Ludlow Ledger (Issue #16)

ISSUE 16 – FEBRUARY/MARCH 2017 – FREE

Ludlow’s Mr Inventer: Douglas Buchanan Fiction: Return of Drat the Dredger Expensive Mistakes How our town’s other half lived Beaujolais Run Destroyer Class: HMS Ludlow Reviewed: Yalta game Grand National winner: Forbra

“When we first knew Douglas, one of the major inventions on his mind, other than the tantalising-sounding underwater bike, was knife-proof armour that he was developing for the Metropolitan Police.”

I MOVED to Ludlow in 1991 because my mum had met a man called Douglas at a party. Douglas (a short, wirey Glaswegian with bushy eyebrows and a loud laugh) announced that it was love at first sight and, after six months of driving back and forth over the hills from Wolverhampton, my mum made the leap and we moved in with him to a three-bedroom cottage at the top of Titterstone Clee Hill ... above the aptly named village of Bedlam. Douglas said that he chose the house because it had a stream and a waterfall in the garden, and glorious views – he’d decided to buy before he even went inside.

For all the years that he lived there, he spent his leisure time at the weekends cutting the grass of

the two acres of land on either side of the stream, often at ridiculously steep angles, or tinkering with the (overwhelmed) lawn mower and humming to himself. It made a reasonable substitute for the work that was his obsession and his life.

‘Was it love at first sight for you too?’ I asked my mother. She didn’t look too convinced, but she said she thought he was fun, and that the night they met he’d told her about an underwater bike that he had invented, which was certainly an original chat up line.

Many of the readers will know about Douglas Buchanan (an inventor and designer) who was a colourful character in Ludlow for the last 30 years, working from various workshops he rented around town.

He was often making a splash with his latest invention, including things like boots for dogs, which he sold to the prison services and, later, the Queen; knife-proof armour, developed for the scientific department of the Metropolitan police; and a radically new golf club that conformed with the rules of golf but was so new and different that golfers, a conservative bunch, just wouldn’t buy it.

An easy and fun subject for journalists with a spot to fill, he was regularly in the local papers and could be seen around and about buying machine parts and tools in Morris Bufton’s, petrol for the lawnmower at the garages, or collecting our regular Friday night takeaway from the Wonder House on Old Street.

– www.ludlowledger.co.uk –

Douglas was born in Glasgow, grandson of the architect Joseph Boyd, who designed the city cinemas in the 1930s, and son of Sir John Buchanan, who was part of the fabrication team for the wooden Mosquito plane that was so pivotal in World War II. He admitted to rifling (as a child) through his father’s desk and helping himself to negatives of photos that documented the development of the Mosquito because, cut up, they made good flights for arrows; he also got into trouble with the Glasgow tram company for getting his model planes stuck in their cables. After training as an engineer, and a stint at art school, he went off to become

Continued on page 10 >

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CONTENTS FICTION 4

The Unexpected Return of Drat the Dredger: Life on Marsh

5 6-7

PROFILE

Market Street’s Carmel Wilson and her Expensive Mistakes

PAST, PRESENT, FUTURE

Boddington’s Budgens site poll, Mentor Link seek volunteers in Ludlow, ‘local author books’, and The Guardian partakes in a sausage sandwich at Vaughan’s

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HISTORY 8-9

“Winter had always been the main period of distress for Ludlow’s poor. In November 1866, the local coroner censured the relieving officer of the workhouse for refusing to take Elizabeth Beddoes of Lower Galdeford into his institution. As a result, her two infant children died of starvation”

COVER STORY ... CONTINUED

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“Included in the pet owners was the UK’s most famous dog-lover, the Queen herself, who ordered pairs of boots for her ageing corgis. Douglas recalls receiving a call from the palace when the boots arrived, and hearing ‘the voice’ on the other end of the line, congratulating him on his design”

11 The Rose & Crown’s Beaujolais-Run diary LETTERS 12 TRAVEL

Town’s parking trap, thriving antiquarian bookshops of the 1990s, error in grammar causes amusement, and salmon article migrates to complaints dept

CROSSWORD 12

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9 across: Fragrance from Reims oddly applied to privates (5)

LOST AND FOUND 13

HMS Ludlow ... bullet-ridden and half-drowned off the Scottish coast

OBSERVATIONS 13

Simon Pease observes and discusses cognitive dissonance

EVENTS 14

Diane Lyle talks us through the expanding Small Gardens of Ludlow

14 Riversimple’s road-going, zero-emission prototype: the Rasa REVIEWS 15 Two Score Company’s: All The World’s a Stage & Here to There’s: The Yalta Game SPORT 16 SPOTTED

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Ludlow’s Grand National winner of 1932: the 50-1-outsider Forbra

Editor’s notes, hello again THINGS have changed quite a bit in town since 1975, as proven by a town map issued that March. It lists a (then) population of around 7080; market days as Monday, Friday and Saturday, with early shop closing on Thursday.

Corve Street entries start with Castle Garage (demolished) and the current home of Myriad Organics, then occupied by The Garden Shop. The Eagle House Restaurant (Mortimers) sits opposite The Nag’s Head (Gallery 131), with 132 and 133 then home to Offa’s Dyke Bookshop and Oxfam.

These days we know No35 as Swifts, but back then it was furniture store Chipps ... whilst Kings Bookshop resided at 139 – currently home to New Image Hairdressers ... Sheldon & Key Car Service & Repair and Ludlow Tyre Service lived on the plot of Holloways of Ludlow.

Naturally the Post Office was, actually, a Post Office then and not a restaurant by the name of Bistro 7, with No5 (now part of Gingers’ Antiques) even back then listed as an antique shop, with the left-hand shop

referred to as G. Williams (selling toys and gifts).

A couple of doors up can still be found Capitol Carpets with The Feathers of ’75 yet to swallow Broadhead Bakers, which later became their cafe bar. Next door was estate agent Stooke, Hill & Co: and an estate agent it remains, though now Strutt & Parker. Emporus was one door up, and remained so until the tail-end of 2016.

Back in 1975 you would have found an MEB showroom where Specsavers is today, with Boots, then a fruit & veg store. Coral, on the corner of Tower Street, was then home to Preedys (selling confectionery, tobacco and stationery) whilst it’s over-theroad neighbour, then Kwan Kung Restaurant, is now Teme Valley Beds.

Move to Broad Street and this midSeventies map is full of familiar names: Broad Bean, Bodenhams, Poyners and The Woolshop; elsewhere: Castle Bookshop, Castle Buttery, Waltons, and Price & Sons.

All of the butchers in 1975, bar Dewhurst of King Street, still exist,

though under different names: Griffiths was C Jones, DW Wall & Son was Humphries, whilst Andrew Francis was run by Reg Martin. And on the pub front; five of the listed public houses no longer exist: Keysells (46 King Street now trading as Thomson Travel Agent), The Globe (3 Market Street: Chang Thai), The George (12 Market Square: Pizza Express), The Angel (Broad Street) and The Portcullis of Upper Galdeford (razed to the ground to site the Co-op supermarket and entrance to its carpark). Another listed landmark, falling foul to the bulldozers, was the Town Hall.

I was in my early years when this particular map was produced, but I would have been carted around this lost landscape of shops. I wonder: How much do you remember?

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

Print} Guardian Print Centre, Manchester | Letterpress printed masthead} Dulcie Fulton: mostlyflat.co.uk

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Ledger stockists

Life on Marsh

Drat the Dredger text} Neil Stuttard

– FICTION –

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

THE pubs of Ludlow can be a creative habitat, with one unexpected conversation taking place in the Bull Hotel back in 2014 between Stan Speke and Neil Stuttard – which led to some of Stan’s long-held story ideas being taken up. They grew, were elaborated upon, and later turned into 120 pages of silly animal and plant adventures with an underlying, sensible message about the wetland environment, titled: The Unexpected Return of Drat the Dredger, which is available from Castle Bookshop.

-----------------------------------------------Stansmarsh lay misty and wide in the early morning summer sunshine. It was so vast that the mountains on the far side were hardly visible, their rosy peaks only showing as pearl-pink smudges shimmering above the bulrushes.

Far out, near the middle of the morass, Maud the Mud-dweller sensed that something unusual was going on.

She had always made her home on the peaty bog edges around the pools and ponds that filled most of the marsh and there was little that her sensitive bristles could not perceive.

Silly and Sensible Sedge woke early; for them it was always early except for the times when they were asleep, but this time they had sensed in their dreams that something was different, that something was changed and the air felt strange.

“Vibrations!” Maud whispered to the plants and Silly Sedge replied with a rustle, “I told you so; I heard the big bog quiver.” Sensible Sedge, his twin brother, said “Wait a minute, let’s take time to see what’s happening here; Davey Damselfly just left – he’ll bring back some news.”

With a croak and a splash, Fred the Friendly Frog flopped on to the bank, closely followed by Phil and Philippa the Fun Frog twins and finally Amy the Amicable Amphibian. The foursome were nearly always outgoing and nice to everyone but this time they threw questioning looks at each other because they too sensed that bad things might be coming to their corner of the marsh.

“Why did this happen?” they said, and Maud just shrugged whilst the Sedges simply sighed.

They didn’t know there was a fifth frog lurking nearby, hiding with his fellow conspirator and making plans to take over all the ponds, one by one.

Elsewhere in the marsh, the dangerous partners in greed were known as Fiendish Frog and Terrible Toad and were always given a wide berth by all the freshwater wildlife in those parts.

“Whew!” said Amy, “I’m sure it usedn’t to be such a huge leaping effort to get on to this bank. How came it to be that the ground grew higher?” “Yes, and it’s not only higher, it’s wobbling like frogspawn,” Fred observed.

Silly Sedge said “my roots are quaking and so am I – all over!”

“Don’t fuss your fronds, it must be just a far-off thunderstorm vibrating the earth,” suggested Sensible Sedge, “Davey Damselfly will be sure to enlighten us when he returns.”

“Ooo-urr, enlightening. We’ll all be frazzled to cinders,” simpered Silly Sedge. Sensible sighed again and shook his stems, saying: “let’s all be tranquil awhile, until Davey flies in.”

The four frogs crawled together into the undergrowth whilst thinking how they could come up with a plan of action. “I don’t see how it could be a thunderstorm, there’s no sign of dark clouds above,” said Philippa.

