Marshwood+ November 2024 by Marshwood Vale Ltd

© Kirsty McGee Photograph by Robin Mills

Igrew up in the Peak District in a tiny village called Mill Brow. We lived in what had once been a textile workers’ cottage. It had a big garden and was surrounded by open countryside which was great for a wild and free childhood. As a bit of a solitary child, with no siblings, I got seriously into reading. From an early age I realised there were two escape routes from everyday life: one was books, and the other was nature.

My mum was a primary school teacher, and my dad was a travelling salesman in the textile industry. Mum is very creative, an amazing gardener, and she’s been a very big influence on my life. My childhood was constantly filled with creative activities.

My love of books led me to take a degree in English Literature at Sheffield, and then a master’s degree in modern and contemporary fiction. I was interested in radical fiction at the time, anything which was pushing the boundaries of the mainstream, particularly American writers like Angela Carter, Steinbeck, and the beat writers like Kerouac.

After University I became an obsessive hitchhiker. Everywhere I went, even for quite short journeys, I would hitch. It was because I was so in love with stories; every driver had a new story for me. For 10 or 12 years hitching became my identity. I think I wanted to be Sissy Hankshaw, the female hitchhiker with enormous thumbs in Tom Robbins’ novel “Even Cowgirls Get the Blues”. Eventually the master’s degree finished off my relationship with literature, perhaps because I’d absorbed a surfeit

© Kirsty McGee

Photograph by Robin Mills

Robin Mills met Kirsty McGee at Wayford, near Crewkerne

of words and needed to make room for something else.

After university I went into journalism, working for a publication called the Ethical Consumer magazine based in Manchester. I had become a vegetarian at the age of 9, and as I got older had become interested in politics which related to respecting the rights of everything living. The magazine work involved researching companies and where they stood in respect of human and animal rights, and their relationships with oppressive regimes. The business was run as a co-op, so we did everything from deciding what went into the magazine to mailing out the envelopes. It’s nice that the magazine’s still going. As their Arts Editor I went to the Newbury bypass site and stayed as a guest on the Go-Tan camp. I also went to the Schumacher College at Dartington, studying under Norwegian philosopher of ecology Arne Naess, who had founded the Deep Ecology movement.

This was the time of the road protests such as the one at Newbury; working in Manchester I became involved in the Manchester Airport campaign, for a while living in a tree, hitching to work wearing a climbing harness, and living as part of a commune of like-minded people. It all seemed perfectly normal.

My parents had always encouraged me to play music. I played flute from a very young age, reaching Grade 5 at the age of 9 or 10. I was always exploring music and listening to lots of American songwriters. My dad would buy records and play great songs to me, artists like Joni Mitchell. I had begun to write songs and occasionally played at open mic events, playing alongside bands like Elbow. By 2000 I found I’d had enough of journalism and needed a change, so I went to St Ives in Cornwall where I lived for a while in a friend’s beach hut.

The hut was amazing, half built out of driftwood above the fantastic beach at Hayle. I was lucky to get a job in a health food shop run by two musicians, which came with a flat above it. Whilst living in Cornwall I played a festival in Carlisle where I met someone who became my manager and agent. He worked hard to establish me in folk clubs but, with my roots in American music and many of the

Kirsty McGee

clubs favouring traditional music, I never really felt like I fitted in. There are amazing interpreters out there, but I have always preferred to make new songs.

After a year in Cornwall, I returned to Manchester where I stayed for 20 years. I lived in a flat in the centre of the city, enjoying what was quite a radical community, and began to tour. In 2007 I was seeing someone who became my musical partner. We began publishing and releasing our own music, not wanting to work with record labels any more.

We began working in Europe, which became the mainstay of my work for the next 8 or 9 years, touring in Germany, Belgium and Holland. Audiences in Europe seemed more accepting that our musical genre, which we called Hobopop—the band is the Hobopop Collective —couldn’t really be pigeonholed. In the UK there’s a tendency to label music with identities, like folk, indie, punk, etc, and that may be a reason why we didn’t catch on here. The music we created had no fixed genre—hence the tongue in cheek reference to hobos—but drew inspiration from the freedom to travel.

I’ve been very lucky to have worked with many wonderful people whose instrumental skills would sometimes made me feel like I had a Ferrari but was driving it at 5mph, amazing musicians like Nick Drake’s producer John Wood, a bassist and drummer who went on to play with jazz band Go Go Penguin and a reeds player and drummer who now works with Beth Gibbons.

Since my teens I’ve loved Tom Waits’ music, particularly his ballads; his is a one-man genre. Marc Ribot, a New York guitar legend who plays with Waits, worked with me on my album Those Old Demons in 2014 which had to be one of the high points of my career. That, alongside getting my song Sandman in Danny Boyle’s film Trance (2013) which led to a trip to Hollywood.

Sadly, the Covid lockdown, then Brexit, really killed off the European touring scene. Not being able to keep it all on the boil affects everything as a performer, your voice, your playing ability, and confidence. I also suffer from Prosopagnosia which is an inability to recognise faces, and it’s

certainly impacted my confidence as it’s often hard to tell whether I have met people before.

Although I’ve never found playing live easy, once on stage I love singing and performing. A singer-songwriter is perhaps a contradiction in terms, as an old friend once pointed out to me. To be a songwriter you need to be vulnerable and sensitive, but to be a singer you probably need the opposite. It’s a hard balance to get right.

Living in the centre of Manchester near Moss Side was sometimes a bit edgy, although once you got to know people you felt they’d look out for you. But I began to feel hemmed in by the growing skyscrapers surrounding my flat, and the journey to see my mum who lives in the South West seemed to get longer. During lockdown I lost my dad which was a huge blow for me, and it felt like the right time to make a change. It took a long time to find a house, but after much searching I found this cottage. It couldn’t be more different to city-centre Manchester, but it’s lovely to have a garden full of life, swarming bees, brilliant neighbours, night time silence with only hooting owls and starlit skies, and my mum only half an hour away. Of course there are things I miss; as a foodie and having been vegan for 30 years, I miss the great Indian food that was always easy to find. But there are compensations. I can swim in the sea, and I have peace and quiet, something I realise I needed after long-term touring, and losing my dad. I did a few gigs in Holland earlier this year, but found out how much more difficult it is after Brexit. I can do a little work in Europe but now there’s a lot more paperwork and cost involved in jumping from one country to the next. I’ve played at the Square and Compass at Worth Matravers for more than a decade, and it was there I met Rick Foot. We toured together this spring, which we both loved, his double bass playing complementing my jazz-inflected songs. These days my work is much influenced by the American Songbook. We have a few upcoming gigs, at The Square in November, then at Chetnole Village Hall in February 2025. Maybe I’ve come full circle, returning to country life. I think I’ll really enjoy playing in village halls and pubs. ’

This month, talking with people about food security, farming and the impact of climate change on future agricultural practices, the word ‘mindset’ came up a lot. Philip Lymbery, Global CEO of Compassion in World Farming, talks in this issue about the need for a change of ‘mindset’ for the farming community. He knows how difficult it is for farmers to accept change, especially after 70 years of government policy and subsidy encouraging them to farm intensively using chemicals to try to control nature. But there is a growing popularity amongst young farmers today to try to work with nature as much as possible, and instead of putting artificial fertiliser and pesticide onto the land, many are trying to use natural techniques that help produce healthier soil, thus reducing outlay on pesticides and artificial fertilizers. Although there is no definitive set of rules for these methods, they are often lumped under the banner of ‘Regenerative Farming’. Martin Lines, from the Nature Friendly Farming Network, also mentions ‘mindset’ in this issue. He talks about the enormous amount of information there is for conventional farmers to take in. At a Help our Planet talk in Sladers Yard last week, Sidmouth born agronomist Richard Harding also cited ‘mindset’ as the key challenge facing farmers wishing to get away from chemicals. A member of the audience asked a pertinent question: How many agricultural colleges are teaching future farmers to work using regenerative methods? Sadly the answer was very few, and Richard could only think of one. However, a recently retired local farmer that I spoke to this week believes that the reason so many younger farmers are turning to regenerative methods is because they are seeing the benefits for themselves, rather than being persuaded by outside organisations.

Fergus Byrne

in your Marshwood Vale Magazine

We welcome your support of this community resource. If you missed our Crowdfunder and would still like to donate to support the Marshwood Vale Magazine, please send donations either by cheque to Marshwood Vale Limited (address below) or direct to Marshwood Vale Limited at Santander a/c number 40455735 - Sort Code 09 06 66 - Ref: Donation

Contributors

Regenerate Rethink Rewild

Lab grown, factory farmed or compassionately produced, meat will be part of the human diet for the foreseeable future. But meat is part of a much bigger picture, and how we farm today, and the lifestyle choices we make now, will affect how many generations will survive to enjoy what we leave behind.

Philip Lymbery, Global CEO of ‘Compassion in World Farming’, has been talking to Fergus Byrne about the package of measures needed to ensure food for all and a future for our planet.

Rethinking protein is just one of the three Rs that Philip Lymbery talks about when he explains his vision for the future of world farming. Whether it’s giving a Ted Talk, educating businesses on better practice, or working with government to push for a better policy on food production—as global CEO of ‘Compassion in World Farming’, his goals are manyfold. But he breaks down the complex needs of our planet into three main challenges: Regenerative farming—combined with Rethinking protein—and Rewilding our soil.

Whilst there are many interpretations of regenerative farming, Philip describes it as ‘what it says on the tin’. He defines it as being about ‘putting back into nature’s bank account. It’s about revitalizing soil health. It’s about bringing back biodiversity. It’s about having a natural environment that conserves water and stores carbon. All of those things are what regenerative is about.’

‘Regen’, as it tends to be referred to, is a way of farming that tries to use nature and a more advanced way of working with soil to grow our food. The damage done to soil by conventional farming remains a massive issue, and the amount of chemicals used on land and antibiotics used in factory farming has led to a polarising debate on the impact of farming on health and environment.

But how does that relate to farmers and consumers? For farmers it means a ‘change of mindset’ says Philip. However, it doesn’t necessarily mean massive upheaval. In fact, he believes changing farming practices to a more biodiversity friendly and therefore environmentally friendly process will mean the ‘road to immediate

profit is so much shorter.’ What he’s also saying, and he backs it up with examples, is that farmers who step away from artificial fertilizers and chemical pesticides will find they have a ‘lower entry point’ cost, and more profit.

‘The great thing about regenerative farming’ Philip says, is that ‘if you do it right, with a diversity of crops and animals rotating around the farm, then you are essentially able to spread bet your risk—because you’ve got a diversity of different products. The vulnerability of industrial agriculture is that it uses monocultures and seeds single crop regimes, which essentially means you’re putting all your eggs in one basket.’ Whereas, with regenerative methods, Philip believes that even producing less of each product, the diverse range of different products can lead to better profit. ‘So, I think the proof is in the pudding. That increasing numbers of farmers are being converted to regenerative farming, not just because it’s the right thing to do, but because it’s a profitable way to go.’

However, farming is a complex business with a need to think ahead, whilst at the same time needing to be versatile and reactive to weather, markets and even consumer trends. Many farmers are committed and, in some cases, heavily invested in machinery, stock and commitments that make change a major challenge. And many simply don’t like change.

Although he understands this position, Philip cites the Kingsclere Estate in Hampshire as an example of a large estate that was prepared to make changes. He describes it as a ‘big farm that was an industrial monoculture farm using chemical pesticides and artificial fertilizers.’ It is run by Tim May, who found that his yields were declining. ‘And he could have dialled up the chemical company and said, give me something stronger, give me more artificial fertilizers and pesticides. But no, he decided to dispense with all of that, and he brought animals back to the farm. First cattle, then sheep, then pigs and chickens. As part of the rotation, he started to mix it up.

And he left the artificial fertilizers and pesticides in the barn. And this was saving him more than £700 a hectare. And guess what? His soil and his yields bounced back. The biodiversity returned, and he’s got a profitable, and I would say a beacon business—a beacon of what we should be doing.’

Whilst one example doesn’t make a trend, Philip says there are many farmers who have made the change and have seen huge benefits.

But transition is not easy, and he believes the key is a change of ‘mindset’. Something he appreciates is challenging for many farmers, especially as ‘there’s been 70 years of government policy and subsidy that has gone into encouraging farmers down the intensification route. Every agricultural college in the land has been teaching the mantra for 70 years.’ So, changing the mindset, he says ‘really does mean going against the grain’ but he thinks there are now sufficient numbers of people farming regeneratively that ‘making the change has never been more timely, nor more easy.’

Surely that will mean some serious push back from those

‘there’s been 70 years of government policy and subsidy that has gone into encouraging farmers down the intensification route’

businesses invested in conventional farming. On this Philip is philosophical. He believes there are two options for the companies that are supplying ‘bags of artificial fertilizer or pesticides or whatever it is.’ They can either treat regenerative farming as ‘competition’ and ‘as a threat to their business, and really redouble advocacy for “conventional agriculture”’ or they can ‘see the writing on the wall’ and understand that ‘we do have to change the way that we produce food, the way that we farm’.

