, in terms of Ludlow coverage – from 1970 to 1978 at least. It makes me wonder; was this drought due to a lack of decent editorial from our town (back then) or just that the publishers of the time swung their typewriters – as many seemingly still do – in every other direction in this county but right here?

Cheers, Jon Saxon editor@ludlowledger.co.uk Office – 01584 872381 Mobile – 07795 244060

Editor’s notes image} Alejandro Rodriguez |Print} Guardian Print Centre, Manchester | Letterpress printed masthead} Dulcie Fulton: mostlyflat.co.uk

4

Ledger stockists

Geoffrey Adams of Woodyard Gallery

Captured in stone interviewed by} Jon Saxon | image} Ceri Saunders – QUESTIONS & ANSWERS –

LUDLOW 55 Mill Street Ludlow Aragon’s Café Church St Artisan Ales Old St Assembly Rooms Mill St Baker’s Café Tower St Barber Jacks Lower Galdeford Bentley’s Castle Square Bindery Shop Bull Ring Blue Boar Mill Street Castle Bookshop Market Square Castle Lodge Buttery Castle Square Charlton Arms Ludford Bridge China Garden New Rd Church Inn Church St Cicchetti Bar Broad St Codfather Sandpits Corve Garage Bromfield Rd Countrywide Weeping Cross Lane Crumbs Tower St Ego’s Wine Bar Quality Square Fish House Bull Ring Green Café Dinham Guild Hall Mill St Harp Lane Deli Church St Homecare Temeside La Jewellery Parkway Mews Leisure Centre Bromfield Rd Ludlow Brewing Co Station Drive Ludlow Ledger 14 Corve St Ludlow Stoves Gravel Rd Ludlow Touring Park Ludford Ludlow Train Station Station Drive Mascall Centre Lower Galdeford Mod Lang The Woodyard (Corve St) Myriad Organics Corve St Olive Branch Bull Ring Pea Green Café Lower Galdeford Poyners Broad St Queens Lower Galdeford Red Hair Studio New Rd Renaissance Centre Tower St Rockspring Centre Sandpits Sam’s Café Lingen Ind Est Silk Top Hat Gallery Quality Square St Laurence’s Church College St Swifts Bakery Corve St Tiger Lilly Bull Ring Tourist Information Mill St Unicorn Corve St Vaughan’s Sandwich Bar King St V Café New Rd Wheatsheaf Lower Broad St Woodyard Gallery Woodyard ----------------------------------------------FURTHER A FIELD Aardvark Books Brampton Bryan Apple Tree Onibury Bennetts End Hope Bagot Boot Inn Orleton Brightwells Auction Leominster Cleobury Café Cleobury Mortimer Community Shop Aston-on-Clun Community Centre Craven Arms Country Centre Cleobury Mortimer Courtyard Antiques Presteigne Crown Inn Newcastle-on-Clun Crusty Cob Cleobury Mortimer Discovery Centre Craven Arms Fiddler’s Elbow Leintwardine Lamb Inn Stoke Prior Ludlow Food Centre Bromfield Market Hall Cleobury Mortimer Mortimer Stores Wigmore Nelson Inn Rocks Green Old Downton Lodge Downton Plough Inn Wistanstow Roebuck (pub & shop) Brimfield Sun Inn Leintwardine Tourist Information Tenbury Wells Village Hall Ashford Carbonell Village Shop Lydbury North If you would like to become a regular stockist of Ludlow Ledger, whether in Ludlow itself or out of town, then please do get in touch: 01584 872381 or stock@ludlowledger.co.uk

Your life as a commercial photographer must have been a little different to these days, as a picture framer? It was incredibly varied and interesting (and yes, very different) … photographing everything from posh lingerie in the safety and comfort of a London studio, to hanging out of a helicopter capturing desert oil installations – both exciting, but in very different ways. In between there were all manner of assignments for most of the major international ad agencies, shooting cars and food (amongst other things), as well as working for five-star hotels. It got me around the world and I was privileged to stay in some of the finest hotels known to man - including the Danielli in Venice and Raffles in Singapore. I even got to fly on Concorde, just the once.

Any memorable moments that pop to mind – good and bad? I do remember one particularly mortifying experience from the early days. In July 1980 I was dispatched with a journalist to take photographs of Alexandra Palace in London. Unfortunately we spent rather too long in the pub that lunchtime, as one did in those days – the level of alcohol consumption that went on in advertising and media business back then was quite astonishing; quite how we ever managed to get any work done at all is beyond me. Anyway, after a few too many, we decided to postpone that shoot until the following day but, that very afternoon, Alexandra Palace burnt down in a disastrous fire – which was difficult to explain.

After the excitement of shooting the Janet Reger lingerie catalogue in London, it was the Middle East that provided the most hair-raising experiences: having a brand new Jaguar confiscated by the police on a car shoot, and the occasion when, through a series of communication misunderstandings, I was apprehended, camera in hand, approaching the bedroom of a princess of the House of Saud. Thankfully negotiations secured my release. There were several other occasions when I was arrested and held at gunpoint and, on one occasion somewhere near the Yemeni border, was actually shot at; thankfully just a ‘warning’ shot. My experiences in the Far East (where I was a partner in a small design company) were quite benign by comparison.

How do you feel about film being superseded by digital? It certainly has changed the way photography is used commercially. Our end product used to be a colour transparency, often worked out to perfection in terms of set up and lighting, using Polaroid before shooting film, but once that film was shot that

was it – apart from fine adjustments in the processing … the labs would clip a piece of film and test that first.

We were the alchemists at the centre of a creative process, producing all manner of special effects and visual trickery – and were paid accordingly, grossly overpaid thinking about it.

Retouching was always done … digital just made it a lot easier. The new technology speeded up everything and blurred distinctions between clearly defined creative roles. That speeding up caused a ‘that’ll do’ mentality in the industry ... I’ve heard quite a lot of professionals say the same. The loss of that perfection was particularly noticeable in advertising photography – I see it whenever I look at ads these days; a lot of the old skills and tricks of the trade seem to have been lost.

Pre-digital, if it was necessary to fly a team of people Business Class half way around the world for an expensive shoot, then that was done and hang the cost. Those days are indeed long gone.

Picture libraries are used more often now than commissioned work. It’s an off-the-peg rather than a tailor-made world. Standards have dropped – and so have the fees….

Has the digital era taken the magic out of it? No – it’s just different.

Creatively I’m enjoying myself more now than when I just left college.

I find it’s broadened my horizons rather than narrowing them; it’s as if someone has taken the fences down. I can experiment far more and break the rules, pushing the boundaries (which is what any artist should do). What I particularly love is having everything under my control, from conception through to finished print. I can go out in the morning and get a shot, come back to the studio, work on the finished image and produce the finished print without involving anyone else. No more processing labs. Of course it is a long way from being in a darkroom and watching the image magically appear on the paper in a developing dish, but I still stand by my Epson printer in anticipation and excitement waiting for that finished print to emerge.

Why is your Timestone book such an important project for you? I became extremely ill last winter; it was a close call and left me with quite severe disabilities. Adapting to live with these has been quite a challenge, but it made me realise that there is no time to waste and it focussed my mind on what I felt I had to do.

Timestone, therefore, is my ultimate project, inspired by the landscape and ancient buildings of Shropshire and Herefordshire – bringing together my lifelong involvement in photography, with a love of history and its architecture. It also marks a

Matthew Lenthall IT Services The missing bit of your IT jigsaw 12a Corve Street, Ludlow, SY8 1DA 07828 081163 / 01584 877946 PCs, Laptops, Tablets & Phones Windows, Linux, Mac, Android, iOS Security & Anti-virus Networks, Software, Servicing

You can come to me or I can come to you

return to the early inspiration of blackand-white photography. Literature and poetry have always fired my visual imagination, as has a long held fascination with the passing of time, the impermanence of things. Human history is written in stone across the landscape – in our villages, in our towns and in our cities.

Five tips to anyone aspiring to improve their photography?

1. There is a ‘camera club’ tendency to think photography is all about equipment, with cameras and lenses becoming a form of costume jewellery.

An expensive camera will not make anyone a better photographer. Some of the best photographers I knew used the most battered old equipment. The trick is whatever you have should become an extension of your hand and eye, second nature, so that you can concentrate on the image.

2. A photographer rather more famous than myself, one Ansel Adams (no relation), said: “a good photograph is knowing where to stand”. How true.

Sadly 99 percent of all photographs are shot at eye-level from where people just happen to be. That will not do … you have to move to find the best viewpoint, get down on your knees if you have to. After your eyes, the second most important pieces of photographic equipment are your feet.

3. The essence of a photograph is the

capture of a moment in time, that’s what differentiates photography from other visual-art media. It can be a split second that captures a moment of human drama or several seconds to record a landscape, but it’s still a moment in time.

4. All visual art requires a sensitivity to the quality of light, but photography especially so, because with photography it is light that actually records the image as well. You need to be aware of the light at different times of day and in different weather. Light is everything.

5. Get it right in the camera. Far too many people take mediocre photographs and then try to rescue them in the computer software. This does not work – crap in, crap out, I’m afraid. Do not be tempted to over Photoshop and avoid cropping – great photographers never do this. And do not chop and change things around or, before you know it, you are no longer a photographer but a montage artist.

------------------------------------------------Timestone is a 68-page book, quarter bound in leather and contained in a matching hand-made presentation box with a portfolio of four signed and numbered giclee prints. Limited to 100 copies; available by private subscription at £295.00. See Geoffrey’s advert on p12 for contact details

D. B. STINTON WOOD BURNING STOVE SPECIALIST

HETAS certified & Fully insured -PDBM t 3FMJBCMF t 'SJFOEMZ TFSWJDF t 5XFMWF ZFBST FYQFSJFODF t $BO TVQQMJFE BMM NBUFSJBMT t *OTUBMMBUJPO t 3FGVSCJTINFOU PG XPPE CVSOJOH TUPWFT mSFQMBDFT BOE DIJNOFZT t $IJNOFZ TXFFQ t "OOVBM TFSWJDF Four Seasons, Wyson Lane, Brimfield, Shropshire, SY8 4NQ 07891 732114

5

Nicola North

Currently in a South Easterly direction text} Mia Davis | image} Ashleigh Cadet – LUDLOW LEGEND – The term ‘inspirational’ has been applied over the years to figures ranging from the Dalai Lama to Victoria Beckham. Which is confusing, especially when the Dalai Lama looks a lot happier in his orange robe than Victoria does in one of her body-con dresses. So although I’m reluctant to use a word normally used by journalists when they’ve run out of adjectives, the woman who is the subject of this article genuinely deserves the epithet. Surviving the guerrilla warfare of raising children isn’t easy, but if you can imagine bringing up two autistic boys, beating breast cancer, then dedicating yourself to distributing clothes and supplies to Syrian refugees in Greece, you’ll have some idea of the kind of woman that Nicola North is.