“You’re right,” answered Fred, “can’t be much to worry about, let’s relax and feel inspired in due course.”

“We’ll croak to that!” agreed Amy and Phil, and they all settled into comfortable frog positions, waiting for something to happen.

Meanwhile, Davey Damselfly had been fluttering up and down, far and wide, along the creeks and over the ponds, observing all the marsh activity along his way. Although most things seemed fairly normal, it gradually dawned on him that the ponds seemed somehow smaller, whilst the muddy expanses around them appeared to cover a much wider area than he could ever remember.

He hovered just above the water surface and, to his horror, saw that it had dropped in level, reducing the water habitat and so risking the survival of those poor nymphs waiting to hatch into his fellow damsel and dragonflies, effectively putting all pond life survival in great danger. “Oh my!” thought Davey, “I must warn everyone; we’ve got to get our water back,” and off he flew to the place he knew, where his friends were expecting his return.

“He’s here!” Maud the Mud-dweller had kept a lookout and was relieved to spot the wavering blue dot making its way toward the rushes surrounding their little patch of marshland. She didn’t realise that, in fact, the blue dot was really quite close and that it was just Billie Bluebottle making her usual rounds, sniffing for anything putrefying and a chance to lay more eggs. As she buzzed back and forth, Billie sang her favourite ditty: “Oh I love maggots, maggots are for me, for every time I lay an egg, a maggot it will be.”

She wasn’t very clever when it came to creating song lyrics but simply loved to lay eggs wherever she could.

They would all hatch into maggots – wiggly, white, wormy blighters which, nevertheless, would gobble up all the nasty, rotting things which could otherwise infect everything, causing illness and morbidity throughout the marsh. Important things are sometimes disguised with disgust and may lie in the strangest places.

She finished off her buzzing song with: “Three cheers for my maggots for

without them what would be? A sea of streptococci spreading to infinity.”

Then, with a sniff of the air, away she flew wavering this way and that, searching for the next malodorous carcase and another lovely meal.

Maud settled her bristles and rearranged her segments. She would have to keep on looking for Davey but who could know just when he would appear?

“Tell us where he is, Maud,” pleaded the twin frogs, “we want to know what’s going on,” and the others chorused: “What’s waving our world? Who is undulating our universe?”

“Just hush and listen,” she hissed, “Walter Willow the Whisperer is trying to say something and it might be momentous, stupendous or simply up-end us.”

“Oh, so sorry, please excuse our turbulence” they humbly croaked.

From far across the marsh, the lines of willow trees gently shivered, rustled their leafy messages along their slender branches and passed the latest murmurs from one to another.

Maud cocked an ear or three and caught the gist of the Whisperer’s gossip. “Things are not so well,” she said, “the humans are breaking the Pond Pact.”

“Quaking quagmires!” exclaimed Sensible Sedge and shook his leaves, “they can’t do that; we’ll all be smothered in glumness and they’ll all be up to their necks in it.” ... “That’ll leave their heads on the surface like lily-pads, and the frogs will be able to hop from one to another,” said Silly, and was greeted with a gaggle of guffaws from Phil, Philippa, Amy and Fred.

However, the merry laughter caught the attention of the two hidden conspirators who had crept to within a few hops of the happy group. It was Fiendish and Terrible, the false frog and the turncoat toad, and they knew all about the renegade humans’ breaching of the Pond Pact. In fact it was they who had shamelessly carried out the entire betrayal of the whole wet wilderness.

Their current cruel messenger, Horace Horsefly, buzzed into their hiding place and settled on Terrible Toad’s back. “Whew!” he said, “that was a long hard flight without even so much as a poor pathetic pony to nibble.

I’m jolly thirsty, I can tell you.”

“Don’t even think about it” grumped Terrible Toad, “one nip from you and you’re lunch. Now get off my back and give us your report.”

“Well,” said Horace, “in far off farmland the buzz is going around that the Pond Pact is in pieces and that swarms of humans are set to turn the marsh into potato patches, ringed around with roaring roads and all lined along with their brutish buildings.”

“Oh, trampolining tadpoles!” mumbled Fiendish Frog despite his excitement, wary of giving away their hideout, “potato patches – that means plenty of slugs for us – bring on the spuds.”

Terrible Toad cogitated a while.

“I’m not so sure about all those roads to cross. One false hop and even we could be squished to a pancake and that would put paid to our Pond-Pact strategy. All we wanted the humans to do was a little bit of drainage here and there so we could move in, link up and dominate the then not-so-wetlands. We don’t want them to take over entirely.”

“Link up and dominate,” said Horace Horsefly, “I like the sound of that.

What does it mean?”

“It means a few extra horse paddocks for you to patrol,” explained Fiendish Frog, “and a big boggy fiefdom set aside for us to rule. Pools and ponds for our tadpoles, plus lots of murky, damp ground, ideal amphibian habitat to make for a win-win, long-live, happy-golucky, frog-toad situation.”

“Exxxtra horssseflesssh,” Horace drooled and wiped his mouth-parts on his forelegs. “I’d better go into training so that I’ll be able to fend off all the bluebottles, and feast on forelocks and flanks in horsefly heaven.”

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5

Carmel Wilson

The best mistake Ludlow’s ever made text} Liz Hyder | image} Ashleigh Cadet – PROFILE – IT’S fair to say that Carmel Wilson is a well-known personage in and around Ludlow. Having moved here in 2005, she worked at the Assembly Rooms in the Box Office for some years before taking over the central Ludlow clothes boutique Expensive Mistakes nearly three years ago. Hugely entertaining and full of hilarious stories, Carmel’s been a wardrobe mistress assistant, a high-level PA in the entertainment and sports worlds, dabbled in casting extras for Coronation Street and, for many years, worked at the renowned awardwinning animation and production company Cosgrove Hall – more of which later.

Carmel has always had an eye for well-made tailoring and her friend Lyn Hobden decision to retire from Expensive Mistakes came at just the right time. Having already worked there on Saturdays for about seven years, Carmel seized the opportunity to take over. “I could see there was a really good business there and I could see ways of improving it, using the internet and online sales to reach a wider group of people,” she says.

A “hidden gem” as Vogue once called it, Expensive Mistakes is tucked away in the centre of Ludlow on Market Street, the same narrow lane that houses Black Bough, Chang Thai and Walton’s bakery. The premise of the shop is simple – one person’s expensive mistake is another’s treasure. Carmel handpicks the items for sale and a rummage through the rails reveals top labels from Michael Kors, and Amanda Wakeley to high street names like Hobbs, Paul Smith and Ted Baker.

“It’s all designer and top end of the high street but, for me, it’s got to be something special, something you’re not going to find within a 30-mile radius,” Carmel says. Whilst she does sell some vintage clothing, it’s not something the shop specialises in. “It has to be top notch basically: We take vintage up to the 50s and 60s, retro for the 70s and 80s but it has to be extra special such as Chanel, Hermes, Gucci.

If you are looking at 90s and beyond, unless it’s the really top names, then it’s just old clothes,” she says with a shrug before bursting into laughter.

Expensive Mistakes works as a dress agency “purely on commission.” She explains. “We sell the items on the clients’ behalf with a 50/50 split.”

Some of the more expensive items are genuinely pricy too. “The most expensive thing at the moment is that £600 Rich Owen jacket, its original price was £2,850, so a bargain! Prices

range from £35 upwards: Most dresses are from £35 up to around £300.”

Carmel always researches the clothing too, particularly any more unusual items such as bags, shoes and hats. A natural storyteller, it helps her weave a narrative about an item, bringing it to life for a customer. “Makes it more interesting…” she laughs. “But it’s nice to be able to explain more about it, what makes it special, the stories behind them.”

Aren’t you ever tempted to keep any of these nice things for yourself? I ask and she pulls a face. “No. Definitely not. I see pound signs. Also, someone selling it would be terribly upset if they walked in and I’m suddenly wearing their clothes… I’m happier matching the right thing to the right person – it will go to a good home.”

Expensive Mistakes’s three wellpresented rooms are all on the first floor, above the Ludlow Pantry and Carmel says this works really well. “You don’t necessarily want to broadcast that you’ve bought a secondhand dress or that you’re wanting to sell some of your things. Some people don’t mind at all but others do, so all of our bags here are plain and discrete.

It is funny though,” she grins, “how people present their clothing. Some present it beautifully, wrapped in tissue and others turn up with bin bags – not that it matters. It’s what’s inside that I’m interested in. And it’s the context too, everything from, say, a more expensive coat to the more unusual hats, shoes and bags – you have to know why you’re charging a higher price for premium items. Sometimes you can enhance the potential of something perhaps, say, a Chanel handbag that’s a bit dirty, clean it up and you can see how you can breathe new life into it. We can even send them away to be professionally cleaned, but it’s not worth putting a massive amount of effort into doing that if it is only River Island.”

Carmel and her assistant Jenny know where everything is in the shop and are always happy to help people looking for a particular outfit. “The most difficult customers to engage with are the very quiet ones. Sometimes we can really help them find things that might work for them, whether it’s classic tailoring or just trying out something a bit different.”

Carmel’s route to taking over Expensive Mistakes was certainly circuitous. She worked in the wardrobe department at the Library Theatre in Manchester for two years. “I loved it. I left home when I was 17 but the people at the theatre really looked after me, if

they took me out, they’d always make sure I got a cab home. I’m still friends with many of them.” After heading to business college, she returned to the same theatre as PA to the directors. “It was a different world…” She’d met her husband Paddy in the second season and they’re still together today. Paddy, a retired theatre producer who worked with big names and produced the West End production of Jeffrey Barnard is Unwell starring Peter O’Toole, now volunteers with adults with learning difficulties and practises his golf.

Carmel then worked for a theatrical agent in Manchester who specialised in providing extras for Coronation Street and Emmerdale. After a brief spell working in London, she moved to Cosgrove Hall studios in Manchester where she worked for ten years. The renowned British animation studio produced numerous well-loved and hugely successful shows, from Danger Mouse, The Wind in the Willows and Count Duckula to their feature film of The BFG, rightly winning the Queen’s Award for Industry. Carmel “ended up looking after commercial affairs and merchandising” but the glory days came to an end when Thames Television and Cosgrove Hall lost their right to broadcast. In her last days at Cosgrove Hall, she rang around other production studios, trying to find new homes for the talented animators that were about to become redundant.

