Ludlow Ledger (Issue #8) by Ludlow Ledger

ISSUE 8 – JULY/AUGUST 2015 – FREE

Stanton’s Castle Bookshop Ludlow’s Battle of Britain hero: Laurie Whitbread Trying tai ji Being pernickety about Ludlow Solar farm debate Canadian fiction Proposed parlour pub Tiananmen Square to Market Square

“Mr P feels that some places have tried to establish themselves on the back of Ludlow’s reputation, without really having a clue what they’re doing” AMATEUR reviewers on Trip Advisor aside, restaurant critics have the not-always-enviable job of quaffing wine and picking their way through lamb, langoustine and lobster in a spirit of critical pleasure for our benefit. Do we trust the reviews we read? On the whole, yes. After all, who wants to have to send back a meal that looks and tastes as if it’s been scraped out of the bin and garnished with a sprig of parsley? Or leave an establishment 2lbs fatter and £50 poorer as a result of a bad lunch? It’s in this spirit of public service, then, that Mr Pernickety’s Independent Guide to the Ancient and Gastronomic Borough of Ludlow exists. Or at least, that’s the theory. In reality, if his robust views are anything to go by, one suspects that the mysterious Mr P (whose identity still remains a closely-guarded secret) enjoys writing it far too much for his opinions to be strictly for the public

benefit. Ludlow Ledger, reacting to information received, tracked down the elusive Mr P and, on your behalf, sought his broader views on the gastronomic state of our town. Often outspoken, but frequently very funny, Mr P’s guide to the eateries and watering holes of Ludlow, Hay-on-Wye and the Marches generally (as published monthly in the ubiquitous Broadsheep), resulted in a ban on the guide’s sale in Hay-on-Wye, yet fortunately a more tolerant attitude has prevailed here in Ludlow. So much so, that the town has even had a pie named after him – The Mr Pernickety Pie (conceived by Floyd Wilson-Lloyd, landlord of the Church Inn) is described as ‘A Pie Inebriated with the Exuberance of its own Verbosity; crammed full of its own self-importance, served with a little sauce, a slice of tautology, and seasoned with invective, hyperbole, vituperation, paradiastole, litotes,

and pontification, served with a PUFF pastry lid.’ They are, however, still friends; indeed Mr P found the description rather amusing. So, although it has to be said that while his reviews on local eateries are admirably detailed on the cuisine, ambience and service, so too might they not be to everyone’s taste, thanks to Mr P having a critical persona not unlike that of the late Michael Winner in his Sunday Times restaurant review column. To wit, Mr P is generally accompanied by his Lovely Companion (the LC), and harbours pet hates which include: being ordered to “Enjoy!” by waiting staff, large pub chains, laminated menus, clumpy furniture, gastropubs, electric fires masquerading as log fires, unedifying lighting, shiny ties, inappropriate music, pub carpets, lager, ‘edifice abuse’ (the ruination of once fine buildings), microwaves, heavy metal played in

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tea-shops, and football on SKY TV. You get the drift. Prior reviews read: “Mr P is not so out of touch of the raw realities of the modern world that he doesn’t know there are some young folk who like to go out on a Saturday night to drink large quantities of lager and then let it go. However, Mr P doesn’t wish to be around to see, hear or smell the event.” Or the Bull Hotel: “If your idea of an enjoyable visit to a pub is to stand in a smelly bar waiting to be served vile Banks’s Bitter by badly-dressed staff, this place could be your Nirvana.” Many of Ludlow’s other food and drink destinations – from cafés to hotels, pubs to restaurants – fare no better... a town centre café was described in the original guide as: “Having the general appearance of a municipal loo.... this establishment is a basic down-to-earth, fat-andwheat-based eatery – you could say

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Contents LOCAL VIEW 4

Phil puts his pennies’ worth in ... explaining why we should be objecting to most (but not all) of our local solar farm applications

5 Ludlow’s very own Battle of Britain hero: Laurie Whitbread PAST, PRESENT, FUTURE 6-7 Donated horse painting, the Coffee Loft and an evening with Lord David Puttnam LETTERS 8 LUDLOW LEGEND

One hello from Australia, a plea from Ludlow’s Women Centre, and a concern over the town’s escalating litter problem

CROSSWORD 8

17 down: model one on stone surround? It’s for you to choose

MEET & GREET 10

Peter Burden meets Philip Dunne

OUT & ABOUT

“I got it from a museum that was closing down. I don’t intend to sell it, I just like to have it around.”

11 “So, what’s the consensus... pots or grass?” PROFILE 12-13 Stanton Stephens of Castle Bookshop COVER STORY... continued 14 Loved and loathed: Ludlow’s Mister P OBSERVATIONS 15 Losing track of time BUSINESS 16 Ludlow’s parlour pub project FICTION 17 Canadian novel, based in Ludlow: No Known Grave FINDING LUDLOW 18 Lily remembers dodged bullets in Tiananmen Square THIS ISSUE IN FACTS 19 Flossie Lane, landlady of The Sun Inn, was awarded an obituary in The Telegraph SPORT 20 GARDENING

11 20

Liz lends her hands, knees and toes to tai ji

Editor’s notes, hello again Like most writers I can admit to giving some thought to the notion of being a novelist. It was some time ago, and was a means (I believed) of actually being paid for writing, in those early days of the 1990s when a moneyless byline in a monthly magazine was the best I could muster. And so I set about writing a novel (as I knew it) – quite literally putting aside a year to bring an idea to life. Though I have hard evidence, to the tune of 23,852 words, in a Word 97 doc, I fell foul of actually finishing it (some would say actually starting it), and embarked on yet another venture (this time diary-based) as I sold up my life in the UK and gave it new life in the shape of a Millets sleeping bag, a map of the US, an initial 17 rolls of Fuji slide film and a plane ticket to New York. Three months, was the plan, to travel around North America, in a bid to be a passenger in a 10-second car (after watching The Fast and the Furious – and hearing of the elusive 10-second cars of the illegal streetracing scene).

With only $480 (around £340 at the time) I spent most of it over a couple of days in New York... just about finding my way to Morris, Pennsylvania, and from there making my way (pretty much penniless) over to Connecticut, up to New England and then across the border to Toronto – before wafting over to Colorado at the expense of the US Air Force Reserve. A resulting 82 rolls of film (of which only half were ever developed) were, later, badly stored in my parents’ loft, where the slides and rolls were subjected to both extremes – making me wonder how well they’ve faired. The words that accompany these mostly undeveloped slides haven’t faired much better either: my 1,000 word-a-day diary suffers from a glaring gap between June 23rd and July 28th 2002, and there’s a whole week in August without any notes; lost, goodness knows where. It is, therefore, no surprise that this piece of authoring has also suffered – though it may still have legs, even with much of the diary entries gone with the wind.

More recently, I’ve had a third go at this book thing with a frank account of my time spent as an editor in Dubai, of which only a single page so far exists. Which brings me to the conclusion that there is not a book as such in me, but a book of books – partly crafted ideas without endings, some devoid of mid sections, and more than one without a proper plot. Producing something in bits – small chapters from here and there – seems a bit more achievable, rather than having to carry a reader through 100,000 or so words on one authored thread. This is not a big plug for my memoirs, but instead a way of verbalising one of my ‘must do’ projects in a way that will encourage me to get my thumb out of wherever it’s been hiding, and put a big black line under some of my old ideas.

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

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

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My view on the latest applications

It’s not the solar farm but where you put it text and image} Phil Middleton – LOCAL VIEW – There has been a rash of applications to build large scale solar farms in the Ludlow area in recent times – Whitton, Neen Sollars, Acton Scott, Bromfield, the new one at Rocks Green and the Henley Hall Estates application on Squirrel Lane, to name but a few. The last of these is close to my heart because it is close to my home, but what I have to say here is relevant to all of them except the application to build one in the old quarry at Bromfield, which I will address shortly. But before I go any further I want to be crystal clear that I support renewable energy and solar farms in principle. I am aware we need renewable energy for the future of our planet, and that of our children and grandchildren. I accept that solar farms have a part to play in making renewable energy the energy source of the future, and that they have to go somewhere. Reluctantly I will also accept that, on occasion, perhaps they will have to go on greenfield sites because there are simply not enough brownfield sites or factory roofs available (even if that is where government guidelines and planning policy indicate they should go). Having looked at both sides of the argument, however, I simply believe that there are good places for these developments, and bad ones – and that all of the above, with the notable exception of Bromfield, are very bad places for them to go.

I have thought about this long and hard: If I were a farmer, especially a dairy farmer faced with the threat of bovine TB and struggling to turn a profit, with supermarkets selling milk cheaper than water, I would find it very difficult to turn down the offer of up to £1,000 per acre per year for 25 years – which is the return, I am told, that you can expect from solar farms, thanks to the enormous subsidies available. The proposition is made even more attractive by solar developers approaching landowners on a ‘no win, no fee’ basis – offering to do all the work (and take all the flak) of trying to push through the applications. Fortunately, however, planning policy and in this case Shropshire’s Core Strategies, exist to protect the interests of the many from the financial interests of the few – which is why South Shropshire’s landscape, and that of Ludlow’s hinterland in particular, has remained as beautiful and untouched as they have. So, with all of the above in mind, why am I strongly objecting to the Henley Hall Estates application on Ludlow’s Squirrel Lane, and why do I think the other applications have all been rejected, including the revised application for one at Whitton that was unanimously rejected by the Planning Committee on June 16th? Firstly, am I being a NIMBY? Well, yes, to an extent I am. But I chose unspoilt, unindustrialised countryside as my back yard. If I lived on the outskirts of Birmingham or London,

or on a disused industrial site, I wouldn’t be objecting to this. But I don’t live there, and my backyard is perfectly good farmland that should be used for producing food and not generating electricity – especially when alternative sites for solar farms are available. They have to go somewhere – but NOT within sight of and, equally importantly, within walking distance of a town like Ludlow – whose economy, employment opportunities and general vitality rely on tourism. Without tourism you could wave goodbye to our treasured independent shops, delis, pubs and restaurants; goodbye to the market, goodbye to the festivals and otherwise... and hello to more chains, more charity shops, more boarded up premises in our town centre – and more unemployment. The key point here is Ludlow’s landscape and setting; the importance of its unspoilt ruralscape to the attractiveness of Ludlow as a tourist destination. Research from Visit England found that holidays involving outdoor leisure pursuits and exploring the countryside are rated most highly by visitors to the area – but whether you are a resident or a visitor reading this, you don’t need Visit England to tell you that. The Henley Hall site can be seen from the Shropshire Hills Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, the Shropshire Way (including Walking Route 5, promoted by Shropshire Council, which takes you up Squirrel Lane via The Sheet to Caynham Camp – all of which has a clear view of the site), Mortimer’s Forest, High Vinnalls, Titterstone Clee and finally (and perhaps most worryingly) the tower at St Laurence’s church would also have a full view of the array – slap bang in the middle of the aspect looking towards Clee Hill. If you are a resident you will know how beautiful these places are and how spectacular the views from them are. If you are a visitor, you should go and find out. If you do, you will surely want to stay longer, to visit more of them; which is exactly what the town needs you to do. I wonder if you would do that if when you got to the top of Titterstone Clee, Caynham Camp or the tower at St Laurence’s, you were presented with a view besmirched by the site of 22,000 solar panels reflecting the sun back at you? Is that a risk Ludlow should be willing to take? But it’s not just tourists who would find the presence of a solar farm built on 33 acres of lush green farmland offensive and intrusive – its local residents would too. Squirrel Lane is used by many dog walkers, hikers, runners and cyclists as one of the closest ways to get into the countryside from town. It is striking how many Ludlow residents have felt compelled to object on the planning portal – many more than I expected, and word is still only just getting out. This is clearly a muchloved place, which makes me feel very lucky to live here. There are numerous more technical reasons to object to the Henley Hall

application, but there is neither time nor space to detail them here. They include highly contentious soil classifications which claim that land that has been farmed productively for generations is of ‘poor quality’; non-compliance with Shropshire’s Core strategies 5, 6, 13, 16, and 17; disregard for (or, at best, underestimation of) the impact on listed buildings and other ‘heritage assets; the complete absence of any benefit to the local community or economy – the list goes on. If you are interested, and have the time, you will find all of these listed in detail amongst the many objections already posted on Shropshire Council’s Planning Portal. So to Bromfield... A large solar farm is going ahead in Bromfield, on the outskirts of Ludlow, in an old quarry that can only be seen from the train. 20-25 per cent of the power generated will be used by the Ludlow Food Centre and the current quarry, and the rest will be supplied to the local 33KV power grid. The developers are offering £50,000 over 10 years to the local community. Thus far there have been no objections to this proposal, and to my knowledge none of the local councillors are ‘calling it in’ to be heard by the Planning Committee. Therefore, it seems likely to be built later this year – and I wholeheartedly support it. This is a good place for a solar farm. This is a place that was previously used for industrial purposes and that cannot be seen from miles around from places popular with tourists and residents alike (not to mention scheduled monuments and listed buildings). And it is adding to and not detracting from the local economy, not just in the form of a cash payment, but also by sharing the power generated with adjacent businesses that bring employment and prosperity to the area. To my knowledge no power from the Henley Hall proposal will be used locally, and while the developer is offering either solar panels on the roof of the village hall or £15,000 over 10 years to the Parish Council, this feels more like a token compensation rather than a ‘community benefit’. It may not be easy to find sites like the one at Bromfield, but they do exist, and it is worth the effort to look for them. As it is worth opposing the applications to build these vast, unsightly, semi-industrial developments on good, productive farmland in the beautiful countryside that is so important to Ludlow and its residents on so many levels. If you agree, I invite you to send an email to planningdmsw@shropshire. gov.uk – using the reference 15/01472/ FUL Henley Hall Estates Solar Farm. It won’t take you long, but I believe you’ll be helping preserve the beauty of a special place for the future of our children and grandchildren, which, in a way, takes me back to the argument for renewables and solar farms…just in the right places please.