Meeting her at her home on the outskirts of Ludlow, I’m confronted first with a conservatory piled high with supplies for Syrians, then by a bearded dragon owned by animal-mad son, Simon. Simon, himself, is sitting in the living room with an ipad like any other normal teenager, there’s a good-natured dog with a waggy tail, and husband Alastair is singing along to the radio as he does the ironing.

Bearded dragon and refugee supplies aside, it’s a typical family scene. Yet it belies the enormous amount of heartache and hard work that has dominated Nicola and Alistair’s existence since their twins were born.

Following their diagnosis at around the age of two of severe autism, twins Simon and Tim, now 18, are both achieving far more than could ever be hoped at the time the discovery was made. Simon is studying animal care at Holme Lacy Technical College, whilst brother Tim (the more severely autistic of the two) is hoping to attend Oswestry’s Derwen College, a specialist college for young people with learning disabilities, in September.

The alternative? Tim and Simon could very easily have experienced a lifetime of institutionalised year-round care.

Determined that the boys be able to live as normal a life as possible, Nicola discovered and put into action a programme of ‘applied behaviour analysis’ (otherwise known as ABA), which is an early intervention training and tutoring programme involving hours per week of specialised tutoring and training for autism-affected children. As a result, the children attended Ludlow Infant and Junior Schools, supported by a fantastic team of tutors, and they have flourished.

“I know for a fact,” says Nicola, “that had we not done this they would have failed to be accepted in local schools and they would be in an institution.

But through ABA we had structure and we could see real progress.”

On a tour of the boys’ bedrooms I get to admire Simon’s impressive collection of dinosaurs, and see Tim hard at work studying his maps – it’s apparent that living independently may not be achievable, but the boys have a remarkable array of skills.

Tim is a talented artist, has a level 3 in French, likes sewing, and can memorise maps to the extent that he’s a “human satnav” – capable of directing the family from Ludlow to Greece on holidays. Simon has two GCSEs above level C, an expert knowledge of dinosaurs, cares for his pets, scuba-dives, enjoys seafood, and is desperate to make friends. As one of the problems of autism is withdrawal from situations requiring social interaction, then just wanting to make friends alone is a great achievement.

It isn’t easy to bring up children of any description so how does Nicola cope? “You cope because you just have to. Everyone has an assumption of how their life should be, and anything that knocks you off that path is terrible for anyone. It does seem a bit grim and worrying as we are getting older, but there are still days when small miracles happen with the boys and that’s encouraging. We’re also so lucky to have a spacious house and a good income. There are other people who are dealing with far worse situations.”

And it’s this generosity of spirit that has led Nicola into another situation many of us can barely imagine. In March 2013, ironically during the week of her 50th birthday and a time when she was thinking that all is OK and ‘our family are in good place,’ she discovered a lump in her breast.

Months of treatment, a mastectomy, diabetes, heart failure from the medication and a reconstruction operation later and, incredibly, she has been travelling to Greece to distribute clothes and supplies to Syrian refugees. Why? And how?

As a result of post-surgery medication, Nicola suffered insomnia and was awake in the small hours on her computer, where she discovered (through Facebook) a small group collecting supplies to send to the migrant camp in Calais. She volunteered her large conservatory as a Ludlow drop-off point and sent a van full of supplies, but she was still left with bags and bags of children’s

items, until she discovered that the little island of Leros in Greece were desperately in need of supplies for the thousands of refugees arriving there.

Nicola and the Catholic Church in Ludlow joined forces and sent five large boxes to Leros, only to hear that the boxes remained unopened because they were so short of volunteers to unpack and sort goods on the island.

“It was a bit of a rush of blood to the head, and I may have been a little jealous of Alastair always travelling for work, but I just thought, why not?

I could go for a few days and help with the boxes.” Three days later she had sent more boxes over and was on the plane to Leros with a bulging suitcase.

“There are a lot of assumptions about these people, but I can tell you, it’s horrible. Everyone I met had had completely normal lives, they are so dignified, so lovely, and they arrive in Greece with absolutely nothing. And they’re so appreciative of the crappy things we were doing for them. I mean,

one sandwich: cheese, dry bread. And a cup of water. Because it’s all we had to give.” And with more and more refugees arriving every day, it can only get worse, so Nicola’s plan is to keep sending out as much as possible, and to return again in February. At the moment, the refugees are in particular need of warm winter clothes because many are planning to walk across the Balkans to reach Germany and Sweden wearing only the shorts and flip flops they arrive in, unaware of just how cold the rest of their journey will be. Men’s boots or shoes size 40-44, warm coats, teenagers clothes, socks, waterproofs, underwear (new) and men’s trousers 28-34 are in particular short supply. “Anything,” says Nicola, “that you could imagine needing on a camping trip to Wales in the winter.

That’s how the Balkans will be.”

So from a house in Ludlow, one woman who has already been through so much, is finding ways to help the tide of humanity fleeing war, for which she

seeks no credit. There are only so many ways to describe how incredible she is but this Syrian proverb seems very apt: ‘He who has drunk from the sea does not choke on a brook.’ With another trip to Greece planned for February, Nicola is not just offering shoes and sandwiches, Nicola is giving hope.

------------------------------------------------To donate items, please contact Nicola through Facebook or email nicjnorth@ aol.com. Items can also be left at children’s clothing shop ‘Smarti’ 147 Corve Street. Donations of money are also welcomed to pay for the cost of transporting items and to buy much needed underwear, sanitary items, toiletries boots and food.

Barclays Account: Donations For Refugee support.

Sort code: 20 99 56 Account number: 40812951

Valentines Ale Massacre!

Do you need a dependable consistent quality supply of seasoned and kiln dried hardwood and softwood firewood?

Cut and split to suit and delivered in breathable 1.2-cubic metre bags, so no need to restack Small delivery vehicle, fitted with crane, can deliver to most locations and situations Call David to discuss your requirements:

Mobile: 07866 441154

BREWERY VISITOR CENTRE, BAR & VENUE

FIFTH ANNUAL BEER FESTIVAL

12, 13 & 14 February

Guest Beers

Gift for the ladies on Valentines Day Find us 50 metres north of Ludlow Railway Station (off Station Drive)

Tel: 01584 873291 theludlowbrewingcompany.co.uk

FriDAY 12th 7pm - 11pm

Comedy Night Fringe Fundraiser

£8 per ticket

SAtUrDAY 13th: 10Am - 11pm

SUNDAY 14th: 12Am - 4pm

Live music from 7pm

hair of the Dog

Acoustic and electric sets from our house band Big Shoes

Relax with the Sunday Papers and a guest ale or tea and coffee!

Free Entry

Free Entry

hot Food

Bar Snacks

6

2

4

Parlour pub, abandoned bike, and a nuclear bunker

Since issue 10 of Ludlow Ledger text} Jon Saxon – PAST, PRESENT, FUTURE – SINCE issue 10 there has been much water under the bridge – and nearly an entire tree – as you’ll have noticed if you walked over Ludford Bridge. Although it appears that is being ignored (as if it were another piece of fallen medieval town wall) it has, in fact, been assessed by The Environmental Agency; they have declared it of no real threat and will be hoisting it out, once the Teme’s water levels fall. You can report similar incidents by giving the Environmental Agency a bell on 0800 807060.

Rain yes, but still no show of snow (at the time of going to press at least) with both Christmas and New Year’s celebrations now well under our belt.

Some of you will, no doubt, have noticed that I spent those days on the opposite side of the bar to that which I’m accustomed ... Ludlow Ledger’s 1parlour pub (The Dog Hangs Well) opened its doors for the very first time at 12noon on Christmas Eve

with six barrels of regional beer barely seeing us into the start of January. A most heart-warming and encouraging beginning I must say. As I write this column within the confines of my office, customers are drinking in the old kitchen – warmed by fire, beer and conversation – and gaining my attention by dinging the old service bell that many people will have heard in its previous home, within the kitchen of Church Street’s Rose & Crown.

The opening hours (for those wishing to pop down and pay the pub and paper’s home a visit) are 5pm to 9pm every Thursday, Friday and Saturday.

The pub is open when the tavern lamp is lit; the welcoming white light is visible from the top of Corve-Street hill in one direction and the corner of Coronation Avenue and Corve Street in the other.

A big thank you to the local CAMRA (Campaign for Real Ale) who have been popping in most weeks to sample the forever-changing styles and brands of beer; and going so far as to list The Dog Hangs Well on

5

3

their website (whatpub.com) with the comment: “New Ludlow Parlour pub (Dec 2015). Initially selling a barrel a day, so each session there tends to be a different beer. In its short lifespan so far beers have already been seen from Big Shed, Ludlow & Clun breweries, with Sadlers & Bewdley beers in the pipeline.”

Keeping with Ludlow pubs ... Artisan Ales’ micro pub (4 Old Street) has now officially opened its doors, with the upstairs room catering for those in need of a pint straight from the barrel (I sampled Ludlow Brewing Company’s Blonde and Hobson’s Old Prickly on my launch-day visit). The micro pub is open 12noon to 8pm from Monday to Saturday, with an earlier close of 6pm on Sundays.

The Saturday of the Ludlow Medieval Christmas Fayre weekend (28th November) was the highly anticipated open day for Church Street’s temporarily closed 2Rose & Crown – where Market-Drayton-brewery Joule’s (the pub’s owners) swung open the doors to showcase their plans and what they have done since the day that landlord Paul Kemp and his five-year tenure left the building.