After a brief spell at an ad agency in Chester, the Wilsons moved to London where they stayed for more than ten years. Nica Burns, renowned West End producer, helped Carmel get a job by giving her a list of the best agencies to approach. IMG (International Management Group) picked Carmel up after an old friend, Tara, who had worked in personnel at Dreamworks, remembered Carmel from when she was helping find new jobs for the Cosgrove Hall animators. “What a connection” laughs Carmel. Then she started work at the European Golf Department “not knowing anything about golf” (she splutters with laughter) before being headhunted

by ESPN, the US-based cable and satellite television channel. “When I arrived, we had a chair. That was it.

Not a desk, nothing. I had to find out in a morning how to order stuff in this massive building, how to get things done. We were part of Disney, but the sports side, and we were treated differently. Thanks to 5 Live, I got to know a bit about sport, I used to listen to it at night and then go in the next day and talk about results from overseas. They were all intensely interested in it.”

It was then that Paddy and Carmel left London to come to Ludlow. “The best of it was that the director at ESPN who hired me, is now Media Director at the IOC (International Olympics Committee). I didn’t know he was leaving until everyone kept saying, ‘Oh, I suppose you’re going to Lausanne,’ and I’d say ‘No… I’m off to Ludlow.’”

With such a busy life in London, does she regret leaving the capital? “Er, no: it sounds mad but everything’s always so busy there, I used to hate arriving

somewhere absolutely drenched, running around.” Despite claiming to not know where it was on the map (with her tongue firmly in her cheek), Carmel and Paddy chose to move to Ludlow after they kept stopping off here. “When Paddy worked for Theatre Clwyd, they used to come through here on a tour and we used to look at it and say, if we ever moved out of a city, we should try here.” That was in 2005 and they’ve not looked back since.

Before taking over Expensive Mistakes, Carmel worked at County Training on Old Street, doing maternity cover and taking people for NVQs. Then she worked from home as a tour booker on small-scale tours as well as Paddy’s tour of Godspell – “I don’t think I left the house for two years.” Her stint at the Assembly Rooms lasted for four years which she juggled with regular Saturdays helping Lyn Hobden out at Expensive Mistakes. She’s only the third owner of the shop … that was set up by the glamorous Roma Jackson, who remains a client to this day.

Carmel has now teamed up with other shopkeepers at the Chamber of Trade and is keen to get even more involved in the local community.

She already has a great relationship with the South Shropshire Furniture Scheme and regularly donates clothes.

She explains: “I went to a talk ages ago in Cleobury Mortimer and Jean Jarvis explained what the South Shropshire Furniture Scheme was, giving local people skills and giving back to the community. I was really impressed and I promised myself then that if I could ever do something I wanted to help.”

When people ask Carmel to sell their clothes through Expensive Mistakes, if she hasn’t done so at the end of the agreed period, the client can, if they wish, donate the clothes to the South Shropshire Furniture Scheme. “Some of the clothes can be used for interview clothing but obviously some of it won’t be appropriate. I donate it and it’s then sold on eBay, which helps with computer skills and means the money stays local too.”

When Carmel checked with the Furniture Scheme, she found out that they’ve made around £800 to date from sales of the items she’s donated, plus they have also built up a collection of clothing suitable for interviews and work which can be loaned or given to people living in poverty or on a low income who are seeking employment.

“I’m rather proud of that stat,” says Carmel – and quite rightly.

Carmel clearly loves running the shop, but it’s researching the items and talking to customers and clients where she’s clearly in her element. “The ones who are mooching are the best, they come in for say half an hour, and an hour later they’re still here. Sometimes people want a dress for a party really last minute or there’s a mother of a groom who doesn’t want to go to the wedding – it’s all about finding the really exciting things for whoever comes in through that door. But we all need the mundane too, the little skirt you can’t find anywhere, the quality wardrobe basics. Then I research it, find different ways to sell it – you can’t just sit there and wait for things to happen,” she says.

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Doghousemagazine.co.uk Page 4: Drat the Dredger illustration} B. L. Chelsworth

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6th Ale Massacre, Blow Up’s 50th, Vaughan’s top 50

Since issue 15 of Ludlow Ledger text} Jon Saxon – PAST, PRESENT, FUTURE – SINCE the last issue of Ludlow Ledger things have been pretty topsy turvy in town, well on the Ledger office-front anyway, with 1catastrophic equipment failure resulting in the loss of work documents, associated design fonts, a long list of emails (some I must say I was pretty pleased to see the back end of) with pretty much everything else that intrinsically makes up the newspaper ending up in a technical puddle. It explains the delayed uploading of digital editions with back-issues needing to be re-built prior to hosting online. It also explains the delayed release of this particular issue, which was due out early this January.

With excuses behind us, quite a bit has happened since the November/ December issue was distributed – a lot of which has already been heavily documented in other publications, so I’ll stay clear from much of it, but there have been a fair deal of proposed closures.

One of which is HSBC, who have just announced that its Bull Ring branch will close mid-May later this year... a decision made on the basis that, so says HSBC’s Head of Customer Service and Distribution, “over the past five years, the number of customers using HSBC branches has fallen by almost 40 percent ... with 93percent of customers’ contact with the bank now completed via the telephone, internet or smartphone and 97 percent of cash withdrawals made via an ATM.” Of course most will now already know that Budgens (who recently took over the Co-op site) is just as promptly set to close. An online poll regarding which retailer local residents would like to replace Budgens ensued, drawing much interest and debate, with Waitrose funnily enough taking the crown, with 40 percent of the total 947 votes. But who’s to say a supermarket will take over the soonto-be-vacant site: there is plenty of scope for a department store of sorts ... or how about a bowling alley?

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Councillor Andy Boddington, who set-up the supermarket poll, stated on his blog: “There were a wide range of other stores mentioned in the comments on my poll. Some people would welcome a Wetherspoons or McDonalds. Others think the Budgens site should be used for community purposes, paint ball, or perhaps it should be knocked down and replaced by apartments.

This poll has shown, not for the first time, that our town is divided. There are those that want a high-end retailer to come to Ludlow. Waitrose has topped the poll. Others are crying out for cheaper clothing and for many, that means Primark.”

Children’s charity Mentor Link is now offering a one-to-one mentoring service to children and young people in Ludlow and the surrounding area, after the charity recently secured a contract from the Careers and Enterprise Company to set up a new service to provide support to pupils in years 8, 9 and 10. Mentor Link will support young people who may be facing social and emotional difficulties, and it aims to improve their selfesteem and engagement in learning.

The charity is now, therefore, seeking volunteer mentors to listen to young people for one hour each week.

For those interested: please contact Karen Arnold on 07875 438659 or enquiries@mentorlink.org.uk.

Ludlow Brewery Company’s sixth annual Valentines Ale Massacre takes place at the 2brewery – 17th, 18th and

19th of February – with 12 beers (for the first time all on hand-pull) from Skinners, Milk Street, Tiny Rebel, Heavy Industry, Big Hand, Titanic, and Purple Moose. You’ll also have the opportunity to get your taste buds around Ludlow’s wood-fired, steamtrain barbeque outfit West Coast Braai. And, for the curious, Braai is Afrikaans for barbeque, with the West Coast aspect a nostalgic nod to the South African town of Vredenburg (around two hours from Cape Town) which is where West Coast Braai’s owner moved to, along with his family.

And the train link... well that’s a little closer to home, with his dad starting his working life as a stoker (later driver) on trains at Hereford before the family’s relocation to South Africa, where he was employed as an iron-ore train driver.

The tail-end of January saw the first South Shropshire Blues Club gig of 2017, with a capacity crowd at the Ludlow Brewery, resulting in a profit of £1090, much of which went in the direction of the event’s chosen charity Cancer Research UK: a percentage has been kept back to help pay for some bigger-named bands in the future.

For details of their 2017 programme (including their next Ludlow Brewery date on Friday 24th March): southshropshirebluesclub.co.uk.

The installation of a 0.45metre-wide Larinier super-active baffle fish pass (SAB) – designed and fabrication by Devon’s Fishtek Consulting – was granted permission on 30th January

for the River Corve weir, found adjacent to the footbridge leading off the Linney Road. An eel tile pass was agreed upon in the same application: the tiles running down the face of the weir ... providing an effective route upstream for eels, which previously would have struggled to move up the weir’s smooth surface.

Also in January The Guardian ran a ‘50 best breakfast places in the UK’ review. They said of Ludlow’s 3Vaughan’s Sandwich Bar: “In the age of homogenous high streets, Ludlow is an anomaly. Indie businesses are still thriving here, not least three exceptional, traditional butchers.

To get a taste of why this matters, visit Vaughan’s. From 8.15am, it stuffs Andrew Francis’s supremely meaty, succulent rare-breed pork sausages and real, gunk-free bacon into local Walton’s breads and baguettes. There is a small cafe upstairs, but most people walk and eat while taking in what John Betjeman called ‘the most perfect town in England’. ...What to order: Sausage sandwich. No sauce. Let those Old Spot and Berkshire Black bangers shine.”

There’s never really been a drought when it comes to town-published books, with quite a few of notability drifting on to the Castle Bookshop shelves since the last Ledger was doing the rounds – including: Neil Stuttards’ self-published: The Return of Drat the Dredger (an excerpt can be found on p4) and: 4How The Other Half Lived – Ludlow’s working classes, 1850–1960 (excerpts can be found on

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55 Mill Street

Fly like a bird with Midland Gliding Club

Learning to fly an aircraft is an ambition of many people but sadly the cost of owning and maintaining a powered aircraft, let alone the price of training, is often enough to stop you even starting.

much flying in club aircraft during that three months as you can manage (weather permitting), with free instruction from our professional instructors.

the Shropshire Hills and you have the start of a lifelong hobby, or a career in aviation.

to fly a fixed wing aircraft. Start with a First Flight for just £95 and we throw in three month’s club membership. A further £30 a month gets you as

al catering, a bar sponsored by Three Tuns, a modern fleet of two and single seat gliders and the most spectacular views over the Welsh Marches and

Association.