D. B. STINTON 27 AUGUST– 1 SEPTEMBER 27 AWST– 1 MEDI

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Laurie Whitbread

Ludlow’s own Battle of Britain hero text} Ron Powell | image} Richard Stanton – LUDLOW LEGEND – I grew up on the Dodmore estate in the early 1960s, at a time when children could be out of sight of their parents in a way that would be almost unthinkable now. From the tender age of five upwards, I was allowed to walk the half mile or so to Clee View to play with friends. Often, I’d take a short cut through Ludlow Cemetery at the top of Henley Road. By the path next to the chapel was a distinctive white headstone at which I always paused; I still pause there today, some 55 years later. The tablet of Portland Stone marks the final resting place of Pilot Officer Laurie Whitbread, a Royal Air Force Spitfire pilot who, during the Battle of Britain, became the first Ludlovian to lay down his life in the Second World War. Laurie was my boyhood hero and one of the principle inspirations for my 32-year career in the RAF. He also inspired my Battle of Britain novel, Wings Over Summer, which is dedicated to his memory. Since its publication, I’ve learnt much more about Laurie, and been struck by some of the parallels in our lives – and the differences. Now, on the 75th anniversary of the Battle of Britain, I’m keen for other Ludlovians to hear his story. Laurie Whitbread was born in Ludlow on 21st August 1914. He grew up in Linney View, where he lived with his parents and sister, Vera, who I knew as Mrs Bodenham, when she was one of my teachers at St Laurence’s Junior School in Lower Galdeford, now the Ludlow Mascall Centre. Like me, he went to Ludlow Grammar School, where he was a popular pupil who excelled at sport, notably boxing, rugby and hockey, at which he represented Shropshire. On leaving school, we both became apprentices, me in the RAF, Laurie with Fisher and Ludlow of Birmingham, a company that manufactured sheet metal for the car industry. In January 1939, when war with Germany was looking inevitable, Laurie applied to the Air Ministry and left the firm to take up a short service commission in the RAF as a potential pilot. Forty years later, I trod the same path, passing the equivalent of the Air Ministry tests and embarking on my own quest for the coveted RAF pilot badge. Nothing says more about the task faced by young men such as Laurie, than a comparison of the time he and I took to complete flying training. When, at the start of the Falklands

War, I joined No 24 Squadron, flying Hercules transport aircraft out of RAF Lyneham in Wiltshire, I’d received 300 hours of training on four different types of aircraft. It had taken three years. Laurie reached the front line in just nine months. He’d flown less than 200 hours on two different types. Later in my career, I became a flying instructor and taught hundreds of young men like Laurie to fly. I wouldn’t have dreamed of sending even the best of them into combat after only 200 hours – but those were different times. In November 1939, just two months after the declaration of war, Laurie joined No 222 Squadron, a night-fighter unit, flying twinengined Bristol Blenheims out of RAF Duxford in Cambridgeshire. His squadron commander described him as a short, stocky and cheerful character – pleasant, well-mannered and quiet. And, at a time when relations between commissioned and non-commissioned (NCO) pilots could be formal and frosty, NCOs described him as pleasant and friendly, with no affectation and at ease with all ranks. In short Laurie was what, in my day, we would have called, ‘a good guy’, an accolade that, in the understated language of the RAF, is more impressive than it sounds. For his first few months, when the winter weather permitted, he flew convoy patrols over the North Sea. It was the period known as the Phoney War, and such missions could be monotonous affairs – but not always. On 14th December, his diary states, “Narrowest escape to date, nearly spun in while night flying.” In March 1940, much to their delight, the squadron was chosen to convert to Spitfires. Again, during my time, such a conversion would take several weeks, if not months, and include ground school, much practice in the simulator, and many hours flying dual with an instructor. For Laurie and his contemporaries there was no simulator and no dual control Spitfire on which to practise. He flew only two short training flights in a single-engined trainer, the Miles Master, before being sent solo in the most advanced fighter of its day. Immediately after their conversion, he and the rest of the squadron began an intensive period preparing for their new air defence role, completing many hours of formation flying. On 15th April, Laurie had his first accident. It seems he ‘nosed in’ his Spitfire (all too easy to do) but there must have been extenuating

circumstances, because the squadron commander cleared him of blame. The Phoney War came to an end on 10th May, when Hitler’s forces began their sweep through Holland, Belgium and northern France to the Channel coast. At the end of the month, Laurie and his squadron, which now included Flight Lieutenant Douglas Bader, flew over the Dunkirk beaches and the evacuation fleet. By the time 338,000 troops had been evacuated on 4th June, 222 Squadron had lost five pilots – four killed and one missing. After a few quieter months moving between several airfields in the north of England, on 29th August 1940, 222 Squadron was moved to RAF Hornchurch in Essex; the airfield was in the front line of the Battle of Britain. In their first 48 hours there, they lost 18 aircraft and several pilots, partly because the tactic of flying in tight formations restricted their ability to look out for the enemy, and to manoeuvre if they spotted them. In an effort to counter this, Laurie became one of three pilots chosen to fly as Tail End Charlie. They’d weave at the rear of the squadron, acting as their eyes. It was a position of great responsibility, and danger; Tail End Charlies were often the first to be hit by Messerschmitt 109s, the Luftwaffe’s formidable single-engined fighter. On 31st August, Laurie’s was one of 10 Spitfires involved in an attack on 24 Messerschmitt 109s protecting a force of Heinkel bombers. Laurie closed to within 50 yards of a 109, firing into its fuselage ‘from tail to cockpit’. The German fighter rolled on to its back, issuing white smoke. It started to nose down, but Laurie had to pull away, so he never saw it crash, and the kill couldn’t be confirmed. September opened with a pattern of numerous scrambles and interceptions. On the 7th, the Luftwaffe changed tactics, shifting its attacks from the RAF’s airfields to London. Fighter Command was caught by surprise and 222 Squadron was one of the few units to find and intercept the bombers. Laurie engaged a force of 109s at 27,000 feet over the capital, but became separated from the rest of his squadron. Nevertheless, he continued to look for a target and found a force of 25 to 30 Dornier bombers. He dived down on a straggler at 20,000 feet and set its right engine on fire, but was forced to pull away by machine gun fire from the rest of the formation. Once again, the fate of the bomber he’d hit could not be confirmed. On 9th September, he had better luck. The squadron attacked a force of 109s escorting a formation of bombers flying west at 20,000 feet. Laurie fired a four-second burst at a Messerschmitt, shooting off its right aileron and sending it into a spin. This time, his formation leader saw the German pilot bale out and Laurie was credited with a kill. On 14th September, he wrote to his mother in Ludlow. He said everything was fine, although he was getting over a touch of frostbite in his left hand, the result of flying in the intense cold

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at high altitude. On the 18th he was meant to start a week’s leave, but he was called on to fly a patrol over Canterbury; his leave obviously fell by the wayside because he stayed on at Hornchurch. At 10.55 on the morning of 20th September, the squadron was scrambled to meet an incoming raid. As they were over the Thames Estuary clambering for height, a formation of Messerschmitt 109s fell on them. Laurie’s Spitfire was hit. It seems that he then unstrapped and attempted to bale out, but was shot in the left side and fell back into the cockpit. At 11.15, the aircraft crashed in the garden of a cottage near Rochester in Kent. Laurie was thrown clear of the wreckage but died instantly. It’s unlikely that he even saw his nemesis, probably an Oberleutnant Hans Hahn, although it may have been the German ace, Major Adolf Galland. Laurie was buried in Ludlow Cemetery with full military honours. Chiselled into his Commonwealth War Grave headstone are the RAF badge and the words, Pilot Officer HL Whitbread, Pilot, Royal Air Force,

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20th September 1940, Age 26. Below these details is a phrase from a speech Winston Churchill gave to the House of Commons in August 1940: “Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.” As a result of these words, Laurie and his fellow pilots have gone down in history as The Few. But Laurie also has a legacy in Ludlow. Whitbread Road was named in his honour, and the tower of St Laurence’s Church is illuminated on the anniversary of his death every year. I still visit the grave at least once a month and, at a book signing in Castle Bookshop, Laurie’s nephew, Delme Whitbread, told me of his family’s delight at the dedication in Wings Over Summer. He also presented me with a picture of his uncle that sits on my desk as I write this article. Laurie was just one of 544 allied fighter pilots that lost their lives during the Battle of Britain and, although he’s gone, he’s far from forgotten – at least not by me.

6 3

Artisan coffee, decorated horse and Ludlow Quilters

Since issue 7 of Ludlow Ledger text} Jon Saxon – PAST, PRESENT, FUTURE – Monday 8th June at 7.30pm saw a room full of folks collectively consuming canapés of Mr Underhill’s making, and some wine, whilst awaiting the 8pm talk from 1Lord David Puttnam. A fascinating, heart-warming, educational and engaging evening ensued, with a lone table lamp lighting up Mr Puttnam, shadowed by the large blacked out stage and the looming screen behind him, which throughout the talk replayed portions of David’s life. I slightly wish I’d had more time to sit and talk in person, as it would have made for a grand Ludlow Ledger read. I say this, for the very people I feel would have so benefited from such a compelling tale of one man’s journey from a comic-book youngster, to evening-class educated, to celebrated film producer, to the Prime Minister’s Trade Envoy to Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, and Burma, were evidently absent (perhaps at home watching TV or sat on a park bench somewhere).

This is a remarkable man who could inspire pretty much anyone, whatever the occasion; a man with a roll-call of film credits embracing no less than 10 Oscars, 25 Baftas and the Palme D’Or at Cannes throughout his 30-year career (including The Mission, The Killing Fields, Local Hero, Chariots of Fire, Midnight Express, Bugsy Malone and Memphis Belle). The night concluded with the floor opened up to a Q&A session. One of the questions enquired how he funded his first film: Puttnam explained that, working on the law of averages, he printed off hundreds of scripts and addressed the envelopes to people he found in the trade papers, who were seen to be financing movies. One of these envelopes was sent to the house of Seagram boss Edgar Bronfman, who famously left it unopened on his hat stand until his 14-year-old son opened it, read it and handed it to his father, saying: “Dad, you keep financing these crappy movies I don’t want to go and see; I think I’d like to go and see this one.” As a result his

father invested half the money needed. David was also awarded a CBE in 1982, a knighthood in 1995 and was appointed to the House of Lords in 1997, with just as much of the Assembly Room’s event focussed on his work in public policy, as it relates to education, the environment, and the creative industries. I must take the time to thank 2Rebecca Arnold – the artist who was invited to paint Neptune Collonges (or ‘Nipper’ as he is known at his home), as he embarked upon his retirement from racing as a Grade 1 steeplechaser (following his 2012 Grand National win) to be re-trained in the discipline of dressage, under the tutorship of John Hale’s daughter Lisa. Rebecca donated a soon-to-beframed copy of this watercolour (which was later exhibited at The Royal College of Art) to the offices of Ludlow Ledger, after she heard that without this very horse there would be no Doghouse, and without Doghouse there would be no Ludlow Ledger. As Rebecca kindly said, in her accompanying note: “I have just read about Doghouse – the British pub magazine and Nipper; it’s a fantastic story. I’m so pleased that, with your winnings, you were able to go ahead to produce Doghouse.” And so the thanks continue, this time much closer to home (here in Ludlow in fact) with Carmel Wilson from Expensive Mistakes (which can found up a flight of steps off Market Street, opposite Chang Thai). On

reading my editorial of the previous issue (stating that I hadn’t yet secured a hanging sign for the Ludlow Ledger office on Corve Street) she donated a proper hanging sign that once hung on Market Street. The old wording has since been removed (courtesy of some WD40 and sugar soap) and it now awaits its new business name, before being hung on either one of the two available sign frames affixed to No 14’s frontage. Artisan Ales, is now up and running at No 4 Old Street, where Red Balloon Bookshop once called home. Run by Gary Jones (who previously held court at Hope Bagot’s Bennetts End as landlord), the ground floor of Artisan Ales showcases a healthy celebration of local brewing produce, including Six Bells, Ludlow Brewing Company and Hobsons, along with some guest brews from slightly further afield – Bathams on one of my visits. Upstairs is another string to Gary’s bow, with an exciting plan to transform the largely open space into what is defined as a Micro Pub – a growing phenomenon that’s been sweeping across the UK since Martyn Hillier opened his Butchers Arms in 2005, in a prior butchers shop in Herne, Kent. Largely serving straight from the cask (many without actual counters), and a clear focus on the art of conversation, the Micro Pub movement is certainly gaining momentum. The nearest at this moment in time are the Beer In Hand on Hereford’s Eign Street, and The Weavers Real

Ale House on Comberton Hill, Kidderminster. For more information: micropubassociation.co.uk Another enterprising local business with artisan in mind, is the haberdashery of Marie’s of Ludlow – on the road leading up to the train station, off Corve Street, and pretty much squeezed in by Tesco and Aldi. As well as offering alterations to clothing downstairs Marie now offers (upstairs at what she calls the Coffee Loft) artisan coffee and locally-sourced cakes. Described on the website as ‘a unique setting, with a wonderful atmosphere’ it seems to be making a keen mark, as a number of readers found the time to get in touch to suggest I pay the Coffee Loft a visit: 9am to 5pm Monday to Friday, and 10am to 4.30pm on Saturday. Not so good news is the recent death of 3Dick Hughes following a short illness; he featured on the front cover of issue five, amidst a fanfare of native taxidermy, on what was, quite possibly one the most striking covers to date. Production of the photograph was made easier by the patience and accommodation of Dick who, in the framework of the Ludlow Museum Resource Centre, actually turned out to have little or nothing to do with the stuffed animals in the building’s vault – that is until we turned up and positioned him under the heat of two rather hot studio lamps and three flash guns. The Ledger team send condolences to the family at this extremely difficult time.

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Local bus users have got together to form a much-needed supporters group for the local 44490 bus route between Ludlow and Leominster; they plan to work together, maintaining the service for locals and visitors, to promote this scenic and necessary service. The first meeting (held on Monday 6th July) at Leominster’s Community Association was – by all accounts – well attended – and was in response to Herefordshire Council’s 2014 reductions in subsidy for local bus services – as a result, the route between Ludlow and Leominster is being reduced in service. Passengers already use the bus for many reasons, but the supporters group would like more people to discover the shops, pubs and walks that they can access along the route and, so increase the numbers of people using the service. Supporting the campaign are two local groups... Shropshire Bus Users, and Rail for Herefordshire (who run the Save Our Buses Campaign). Timetables are available on Herefordshire Council’s website, or from Ludlow or Leominster Tourist office; for more details: nancymorgan@idnet.com Back in September 2002, two friends (Genevieve Lewis and Murri Smith) decided that Ludlow should have its very own Quilt Group – a mixture of relaxing/sharing evenings to sit and sew, invited guest speakers to entertain, and workshops to challenge and inspire the quilter within – and 5Ludlow Quilters was born. Of the original nine who signed up,

five members still remain and the founding members are now inviting all local quilters to come and take part in the meetings at the Red Cross Centre (Smithfield car park) at 7:30pm on the fourth Tuesday of the month (with the exception of August and December). The group are also staging a summer exhibition at which The Wonderful World of Water quilt (made by 159 quilters from 20 countries) is being shown; the exhibition will be at Ludlow College’s Harley Centre (10am to 4pm) on July 25th and 26th – entry price £2.50. For further information, please contact Helen Clark on 01584 872772 or helen. ravenlane@me.com And finally: the madcap team of drivers (pictured on the front cover of Ludlow Ledger issue 7) and their three £500 vehicles not only made it to the start line of this year’s 6Scumrun Rally, but also around the entire 3,000-mile route (taking in Monaco and the Nürburgring) and bringing the team and their entries home safely. There was a hiccup or two: the PT Cruiser suffered grave brake failure before the gig even got underway, and (later) forced the chaps down a road drain to collect water after it overheated in the Swiss Alps. The Mazda fared no better, with a buckled rear alloy that caught the attention of both the Swiss police and the event organisers for driving too slow. In total they raised £3,000 for the type 1 diabetes charity, JDRF.

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Images on p6 and 7} Lord David Puttnam (1); Rebecca Arnold (2); Richard Stanton (3); Peter Gilbert (4); Lynn Moya (5) Jason Stanley (6)

A small selection of your 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 – Great read with such interesting, wide ranging articles. Keep producing it. I get my copy sent to Plymouth by my Mum who is a long standing resident in Ludlow, and I really enjoy reading all about my home town. Charlotte Payne, Plymouth -------------------------------------------------

We would be very interested to know if any of your readers have any photos or memories of Ludlow Women’s Centre, or, as it was known for many years, the Women’s Club Rooms. The building, tucked behind the Rose & Crown pub, was bought in 1939 by a small group of women – and run as a club for years. It was used by the local Women’s Institute for their meetings for many years. It underwent refurbishment in the early 1980s and continues to be maintained by a small of group of women, though, not the original ones. It has been many years since it was a club and it is now used as a venue for local groups to meet in Ludlow, including two choirs, tai ji groups, meditation and counselling sessions, Scottish dancing and the Saturday Country Market. If anyone has any memories of the Centre or photos prior to the 1970s, we would be very interested in hearing from you. Please send correspondence care of: Ludlow Women’s Centre, 10 Church St, Ludlow, SY8 1AP. Polly Bolton, on behalf of the Trustees of Ludlow Womens Centre ------------------------------------------------Let me say straight away that I admire your newspaper, it captures the spirit of Ludlow in its pages – though not everyone who lives here can say that. It is quiet and a unique way of life and it’s not easily understood. People who come to live here don’t understand it; they make the mistake of bringing

their previous way of life with them from where ever they lived before and try to impose it on Ludlow... and of course it never works. For me, the joy of it, is to sit by the castle gardens in the summertime and watch the world go by, and maybe talk to the visitors – and perhaps point out a few things that they have missed on their travels around the town. What you have done in the Ludlow Ledger is to capture the strong artistic spirit that is abroad in Ludlow. I was particularly impressed by the article on the lady who makes her own jewellery the Fairtrade way. The only gripe really is it’s a pity that there is not enough employment for young people. There is a number of fine companies, employing in the area, but you know it is disheartening to see so many young people walking around doing nothing, mostly due to lack of opportunity. I am 71 years of age (twilight zone you know) and I enjoy the dreamy atmosphere here, but the young ones are the future and there is great concern about them. There should be more apprenticeships available. However, keep up the good work and I am looking forward to the next issue dare I say. And I wouldn’t mind paying £1 for a copy because it’s worth it. Des Palmer, Ludlow