Replacing the archive of mugs, jugs and pub pictures were the future plans for the inn’s re-invention, with Joule’s staff on hand to paint an anti-panic picture and anaesthetise any obvious objections with free halves of their pale ale in plain plastic glasses, served directly from barrels perched on the bar, where the pumps once lived.

Those employed to garrison their

open house seemed anxious, not in the slightest bit relaxed, or, for that matter, pleased to have half of Ludlow squinting at their pitch; it appeared to me that they were poised for a kick off.

Nothing of that sort happened while I was there (having a nose about the place), or throughout the rest of their open day.

Another central pub to face temporary closure, for a re-think and a changing of the guard, is 3The Church Inn. It has been said that it will serve its last pint (in its current guise, under the guardianship of Floyd Willson-Lloyd anyway) at the end of January – ahead of a rumoured three-month closure – after which a new drinking dawn awaits.

Ludlow Food Centre too has started 2016 with a change in leadership; 4Jon Edwards (who, for the past 10 years, has led the Rhug Estate’s retail operation in Denbighshire) taking over the role of Managing Director from Edward Berry, who held the roost for the past four years. Prior to Jon’s time in Wales, he spent 10 years in retail management with Marks & Spencer.

The Centre’s in-town spin-off, Ludlow Pantry, is also having a bit of a New Year change-around, with the closure of Victoria Prints (next door to their High-Street position) giving them the opportunity to submit plans to take over the vacant neighbouring building and create a far greater frontage – the approved plans (including change of use for café and delicatessen) are available for all to see by visiting: pa.shropshire.gov.uk/

online-applications using 15/05101/ LBC in the search.

Keeping with town planning (again in High Street) the windows of No 1 are papered to avoid nosey folks trying to work out what on earth is going on in another vacated Ludlow property (most recently the home to Spirit of the Andes). There are no change of use applications lurking about, as far as I know, but an alcohol licence application – submitted by Astbury Bosi Ltd – is running its course there, to serve alcohol from 9am to 9pm between Monday and Saturday, and 11am to 6pm on Sunday.

Andy Boddington, in his highlyrecommended blog (andybodders. com), announces that terraced housing in the modern Georgian style is proposed for the former Stone House council offices. He questions what will happen to its nuclear bunker and why on earth Ludlow needed to build one in the 1990s?

The Ledger’s John Barratt was quick to share his knowledge: “It was one of the local Regional Centre of Government bunkers. Built about 1991, it must have been one of the last to be completed.

Why Ludlow? The reason was that the radar station on Clee Hill was, I think, number 80 or thereabouts on the Soviet hit list in a nuclear war; it would have been targeted by a tactical nuclear weapon. End of radar station, a large chunk of Clee Hill, and most of Ludlow. The bunker was designed to be staffed by half a dozen or so local

7

DŽŶĚĂLJ ϵĂŵ Ͳ ϲ͘ϯϬƉŵ dƵĞƐĚĂLJ Ͳ ^ĂƚƵƌĚĂLJ ϵĂŵ Ͳ ϵƉŵ ǁǁǁ͘ƉĂƌŬǁĂLJͲůƵĚůŽǁ͘ĐŽ͘ƵŬ

^ĞĞ ŽƵƌ ƌĞǀŝĞǁƐ ŽŶ

Fitness Classes

1

Livefit X-Plode:

£10

Gym Commando: (for beginners to intermediate)

£10

Field Commando: (for intermediate to advanced)

£10

Enjoyable indoor low impact cardio conditioning with functional and explosive movements.

Mascall Centre: Mondays at 7pm - from 22nd Feb. Assembly Rooms: Saturdays at 11.30am - from 20th Feb. Former Royal Marine offering: Personal Training Small Group Training Fitness Classes Bespoke Adventure & Activities Training

Andrew Silvey 07950 573505

Indoor high pace strength and aerobic threshold training.

Assembly Rooms: Tuesdays at 11.30am – from Tues 23rd Feb. Get back to nature with our outdoor strength and anaerobic threshold training using natural man made equipment.

Vinnals Carpark: Sundays at 10am - from 21st Feb.

andalifitness.com

officials who were to go down there when war was thought imminent. Their job was to report via radio links, or (very optimistically) the public phone system, to the Regional Centre of Government under Shire Hall, Shrewsbury, on the damage and radiation levels. They had radiation monitoring equipment and, rather ludicrously, a periscope which emerged in the flowerbed outside.

“They had supplies (according to legend, mainly baked beans) for a fortnight, after which, they were told, the radiation would have dropped enough for them to come out. Except, that the entrance was from the ground floor of the office block above, which would have collapsed with the nuclear blast. I visited the bunker a while back.

Store rooms, separate dormitories for males and females (standards had to be preserved...) bathroom, control room, kitchen, separate office for the person in charge. And whiteboards, still there, on which details of ‘incidents’ were to be marked up. Reports were to be sent to HQ in Shrewsbury, whose staffing, ominously, included a civil servant, judge and a senior police officer with authority to declare martial law.

It would have included provision for police and troops to shoot those injured or sick deemed untreatable.” In fact John suggested investigating this subject for a Ledger feature, way back before #1 arrived. Expect something more in-depth (hopefully to include a photo study) in a future issue. In the meantime you can check the housing plans by searching the planning portal with: 15/05509/FUL.

In February we have the highlyanticipated Ludlow Brewing Company’s Valentines Ale Massacre (really must remember not to join the school from the Nelson Inn this time around). It is the fifth time this annual beer festival has been held at the brewery – from Friday 12th through to Saturday 14th February, with an interesting variety of guest beers, and a gift for the ladies.

Doghouse

the British Pub Magazine www.doghousemagazine.co.uk

On the subject of ladies ... well ladies bicycles to be precise: is anyone missing a 5push bike, abandoned early December 2015 on Corve Street? It’s safe and sound at the Ledger’s office.

March will mark the first year of Ludlow Ledger’s office being moved from the spare bedroom to the altogether palatial Georgian surroundings of 14 Corve Street – opposite Swifts Bakery (my semiregular supplier of sausage rolls and apple turnovers). It is hoped that time will finally render itself suitably free enough to actually allow the pipe-line Ledger supplement (mothballed owing to lack of time and energy) to gain some momentum and a print slot at The Guardian where the Ledger has been printed since issue 4.

Feature content has been rolling in thick and fast since that first hint of an announcement earlier in 2015 – very exciting and encouraging indeed.

Hopefully 2016 will witness this paper take another logical step forward, growing as a consequence.

Residential and Commercial Conveyancing incorporating

PHILLIPS & CO SOLICITORS

Wills Probate and Administration of Estates

Agricultural and Rural Affairs Family mfgsolicitors.com 01584 873156 ludlow@mfgsolicitors.com @mfgsolicitors 9 Corve Street, Ludlow, SY8 1DE

Images on p6 and 7} Richard Stanton (1) Joule’s (2); Gavin Weston (3); Ludlow Food Centre (4) Ludlow Ledger (5)

8

Vintage Guns

Both sides of the antique barrel text} Liz Hyder | images} Ashleigh Cadet – PROFILE – Diggory Hadoke is a man who likes guns. A lot. Having learned to shoot rabbits and pigeons when a mere youngster, he’s always had a passion for what he calls “the gentlemanly pursuit” of shooting. After living in London for two decades, working in teaching and education, he’s now back in Ludlow where he runs Vintage Guns, a company specialising in – well, you can probably guess.

Having never shot anything in my life, I’m a little apprehensive of meeting Hadoke, particularly as he seems to be famed around town for having a giant stuffed bear in his house. So it’s with some trepidation that I knock on his door, only to be half-licked to death by a rather excitable dog. Dig (as he likes to be called) rejects the office for our interview – “we’d better find a seat without a load of guns on it” – so we repair to the glamorous lounge, which looks like something from a rather swish hotel … with a giant bear standing in the corner.

“I’ve always done guns as a hobby,” says Dig with a grin. “I grew up around here, tinkering with guns out in the sticks. As boys, we’d find old guns in farm buildings and, at primary school in Burwarton, we had a teacher – Tony Sheppard – who was a gun collector and would bring them into class.

Imagine that now.” Yet that didn’t seem odd back then, he insists. “In the Seventies, everyone had guns, shotguns were propped up behind the door of every farmhouse,” he says with a shrug.

2015 was a special year for Dig – being a whole decade since he first established Vintage Guns, first as a hobby and then as a fully fledged independent business. After covering British gun auctions for the Double Gun Journal in the US, Dig started being contacted by readers who were interested in collecting the items he was writing about, asking him to look at a particular gun in specific auctions, check it over and even buy it for them.

He set up a website to act as a hub, but it all started to get too big. “Something had to give,” Dig shrugs, reminding me that he was juggling his ‘sensible job’ in teacher training and academic management at the same time. “If I had to work for another 22 years, I might as well do something I enjoy.”

The sensible job never stood a chance.

He’s been back in Ludlow for three years now, having jacked in the bright lights of London for a more rural base.

Does he ever regret it? “I moved up on 6th of December. It was -7 degrees when I arrived here at 3am and I thought, ‘what the f**k am I doing?’ I never thought I’d come back, I thought I was a Londoner but then I realised I didn’t need to be in London for this business. I needed more space, a gun room, an office, a packing room – London’s an expensive place to operate in and I didn’t need it. And Ludlow’s quite cosmopolitan in its own funny way. I’ve got more friends here than I ever did in London, I can have a dog, everything’s on my doorstep.”

Although Dig has settled back into the area, he travels a lot for the company. Vintage Guns don’t just specialise in buying and selling guns, they repair them, export them, store them and organise shoots in the UK and overseas. When I meet him, he’s just back from a grouse shooting stint in Scotland and, later in the week, is flying to Houston. “I do travel a lot,” he muses. “Africa, America…” he spent last summer in Tanzania, hunting buffalo.

So how old exactly is a vintage gun?

“I’m only really interested in old guns

– from 1861 to World War Two,” says Dig. “And I only deal in English guns.

They were all handmade, no two are the same. They were the Victorian mobile phones of their day, hundreds of mechanisms and improvements a year were patented and, to stay on trend as a gun owner, you had to be buying a new one every five years.

Birmingham had scores of factories and there was the London trade too.”