Philip says he has been pleading for better treatment of animals for the last 25 to 30 years. ‘Keeping animals in

factory farming conditions in this industrial agricultural model comes with an industrial approach to producing crops that are then used to feed the animals and feed ourselves’ he says. ‘All of which is not only causing the biggest amount of animal suffering on the planet, it is also a major driver of wildlife declines, and is integral to the climate challenge that we are now all facing.’

However, in the last eight months he has been working on a document that most people wouldn’t believe was possible to create in the time allotted. ‘I’ve been part of the EU Commission president’s strategic dialogue

Philip Lymbury

Photograph by Richard Dunwoody

on the future of agriculture in the EU’, Philip explains. ‘We were put in a room in January and told by the Commission president to come up with a consensus set of recommendations. That was Mission Impossible—it was never going to happen, was it? But eight months on we came to a consensus report, more than 100 pages long, which deals exactly with how we need a policy coherence, policies on food, farming, the environment, food security, trade. All of them need to be coherent in driving the transition in a way which leaves no one behind.’

Philip was one of 29 members working on the Strategic Dialogue on the Future of EU Agriculture representing a diverse range of interests including: Fertilizers Europe, Greenpeace, EuropaBio, Eurogroup for Animals, Slow Food and the European Investment Bank.

The Dialogue aimed to foster a collaborative approach for evolving European farming, food, and rural areas. The report provides guiding political principles and recommendations to address the “diversity and complexity of agrifood systems,” tackling systemic imbalances. It highlights the urgent need to transition to agrifood systems that are resilient, sustainable, competitive, profitable, and equitable, noting the “triple planetary crisis of climate change, biodiversity loss, and pollution” as significant pressures.

Philip describes the initiative as promoting ‘triple win scenarios’ where farmers are paid and supported to ‘do the right thing for animal welfare and for the environment and for consumers.’ He also believes that the Dialogue is something that other countries and other regions, including the UK, ‘could and absolutely should emulate.’

He is passionate about the potential value of the proposals announced in the document, and with an intensity reminiscent of David Attenborough he applauds the efforts of the members saying: ‘These were really important recommendations. I think this is a huge breakthrough, and as Ursula von der Leyen herself said when she was accepting the report, it just shows that we can overcome polarization and come up with a really clear, coherent consensus.’

Philip Lymbery has published a trilogy of books beginning with Farmageddon: The true cost of cheap meat, which was followed by Dead Zone: Where the Wild Things Were and his third book, Sixty Harvests Left: How to Reach a Nature-Friendly Future was published by Bloomsbury in August 2022. They all highlight the damage caused by intensive farming practises. Something that is close to his heart.

‘Factory farming is responsible for probably 80 to 90% of production in the USA’ he says. ‘In Britain, a great deal of our products, animal products, particularly when in respect to chickens and to a

large extent pigs, comes from animals that are factory farmed. And I think what I identified in my last book, Sixty Harvests Left, was that there is a rise of what I would call US style mega farms. These are not just factory farms, but they are huge factory farms. And we’ve now got more than 1000 of these huge factory farms in Britain, in counties such as Norfolk and Lincolnshire and Shropshire, tucked away. They don’t want to be seen, but they are there, and they’re huge.’

He is thankful that, currently, we don’t have the kind of ‘100,000 cattle feedlot systems’ that are prevalent in the US. However, he says, ‘we are seeing a rise in the number of cattle that are being kept in smaller scale feedlots for beef, but also indoor dairies, where the cattle never get to go outside.’

‘it just shows that we can overcome polarization and come up with a really clear, coherent consensus.’

He cites a ‘particularly hideous example’ of a plan to house 8,000 cows permanently indoors in a ‘US style mega dairy’ in Lincolnshire. ‘We got that stopped’ he says. To put this in context he describes the plan as the equivalent of ‘more than 100 average UK dairy farms.’ It would have produced ‘as much sewage as a city the size of Bristol.’ But nevertheless he believes that under the radar, out of public sight there is ‘a growing number of large scale factory farms in Britain.’

In his latest book, Cultivated Meat to Secure Our Future: Hope for Animals, Food Security, and the Environment, he compiles a selection of essays debating the potential of lab grown meat.

The key point Philip makes about the cultivated meat debate is that it’s not about replacing animals. ‘This isn’t about getting rid of meat altogether’ he says. ‘This is about reducing our reliance on meat and dairy from farmed animals, because they take up such a big planetary footprint.’ He cites scientific advice that suggests that ‘for our own individual health and for planetary health, we need to reduce the amount of meat and dairy from farmed animals by about half.’

The ‘sweet spot’ he says ‘is that we get animals out of factory farms. Because putting animals in factory farms has meant that we’re now using farming practices that are destroying the soil and ecosystems and heating the planet.’

Philip wants to reverse that ‘by getting animals out of factory farms and back onto the land as part of mixed farm rotations, where it all works with nature and regenerates and gives the animals a decent life and produces much better food.’

However, he says that at the same time, we need to reduce our reliance overall on the animal numbers and that’s where cultivated meat comes in. ‘Because cultivated meat is essentially the renewable energy equivalent for food.’ Comparing it to our need to charge our phones without thinking about the downside in energy needs, he says people generally don’t want animal suffering and environmental collapse ‘they just want meat, and the great thing about cultivated meat is it is real meat without the downsides. It takes a fraction of the land. It doesn’t have the climate impact and there’s no animal suffering. What’s not to like?’

But again, like push back against regenerative methods from the industry that supplies artificial fertilizers and chemical pesticides to farming, those promoting cultivated meat are getting push back from the intensively farmed meat industry.

‘Some parts of the established Agri food industry do see cultivated meat as competition’ says Philip, ‘and what they’re trying to do is to stifle the competition by getting it banned. In Florida, in Alabama, they’ve got it banned. In other places, there been proposed bans that have been withdrawn. Italy has banned cultivated meat. So, there are these reactionary things. But ultimately, what are we saying here? Are we saying that it’s okay to bring in legislation to stifle free competition in the marketplace. Is it right for consumer choice to be thwarted before it’s ever given the opportunity? And are we saying that it’s better to produce meat in ways which is terribly cruel, environmentally degrading and unhealthy to consumers? That that’s okay, but the healthier animal, environmentally friendly equivalent should be banned before it ever gets started? What sort of nonsense is that?’

One comment in the book Cultivated Meat hits home when the writer points out that for chickens, trapped in many factory farming systems, the space around them when they get put into the oven is more space than they have had during their short lives.

Global CEO of Compassion in World Farming, Philip Lymbery will be joining a new conference called LandAlive which will be held at the Bath and West Showground on the 22nd and 23rd November 2024. It will feature a two-day programme of talks by top experts in regenerative farming and sustainable food. Tickets are available from www.landalive.co.uk.

‘...we need a policy redirection from government level downwards, so that government policy, agricultural subsidy, and institutional training gets behind the transition.’

Philip Lymbery with beautiful rescue highland cow. Photograph Richard Dunwoody

November

EVENTS

Wednesday, 30 October

Artsreach’s Fideri Fidera “Oskar’s Amazing Adventure” at Powerstock Hut. Half Term event for children 2-7 yrs. 11am Tickets: 01308 485730 or 07817 429907 or www.artsreach.co.uk. Adult £8, Under 18’s £6, Family £24.

Fairport Convention - 19:30. Fairport Convention have been entertaining music lovers for over half a century, with 2024 being their 57th anniversary.During that time the band that launched British folk-rock has seen many changes, but one thing has remained the same – Fairport’s passion for performance.This year’s Autumn Tour will present a mix of long-established Fairport favourites and some surprises from albums old and new. Bridport Electric Palace 35 South Street, DT6 3NY. Tickets £32 Book online -electricpalace. org.uk

Thursday 31, October

Halloween Night with Steam Train Yeovil Railway Centre, Yeovil Junction, Stoford BA22 9UU: (6pm9pm). Recorded information on 01935 410420, visit the website www.yeovilrailway.freeservers.com, or find the Facebook page.

The Critic (15) - 14:00. The Critic is a deliciously dark and sharp-witted thriller set in 1930s London ‘theatreland’ featuring an all-star cast including Ian McKellen, Gemma Arterton, Mark Strong, Ben Barnes, Alfred Enoch, Romola Garai and Lesley Manville.When the most feared and vicious theatre critic in town Jimmy Erskine (McKellen), finds himself suddenly in the crosshairs of the Daily Chronicle’s new owner David Brooke (Strong), he strikes a sinister Faustian pact with struggling actress Nina Land (Arterton) who is desperate to win his favour.Bridport Electric Palace 35 South Street, DT6 3NY. Tickets £7 Book online -electricpalace.org.uk

Scarlet Oak Theatre are heading to Wootton Fitzpaine this half term with a playful and heartwarming adventure for young children and their families featuring puppetry, plants and lots of pots! In the intimate setting of a potting shed, we meet our Gardener. She loves the smell of the flowers, the feel of the earth and watching her plants bloom. But along came a magpie who turns her potting shed upside down! Making friends is lots of fun but can sometimes be tricky. Join our gardener and magpie on this playful, heart-warming adventure as they navigate

the intricacies of friendship. Suitable for ages 2-6yrsbring a cushion, this charming show is touring Dorset with Artsreach, the county’s rural arts charity. 10:30am. Wootton Fitzpaine Village Hall. 01297 560948. £8, £6 u18s, £24 fam or book on artsreach.co.uk

West Dorset Ramblers, 8 miles. Lambert’s Castle Circular. To book and for details please contact Heather G 07587 098079.

Clapton & Wayford Village Hall AGM; business followed by wine & nibbles, 7.30pm; all welcome. More details from Mary (01460 74849)

Dance Connection, Open Class, for fun, health & wellbeing, 7:15-8:45pm, Bridport St Mary’s CHH, DT6 3NN, 07787752201, https://www.joysofdance.co.uk/ dance-connection-bridport

Film Screening at Litton Cheney Village Hall DT2 9AU. Wicked Little Letters. Doors open 7.00pm, film starts 7.30pm. Tickets £5 on the door to include a glass of wine.

Friday, 1 November

Craig Milverton with Simon Spillett - Inspired by the classic Brit-bop of the 1950s and 1960s, Simon’s style is powerfully passionate, with an emphasis on straightahead jazz. Simon is supported by Craig Milverton, one of Britain’s finest jazz pianists. 7:30pm at Ilminster Arts Centre, TA19 0AN. Tickets: £20 Students: £5 Children 12 and under: Free 01460 54973 www. ilminsterartscentre.com.

Seaton Comedy Club – headliner - ‘Hal Cruttenden’ - Gateway Theatre, Seaton, 7.30pm doors 6.30pm, tickets £17.50, £20 on door. Gelos Network is thrilled to announce the launch of Seaton Comedy Club at The Gateway.Join us for our inaugural show featuring headline act Hal Cruttenden, star of Live at the Apollo and Mock the Week. Tickets from 01297 625699, www. gatewaytheatre.co.uk, or in person Tue - Thur 10am1pm.

Friday, 1 - 3 November

Women’s Singing Workshop Weekend. North Eggardon, nr Bridport. Come and sing! Enjoy a weekend singing retreat in the beautiful countryside of West Dorset and share good times (singing, food, walks) with other women in the amazing space of North Eggardon Carthouse. Veronique Sodano, jazz singer, teacher and wonderful woman will be leading us

through singing sessions with fun, warmth and inspiration. She’s also an amazing cook and together we will prepare delicious meals, with organic and local ingredients. more info at mycupofteacreativeworkshops.com.

Saturday, 2 November

It’s Only Me, Boys! at St Michael’s Church, Shute. In the lead up to Remembrance – David Balcombe brings his oneman play about First World War bravery to Shute. Exeterborn Theodore Bayley Hardy went to the First World War as a Chaplain in 1916 - at the age of 52. "It's only me, boys!" he would whisper in the dark as he reached the trenches at the front of the allied lines. He would bring supplies (most importantly, cigarettes) to these young men and he would sit with them, talk with them, read with them and sometimes pray with them. It’s Only Me, Boys! was first performed at TheatreFest in Barnstaple in June 2024, where it was warmly received by audiences who variously described it as “Poignant and moving. A marvellous one-man show”, “Superbly told. A must watch” and “A beautifully told story of loss”. Refreshments will be available, and the performance will be followed by a Q and Awith David, chaired by Rev Julie Lomas. At 7.30pmSt Michael’s Church, Shute Tickets (all £10.00) available in advance from www.ticketsource.co.uk/verity-productions or on the door (from 7.00pm on the night) In aid of St Michael’s Church Restoration Fund.

Dean Carter live: Wheel of the Year launch tour: 2PM The Beat & Track, 4 The Shambles, South St, Sherborne, Dorset DT9 3LN In support of Dean’s 4th album in two years, Wheel of the Year, the instrumental suite themed around just that very idea and concept, there will be a performance of the album live somewhere in the region on each of the stations of the Wheel throughout the year. For the live the event marking Samhain/Hallowe’en-the associated track is ‘Carnival of Souls’. Entry: pass the hat. Hotrock presents ‘Villains Unleashed’ Halloween Party - Gateway Theatre, Seaton, 2pm doors 1.30pm, All tickets £12. This devilishly fun show brings together all your favourite Villains for the ultimate Halloween party. Losing their magic powers as the screams of Halloween fade away, the Villains plan the perfect Halloween party. Tickets from 01297 625699, www.gatewaytheatre.co.uk or in person TueThur 10am - 1pm.