A Friend sent me a copy of Ludlow Ledger issue 5 and I have greatly enjoyed reading it. I found it both informative and entertaining, but above all, it revived fond memories of my life in Ludlow when I worked for Woolworths and lived in Mill Street, sixty years ago.  Congratulations on your publication and please allow me to send greetings to any of your readers who still remember me. David Weston, South Australia -------------------------------------------------POEM: Ludlow is famous for its ale Amongst so many other things And it was once, let it be known The regal draught of Kings. So let us drink this merry brew Perhaps t’will make us think That was inherit kingship too And need our thirst, the more to drink Our hop yards in this charming vale produce the hops, which makes this ale They make a nectar golden brown, To send us smiling round the town So let us sing, and make the very rafters ring “God bless this drink, let all who can imbibe” Then drink up everyone around And join the celebrating tribe. Mrs Betty Berry, Ludlow

TO make things simpler, you can now find out the answers to the previous issue’s crossword on the back page of this Ludlow Ledger. ACROSS 6,7 Organ dull? Play glowed with echo and touch of reverb (6,6) 10 It loves speed (5) 11 To a degree, disorder in street returned with scenes of carnage (9) 13,14 Feral pandas combine with love

s to me m e e s it d n A “ le to be a terrib so is shame that it , not badly littered n but w just in the to of the on the edges town too.”

and wish for end to hostility (4,5,5) 15 Top part of Corve Street (4) 16 Castle Books, inside on right (4) 22 Cleaning treatment for gold used by skinhead regularly (5) 24 Artist in copper (9) 25 Writer uses stringed instrument for English reel dancing (6,3) 26 Month for film group (5) 27 1/8 of priests getting married (6) 23 Patron put evil curse on cat (8) 28 Dog about square (6) DOWN 1 Charity clothing on duke is nuts (7) 2 Worker supports first man in firm (7) Ludlow is greatly appreciated by the people that live in the town, the many tourists, and also an awful lot of famous names have come up and said that this is a wonderful place to be. And it seems to me to be a terrible shame that it is so badly littered, not just in the town but on the edges of the town too. It’s a national scandal, as far as I am concerned. I know that in other parts of the country (I think it is Ormskirk) they’ve policed littering now, which they make money out of... so it works: it’s self-funding; the place is tidy; people don’t drop litter and they’re filling the council coffers. The whole business of litter is just waste, literally waste. The collection of it and cleaning up of it is wholly unnecessary. I have attended many meetings over the years with the Ludlow Council where I keep saying it over and over again: and they say: yes, yes, yes, we’ll look into this. And, of course, dog fouling is another issue. But nothing happens. I just feel that, maybe, if it was in a headline or in a local paper that people might just rise to the occasion and there might be more support. In the meantime I clean my street of litter. I’m not trying to score points, as it’s effortless, takes me only half an hour, and is a bit of fun.

3 Drink in time being? Forget it! (2,6) 4 Communist shot back at paper (3-3) 5 Suppose top post requires CV? (7) 8 Hiccup, and learner in GTi crashed beside church (6) 9 Group in road by chip man, on a Sunday? (10) 12 Susan cares about promises (10) 17 Model one on stone surround? It’s for you to choose (8) 18 When quiet, stop in road? (7) 19 Necessary number of queen’s men jump inside (6) 20 Mariner Mark’s refrain (7) 21 Steer badly in city, seeing bird (7) 23 Primate to call Father on return (6) It’s rather petty really, when you think of the trouble and strife in the world: switch on the news and it’s pretty grim, the world over, really. So what I’m talking about is nothing. But, it’s costing a lot – this ‘nothing’ – because this ‘nothing’ shouldn’t be happening in the first place... a total waste from start to finish, in every sense of the word. Michael ‘Ziggy’ Jackson, Ludlow ------------------------------------------------HELLO this is Jo Cassidy formally of Jo and Co. I noticed (in your Ludlow Ledger No7 article) that you wanted to know where the members of my group are now. I can only speak for myself as I don’t really know where the other girls are. We used to sing in assemblies at school and sang in Bitburg, Germany – it was great fun. I’ve since recorded three solo albums. I now live and sing five nights a week on Golf del Sur in the south of Tenerife – singing anything from 40s to present day. Our Facebook page is ‘Jo Cassidy’s Top Square’ page. Away from singing I achieved an Avionics diploma specifically in relation to Boeing 747s, which was a bit different. Jo Cassidy nee Banks, Tenerife

Putting a few things right

Bennetts End revisited text} Gloria Massey

– IN RESPONSE – I was intrigued to say the least to read the Bennetts End article on page 4 of Ludlow Ledger, issue 7. As Sid and I are the only remaining two of the original family who ran the Bennetts End, I wanted to put the record straight. This is just a potted history of course, but: Bennett End began at the beginning of the Sixties, when Astley PastonCooper bought the pub for Belinda my sister-in law. They started off doing bread and cheese, and sandwiches. Then they became busy, so Gwen and Harry Massey (Belinda’s parents) came to join them, and then Sid and myself – a family partnership of six. Sid and Astley (our brotherin-law) ran the lounge bar, Harry the public bar, and I ran the restaurant. We had an à la carte menu, a comprehensive wine list and did hot snacks, steak sandwiches, chicken and chips and so on. The cheese bar had about 20 different cheeses and the Merrydown Wine Company of Sussex supplied the complete range of country wines for the cheese and wine parties. We also catered for weddings and birthday parties. Many people from the local business community in Ludlow and the surrounding area came, including instructors from Nash Court Engineers, who worked at the radar station, the local racing stable and motoring clubs (it is true, many celebrities did come to the pub) and we also had a thriving bowling club. In the restaurant we had a baby grand piano and, regularly, someone to play it, and we used to have a singa-long in the public bar. On Sunday evenings customers would be sat in their cars in the car park, or in the garden, waiting for us to open. At Christmas time and on New Year’s Eve all our loyal customers joined us in the festivities. Our lives were very varied and we all worked hard and long to put Bennetts End on the map. Back in the Sixties we were the only pub in the area to cook every day and the first to have a cheese and wine bar. Much later Astley decided to return to his profession as a pilot and he obtained a position in Bahrain, taking his family with him. By this time Sid and I (who then had a daughter, Jane) worked together with Harry and Gwen running the Bennetts End until Astley and his family returned to the UK. Of course, in between we had to deal with the breathalyser and the foot and mouth epidemic... which we survived thanks to all our loyal friends and customers. As you can imagine, we were a large household and we applied for permission to build a house for Gwen and Harry, but this was refused. We became even busier so Sid and l built the Bitter End lounge bar as an ‘extension’ to the Bennetts End. (Sid does not have a brother, as the article suggested). This project was overseen by David Payne & Co who used local labour where possible and Astley, of course, knew exactly what was being built (contrary to how it has been remembered). Gwen and Harry retired and Belinda did indeed run the Bennetts End after Astley died, with the help of many loyal members of staff. Last but not least: I should like to wish the current landlord of the Bennetts End every success.

Editor-in-Chief Jon Saxon Sub editor Sally Newman-Kidd Photographer Richard Stanton Authors Liz Hyder, Mia Davis, Simon Pease, John Barratt, Jenny James, Brian Thomson, Nicki Lewis-Smith, Peter Burden, Mareen Jennings Crossword John Jarvis Cartoon Roger Penwill 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

DARK HORSE – It’s not every day that I feel compelled to describe something that I sat and watched in Ludlow, but on June 16th I headed to Ludlow Assembly Rooms for the showing of the documentary Dark Horse. It’s a truly remarkable story that starts one evening in 2000 when barmaid Jan Vokes overhears a regular at Cefn Fforest’s Top Club working men’s club reminisce about owning a share of a racehorse. Jan, who’d previously bred show whippets and racing pigeons, convinces her husband Brian (a former coal deliveryman and nightclub bouncer) that, together, they should purchase a £300 thoroughbred mare called Rewbell (the worst racehorse in Wales) and an ageing American stallion called Bien Bien (for around £3,000). The pairing resulted in a foal, which they raised on a rented council allotment next to the rugby club, whilst a sign went up in Top Club: “Want to back a horse? Speak to Jan at the bar”. Convincing a handful of locals (including a steel worker, a retired crane driver, and a pensioner) to part with £10 a week, the Dream Alliance syndicate was born, whilst Jan spent six mornings a week at Asda cleaning tills, and her weekends behind the bar, to help cover the weekly £315 to train their horse. In 2008 Dream Alliance entered Aintree (the race before the Grand National) as the favourite, until a part of a fence, kicked back by the horse in front, damaged a tendon and forced Dream Alliance to be held up. The syndicate promptly poured their £20,000 winnings back into their horse – embarking on high-risk, revolutionary, stem cell surgery. Incredibly the working-class horse, from one of the poorest mining villages in South Wales, responded. Dream Alliance was not only nurtured back to good health in 18 months but also back to the start line where, against all the odds, in one of his first races following surgery (ranked as a 40-1 no-hope outsider in the 2009 Welsh Grand National, Chepstow) he won.

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

LICENSING ACT 2003

PUBLIC NOTICE

thebinderyshop.co.uk • 5 Bull Ring • Ludlow

I do herby give notice that I (Jon Saxon T/A Son of Saxon) have applied to the Licensing Authority at Shropshire Council for a Premises Licence at 14 Corve Street, Ludlow, SY8 1DA. The application is to license the ground floor rear kitchen and front lounge of 14 Corve Street as a parlour pub, for the supply of alcohol between the hours of 12:00 and 22:00 within the opening hours of 12:00 and 22:00.

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Any persons wishing to make comments must do so in writing to the Licensing Team, Shropshire Council, Shirehall, Abbey Foregate, Shrewsbury, SY2 6ND or by email to licensing@ shropshire.gov.uk by no later than July 31st 2015. Representations received after this date will not be considered.

A copy of the application can be viewed during normal office hours at the above address (shropshire.gov.uk). It is an offence, under Section 158 of the Licensing Act 2003, knowingly or recklessly to make a false statement in connection with an application and the maximum fine for which a person is liable on summary conviction for the offence is up to Level 5 on the standard scale (£5000).

Did you know Philip co-founded Ottakar’s?

Philip Dunne: more than just our MP text} Peter Burden | image} Simon Devey – MEET & GREET – Two months ago, Philip Dunne was elected for his third term as Member of Parliament for Ludlow, with 54.3 per cent of the vote (up 9.3 per cent since he was first elected ten years ago). We’re used to seeing him around the town, as well as in endless photos in the local press, engaged in a remarkable range of activities – stoking the firebox of a steam engine at Bridgnorth one week, crouching beside the Horseshoe Weir in Ludlow the next; cutting a turf on the site of the new Landrover showroom, visiting Ludlow’s Royal Mail sorting office (and not just to pick up a parcel without a stamp), witnessing a debate about youthful suffrage at Ludlow School, or whooping it up with a Chelsea Pensioner. He looks like a very busy man – presumably even busier now he is Minister of State for Defence Procurement, overseeing what Britain spends on supplying our armed forces with everything from boots to bombs. Nevertheless he insists that, despite these increased responsibilities, he won’t be letting his constituents, or their problems and aspirations, slip down his priority list. For, although Philip is a thoroughly political animal – he tells me that ever since the notion of being an MP figured among his youthful ambitions, he only ever wanted to represent one of two constituencies: Ludlow or Leominster. His family home, Gatley Park, where he’s lived since he was nine months old, sits close to the border between the two. The Dunnes (originally Dwn – a Welsh family) have lived there since 1679, and Philip’s father (Thomas Dunne) and mother moved there in 1959, when Thomas took over the running of the family farm. Philip grew up there, with his sister and brother, and Ludlow was their nearest town, where their mother took them for shopping and treats.

“One of my earlier memories of the town is sitting in the inner bailey of the Castle, in my school shorts, watching a Shakespeare play,” he says. “It had a vivid impact on me, and I think it’s tremendously sad that after 50 years, the tradition of the annual Shakespeare has come to an end. I really hope someone is able to revive it.” He also remembers that other Ludlow summer tradition – the May Fair – and he feels that, despite the perennial complaints from more recent residents, it should be allowed to continue. “It’s only three or four days after all. It would be helpful,” he suggests, “if estate agents would warn prospective house buyers about it, so they’d be prepared for it. In any event,” he says, “a lot of people enjoy it.” He went to school at St Mary’s, Rochford, near Tenbury, before going on to Abberley Hall, and all his childhood was spent getting to know and love the Marcher country. At 13 he went away to Eton, and then to Keble College, Oxford to study Philosophy, Politics and Economics – a favourite multi-discipline amongst those with thoughts of a future in politics, public life or serious journalism. Philip’s interest in politics must be in his DNA – three of his recent forebears were MPs: his great grandfather (Edward Marten Dunne) was Liberal Member for Walsall from 1906 to 1910; his grandfather (Philip Russell Dunne) was Conservative MP for Stalybridge and Hyde in Cheshire, in 1935 to 1937; his mother’s uncle, Aidan Crawley (a subsequent founder and the first editor of ITN), became Labour MP for Buckingham in the 1945 post-war Labour landslide. “Sensibly,” adds Philip, “he crossed the floor and won West Derbyshire for the Tories in 1962.” Thus, Philip has links to all three significant political parties in his genes. He enjoyed his time at university, where he came across future politicians of all sorts, but also wasn’t averse to a

little student triviality, either – rather in the spirit of Evelyn Waugh’s 1920s Oxford, he found himself a member of the Bullingdon Club, an institution notorious for nothing more serious than excessive libation and a little collateral damage. It has since, rather fatuously, been embellished by some tabloid papers when it was discovered that Boris Johnson and the Prime Minister had also been members. And Philip doesn’t regret his Bullingdon membership: “Most people do a few silly things when they’re at university.” Philip left university with the knowledge that his father intended to carry on running the family farm for a good while longer, and he would have to look elsewhere for a living. His political aspirations hadn’t diminished (he had been involved in campaigning since he was 16) but he thought it would be practical to gain some experience in the real world (in this case, the City of London) before fighting a seat. The job he found was with the highly respected merchant bankers, S G Warburg, for whom he was an adviser in London and New York for eight years. In 1987, at the age of 29, in parallel with his banking career, he and a friend (James Heneage) co-founded Ottakar’s, a chain of popular, userfriendly bookshops which opened in smaller towns, and allowed the branches to buy what their customers wanted. This led to a rapid expansion to nearly 150 branches and Philip placed himself at the sharp end of the business, personally guaranteeing the rent on the first shop – a sum about equivalent to a year’s salary. After 18 years (ending as chairman) he was unable to fight off a take-over by retail giants HMV, who had already absorbed the Waterstones chain. His experience at Ottakar’s gave him a thorough, practical knowledge of retailing – so how he feels about big national chains moving into Ludlow? “Of course, it’s important for Ludlow to retain strong independent shops, but the arrival of a few multiples is always going to be hard to fight. The thing to remember is that most multiples want a minimum of 2,000 square feet, and there are few units that size in Ludlow. And trying to develop new sites on the edge of town, like the supermarket proposed last year, isn’t going to help anyone. To preserve the distinctiveness of the town’s independent shops and restaurants is a matter of the businesses getting together and promoting themselves, which is exactly how the Food Festival came about and

helped to establish Ludlow’s gastro reputation.” I take this cue to ask Philip where he likes to eat in Ludlow – probably an unfair question for the town’s MP. He doesn’t have much time to dine out, he says, “But I’ve had some terrific lunches at the Cicchetti Bar, just across the road from my office in Broad Street.” When, in 2000, a takeover of the bank he then worked for led to his redundancy, he set about pursuing his political ambitions by being elected to South Shropshire District Council in 2001. That year he watched the Liberals win Ludlow in the General Election. “They had a very good candidate,” he concedes, “and we were in disarray.” He was subsequently adopted as the Conservative Parliamentary candidate, and won the seat back at his first attempt in 2005. These days, it seems, no political profile can ignore the subject’s favourite football team. I ask Philip him if he supports West Ham (like the Prime Minister), but he’s honest about it. “I’m not particularly interested in football, but as a kid, when one had to show support for someone, I noticed that the right back for Manchester United was called Tony Dunne and I developed a bit of empathy for them as a result. I didn’t play Rugby at school, but I do enjoy the big internationals,

and, of course, I’m very proud of the Bridgnorth XV getting as far as the finals of the RFU Intermediate Cup at Twickenham this year, for the first time in their history.” Philip’s taste in music reflects the 1970s of his teenage years and his time living in the States. There he developed a taste for Bruce Springsteen whom he saw live a few times. He also, he says, enjoys the opera (when he doesn’t fall asleep) and he’s taken a lot of interest in Ludlow’s Assembly Rooms. When he was sitting on Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee, a man from Ofcom came to talk about the process of streaming live theatrical productions to large provincial cinemas. At that stage, though, there was no budget for smaller rural venues, so he took the initiative to have funds allocated for streaming to places like Ludlow, and with a big local fundraising effort, the Assembly Rooms digital projector came about. It is said, by constituents of all political hues, that Philip takes a lot of trouble to make himself available to his constituents, and anyone who has sought his attention would probably confirm that. But don’t attempt to get him on a Sunday, which he insists that he devotes to his family at home, his wife Domenica and their four children.