He reels off a whole list of names – Holland & Holland, Stephen Grant, there are dozens of them. They’re artisan products, argues Dig, with “enormous precision and artistry” in each. “They had to function beautifully and be safe; a gun is a mechanical implement that creates an explosion two inches in front of your nose, yet it has to be balanced, functional and beautiful to appeal to a wealthy sportsman. It’s a testament to the skills of their makers 140 years ago that we can sell them today with a 12-month warranty.”

As you might expect, these working antiques are not cheap. The most expensive gun he’s ever sold was £50,000 but Dig’s own favourite is an 1870 hammer gun which cost him £50.

“I just like it,” he shrugs. The business is thriving though. Dig’s sold hundreds of guns over the years and has a team of seven or eight gun-makers who have different restoration specialisations from barrel to lock-making and restocking, “We get the right people for the right job, depending on what needs doing,” says Dig. “Our USP is quality. There are lots of jobbing gunmakers but we specialise in doing it by the book. The team who I work with have been expert makers at places like Purdey or Holland & Holland, they’ve served proper apprenticeships and know exactly what they’re doing. If you don’t know what you’re doing and take a mal-functioning Purdey and start filing bits off or soldering bits on, you can easily set off a chain of events that are all inter-related and your £25,000 gun turns into a pile of junk.”

Part of Dig’s business is exporting to clients overseas, especially to the States. Vintage Guns have an open general export licence and can export to pretty much anywhere in the world. A more popular route for his American clients, though, seems to involve them flying over to the UK as a visitor, putting their antique gun on their visitor’s permit and then flying home with it. It also means, as Dig points out, that they can try it out on a shoot here too. Dig organises various shoots for his clients with another company, Athina Sporting, who “work hand in hand with me, our businesses are so interrelated. I sold £20,000 worth of guns just on the back of one grouse shooting trip with nine people.”

Were they all men? I ask, because it does seem to be a male-dominated arena. Dig nods “Yes, absolutely.

But then china-doll collections are probably dominated by women. There are some exceptions but it’s the men who generally get into shooting more.”

His clients are mainly divided into two types – collectors and shooters, although there is a fair amount of overlap. “Some will never shoot with the guns they buy, others will.

There are some collectors who have hundreds of guns.”

Dig’s business premises double as his home and he has over 150 guns in stock. That’s a lot of guns but the licensing in the UK is strict. I have to ask as, just days before we meet, there’s been yet another mass shooting in the USA. Why, I ask him, does he think this keeps happening? “I think the nub of it is actually the people.

Canada’s laws are as liberal as most of the US. States like Texas and South

Carolina are quite liberal but New York is much stricter. The problem is societal.”

In the UK, he tells me, licences were only introduced in 1923, largely prompted by the Russian Revolution.

“It was effectively a census to see how many people had guns, how many peasants who might revolt had a firearm. And once you’ve got legislation, it tends to tighten, not relax.” He thinks for a moment.

“Victorian gentlemen walked around with pistols in their pocket and they tended not to shoot each other. In Switzerland, men who’ve completed their military training are issued with machine guns, which they keep at home. They tend not to shoot each other. When you look at it, it seems the problem is actually the Americans rather than the guns.”

And what about Britain? “From our point of view, the statistics of anyone being harmed by legally held firearms is tiny, you’re less likely to be killed by a licensed gun than almost anything else. Illegal guns are a different matter, but criminals don’t obey laws, however strict you make them. In America, it’s a set of different circumstances and a different social make-up. Licensing in the UK is extremely tough, firearms owners are heavily restricted. What gun crime you do get here tends to involve illegally held firearms.” Dig argues that restrictions can be taken too far.

“Pistols are banned for sport here, so our Olympic pistol team have to go to France to practice. The effect of the ban on public safety is less than zero, pistol use in crime has risen since they were totally banned: there are plenty of illegal guns you can smuggle in.”

Shooting appeals to Dig for a number of reasons. “It’s an elemental thing. We’ve not been that long off the savannah – if you couldn’t hunt, you couldn’t eat. I like shooting birds; moving targets and grouse shooting is fabulous. Driving grouse on a strong wind and they’re going a million miles an hour. In Africa, we shoot guinea fowl, snipe, wildfowl and particularly pigeons – they raid the sunflower crops. All the wild birds are beautiful but we send them into the townships and kids come out to beg us for the birds for the pot. You should always have a use for your quarry. Always.

The pigeons can take up to 30 percent

of the crop so we’re protecting the crop and providing food for people’s bellies, as well as great sport for our clients. We take hunting parties out to Africa who pay a lot and that money goes into the local communities.”

Dig likes shooting wild animals too, “dangerous game” as he puts it. He shot a buffalo ten yards away, and a twelve and a half foot crocodile in Tanzania this year. “It’s not dangerous unless the animal is close. I like hunting dangerous game and it takes you to some amazing parts of wild Africa.” So what will happen to the crocodile, given that Dig believes in having a use for his quarry? “The skull will be coming back here as a trophy and the skin will be used for gun cases, souvenirs and trophies. The buffalo made leopard bait and served as our camp meat for a week.”

What about the controversial killing of Cecil the lion, I ask. “The guy guiding it was on private property and the lion was an older male. It was a shame it was wearing a radio collar, but they did go by the rules.

The Masai poisoned 150 lions last year but that doesn’t get reported.

Africans don’t like animals, they like cattle. There aren’t any votes in telling Africans to look after wildlife.

The problem with Africa is all about space, the population has increased massively and is encroaching on the national parks at the expense of the wild animals. National parks need to generate money to pay for anti-poaching, and hunting areas generally don’t have any value in tourism – they’re not photogenic.

You want to see the animals there, you get bitten by tsetse flies and have to crawl through the undergrowth.

They’re dangerous places, you’re not going to get a giraffe batting its eyelids at you. They’re about sustainable populations – there are hundreds of lions now and it’s important that, in 100 years’ time, there are still lots of lions. Once a lion is past its breeding age, aged six or over, you can turn that animal into £10,000 for the local community – for sanitation, for a local school. The wildlife will have value and that value changes attitudes locally.” He uses photography safaris as an example. “Imagine there was a photography group coming to Ludlow, they’d only want to take pictures of the Buttercross, of Broad Street, they

wouldn’t go to Sandpits. The areas we hunt in in Africa are like Sandpits.” He says this with a straight face and then laughs. “No, not actually like Sandpits ... obviously,” he says.

Some conservation voices agree with top-level hunting in order to subsidise anti-poaching efforts, but it’s a controversial view to others.

“No animal in the wild dies in a nice retirement home in front of the TV, they die of disease or are killed.

There’s no difference to them what kills them, the important thing is that their population is sustainable. It’s like us managing deer numbers in the UK. Charismatic mega fauna always carry a bigger emotional weight and most people’s argument is driven by an emotional reaction to hunting. It’s mean, it’s inflicting pain on an animal for pleasure, they want to affirm their own prejudice,” he shrugs.

Whatever you think about hunting, it’s here to stay. Dig’s business is positively booming (excuse the pun) and Vintage Guns, now a limited company, has been made the sole UK agent for John Rigby & Co, the renowned London rifle makers. I paraphrase Bernard Shaw’s ‘Happy is the man who can make a living by his hobby,’ and Dig grins. “Absolutely. I was worried that by making it my job, it would make me lose my passion for it. No-one wants to do their main work all the time, but there are so many different facets, shooting and hosting, journalism, gun repairs and sales.”

“Part of the appeal, for me, is being a participant in nature,” says Dig. “You’re engaging in something, getting closer to the elements of it, getting to know the quarry and learning more about the animals. It’s a great way to teach kids about the countryside. It teaches patience, skill, how to react under pressure, working with the discomfort of the elements and learning about disappointment all at the same time.”

And, dare I ask, what about the huge stuffed bear? “He was from an auction consignment that couldn’t be sold as they’d lost the CITES papers (the official paperwork for international trade in wildlife).” Dig laughs. “I had to move him from the window, people were constantly standing outside taking selfies with him.”

9

The Dog Hangs Well

14 Corve Street, Ludlow Thursday, Friday, Saturday: 5pm til 9pm

FRIDAY NIGHT HOP

The Endings

H

With supporting acts: The Speed Gums Ohm Bombs ...

Ludlow Brewery & PigDaze £4 (Advance) £5 (Door)

Friday 26th February 7.30pm – 11.30pm

Ll’s5Wish Bre X Joe

6

op #1 B y r e w

d by:

orte ...supp

DV8

£7

ery w e r B Ludlow th March

ay 19 Saturd 1.30pm 1 – m 7.30p

All profits to Joel’s Wish, supporting young adults with life-limiting cancer diagnoses

10

Just a small selection of your kind emails, letters, postcards and social posts from Facebook and Twitter

Letters to the Ledger We’d love to hear from you – editor@ludlowledger.co.uk

– VIEWS & COMMENTS – I HAVE been meaning to write to you ever since moving to Pepper Lane in August last year and finding your wonderful production – Ludlow Ledger – where I read your brilliant July/ August ‘Editor’s notes’ about being a frustrated would-be novelist (which was just like reading about myself – and it made me laugh).

I have worked as a freelance proofreader, content writer, and have several of my own poetry, children’s book, travel novella projects on the go.

But, like you, they’ve been on the go since time.... Now I’m here in Ludlow, I do intend to make some headway and, as you said in issue 8, put a big black line under some old ideas.

In the meantime, good luck with the new ale tavern venture: The Dog Hangs Well. And I look forward to the next issue of your paper – a great product.

Sandra Sheilds, Ludlow -------------------------------------------------I ALWAYS enjoy the variety of articles on Ludlow and by Ludlow residents, new and old, in Ludlow Ledger. One suggestion though: ‘with regard to…’ not ‘with regards to...’

Guy Whitmarsh, Ludlow Thank you for your critical eyes: always room for improvement here at the Ledger.

-------------------------------------------------HAVE you considered doing a piece on Crash magazine? If you’ve never heard of it before then I imagine I won’t be able to convince you to. It’s one of the reasons I moved to the Ludlow area.

I did want to meet Graeme Kidd who managed the title for a while but he had to cancel a meeting and I never got round to catching up with him before his untimely death.

Ryan O’Neill, Ludlow I certainly have heard of Crash magazine – and its editor Graeme Kidd, to whom we paid a tribute in the inaugural issue of Ludlow Ledger.