Bridport & West Dorset Rambling Club 8.5 mile walk from Corscombe. For further information please ring 01308 898484 or 01308 863340. New members/visitors welcome.

The Friends of Weymouth Library (F.O.W.L.) talk at 10-30a.m. will be welcoming Paul Atterbury who will take us behind the scenes on an “Antiques Road Show” TV programme. Paul has, for many years, been a regular expert on the programme. Tickets are available from the Library (01305762410) at £2 for members and £3 for non-members. For any other information please phone

01305832613. Refreshments will be available; everyone welcome.

Princess Live is the ultimate hour long princess pop party, featuring your favourite fairytale royalty in this all singing all dancing hour long concert show. Free photo opportunity with the princesses post show! 13:00 also at 16.00. Bridport Electric Palace 35 South Street, DT6 3NY. Tickets £13.50 Book online -electricpalace.org.uk

Saturday, 2 - 3 November

Ecor Sculpture Workshops All day or weekend sculpture workshop to create nature-inspired sculptural work using found and recycled materials. Explore and experiment with creative ideas, processes and media, including wirework and paper making. Sat/Sun 2-3 Nov, or 9-10 Nov, 10.30am-3.30pm each day The Durbeyfield Guesthouse & Studios, West Bay, Bridport, Dorset DT6 4EL Cost: £100 (1 day); or £200 both days Book via eventbrite: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/eco-sculptureworkshop-tickets-1001222281797?aff=oddtdtcreator&u tm_campaign=post_publish&utm_medium=email&utm_ source=eventbrite&utm_content=shortLinkNewEmail And email: janalisonedwards@gmail.com to specify chosen date Further information Email : janalisonedwards@gmail. com

Sunday, 3 November

‘Phantom of the Opera at the Royal Albert Hall’(PG) Screening - Gateway Theatre, Seaton, 2pm doors 1.30pm, tickets Adults £16, Under 16s £10. ‘Phantom Of The Opera At The Albert Hall’ stars Ramin Karimloo as ‘The Phantom’ and Sierra Boggess as ‘Christine’. They are joined by a supporting cast and orchestra of over 200, plus some very special guest appearances. Tickets from 01297 625699, www.gatewaytheatre.co.uk or in person Tue - Thur 10am1pm.

Monday, 4 November

Scottish Dancing in Chardstock Evening of Scottish dancing in Chardstock Village Hall EX13 7BH 7.3010.00 p.m. Tea and coffee provided but please bring your own mug and wear soft soled shoes. No partner required. Cost £2.00 Contact David on 01460 65981 www. chardscottishdancingclub.co.uk.

Winsham Art Club, 2pm at Jubilee Hall TA20 4HU. The theme this practical session is Seascapes in Watercolour. It is a 2.5 hr. session led by a visiting tutor. Small friendly group of mixed abilities. Members £5, non-members £7. Annual membership £15. All welcome. Contact: Email : suzyna48@gmail.com for further details.

Sunshine for November: Artists in Provence, looking at the towns of the south of France and who painted there. Van Gogh, Monet, Mary Cassatt, Berthe Morisot, Raoul Dufy, Matisse, Picasso, Bonnard, Leger. 6 lectures. Venue: United Hall, East Street, Bridport. Fee: £65. ‘Drop in lectures’ £13. *This course runs also on Fridays 2pm on

line, from 8th Nov, fee £60. ***To book or enquire about the course please email: chris.pamsimpson@btinternet.com

Tutor is Pam Simpson MA, Art & Design Historian, who is Associate Lecturer at University of the Arts in London and who has had a 37 yr career in London art colleges.

Hawkchurch Film Nights, in association with Moviola. org, proudly presents ‘Wilding’ ( 75 mins, Cert. PGoccasional strong language). In this fascinating and heartwarming dramatised documentary, a pair of English farmers take radical steps to reinvigorate the dying landscape around their Sussex estate, with astonishing results but also local criticism. A hopeful ode to the English countryside. Doors open 6.30pm, film starts 7.00pm at Hawkchurch Village Hall, EX13 5XD. Ticket reservations £5.50 from csma95@gmail.com or leave a message on 01297 678176 (socially-distanced seating available if reserved in advance); tickets also available for £5.50 from Hawkchurch Community Shop or £6.00 on the door (cash only). Subtitles for hearing-impaired patrons provided.

Home-made cake, popcorn, teas, coffees, wine and other tasty refreshments available.

Tuesday, 5 November

information please email Anita at anitaandjim22@gmail. com and visit our web site at www.ashillscd.wordpress.com. West Dorset Ramblers Group - 7 miles walk around Melbury Park . To book and for further details please contact Laraine 07889921435.

Wednesday, 6 November

Meeting Voices Community Choir, Chard. 19.30 to 21.15. Sing for fun. Learn songs in harmony by ear. Everyone welcome. Chard Guildhall. Fore St, Chard TA20 1PP. Phone 07534 116502 or email mvsecretary@outlook. com.

Dr John Cooper Clarke (16+) - 19:30 Literary phenomenon John Cooper Clarke is a British cult hero. Known as the ‘Godfather of Punk Poetry” and the original people’s poet, John’s cultural influence spans literature, music and fashion. Watching John Cooper Clarke perform is an opportunity to see a living legend at the top of his game. Bridport Electric Palace 35 South Street , DT6 3NY. Tickets £31.50 (standard seating) £35.50 (premium seating) Book online -electricpalace.org.uk

Thursday, 7 November

Autumn Lunch in aid of cancer research at Highlands End park Restaurant 12.30 for 1.00pm. £25 Contact: Karen Barnard - karen@conoor.co.uk.

Folk dancing at Combe St Nicholas village hall (TA20 3LT) at 1930 hrs. Ian & Margaret will be providing the music and the caller is Simon Maplesden. It’s £4.00 per person which includes a cuppa and cake, all welcome and it is a lot of fun! Further details from Elaine on 01460 65909.

Dance Connection, Block of 6, for fun, health & wellbeing, 7:10-8:45pm, Bridport St Mary’s CHH, DT6 3NN, 07787752201, https://www.joysofdance.co.uk/ dance-connection-bridport

Friends of Lyme Regis Philpot Museum Lyme Regis Museum Friends offer an illustrated talk, ‘Making Art in Museums-the Feel Good Factor’ by Christine Allison at 2.30 pm in the Woodmead Hall, Hill Road, Lyme Regis DT7 3PG. Christine is a prominent local artist and will discuss art projects she has led in museums. She will share photographs and stories about creatively engaging all ages with exhibits in the Natural History Museum, Bristol Museum and our very own ‘museum by the sea’ in Lyme Regis. Members £3 visitors £5. Enquiries to David Cox, 01297 443156. The Quiet Girl (2022, Ireland, 12, 91 mins, S/titles, Director: Colm Bairéad) Set in 1981, the film follows a withdrawn nine-year-old girl raised by neglectful parents among many other siblings, who experiences a loving home for the first time when she spends the summer on a farm in Rinn Gaeltacht, County Waterford, alone with a married couple who are distant relatives. It is mostly in the Irish language, although it also contains parts in English. Doors 7:00 pm, 7:30 pm start. Clapton & Wayford Village Hall (TA18 8PS). Membership £25, guests £5 per film. For more details, contact mickpwilson53@btinternet.com or ring Mick Wilson on 01460 74849 or Kathy Everard on 01460 30646. Extra film showing on the afternoon of Sunday 17th November, Oppenheimer. With intermission and cakes. Contact mickpwilson53@btinternet.com or ring Mick Wilson on 01460 74849 for more details.

West Dorset Ramblers Group - 8 miles walk around Uplyme to the Cobb via the Viaduct. To book and for further details please contact Heather T 07798 732252.

Lyme Voices Community Choir. 19.30 to 21.15. Sing for fun. Learn songs in harmony by ear. Everyone welcome. Baptist Church (Pine Hall round the back), Silver St., Lyme Regis, DT7 3NY. Phone 07534 116502 or email petelinnett2@hotmail.com.

Friday, 8 November

Ile Valley Flower Club. Coral Gardiner Demonstrates ‘Treemendous Christmas’ Open afternoon starts at 2 pm Broadway Village Hall close to Ilminster. Tickets £15. Available from : Cheryl 01460 7502507597313979. Jackie 01460 671449 - 07972078919. Budapest Café Orchestra - Budapest Café Orchestra delivers a blistering barrage of traditional folk and

gypsy-flavoured music. 7:30pm at Ilminster Arts Centre, TA19 0AN. Tickets: £22 Students: £5 Children 12 and under: Free 01460 54973 www. ilminsterartscentre.com

Axminster Flower Club Christmas Demonstration Christmas floral demonstration by Caitlin AnningPile of Olive and Bloom The Florist, Wellington. The Minster Church, Axminster EX13 5AH. Time: 2.30pm. Tickets: £8.00. Contact: 07742964895.

‘Electric Lady Studios: A Jimi Hendrix Vision’(12A) Screening - Gateway Theatre, Seaton, 7.30pm doors 7pm, Tickets, Early Bird Adults £7.50, Under 16s £6.50. £16 from 1/11. The documentary chronicles the creation of the studio, rising from the rubble of a bankrupt Manhattan nightclub to state-of-the-art recording facility inspired by Hendrix’s desire for a permanent studio. Tickets from 01297 625699, www. gatewaytheatre.co.uk or in person Tue - Thur 10am1pm.

Saturday, 9 November

Bridport & West Dorset Rambling Club 7 mile walk from Maiden Newton. For further information please ring 01308 898484 or 01308 863340. New members/ visitors welcome.

‘I AmDram’ Live theatre - Gateway Theatre, Seaton – 7.30pm, doors 7pm, tickets Adults £14, Under 16s £10. In this unique piece of storytelling performance, Hannah Maxwell hops a train back to her hometown (of Welwyn Garden City, Hertfordshire), taking a whistle-stop tour of 90 years of musical theatre heritage in the process. Tickets from 01297 625699, www.gatewaytheatre.co.uk or in person Tue - Thur 10am - 1pm.

Saturday, 9 - 10 November

Dorset Food & Drink Winter Food Fair at Athelhampton. The countdown is on for the Dorset Food & Drink Winter Food Fair at Athelhampton House & Gardens from 10am - 3pm. A curated selection of over 60 stallholders, locally made food, drink including many award-winning Dorset brands! Artisanal gifts, live music and tasty seasonal treats. Take advantage of ‘early bird tickets’. £5 per person. Under 12’s free. Pre book online and get a 1/3 off on the gate price. (£7.50). Book via the Athelhampton Website

Sunday, 10 November

Lyme Bay Chorale’s Remembrance Day Concert with Musical Director Alex Davies Organ accompaniment Peter Irving 4.pm St Michael’s Parish Church, Church Street, Lyme Regis. unreserved seats, admission free with a retiring collection in aid of the British Royal Legion; the choir are singing the beautiful and ever popular Requiem by John Rutter and For the Fallen by Peter Irving. www.lymebaychorale.co.uk.

Monday, 11 November

Dorchester Townswomen’s Guild after a short business meeting, 2 p.m. James Porter will be giving a talk entitled Jersey in Wartime to Dorchester Townswomen’s Guild in Dorchester Community Church, Liscombe Street, Poundbury, DT1 3DF. Visitors welcome (£3), Tea and coffee available. Enquiries 01305 832857. Dance Connection, for fun, health & wellbeing, 10:25am12, Unitarian Chapel, Bridport, DT6 3JX, 07787752201, https://www.joysofdance.co.uk/danceclass.

Tuesday, 12 November

Io Capitano. Bridport Film Society. Films are screened fortnightly on Tuesday evenings at 7.45pm at Bridport Arts Centre, South Street, Bridport, exclusively for members and guests. Doors and the bar open at 7pm. Membership cards must be presented at the door. For membership and information email bridportfilm@gmail.com. Website: www. bridportfilmsociety.co.uk.

The Lyme Regis Society presents a talk Hogchester & Roman Villa at Holcombe by Audrey Standhaft 2pm at Woodmead Halls, Hill Road, Lyme Regis. DT7 3PG. All Welcome. Members Free. Visitors £3.00. Refreshments Included. Social distanced seating available if desired. Please check website for further information: http//lymeregissociety.org.uk.

Scottish Country Dancing at Horton Village Hall TA19 9QR every Tuesday evening from 7.30 to 9.30 pm with tea / coffee break ,£3.00 pay on the door. Everyone welcome, so why not come along and give it a whirl. For more information please email Anita at anitaandjim22@gmail.com and visit our web site at www.ashillscd.wordpress. com

Divine Union Soundbath 9 PM Digby Memorial Hall, (Griffiths Room), Digby Rd, Sherborne DT9 3LN Lie down, relax, and allow the Pure Sounds of a crystal and Tibetan bowl soundbath plus sacred vocal overtoning give you a sonic deep-tissue massage, taking you into the deeper brainwave states of ‘the relaxation response’, while charging and balancing the aura and chakras of the subtle body, and detoxing the physical. Booking: 01935 389655 ahiahel@live.com.