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Securing St Laurence’s - Serving the Community

July 2015

Warm, Light and Watertight! In 2008 St Laurence’s set out on a bold journey to repair and open up its building for the benefit of the community. Seven years later a great deal of progress has been made, the building is no longer dark and cold, and precious historic artefacts have been secured. This newsletter tells you something of what we have achieved and our plans for the future to carry forward our vision that St Laurence’s can once again play its part at the heart of our town. We managed to secure around £800k in grants and gifts to complete this important work, and we are very grateful for all those who have supported us. For 800 years this great building has stood at the heart of our market town, bearing witness in times of joy and of sorrow. The parish church is a living breathing building, not a museum of artefacts, and in each generation it has continued to develop and change to meet the needs of the town. We have been working hard to plan for the future and you can find more information on page 2 about how we intend to improve the building dramatically, so that it can continue to serve Ludlow for generations to come. St Laurence’s is a place of the people, woven into the history of this country. For hundreds of years we have celebrated and marked important occasions in our parishioners’ lives from birth, to marriage and commemoration of those we have loved; the stones live and breathe the tales of the town.

‘The Largest Umbrella’ in Town A new interim boiler plant and new lighting has meant that the building can be used by more people for a wider range of activities – a picture paints a thousand words and the series of pictures above shows some of the ways in which the building is used: toddlers’ play groups, concerts, bazaars and exhibitions, and in the coming years we hope to develop new ways in which

A picture is worth a thousand words - a busy church

the building can be used. Many people refer to us as the largest umbrella in town. More recently we hosted two Radio 3 broadcasts as part of the English Song Weekend, and our recently developed new music festival continues to encourage high-quality music-making in South Shropshire. In recent years we have hosted Young at Art, displaying the artistic talents of young people across Ludlow, and in coming months we will be hosting an exhibition in support of Haiti. For the last two years we have even hosted the Bodenhams’ Fashion show. Each year we welcome over 65,000 visitors through our doors. They come from all over the globe and bring a significant contribution to the economy of the town and, in recent years, we have worked very hard to improve the visitor experience. You can find out more on page 3 about how we have improved our welcome. Did you know that we have free Wi-Fi?

You Can Help Us We are open 365 days a year, 10am – 5pm, with over 100,000 pairs of feet crossing the threshold. Maintaining one of England’s largest churches is no easy feat. Over 100 volunteers help to welcome visitors, staff the shop, clean, flower arrange, help with administration and provide music at public worship.

It costs around £1,000 per day to run the church; this is a difficult challenge for us to meet and we are grateful to all of those who give of their time and money to support our work. There are a variety of ways in which you could help us, by offering your skills, some time, making a regular gift and even remembering the parish church in your will.

A Bright Future Our longer term plans are described on page 3, but we know that we need to continue to make progress and increase community use. In the coming months we are planning to remove the pews in the south aisle, create level floors in both the north and south aisles and clear the south transept. This work will release much needed, large-scale spaces so that we can meet the needs of those who wish to use the building. We’ve already got plans for more large-scale art exhibitions and have been talking with drama dance groups about using space more creatively for performances. We want to go even further and are exploring initiatives such as: offering local charities the opportunity to host coffee mornings in the north aisle; hosting networking breakfasts for town traders and businesses, and hosting a regular community lunch.

Farewell and Best Wishes Colin In 2010 we welcomed our new Rector, the Venerable Colin Williams, with great joy and, sadly for us, it is now time for him to move on. However, we are pleased to announce that Colin has been appointed to an important post in the Diocese of Europe - as Archdeacon of Germany, Northern Europe and the East. Ludlow shares in his honour, we send him to this new and challenging role with our love, prayers and best wishes. “I will miss Ludlow greatly, I go from Ludlow with a sense that this is a vibrant town and church with people willing to serve their community, I wish you every blessing as you continue to seek and serve this beautiful place.”

Facebook & TripAdvisor: The Parish Church of St Laurences Ludlow

A Greener Church is a Better Church The Church of England’s policy is to use green energy to help reduce 80% of its CO2 footprint by 2020. In Ludlow we think it is really important that we set a good example, so we have worked with Ludlow 21 to develop a solution which will have a number of benefits, including less impact on the environment, reduced fuel costs, and can provide an income that will help reduce the running costs (thereby allowing more people access to the building at a lower cost).

Let There Be Light We have already changed all the lighting in the church (around 130 bulbs and fittings) to LED, representing a CO2 reduction of about 40 tonnes per year. This project was carried out using donations from the congregation and our local community; we raised a total of £25,000.

Carbon Neutral? The lighting project has shown a clear way forward and we believe that we can reduce our carbon emissions to nearly zero by continuing to improve our renewable energy usage. Two major projects are in the process of being planned – biomass/wood pellet heating of the church, and PV cells on the roof for an electricity-generation scheme. These are designed to have minimum impact on historic fabric of the church whilst making the best possible use that the church structure and location can offer.

One of the Biggest Roofs in Ludlow - 1,200m2 St Laurence’s church has a big roof space, much of which is hidden from view, could trap a lot of sunlight and is perfect for the installation of solar panels to generate electricity. The scheme consists of around 200 PV panels, placed in groups on the various south-facing roofs of the church, with the aim of avoiding the shading effects of the tower and pinnacles whilst also achieving zero visibility. The panels are a dark slate blue, barely noticeable against the general weathered, lead-sheet background of the roof, and they are fixed on sloped black-plastic mounts which are, in turn, ballasted with concrete paving slabs. The lead sheet can continue to expand and contract under these mounts and there is no fixing to or penetration of the roof material. The panels will generate around 45kW of electricity and create an income to help maintain the church.

Our Vision for St Laurence’s The first time we brought our baby daughter Cordelia to St Laurence’s, aged just 10 days old, we also celebrated the birthday of another member of the congregation, who had just turned 100. It was wonderful to mark the span of life that exists in the family of St Laurence’s. The Church is very good at celebrating and thanking God for the special moments in life. My family has been fortunate to celebrate a number of these milestones at St Laurence’s in recent years – my husband’s confirmation, our wedding, and the birth and baptism of our daughter – and we have been able to do so in a beautiful building that is warm, dry and well-lit.

Can You Help Us? Behind the scenes is a core group of people, working on behalf of the Church Council to deliver the Vision for St Laurence’s. In 2014 alone over 1,500 hours of volunteer service was provided. Tasks included: historical research, funding research, making funding applications, project research, administration and fundraising. Over the past seven years the team has been working hard to complete a series of surveys which we have christened the Domesday Book. This work records the condition and significance of the heritage within the church; the building and its contents; glass, timber, musical instruments, paintings, textiles, monuments etc.

Heating the Largest Public Building in Ludlow

We are grateful to the many organisations that have funded reports, including the Conservation Trust, Ludlow Civic Society and the Church Buildings Council.

Our old cast-iron boiler was very inefficient: only £450 of heat was transferred into the building for every £1,000 of gas that was bought. Consequently, we could barely afford to run it, the church was very cold and we needed to do something urgently. Again, we have been very grateful for the generosity of members of our congregation and the local community - nearly £40,000 was raised to install an interim, high-efficiency gas boiler plant. This plant is controlled by a clever computer which monitors the weather and knows just how much energy to pump into the building each morning to keep it at a constant temperature. In short, this has visibly transformed the lives of all who use and visit the church - it is no longer normal to see people wearing thick winter coats and shivering with the cold.

We always need more help, perhaps you could offer skills? Drop us a line: vision@stlaurences.org.uk

You Can Now Donate by Text Why not consider making a regular monthly donation by standing order to help support our work in the community. Contact us for details.

TEXT STLL22 £3 STLL22 £5 STLL22 £10 to 70070

The Vision means that these and many other defining moments can continue to be celebrated in the glorious surroundings of St Laurence’s by the wider Ludlow community. That is one of the reasons why I joined the church council and support the Vision team, using my skills as a professional fundraiser. I want to help ensure that this important building is still viable and at the heart of the community for centuries to come, so that future generations can enjoy what we have had the privilege to enjoy: to praise God and celebrate the special moments in life.

It’s a good start but we need to go further than this (gas is a fossil fuel and we use 50 tonnes of carbon per winter – that’s £13,000 worth of gas), so we have explored a lot of different avenues and have developed plans with a Ludlow company, Solid Future, to install a biomass plant that will burn wood pellets. Almost all wood pellets are made of clean wood by-products (ie sawmill offcuts, sawdust etc) or from virgin wood material (typically the first thinnings from good forestry management), not from waste products, and ours will come from local suppliers. Biomass boilers have a seasonal efficiency of 85% which compares favourably to modern gas condensing boilers (powered by gas), which have a seasonal efficiency of around 90%. We expect to reduce our CO2 output from around 50 tonnes per annum to around 6.

Interested in history? Want to learn more about St Laurence’s? Free guided tour every Saturday, 2.30pm

A Vision For Greater Community Use urgent work within the next five years, and it is estimated that this alone will cost £1.5 million. There is also work to do on the famous misericords and timber screens. All of this work will only be possible with the help of major investment from funders, such as the Heritage Lottery Fund.

For hundreds of years St Laurence’s has stood at the heart of Ludlow, a place where people have met and found sanctuary. In recent years the church has been used for concerts and other successful community activities but, in 2007, it became clear that a master plan was needed to enable greater use of the church by the wider community. Following lengthy consultations about the needs of the community, the Church appointed Andrew Arrol (architect to York Minster) to create a plan that would enable more people to use and enjoy the incredible space.

In late 2014 we secured ‘in principle’ support (subject to detailed planning consents) from the church authorities and English Heritage. Changing one of England’s most famous churches requires careful planning, and this amber light represents a major step forward. For some this dramatic change will be not be easy to accept, many major churches across the UK have taken similar paths and we feel strongly that, without major intervention on this scale, our church would be unsustainable.

The nave has always been the people’s space, changing through history to reflect the needs of the age. Pictured below, our plan shows how the building could be opened up to accommodate a wider range of activities: art exhibitions, drama and perhaps, even, part of the Food Festival.

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Open up the nave and aisles by removal of fixed seating

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Retain a small number of pews at the west end to create a baptistery

Provide new, flexible seating, which can be easily stored

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Create a new, permanent stage area under the tower

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Create a new, larger kitchen and four toilets in the north transept, under the organ

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Create an open and flexible space in the south transept for meetings/education space etc

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Create a new self-contained shop in the south-west corner

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Create a mezzanine level above the shop for meetings/ education space etc

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Provide a new stone floor throughout the nave

This would create a large flexible space, a movable invisible threshold under the tower, allowing the sacred and secular to move

So let’s take a closer look at the plan. The main points are to:

Over the last seven years we have completed a great deal of urgent conservation, but there is still more to do, if we are to secure the treasures of this place for future generations. The stained glass at the east end of the church (a collection unique in the UK) needs

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boundaries and mix as necessary.

Want more detail? Go to: www.stlaurences.org.uk/vision

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Key: 1. Nave seating: normally for up to 200 2. Baptistery 3. Ground floor: shop, First floor: flexible space 4. Children’s area 5. Dais: services or performances 6. North transept: kitchen and toilets

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New Bishop of Hereford Lends His Support In May of this year I had the pleasure spending two days in Ludlow meeting a wide variety of people in the town, at the successful toddlers groups based in St Laurence’s, the Foyer, meeting leaders of your community over lunch and on Sunday leading the worship in church and on the dodgems surely a unique experience. It is clear that people love and cherish St Laurence’s – a building so important to the life of the church in the diocese. I am pleased to lend my wholehearted support to this important work, as you continue to reach out to those in need, those in your community. This is clearly a live building, not just a museum of things past, but a community looking to embrace the future. I’d to also express my thanks to Colin for his ministry in Ludlow, and wish him every blessing in his new ministry in the Diocese of Europe.

7. South transept: flexible space 8. Biomass plant, fuel storage and stage store 9. Parvis room: flexible space 10. Ramps and steps to chancel NB Two chapels and the chancel remain unchanged

Improving the Visitor Experience Did you know that we receive over 65,000 visitors each year? We are one of the most popular free visitor attractions in the West Midlands and we have won a TripAdvisor certificate of excellence for the last three years running. Visitors are very important to us as they help us spread the word about what makes St Laurence’s special, not only as a place of heritage importance but also a community hub. In recent years we have worked hard to improve the visitor experience, and this work has been supported by local organisations such as Ludlow Historical Research Group, the Ludlow Lectures and private individuals, all of whom have given generously to specific projects. We have provided new: •

Signage and interpretation boards

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Donations boxes

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Audio guide ViewPoynt

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Wi-Fi access

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Publications: guide book, misericords, stained glass, foreign language guides

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Visitor leaflet

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Postcards

These give the visitors greater engagement with our heritage and also help raise much needed funds.

VISION: “The ability to think about or plan the future with imagination or wisdom” Oxford English Dictionary

The Power of Music... For over five hundred years music has played a vital role in the life of St Laurence’s, ever since the first choir of six boys was founded in 1492. Today we have a thriving choir that sings each week, and can also be heard at major events in the town’s life: Christmas Carol services, Remembrance Day, the Procession to the Rotary Tree of Light, Summer Arts Festival and at weddings and funerals. Giving children a musical chance in life is really important to us. Each week young choristers receive musical training that will give them a skill for life – some have gone on to successful careers in music. This year we have created a new junior singing group for children aged 5—8 years old; they meet on a Thursday at 5pm and, for 30 minutes, enjoy learning to use their voices and play musical games. There are also opportunities for children and young people aged 8+, the junior church choir meets on Thursday at 5.30pm till 7pm, with refreshments served in the middle of the practice to keep hunger at bay.

Exciting Plans to Restore Historic Clock and Carillon St Laurence’s has had a clock and carillon for many hundreds of years. Sadly, in the 1980s the mechanical movements were removed from the tower and the daily tunes are now played by electro mechanical hammers on the 13 bells which are

Where There’s a Will, There’s a Way 2015 Legacy Campaign Most of us would like to be certain that, after our death, our money and property will be given to the people we wish to help. You can help St Laurence’s Church, Ludlow by remembering us in your Will, thereby playing a part in securing and maintaining the church for future generations.

housed in the tower. The mechanical movements have been displayed in the church since they were removed from the tower and visitors are drawn to the historic clock and the carillon – so we’ve been putting our thinking hats on: why not restore both movements at ground floor level, with a set of miniature bells?

Do you know a child that would enjoy singing with us? Come along one Thursday and meet the team.

The picture below illustrates what they could look like: the carillon at ground level, the clock above it and the eight small bells above that. The mechanism could then ring at 10am, 12noon, 2pm, 4pm enabling the thousands of visitors to see them and understand how they work. Architect James Wade inspects new pinnacle How can I make a difference? - Leaving a legacy will help us to secure the future of St Laurence’s. The best way to achieve this is to seek a solicitor’s advice, and to leave clear legal instructions in the form of a Will. Your Will can be changed at any time, either by making a new one, or by recording the alterations in a Codicil.

As part of the Summer Arts Festival, 320 school children from 9 schools enjoyed a fun and fascinating workshop about the historic Snetzler organ and its 3,500 pipes.

Depending on your particular circumstances, inheritance tax may be payable on your assets when you die. There are various ways in which it is possible to reduce the amount of this tax that may have to be paid, one of which is to leave a gift in your Will to a charity. Such a gift is exempt from inheritance tax, thus enabling your entire gift to make its way to the intended charity. The tunes are mentioned in A E Housman’s A Shropshire Lad and 2016 marks the anniversary of the manufacture of the clock and carillon, as well as the publication of Housman’s set of poems. We’re now exploring whether we can secure funding from the Heritage Lottery Fund to make this exciting idea a reality.