-------------------------------------------------I TAKE offence to the view expressed in the front-cover article (issue 8 of Ludlow Ledger) about a need for a pub up in Sandpits. I’m from Sandpits ... the trouble in town is not just from Sandpits.

Chris Eichelmann, Ludlow Thank you for your letter and your concern. Mr Pernickety, whose comment you refer to, suggests that there should be: “...a nice, robust, boozer or two in the Sandpits area of town, so that those who want a drink don’t always have to slog into town”. In no way is this meant

AN interesting article on the vinyl record – featuring Ludlow School band choir and Jo and Co – in issue 7 of Ludlow Ledger. Most of them were in my year. I bought hundreds, if not thousands, of records and tapes from the shop ‘Doreen Yeo’s’ and I remember them having that album on display but I never got it. Will have to scour my sources just to see the faces on the album cover.

Steven Edwards, Ludlow

to suggest that drinkers of Sandpits should stay in the area (instead, a point of practicality for some who may not “always” wish to make the trip into town) nor was the comment intended to suggest that any drink-related trouble in town is solely that of Sandpits’ residents – we all know very well that this is not at all the case.

-------------------------------------------------I READ with interest the extract from ‘Shakespeare in Trouble’ in the last issue of the Ledger and it inspired me to invite Ludlow author Chris Crowcroft to be our guest at Bookworms (an informal group for book lovers that meets monthly in Lydbury North village hall) on Wednesday, 10th February. Thank you for your help in making contact with Chris. Congratulations on the Ledger and I look forward to visiting your parlour pub at the earliest opportunity – I spotted the light on when passing through the other day.

Richard Beaumond, Lydbury North -------------------------------------------------WHEN someone has a good idea... like Doghouse magazine and Ludlow Ledger, and now a PARLOUR PUB …

Excellent!

Jane Roberts, via Twitter

tream of s e h t n e v “Gi ed by the t t i m b u s posts twork, e N l a c o Swift L is lagging Ludlow ind other beh woefully the UK in parts of ifts into getting sw .” boxes

DON’T forget, you can find out the answers to the previous issue’s crossword on the back page of this Ludlow Ledger.

ACROSS 1 University’s new posh gym in awful surroundings can’t be stopped (15) 9 Film nut (6) 10 Persuade firm to bottle French wine with new crepe wrapper (8) 11 Caucasian member’s inane joke (8) 13 Baskets in topless clothing department (6) 14 Sportsman having a fag shows evidence of guilt (7,3) 16 Strike every other match (3)

17 Black gangster on stage (3) 18 After insolence, journalist’s going to be fed up (7,3) 21 Quiet one’s right to enter race, being top (1-5) 22 Dead small city houses couple of Eritrean residents (8) 24 Snappers nip Sarah’s pants (8) 26 Greek riot unit sang endlessly (6) 27 Prince’s foreign cleaner played as winger (9,6) DOWN 2 Tom’s run improved with potion (7) 3 Province’s revolutionary corner (5) 4 “God particle” wearing thin (7) FOLLOWING on from Peta Sams’ article, in issue two of Ludlow Ledger – regarding Ludlow’s visiting swifts – I wondered if you and your readers would like to learn of the progress that has been made since that particular issue, and our ambitions for 2016?

Ultimately: given the constant stream of excited posts submitted by the Swift Local Network chat group (SLN), Ludlow is lagging woefully behind other parts of the UK in getting swifts into boxes. We continue to console ourselves with the fact that we have very good numbers of nesting swifts in Ludlow, that we are undoubtedly under-reporting the complete number of sites and that the very nature of the town and its buildings does not need artificial sites to maintain its population. However, continued gradual renovation and large numbers of proposed new houses means that we must be ready to provide alternative sites for the future. They may not be used often, or for some years to come, but, just like the housing stock for UK citizens, available they must be for the time when the crunch comes.

Planning for 2016 is at an early stage but there are some certainties: ‘Welcome’ events will take place in May as follows: Thursday 12th May (Market Square) 10am - 3pm, and Saturday/Sunday 14th and 15th

5 Place for play in core curriculum (3) 6 Supporter of bridge game (7) 7 Started at home with computers, with one worried daughter (9) 8 Tricky clue: right direction for lake (7) 12 Miser is grading rocks (7) 15 Bird declaring end to catnap? (9) 17 First of January and, like the setter’s, in flower (7) 18 Killer haircut for head of state (7) 19 Female repeated phrase for officer of the law (7) 20 Assortment of stone in resort (7) 23 Racketeer’s loan laughable at the outset (5) 25 Students get up to see star (3) (Charlton Arms) 6.30pm - 21.30pm.

There are still important areas in Ludlow that need more careful monitoring, as evidence suggests that we are under-reporting some important hotspots – these include the Sandpits area of town as well as around New Road. In both these places there are large screaming parties of swifts but fewer nests reported than numbers would suggest. We will also be working towards our long-term target of erecting a Swift Tower in Rock Spring to take advantage of the large numbers of birds seen regularly in that area.

Finally: It would be wrong to finish this note without paying tribute to the recorders who have worked hard to ensure as wide a coverage of the town as possible, to ensure the long term future of these iconic visitors to our town – including Ludlow Swift Group’s founder, Peta Sams (who migrated herself ... to Bayston Hill, in 2015).

Without her tireless work this group would never have got off the ground and we wouldn’t have the network we now have. She continues to work for swifts in Shropshire. So many thanks Peta and good luck for the future work of Swift Conservation.

Robin Pote, Ludlow

11

Openings

The doors that open before us text} Simon Pease

– OBSERVATIONS –

Gardening

A gardener’s work is never done text} Nicki Lewis-Smith | image} Martin Dodd

IT’S winter. It’s cold. The daylight hours are short and we just want to snuggle ever deeper under our duvets and beneath fleece blankets.

I’ll bet that most of you assume that as winter takes hold, us gardeners hang up our secateurs and spend the next few months browsing seed catalogues and polishing our wellies. Wrong.

Well, in most cases wrong.

Yes, if you’ve got a small garden or courtyard – a bit of cutting back, sweeping up, a snip here and there and you’re ready to ignore all things horticultural until those first green shoots of spring start to appear.

However, in a bigger garden, or should I say a well-stocked garden, it’s a different story. Winter is the time to tackle those jobs left over from the growing season when all your energy seemed to be taken up with weeding, edging and dead-heading.

It’s time to tackle those jobs such as path maintenance or getting that ivy off the wall (it’s been creeping stealthily upwards and unseen at

thebinderyshop.co.uk U 5 Bull Ring U Ludlow

as I hear the robin sing, see that low winter sun cut sharply through the stark silhouettes of trees and see the green bullet noses of spring bulbs appearing through the cold earth.

But every winter I have a special winter gardening job. It’s an annual mission to systematically work my way around the garden – cutting back, weeding and raking. It will carry me through the coldest months and, at the culmination of weeks of work, the aconites will be carpeting pockets of the garden with their yellow frilled faces and the snowdrops will begin to nod demurely beneath the trees.

All that is needed now is to sit back and wait for the cycle of life to begin again. And me? Well, although I was their Christmas present I’m afraid I don’t come gift wrapped and I charge by the hour.

------------------------------------------------Nicki Lewis-Smith is an award-winning garden designer and consultant, based here in Ludlow: (see advertisement on page 12 for further details).

Publisher Son of Saxon 14 Corve Street, Ludlow, SY8 1DA 01584 872381 www.ludlowledger.co.uk jon@sonofsaxon.co.uk Printer The Guardian Print Centre Media Park, Longbridge Road, Parkway Estate, Manchester, M17 1SN Paper 100% recycled 52gsm 76ISO improved Berliner newsprint Online Website: www.ludlowledger.co.uk Twitter: @ludlowledger Advertising There are a number of different ways to explore advertising in Ludlow Ledger: Download ludlowledger.com/advertise Email ads@ludlowledger.co.uk or Phone 01584 872381 Office Discuss advertising in person at 14 Corve Street, Ludlow, SY8 1DA Legal All rights reserved.

No part of Ludlow Ledger may be copied or reproduced, in whole or in part, without the strict written permission of the publisher

PAINTING & DECORATING

Production schedule ISSUE 12 Editorial: 8th February, 2016 Print: 3rd March, 2016

OT

ISSUE 13 Editorial: 25th March, 2016 Print: 4th May, 2016

P

– GARDENING –

the back of the border all summer).

There’s the maintenance and pruning of roses, hedges and trees, and there’s also the planting of roses, hedges and trees. How about that physical, muddy, wheelbarrowing job of spreading compost and digging over vegetable beds?

It really doesn’t stop y’know; what’s that saying – A gardener’s work is never done? (Actually, I think I just made that up.) But it’s not done is it? Gardening is one of those huge circles of life, death and mud, and the only conditions that will really stop us from venturing out is snow. Apart from snow, Mother Nature can throw some pretty gruelling days at us ... ones where the chilblains throb, the waterproofs prove ineffectual and the only solution to a runny nose is a muddy sleeve.

That’s when I count myself as one of the fortunate few, as it’s on those days when I have the option to turn to my drawing board in a warm office, surrounded by horticultural books and pots of pencils and drafting pens.

However, I’ll be back outside as soon

S

THE author Robert Heinlein had a cat which, in bad weather, would apparently insist that its owner opened every door that led outside the house. They would process around the house and, as each door was opened, the cat would look outside, turn its back in clear disgust and move on to the next door to repeat the performance, presumably convinced that sooner or later one of these doors would open on to a warm, dry, summer’s day. Writing this on a blustery and wet, if unseasonably warm, November afternoon last year, I not only found myself in sympathy with the cat, but also thinking about the particular fascination that opening a door can bring.

Nowadays, in some places, you could move from house to house, be confronted by a series of doors and know that if you opened them, while there would be differences inside, depending on the people who live there (their taste in decoration, furnishings and so on), there would also be considerable similarities.

The basic layout would be repeated, time after time, because someone, sometime, sat down to work out how they could place the maximum number of units on the given plot of land. No question, given the size of the country and the shortage of housing, this is an important and necessary task, so let’s not knock it.

People need a roof over their heads first and foremost, so individuality is a bit of a luxury.