LUDLOW’S MOST FASCINATING SHOP Decorative & architectural antiques, vintage clothing Juniors get almost and textiles, garden things everything half price

p8) authored and published by Derek Beattie and Corve Street’s Merlin Unwin Books respectively.

Staying on the book front: Fifty years on from it’s world premier, in London, Ludlow author Peter Burden will be celebrating Michelangelo Antonioni’s 5Blow Up and its lead actor David Hemmings, whom it helped launch, with a Ludlow Assembly Rooms viewing of the seminal 1960s movie on Friday 3rd March at 4:30pm.

Peter will both introduce the film and host a Q&A session following the film.

The time will no doubt be used to talk of his time working on the book Blow Up & Other Exaggerations with David.

Copies will be available on the night.

The red Silvine Memo Book, which once acted as the Accident Book for Mill Street’s British Legion, was recently located within a box of sundries I purchased from the Legion, when Victory House was shutting down and shifting out in preparation for its new retail occupants, Douglas Attire.

Some of entries read a lot worse than others, with (thankfully) only 10 out of the 72 pages filled out with incidents, with one lady’s breast being struck on a table after tripping on the skittle alley, another being scalded when the filter fell out of the coffee machine.

There are plenty of gashes to read about too... from fingers being stuck between beer barrels, to five stitches to a forehead required after someone passed out into a doorframe. But, more than anything, it is the recording of trapped digits that make the lion share

of reports, with mention of a right hand being trapped between the cleaning cupboard and the door whilst holding a light bulb, which then shattered.

The 6Bristol Scout (LL3’s cover star) will be on show at Downton Hall for a public event on Saturday 29th April at 10am, where the plane’s builders, David Bremner and Theo Wilford, will provide a talk, as well as running the 1917 rotary Le Rhône engine. Tickets are priced £10, with all proceeds supporting the upkeep of Middleton & Bitterley Church. For further information: Sue Bremner: 01584 877616 or susanbremner1@gmail.com The Unicorn of Lower Corve Street has abruptly shut up shop: whether a temporary manager will be brought in to keep things ticking along, or a spell of closure awaits, whilst a new tenant is sought, is yet known. Elsewhere: a manager is currently holding fort at Marston’s Bull Hotel whilst a tenant is found ... hopefully someone with a real level of experience to release the true yield of this well-placed and potentially prime public house.

And finally: Ludlow Ledger’s threenight-a-week parlour pub has reached another milestone; proudly entertaining its 200th unique beer (Grey Trees’ Centennial) and its 100th unique brewery (Harvey’s, in the shape of Sussex Best) achieved in the 58th and 59th week since opening on Christmas Eve 2016.

and can go solo at 14

years Midland spouse or lover and don’t If you’re looking for a present forold!a friend, Add a warm and com- Gliding Club has been know what to buy from thetraining thousands of things on offer, let them pilots since At Midland Gliding fortable clubhouse, 1934 of andour is affiliated cheap on site with accom- one Club we offer the least choose for themselves Gift Vouchers at £20 and £50 expensive way to learn modation, profession- to the British Gliding

55 Mill Street, Ludlow, SY8 1BB For further details visit our877200 web site at 01584 MidlandGliding.Club or call& theInstagram office on Facebook 01588 650206.

The Wheatsheaf Inn – established 1753 –

Tuesday Nights ~ Fish Night ~

Wednesday Nights ~ Steak Night ~

Thursday Nights ~ Pie & Pint Night ~

Sunday Nights ~ Carvery ~

“Every Friday Night” ~ Live Music ~

Lower Broad Street, Ludlow ~ 01584 872980 info@wheatsheafludlow.co.uk

Images on p6 and 7} Ludlow Brewing Co (2); Local Data Company (3); Merlin Unwin Books (4); Philippe Garner (5); David Bremner (6)

8

How The Other Half Lived

Ludlow, on the edge of poverty text} Derek Beattie| image} Shropshire Archives

– HISTORY – AFTER the decline of the glove industry during the first half of the nineteenth century, Ludlow returned to being a market town serving rural south Shropshire. This meant that in addition to jobs in building, quarrying and the railway, most employment was either in agriculture or serving agriculture, and this industry had always been a lowpaid section of the economy.

Seasonal unemployment was also a problem for many families. Not being based indoors, most local employment was dependent upon the weather and in winter especially, many men found themselves laid off with no pay. During the harsh winter of 1894/95 an editorial in the Ludlow Advertiser pointed out how the poor weather conditions affected the families of many workers.

‘The long continued severe weather, putting as it does a stop to nearly all outdoor work, is causing an amount of poverty and suffering greater than has been experienced for many years past.’

Winter had always been the main period of distress for Ludlow’s poor.

In November 1866, the local coroner censured the relieving officer of the workhouse for refusing to take Elizabeth Beddoes of Lower Galdeford into his institution. As a result her two infant children died of starvation.

At the turn of the twentieth century a fellow worker who had an indoor job pleaded for help for those outside workers who had been laid off. He made an: ‘appeal on behalf of the poor women and children of our town who, during the winter have suffered severely from the lack of employment by the breadwinner of the family, who must now in the present severe weather be reduced to the verge of starvation. I feel sure there are in Ludlow many ladies and gentlemen who would do something for the poor children who need food, or the poor mother who hears her babe crying for that sustenance which, owing to want and through no fault of her own, she cannot give.’

Fifty years later in 1947, winter weather was still causing widespread distress. Many of the 300 men on the unemployment register were in the building trade and had been laid off, being unable to carry on their work in the cold conditions.

-------------------------------------------------Unemployment, of course, was not just seasonal and at times when an

industry such as agriculture went into decline or the national economy went into recession, Ludlow was not spared.

The economic downturn following the First World War was felt here.

Unemployment pay was still in its infancy. The National Insurance Act of 1911 covered 2.3 million workers though not their dependents and was for only 15 weeks in any one year. The Act of 1920 extended unemployment benefit to nearly all workers though was still limited to just fifteen weeks.

As a result, in Ludlow in November 1921 it was estimated that about one hundred men, many of whom had just returned from years in the trenches, were receiving the weekly ‘dole’ of 15/- but that scores more were either not eligible or no longer received it as they had come to the end of their time limit. One wife wrote pleading for help for her husband and many others like him who daily congregated at the Buttercross. He had had only one month’s work in the last twelve.

High unemployment in the town lasted throughout the 1920s. In January 1926, 303 workers were looking for work and the figure was virtually unchanged a year later at 297. In addition, 43 others, mainly working at the Clee Hill Quarry, were on short time. The Secretary of the Shropshire Unemployment Committee held out ‘little prospect of any great improvement. For a town of the size of Ludlow, the position was serious.’ By 1929 the situation had improved only very slightly, with 234 workers without jobs, but then came the Wall Street Crash in the USA and worldwide economic recession. Even in the spring of 1931/32, when fresh seasonal work should have brought more job opportunities, the number unemployed reached 353 and in January 1933 the Chamber of Commerce estimated that one in four households in the town was affected by unemployment. It was only the outbreak of war in 1939 that remedied the problem. By then, many Ludlow families had faced two decades of struggle.

-------------------------------------------------For families living week-by-week, earning extra income was not only a necessity where the breadwinner was unemployed but in a low-wage town was a constant need for many.

During the nineteenth century in

particular, this drove many women into prostitution. Measuring how common prostitution was in the town is not easy but it appears to have been quite extensive. The Blue Book of Judicial Statistics for the county in 1865 lists eight brothels in Ludlow. In addition, the police charge books for the period 1865-1882 still survive though the detail they give varies greatly. More often than not, the occupations of the people charged is not listed nor their full addresses, just the charge and any subsequent action or sentence.

However, occasionally, when a woman is a known prostitute, even if the charge is drunkenness, assault, abusive language or even theft, this has sometimes been noted. In this way 61 women can be identified as prostitutes though this number is certainly a gross underestimation. In addition, four persons were charged with keeping a brothel. Using the census returns it is possible to discover the backgrounds of some of the women although, due to a few of them using aliases (again noted in the charge book) or later marrying or taking the name of a commonlaw husband, a number have proved difficult to trace. For those found, some light is shed regarding the personal circumstances of these women.

Most of the full-time prostitutes tended to be single young women, especially those that worked in the small, cottage-based brothels that were situated in areas such as Lower and Upper Galdeford, Raven Lane, Silk Mill Lane and St John’s Lane. Others were part-time and in this category could be found married women with children who appear to have gone on the streets to bring in extra income at times when money was short, possibly due to their husband’s unemployment.

A number of women appear to fit into this category such as Mary Ann Langford, aged 42, who lived in Corve Street in 1871 with her husband and four children, and also Jane Penny, aged 34, who in 1881 lived with her labourer husband and six children also in Corve Street. Other wives who were forced to sell sex were those whose husbands had left Ludlow in search of work and had either failed or been unable to send monies to their family. Eliza Booth of Lower Galdeford, was one of these women.

Eliza, aged 28, who had to house and feed three children whilst her husband was away, lived with her married sister who appears to have been in the same unfortunate position as her.

Another group where a number sometimes felt compelled to become prostitutes in order to support themselves were widows, especially those with children. Sarah Hotchkiss of Lower Galdeford, widowed in her thirties and left to bring up a son, began soliciting to bring in income whilst Milborough Hince, who was also widowed while living in Lower

Galdeford and left with four children to support, chose a slightly different route.

Milborough became a brothel keeper in the 1860s and 70s and took in three young prostitutes who worked for her.

Prostitution was, in many ways, a service industry for the outlying districts. The customers, according to the police charge books, mostly appear to have been from the surrounding villages: farmers, farm labourers and waggoners. These men, visiting Ludlow, were away from the watchful gaze of their wives and girlfriends or the prying eyes of fellow villagers. And the main occasions for the prostitutes to ply their trade were the many market and fair days.

Cattle, sheep and pigs were bought and sold in the Bull Ring until 1860 when the markets were transferred to the Smithfield. These sales were held in February, August, September, December and at Easter and Whitsun.

Then there were the horse fairs that returned to Mill Street and Castle Square in 1890 and the annual poultry fair each December. In addition, butter and cheese fairs were held quarterly and there was an annual hop fair. There was also the May fair that had originally been for the hiring of labourers and servants, a weekly Monday market for grain, poultry and general provisions as well as weekly provision markets on Wednesday, Friday and Saturday. Each one brought possible clients to town.