West Dorset Ramblers Group - 8 miles walk round East Burton & Bovington Camp and Moreton. To book and for further details please contact Ian 07826150114.

Wednesday, 13 November

Loders Local History Group AGM followed by Talk. Loders Village Hall, DT6 3SA. The Legendary Cider Secrets of Loders. As a cider enthusiast I was intrigued by the suggestion that Dorset was the first place that cider was made in England. Was this possible? The French connections, from the early Celtic traders from the far east via the Atlantic Arc, to the cider making monks of Loders priory pre-conquest and, with the help of a little apple DNA science, it seems that Loders was where it all began. By Liz Copas. 7.30 pm. All welcome, refreshments will be served. Entrance £3.

Thursday, 14 November

Talk on Birds of Costa Rica by Mike Morse at 2.30pm in Bridport WI Hall, North St, Bridport, DT6 3JQ. Entrance £4 for Friends members and £5 non-members. Raising funds for Bridport Millennium Green (contact FriendsofBMG@hotmail.com for more details).

Chard History Group Tales of the West Dorset CoastMichael Spencer 7pm for 7.30 Chard Guildhall upstairs (lift available) Members £2.50 visitors most welcome £3.50. For further details Tessa on 07984481634.

Illustrated talk – popular speaker and local author

Anne Mosscrop will give a lively and humorous account of her adventurous trip ‘trekking in Peru’. £6 includes cheese & wine; please book and pay in advance. Proceeds to be shared between Village Hall and Christian Aid. 7.30pm, at Clapton & Wayford Village Hall. Further information from Mary (01460 74849) or Julia (01460 72769).

Chard History Group Tales from the West Dorset Coast by Mike Spencer. 7 for 7.30 start Chard Guildhall upstairs (lift available). Members £2.50 visitors most welcome at £3.50. For more info. Tessa Leeds 07984481634

Friday, 15 November

Tincleton favourites John Law and David Gordon play a mixture of solos and duos on the gallery’s two beautiful grand pianos. Expect jazz and Latin music, classically themed improvisation and original compositions from these two award-winning musicians.Tincleton Gallery, The Old School House, Tincleton, nr Dorchester, DT2 8QR. Doors open 19:30; concert starts 20:00. Admission fee: £15. 01305 848 909. http://www.tincletongallery.com.

‘The Critic’ (15) Picnic Night screening - Gateway Theatre, Seaton – 7.30pm, doors 6.30pm, tickets Adults £7.50, Under 16s £6.50. At a garden party on a sunny afternoon, Alice is surprised to see her parents’ friend Lewis Carroll transform into a white rabbit. When she follows him down a rabbit hole, events become curiouser and curiouser… Tickets from 01297 625699, www.gatewaytheatre.co.uk or in person TueThur 10am - 1pm.

One Life at 7.30pm Based on the book If It’s Not Impossible...: The Life of Sir Nicholas Winton by Barbara Winton, ONE LIFE tells the incredible, emotional true story of Nicholas ‘Nicky’ Winton (Johnny Flynn), a young London broker who visits Prague in December 1938. In a race against time, Winton convinces Trevor Chadwick (Alex Sharp) and Doreen Warriner (Romola Garai) of the British Committee for Refugees in Czechoslovakia to rescue hundreds of predominantly Jewish children before Nazi occupation closes the borders. Fifty years later, Nicky (Anthony Hopkins) is haunted by the fate of the children he wasn’t able to bring to safety in England. It’s not until the BBC show “That’s Life!” re-introduces him to some of those he helped rescue that he finally begins to come to terms with the guilt and grief he carried -- all the while skyrocketing from anonymity to a national hero. Village Hall, The

Causeway, Milborne St Andrew DT11 0JX. Doors and bar open 7.00pm Tickets cost £6, which includes a drink or an ice-cream.

The Berkley Ensemble - Formed by friends in a spirit of adventure, the Berkley Ensemble brings together musicians from diverse corners of musical life to make music in new ways. Promoted by Concerts in the West. 7:30pm at Ilminster Arts Centre, TA19 0AN. Tickets: £18 Students: £5 Children 12 and under: Free 01460 54973 www.ilminsterartscentre.com

Saturday, 16 November

David Gordon introduces the outstanding multiinstrumentalist Jenny Bliss Bennett. Resident in Somerset, Jenny specialises in violin, viola da gamba and is a brilliant improviser across many styles. Together David and Jenny will play a wide range of music from William Byrd to Mozart, folk tunes ancient and modern and more – with the focus on joyous improvisation. Tincleton Gallery, The Old School House, Tincleton, nr Dorchester, DT2 8QR. Doors open 19:30; concert starts 20:00. Admission fee: £15. 01305 848 909. http://www.tincletongallery.com.

Bridport Big Band - 19:30 After a hugely successful concert last year, the Bridport Big Band return to the Palace! The band play an assortment of styles from toe-tapping classic tunes to fresh modern arrangements plus smooth melodic vocal numbers. As well as pieces by the late greats such as Glenn Miller, Count Basie and Duke Ellington the band also feature Stevie Wonder, Sammy Nestico, George Gershwin, The Police and a spot of Oasis. Expect the unexpected, BBB have a brilliant repertoire to choose from including swing, trad jazz, latin, modern classics and pop. Bridport Electric Palace 35 South Street , DT6 3NY. Tickets £11.50 Book online -electricpalace. org.uk

Riviera Dogs – Live Music - Gateway Theatre, Seaton, 8pm doors 7.30pm, tickets £20, £23 on door. Riviera Dogs are a 5 piece 80s party band hailing from Torbay ‘The English Riviera’ …no lycra, wigs or make up just faithful, respectful renditions of songs from the best decade in music! Tickets from 01297 625699, www. gatewaytheatre.co.uk or in person Tue - Thur 10am1pm.

Marvellous Mozart - Axminster and District Choral Society perform his wonderful Requiem and Solemn Vespers, with professional soloists and orchestra. 7.30 pm at the Minster Church, Axminster. Tickets £14 and £16 from axminsterchoral.co.uk or 01404 43805.

Bridport & West Dorset Rambling Club 7.5 mile walk from Mosterton. For further information please ring 01308 898484 or 01308 863340. New members/ visitors welcome.

Dalwood Jazz Club presents The Deane Big Band

from Taunton at 3pm with the music of Glenn Miller, Count Basie, Benny Goodman and other big bands of the 30s & 40s and with two great vocalists featuring songs made popular by Frank Sinatra - and more recently Michael Buble. Dalwood Village Hall, EX13 7EG (near Axminster) Bar for beer/wine/soft drinks and teas/coffees/cake etc. Parking at the Village Hall £12.50p. If possible, please book in advance and pay (cash or card) at the door. t.mackenney111@btinternet.com

Sunday, 17 November

Dance Connection, Dance Day, 11am-4pm, Bridport St Mary’s CHH, DT6 3NN, 07787752201, https://www. joysofdance.co.uk/workshops

Monday, 18 November

Winsham Art Club, 2pm at Jubilee Hall TA20 4HU. The theme this practical session is Animals in Watercolour. It is a 2.5 hr. session led by a visiting tutor. Small friendly group of mixed abilities. Members £5, non-members £7. Annual membership £15. All welcome. Contact: Email : suzyna48@gmail.com for further details.

Tuesday, 19 November

Beaminster Museum Winter Talk Local historian and author Richard Sims will be exploring the history of West Bay as a port. Beaminster Museum, Whitcombe Road, Beaminster DT8 3NB. www.beaminstermuseum. co.uk 2.00pm, entry £5.

‘Bewitched’(PG) Nostalgic Cinema – Matinee screening - Gateway Theatre, Seaton – 1.30pm, doors 1pm, tickets £3.50. Anyone who loves nostalgic films is very welcome to join us for an afternoon of fond memories and friendship. Tickets from 01297 625699, www.gatewaytheatre. co.uk or in person Tue - Thur 10am - 1pm. West Dorset Ramblers Group - 10 miles walk from Broadwindsor through Wayford Woods. To book and for further details please contact Heather G 07587 098079

Wednesday, 20 November

The Shanty Sessions. Marine Theatre, Lyme Regis. 7.30pm. Join our local Shanty group, the original East Devon boy band! The Chantry Buoys from Colyton singing traditional sea shanties and other well known songs of the sea. Come and join in and sing, we like audience participation. Entry is free, all proceeds go to local charities. The licensed bar will be open, the Buoys start at 7.30pm. Doors open at 7pm.

Coffee Morning, including cakes, scones & savouries, and bacon/egg rolls (made to order), 10.30am – noon; all welcome. Clapton & Wayford Village Hall. More details from Julia (01460 72769).

A range of local crafts and artisans will be at The Peek Chapel next door to The Alexandra Hotel in Lyme Regis. 10-6. Crafts @The Chapel The Peek Chapel next door to The Alexandra Hotel, Pound St, Lyme Regis. Also Sun Dec 1st 10-4. Sat Dec 14th 10-6. Sun Dec 15th 10-4 contact 07808 584624.

Colyton & District Garden Society. ‘Getting Ready for Christmas’ by Angie Blackwell @ cottageflowersandmore. co.uk Venue : Colyford Memorial Hall, EX24 6QJ, start 7.30 pm. Parking in the hall car park. Members free, guests £3.00. Information : Sue Price 01297 552362.

Bridlit Book Club : Wayne Sleep - 14:30 Wayne Sleep is undoubtedly one of our nation’s treasures – a legendary dancer and entertainer. In his memoire: Just Different,

Wayne looks back on the extraordinary times he has lived through. In spite of dancing with ballet legends Rudolf Nureyev and Margot Fonteyn, partying with Freddie Mercury and dancing with Princess Diana, who became a close friend, Wayne Sleep has always felt like an outsider. Behind the glitz and glamour, he reveals the difficulties for a working-class, gay man in handling the prejudices of his generation and living through the Aids epidemic. Bridport Electric Palace 35 South Street , DT6 3NY. Tickets £15 Book online -electricpalace.org.uk.

Thursday, 21 November

Folk dancing at Combe St Nicholas village hall (TA20 3LT) at 1930 hrs. Jane Thomas is the caller and the band are A Pair Of Shears. It’s £4.00 per person which includes a cuppa and cake, all welcome and it is a lot of fun! Further details from Elaine on 01460 65909.

The New Arts Group. The Queen of Sheba: Empress or Enigma? Speaker: Chris Bradley. Cost: £10.00. Time: 2.00pm (tea/coffee from 1.30pm). Bridport Town Hall.

Anne Swithinbank will be the Speaker at Bridport and District Gardening Club. Anne was fascinated by plants and nature from a very young age. She trained at Kew and worked as Glasshouse Supervisor at RHS Wisley and has been a freelance horticulturist since1986. As well as working alongside Geoff Hamilton on Gardeners’ World Anne has been a regular panellist on BBC Radio 4’s Gardeners’ Question Time for 27 years and began writing for Amateur Gardening at the same time as moving from Surrey to East Devon.The Bridport and District Gardening Club will be hosting the talk at its meeting at the Women’s Institute Hall in North Street Bridport at 7-30 pm . Entrance to the talk is free for members and £2 for non-members. For more information, visit www.bridportgardeningclub.co.uk/

South Somerset RSPB Local Group The Lower Otter Restoration Project. Rick Lockwood, the Otter Estuary Ranger, will present an illustrated talk on the creation of this new reserve of 55 hectares of intertidal habitat that will provide some significant benefits for people and wildlife at 7.30pm The Millennium Hall, Seavington St. Mary, Ilminster, TA19 0QH. Entry: Group members £4, non-group members £5, under 25’s Free. Tea/coffee & biscuits included – Wheelchair access. Further details from Denise Chamings on 01460240740 or www.rspb.org.uk/groups/ southsomerset. Everyone welcome.

West Dorset Ramblers Group - 8 miles walk around

Beaminster on the Wessex Ridgeway & Monarch’s Way. To book and for further details please contact Bridget 07952 517764.

Seaton Music 7.30pm Elena Fischer-Dieskau (piano) Mel Bonis - Clara Schumann - Robert Schumann at The Gateway Theatre, Seaton Tickets at the door or at seatonmusic.org

Friday, 22 November

Wayford Woods Talk Winsham Horticultural Society AGM will be held, as usual in the club house of the Community Club in BakersField TA20 4JN. After the usual AGM business, which should take around thirty minutes, we are very pleased to have Steven Acreman as our guest speaker. Steven has been Chairman of the Wayford Woods Charitable Organisation for the past seven and a half years. The 29 acre woodland, originally part of Wayford Manor gardens which was designed by Harols Petois, is run by a group of trustees & volunteers who maintain and preserve them. Steven will tell us a bit about the history, planting, and wildlife as well as the works that are undertaken by the organisation, their aim being for the woods to educate & provide a relaxing leisure environment and for them to be made as accessible as possible for all ages and abilities. The event is free, including the after speech buffet, plus there will be a raffle and the bar will be open. Everyone is welcome, members & non-members, gardeners & non-gardeners alike so hopefully we’ll see you there. For more details Tel Debbie 07808 505357.