That is one of the attractions of living in a town with some age, like Ludlow. As you walk the streets and look at the doors, you can be sure there are some that open, almost literally, into another world. I once looked at a house in a north Devon town which was on my list as a possible place to live. The front door was blue, a bit worn, and in every way unremarkable – in fact the whole frontage of the building gave little away. It faced on to the High Street and was, if anything, a bit grey. The windows were a little higher than you would expect, so little could be seen through them. So the surprise when you passed through the door was complete; a staircase led to a hall with a vaulted, hammer beam roof, a minstrels’ gallery, and small stairways leading to other doors. It was a bit like a Hollywood set in miniature; mad, totally impractical as house to live in and fascinating. It may well have been an old chapel, but if so it hid its origins well.

So when I stand in front of a door which is new to me, there is always a moment of anticipation, a heartbeat, when I consider the possibility that the door will open, not into a world of perpetual summer, but into a building which will surprise, amaze and maybe even delight me with its individuality or beauty or just plain quirkiness. I’ve been into one or two buildings in this town which have done just that, and I’m sure there are many more, most of which I may never see. But knowing they are there is a part of the character of the place and makes a walk along its streets more interesting – almost enough to get one out on a wet, blustery winter’s day.

Editor-in-chief Jon Saxon Sub editor Sally Newman-Kidd Photographers Ashleigh Cadet, Ceri Saunders, Joe Sarah, Richard Stanton, Gavin Weston, Martin Dodd Authors Liz Hyder, Simon Pease, Mia Davis, Nicki Lewis-Smith, Gary Seymour, Prue Britten Crossword John Jarvis Cartoon Roger Penwill

ISSUE 14 Editorial: 20th May, 2016 Print: 6th July, 2016 ISSUE 15 Editorial: 22nd July, 2016 Print: 7th September, 2016

L ADDERS PROFESSIONAL FEMALE PAINTERS & DECORATOR S

01588 640906 / 07866 405693 POTSANDLADDERS@GMAIL.COM

ISSUE 16 Editorial: 23rd September, 2016 Print: 2nd November, 2016 ISSUE 17 Editorial: 25th October, 2016 Print: 9th December, 2016 ISSUE 18 Editorial: 22nd January, 2017 Print: 3rd March, 2017 PLEASE NOTE: production schedule deadlines may well change from time to time, for both editorial or print-related circumstances – and should, therefore, be treated as a guide only

Designer Clothes, Shoes and Handbags at 1st Floor | 11 Market Street | Ludlow | SY8 1BP | 01584 877911 expensive.mistakes@live.co.uk | www.expensivemistakes.co.uk

Letters page images} Richard Stanton

12

– COVER STORY – < continued from the front page He shrugs and then laughs. “It’s a consumer-driven market. White bread is king, white bread will be king until I die. 80 percent of today’s market in the UK is cheap, white sliced. It’s what generations of Britons have grown up on.” But despite Swifts making genuine artisan bread, he’s not a snob about the white sliced. “It’s what the market demands.” And his favourite loaf? “White cottage ... always has been. I don’t like focaccias, it’s like a pizza – all that cheese takes away from the taste of the bread. The Shropshire blue & red onion foccacia sells well but I prefer standard breads.”

With generations of bakers in his family and his brother already part of the family business, I ask John if he ever wanted to do something else – run away and join the circus perhaps?

“Gospel truth: watching Dad when I was younger, I wanted to do anything else but baking – it looked too much like hard work to me. I didn’t get a great time at school, I was dyslexic and had a reading age of seven, but when I left I made a conscious decision to become a baker. Education wasn’t high on my agenda. I made the choice a long time ago, I just didn’t realise that I had.”

With John working anywhere between 75 and 100 hours a week, depending on the time of year, he must have little time for anything else.

Yet he’s got a fantastic and endlessly patient wife (the utterly charming Jayne) who also works at the business, and a beloved Boxer named Bentley.

“It’s the only Bentley I’m ever going to own,” he laughs.

How did John and Jayne first meet?

“A pub,” says John with a grin, “the Golden Cross,” and he points across the High Street on Clee Hill. “I saw her get out of a car and I thought ‘oh hello’. Eighteen months later we were married – that was 2004. I got given a bit of advice once ‘forget the master baker, you need a master wife.’ They take the brunt of it and it’s a thankless task. Trawlermen, when they’re away at sea, are far away whereas I’m here, 25 steps from our front door, but I’ve got to get the job done.”

Jayne looks after the markets and shows and has a canny eye both for an eye-catching display and an opportunity. It was she who put John forward for the Victorian Bakers show, knowing that he wouldn’t have done so himself. “I’m immensely proud of the show, how I’ve evolved as a baker and a person over the years. And all of us – we were there to uphold the standards that the baking industry stands for.”

John’s clearly enjoyed the whole process of filming the series – despite the 18-hour days on some of the shoot. “I was used to the hours,” he

grins. “I’d never even done radio before though, I’d left that to Rob (his brother), he’s got a book and he’s more at the front of house. I felt a bit bunny in the headlights...”

Is there any envy between the two baking brothers? “God knows: He’s got another baby due and his mind is probably elsewhere right now,” states John, before admitting that they are indeed fiercely competitive.

The Swift family have always been hard grafters. John’s father and grandfather managed to see off big name competitors by getting up earlier than them and tackling the markets first. His grandfather had the quickest horses in the business and could get to Wolverhampton market faster than anyone else. There’s a real sense of pride in the business and in their work. “There’s constantly something happening, new product lines, making sure we do things right. We are our own biggest competitors; we’re always trying to improve but we have to be careful – we can go forward in lots of different ways. I’m a caretaker of Swifts looking after it for the next generation; I need to leave it stronger for the next 150 years.”

And what about family tensions?

“I can pretty much have a fiery

row at any time of the day with my family.” He laughs. John’s father, Richard, is “still doing 100 hours a week. We’ve got to get together and move forward but we all want to go in different directions. Robert’s going the ‘real bread’ route particularly in Shrewsbury where that’s going really well, I want to get bigger and expand the business. When me, Robert and Dad finally sit down, we’ll spend the first 20 mins shouting at each other before we settle down – it pushes us.”

He bursts out laughing again.

One area that John is keen to expand into is cakes and patisserie. “We’re bread-heavy and our cakes side fell away about 15 years ago. I’m keen to get back to the level we were at in the Nineties, with fancy cakes, weddings cakes and patisseries. I’m not arrogant enough to think I can do everything, I’m not a French pâtissier, I need to use my other skills, bring in those people. I’m better used for the bigger picture, more of a managerial role.”

And how do Swifts work with the local competition like Prices in Ludlow? “There’s a bakery code, it’s a hard enough industry as it is – you don’t tread on their doorstep and they won’t tread on yours. We’ve lent them yeast and flour and they’ve done the

same for us. We try and help each other out and it works extremely well.”

Locally too, the floods in 2007 hit the business hard, taking out the Tenbury Wells outlet, “our best-selling shop”, for 18 months. “We paid our staff’s wages for 18 months – the shop girls are the face of Swifts and we want to protect them even more. Everyone’s part of our family, they’ve got to be and feel valued.”

In the meantime, John’s getting used to being a recognisable face from the TV series. At a jive and northern soul dance night in Hereford last week, “a lady tapped me on the shoulder, ‘are you the one off the telly?’

Cringe, cringe” he says. “I can cope much better with criticism than with praise...” He admits though that he’s been “blown away by all the comments and feedback. A woman said thank you to me on Twitter and how she hadn’t realised how much work goes into baking and I told her to go and thank her local baker. At 2am in the morning when you’re hard at work there’s no-one there to say thank you.

If she wrote him a letter saying thank you, he’d probably frame it.”

Surely after all this hard work and attention, he and Jayne have earned some decent time off. In fact, when

was their last proper holiday, I ask?

“We went to Germany last year to one of the biggest bread conventions…” I argue that doesn’t count and he finally confesses that the last holiday he took was for his and Jayne’s tenth wedding anniversary when they had two weeks in Italy, two years ago.

Before I go, John tells me more about his grandfather. “He’d mellowed by the time I remember him, he was an incredibly wise man. In Mombasa, he was a field baker during the War – even the War couldn’t stop our family baking. It’s the ultimate convenience food, on the frontline, you can keep your troops fed. My granddad worked in the mobile field bakery in Cairo, Nairobi and Mombasa – we’ve even got his war diaries.” Sounds perfect for another TV series, I say. John grins. “I might have left a copy with Wall to Wall (the TV production company behind Victorian Bakers),” he says with a gleam in his eye.

------------------------------------------------All three episodes of Victorian Bakers – featuring John Swift – are available to view on BBCiPlayer.

ISSUE #9 Mackenzie & Smith Sculpting legend: Adrian Jones Ashford Carbonell’s fishing syndicate Castle Gardens’ 2-ton Russian gun Lower Linney croquet Bentley’s wine merchants Travels with Aubrey Ann and Alf’s Dhustone story Croquet club of the Linney ludlowledger.com/archive

“We’re 150 years old” Providing hardware and advice since 1864

Modern & Historic Graphic Art Prints Conservation Quality Picture Framing Restoration of Old Photographs

FIND US NEXT TO LUDLOW LIBRARY

Woodyard Gallery, The Woodyard, Corve Street, Ludlow, SY8 2PX Tel: 01584 874099 – Email: adams54snap@yahoo.co.uk Open Tuesday to Saturday: 10:00am to 5:00pm