Other families brought in extra income in more respectable ways. Being residents in an agricultural market town, many in Ludlow worked on farms during periods such as harvest, and this included women and children. In both the boys’ and the girls’ sections of the National School on Lower Galdeford absences due to pupils working on the land to earn extra money for their families were taken for granted.

The summer break was known as the harvest vacation and when school officially reopened the school logbook of 1863 showed that it was expected that over 20 percent of the pupils would still be working and therefore missing from classes. For some it was late October before they returned.

Even when education became compulsory, little changed, as many families often had to put the extra income above the importance of schooling for their children.

Throughout the last quarter of the nineteenth century parents were taken to court in batches for failing to send their children to school: 38 families were prosecuted in September/October 1878 alone and 28 in February 1880.

-------------------------------------------------Extracts taken from Derek Beattie’s How the Other Half Lived – Ludlow’s working classes 1850-1960. Published

by Merlin Unwin Books, and available from Castle Bookshop: £14.99.

ISSUE #14 An evening spent at Ludlow’s Masonic Lodge Ledger’s Liz passes her driving test King’s Singer: Patrick Dunachie Bill Pearson’s Castle Lodge Much Ado About Nothing Richard Palmer investigates, again Cycling stars: Stanton-Warren and Fotheringham ludlowledger.com/archive

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– COVER STORY – < continued from the front page an engineer, working internationally on boiler design and repair.

A chequered career followed, including time as a sign maker, and working for the motor racing company Spirit, who made cars for Formulas 1 and 2 in the early 1980s. It was during this time that he met Bernie Ecclestone, with whom he continued to work and have long phone conversations with, well into the 1990s. He also made metal jewellery for companies including Asprey’s, Bruce Oldfield, Jaspar Conran, Betty Jackson and Liberty’s.

In 1982, it was Douglas to whom the fashion designers David and Elizabeth Emanuel turned when they needed a small gold horseshoe for a very special commission – Princess Diana’s wedding dress – and Douglas went to the palace to meet Charles and Diana to discuss the design. Douglas said afterwards that he was unimpressed by the design Diana wanted; gold, and evenly studded with diamonds, but he went with what she wanted, and satisfied himself with a more interesting design for her going-away earrings. The horseshoe was sewn into the bodice of her dress for good luck (in hindsight I’m not sure how effective it was), but Douglas later used the leftover Welsh gold from the commission to make a ring for my mother when they got married in 1996. He also handmade buckles and metal fittings for exclusive shoemaker John Lobb, who has handcrafted shoes for everyone from J Sainsbury to Charlie Chaplin, and has the individual wooden lasts of every single foot he ever fitted to prove it.

All inventors worth their salt have a workshop, and the one I remember most clearly was Buchanan Design – Douglas’s small business, in Casemill on Temeside, next door to the vet’s.

It had two rooms, accessed through heavy, metal concertina doors, the first room dark, with a concrete floor, no heating, and lots of large machines, including presses, stamping machines, drills and a lathe. Up a few stairs, the studio was light, with windows overlooking the millrace of the river, where we occasionally spotted kingfishers. A few patches of carpet and some old oil and gas heaters gave the illusion of warmth, and it was in here that Douglas did most of his designing.

He employed various staff over the years, including bookkeepers, engineers and a small team of, mostly, women who helped assemble products and package them to be sent out. In later years, the workshop moved on to the Burway, first one and then a second location just a couple of doors down from Loudwater Studios and Sunshine Radio. I used to work in the workshop as a holiday job, helping to make jewellery and other products, sourcing materials and arranging his filing system. The atmosphere was fun but also business-like. This wasn’t play, inventing was Douglas’s life.

When we first knew Douglas, one of the major inventions on his mind, other than the tantalising-sounding underwater bike, was knife-proof armour that he was developing for the Metropolitan Police. Mum remembers visiting their scientific department in Isleworth, West London, and watching one of the technicians stacking four armour samples from other places – one on top of the other – and then casually stabbing a knife all the way through all four layers, getting stuck in the flesh simulant underneath. They clearly needed Douglas’s help, and the armour he came up with, overlapping titanium plates held together with nylon rivets, was not only knife-proof but also needle-proof, because police officers were sometimes stabbed with dirty needles as well as knives. Because the armour was so new, he also designed testing gear to go with it: a machine that could emulate the power and speed of vicious knife attacks, so the exact specs of the armour under test could be measured and compared.

Combined with a couple of layers of Kevlar (the fabric used in bulletproof vests), Douglas’s vests were completely bullet-proof too and, for

many years, the flattened bullets used to test Douglas’s armour hung around in a desk drawer in the workshop.

Douglas came to the attention of the Met not just for the armour, but also for buckles. The police force buckles are supposed to be a certain strength, as they are supposed to be able to use their belts to pull themselves over fences or rescue people from cliffs and bridges, but their buckles at the time were not fit for purpose. The buckles were cast metal and, in very cold weather, they were prone to shattering, which is no good for holding trousers up, never mind hauling someone over a fence, so Douglas came up with a new design that was strong and safe, as well as a new design for their quickrelease equipment belt buckles. For several years, it can safely be said that all of the Metropolitan uniform buckles were made in Ludlow.

It should come as no surprise, then, that when HM Prison Service was looking for an inventor to help them design boots for their dogs, to protect their paws from glass in riot situations, Douglas should be the man they chose. Douglas, a true dog lover, had had pet dogs for many years, and our two pet dogs at the time, Bertie the labrador and Perdita the pointer became testing models for Douglas’s

prototype dog boots. These boots had to be strong enough to withstand glass and other sharp objects, but flexible enough to cope with the way a dog’s foot flexes and contracts as it walks, as well as emulating the same amount of slip as a dog’s natural footpad. His eventual design was a hit, and we made thousands of pairs of boots for prison and rescue dogs from those little workshops in Temeside and Burway. Being such a quirky idea, the boots soon caught press attention and, after an appearance on a couple of TV shows, including Matthew Kelly’s Eureka programme, the workshop was flooded with letters from individual dog-owners, including one addressed simply to ‘Mr Inventor, Ludlow’, asking for boots for their own dogs who had ailments such as grass allergies, problems with gravel, ongoing cuts and scrapes that wouldn’t heal, or simply a wish to keep their white carpets clean of muddy paw prints. Included in the pet owners was the UK’s most famous dog-lover, the Queen herself, who ordered pairs of boots for her ageing corgis. Douglas recalls receiving a call from the palace when the boots arrived, and hearing ‘the voice’ on the other end of the line, congratulating him on his design.

Despite these seeming successes,

life as an inventor, even a talented one, is difficult. Hours of research and design have to go in to an idea before it is ready to be shown to anyone else, either for sale or investment, and getting an idea to this stage can take years. Douglas was awash with ideas for all sorts of products, including a new cricket bat, a flexible crutch, ideas for sailing boats, a device for holding your book open, new handcuffs, a conveyor belt for use in military situations, a whole range of golf clubs; the list goes on.

Choosing which idea to focus on was difficult, and things became trickier after Douglas was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease in 2002. Some ideas did reach the marketplace, including the ‘Spectangle’ a device for holding your spectacles, which he sold through the Lakeland catalogue, as well as on Ludlow market, and, in recent years, a new type of shinguard for footballers that he sold to Wolverhampton Wanderers and was trialled by Chelsea.

However, the idea he had always loved best, and which captured everyone’s imagination, was the underwater bike, for snorkelers, and he did finally take the time to develop the idea more fully, making prototypes that he tested in Bishop’s Castle swimming

pool and, later, in the sea in Greece before concluding that, yes, the idea really worked. He took it to inventor’s exhibitions and won prizes for the concept. However, the Parkinson’s progressed to a point that work became impossible, and Douglas died in March 2016, having not sold a single one.

I am telling you this story now because, before he died, Douglas gave me permission to write a book about his work. He was a true original, churning out more ideas in a year than most inventors come up with in a lifetime. James Dyson took 17 years to develop his vacuum cleaner into a product that was finally sold on the open market – 17 years on one idea. In the time I knew him (about 25 years) Douglas worked on at least 30.

Douglas really loved Shropshire too... he loved the birds and wildlife, and stayed here longer than anywhere else he ever lived. His story is extraordinary, and writing this book has been a wonderful chance to delve into a true inventor’s mind, following his thought process on each idea from rough sketch to full scale production.

If you are interested in finding out more, you can follow my book’s progress here: unbound.co.uk.

11

Beaujolais Run

Matthew Lenthall

Nouveau riche

IT Services The missing bit of your IT jigsaw

text and image} Gary Seymour

12a Corve Street, Ludlow, SY8 1DA 07828 081163 / 01584 877946

– TRAVEL – I FIND many an idea comes together over a few pints with your mates that seldom comes to fruition ... however, a few months ago, over a few such pints with my mates, Karl and Mark, we decided we should stage a Beaujolais Nouveau evening in the Rose and Crown – and as such we’d have to undertake the once famous Beaujolais Run. Beaujolais Nouveau evenings were very popular in the 1970s and 80s before falling out of fashion; it started back in 1972 when a journalist challenged Fleet Street to “Bring Back the Beaujolais” to London copying the similar ‘race’ to get the first bottle of Beaujolais Nouveau wine to Paris. A new vintage of Nouveau could not be released until one minute past midnight on the third Thursday in November.

The first problem we had was that, between us, we didn’t have a car large enough to carry the three of us and the numerous returning bottles of wine; fortunately, this was sorted by Ludlow’s Wicked Car Hire. So, in November just gone, confident that our team could keep the pub running in our absence and sort out the preparations for the planned evening, we embarked on our journey.

------------------------------------------------Day One: Having spent the previous evening in a pub in Temple Ewell, near Dover, we were able to make the early ferry crossing to Dunkirk, France.

Karl was keen to be the first driver, declaring that he’d never driven in Europe before – this was abundantly clear when, a kilometre from docking in France, we only avoided colliding with a coach thanks to my frantic cries for him to STOP! We lived to fight another day and, between the three us sharing the driving, we soon ate up the 700 odd miles which took us into the Beaujolais region and our destination of Fleurie.