A concert not to be missed by Duncan Honeybourne. St Nicholas Church Abbotsbury 7pm. A Virginal Recital, the program includes pieces by Bach, William Byrd and Gordon Jacobs Suite for the Virginal. Tickets may be purchased in advance https://www. ticketsource.co.uk/t-rpopgyx or by cash or card at the door.

Friday, 22 - 23 November

LandAlive Sustainable Food & Farming Conference is at the Bath & West Showground, Somerset and includes expert talks on climate-friendly farming from leading practitioners, advisors, soil specialists, policy makers, wildlife organisations and representatives from across the food supply chain. It is an opportunity for farmers to get up-to-speed on the huge changes going on in farming. Paying attention to soil quality, rebuilding biodiversity and reducing dependence on chemical inputs which is very much in the mainstream now. The conference is a collaboration between

Sustainable Food Somerset and The Royal Bath and West of England Society, supported by DEFRA’S ‘Farming in Protected Landscapes’ (FIPL) fund through Mendip, Quantocks and Exmoor National Landscapes, with support from Somerset Council. Tickets are available at www.landalive.co.uk.

Saturday, 23 November

Christmas Eco Fair Plastic Free Axminster. Axminster Guildhall, West Street, Axminster. 10 a.m. to 1.30 p.m. Free cuppa, come and have a browse! Sweet and savoury treats, cleverly hand-crafted gifts (macrame, decoupage, glass, driftwood, jewellery), preloved toys, Christmas cakes, cards and much more.

Andy Zaltzman :The Zaltgeist (14+) - 20:00. With the 3rd millennium almost 2.5% complete, Andy Zaltzman, one of the UK’s leading satirical comedians, assesses the state of Planet Earth and its most famous and controversial species – the human race.In the biggest stand-up tour of his career, Andy will attempt to concoct vaguely plausible answers to perennial questions such as What?, Who?, Where?, and above all Why? Bridport Electric Palace 35 South Street , DT6 3NY. Tickets £19 Book online -electricpalace.org.uk

Bridport & West Dorset Rambling Club 7 mile walk from Bothenhampton. For further information please ring 01308 898484 or 01308 863340. New members/ visitors welcome.

Beginners Sewing Workshop 10 until 2pm. At the United Reformed Church , Chard St , Axminster ( a car park is opposite). Come and learn how to use your sewing machine. Make some gifts using half a metre of fabric, or make a fabric present bag. Please bring half a metre of fabric. Suitable for beginners and those with some sewing experience. Cost £18 includes tea and coffee. To book a place contact : gina.youens@ btinternet.com

‘The Wild Robot’(U) – Family Picnic Night Screening - Gateway Theatre, Seaton – 7pm, doors 6pm, tickets Adults £7.50, Under 16s £6.50. From DreamWorks Animation comes a new adaptation of a literary sensation, Peter Brown’s beloved, award-winning, #1 New York Times bestseller, The Wild Robot. Tickets from 01297 625699, www. gatewaytheatre.co.uk or in person Tue - Thur 10am1pm.

Loders Village Hall Fundraiser autumn dance in aid of Community Organisations. Silver Lining, rock n roll standards and 60s classics. Tickets £10 cash only, under 12 free. Bring your own refreshments, pre-booking advisable. 7.30pm-10.00pm. Contacts: bogle.2@outlook.com, bowbel@btinternet.com. Pam 01308 424556.

Saturday, 23 - 24 November

Contemporary Ceramics and Studio Pottery

Christmas Sale Combe St Nicholas 10.00- 4.00. Lucas Corner Studio, 2 Lucas Corner, TA20 3HQ. Parking in Frog Lane 100m south of entrance - limited spaces.

Saturday, 23 November - 5 Dec

Pop-up Vintage, popping up again in The Malthouse, Town Mill, Lyme Regis DT7 3PU. Open from 10am4pm every day. All the usual lovely things. Sourced, renovated, repaired or upcycled by us so that you don’t have to. Shop at Pop-up Vintage for a truly sustainable Christmas.

Sunday, 24 November

Candles on St Catherine’s Hill. A Community Event organised by The Friends of St Nicholas. Once again the village of Abbotsbury will be creating an illuminated Wheel on the hill below St Catherine’s Chapel. The Wheel is formed by hundreds of decorated and illuminated (battery LED lights) candle bags commemorating the Saint’s name day. This year’s event takes on special significance being the 1000 th year since Christianity was officially bestowed in the village by King Cnut via his representative Orc and his wife Tola, rounding off a year of celebrations. With the support of our sponsors we supply our local schools with bags free of charge and their artistic expression is much admired and appreciated. Decoration of the candle bags is entirely individual and everyone can take part by buying a bag from Abbotsbury Shops and from the Bridport Tourist Information shop the cost per bag is £2 . Once purchased please decorate and bring on the day or come to our Village Hall which will be an art workshop between 12 and 3pm. There you will receive a warm welcome and art materials will be available for you to use. The decorated bags will then go to the hill where our marvellous volunteers will place the battery LED lights inside and assist you to place your bag. At 3pm in St Catherine’s chapel there will be music by an A Capella group, so atmospheric in this iconic structure. That will be followed at 3.45pm by a short service of thanksgiving conducted by the Vicar of St Nicholas Church, and a cash collection will be made in support of the historic village church.

‘Girl From The North Country’ (12A) ScreeningGateway Theatre, Seaton, 2pm doors 1.30pm, tickets Adults £16, Under 16s £10. Written and directed by celebrated playwright Conor McPherson and featuring Tony Award-winning orchestrations by Simon Hale,

EVENTS IN DECEMBER

Live or Online send your event details to info@marshwoodvale.com BY NOVEMBER 12th

Girl From The North Country reimagines 20 legendary songs of Bob Dylan as they’ve never been heard before, including “Forever Young,” “All Along The Watchtower,” “Hurricane,” and “Like A Rolling Stone.” Tickets from 01297 625699, www.gatewaytheatre.co.uk or in person TueThur 10am - 1pm.

Divine Union Soundbath 2pm-4pm Oborne Village Hall, Oborne, nr. Sherborne, Dorset DT9 4LA. £16. Lie down, relax, and allow the Pure Sounds of a crystal and Tibetan bowl soundbath plus sacred vocal overtoning give you a sonic deep-tissue massage, taking you into the deeper brainwave states of ‘the relaxation response’, while charging and balancing the aura and chakras of the subtle body, and detoxing the physical. Please book in advance via 01935 389655 or email ahiahel@live.com

Advent Concert given by The Occasional Singers at 3.00pm St Mary’s Church, Edward Road, Dorchester DT1 2HL. St Mary’s Church in Dorchester will once again be filled with the glorious sounds of choral music, as the Occasional Singers perform a programme of Advent part songs. Taking us from 1607 through to the present day, the songs and carols will range from contemplative to joyful. Admission is free. There will be a retiring collection in aid of Dorchester Poverty Action. Everyone is most welcome.

Monday, 25 November

Dance Connection, for fun, health & wellbeing, 10:25am12, Unitarian Chapel, Bridport, DT6 3JX, 07787752201, https://www.joysofdance.co.uk/danceclass

Tuesday, 26 November

Paris Memories Bridport Film Society Films are screened fortnightly on Tuesday evenings at 7.45pm at Bridport Arts Centre, South Street, Bridport, exclusively for members and guests. Doors and the bar open at 7pm. Membership cards must be presented at the door. For membership and information email bridportfilm@gmail.com. Website: www. bridportfilmsociety.co.uk.

Bridport Museum Winter Talk Jon Milward from Bournemouth University will be speaking about Waddon Hill Roman Fort, focusing on recent archaeological research at the site. Beaminster Museum, Whitcombe Road, Beaminster DT8 3NB. www.beaminstermuseum.co.uk 2.00pm, entry £5.

Scottish Country Dancing at Horton Village Hall TA19 9QR every Tuesday evening from 7.30 to 9.30 pm with tea / coffee break ,£3.00 pay on the door. Everyone welcome, so why not come along and give it a whirl. For more information please email Anita at anitaandjim22@gmail. com and visit our web site at www.ashillscd.wordpress.com. West Dorset Ramblers Group - 9 miles walk from

Abbotsbury to West Bexington and back. To book and for further details please contact Jill & Simon 07974 756107.

Wednesday, 27 November Uplyme and Lyme Regis Horticultural Society. Demonstration ‘The Answer Lies in the Soil’ by David Usher. Uplyme Village Hall, doors open 7pm, talk starts 7.30pm. Members free, guests £3. More information www. ulrhs.wordpress.com.

Learn to Draw from Nature A workshop for beginners and intermediates. 10 until 12.30 at the United Reformed Church Hall, Chard Street, Axminster. ( a car park is opposite). Loose and Lively Sketching : birds, bees and trees etc. Come and try loose and lively sketching in pen and watercolour wash. Please bring paints if you have them, all other materials supplied. Cost £16. To book a place contact: gina.youens@btinternet.com.

Presentation by Alison Webber FRPS at Bridport Camera Club. The Cloak of Conformity and the Corset of Expectation. In aid of ASCape, a local charity supporting children and young adults with autism. Alison’s relationship between autism and photography and how she has used it to produce her exciting work. Bridport Town Hall DT6 3LF 7pm. Free entry but please consider a donation. Further info and tickets from www.bridportcameraclub.co.uk.

Thursday, 28 November

Alvorada – Faz Tempo, 7:30pm. Wootton Fitzpaine Village Hall. 01297 560948. £12.50, £6 u18s Also from www.artsreach.co.uk Based in London, award-winning quintet Alvorada are the UK’s leading performers of choro, a rich and uplifting style of instrumental music from Rio de Janeiro. Alvorada unites top musicians from London and Brazil whose diverse backgrounds in jazz, classical and Brazilian music lend the group a unique edge. Featuring Rachel Hayter (flutes), Andrew Woolf (clarinets / sax), Jeremy Shaverin (cavaquinho), Luiz Morais (7-string guitar) and Andres Ticino (percussion), their performances are filled with lively and expressive melodies, combining original compositions and classics of the genre, with infectious Brazilian grooves and playful interaction. The band’s debut album First Light was released in 2019 to much critical acclaim, leading to BBC Radio 3 and JazzFM appearances and extensive tours to venues and festivals across the UK and beyond, including recent appearances at the London Jazz Festival and the Paris International Choro Festival. Released in October 2024 their latest album, Faz Tempo, features intricate arrangements of original compositions and includes Brazilian rhythms such as choro, xote, samba, bossa nova and baião, with jazz and improvisation peppering their sound. Expect a vibrant, uplifting evening as this vibrant quintet return to Dorset! www.artsreach.co.uk.

BROADWINDSOR

Born and bred

A new community project aimed at capturing the memories of local people is taking place in Broadwindsor. It is being led by Margery Hookings for Windrose Rural Media Trust and will compile oral histories of people aged 55 or over who were born and/or bred in the village. There will be a film, an exhibition and a book. Those interested should contact Margery Hookings on 07807 705457.

LYME REGIS

Bulb planting for schools Schools in Devon, Dorset and South-West Somerset are being given the opportunity to plant pollinatorfriendly bulbs resulting in flowers next spring. Spring flowering bulbs are an important early source of nectar for pollinators like bumblebees. Interested schools should contact Lyme Regis based Little Green Change at: info@ littlegreenchange.com

BRIDPORT

St Mary’s needs volunteers Have you got a few hours spare and want to do something worthwhile with them?

St Mary’s Church House Hall in Bridport is looking for volunteers for committee roles of chairman, secretary, bookings secretary and treasurer. Those interested can start with just one task and in due course perhaps step into a full role. Phone Monty on 01308 423442 or email monty3dayslate@yahoo.co.uk.

Friday, 29 November

West Dorset Ramblers Group - 7 miles walk Bridport to Burton Bradstock Circular. To book and for further details please contact Janet 07947 881635.

Mark Thomas: Gaffa Tapes (16+) - Comedian and political satirist returns to Bridport. If you don’t know what he does ask your parents. In his time he has won awards (current total is now officially ‘fuckloads’), forced a politician to resign, changed laws on tax and protest, become Guinness Book of Records world record holder for number of protests in 24 hours, taken the police to court 3 times and won, walked the length of the Israeli Wall in the West Bank and generally mucked about trying to have fun and fuck the right people off. Bridport Electric Palace 35 South Street , DT6 3NY. Tickets £20.50 (standard) £14 (for those in receipt of disability benefits or JSA) Book online -electricpalace.org.uk

Babooshka - Salute to Kate Bush - The ultimate Kate Bush tribute show, guiding you through the career of one of the world’s most iconic artists of the 20th Century.

HALSTOCK

Village offers creative bursary Halstock Community Arts is inviting anyone who lives or works within a 20 mile radius of the village to apply for an HCA Bursary of up to £400. Priority for one of the awards will be given to applicants aged under 25. The deadline for applications is December 31st. In order to be considered for one of the two bursaries visit their website: www.halstockcommunityarts.co.uk

WEYMOUTH

New artistic hub

Creativity is set to energise Weymouth with the opening of a vibrant new art hub, made possible by a collaboration between DJ Property and Artwey. Located at 82A St Thomas Street, Weymouth, the premises have been transformed into a dynamic exhibition venue, and will serve as a hub for artistic activity until February 2025. It will be open 10 am to 4 pm, Monday - Saturday.