6-7 Bull Ring, Ludlow, SY8 1AE – 01584 872934

ZZZ ULFNDUGVRÀXGORZ FR XN

13

DOG HANGS WELL – MEANING BEHIND THE NAME: The south westerly back-drop to Ludlow is the 1000-hectare Mortimer Forest – of which most of its high ground includes the former Royal Chase of Bringewood (a reserved hunting estate for the British Royal Family) which came into being when Edward Mortimer was crowned Edward IV in 1461, following the major War of the Roses battle at Mortimer’s Cross. Deer poaching here, in the Royal Chase, was a popular pastime – though costly for local poachers if caught. Crossbows and the like were confiscated, with their prized hunting dogs (in which they invested dearly) being hanged on the northern high flank of Deepwood known as ‘The Dog Hanging’ woods. But how does the gate come into play? ... ‘The Dog Hangs Well’ is a corruption of the once popular pub name ‘The Gate Hangs Well’ featuring a five-barred gate; once inscribed: “This gate hangs well and hinders none, refresh and pay and travel on”. It is suggested that these pubs were in close proximity to tolls and medieval town gates. Broad Gate is Ludlow’s only remaining town gate (of seven) with the much older of the long-lost gates once located at the top of the ancient North-South road, now known as Corve Street. HOURS: Thursday to Saturday: 5pm – 9pm. Instead of a pub sign, a tavern lamp is lit to denote that the pub is open – transforming the old kitchen and front parlour aspect of this Georgian home and Ledger office, into a parlour pub which serves a changing beer, still cider and white wine. CONTACT: The Dog Hangs Well, 14 Corve Street, Ludlow | doghousemagazine.co.uk/pub

ISSUE #10 Winning dancer: Hollie Victoria Robertson The Reader’s House investigated Mr Underhill’s uncovered Nicki’s gardening holiday The U3A Meet & Greet: Working Solutions The Women’s Centre Local MGA rebuild Barmen’s greatest escape Ludlow’s Twelfth Night ludlowledger.com/archive

FR EE PA R K IN G Bathroom s,Kitchens, Beds,Furniture,Carpets, Plum bing,Gardening,and m uch m ore

FREE LO CAL DELIVERY

Legacy Lighting Wharton Court, Wharton, Herefordshire, HR6 0NX 07854 908 852 or info@legacylighting.co.uk

– unique bespoke lighting and restoration of old lights –

Ludford Bridge,Ludlow 01584 874 554 O pen 7 days a w eek

Page 12 and cover text} Liz Hyder | images} Joe Sarah

14

Wimbledon to Ludlow in WW2

Loving the Linney and half-timbered houses text} Edward Cooper – FINDING LUDLOW – I WAS born in Wimbledon in 1941.

My mother’s eldest brother had been in the Royal Flying Corps in the First World War and thus, informed on the progress of World War II, he decreed (in 1940) that Essex would be the German invasion target and instructed his widowed mother and another sister, who lived at Orsett, to go elsewhere.

They chose Ludlow – and thus began my childhood association with the Welsh Marches.

It was my side of the family that experienced German hostilities – my birthplace, a house in Dunstall Road, Wimbledon, was hit by a German incendiary bomb and rendered uninhabitable, a rude early awakening for me and I have indelible images of the succeeding events.

With my brother (18 months my senior) and my mother, I was moved to a seafront hotel in Bognor Regis, but the sojourn terminated when an explosion on the beach blew all the hotel’s windows out. I went from there to a convent at Seaford, where my inkling of the War was confirmed by newsreel vans, presumably a feature of public life generally. They parked in a central location and had a roll-up shutter at the back which was raised to expose a cinema type screen, on which current news items were projected from inside. Recreational walks adjacent to the coastal cliffs went past barbedwire fences and concrete weapons emplacements.

My brother and I began to exhibit symptoms of malnutrition, and we moved to the house of our aunt and grandmother at 19 Castle View Terrace, Ludlow, with an arduous train journey via Wolverhampton and Shrewsbury. My first experience of school was at Miss Sandal’s, which was in either Sandpits Avenue or St Julian’s Avenue – or I may have gone to more than one school. Evidence of the War, and of its austerity aftermath, was the intensive allotment cultivation – if you didn’t grow fresh produce, you probably went without. People prepared for winter shortages by preserving fruit and vegetables and it was common to have a large collection of Kilner jars. My mother’s speciality was crab apple jelly.

The staples familiar to my generation were MoF (Ministry of Food), a nutritional powder that tasted like wallpaper paste; powdered egg, Agarol (primarily a laxative), cod liver oil, dried bananas, charcoal biscuits and constant rotation of semolina, sago and macaroni dishes. Breakfast was often dripping (congealed beef or pork fat) on toast.

Because of the fruit-deficient diet, constipation was a constant problem and dietetic paraffin (the carcinogenic component of Agarol) and syrup of figs were brought in for stubborn cases. I was never so erratic as to be subjected to the dreaded senna pods, suppositories or enemas.

My aunt Margaret (Haylock) proved a virtuoso of allotment productivity, on a portion of the field between Castle View Terrace and the brick quarry; cows grazed regularly on the rest of the field. Nobody seemed to object to the twice-daily trail of cow dung along the road surface (I’ve no idea where their cowshed was).

At the end of the war, German POWs were allowed to do manual work pending repatriation and one of them, whose name was Gerhard, met and married Nan Harper, the daughter of a neighbour. He remained in Ludlow and became a mainstay of the Ludlow orchestra, in which my aunt played the violin. She was also the secretary of Ludlow Cottage Hospital, which was fortunate for me on one occasion while I was living there – I was walking down

Upper Linney with my brother, in the wake of the coalman, who had gone down the street removing the pavement manhole covers, before returning to tip sacks of coal down the chutes into the cellars of the houses. Suddenly, I wasn’t there – I fell down one of the chutes and landed head first on whatever was at the bottom, making a mess of my face. Fortunately, somebody in the house was alert and managed to stop the coalman on his second errand or I would have been buried under a hundredweight of coal with probable epitaph-worthy consequences.

Because of the proximity of the hospital and the presence of my aunt I was able to get rapid treatment. My front teeth are still marked (clearly, I grew a new set, but the impact disturbed them) and my nose isn’t quite straight ... indeed, like the bombing of our house in Wimbledon, it was a wake up experience that influenced my later life.

The Linney is one of my enduring earliest memories, for its proximity to the castle and to the river, for its picturesqueness in early morning mist, and for the mixture of cattle and vegetation smells arising from the water meadows on damp autumn days; the castle was my beacon. I also nagged to be taken to Stokesay, a wish that was never granted. The fixation stayed with me in my later life though, as the castles I wanted to see eluded me, my affections transferred to half-timbered houses, in particular those in Ludlow – the Feathers, the Angel Inn, a row of houses in Corve Street between Coronation Avenue and Bromfield Road, and Ludford.

I left Ludlow when the War ended (I have a vague visual memory of what I think must have been VE Day, although I wouldn’t have known what it was at the time). My family was reunited at another address in Wimbledon and I went to two more nursery schools.

This was short-lived and, in 1947, I moved with my mother to hired rooms at Bray (as in The Vicar of Bray) and went to primary school at Braywick, near Maidenhead in Berkshire (now Braywick Court School).

This idyll didn’t last either and I transferred to a primary school near Hayes in Kent where I was subsequently joined by my brother. Work availability at this time entailed moving around, sometimes because it depended on using up wartime stockpiles of raw materials, necessarily a temporary employment. In 1952, having passed my 11+, I returned to Ludlow for a couple of months or so before going to secondary school.

This time I persuaded my mother to get the owners of Ludford House to show me the interior; they were bemused at the persistence of a 10 year old. I also had my first go at tennis, on a grass court maintained by the owner of the last house in Castle View Terrace, Pudsey Dawson (she had a first name, though nobody used it), and got to know some other local children: Hayward Morris, and John and Rosemary Wreford, who lived on the terrace, and John Phillips, who lived on Gravel Hill.

I don’t recall going to Ludlow again until the 1970s, though its influence lived on. As a schoolboy, I assembled Micromodels, kits of miniaturised historic buildings printed on card, which acquired a cult following (my favourite was the half-timbered Guildhall at Thaxted). I even chose my Cambridge college, Queens’, on the basis of its halftimbered range. I thought I could live with that. I drifted through the History tripos (undergraduate examinations), apathetic because there was little medieval content, surviving on aptitude rather than application. Graduation in 1964, required decisions to be made

involving the unknown. An uncle, my mother’s brother-in-law, was a Spanish teacher in a grammar school and I had become obliquely interested in Spain, to the extent that I had been there with some fellow students in the summer of 1963 and noticed a number of castles. A chance meeting with Ernesto la Orden Miracle, then the Spanish cultural attaché, obtained support for me to do research on the castles of Spain and, crucially, access to funding. Various key people at Cambridge unexpectedly backed me and, in 1965, I set off for Spain in a Land Rover to spend two years carrying out my proposal.

In retrospect I think it was my deep-seated rapport with castles and experience of looking at medieval buildings in general (from my early years in Ludlow) that sustained me.

I also had an ingrained awareness of the position of the sun and facility with maps. However, initially, my spoken and written Spanish was weak, my photography was amateurish, and I lacked the mechanical knowhow to fix minor faults on my vehicle.

Nobody at Cambridge had told me that palaeography was going to be a decisive research tool. I survived because I was fit from athletics competition, because I was quick on the uptake and because nobody else was doing that sort of work.

Now, nearly half a century later, my two multi-volume books on the castles of Spain, published there by official bodies, are standard works.

When I came back to England, I became a lecturer in the History of Art and Design in art schools, first in Liverpool and then in London.

In Liverpool I knew John Weale, a talented recorder player whose aunt, of the Weale dynasty of Ludlow, lived along Castle View Terrace.

A colleague at the art school was Peter Reading, then a recent graduate.

His gouache painting technique was that of an illustrator, but he decided to concentrate on writing verse, for which he received many awards. Art-school teaching was stimulating but, for one who is well prepared, hardly particularly arduous, leaving one free, as I was, to concentrate on the much harder nuts to crack in one’s personal field. Not so for Peter, who decamped, with his first wife Diana, from Liverpool to a flat in Upper Linney. I went back to Ludlow about 1974 to visit him and my aunt – torrential rain in December did not deter us from slogging up Whitcliffe through the dense undergrowth and onwards towards the Welsh border.

A feature of his Ludlow life, perhaps the only one, that permeated the Pinteresque pessimism of his verse, was his lifelong observation of birds.

Paradoxically (for his life and work were full of paradoxes) his employment on the weighbridge of an animal feed mill at Church Stretton left him, so he said, free to think about creativity.

My last job was at Sir John Cass School of Art in London. One of my students was Melissa Hunt (also a bird watcher), today an internationally renowned jeweller. Ludlow has suited her as it did Peter Reading. Is it the castle, the half-timbered houses, the birds, the smells of the Linney, or something else?