Leaving the car at the hotel, we took the short walk into the typical French village, desperate to wet our whistles after such a long drive.

It wasn’t the bustling night we expected it to be, but we found an excellent bar/restaurant, friendly locals and a host called Francois. Several locally brewed beers and a few bottles of excellent Fleurie relaxed us and made us feel at home – even Mark was

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You can come to me or I can come to you

relaxed despite the huge resident dog.

In many parts of Europe EU laws seem to be only observed when it suits – in this instance, the indoor smoking ban was non-existent, and my offer to Francois of a King Edward cigar was much appreciated: So much so that we were given a bottle of Beaujolais Nouveau before the midnight deadline ... not to mention a Cuban cigar apiece.

We had made new friends and quaffed the bar dry before we – somehow – made it back to our hotel.

------------------------------------------------Day Two: Before attempting our journey back through France we needed some breakfast – where better to start than in a couple of wine shops? Again we tasted the Beaujolais Nouveau and again we were pleasantly surprised at how good it was and stocked up the Wicked-loaned car with wine for the planned celebration back home.

We made good time on the way back to Dunkirk, arriving there early evening as the heavens opened. We avoided getting drenched on our walk into town by diving into the nearest bar we could find. And what a find that turned out to be, packed with jovial locals who offered us a warm welcome and invited us to join their Beaujolais party. Fuelled by beer and several bottles of wine, we joined in the singing and were asked to sing a song of our choice. Naturally we chose the drinking song It’s five o’clock somewhere which impressed them so much they insisted we sing God save the Queen then, before we knew it, Karl was dancing the Macarena. When we attempted

to leave, we were forced into another rendition of our, now, theme tune It’s five o’clock somewhere.

There was now no stopping us – we gave a further rendition of our song in a quayside bar and the landlord gave us a strange cocktail which he asked us to name. We called it a ‘Three Soprano’, which he seemed to like.

By the time we got back to our hotel the bar was buzzing - with an early morning ferry to catch it would be sensible to retire to our rooms …. we didn’t, we stayed up until around four in the morning.

------------------------------------------------Day Three: The Dunkirk evacuation (code-named Operation Dynamo and also known as the Miracle of Dunkirk), actually went smoother than our UK departure. Unsurprisingly we overslept but, thanks to Karl’s hair-raising drive to the docks, we managed to make the ferry with minutes to spare ... meaning that we were able to make it back in time for the night’s Beaujolais celebrations at the Rose and Crown.

As we sailed out of Dunkirk I had time to reflect on what had been a great trip, but also to think about the fact that my grandfather had been one of the lucky British soldiers to escape Dunkirk in 1940. On the first day of the evacuation, only 7,669 men were evacuated, but by the end of the eighth day, a total of 338,226 soldiers had been rescued by a hastily-assembled fleet of over 800 boats. A somewhat bigger miracle than Mark and I surviving Karl’s driving.

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

ISSUE #17 EDITORIAL DEADLINE

10th March 2016

ISSUE #17 AD DEADLINE SPOTTED – View of Lower Broad Street, by Zeigler H B, published by R Jones, Bookseller, 1845

31st March 2017 ads@ludlowledger.co.uk

Page 10 and cover text, and images} Rachel Buchanan

12

Just 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 – IN response to Sam Jones’ erudite article in the last Ludlow Ledger, I must first thank him for such a comprehensive account of the Atlantic Salmon life-cycle. I am certain that the general public will have been far better informed on its account.

As the Weirs Manager for the Teme Weirs Trust (TWT) since 2002, there are a few points I need to clarify on their behalf and with their approval, since they are referred to in that article.

Mr Jones is correct in stating that TWT have spent a fortune on restoring our iconic weirs since 2002 and, whenever we restore a weir, we install a fish pass to the specification supplied to us by the Environment Agency (EA), a legal requirement when weir repair is undertaken.

There is currently no permanent fish pass at Mill St weir; TWT have never restored it, but they have been very keen for at least five years, for a fish pass to be installed, even without any planned restoration. TWT regret that EA and Severn Rivers Trust (SRT) have so far failed to deliver.

In 2014, EA/SRT agreed a design for a pass with TWT at Mill St, and the intention was to go ahead with construction in Sept of that year, the funds and all permissions having been secured. Delays then occurred and, by the time construction was due to commence in October, the weather and water had turned against them.

As a result, it was not installed in 2014, neither in 2015 nor 2016 as the necessary grants needed re-application to obtain but, we understand, were not granted. That is the present position regarding the Mill St Weir fish pass.

EA/SRT have not revealed to TWT any plans currently for 2017.

Now, on a personal note, I declare that I am a very keen angler, and strictly target fish for the table, invariably sea species. I take exception to Sam Jones’ unashamedly biased contention (which can have absolutely no scientific basis), that hooking a salmon, playing it out to exhaustion, and hauling it out of the river to extract the hook and pose for photographs, has less impact on its energy reserves than a few failed attempts to leap a weir.

I would remind him that Atlantic Salmon have had millions of years to adapt to the leaping of obstacles – it is what they do best (the clue is in the name ‘Salar’ – ‘The Leaper’ in Roman vocabulary). Being hauled out needlessly in exhaustion is not a hazard we should expect them to have adapted to.

This irrational argument is, of course, adopted to justify to himself that what is, in fact, legalised cruelty to a wild animal under the umbrella of ‘Game angling’, is acceptable practice.

If it were any other animal than a fish, exploitation of these creatures on their critical breeding run, entirely for the gratuitous entertainment of the ‘Game angler’, would have been outlawed many years ago.

The weirs were installed centuries ago to provide water power for mankind’s industry of the day. They were not placed there for the deliberate obstruction of migrating fish, and, in more enlightened years, nearly all weirs have integral fish passes installed to mitigate their inconvenience. In contrast, the ‘catch and release’ policy adopted by many Game anglers is a deliberate voluntary interruption of the salmon’s ascent, by man, and at the most vulnerable point in their life.

How unfair is that? If they altruistically wished to assist the salmon, the only action they should logically take is to leave them entirely alone while in the river system.

Finally, as the Weirs Manager for TWT who spends much of his time on the river and maintaining weirs and sluice-gates, I am indebted to Mr Jones for pointing out the correct operation of the sluice-gates under the conditions of the salmon migration. Perhaps he has some eggs that I could suck?

Sluice gates vary in their watertightness against the river pressure: older ones, even well-maintained, can leak some water, giving the impression, perhaps, to the ignorant that they may be partially open when they are closed.

Our sluice-gates are operated under strict instruction from the EA, whose advice is relevant to the prevailing river and migration conditions. No other advice is appropriate.

empty loading bay in Mill Street. ...

In every British town I know, loading spaces are regulated only during working hours, and there were no indications that this was not equally the case in Mill Street. But, as we again discovered to our cost, Ludlow likes to be surprising, so we found another envelope behind our wipers.

On complaining, I was told that loading spaces throughout Ludlow are kept clear at night for the convenience of taxis. Whilst I have vague memories from my distant youth of seeing taxis standing at a rank, I doubt that anyone has found a cab this way since the arrival of mobile phones. The nighttime purpose of these wasted spaces can, therefore, only be as moneytraps for the Council. Sadly, the town itself loses out by this scam. Sneaky, unnecessary parking regulations are guaranteed to upset visitors … and upset visitors do not return.

Hamish Scott, Kingsland ACROSS 9 Fragrance from Reims oddly applied to privates (5) 10 Programme to watch on this?

(6-3) 11 Up all night in masonic shenanigans (9) 12 Note problem caused by continually using tongue (5) 13 Outward appearance of noisy fellows (5) 14 Artist on expedition accepts model of religious movement (9) 16 Vessel carrying king is tidy (5,2) 17 Rant and go mad over soprano in vocal work (3,4) 19 Look! Furry thing in tall grass moved (9) 21 Boy is critical at first of audio (5) 23 Hitchhike complaint about smell (5) 25 Foolish doctor on island gets parasites back in charge (9)

DOWN 1 Bounce across castle square (6) 2 Clean power increase involves money (8) 3 May’s extraordinary new system is biased to one side (10) 4 Bug literally overruns fruit (4) 5 Sculpt ragged cuts in dessert (3,7) 6 Treacle fudge centre is a staff requisite (4) 7 Peninsula in sunless north region (6) 8 Going over the speed of light is thrilling (8)

14 Agent in state worried to return home (10) 15 One admitted to worker’s party is disinclined to mix (10) 16 Vessels of desperate Croats clutching papers (8) 18 Clown loses head, keeping no record, in serious wine tasting? (8) 20 Duck in dive for bar (6) 22 Bird nuts (6) 24 Muscle complaint (4) 26 Naked, except for English (4) ---------------------------------------------The answers to the previous issue’s crossword can be found on the back page of this paper.

I VERY much enjoyed your comments on bookshops and coffee houses in the last issue of Ludlow Ledger.

Many of your readers will, I’m sure, remember a time in the 1990s when Ludlow had six thriving secondhand/ antiquarian bookshops; I once even heard it described as ‘an upmarket Hay on Wye’.

A few years before this, New Image (the hairdressers on Corve Street which you mentioned in the story) used to be John King’s Bookshop, which I think closed a year or so before I moved to Ludlow in 1984.

John moved to Blackwell’s, the largest academic and specialist bookseller in the UK, based in Oxford.

And you can also add another coffee shop to your tally; The ex-Little chef at Wooferton has been converted to a Starbuck’s...

Gareth Thomas, Ludlow As is the case with many of the articles, Mr Jones’ was issued ahead of publication, for fact-checking purposes ... in this case both to the recently retired local Fisheries Officer for the Environment Agency and the Weirs Manager of Teme Weirs Trust (as they were directly referred to). Both parties praised and corrected, where necessary, the article, with all suggested changes featured within the final printed version.

-------------------------------------------------FURTHER to your piece in issue 15 about parking in Ludlow: My wife and I got caught out one recent evening when we parked in, what turned out to be, the wrong part of the market square. The situation there is utterly misleading to those not in the know, and it appears to be devoid of logic.