Peter and the Wolf - Educational Outreach Shaun Ward and Gemma King showed the children how the organ worked (including playing Happy Birthday on a small set of pipes), and there was an animation explaining how a new organ was built for Birmingham Symphony Hall. John Challis and Hereford Cathedral’s organist Peter Dyke then performed Peter and Wolf by Sergei Prokofiev. All part of our exciting education programme to introduce the young people of Ludlow to their church and its unique historic treasures.

Or come you home of Monday When Ludlow market hums

A gift may be made either to the St Laurence’s Church (Ludlow PCC) or to the Conservation Trust for St Laurence, Ludlow.

A Gift in Your Lifetime In recent years we have received gifts from individuals, ranging from a major contribution to the heating project, to new donation boxes and new music for the choir. If you are interested in making a gift do contact us to discuss what opportunities there are.

And Ludlow chimes are playing “The conquering hero comes.”

Pinnacle For Sale A unique chance to purchase a historic part of the parish church. This large pinnacle was removed during recent restoration work. All sensible offers considered. Needs rebuilding.

For more information, scan the code and view the St Laurence’s choir video:

What a garden feature.

Enjoy History? Download our Audio Tour... We’ve recently developed a new audio tour which you can download, for Android or Apple. This detailed tour is great value with pictures and bonus tracks of the organ, choir and bells - you can use it learn about the church prior to a visit, use it while you walk around the church and then listen to it again when you get home.

Just text the word ‘4tour’ to 88802 - there is also free Wi-Fi in the church

Vision Project No 2 College Street Ludlow, SY8 1AN vision@stlaurences.org.uk 05602 092043

Light the Famous Tower of St Laurence’s - Remember a special occasion or a loved one Call into our shop for more details.

Tubs, shoes and baskets

Renaissance Centre

Ludlow has gone potty text} Nicki Lewis-Smith

– GARDENING – I’ve just been sitting in our pintsized garden. Swifts were doing their acrobatics above me and cutting through the sky with knife edge precision, a blackbird was having a thorough bath at the pebbly end of our tiny pond, and along with twittering sparrows and the creaky old Elder tree, the only other sound was the bass-line drone (and occasional cough) of at least one lawn mower. Ah, summer. This year we’re not the guilty ones when it comes to breaking up a peaceful weekend as we have given away our lawn mower – not much use when you don’t have a lawn. Nope, we’re all pebbles and pots here with an abundance of all things green and growing. But now I’m wondering if it’s actually easier to mow a lawn and disturb the neighbours or to water what must be nearly 3.5 million pots (give or take a few). So, what’s the consensus – pots or grass? Pots come in a mixture of sizes, colours and materials and can sport a whole botanical selection of goodies – from beans to birch trees, dogwoods to dahlias – and then there’s grass ... well, it’s grass and it’s green. I have heard complaints that Ludlow doesn’t have enough ‘green’ spaces. Considering that it’s a medieval town, it’s hardly surprising. But if you have a proper look around you’ll see that, over the years, places like the Millennium Green have appeared ... and so have masses of pots. When did Ludlow decide to go so potty? It seems that all over town, tucked against walls and on window sills, spanning pavements and adorning shop fronts, there are pots. They just appear – wooden planters with trees, formal square pots with immaculate topiary, shabby pots, fun pots, over-flowing pots. And if there’s no room on the pavement then they’re above us in the guise of some pretty spectacular hanging baskets. There’s probably no limit as to what can be construed as a ‘pot’. It’s just a receptacle that you can use to plant a few flowers in. I have two pairs of old work boots which now spew out sempervirens and corsican mint; a friend plants up dainty bone china cups with ‘the plant of the moment’, and let’s not forget empty catering cans painted in bright colours and stuffed with summer flowers. Of course, if you’re stuck for ideas, just a quick breeze through the internet will inspire you with glow-in-the-dark pots, moss-covered pots and chimney pots, colanders, car tyres, buckets and baskets. Closer to home, take a quick, or not so quick, stroll down Lower Broad Street and you will find all manner of amazing tubs and containers – each consisting of an eclectic mix of vegetables, flowers and trees. Back in my own pint-sized garden I find that we are collecting an equally diverse range of containers – but is it because I am a garden designer that, in some of them, the planting is quite suave with harmonising colours and textures? And, if that’s the case, then why are some of them a bit mad... Don’t answer that. ------------------------------------------------Nicki is an award winning garden designer and consultant, based here in Ludlow: for all of her contact details please view Nicki’s advertisement on page 20 of this issue.

Antique & Modern Pre-Loved Furniture Hundreds of Paperbacks & Rare Books Also be sure to visit the Flea Market next door!

Find us at 7-8 Tower Street, Ludlow Open Monday-Saturday 9:30am-5pm Supporting the Furniture Scheme www.furniturescheme.co.uk Charity No. 1082068

Company No. 4041051

Brian begs the question: what and why?

Boats, buses and Parisian organs text and image} Brian Thomson – OUT & ABOUT – Driving around south Shropshire, you can see some unusual items which cause you to think what and why? At Onibury, where the railway tracks cross the A49 (just north of Ludlow) stands a house and outbuildings which contain almost a museum of days gone by transport. Easily visible are three post-war buses, but not so easily seen are a Scammell towing tug, and a wooden ‘Showmasters’ wagon. Steve Byrne, resident, owner, and mechanic/painter/upholsterer, took some time away from his workshop to show me around. He explained that the Showmaster wagon would have been used as an office, sleeping accommodation and eating area for the boss of travelling fairs and circuses. The interior is panelled in wood and has a really cosy atmosphere. The mighty Scammell was originally the towing unit to an oil tanker, with a traction power of 90 tons. Steve has painted on the name ‘Sir Galahad’ in gold with a maroon background. “I am really keen on post-war buses and often taken them out on the road. We took this one (a 1950 Dennis Lancet in East Kent livery) out to a supermarket in Ludlow – that caused quite a stir. It is also difficult to drive, in that it has no power steering and a ‘clash gearbox,’ which entails a lot of heavy footwork on the clutch.” Parked next to it is a red, doubledecker, 1954 Foden, which was last used in Warrington; this bus is due for extensive refurbishment to the seating. Another vehicle is a 1948 Foden (bodywork by Plaxton) which was found in Evesham. It’s rather unusual in that it has only ten very well upholstered passenger seats, instead of the normal 32, with the rear half of the bus partitioned off into a sleeping area, complete with double bed. The original owner was a private company, Bullocks of Cheadle. Adorning the walls of his

workshops are many posters, placards and signboards advertising services and products that relate to the bus industry – such as: ‘Send your parcels with us – The Aldershot Bus Company’ and ‘Bus Stop for East Kent coaches’. Steve is also refurbishing a 1962 Morris Minor van, which he says will be up and running later this year and will be used for the family; it’s about 50 per cent complete with the rear panelling and front seats to be fitted. Far away from Steve’s hobby of buses is a French 45-key music organ in working order. The makers are Limonaire Freres, 166 Avenue Daumesnil, Paris and established in 1840, whose name are shown on the wooden framework with the appendage ‘Manufacturers of Pianos and Orchestraphones’ – “I got it from a museum that was closing down. I don’t intend to sell it, I just like to have it around.” Equally curious – at the village of Middleton on the B4364 Ludlow to Bridgnorth road, on the grass verge and propped up on supporting timbers, is a large unpainted wooden boat. The owner Mr John Whitehead (a carpenter by trade) told me that the boat is a Bermudan Rigger and named the Pukaki, after a New Zealand wading bird. Built in Littlehampton in 1947 she is single-masted and equipped with four berths, with an overall length of 32 feet and fitted with a diesel engine for auxiliary power. Mr Whitehead said that he believed that the Pukaki had gone as far as the Azores in the North Atlantic, which certainly makes it an ocean-going craft. But why is she here, far away from any navigable river, canal or the sea? ... “I bought her about 15 years ago, with the intention of a complete refurbishment, but I never got around to it and now she has been sold on to a new owner.”

52 MILL STREET, LUDLOW www.blueboarludlow.co.uk

Castle Bookshop

Stanton Stephens’ Castle Square tale text} Liz Hyder | image} Richard Stanton – PROFILE – Castle Bookshop on Ludlow’s main market square is a familiar presence in the town. Every year thousands of shoppers and browsers are welcomed in by Stanton Stephens and his team, who can offer advice and tips on everything from the latest fiction to the best local history books and Young Adult (YA) novels. Now the oldest independent bookshop in Shropshire, this little gem of a place offers a range of stationery, artists’ materials and cards, as well as books. It’s a profitable mix that reaches back to the very first day the shop opened in 1949. “My family background wasn’t in books at all,” Stanton confides over a cup of tea, “they were all grocers in Ludlow. My dad used to run the shop next door, W S Stephens. At one time, there were three shops in the centre of town all run by my family.” Stanton’s grandfather, from Kington, moved to Ludlow and started the Stephens’ empire in 1916 with a grocery store in Galdeford, where the Co-Op is now. “When my grandfather died, my dad and uncle took over the running of the shop and, in 1952, they opened a cheese shop in the High Street, rather like a modern-day delicatessen. Then, in 1961, they bought the building next door to the bookshop and opened it as a self-service shop, very unusual in those days when you were usually served behind the counter.” Growing up next door to Castle Bookshop helped enforce the young Stanton’s existing love of books and reading. He jokes that, as a boy, when his dad couldn’t find where he was, “he knew I’d just be next door, in the bookshop, reading or talking.” The founders of Castle Bookshop, Mr and Mrs Bell, moved here from London just after the end of World War II. Mr Bell had previously worked in publishing in London and was looking for something a bit different to occupy his time. They found a shop for rent, previously a chemists, and so Ludlow’s beloved bookshop was born. Mr Bell looked after the books and Mrs Bell oversaw the stationery, greetings cards and ‘fancy goods’, a term that Stanton and I agree is much under-used these days. “When I was growing up, I vowed I never wanted to work in a deli or a grocers,” Stanton continues, “I always wanted to work in or run a bookshop. I liked reading books, fiction, history, anything, but my favourite author when I was a child was Malcolm Saville.” The prolific Saville, who wrote numerous series of books, is probably best known today for his Lone Pine series, set mainly in Shropshire. It’s these that Stanton particularly enjoyed and he’s looking forward to Pentabus’s forthcoming summer play inspired by the Lone Pine novels. “It was a strange series of circumstances that led to me working here,” Stanton says conspiratorially, in the manner of an Agatha Christie character. “I went to Leicester to college and....” at this point we’re dramatically interrupted by a spectacularly old-fashioned telephone bell, which Stanton dashes upstairs to answer. I look out at the fantastic view over the Market Square, the hustle and bustle below and think what a great spot this would be to sit and read in. When Stanton returns he reveals, perhaps disappointingly, that it was his tardy timekeeping (running late for the 3pm bus back to Leicester from Ludlow, towards the end of his course) that led to his lifetime in books. A chance meeting with Peter, the son of the famed Mr and Mrs Bell, was the moment that changed his life. “I bumped into Peter, walked into him almost, and was offered a part-time

job in the bookshop – I’d have never started working here if I hadn’t been running late. If I’d caught that earlier bus, I’d simply never have worked here....” That was in 1989, and Stanton soon found that he loved working in the bookshop as much as he’d enjoyed his regular visits as a child. “It wasn’t planned but it suited me down to the ground,” he says. Peter, also known as Clanger (Clanger Bell – geddit?), was “a bit of a character” as Stanton says. “His parents ran a bookshop, so he was sort of seen as being from a strait-laced family, but he was a bit of a rebel. His most famous antic was painting the cannon on the square pink in 1968.” We burst out laughing. “Imagine what a hoo-ha there’d be if someone did that now, let alone back then,” says Stanton with a grin. “The shop in those days was very higgledy piggledy but Peter modernised it, changing the fabric of the shop and making it into one single space,” Stanton continues. I ask him how bookshops have changed over the years and he laughs. “No-one really designed a bookshop until the 1980s. You didn’t lay it out as such, you’d decide to stock Penguin or Collins or whatever publisher you wanted. The publishers would then provide you with the shelves and the books, but they weren’t categorized. You wouldn’t have put books alphabetically in a fiction section but displayed them by publisher.” Stanton credits Tim Waterstone, founder of Waterstones, for changing this but says the biggest change in his time at the bookshop, has been the net book agreement being scrapped in 1994. “Until then, you could only buy books from a bookshop but now you can buy books from supermarkets and lots of other shops. Everyone on the high street sells everything, it’s a much more fluid market now.” In 1997, Peter, barely 50 years old and a relatively young man, died suddenly. The shock reverberated around town. A hugely well-liked figure, Peter was much missed and, inevitably, speculation soon turned to the future of the bookshop. “The shop was put on the market,” says Stanton, “and, very fortunately, my family was in the position to buy it. In 1998, I became the proprietor of Castle Bookshop, just next door to my dad’s old shop. The whole thing has been a complete accident really. Just a series of chances.” All of which led to a rare and rather wonderful outcome – Stanton’s childhood dream of owning a bookshop came true. Bookshops are struggling all over the UK and none more so than independent bookshops, so how exactly does Castle Bookshop survive? “It seems to work well as it is,” muses Stanton. “With bookshops now, you need to have more strings to your bow. We’ve always had stationery and art materials since the day the shop first opened. Most bookshops now have a coffee shop or something similar, but there’s no point doing that in Ludlow with so many good cafés.” Diversification is all part of the key to survival and the Bell family were forward-thinking in setting up a model that still survives today. Castle Bookshop is going against the grain for many independent bookshops in that it’s not just surviving, it’s thriving. “Local books sell really well,” reveals Stanton. “Yes, we do have an elderly clientele, but our fiction sales are pretty high, our arts materials and stationery sell very well too. Cookery and gardening books may have dropped down in terms of sales, but we try and have something a bit different. We do really support local authors and local artists, and I

hope we offer something unique.” But not all is rosy in the world of books. Stanton is niggled, to say the least, about publishers putting up prices for fiction. He cites the new editions of the books by Sharon Penman, for which the paperback price will be nearly £17. “People will start buying more e-books because it’s too expensive to buy paperbacks. It’s an extortionate price for a paperback, but the publishers says it’s because of the quality of paper. We’re what I call a ‘bread and butter’ bookshop and we need books to be everyday objects, they shouldn’t just be Christmas presents or for special occasions.” Not long ago, WH Smiths moved into central Ludlow, not far from Castle Bookshop. Surely that must have affected sales? “Not really,” Stanton says, perhaps surprisingly. “We sort of chug along, after all noone ever becomes a millionaire by running a bookshop.” Whilst Stanton likes to run events and signings from the bookshop, he and his team work closely with both the Assembly Rooms and the Library for events. “We have such a full calendar of events in Ludlow,” he says with glee as he reveals that he’ll be open late when the new Harper Lee novel is released in July, and is planning to sponsor a screening of To Kill A Mockingbird at the Sitting Room. Stanton insists that I credit his small team in this piece. “You have to mention the help I get from the staff I’ve got, they put up with me for a start and they always go the extra mile. Michael’s worked here about the same amount of time as me and is my right hand man; Alma’s been here 18 years and Pete for 12.” Alma and Pete were both recruited by word of mouth which, as Stanton points out “is how most things happen in Ludlow.” I mention how strong the children’s section is (the YA section in particular), and Stanton jumps in. “Alma looks after all that,” he says. “it does very well indeed, both children’s and teenagers’ – it certainly gives hope for the future for books.” A voracious reader, Stanton’s knowledge of books is quite something to behold. He takes anywhere between three nights and a week or two to read a book. “I do dip into a lot of books,” he muses. “A real luxury at the weekend is when I buy all the quality newspapers and read the reviews. The coverage for books is getting smaller but it’s important to know who’s liked what and why.” As a challenge, I used to see if I could come up with some books Stanton hadn’t read but, over nearly five years of trying, I’ve only ever found one – the obscure Chronicles of Prydain by Lloyd Alexander; the next time I popped by he’d read the lot. Needless to say, I haven’t carried on since – I know when to quit. While Stanton bemoans how the idea of a job for life and job security has been “thrown out of the window,” he’s certainly happy with his lot. “I wouldn’t want it any other way. It’s certainly a pleasant life overlooking the square.” As I turn to leave, he tells me that the recent alterations to the front of the shop have revealed some “ghost-like writing from the time when the bookshop was a chemist’s.” When the light catches the windows, the words ‘dark room’ and ‘dispensing chemists’ glint in the sun. “You can’t get rid of an old shop really,” says Stanton, philosophically, “its spirit is still always going to be there underneath.” -------------------------------------------------Contact Castle Bookshop, 5 Castle Square, Ludlow, SY8 1AS – 01584 872562 www.castlebookshopludlow.co.uk castlebookshop@btconnect.com Stanton’s personal top ten reads 1. Secret of the Gorge (Malcolm Saville) 2. The Owl Service (Alan Garner) 3. Tales of the City (Armistead Maupin) 4. Gone to Earth (Mary Webb) 5. To Kill a Mockingbird (Harper Lee) 6. David Copperfield (Charles Dickens) 7. Watership Down (Richard Adams) 8. Don Quixote (Miguel De Cervantes) 9. A Boy’s Own Story (Edmund White) 10. The Nine Tailors (Dorothy L. Sayers)