------------------------------------------------A FRIEND of mine, Dr Edward Cooper, received a parcel postmarked ‘Intercourse’ (which, it seems, is in Pennsylvania) and – not knowing anyone in that place, and politics being what they are now – took it to the local Police Station to inform the force of his suspicion that the package was a bomb. A sergeant thanked Dr Cooper profusely and said he would cause the parcel to be looked at by Bomb Disposal Squad experts in Crewe.

Some days later a phone call from the same Sergeant reassured Dr Cooper that Bomb Disposal Squad experts had ‘cleared’ the item in question. A further visit to the Police Station procured the parcel, which now had a little window cut in it through which a tiny periscope had been insinuated establishing that the contents were four small pots of jam. No letter had been enclosed to explain the identity of the donor and my friend has never subsequently found out who sent the jam – which he says was the tastiest he has ever eaten.

Peter Reading – Nothing for Anyone (1977)

DINHAM BRIDGE – A4 Indian ink with a watercolour wash by artist

The Dog Hangs Well 14 CORVE STREET

Thursday til Saturday: 5pm til 9pm www.doghousemagazine.co.uk/pub

9B19<D

.571?

2>;9

?\QOUMXUfQP

8M\UQ^^Q

:aWQ\^[[R ;^MZSQ

?MZ`M /^af

9Q^UPM

7UZQ_U_

@.92@ ?2=.6? 56?2 2C2;A@ B=963A @QX& !$ $#% $$ 1YMUX& _T[\,\QM^OQOeOXQ_ O[ aW CQN& ccc \QM^OQOeOXQ_ O[ aW

15

Macbeth

Half century text} Prue Britten – REVIEW –

Andy Nash of Pepperhouse Studio (located on Pepper Lane) who moved to Ludlow In November 2015: £60

THE Two Score Years and Ten company has a lot going for it.

Although not every actor, for obvious reasons, has reached a half century, they bring to this production a certain maturity, balance and understanding (there is not much comic relief in Macbeth). It takes thoughtful direction, fine pacing and an understanding of political ambition to fully involve an audience. This production did just that.

Good use was made of the space, the set being both practical and visually atmospheric. Some of the lighting appeared a little haphazard but this could be put down to a first night, or to the actors not being totally familiar with where their light was.

Chloe Alexander not only designed an excellent programme but was also responsible for costume design. These were easy on the eye yet retaining military echoes for the men, while the women were well-attired without reference to any particular historic period. The Birnam Wood ‘reveal’ was pictorially fine and executed with simplicity and verve.

In the opening scene, The Weyward Sisters (the three witches augmented to six) seemed uncertain both vocally and physically, with certain Isadora Duncan echoes, however this soon settled and the choral speaking worked well, with clarity and character. At the beginning of the play Macbeth has no ‘vaulting ambition’ and, in the title role, Philip Leach portrayed a loyal general in the army of King Duncan of Scotland – but here is a man holding a belief in witchcraft, (as did Shakespeare’s patron, King James the First). In the 16th and 17th centuries witchcraft had a considerable following and was not viewed with the scepticism surrounding it today; the prophecies

of the three witches were credible to Macbeth and Banquo. When Ross, (the excellent Peter Gillham), arrives with the news that Macbeth had become ‘Thane of Cawdor’, the first of the witches prophecies is fulfilled, and the fledgling ambition of Macbeth to become king is seen.

Lady Macbeth (a strong, loving woman driven by determination and greed was thoughtfully and chillingly portrayal by Kate Garman), believes in the witches’ prophecy and persuades her husband, against his doubts and better judgement, to kill Duncan. This turns into a killing spree – Macbeth, having murdered Duncan, has to kill Duncan’s guards for fear that they may protest their innocence of the murder – and his fear of failure to achieve the crown becomes all-consuming.

Kate Garman’s Lady Macbeth was both fearless and determined; in her soliloquy, prior to Macbeth’s return home, she refers to ‘My battlements,’ clearly showing that she considers the castle to be hers.

The banquet scene can be difficult (there have been productions where laughter has overtaken the audience) but, in this production, it was excellent – the terror of Macbeth at the apparitions, and the desperation of Lady Macbeth in trying to reassure the guests that all is well, were totally credible and very moving.

The turmoil in Macbeth’s mind is briefly lulled when the apparitions (excellent projections) conjured up by the witches, apparently reassure him that “none of woman born” will harm him, and that “until Great Birnam Wood to high Dunsinane Hill shall come”, he has no need to fear.

In the sleepwalking scene Garman drew the audience into her descent to madness, with a well-paced and fresh delivery of the famous soliloquy, leaving no doubt that the bloody butchery and the guilt had rendered her incapable of all but death by her own hand.

This was, without doubt, a wellproportioned, balanced and satisfying production. All the actors brought expertise and honesty to their roles which made the production both truthful and thought-provoking.

------------------------------------------------Next issue Prue reviews Appletree Theatre’s panto: Red Riding Hood.

Hollistic Fur Management

The sole distributor for the Australian Bakers oven: 8.5 KW output Glass Door to Fire & oven Large oven Sturdy steel and cast iron £1,950 delivered

01584 878552 info@ludlowstoves.co.uk www.ludlowstoves.co.uk Ludlow Stoves Ltd 85 Gravel Hill Ludlow Shropshire, SY8 1QU

New showroom at 85 Gravel Hill with live stove displays, fireplaces, boilers, cookers, pellet stoves and accessories

Red Door 4 Dog Grooming

07496 648898 reddoor.karray@btinternet.com www.red-door-dog-grooming.com Proprietor: Karen May-Wilcox – loves dogs 2VBMJmFE &YQFSJFODFE t 'VMMZ *OTVSFE

Karray Cottage, Corfton, Shropshire, SY7 9LD

Industrial Unit & Yard, Weeping Cross Lane, Ludlow, SY8 1JH 01584 872398 or 07768 149639

Ludlow Pest Control

Terry Burgoyne 07772 215626 Technician terry@ludlowpestcontrol.co.uk

www.wickedvanhire.co.uk Self-drive vans hire from just £45.00 per day – 1.1 ton or 1.5 ton payloads. Van hire with driver, available, from £18 per hour. Plus: courier service, house clearance and pallet services: part or full loads.

ALSO AVAILABLE: ‘Wicked Storage’ FOR ALL YOUR STORAGE NEEDS

Dinham Bridge artwork over p14 and p15 supplied by} Andy Nash

16

advertising: ludlowledger.com/advertising

Walking Football

A walk in the Astro park text and image} Gary Seymour

Indulge in the taste of our majestic restaurant. Reservations essential.

Serving dinner Tuesday to Saturday from 6pm till 9pm

5 course tasting menu from £45 7 course tasting menu from £55

Found just six miles out of Ludlow: Old Downton Lodge, Downton on the Rock, Ludlow, SY8 2HU – The perfect venue for that special occasion – 01568 771 826 – bookings@olddowntonlodge.com Three AA rosettes Award for Cullinary Excellence New Listing in Michelin Guide for 2016 Editor’s Choice The Good Hotel Guide 2016

If you’re still making your way through the last issue’s crossword then you had better look away now – SPORT – IN my misspent youth I thought I could defy the sands of time and often played two games of football a week. I was relatively fit, didn’t put much weight on and was reasonably fast. However, time waits for no man and, despite more come backs than ‘Ol’ Blue Eyes’, I finally hung up my football boots when I reached the wrong side of 45.

However, old habits die hard and ever since watching my son Jack growing up, I have had a burning ambition to play alongside him for one game. A few years ago, when I was past 50, the game was finally arranged; I really enjoyed the match with Jack and I up front, and it went better than I could have expected (both of us scoring, albeit mine from a penalty) until disaster struck late in the second half when I went down like a sack of King Edwards, rupturing my achilles tendon. I had found out that I could no longer cheat the sands of time and I spent the next three months on crutches with my leg in plaster, finally ending my football playing days, or so I thought...

About a year ago I saw an advert for a high street bank which featured ‘Walking Football’ and I went on to find out that there are thousands of older folks who have rediscovered the joys of playing football again

through a sport that makes the basic elements of a match accessible by slowing down the game.

Walking football was invented six years ago for players over the age of 50; already there are more than 200 registered clubs all over the country, with new ones springing up pretty much every month.

Trawling the internet for walking football, I was disappointed to find that, despite the excellent facilities including a flood-lit, all-weather pitch at Ludlow Town Football Club, Shropshire FA and Ludlow hadn’t fully embraced walking football. The nearest clubs to try out this new form of the beautiful game were either a trawl up the A49 to Shrewsbury or across country to Telford.

Herefordshire FA had taken the game on and it is rapidly expanding – in fact the numbers taking up this game in Hereford means that it can easily field two teams but that, again, would be a fair distance to travel.

I was, however, pleased to see that Herefordshire FA had started to trial it in Leominster: Tuesday evenings, 6pm-7pm at the Bridge Street Sports Centre. A quick visit to the garden shed for an old pair of Jack’s Astro-turf football boots, followed by a trip to a bargain basement sports shop, and I was ready to go.

Despite a slight apprehension at my first session, I was soon at ease and welcomed on board.

Tom Mason of Herefordshire FA is the efficient organiser of these sessions and informed me that, while it had started slowly in Hereford, numbers grew quickly and he anticipates the same for Leominster.

Hopefully this will happen soon as there are teams from Worcester, Hereford and Ross keen to play against us.

To sum up: the main difference between walking football and normal football is that anyone who sprints, runs or jogs while the ball is in play will be penalised with a free-kick awarded to the other team.

The sessions are aimed at people aged 50 and over, and are all about re-engaging those people back into the game. They are very suitable if you have certain health or mobility problems, and it is a brilliant way to still take part in the beautiful game with less risk of getting injured.

If you are over 50 or have a longterm injury that prevents you from playing, but you want to keep fit, come along and try walking football.

-----------------------------------------------Further information: Tom Mason Football Development & Coaching Apprentice – Herefordshire FA 01432 342179 Twitter: @HerefordshireFA Facebook: Herefordshire FA

CROSSWORD CLUES #10

Gary pictured third from right, back row

See page 10 for this issue’s crossword

Next Issue

Ed Walters Shakespeare in Ludlow The Man, The Cars – March / April – www.ludlowledger.co.uk