Apparently it is okay to park in the market area itself of an evening, but not in the adjacent parking area. Even more annoying was the trap we fell into on our next visit to the Assembly Room when, having steered clear of the market area, we parked in an

27 Canine landlord’s rent, initially (3,6) 28 Difficulties a horse runs over (5)

ock “...you m for y somebod in a mistake nd a grammer ow it ll quickly fo e of with on .” your own

Peter Hadley, Ludlow -------------------------------------------------IT frequently happens; you mock somebody for a mistake in grammar or pronunciation and quickly follow it with one of your own.

I hope your father is chuckling at the “polkerdot bikini”.

With thanks for an enjoyable paper.

Peter Criddle, Ludlow

13

HMS Ludlow

G57 text} Jon Saxon – LOST & FOUND – AROUND this time of year, when the lowest tides are evident, is a good time to carry yourself off to the beach of Yellowcraig; it looks out to Scotland’s Firth of Forth (a six-metre deep stretch of water) which has been the home to the Destroyer Class HMS Ludlow since the mid-Forties.

There is, of course, little these days to denote its war-time efforts, whether as HMS Ludlow or, as its former self, USS Stockton (DD-73) – the second US Navy ship that was named for Commodore Robert F. Stockton, it was built by William Cramp & Sons Ship and Engine Building Company, back in 1917, in Philadelphia, USA. In its early life, the sturdy 1125 ton Caldwell-class destroyer joined the US Navy’s anti-submarine forces based at Queenstown, Ireland, from where it escorted convoys and patrolled the British Isles until the end of WW1.

Stockton’s name was eventually struck from the US Naval Vessel Register on 8th January 1941, at which time the destroyer was sent to Halifax, Nova Scotia, and was decommissioned. She was transferred to Great Britain later that August as part of a 50-boat gift to Britain in exchange for Atlantic bases. From then onwards the ship served the Royal Navy as HMS Ludlow (G57) until her decommissioning in June 1945 because of reliability issues – mainly with her White-Forster boilers.

Soon after decommissioning she was stripped of equipment and towed to the Firth of Forth to be moored offshore (near East Lothian’s Fidra Island) to be used as a target for live air to ground fire from RAF East Fortune’s 132 Operational Training Unit (OTU) later becoming No17 Coastal Command. It is reputed that the first salvo of rockets hit just below the water line and promptly sank her to the resting place evident to this day, with a bit of bow and a bit of stern sneaking above the water line.

It’s still easy to imagine armed Beaufighters and the Mosquitos that followed, one after another, approaching her from the south over the nearby farm house at Ferrygate – flying low over the famous North Berwick West Links Golf Course, tackling targets beyond the 9th Green and the ensuing dunes.

These dunes absorbed the impacts of rockets with subsequent bullets straying into the sea behind. As dangerous as this seems, we must remember that this area of coastline was completely sealed off to the public during WW2 as it was mined; some of the preventive wire and securing fence poles are still in evidence all these years later...

If the trek to just shy of North Berwick, to catch sight of a wreck bearing the Ludlow name, is too far, then visit St Laurence’s church, where a delicate silk ensign (albeit tattered and torn) proudly hangs; the ensign was created by women of the town to fly on the ship, when it was named.

You could also go that extra mile and get involved in the appeal to assist in its restoration.

In order to help preserve the flag for future generations, a number of Royal Naval Associations have already chipped in, with a further £3,000 required for its much-needed restoration and the creation of a clear presentation case. Any donations (however big or small) can be made either by cheque to the church (made out to Ludlow PCC with something to indicate what the money is for) or online: justgiving.com/campaigns/ charity/stlaurences/hmsludlow.

Wisdom

Challenging beliefs text} Simon Pease – OBSERVATIONS – A PIECE of wisdom I learned, I forget when, is that it is quite possible for a human individual to believe two or more things which are in contradiction, without it bothering them in the least. In fact, they get along with the contradictions very well, and it is only when rude facts interfere that problems can start.

I sometimes talk to people whose beliefs about the world have been shaken by something which has made them realise that, perhaps, some of the things they believed weren’t true at all.

If they can’t sort this out in their own mind they fall into what psychologists call ‘cognitive dissonance’, which basically means being very confused, and it can cause serious mental health

issues. But on the whole, human beings are pretty resilient. If you think about the appalling suffering they have inflicted on each other throughout history, you realise they’d have to be, or none of us would be here.

So what do people do when confronted with facts that seriously challenge their long-held beliefs?

Well, most of the time they change the facts or, perhaps, it would be kinder to say they ‘selectively interpret’ the facts, so that they don’t have to change their beliefs. It makes sense on a simple level because the problem goes away, the world is right again and they emerge from their confusion. We can all do it – I know I have. And a recent study of scientists, who one would hope would form their opinions on the basis of carefully weighing up all the

evidence, showed that they are among the most reluctant to change their beliefs, and the most adept at carefully picking the facts which support their beliefs. As for the inconvenient facts, they usually have an explanation for why these are less important than the facts they like.

If you think about it, changing your long held beliefs is likely to be really hard work. And of course it usually isn’t just one belief you have to change, they are all interconnected; and if you change one there is a slight risk the whole lot might collapse like a house of cards, leaving you in a real mess. Instead, we patch the edifice up and carry on, ignoring the fact that the whole thing is tottering and creaking.

So I am not particularly surprised to find myself living in the world of post-truth politics, in which people choose to believe things that are obviously untrue, or accept that the news they see is selected in such a way as to appeal to their particular view of the world, and not inconveniently challenge them with things that might make them question whether they have got it right. I was reminded of this recently when one of my urban friends was telling me about the stresses and strains of their modern city life. I’ve had conversations like this before; transport invariably comes high up the list, and I can certainly sympathise, having spent my fair share of time commuting.

Then there is the noise, the general stress of the pace of life, the impossibility of getting a plumber. I’m sure you get the picture. I listened politely, expressing sympathy where it seemed to be needed and, when he’d finished, I asked him why, given he was no longer working, he needed to stay in the city. Couldn’t he move to somewhere like, well somewhere like here, where he seemed to find the balance, the pace and everything about it quite appealing? He looked at me, genuinely shocked. “Oh no. I know this is great for you, but I could never live in a place like this, I’d go mad.” And there was I thinking that everything he’d said suggested it was living in the city that was causing him the problems. Now when this sort of thing happens, you have a choice: you can challenge the beliefs, or you can let it pass. I nodded. “You’re probably right. It wouldn’t suit you.” I said.

After all, I didn’t want to risk causing cognitive dissonance.

Editor-in-chief Jon Saxon Sub editor Sally Newman-Kidd Photography Ashleigh Cadet, Michael Martin, Shropshire Archives Illustrations B. L. Chelsworth Authors Liz Hyder, Simon Pease, Rachel Buchanan, Prue Britten, Derek Beattie, Diane Lyle, Neil Stuttard 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 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

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14

Gardening

Small gardens grow a bit bigger for 2017 text} Diane Lyle | image} Michael Martin

– EVENTS – IT was a ‘gulp’ moment when Angela Siminson suggested I could take over the admin for the Small Gardens Festival ...... an even bigger one when I found myself agreeing (I am aware of the massive footsteps she has left for me to follow). However, I am passionate about keeping the event going, and equally passionate about its ethos to open up the Ludlow that is outside those invisible walls that still seem to enclose the centre of town, and to show off its charm, so it is a challenge I will strive to meet.

Let’s be honest too – I am not flying solo: Angela handed over the actual Small Gardens Festival ‘corporate’ foundation to the Furniture Scheme, to be run as part of their excellent community outreach programme. And, of course, situated as they are at the heart of the Sandpits area, they are in the perfect place, geographically, to nurture Angela’s original ethos and to develop it.

Add to all that the fact that the Furniture Scheme and, indeed, the Small Gardens Festival itself, is at the hub of the Rockspring Ward, which I am proud to represent as a Ludlow Town Councillor – well, how could I have refused to pick up the baton and go for it?

So, using the double-edged phrase ‘under new management’, my first Small Gardens event happened last August. Because there had been effectively a two-year gap, I opted to follow the description and start small (which, being small myself, is generally how I tend to operate...).

With a small, two-person team from the Furniture Scheme, and Sarah

Dixon adding her invaluable insights (and organising the team of stewards), we looked at a small revival for our Year One with some exciting plans for future years ... if the 2016 event washed its face. And it did...

We attracted 350 people, who visiting a total of 12 gardens, between Gravel Hill and Rockspring Community Centre, for just one Sunday afternoon on 7th August, and we were blessed with sunshine but, thankfully, not soaring temperatures. The day was a learning curve – none of us expected it to be perfect and it provided what we needed to learn to enrich 2017’s event and those into the future.

The profits from the day amounted to just over £600, giving the Furniture Scheme its starter-for-ten seed funding for the 2017 Small Gardens Festival, and it gave me the go-ahead to start developing some exciting plans with Sarah and James Cooper of the Furniture Scheme.

‘What are these plans, then?’ I hear you clamouring: First of all, the date will change. It’s hard enough work preparing your garden for public viewing anyway (as I know first-hand, having opened mine for two years when the Small Gardens was in its infancy) and August simply isn’t the best month to show off that hard work. The flowers are tired, there are fewer in bloom, let alone at the height of their bloom, and the colours are beginning to fade. The gardens that were open for the 2016 revival looked lovely, there’s no doubt about that, but they would have looked even lovelier had they been open earlier in the summer.

So, from 2017, the Small Gardens Festival will happen on the first Sunday

in July which will also coincide with the final day of the Ludlow Fringe Festival. This year it’s on 2nd July, still for one day, but the gardens will be open for longer – between 10.30am and 6pm. Hopefully people will keep the date free, come and join us, and enjoy browsing Ludlow’s small gardens.

This year we hope to introduce ‘Shropshire Hills Produce’ – a range of jams and pickles, chutneys and preserves, made from the fruits of local gardens and allotments. There will also be a static art exhibition at Rockspring Community Centre, as well as local

sculptors’ work on display in some of the gardens.

In addition: there will be much better use of the delightful community garden that has been created by Andrew ‘Ozzie’ Orsborn at the corner of Sandpits Avenue, with seating and music, a small bar area and ice creams ... and gazebos just in case.

There will be two free minibuses operating during the day, starting from Smithfield carpark and terminating at Rockspring where there will be refreshments available – and lots of lovely cakes.

It’s exciting – some seeds to be sown and it’ll be fun to see what grows from them over the coming years.