– COVER STORY – < continued from the front page a face-stuffery – sound-tracked with the ‘ping’ of the microwave oven, which could not be commended to anyone who cares about their silhouette”. Fortunately, his Pooterish wit and self-effacing humour garnish some of his less positive reviews to make the truth more palatable. Describing The Wheatsheaf (under the previous tenants) for example, he observes that: “The Wheatsheaf was always an attractive little pub, but suffered in Mr P’s view from being owned by Marston’s; one of the major brewers of industrial effluent whose product he could only drink while holding his nose, as well as serving dishes like ‘lasagne ’n’ chips’, and other obesity-related gut-stuffers, besides being tended by a barman of such little erudition that when informed by Mr P that the late Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia had reportedly played draughts in the bar there, while sojourning with Wilfred Thesiger during WWII, he claimed never to have heard of Jah Rastafari or the Lion of the Tribe of Judah!” Shocking indeed. So is Mr P a snobbish, boorish, overly-picky gourmet who takes pleasure in slating restaurant owners? “He may appear a tad snobbish,” he concedes, “but when Mr Pernickety first moved to the Marches, he was struck by the absence of any truly objective assessment of the many eating places, humble and lofty, which famously served townsfolk and visitors in Ludlow. All of them spouted their own guff about ‘specially selected local and seasonal ingredients,’ but none were honest enough to point out their own shortcomings. And the local press are, frankly, reluctant to publish any views that might upset potential advertisers, however helpful that might be to their readers.” Which is a fair point. He also pays for all of his own meals, and has added the important caveat to his guide that he remains unaffected by anything which might unnecessarily enhance the experience; “Even when dining with attractive women eager to earn his favour by offering to foot the bill, he declines, so his impartiality is unswayed by the exhilaration of not having to pay.” Moreover, Mr P isn’t at all adverse to Pie ’n’ Mash, provided it’s done properly. If a restaurateur simply avoids pretension and general ‘naffness’, they should be spared

the sharp end of his nib. On the subject of country pubs for instance, his views are magnanimous. “I like country pubs to be for everyone. They should work equally for a squire and a tractor driver, and have a distinct and recognisable social function as a kind of fore-runner to Facebook, and, in the case of verbal combat, the bar can provide a completely level playing field. The Tally Ho Inn out at Bouldon is a good example of this. You wouldn’t say it offered great cuisine but it’s not pretending to, and it works for a broad range of punters.” The biggest problems, in his view, are posed by pub chains and gastro-pubs. “The minute they get too gastro-pubby they lose all sense of their community function.” He recalls advising a publican who had banned the locals – the old boys who sit and sup a pint for an hour or so each evening – to invite them back at once. “Those old boys – as well as having a perfect right to sit and drink at their own speed, are exactly what punters coming to a country boozer want to see; they want local colour, and tales and expressions. In what London pub would visitors hear about “glats i’ the ’edges”, rotten “sally trees”, “beethy” beetroots or the irritation caused by “oontitumps”? “These old boys,” Mr Pernickety told the errant landlord, “are like fixtures and fittings that pay you to be there.” On a more gastronomic level, what does Mr Pernickety make of the current choice of eateries in Ludlow? “Now that the country as a whole is more or less crawling out of recession,” Mr P opines, “there is scope for optimism. Ludlow appears to be undergoing a re-ordering amongst its eating places. Some of the worst pubs have gone, although they haven’t all been adequately replaced, and it’s too soon to say where this will take the town. But there are signs it is struggling back to the gastronomic pre-eminence it held in the Noughties.” Off the hip, in his view, the French Pantry is good, The Charlton much better than it was, The Unicorn, while not outstanding in the quality of its cuisine, is “doing things right” in the pub department, and Mr P wishes he lived in the Cicchetti Bar. On the other hand, Mr P considers the Feathers Hotel “a disaster; a terrible abuse of what is fundamentally a very fine building,” and Wildwood De Greys, “very ordinary, when it could have been quite special.”

Mr P also welcomes the take-over and re-imagining of the Blue Boar, and has practical views about the establishment of a Sandpits-based pub. “Mr Pernickety strongly urges the establishment of 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. And a campaign must be continued against the greedy louts who run the despicable PubCos that have had such a stranglehold on the town’s hostelries, thereby damaging its reputation as a civilised destination. And – away from the food scene – the council could also seriously do something to discourage the spread of grim, tacky gift shops that are an affront to people of taste.” Whether you agree or not will largely depend on how much you like pub chains, SKY footie, and gaudy knick-knacks, but for a town dependent on a reputation for good food and tourism, then there could be some merit to his point. Mr P also feels that following the loss of two of Ludlow’s former Michelin-starred restaurants, some places have tried to establish themselves on the back of Ludlow’s reputation, without really having a clue what they’re doing. He cites, for example, the now defunct Mail Room. Yet he also feels Ludlow is a destination still not capitalising fully on what it has to offer. “Ludlow is a beautiful town, and has attracted a lot of attention. But what would really help is for people to come to Ludlow for more than just a “love ’n’ chomp” weekend break. Anybody could justify at least a week based here. There’s more than enough to do in the wonderful historic Marcher country.” It is now over five years since the first Mr Pernickety’s Guide to Ludlow scandalised the town and, since then, a number of places reviewed in it have changed management, and new ones have arrived. Thus the original guide is, Mr P admits, somewhat out of date, but copies of it are still available through www.misterpernickety.com where more recent reviews can also be seen. There are plans for a new edition before too long, though Mr P warns against “the retention of breath while waiting for it.” -------------------------------------------------Further reading www.misterpernickety.com https://twitter.com/mpernickety

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down from Lloyd Pharmacy; I think there’s a hairdressers there now, behind what used to be Elim Pentecostal church. I moved there in 1987 and got involved in doing big contracts for Royal Caribbean cruise liners. Because of the access, we couldn’t get forklift trucks down that passageway. We were doing these huge sculptures, which were two metres diameter – I mean you just couldn’t move anything. I was then doing a contract for a designer called Nick Allen, in London – this huge Lazy Susan, with all these glass panels – a big project. I went in one morning and the pot had gone, and there was glass flowing out on the floor, and I thought – you know what – I think I’ve had enough.” Amanda took time out from the world of glass to marry, in 1992, and have daughter Georgia – she embarked on a second sitting of glass making in 1999. “We moved into Manor House, which is in Stanton Lacy, and the farm development was going on, right on our doorstep, so I got involved and looked at the spaces when they were literally derelict barns, and got talking to the estate and they said: ‘how much of the space do you want; how do you want it?’ And it was totally purpose built for us, as have the other units been for the other people.” All these years on the fear is still there – as if it was only yesterday – of investing absolutely everything into a heavily ambitious venture, housed within an equally ambitious renovation, on the outskirts of Ludlow. “It was pretty scary. I thought: what am I going to do? I’ve got to be a bit more commercial. I want to sell work; I don’t want to have exhibitions. So I thought about this idea of making the vessels with the textures, and what have you – which has developed from there.” This process has catapulted creations inspired by fish, flowers, leaves and sea forms, to many different markets, with an avid client base collecting all shapes and sizes. The Middle East market is one of the strongest supporters of Amanda’s work, with the scale perfectly suited to the scale of the homes in that corner of the globe. North America is another significant market for the work, marking how well these locally

made, and often locally inspired, pieces translate overseas. And as for Amanda herself, I wonder how she translates? “They probably think I’m completely bonkers, quite frankly – but there you go.” What’s just as mad is that there’s hardly a sign of mishap upon her – considering the daily exercise with 1200 degrees of raging glass. It leaves me a little shy of the burn stories I was expecting. “Funnily I’ve had more burns off taps in hot baths than I have in the studio. Quite limited, really.” Seeking a sensational headline I enquire after the six glass panels commissioned by Whiston Hospital for their burns unit in 1988. “That is quite an odd commission, isn’t it? And no, I didn’t burn myself making it.” There are plenty of downsides to the business – though not a permanent parking space at Ludlow A&E (which is a good thing on more levels than one) – with local power cuts, flooding and occasionally being left without an urgent delivery of sand or gas. Even the clients can prove a headache, from time to time. But behind the occasional run of sour luck is a semi-constant catalogue of clientele deserving of the Brisbane charm. “We have a client on at the moment, based in Texas. We are creating pieces for two of their investors in South Korea who funded their two new drilling ships. She said: ‘I don’t mind what you make as long as it’s a complete wow factor.’ Now that’s my idea of a commission. In fact it was her mother who said to her: ‘if you want something wow this is the person to go to.’ Now that’s pretty lovely, when you’re tucked away in little Shropshire in Stanton Lacy, that can happen.” I fear, however, that given so much free reign will lead to a difficult time, when it comes to packaging up this piece – fit to fly to the States – knowing that some previous sales have returned to haunt. “There was a wonderful leaf we made for a client in Florida – it was just absolutely fantastic. I wish I’d never sold it. You never keep the best things. You sell them, and end up with things that are simply broken.” Amidst the current commissions is also a brand new collection called Hidden Oceans – that will join a long

line of prior collections that have had pride of place at Neiman Marcus in Dallas, Harrods of London and Dubai’s Majlis Gallery – proving that the work continues to evolve, which says just as much of the studio environment and the partnership fostered by Amanda over the past 11 or so years. “I did find it difficult working with other people (trying to find people who shared my work ethic, and not crowding your space when you’re trying to be creative). Then finding Gail was like the answer to my dreams. Because she just understands what other things need to be done, to make. We talk about things, and then the next morning (after talking about leaves or something) there is a plaster mould put by the side of the table, for me to work with. She’s fantastic. And she is brilliant with her colour. I suppose I’m not the easiest person to work with, because I go about things probably in a very different way than what is conventional, really. So it’s quite difficult for other people to understand what I’m about. But Gail and I have a very good working relationship – we just bring things together – which is very special.” And let us not forget the part that Ludlow plays. “Ludlow is an amazing place to show off to people. I mean they just went wow when I did a presentation in America about Ludlow: ‘Is that really where you live, and you walk to work?’ And I’m proud of that, to think that’s one’s environment.” Amanda encourages her customers to visit too, from the likes of Istanbul and Kuwait. And to labour the point, a day prior to this interview, two collectors flew over from Bombay: “Their main reason for coming to the UK was to come to Ludlow.” How many other local businesses draw in their client base to proudly come, stay, wine and dine, and purchase a moment in time, here in Ludlow? What I do know, is that Ludlow’s first lady of glass is rather humble about it all – thankful in so many ways for her foundation and the life it has indeed allowed, yet excited, and full of expression in light of the next chapter. “I look back often and I feel very privileged – just amazed at what we’ve done – but then, maybe, the best is yet to come?”

“I thought: what am I going to do? I’ve got to be a bit more commercial. I want to sell work; I don’t want to have exhibitions. So I thought about this idea of making the vessels with the textures, and what have you – which has developed from there.”

Contact} The Glassbarn, Church Farm Studios, Stanton Lacy, SY8 2AE – 01584 856292 – amandabrisbaneglass.com

ludlowledger.com/L2 ‘I’m almost ashamed to confess to her that, for me, it’s simply an attempt to cancel out my consumption of local cheese.’ p12

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None of us seem to have enough of it (time that is). Despite all the apparent conveniences of modern life, and all the ‘time saving’ devices that are available, there seems to be less and less of that precious commodity. Part of the problem seems to lie with the devices themselves; when they work, they demand that we make use of them. An electronically-generated noise announces the arrival of yet more email, or a text message, a new post on some part of social media and so on. When they don’t work (which seems to happen, to me at least, reasonably often) we sit staring at a screen, furiously trying to get it to reconnect to some part of the internet, and only too aware of the time we are spending on it, when there are other things to do. The fact is, the more complex modern life becomes, the more devices there are to go wrong, and the more of our time they demand. We flit, like demented moths, from one glowing promise to another. Three cheers then for BBC4, for having the courage to screen some programmes which seem specifically designed as an antidote to some of this modern mania. A camera attached to a canal boat, simply filming the passing scenery; a film of a man making a knife, or another of a man making a chair, none offering any commentary or incidental music. The focus is simply on the process, and on the sights and sounds that make it up. As one watches, time palpably slows down – small details become more noticeable and, even as observers, we become absorbed in the process. Neuroscientists and physicists who study these things tell us that the present, as we perceive it, lasts approximately three seconds. And yet our perception of this time can be changed; those three seconds can either spin out, seeming to take an eternity, or flash past, disappearing before we appreciate what is happening. And the amount of time we have overall to perceive these little chunks of ‘present’ is strictly limited; but none of us knows how much we have. On the whole, most of us would like to have a little more time. Maybe we can’t live without the devices that drive so much of our modern lives, all the time (well most of us can’t) and yes, there are probably times when, if all goes well, they do save us time and give us a little more to use on something else. All the more important, then, to use any extra time we get in a way that allows us to appreciate the moment. There are undoubtedly as many ways to do that as there are individuals. Few of us have the skills to make a knife, or a chair, but most of us have tasks which we enjoy, or we can enjoy watching or listening to others performing – something that allows us, for a few moments, to empty our minds of all the demands, and watch a boat drifting down a river, looking at the way shadows fall on water. Or we can spend a few moments reading (quite possibly in the Ledger) about someone doing or making something in a way which requires time and care, and feel time stretching out, just a little. ------------------------------------------------If you would like to share an observation with Ludlow Ledger, then please email: editor@ludlowledger.co.uk or (keeping away from electronic devices) post them to: 14 Corve Street, Ludlow, SY8 1DA

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Visit castle, eat local produce, buy a house text} Liz Ince | image} Richard Stanton – FINDING LUDLOW – Shropshire had been beckoning for many years. My interest was probably started by the Campaign for the Protection of Rural England, which produced tranquillity maps back in the early 2000s, comparing factors such as light pollution, noise and visual intrusion from roads, urban development and airports, with those of 50 years previously. Shropshire came out well and still does. At the time I was living in a modern house down a bridleway in Oxfordshire, surrounded by fields on three sides and with good views for the county (which is pretty flat) but almost within sight of Brize Norton and certainly within earshot, at times – the intrusion on my peace increased over the nearly 20 years I was there, as other airbases were closed down. I’m a fan of historical mysteries, and when I discovered Brother Cadfael I read and thoroughly enjoyed the whole series and, in a way, felt I knew Shropshire quite well. Added to that was a second-hand copy of Ellis Peters’ Shropshire with photos by Roy Morgan, and a visual impression of the ‘county without cities’ added to my favourable impression of Shropshire. A fleeting visit to Shrewsbury in 2006 confirmed the attraction of the countryside, more than the town itself, despite its obvious charm and historical connections. I have long enjoyed gardening, in an amateurish way, and found Catherine Swift’s books about creating a garden in Morville fascinating. By chance my daughters and I spent a long weekend in Morville; the B&B chosen was listed as being in Bridgnorth, so to find Catherine’s garden was down the road and all the gardens there open that weekend, was a real bonus. What I admire is her capacity for creating all-year round interest (I guess that’s what most gardeners aim for), as well as her sheer graft at creating a charming space from what was, essentially, a field. Later that year my husband and I returned to Morville

and he discovered Ludlow, browsing around estate agents (as we often did) and picking up brochures. One of the brochures he picked up that day was for a house at the end of a bridleway (no problem – we were used to that), with an apparently charming garden (it does). We hadn’t intended looking at houses, but I couldn’t resist taking a look at this one and, once seen, that was it. Our younger daughter wasn’t very impressed – most people go on holiday and buy a local T-shirt, we went on holiday and put in a bid for a house; she was also upset at the thought of losing her childhood home. So here I am, in the most tranquil place I have ever lived and I love it, despite Oxfordshire acquaintances and family members doubting my wisdom. I have managed to pick up many of my previous interests quite easily, but the biggest unanticipated bonus is the sheer friendliness and kindliness of people living and working around here, compared to any of the many other places where I have lived. Complete strangers smile at one another in Ludlow, shopkeepers find the time to chat, and almost everyone I have had helping with my old house and garden have been very friendly. During the last 18 months that I have been here I have found that many people I have met have also ‘immigrated’ to the area and they too are open to making new friends. Ludlow has a real charm, history oozes from its walls, it benefits from its many festivals, and now, of course, it has the Ludlow Ledger. So far I have only found one slight drawback: the local footpaths and bridleways are often impassable making walking with secateurs essential ... though they are not much use when footbridges have been demolished by falling trees. My daughters love visiting – despite my being a long way from them now – and all visitors enjoy the tranquillity and sleep well in the Shropshire air. Long may it continue.