7:00pm at Ilminster Arts Centre, TA19 0AN. Tickets: £18 Students: £5 Children 12 and under: Free 01460 54973 www.ilminsterartscentre.com.

Saturday, 30 November

Stockland Christmas Market Local Crafts, Wreaths, Metal Forge-work. Refreshments, Free parking. Victory Hall. 10-12 noon. Bookings / Information. Monica on 01404 881 535.

Children’s Christmas Give and Take event Little Green Change’s free, annual, Children’s Christmas Give and Take event is taking place this year 10:30am-12:30pm, at Woodmead Halls in Lyme Regis, thanks to the support of Lyme Regis Town Council. Donations can be brought 1 hour before the start time, or they can be collected by Little Green Change prior to the event from the Lyme Regis, Axminster and Charmouth areas. Please email info@ littlegreenchange.com or text 07803705100 to arrange a local collection. Items must be in good condition and must NOT be torn, stained, dirty, damaged or broken.

Christmas Fair – Gateway Theatre, Seaton – 10am – 3pm, free entry Join us for our annual festive fair. Lots of craft stalls providing ideas for Christmas presents. The café and bar will be open too.

LandAlive

Conference hopes to help farmers

Anew South West conference aiming to help farmers manage climate extremes, following the wettest eighteen months on record, will be held in November. Called LandAlive, the event will explore how what are known as ‘regenerative’ or nature-friendly methods can improve farm profits, while boosting local economies, opening up new markets and stimulating innovation and investment across the South West.

The new conference is to be held at the Bath and West Showground on the 22nd and 23rd November 2024. It will feature a two-day programme of talks by top experts in regenerative farming and sustainable food. They include: Martin Lines of the Nature Friendly Farming Network, Helen Coates (DEFRA), Phillip Lymbery (Compassion in World Farming) and many more.

The conference is a collaboration between Sustainable Food Somerset and The Royal Bath and West of England Society, supported by DEFRA’s ‘Farming in Protected Landscapes’ (FIPL) fund through Mendip & Quantocks National Landscapes, with support from Somerset Council.

Stewart Crocker, Chair of Sustainable Food Somerset, said: ‘The conference will cover all the latest innovations, research, sources of investment and opportunities emerging; how to capitalise on the ‘Regen premium’, new sales channels, subsidies, carbon markets, diversification strategies and more.

‘The roots of sustainable farming are not new, but soil science, discoveries about the impact of nutrition on health, and farmers’ own experiences ‘in the field’ are rapidly advancing the frontiers of knowledge and changing farming practice for the better. Now is the time to bring these farming methods to the fore to safeguard the future of food production and bring nature back from the brink.’

Whilst primarily aimed at farmers, this is the first conference in the region to look at the place of regenerative farming within the wider food system. Organisers aim to ‘join up the dots’ across the supply chain, looking at ways to support farmers and local economies in the years ahead.

According to former farming journalist, Graham Harvey, the conference programme director, longterm resilience means shifting how we farm: using

more nature-friendly methods and possibly changing what we grow.

‘Most farmers have had a pretty miserable time recently with all the rain and spiralling input costs. The good news is there’s growing evidence that making the transition away from chemical dependent farming really can result in better, more nutritious crops and more profitable farming. But ‘Regen’ is a journey, and every farm is different. So it’s about working out what’s right for you and your farm,” Graham Harvey adds.

With a combination of internationally known names and local practitioners in the speaker line-up, and a host of potential exhibitors from across the food system, each supporting the Agricultural Transition— this is relevant to anyone involved in the South West’s food sector.

LandAlive is sponsored by First Milk and is on 22nd and 23rd November at the Bath and West Showground. Tickets are available from www. landalive.co.uk.

Stewart Crocker of charity Sustainable Food Somerset, with First Milk Sales & Marketing Director, Leona McDonald

Click Here for an Easy Read version of this article

ONature Studies

By Michael McCarthy

ne day last month, driving back to our village, I came across something surprising: a covey of partridges. Covey is the lovely old word for a small flock of game birds, applied to partridges and grouse, and the surprise was that these birds were in the middle of the road, having presumably slipped in through the hedges at the side.

As our car approached them they took flight, but because partridges don’t fly very high, and because the roadside hedges are tall anyway, at first they flew straight down the road in front of us and suddenly we were driving right in amongst them, until they managed to swerve off: it was quite something. I don’t doubt it was potentially dangerous and might have resulted in an accident, but in fact, I found it exciting and exhilarating, and I have been thinking about why.

The birds were red-legged or French partridges, Alectoris rufa, and the reason we encountered them was because they had been commercially bred and released into the countryside for the shooting season which, for partridges, began on September 1, while it began on October 1 for pheasants. Both are handsome, attractive species; but the numbers released are staggering. The most recent figures, from the Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust, show that 11.6 million red legs, and no fewer than 49.5 million pheasants are put out each year by shoots: it has been calculated that the combined weight of these gamebirds at the end of the summer exceeds the total weight of all the other birds in Britain. Yes, you read that correctly.

The practice attracts a great deal of criticism. Animal welfare campaigners attack the cruelty of shooting (although I personally feel a gamebird shot in the countryside has had a better life than any of the billions of farmed chickens we cheerfully consume each year). But what to me and to many others is a stronger critique concerns the ecological consequences of annually releasing such absolutely colossal numbers of nonnative creatures into our already battered and nature-depleted countryside (neither the red-legged partridge nor the ring-necked pheasant is in origin a native British species).

An

incomer’s discovery of the natural world in the West Country

There have been two relatively recent studies of this. One is by Dr Mark Avery entitled The common pheasant: its status in the UK and the potential impacts of an abundant nonnative in British Birds, Vol 112, pp 365-420 (July 2019) and the other is by Professor Stephen Harris, a report to the Labour Animal Welfare Society entitled A review of the animal welfare, public health, and environmental, ecological and conservation implications of rearing, releasing and shooting non-native gamebirds (May 2021). If you look them up you will find they both rehearse a whole series of concerns ranging from effects on our reptile populations (pheasants, surprisingly, will eat adders—which are known to be declining) to the immense amount of lead shot scattered across the countryside and found in game birds offered for human consumption.

I know this. I knew it when I suddenly found myself surrounded by flying partridges. I knew their presence was wholly artificial, they were virtually livestock rather than wild birds; and yet I was still excited and moved by being amongst them. And I think the reason is, that our countryside has been so denuded of its wildlife, that any flash of the abundance it once contained is something which causes me to rejoice, willy-nilly.

When I was a young boy I loved the coveys of truly wild, grey partridges—Perdix perdix, our native bird—that I saw in the Wirral where I grew up. They have long since gone, along with the lapwings and curlews and tree sparrows and corn buntings and all the other wildlife which intensive farming has so brutally destroyed. And so the annual dumping of sixty million commercially-bred gamebirds into the British countryside, artificial though it is and harmful though it is bound to be, perversely causes my spirits to lift—which is some indication of just how terribly, in my lifetime, we have trashed our natural inheritance.

Recently relocated to Dorset, Michael McCarthy is the former Environment Editor of The Independent. His books include Say Goodbye To The Cuckoo and The Moth Snowstorm: Nature and Joy.

Red-legged Partridge

Alectoris rufa

FARMING for natural resilience

Achieving a balance between profitable yields and long term resilience has been a challenge for farmers for decades. Martin Lines CEO of the Nature Friendly Farmers Network has been talking to Fergus Byrne about effective change

When I catch up with Martin Lines, founder of the Nature Friendly Farmers Network (NFFN), he is hunched over his phone in London’s Westminster Hall. With its medieval timber roof and history of Tudor feasts, banquets and state ceremonies—and more recently the setting for thousands of people to pay their respects to the late Queen Elizabeth II—it is not exactly a location with the same rustic atmosphere as a farm barn. There is no curly tinned roof and the friendly whiff of cow dung doesn’t hang in the air, and although some may say there is often more than a hint of bullshit in Westminster, that is, of course, a matter of opinion. Regardless, Martin’s first comment echoes my own initial impression when he says, ‘You could certainly store a few ton of wheat in here.’

There are no agricultural products in view today however, but beyond its storage value, Martin is certainly in the right location to reach out to MPs, policy makers and civil servants to progress his goal of making them aware of what farmers do to feed the nation. This week he is here to participate in meetings and talk to just about anyone that

will listen to his story about how important it is to support farmers in their role as keepers of the environment.

A traditional farmer, he founded NFFN to unite farmers who were advocating for nature-friendly practices. Some time ago he transitioned his own farm to reduce pesticide use by 65%, herbicides by 85%, and fungicides by 50%, while remarkably, improving profitability and resilience.

He cites two particular moments that helped change his view of how he had been farming. ‘We had a bean crop that was full of aphids that we couldn’t spray because it was too wet and windy’ he recalls. However, because he had planted flower margins, strips of land planted with flowers to attract ‘beneficiaries, pollinators and predatory insects’, he found that there were no aphids in the areas by the flower margins. ‘So, I didn’t put an insecticide on’ he says, and it had no impact on his yield. Since that discovery he says he hasn’t used insecticide for 11 years. ‘Because if I’m delivering good habitats full of all the beneficiaries, pollinators and predatory insects, why would I want to put insecticide or product on that’s going to kill most of

‘If you’re losing 2- 3% of your best quality soil down the water course every year, it kind of buggers you up in a few years time’

them?’ Nature was doing the job for him.

The other road to Damascus moment was when he ploughed a field that hadn’t been ploughed for a couple of years. He could see the tractor imprint of when it had been ploughed two years previously.

The imprint was still solidly compacted into the soil.

‘You could see the tread print of the tractor’ he tells me. ‘It was a wake-up moment that, actually, we are causing, through our tractors and our operations, soil compaction and soil degradation. Why the heck are we doing this? If we don’t cause the problem, we aren’t going to need to spend money on the bigger machinery. And that took me on a journey of basically stopping cultivating wherever possible, and building soil health and infiltration of water, organic matter, cover crops, and direct drilling where possible. And it’s just taken me on a journey that nature doesn’t cause big soil compaction.’

NFFN, which includes organic and conventional farmers, promotes progressive improvements in farming practices. Martin emphasizes the need for government support, consumer education, and collaboration with supply chains. He highlights the importance of soil health, biodiversity, and the role of livestock in sustainable farming. NFFN aims to influence policy, support farmers, and promote regenerative agriculture.

The birth of the organization began several years ago when many farmers were being taken to conservation events and, as he recalls, there was ‘a lot of noise’ from conservation groups that ‘farming was bad.’ On the farming side, he says, there was concern that conservation didn’t understand farming. There was a lot of disagreement and mistrust, inevitably born out of misunderstanding, but it was creating an

uncomfortable polarization. Martin quickly realized there was a middle ground, a vacuum that needed to be filled.

He came across a survey that showed that many farmers felt their voice wasn’t represented. There were farmers who had discovered that farming with nature rather than against it was supporting their production. It was actually improving their profitability. ‘They were trying to find a middle path where nature fitted into their landscape,’ he says.

So, Martin decided to form the network to bring those farming voices together, to support each other. He says that ‘if you’re an individual farmer in a landscape where you’re doing different things to your neighbors, sometimes you’re shunned, and the support isn’t there. But collectively, we can have a really positive voice and demonstrate what can be done, while at the same time presenting a positive voice into governments and policymakers and supply chains.’ NFFN is showing what can be done, but Martin wants to make sure ‘the framework is in place that helps us deliver it.’

As an organization, NFFN has a wide breadth of members, both organic and conventional, as well as somewhere in between. They range from those with less than one acre to people farming 40 to 50,000 acres. ‘We don’t judge people,’ says Martin, and neither does the organization audit their members. ‘But we are very clear that it is about progressively improving your system that recognizes the role of nature, and the reduction, and for some removal of pesticides, and the role of livestock in that system to build fertility. We’re not preaching at people, but what we try and do is show the practices that other farmers are already doing that will give you solutions.’

Martin knows that not every farmer will want to make an immediate complete transition. ‘For some, that may be stopping insecticides, but carrying on everything else, with some habitats,’ he says, ‘but for others that may be going down a biological farming system with no inputs, only focusing on biology.’ He is keen to point out that it’s not about yield, it’s about profitability. ‘I’m happy to see a reduction of one or two tons a hectare if that saves me £500 or £600 a hectare in cost.’

So, what are the key difficulties for farmers that might want to make changes from the systems they have been using for so many years? ‘Mindset’ says Martin. ‘It’s a huge amount of information to take in. If you’re going to want to stop insecticides, you’re going to have to put in some habitats and manage the habitat for the beneficiaries. So that may take a year or two before you can jump across. It’s about putting those steps in place.’

But Martin is also aware of a sense of urgency, and a reality that the farming community has to face in the future. ‘Change is coming’ he warns. ‘Our practices of the past will not be supported by the supply chain or the public or private finance in the future. So, we’re going to have to adapt, and farmers who are adapting early are having time to adjust. Those that delay are going to have to change at a faster pace, and the impact of our climate and the government policies and supply chains, are going to have a bigger impact on them.’