And if you’d like to be part of this, either by sharing your garden, offering us the produce from your garden, being one of the participating artists, joining the essential team of stewards or minibus drivers, or by helping the small committee to deliver the event, then please get in touch: 01584 876 854 or diane.lyle@btinternet.com.

SPOTTED – Road-legal engineering prototype of Rasa, a zero-emission, fuel-cell two-seater from Riversimple who, until 2014, based themselves at Ludlow’s Millennium Green

15

Two Score Company & Here to There Productions

All the World’s a Stage and Yalta Game text} Prue Britten | image} Ashleigh Cadet – ENTERTAINMENT – THE gulf between a Principal Singer in the world’s great opera houses and a Director of a modest group of actors in the relatively small confines of Ludlow Methodist church, might be large, but Kim Begley (pictured in the foreground) has leapt that gulf with yards to spare.

The setting for the production provided a visual showcase with an unstructured backdrop on which, as the audience arrived, were projected many of the phrases which we use in common parlance, all of which originated with Shakespeare. During the performance appropriate images were projected, setting a scene or creating a mood.

The musicians – Ed Begley (keyboards and synthesiser), Steve Dunachie (keyboards and strings), Tony Bianco (percussion) and John Murray (brass) – enhanced the evening with some fine music and atmospheric sound effects. Hopefully we will hear more from them in the future.

The 24 excerpts, divided half way by an interval, were for the most part well-chosen, however the reciting of the two best-known sonnets was ill-advised. Both deliveries reminded us of school prize giving. It might have been prudent to select two different sonnets – there are 52 others to choose from and all well worth exploring, without the danger of calling to mind superb renderings by the likes of Dame Judi Dench or Paul Schofield. However, the well-devised running order held our attention and the cast handled the sometimes swift changes of character and costume with professional aplomb.

Henry VI Part 3 with York (Paul Rew), Northumberland (Steve Piper), Clifford (Tim Mawson) and Queen Margaret (Kate Garman) gave a taste of the desperation, pitilessness and

brutality of the 15th Century. Garman understands that stillness and slow, low, measured speech can conjure up more empathy and comprehension than a shouted delivery. These traits she exhibited again as Portia (The Merchant of Venice) and Goneril (King Lear). By contrast, in other excerpts, her fellow actors gave the impression that, in order to express emotion, it is necessary to shout.

In the ‘letter scene’ from The Merry Wives of Windsor Mistress Ford (Charmian Ingham) and Mistress Page (Rai Fisher) find out that Falstaff has sent them identical love letters.

There are well-pointed puns here and Ingham and Fisher enjoyed the verbal jousting and threats against Falstaff for his deception. In the following scene Mistress Quickly (Fran Lothian) assures the gullible Falstaff that both ladies are smitten with love for him.

This works particularly well when the audience is ‘in’ on the scene. Lothian was initially too fleet of tongue and parodied the Cockney accent, however she is a fine actress and fully understands the need to balance Quickly’s wit with her listeners’ comprehension and appreciation.

The scene from Hamlet, in which mother and son do emotional and verbal battle, was most effectively examined. Hamlet (Peter Hayter) and Gertrude (Rai Fisher) thoroughly explored the passions of the motherson relationship. Hamlet, angry with himself and with his mother, is biting and relentless in his criticism of Gertrude’s marriage with his uncle.

Gertrude is vulnerable to his censure yet aware of social standing and her position as his mother. Hayter and Fisher gave us fine portraits of a mother and a son, both aware of their own shortcomings but torn by the other’s weakness and onslaught. The stabbing of Polonius was shocking, not only for its abruptness but for the

cold way in which Hamlet views his handiwork.

From A Midsummer Night’s Dream, the row between Hermia (Fran Lothian) and Helena (Miranda Fotheringham) was a delight. It was well-paced with perfect timing of the barbed insults exchanged between these erstwhile friends following upon Puck’s mischief with the misadministration of the love-flower.

Here are two close friends suddenly spouting spite and there is a suspicion that these resentments may have been festering for many moons.

The final scenes were mystical and poetic, although the darkness and flickering lights rendered it impossible to see the actors’ faces, which was regrettable. What remained after the performance was the knowledge that we had been royally entertained by a clever, thoughtful and talented ensemble of actors, musicians and technicians in the hands of a most skilful director.

-------------------------------------------------HERE to There Productions’ afterdinner play, at The Feathers Hotel, was Brian Friel’s The Yalta Game – a short two-hander based on a theme from Chekhov’s The Lady with The Lapdog. Despite a very small acting area, some of it virtually in the laps of the audience, the production succeeded in giving the audience a real feeling of space – both physical and mental.

On the face of it, this is the tale of a married man, Dimitry Gurov (Andrew Whittle) who goes on his own, annually, for a summer break in Yalta. There is a younger woman, Anna Sergeyevna (Lorren Winwood), who is sent by her husband to ‘get away from it all’. Gurov picks her up and, despite the differences in age and experience, they become friends and lovers. Beneath this charming vignette of eighteenth-century Russian life, there lurks the unacknowledged spectre of fantasy.

Whittle had the stage to himself for the opening scene (quite a daunting prospect in such an intimate space) but he was quite the Russian ‘man about town’. It seemed unlikely that Gurov personally knew the circumstances and lives of all his fellow tourists, and his own ‘peoplewatching’ game had begun. When given the opportunity of solitude amongst a crowd, there can be few who have not allowed themselves the

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fun of observing and characterising other people. Gurov ordered coffee from a (non-existent) waiter and, when it arrived, the apparently bungling mime of setting it down gave some clue as to what was to follow. When Anna arrived she had a small dog with her. This was either a mimed dog (the real thing is notoriously unreliable on stage), or an imaginary one. Gurov and Anna muse to themselves and speak with each other and that conceit is set for the remainder of the evening.

Whittle and Winwood were an excellent pairing, both as actors and as co-respondents. The pomposity of Gurov sparked against the almost child-like naivety of Anna, yet they were aware of the other’s strengths and foibles. They took us from aweinspiring waterfalls to dubious hotel

rooms, from the panic of trying to locate a lost dog, to questionable reality of ‘Yalta’, as that hound had now been named. At one time the couple were talking to her and petting her. A moment later they were oblivious to the dog, walking straight over the area in which ‘Yalta’ was purported to have been nestling.

At the end of the play we had suspended disbelief and were left happily between fact and fiction, reality and fantasy. This was a gentle reminder that in most of our lives these two are both necessary and very close. Plaudits go to Whittle and Winwood and to Chris Barltrop for unobtrusive, thoughtful and subtle direction. It was a most enjoyable and thought-provoking evening.

A tall tale of the clash of country and town....

Can the wild inhabitants save their wetland idyll?

Limited first edition by a local author Neil Stuttard, available from Castle Bookshop, Ludlow £8.50

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16

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Ludlow’s Grand National winner

William Parsonage’s Forbra text} Jon Saxon| image} Pathe

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If you’re still making your way through the last issue’s crossword then you had better look away now – SPORT – WITH the number 30 draped under his saddle, a seven-year old, Ludlowowned, Bay Gelding by the name of Forbra, lined up alongside 35 other well-trained expectants on 18th March 1932, for the 91st renewal of the worldfamous Grand National at Aintree.

Nine minutes and forty-fourand-three-fifths seconds later (with Edward, Prince of Wales in attendance) this unfancied 50/1 steeplechaser passed the line, winning by three lengths from second-place Egremont, with Shaun Goilin in third, followed by Near East in fourth.

For much of this race Forbra’s jockey, Tim Hamey, was sat alongside Edward Paget and his mount Egremont – with film footage showing the two chatting away ahead of the remaining field, until Hamey realises that Forbra (wayward as he was) was strong enough to win, and is seen to stop chatting to leave Paget behind.

Though only eight of the 36 starters completed the 1932 race at Aintree, it is said that every one of the horses that ran that day returned safely to their respective stables.

Jockey Tim Hamey was chosen for his horse, being a renowned jockey at home with hurdles and longer steeplechase conditions. It is, therefore, no surprise to learn that

Hamey would return the following year for another stab at Aintree’s showpiece chase (again paired with Forbra) though only to achieve sixth this time around; Forbra would later manage fourth in 1934’s Grand National but, more impressive, he never fell during his racing career.

He also continued to be successful at the January meeting at Gatwick in 1935, where he won three successive races though, sadly, later that very same year, was put down following a race at Newbury, having broken a fetlock between the final two fences.

Prior to his 1932 victory, Forbra beat Golden Miller (the most successful Cheltenham Gold Cup horse ever) in a 1931 race at Newbury where ‘The Miller’ was disqualified for carrying the wrong weight.

Ludlow-owned Forbra was, as it happens, the first Grand National winner to emerge from the famous Kinnersley stables at Kinnersley near Worcester, where in later years Fred Rimell, son of Forbra’s trainer Tom Rimell, became a champion trainer, winning more Nationals and almost all the major National Hunt events of his time ... effectively dominating a Golden age of Steeplechasing in the decades of 1960 and 1970.

Forbra’s owner, Mr William (Billie) Parsonage, was a well-known commission agent in Ludlow, who had previously attempted to win the lauded

National with a number of staying chasers. The best known of these was Master Billie, who had been greatly fancied and heavily backed on 22nd March 1929 – a Grand National with 66 riders, which remains the largest field of all time (the race was won by 100/1 outsider Gregalach). With facts and figures in mind this was the second successive year where a horse with such odds had won, when outsider Tipperary Tim was the first of only two to pass the post.

Forbra is rightly honoured each year at Ludlow Racecourse with a threemile Handicap Chase in late February (ludlowracecourse.co.uk for further details) known as the Forbra Gold Challenge Cup. Naturally much more needs to be researched of Billie Parsonage, who may well have also been the Mayor of Ludlow, listed in records from 193233, which sounds about right. Perhaps readers could assist with a more personal piece on this man: where he resided in town and worked (I believe near where Old Street meets Brand Lane) – and possibly help confirm whether after Forbra’s National win Mr William Parsonage did indeed hand out (as it is rumoured) a penny apiece to children in Castle Square?

You can contact me on 01584 872381 or editor@ludlowledger.co.uk.

Ludlow Ledger

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CROSSWORD CLUES #15

See page 12 for this issue’s crossword