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Page 14 and cover text} Mia Davis | images} Richard Stanton

Ludlow’s parlour pub

Taking a leaf out of an old pub book text} Jon Saxon | image} Richard Stanton – BUSINESS – StridE down Lower Broad Street, over 180 years ago, and you could have grabbed a beer in 19 of the residential dwellings that remain along both sides of the street. These homes look pretty much as they did then, with their original doorways, but back then thirsty people could have walked through for a drink, at what was then considered a parlour pub... a room put aside (such as the front parlour or kitchen) and opened up to the public for the ratepaying home-owner to ply their trade as an inn-keeper. The re-introduction of licensing in 1869 put a stop to this free-forall-business, with the mass of frontroom parlour pubs disappearing seemingly overnight. Though the home-brewed beer would have been rather hit or miss, with little in the way of consistency or indeed hygiene, the concept is both a fascinating and obvious one. Planning policies, objectionable neighbours and necessary paperwork is enough to put anyone off, yet the objective of opening up a designated aspect of one’s living quarters for the purpose of serving the general public is so simple and so obvious that I’ve decided to have a stab at awarding this town its own parlour pub. After all: if any town in this country deserves such a thing, then surely it’s got to be Ludlow? Notice of my own intentions (as per the law) are featured on page 9 of this issue. Anyone proposing a plan involving the words ‘pub’ and ‘beer’ tend to find the quietest corner of the most ignored paper to announce their ambitions. I, however, wish to draw as much attention as possible, to properly explain what will be going on if a licence is awarded. Only on Thursday and Friday in the week, when my day’s work on the paper is concluded (which is usually around 5pm), will I get around to opening the old kitchen and front parlour to serve beer (no spirits or gassed fonts of lager and cider). At the weekend I imagine a 12noon to 9pm day, with a traditional mid-afternoon two-hour closing period. It really is the way things used to be – and for good reason. It is, above all, my own small way of preserving (in some shape or form) the basic notion

of a parlour pub; to my knowledge only a few are left in existence – the Cornewall Arms of Clodock, Dyffrn Arms, in Pontfaen, and (in essence) the Carpenters Arms at Walterstone and the Sun Inn of Leintwardine being the only ones I’ve experienced. That said, I never got to enjoy a drink at the latter while its landlady, Florence ‘Flossie’ Lane, held court. My younger brother Ryan did though, of whom I’m always reminded when I stop by The Sun on my Ledger distribution run... He arrived early one evening to find landlady Flossie sat on her sofa watching Eastenders. Though technically not open, he passed the test all the same and was instructed to help himself… walking through her living room and into the kitchen, where he found a pint glass, and turned the barrel tap. Not sure at first how to turn the tap off he quickly switched his brim-full pint with an empty glass, and poured a second. By the time he’d figured what he’d been doing wrong he’d served himself no less than six pints. Though he’d been invited by Flossie to join her in watching the TV, Ryan placed his money on to the draining board, as you did then, and proceeded to carry his round on a rickety old tin tray sheepishly past the landlady and into the right-hand room to embark on a drink or six. This experience, pretty much in its entirety, is a near extinct aspect of British history and culture, which we as a nation seem happy enough to relegate to the history books rather than celebrate and repeat. Of course you won’t find me watching Eastenders (I won’t be applying for an Entertainments Licence) and I won’t (I imagine) be so grumpy about men turning up with full-grown beards (which I hear used to bother Flossie). However, though beer will be drawn up from the cellar via a wood and brass beer engine, beer will also be served direct from the barrel into a jug before making it to the customer’s glass – meaning that I have the option, if I so choose, to invite people to draw their very own pint direct from the barrel – whether they chose to have just one or make a blunder like my brother and end up juggling six.

PARLOUR PUB: The Sun Inn of Leintwardine is no longer, in essence, a true parlour pub (with its modern add-on being where most now drink) no drinks served from the kitchen, and no longer home to the licencee. It is, nevertheless, a true inspiration – alongside the Cornewall Arms and Bessie’s Dyffrn Arms

ISSUE #7 La Jewellery Ludlow’s Prince Arthur Trying and failing at table tennis 3,000-mile trek in £500 runarounds Home-grown stoves Village hall pub of Ashford Carbonell Bennett’s End of a bygone era Nicki’s take on the Chelsea Flower Show Ludlow Performance ludlowledger.com/archive

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“There was no response and Daisy gave a little shrug”

Ludlow-based novel: No Known Grave text and image} Maureen Jennings – FICTION – It’s the summer of 1942 and, early one morning, Detective Inspector Tom Tyler receives a call from St. Anne’s Convalescent Hospital. An old manor house on the edge of Ludlow… it has recently been transformed into a centre staffed by nursing sisters who are also Anglican nuns, dedicated to the rehabilitation of some of the most badly damaged victims of the war, both military and civilian. A horrifying double murder had been discovered on the grounds. When he arrives, Tyler realizes his first task is to figure out just how this crime was perpetrated in such a secluded and, presumably, impenetrable place where most inhabitants are unable to walk, are blind, or both, not to mention deeply traumatized.... ------------------------------------------------She was running. She was always running. This time it was along the side of the river. She was late for something but she didn’t know what it was. Then she saw a dense cloud of moths coming toward her. They were big and grey and seemed to click and clatter as they flew. She swerved to avoid them but it was too late and one of them went straight into her eye, where it got stuck, frantically flapping its hard and scratchy wings. Try as she might she couldn’t pull it out. Daisy awoke at once. There had been a knock on the door. “Ten past six, Miss Stevens.” She sat up. “Thank-you, Mr Hughes. I’ll be right there.” She swung her legs over the side of the bed, waiting for a moment to steady herself. She’d opened the blackout curtains when she went to bed and the reassuring light of early morning was seeping in through the narrow window. She licked her dry lips, trying to shake off the anxiety of her dream. It didn’t take a head doctor to interpret this latest nightmare. She didn’t think she’d even bother reporting it to Dr Beck. He’d said he wanted to hear her dreams but what good would that do? He was a nice enough bloke for a foreigner, but talking to him once a week couldn’t really change anything. She glanced over at the woman in the other bed. Barbara Oakshutt was the complete opposite to Daisy. Sleep was a place she escaped to and nothing disturbed her. Daisy didn’t even try to wake her. Babs wasn’t in the early morning massage class and didn’t have to get up until it was time for breakfast. One of the Sisters always came to fetch her. Daisy stood and padded over to the washstand, curling her toes against the cold surface of the uncarpeted floor. She poured water into the bowl and washed her face, drying herself gingerly. The new skin on her cheek was still tender. Then she sat down at the dresser, examined the row of lipsticks courtesy of the Yank care packages, and selected one. This was definitely a day for ‘True-Crimson.’ She felt in need of a boost. She took a deep breath, pulled off the towel that she’d draped over the mirror and leaned in close to apply the lipstick properly. She had well-shaped, full lips which she was secretly rather proud of. At least they were untouched by the accident. That’s how she referred to it in her mind, although strictly speaking the bombing raid was not an accident at all. It was premeditated and quite

intentional. The only ‘accidental’ part was that she’d been caught by flying shrapnel. Her twenty-second birthday was this weekend. Her mother had sent a card with a picture of a big-eyed puppy on the front. Inside there was a scrawled note. Sorry we can’t come to visit this week, but dad’s lumbago is acting up. We’ll try next fortnight. Daisy wasn’t really that disappointed. Visits with her family were always tense, too many awkward silences that her mother tried to fill with silly gossip from the neighbourhood. Daisy knew her mother blamed her for what had happened. She’d been dead set against her daughter enlisting from the beginning. She considered Daisy had put herself into the line of fire as it were. Daisy replaced the cap on the lipstick tube and studied the effect as best she could. It would have to do. There was a moan from Barbara followed by a series of whimpers. Daisy went over to the bed. “Buck up, Babs. You’ve got to keep going.” There was no response and Daisy gave a little shrug. “I’ll see you later, then.” Moving more quickly now, she went to the wardrobe that was shoved into a corner of the room and took out her clothes. The patients were allowed to wear civvies if they wanted, but Daisy preferred to dress in her WRENs outfit. Putting on the familiar uniform gave her a feeling of purpose. Crisp white blouse, navy skirt, black stockings and sensible shoes, plain tie. She had just got it right when she heard the stairs creak and another soft tap on the door. “I’m coming,” Daisy called. “There’s a nice cup of tea waiting. You don’t want it getting cold.” “Two minutes.” Daisy went to the dresser where the wig sat on its wooden form. Her mother had insisted they invest in top quality hair and it was thick and glossy brown, slightly longer than she’d been used to before. She pulled it on, gave a final check in the mirror to see that it was sitting properly, then reached into the drawer and took out the black eye patch. As a joke, an act of defiance, she’d had one of the Sisters paint a dainty white flower on the surface. “I’d rather look like a walking work of art than a bloody pirate. Besides, it takes people’s minds off the rest of my face.” When Nigel Melrose felt his sheet being pulled away from his face, he said, loud and angry. “For God’s sake. It’s still bloody night time.” He tried to tug the cover back up but the other man had a firm hold. “Have a heart, Vic,” spluttered Melrose. “I need my sleep. It knits the ravelled sleeve of care, as the Scottish thane so brilliantly put it.” For answer, Victor Clark lifted his cane and poked him hard in the ribs. Melrose yelped. “All right. All right. I’m up.” He sat upright and squinted at his tormentor. “Lord help us, Vic. Do you look especially bad this morning or is it me?” Clark pointed at Melrose. Then he lurched over to the windows and opened the curtains. The third man, Eddie Prescott, now stirred and Clark went to him. This one he approached more cautiously. A more gentle poke and a step backward out of range. Prescott sat up at once, his arms flailing as if to throw a punch. “Oo’s there? Speak up you sod. Speak up or I’ll knock your block off.” Melrose answered for the mute Clark. “How beautifully poetic as

usual, Eddie. But you can relax. It’s just Vic making sure you’re up. Rub a dub class this morning.” Prescott lowered his fists. “Sorry.” Vic grunted. “That was his way of saying, don’t worry old chap,” murmured Melrose. “He takes no offence. As the call girl said to the bishop when they collided in the fog.” Eddie got out of bed, his foot feeling for his slippers. Surreptitiously, Melrose kicked one out of reach. Clark saw him and wagged his finger, reproachfully. At that moment the door was pushed open and a man in a wheelchair appeared on the threshold. He was wearing an RAF blue shirt and trousers. Heavy, dark glasses obscured his face. “Morning, guys. Melly, I’m glad you’re already on top form. I could hear the quotes falling out of your mouth.” “Morning, Jeremy,” said Melrose. “It’s good to know I can still reach the plebs in the balcony.” Prescott hooted. “’Ere we go again. ’E thinks ’e’s bloody Laurence Olivier.” “Better that, old chap, than having no aspirations at all above the gutter,” replied Melrose. Before Prescott could respond, Clark thrust his cane between the two men. The rumblings in his throat were clear enough. He wasn’t a big man, but even his inability to speak couldn’t obscure the fact that he meant business. Melrose threw up his hands. “Don’t worry, Vic. I won’t be drawn. I have more important things to dwell on.” He turned to the man in the wheelchair. “Come on, Jeremy, I’ll take you down. Let me just garb myself more appropriately. Don’t want to embarrass the sisters.” He removed a burgundy-coloured silk dressing gown from the hook on the door, slipped it on, then smoothed his hair with a pair of silver-backed brushes from the dresser. “All right, then, those of you who have eyes to see, speak up. Hm. I suppose that means just you, Vic. Am I presentable? You nod? Good.” He shoved the wheelchair around so he could take the handles. “We’d better get a move on, my friend. Sarge will have our hides if we’re late again. And I will die if I don’t get my morning cuppa char, paltry as it is.” “Oi, what about me? I’m not ready yet,” Eddie called to him. “I cannot take responsibility for mandragora heads,” said Melrose with a flap of his hand. “Vic will help you, I’m sure.” “See you downstairs,” called out Jeremy Bancroft as the door closed behind them. Prescott felt for the clothes that were neatly folded on the chair beside the bed. “One of these days, Vic, I’m going to clock that bloke. Bloody toffeenosed snob.” Clark grunted. “No, seriously,” continued Prescott. “The only reason I haven’t bashed his head in is ’cos he’s older than me. I never beat up women, kiddies or old men.” Clark handed him his shirt and stood by while Prescott struggled to get dressed. He got into a pair of baggy black and white check trousers, a brown striped shirt and a paisley waistcoat. “Do I look all right?” he asked finally. “Yesterday, Melrose made some crack about me applying to join the circus. Sod him.” He reached for Clark’s shoulder. “Lead on. The lame leading the blind. What a bloody joke.” ------------------------------------------------Sergeant McHattie and his family occupied one of two cottages, which nestled into a gentle slope about a hundred yards behind the main building. As Hughes approached, he felt a sharp twinge of uneasiness. He could see that the blackout curtains were still drawn in all of the front windows. He knew that Mrs McHattie and her daughter always visited her family in Wem on Tuesday nights

and wouldn’t be at home, but where was Jock? It was so unlike him to be sleeping in. The two young laddies perhaps, now that it was the school hols, but not the sergeant. Hughes glanced over at the other cottage nearby where Mrs Fuller, the cook, lived with her son. Hughes had seen her earlier serving breakfast in the dining room and, as he would have expected, her curtains were all pulled back and the windows were wide open. He stepped up to the front door of the McHattie cottage and knocked. No answer. Had the Sarge indeed been taken ill? He knocked again. Silence. He tried the doorknob, which turned easily. He pushed open the door and went inside. The place was in darkness. “Sergeant McHattie? Jock? Are you home?” There was no response. Hughes switched on the overhead light. “Anybody home? It’s me, Hughes.” There was no wireless playing, no dishes on the kitchen table, no sign that anybody had been up and about. Jock’s bagpipes drooped over a chair. Suddenly, a cat yowled and ran out from the kitchen. “Shite,” Hughes gasped. “Bloody hell, Blackie. You gave me a fright there.” It darted up the stairs and Hughes followed it to a small landing. There was a nightlight here, barely penetrating the gloom but sufficient for him to make out two partly open doors. He sniffed. There was a sour smell in the air. Cautiously, he peeked inside the first bedroom. “Jock? Jock, you in here?” The blackout curtains were closed here as well and it was pitch dark. He snapped on the light. Even though the orderly was used to the frailty of the human body, what he saw made bile rush into his mouth. Sprawled on the floor between the door and the bed was Jock’s young son, Ben. He was lying on his back, his arms flung out to the sides. He was dressed in his pyjamas, the top stained with blood, which had also streaked his face in dark rivulets. Jock McHattie was in the bed, still

under the covers. He had a halo of blood around his head and there was a large ragged tear in his pillow. Bits of white substance had spread everywhere. Brains or feathers, it was hard to tell. Although Hughes knew there was nothing he could do for either of them, he had to make sure. He stepped closer to the boy, crouched down, and touched Ben’s hand. It was cool. There was a large, blackrimmed hole in the middle of the boy’s forehead. He had been shot at close range. Slowly, Hughes straightened up and went over to the bed. Like his son, Jock appeared to have been shot. There was an identical wound in his temple. His skin was also cold. Death for both of them must have occurred some hours earlier. Hughes backed away on to the landing but just as he did so, he heard a sound, so soft he almost missed it coming from the second bedroom. His knees were shaking but he made himself go and look. Again he had to turn on the light. There was another whimper. It seemed to be coming from underneath the nearest bed. He bent down. The terrified face of a young boy stared out at him. It was Charlie, the younger McHattie boy. “Mr Hughes,” he whispered. “Please help me, Mr Hughes.” ------------------------------------------------Meet the author Maureen Jennings is the author of twelve novels, all in the mystery genre. Her Murdoch Mysteries, set in 19th century Toronto, have been adapted for television and are broadcast in UK. This is the ninth season. The most recent series are the Tom Tyler books set in England during WW2. The latest is No Known Grave, which takes place in Ludlow. The book is available online but also at Castle Bookshop in Ludlow. Jennings was born in UK but now resides in Toronto, Canada, although she considers Ludlow to be her second home.