‘Today is the best day to start wherever you are,’ he says. ‘But take the steps that you can cope with and build some support around you.’ That could include benefiting from information from other farmers and taking business planning advice, as well as gaining an

understanding of the impact and the changes that are happening to cash flow, to future machinery needs and ‘to the new markets of opportunity that will be open to you as you change.’

‘We’ve got to recognize that our current farming system has caused many of the problems for biodiversity; many of our soil health problems; our water health problems and other things. That’s not going to be allowed to continue, and it’s not sustainable for our own business. If you’re losing 23% of your best quality soil down the water course every year, it kind of buggers you up in a few years time. So, we’re going to have to get more resilient in a changing climate, to how we manage our landscape and our businesses.’

Outside the echoing hall of Westminster, Martin is using his knowledge and experience to ensure the impact of change is both recognized, coherent and collaborative. He stresses the ambition that is needed for change, and that means talking to MPs, civil servants, banks, finance institutions and those involved in routes to market. ‘I recognize the change that’s coming,’ he says. ‘But I need to make sure everybody that’s involved with farming, from finance, supply chain and policy, all go in the same direction at a similar pace. And that has to be ambitious.’

CEO of Nature Friendly Farming Network, Martin Lines will be joining a new conference called LandAlive which will be held at the Bath and West Showground on the 22nd and 23rd November 2024. It will feature a two-day programme of talks by top experts in regenerative farming and sustainable food. Tickets are available from www.landalive.co.uk.

Martin Lines

‘My favourite bit was the cooking’ Discover Farming has an ‘Expert Day’

at Bridport’s Washingpool Farm

Discover Farming, the education arm of the Melplash Agricultural Society, arranged and hosted an Expert Day at the Discover Farming Classroom at Washingpool Farm recently.

Year 5/6 pupils (9/10 years) from St Mary’s School Beaminster and Salway Ash Primary School were invited to attend this annual event organised by the Discover Farming’s Education Co-ordinator, Katie Vining.

The Expert Day aims to give young people a greater understanding of food and farming and the benefits of fresh produce by connecting them with agriculture experts that they cannot easily access within the ‘normal’ school curriculum. Fifty-eight children attended – 32 from Salway Ash and 26 from St Mary’s.

The guest ‘Experts’ this year included Joy Michaud from Seaspring Seeds, West Bexington. Joy described what is involved in growing chillies, talked about the different varieties, the difference between chillies and peppers and how the heat of chillies is measured using Scoville heat units (SHU). The children were then given the opportunity to taste different variety.

Sarah Choudhury from the Taj Mahal Restaurant in Bridport used vegetables available from the Washingpool Farm polytunnels and from the shop as well, as chillies from Seaspring Seeds. Sarah and the children made a vegetable curry. The children helped

to prepare and chop the vegetables, cook the curry with Sarah and then were able to enjoy eating it.

Nick Gray from Dorset Wildlife Trust took the pupils pond dipping and talked about the huge array of wildlife that the ponds support and the importance it has to the ecosystem and habitat around it while the team from Buglers in Beaminster explained the role of the tractor in farming and how it has developed over time enabling better performance, precision, and flexibility. The pupils were introduced to many of the new features, like GPS, which help to make tractors easier to use and more efficient for farmers. They also demonstrated the use of a power harrow, used to improve the soil structure by breaking up, refining, and distributing the soil, in the potato field. The potatoes turned up during the demonstration were given to the children to take home!

Comments from the children showed just how much they learned from the experience.: ‘I didn’t think I was going to enjoy today because I thought it would be boring’ said one. ‘It was so not boring. I loved everything we did—especially the cooking.’

Another commented: ‘I didn’t know so much of what I was taught today and had not thought about it either. I liked how so much of what we eat can be grown near to us.’

The day also presented an opportunity to change perceptions and even tastes. ‘My favourite bit was the

cooking’ said one of the children. ‘I was not looking forward to it because I do not like “curry”, but I found out I loved this. I liked the making of it and then I had two helpings of the finished meal because it was so delicious. I think I’ll try more new things.”

‘It was a very well organised day. The children loved it and learnt a lot. They particularly enjoyed tasting chillies, making and eating vegetable curry, finding out about tractors and being able to take a potato home!’ said teacher, Elizabeth Smith, Salway Ash Primary School.

‘The experts all engaged with the children in a way that they could understand and even the school adults learnt lots of new things from the day. Watching the children all totally immersed with the learning was glorious’ said teacher, Rebecca Kenway, St Mary’s Primary School, Beaminster.

Discover Farming, Education Co-ordinator Katie Vining said: ‘The feedback received from both the schoolteachers and their students has been extremely complimentary. They all thoroughly enjoyed the day and the variety of activities. A very big thank you to all our ‘experts’ and helpers who gave up their time to help Discover Farming really promote hands on learning about food, farming and the countryside around us.’

Discover Farming was set up and is operated by the Melplash Agricultural Society to help educate children about food, farming and the countryside. The Discover Farming Classroom is based at Washingpool Farm Bridport DT6 5HP. For more details visit www. discoverfarming.co.uk

November in the Garden

By Russell Jordan

As I write this, it’s been a very wet descent into autumn so far, so the ground is too soggy to even contemplate all but the gentlest of gardening tasks. Leaves are beginning to fall but November is the month when much colder temperatures will result in deciduous trees and shrubs shedding the majority of their leaves. In a good year this will be accompanied by a blaze of autumn colour but this phenomenon requires quite a specific set of circumstances to achieve optimal results.

The summer has to have been good enough to have allowed the photosynthesis process to make a plentiful amount of sugars. Also, the drop in overnight temperatures must be large enough to start the withdrawal of the chlorophyll but also gradual enough for the leaves to remain on the trees long enough for autumnal tints to develop. The yellow, red and orange hues are revealed when the green chlorophyll breaks down, as part of the shedding process, and the colourful breakdown chemicals are left behind in the leaf. Trees and shrubs such as acers (maples), Liquidambar, dogwoods (Cornus), Euonymus and witch-hazels (Hamamelis) have some of the most reliable displays of fiery autumn colour so now is a good time to seek them out in nurseries and garden centres.

If waterlogged ground has delayed your bulb planting efforts then it’s still OK to be finishing this now; November is traditionally the month when you should be planting tulip bulbs in any case. It should still be possible to buy bulbs in shops and garden centres but it becomes even more important to check that they are firm and rot free when selecting them. The aforementioned tulips should be fine although you may need to take extra care, when planting them out, if they have already started to sprout because you don’t want to damage any emerging shoots. If you have had bulbs sat around for weeks then check them closely, prior to planting, discarding any that have developed signs of rot, excessive moisture loss or ‘mummification’ (shrivelling up).

When planting up containers with bulbs it’s a good idea to finish off the display with a covering of winter

flowering bedding plants to provide interest between now and the spring. Some likely candidates include primroses (Primula), double daisies (Bellis), winter pansies and small-leaved ivies. I favour the small flowered winter pansies, which are closer to the native Viola, because these tend to be more free flowering even during the coldest weather. The large flowered pansies have a habit of only flowering profusely in milder conditions and may sit and sulk right up until they sense the onset of spring!

Even if it has remained mild enough for doubtfully hardy plants, like dahlias and cannas, to remain planted outside, in the ground, until now, November really is the last chance to make sure these are dug up and brought into frost-free conditions for the winter. Cannas can be potted up and kept just barely moist, gently ‘ticking over’, in their cool, but not freezing, winter quarters. Traditionally, dahlia tubers are dug up and cleaned, to remove wet soil, slugs and other damaging soil pests, before being left upturned for a week or two, in the greenhouse, to allow excess moisture to drain out of the necks of the severed stems.

I’m not sure this ‘draining’ procedure is really necessary as long as the cleaned up tubers are stored carefully, in crates or large pots, in similarly ‘cool but not freezing’ conditions for the duration of winter. Remember to label the respective plants with their correct name, or a description of the mature plant if the variety is unknown, because you’ll need to know what they are when you come to replanting them next spring.

The shedding of leaves from deciduous trees and shrubs marks the beginning of the bare-root planting season, although this lasts right up until the beginning of spring so there’s no need to panic about it yet. It’s a good idea to think about what’s best obtained barerooted, trees and hedging are the usual candidates, so you can find a supplier, and place an order, before any choice specimens become sold out. Growers will only lift bare-root plants when ground conditions allow so there may be a delay between ordering and sending out. Any bare-root plants that arrive before you are ready

for them can be safely ‘heeled in’, using an area of empty ground, until you get around to planting them into their final positions.

I tend to find that herbaceous plants don’t really begin to fully die down until now and, as long as the soil is not too waterlogged or frozen, November may be the first month that I actually chop anything down. Chopping down to ground level is necessary if you are going to lift and divide herbaceous plants so, consequentially, this may be the first chance that I get to increase my stocks of any of the herbaceous plants that I want more of. A big clump of something vigorous, such as Helenium, can be chopped up into a large number of smaller pieces, divisions, for either replanting immediately, into new parts of the border, or potting up, into pots of fresh compost, for planting later next spring or to give / swap away.

The arrival of proper overnight frosts is the signal that most ‘fiddling’ maintenance jobs must cease and you can concentrate on all the ‘hardcore’ winter stuff. Before that happens there will be a period of crucial autumnal tasks dictated by fallen leaves. A lawn mower, with it’s blades raised higher than normal, can be used to collect a light covering of leaves, on lawns, but a rake will be required wherever the leaves are too thick or too wet. If you have a leaf blower, a certain amount can

be dealt with by blowing them off the lawn, into beds and borders, but only if the accumulation is not so great that they form an impenetrable blanket on your herbaceous plants.

It’s amazing how many leaves will break down naturally, or get drawn down into the top soil by worm action if left where they fall, although a thick covering, on top of ornamental plants or grass, is detrimental. Any leaves that you rake up and collect are best composted, into leaf mould, separately to your usual compost heap because their relative lack of nitrogen means that they take longer to break down than green composting material. If you make composting bins for leaves, rounded posts with attached chicken wire are the simplest, then sprinkling a source of nitrogen, such as ‘fish, blood and bone’, between each layer of leaves will speed up the breakdown process. If you are lucky enough to keep chickens then the sweepings from their coup are a really good, naturally occurring, source of nitrogen rich material to activate your compost or leaf mould bins.

I think that should be enough to be getting on with. Hopefully we’ll have an end to autumn that allows for good autumn colour and plenty of fine days to get out into the garden to enjoy it.

This Month in the not so distant past

Looking back at historical moments that happened in November, John Davis highlights The Lone Assassin

It is November 8th, 1939. Germany has already been at war for two months but there is one anniversary the Nazi hierarchy just could not fail to celebrate.

It was on that date sixteen years previously that Adolf Hitler had led the famous Beer Hall putsch in which a fledgling Nazi Party had attempted to take over Munich and use it as a base to overthrow the national government, the Weimar Republic.

A confrontation follows a rally in the Burgerbraukeller when the insurgents are faced by armed policemen. Shots are exchanged resulting in the death of sixteen Nazi Party members, four officers and one by-stander

As a result of his participation, Hitler is later arrested, tried for treason and sentenced to five years in Landsberg Prison. In actuality he is only incarcerated for nine months during which time he produces his ‘magnum opus’ Mein Kampf (My Struggle).

So it is that every November 8th, Party adherents return to the Burgerbraukeller where leading officials, including usually Hitler himself, would pay homage to those heroic martyrs who had sacrificed their lives in 1923.

Several days before the 1939 event it looked as if Hitler and his colleagues, including Rudolf Hess, Heinrich Himmler, Reinhardt Heydrich and Joseph Goebbels, would renege on their promise to attend but plans are re-scheduled with the Fuhrer due to speak between 8 and 10 p.m. Thousands pack into the venue. There is much boisterousness and carousing until the formal party arrives and Hitler commences his speech.

A hurried message is passed to Hitler in mid flow. Fog will prevent a flight to Berlin so his only rapid return to the capital and important war business has to be by rail. Cutting his speech by an hour, Hitler leaves the hall at 9.07 p.m. and the three thousand strong gathering begin to slowly disperse. At 9.20 p.m. precisely, a tremendous explosion rips through the hall. The speakers’ platform and the surrounding area shatters into pieces, a balcony collapses, part of the ceiling falls in and total chaos reigns.

Later it is revealed the blast has killed eight people and injured over sixty, some of them seriously. Hitler and his leading lieutenants have escaped the carnage by just thirteen minutes and perhaps the chance to change the course of history has just failed. Hitler at first speaks about his lucky escape though later he has become much more contemplative, “My leaving the hall earlier than usual is proof to me that Providence wants me to reach my goals,” he says.

It is about 8.30 p.m. the same night, November 8th. Two observant guards at Konstanz, on the border between Germany and Switzerland, notice someone acting very suspiciously near the crossing. Dissatisfied with his explanation they take him to their border post to question him further.

They establish he is a German carpenter/clock maker named Georg Elser and, when he is asked to empty his pockets, they find wire cutters, notes and sketches about explosive devices, firing pins and a blank-coloured postcard of the Burgerbraukeller in Munich.

Wishing to demonstrate their efficiency, the guards call in the local Gestapo and, while Elser’s interrogators continue to question him, the teleprinter suddenly bursts into life. It provides details of a major bomb explosion in Munich earlier that night, shortly after the departure of the Fuhrer and his party.