Lily’s Story

Reminiscing about Tiananmen text} Jenny James

– MY STORY – Lily may now live in Ludlow with her husband – volunteering with the Age Concern ‘Home from Hospital’ scheme – but her journey here, to this market town, has encompassed time spent nursing in Uganda (where she met her Scottish husband), going to school in Tibet, expounding communist propaganda when she was in the Chinese army, and dodging bullets in Tiananmen Square. Lily was brought up in Chengdu, on the border between China and old Tibet – the Tibet of the 1950s, before the Chinese occupation. Her father was a Chinese army officer and led his men into Lhasa during the invasion of Tibet and was there for the subsequent Tibetan resistance and uprisings. She says that to understand how somebody could do that – lead men on a hostile invasion of another country – you have to picture his life, as a teenager, a peasant farmer living in poverty and famine. The Chinese army offered him food and clothes and security. He never questioned whether what he was doing for the army was right or wrong, and he remained loyal to the Communist Party until very recently, when he began to question the ethics of what the Chinese were doing after the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989. Lily thinks that, in his heart, he knew that what he was ordered to do was wrong, but under the Communist Party one learned never to tell the truth or ask questions; people were betrayed for questioning the party policies, even by members of their own families. This was the background to Lily’s upbringing. She remembers being in an army primary school where they had food, vitamins, mosquito nets, and were looked after, unlike others around her who lived in poverty. Did she realise how different things were in China from the rest of the world? She remembers gradually learning about independent thinking, and she was around the age of 13 when she realised how two-faced people were and noticed how things were run around her, with everything being controlled by the Communist Party. At that time, Mao Tse Tung was in power. He instigated new farming policies throughout China which caused the devastating famine of 1958–62. Lily says that people still talk about the famine in which at least 45 million people were starved and beaten, tortured or worked to death, including her own grandmother. At the time the West was hailing Mao Tse Tung’s ‘Great Leap Forward’ as real progress for China, but Lily regards Mao Tse Tung as crazy. She remembers that, at one point, he demanded metal and people were forced to give away their cooking utensils for use by the state, leaving people with no option but to cook communally – until the food ran out. Lily’s family regularly travelled the 2,500 kilometre road between the family home in Chengdu and Lhasa, where her father was stationed and where she went to school. The road to Lhasa through the mountains was in a dreadful condition and the journey took 14 days. There was always the fear of bandits on the road and parents never let their children out of their sight. It was quite normal for people to carry guns. In Lhasa, Lily witnessed constant fighting on the streets, people being humiliated and the army controlling the temples. During her time there she gave her parents a hard time. She was a self-confessed tomboy and a bit of a rebel, liking to be outside, climbing on roofs and blocking chimneys – “I had nothing better to do.” She fought with

Tibetans kids, who they were scared of, regarding them all as rogues. Her father told her that however much he would have liked her grow up wild, he would lose his job if she did not settle down and toe the line. Lily remembers hearing her parents talking and wondering why, with her behaviour, she was a girl and not a boy. As Lily grew up, her father gave her the key to the store of the many books which had been requisitioned by the Communist party as ‘reactionary’ or ‘counter revolutionary’ during their ‘liberation’ of Tibet; he told her that she must never say that she had access to these books. which were having such a positive influence on her life. Lily says that the only books they were permitted to read were Communist Party literature and, to this day, she can quote the writings of Mao Tse Tung. She attended the executions of nine ‘counter-revolutionaries’ in Lhasa. She saw soldiers going around after the execution, checking each body for any survivors and shooting any they found. There were hordes of people who went to the executions to try and get the clothes off the people who had been executed. Lily remembers this as the normal reaction to death. On leaving school, Lily joined the army, first as a nurse and then in the propaganda department. As a nurse, she worked with soldiers who were at risk of suicide as a result of their war injuries and uncertain futures. Aged only 20, Lily was given the responsibility of assessing who was at risk of suicide and keeping them safe. She encouraged the soldiers to help and support each other on the wards. In 1981, fed up of the Communist system, Lily left her safe army job and eventually became self-employed, which was tough and frowned upon by her family because in China, the selfemployed are despised – they are often farmers who are uneducated and poor and have no prospects for the future. 1989 was a time of change for China. Hu Yaobang was a high-ranking official who was committed to creating a democracy in China, but he was forced to resign by powerful Party elders who opposed his free market reforms and attempts to make China’s government more transparent. When he died (in 1989) a small demonstration to commemorate him was started, with a demand that the government reassess his legacy. This escalated and a week later, around 100,000 students marched on Tiananmen Square. Lily happened to be in Beijing, based close to the main events of the uprising. She watched the mood in Beijing change from excitement and approval to fear and then terror as events unfolded. At first, she thought it was simply another student demonstration for democracy, led by a hunger striker, but she watched more and more people coming into Beijing from all over China. In those days before social media, word was spread by local radio, landline calls and faxes – Lily saw people arriving from Hong Kong with printouts of faxes which they used as posters to publicise what was happening. It was an exciting time with Lily in the thick of it, often talking through the night to different groups of friends about the possibility of China becoming a multi-party democracy. They were not anti-communist but they did want a new China. The demonstrations were good natured and polite, the atmosphere was still good and people went home at night. Then The People’s Daily, a state-run newspaper that served as a mouthpiece for the government, published an editorial which said that the student movement was inciting an anticommunist riot, and this made it legal

for the protestors to be arrested. This editorial prompted a huge influx of people and a change in mood. People started sleeping on the streets. Others sent in tents and food, and local residents allowed protestors to use their toilets and showers. At this point, Lily left Beijing for Inner Mongolia and found the same thing happening there, as it was in cities all over China, with people on the streets calling for democracy. Back in Beijing, the mood was still optimistic – martial law was threatened but because the roads were blocked by protestors, the army could not get through. Lily recalls how the protestors used motorbikes to get through the gridlocked roads and encircle Tiananmen Square to ensure that army vehicles could not get through. She joined in, riding on a friend’s bike. On the one day that she took a day off, she was lucky – it was the day that army officers trapped and arrested the bikers. At this point, life was comparatively normal around the city – things were working again, with shops opening so there was no excuse for the government to crack down and attack the students. Some buses were left unattended, full of weapons for the students to find and so the students were ‘caught’ with weapons; showing images of this to the world provided the excuse the authorities needed to attack. The weapons they had left for the students to find had in fact been immobilised. The unrest escalated. Lily was in the thick of events, based in the alleyways between Tiananmen Square and where the shooting started at Fuxin Men, a couple of kilometres away. No one believed the army would shoot their own people. When they heard gunfire they went out on to the streets. Lily helped with the efforts to block the road with anything they could find to stop the army vehicles – overturned buses, large metal waste skips, and the likes – but she realised it was not going to be possible and ran as the blockades got blown up by the advancing army. People started using discarded soft drinks bottles to make petrol bombs. Lily could not believe what was happening around her. She saw one student carrying a petrol bomb, climb on to the top of the overturned bus the bus, with him on it, was deliberately bulldozed aside by the army. When the shooting had died down they ran back to help the wounded and take them to hospital – Lily found herself pushed to the ground by a stranger to save her from being shot by a returning tank. She saw the tank drive over the bodies of people who had died in the road. Lily saw people with dreadful gunshot wounds and took photographs of what she saw at the hospital – bodies left on the floor, bagged up in clear plastic bags. After two days, the army took possession of the streets. They cleared the streets of the bodies of the protestors but left those of the soldiers to reiterate the message to the world that the protestors had been violent. Lily’s leg by this time was infected, following an injury sustained when she had been pushed to the ground, and, hearing that the army was arresting any injured people, she had to lie low for a while. She was lucky to be tipped off by an old army colleague that her own arrest was imminent and was able to escape. Once she recovered, she returned to Beijing to try and help her friends in jail – people were being held in cellars as the jails were full. Over time Lily achieved the safety of a good job and an income in Beijing, before leaving to work in Uganda and finally come to live here in Ludlow with her husband. But she says that the world has no idea of what it is like to live in China under constant fear of the police and informers, and knowing what happens to the people who are detained and imprisoned. In China there are no human rights there as we know it and, as the world relies more and more on China’s investments, other countries show less inclination to stand up to China and demand to know what is going on.

FRINGE – Ludlow’s Blue Boar re-opened its doors just in time to host a

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This issue in facts and hearsay text edited from} Various sources

– FACTS – page 1 Michael Winner declined the opportunity to direct The French Connection (1971) and the remake of King Kong (1976); he was going to direct Delta Force 2: The Colombian Connection (1990), but star Chuck Norris didn’t like the script. In December 2006, while on holiday in Barbados, he suffered a near-fatal illness from the extremely rare vibrio vulnificus virus, caught when he ate an oyster. After spending five days at the local hospital, his friend Philip Green chartered an ambulance plane to fly the director to London. He spent three months in the hospital where he ultimately went through 19 operations to save his leg. The virus destroyed his Achilles tendon, forcing him to walk with the aid of walking stick. page 5 The Bristol Blenheim was a British light bomber aircraft designed and built by the Bristol Aeroplane Company that was used extensively in the early days of the Second World War. It was adapted as an interim long-range and night fighter, pending the availability of the Beaufighter. It was one of the first British aircraft to have all-metal stressed-skin construction, retractable landing gear, flaps, a powered gun turret and variable-pitch propellers.

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page 11 Started by the Limonaire brothers Joseph and Antoine in 1839 (as piano and organ builders), Limonaire Frères was an amusement ride, street organ and fairground organ builder; based in Paris, France, during the 19th and early 20th century. Today, their fine sound and high quality mean that Limonaire organs are considered highly collectable. Many have survived in museum collections and in active use around the world,

although only limited numbers remain in their original condition. page 16 Flossie Lane, landlady of The Sun Inn, was awarded an obituary in The Telegraph when she died in 2009 aged 94. Jeremy Paxman once described the pub as his discovery of the year: “Flossie, the landlady, sits in the middle of the room, wearing a pair of surgical stockings. The only food is a pot of eggs, which Flossie pickled several moons ago.” Flossie Lane has since been honoured with a misericord, at St Mary Magdalene church in Leintwardine, cared by local carver Andrew Pearson.

page 20 Martial arts film Man of Tai Chi – directed by and starring Keanu Reeves and Tiger Chen – released in 2013, was in part inspired by the life story of Keanu Reeves’ friend and stunt man, Tiger Chen. Praised by acclaimed action film director, John Woo, The Guardian were less polite: “Only Keanu could make a character as overwrought as Donaka Mark as compelling as a dial tone.”

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Pentabus Young Writers image over p18 and p19} Richard Stanton

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Tai ji

As the town stands still text} Liz Hyder | image} Richard Stanton

– SPORT – Once a week, on a Thursday evening, I head to Appletree Theatre, walk up their atmospherically creaky stairs and step into a very different world; a largely silent world where a group of us move very slowly or don’t move at all for a whole hour. No, it’s not a mime class, but a friendly and supportive group practising the ancient and rather mesmerising martial art of tai ji. A martial art for all abilities and inclinations, tai ji, as my inspiring teacher Jenny Sayer puts it, “appeals to one’s mind as well as one’s physique.” Jenny has been practising tai ji for around 25 years and teaching it since 1998 (all in Ludlow), and her original teacher (Susan Geuter) is also still teaching in the area “although she’s a fair bit younger than me,” jokes Jenny. Which leads me to ask a nosy and personal question that I’ve been dying to ask Jenny for ages: how old are you exactly? It turns out that she’s over eighty … and teaching a martial art with all the enthusiasm and skill of someone at least two decades younger. Jenny, ever modest, disputes this: “my practice is not that of a younger woman, I fear.” Still, after I’ve picked my jaw up from the floor, we get down to business. What was it that first appealed to her about tai ji? “I’ve always been very fond of walking,” says Jenny, “but I was told by the doctor I needed to exercise more of my body. I liked swimming and Susan told me it would be as good as swimming but intellectually stimulating too. And it was.” A few years after Jenny started learning, Susan’s class was put in touch with Herman Chan-Pensley,

a master who teaches in the Yang family tradition at the highest level. I say highest level but one of the really interesting things about tai ji is that there are no qualifications as such, it’s not competitive and there are no belts. You simply improve with practice and time – and you need a good, experienced and patient teacher to set you off. Herman, based in the South East, has been teaching the martial art of tai ji (or Tai Ji Quan Dao to give it its proper name) for over a quarter of a century. He was taught by Master Chu King Hong who, in turn, was a disciple of Master Yang Shou Chung. It all sounds lovely, but what it really means is that Jenny can trace a direct lineage to the Yang family, following traditional teaching methods handed down over the centuries. Teaching is passed on by demonstration, by repetition and by correction. “It’s a great help to train with other people – with your peer group for want of a better expression,” says Jenny. “It helps with motivation and you can’t learn tai ji from a book or a video, you learn by doing it.” Having been to Jenny’s classes (rather more on and off that I’d like to confess) for some years, I can testify that I was a naughty giggler at the start. The idea of standing in a room being quiet for an hour was, I confess, a bit of a challenge for me, particularly when doing the preparatory exercises before we practise ‘the form’ – the bit you’ll all know from seeing people doing it in parks or on beaches. ‘The Form’ is what everyone thinks of as tai ji but the prep exercises are just as important. Some of them have beautiful names, like ‘Swimming Dragon’ or ‘Standing Post’, an exercise in its own right. It might just be me,

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but the prettier the name, the harder they are. Standing Post requires you to stand in one position for five minutes before slowly moving to another position which you then stand in for another five minutes. Sounds easy until you do it. When was the last time you stood still for ten minutes? Actually still? It’s very hard, but strangely satisfying I can tell you. Jenny is a real stickler for detail, sometimes it can take weeks before you master a new move in The Form and, despite me being one of the most impatient people on the planet, being forced to perfect something before progressing is surprisingly rewarding. “The more you practice, the more you get out of it,” says Jenny, “it’s only by learning the martial applications of the moves in The Form that one will get the full benefit for one’s health and well-being.” The Ludlow class at Appletree is mixed ability – there are some who’ve been practising for years (the seniors) and then the rest of us (the beginners), but everyone’s very supportive of each other and there’s a very relaxed and warm environment, particularly warm in fact when we can’t work out how to open the windows on a memorably sweltering evening. After 15 years of learning tai ji, Jenny made the transition from pupil to teacher. Susan had a waiting list of 20 and actively encouraged her to start a new class. Amazingly, Jenny started teaching in the same year that she retired... she’s been teaching regularly in Ludlow ever since. That’s another surprisingly nice thing about tai ji, all the local teachers are good pals and support each other, there’s no competition even between them. Rose, who occasionally guest-stars at the class I go to, teaches in the villages around Ludlow, Jan teaches at the Women’s Centre in the heart of town, and Susan teaches on the outskirts of town. I’ve only been learning tai ji for a relatively short while, but Jenny and the seniors in my class are great advocates for the benefits. They’re fit, energetic, look and seem considerably younger than they are, and have a warm aura of contentment floating around them. I’m hoping I can achieve this in time – providing I keep up the practice. “Herman once said that you get the students you deserve,” says Jenny, “I wonder sometimes what I’ve done to deserve such a hard working and nice class,” she adds, before she’s off to her next appointment. Remarkable. When I’m Jenny’s age, I want to be as lively, energetic and calm as her – that’s why I go to tai ji. It might not be for you, but in an ever busy world where technology means that you’re contactable all the time, the quiet peace and gentle exercise of tai ji can provide a genuine oasis from the hectic, modern world. I love it.

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CROSSWORD CLUES #07 If you’re still making your way through the last issue’s crossword then you had better look away now See page 8 for this issue’s crossword