Elser is transported to Gestapo headquarters in Berlin. Hitler is made fully aware of the situation and places the head of the Gestapo, Heinrich Muller, in complete charge of the investigation. Elser, and later members of his family and work colleagues, are subjected to hours of questioning. Following weeks of torture, both physical and mental, Elser describes to his captors his ‘modus operandi’

He reveals how he secreted himself inside the hall each night after it closed over a period of several weeks. During the early hours he would work on hollowing out a section of a large pillar next to the rostrum to make room for the bomb. Each time the outer panel of the pillar is replaced as normal, debris is packed into suitcases and bags before Elser sneaks

away as staff open up in the mornings. The bomb is constructed with a timing device at his lodgings using explosives and other equipment obtained from a quarry where he has been employed. Once finished, the device is placed into the hollow part of the pillar, the timer set and the panel re-sealed.

As to his motive, Elser tells them, “I reasoned the situation in Germany could only be modified by a removal of the current leadership…..I did not want to eliminate Nazism……I had to do it because for his whole life Hitler has meant the downfall of Germany…..getting rid of Hitler became an obsession of mine.”

What his Gestapo interrogators cannot accept however is how a simple craftsman like Elser could possibly construct so effective an explosive device and how he has managed to hatch and carry out the clandestine operation single-handedly. They even provide Elser with paper and pen so he can sketch out his designs and, after gathering all the materials together, watch intently as he intricately assembles a similar device to that which he has used.

With Elser still maintaining his version of the plot, he is transferred to the camp at Sachsenhausen in 1941 and then to Dachau early in 1945. There is no trial and Elser’s prolonged stay in both camps still seems to have been based on the Gestapo’s

belief that he would eventually reveal the names of co-conspirators.

In April 1945 with the Nazi regime crumbling, and wishing to tie up loose ends, destroy evidence and settle old scores, Elser, then aged 42, is executed at the same time as Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, former head of the Abwehr (Military Intelligence), and the theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

Since the re-unification of Germany, memorials and plaques have been erected in memory of Georg Elser and throughout the country today over 60 streets are named after him. A special postage stamp was issued to commemorate his one hundredth birthday in 2003. Every two years the Georg Elser Prize is awarded to someone showing great courage against an oppressive regime.

Also see the film 13 Minutes or Elser. It was released in 2015 and is directed by Oliver Hirschbiegel. (Not to be confused with a disaster movie from 2015 with the same name.)

Semi-retired and living in Lyme Regis, John Davis started working life as a newspaper journalist before moving on to teach in schools, colleges and as a private tutor. He is a history graduate with Bachelors and Masters degrees from Bristol University with a particular interest in the History of Education and Twentieth Century European History

How the Daily Herald reported the story in November 1939. Alamy.

Click Here for an Easy Read version of this article

Food&Dining

TUNA CEVICHE

Inspired by the Andy Warhol book Wild Raspberries Mark Hix has collaborated with artist Nettie Wakefield to launch a collection of framed prints you can add to your kitchen wall. The prints combine seafood recipes by Mark accompanied by beautifully detailed illustrations by Nettie. They have combined to create a series of 28 limited edition artworks, printed in London’s Jealous Print Studio. They are planning to publish them into a book next year. Signed by Mark and Nettie the limited edition prints are available to buy online from Jealousgallery.com.

INGREDIENTS

• 200g very fresh tuna loin or belly

• 1 red chilli

• 2 spring onions

• Tbls chopped coriander

• Tbls yuzu juice

• Tbls lime juice

Serves 2

DIRECTIONS

1. Chop the tuna into 1 cm rough pieces.

2. Finely chop chilli and spring onions.

3. Mix together with the yuzu juice and lime juice.

4. Season to taste

5. Serve with toasted baguette or on its own.

MARK HIX

SPICY BUTTERNUT SQUASH SOUP

This is a classic crowd-pleaser, so it’s a great go-to recipe. Soup is a labour of love and is something you take your time to make. Put on some music and enjoy spending time in the kitchen.

Wholesome Bowls MELISSA DELPORT

Published by Nourish, an imprint of Watkins Media

Limited

ISBN: 978-1-84899-414-0 (Hardback)

ISBN: 978-1-84899-415-7 (eBook)

INGREDIENTS

3 tablespoons coconut oil

1 red onion, chopped

2 cloves garlic, minced

1 tablespoon grated fresh root ginger

1 red chilli, chopped (optional)

2 teaspoons cayenne pepper (optional)

2 stalks celery

1 large carrot, peeled and halved

1 sweet potato, washed and chopped

500g (1lb 2oz) butternut squash, peeled and diced

1 litre (34fl oz/4 ¼cups)

vegetable stock

180ml (6fl oz/¾ cup) coconut milk

Salt and pepper

Croutons (optional)

1 handful fresh coriander/cilantro

Serves 8

DIRECTIONS

1. Add the coconut oil and onion to a large saucepan over a medium heat and fry until translucent. Add the garlic, ginger, chilli and cayenne pepper. Keep stirring. Add the celery and stir until it starts to soften, then add the carrot, sweet potato and butternut squash.

2. Once all the vegetables are mixed together, add the stock and top up with boiling water until the vegetables are covered. Simmer over a medium heat for at least 1 hour. If you see the water level is low, top up with more stock or water. I let my soup cook for as long as possible, sometimes up to 2 hours. However, it can be served after 1 hour.

3. Once all the veggies are soft, blend the soup with a stick blender until smooth and thick. Simmer for another 20 minutes. Add the coconut milk and stir through. Season to taste.

4. Serve hot with croutons and chopped fresh coriander/cilantro.

Ilaria’s Italian KITCHEN

‘ITALIAN food is all about simplicity’ says Ilaria Padovani, owner of Mercato Italiano in Bridport. Introducing her wonderful cold pressed Extra Virgin Olive Oil from Umbria, with Peperoncini and Fennel seeds, she describes how the oil can enhance and bring out the best of many dishes. ‘This aromatic chilli Extra Virgin Olive Oil is the perfect Italian dish companion—piquant, fresh and balanced’ she says.

A collaboration with Weymouth 51, the handcrafted artisan vegan chilli sauce and condiment producer from Weymouth, Mercato Italiano also offers a hot version with the famous Dorset Naga chilli. The oils are served alongside Mercato Italiano’s delicious pizzas and are also available to take home.

Originally established as a weekly market stall, supplying high quality cured meats and cheeses directly imported by Ilaria using her Italian produce contacts, Mercato Italiano has become the go to destination for authentic pizza, coffee, cocktails and so much more in west Dorset and surrounding area.

Be sure to visit https://mercatoitaliano. uk and subscribe to their newsletter to keep up with events, tastings and exclusive offers, including the Marshwood reader discount on special events.

Chilli Extra Virgin Olive Oils from Mercato Italiano in Bridport

Make Good

Already the subject of a successful TV drama, the story of the Post Office Scandal is seen as one of the greatest miscarriages of justice in British history. A production of the story is now being brought to theatres

In a sleepy English village, the local post office was more than just a place to send letters and parcels; it was the heart of the community. It was where grandmothers got their pensions, grandfathers picked up their newspapers, and children posted their letters to Santa.

But for many sub-postmasters across the country, the dream of running such a cherished local institution turned into a nightmare that highlighted one of the most disgraceful miscarriages of justice in recent British history—one that the public must not forget.

The scandal revolved around the Post Office’s Horizon computer system, which was introduced in the late 1990s to modernize the country’s post offices. What was meant to streamline operations instead resulted in turmoil. Almost from the start, Horizon experienced software glitches that showed false shortfalls in accounts. Alarmingly, these discrepancies, which sub-postmasters could not explain, were automatically assumed by the Post Office to be due to theft or fraud by the subpostmasters themselves.

For years, sub-postmasters lived in dread. Their word against a seemingly infallible computer system, their pleas of innocence fell on deaf ears as the Post Office prosecuted them aggressively and relentlessly. Livelihoods were destroyed, families torn apart, and innocent individuals were sent to prison—all because of a faulty software system that lacked transparency and accountability.

Despite an ongoing inquiry into how the whole debacle was handled, very few of those innocent of any wrongdoing have been compensated. The enquiry goes on. Hot on the heels of investigative reporter Nick Wallis’s Panorama programmes and his tour of theatres bringing local people onto the stage to talk about their experiences, a new play by Pentabus and New Perspectives Theatre is bringing the story to audiences in theatres.

Make Good: The Post Office Scandal is a new musical by Jeanie O’Hare and Jim Fortune that has been three years in the making. It tells the story of how over twenty years a silent tragedy has unfolded in the heart of our communities. It highlights how entirely innocent sub-postmasters had their lives torn apart and faced bankruptcy, isolation, and jail

for crimes that were never committed, for debts that never existed.

Jeanie O’Hare first recalled hearing about the issue in an interview on the Today programme with John Humphreys in 2013. Her first thought was it was so obvious the person interviewed was innocent that it would ‘get sorted’. She left to continue working on a project abroad and returning four years later was horrified to hear it hadn’t been resolved.

Jeanie suggested the play idea to Pentabus Theatre company in 2020 because she knew of their ability to tell stories ‘of the community in the community’ better than anyone else.

Directly informed by conversations with affected sub-postmasters, Make Good dives into this most local of stories, capturing the raw emotions, the bewilderment and the unbreakable bond of faith and family that were put to the test. The play helps to portray the astonishing resilience of entire communities as lives were destroyed in a scandal that isn’t over yet.

The production comes to Stockland Village Hall (EX14 9EF) Courtesy of the Devon Arts Charity ‘Villages in Action’. Sat 16th November at 7.30pm. Doors and Bar open 7pm. Tickets are £15 or free for Under 25yrs. Suitable 11+yrs. Audio Described. https://villagesinaction.co.uk/

Charlotte Delima in rehearsal for her part as Indira in Make Good The Post Office Scandal

November

GALLERIES

Until 2 November

Philippa Lawrence: A Space Between. Anne Jackson: The Witchcraft Series (upstairs gallery) Thelma Hulbert Gallery, Elmfield House, Dowell Street. Honiton, Devon EX14 1LX.

Until 3 November

Sky Lines Alex Lowery recent paintings and drawings. Lise Herud Braten studio pottery. Petter Southall furniture. Sky Lines takes us out into the landscape, the rugged and the urban, the natural and the man-made. Alex Lowery’s stunning new paintings of Portland and Lyme Bay (with Orkney, Greece and Sicily) introduce bright new colours and an upbeat mood. Many of us have followed his work over the years and it is exciting to see him finding new ways of looking at our much-loved coastline. Showing for the first time at Sladers Yard is ceramicist Lise Herud Braten, a Norwegian rising star based in London, whose highly textured vessels and forms reflect a strong natural environment. She joins our resident Norwegian, Petter Southall, whose creations in wood bring a Scandinavian design sense and world-class craftsmanship to magnificent, sustainably grown, Northern European trees. Sladers Yard, West Bay Road, West Bay, Bridport Dorset DT6 4EL gallery@sladersyard.co.uk Tel. 01308 459511. Tel. 01404 45006.

5 - 17 November

Embracing the Elements Four West Dorset artists are Embracing the Elements and the effects upon people and landscapes in this extraordinary region. Jools Woodhouse, Alison Bowskill, Fran Marsh Williams & Jillian Hunt Photography, textiles, print making, wood, sculpture, automata, paint and collage. The Malthouse Gallery, The Town Mill, Lyme Regis DT7 3PU.

Until 9 November

Frog Lane Artists Free entry. Ilminster Arts Centre, TA19 0AN. Open Tuesday – Saturday. 9.30am - 3pm. 01460 54973 www.ilminsterartscentre.com

9 November - 12 January

Radiance paintings, prints, drawings, ceramics, furniture and accessories from Julian Bailey, Laura Boswell, Martyn Brewster, Merlyn Chesterman, Michael Fairclough, Barbara Gittings, Björk Haraldsdóttir, Gabriele Koch, Sally McLaren, Howard Phipps, Petter Southall, Yo Thom and more. Sladers Yard, West Bay Road, West Bay, Bridport Dorset DT6 4EL gallery@sladersyard.co.uk Tel. 01308 459511. Tel. 01404 45006.

Until 10 November

Elemental An exhibition grounded in exchanges about the terrestrial and materiality. Fiona Campbell, Ally Matthews & Jan Alison Edwards respond to ideas around the elements, materiality, and the invisible thread binding all life on earth. 10.30am-3.30pm daily at Sou’-Sou’-West, Symondsbury Estate, Bridport, Dorset DT6 6HG. Website: Sou’-Sou’-West [https://sousouwest.co.uk/] Admission: Free to visit - all welcome!

The Really Wild Show Local watercolour artist Trisha Hayman will be showing some of her recent still life work which she describes as “an observation on the fragility of nature within the natural world,” as these images focus on nature’s unconsidered, forgotten or expendable specimens. As she puts it, “some are beautiful, some are bland and some are just ignored!” Rotunda Gallery, Lyme Regis Museum, Bridge St, Lyme Regis DT7 3QA, Tues-Sat 10am-5pm, Sun 10am-4pm, www.lymeregismuseum.co.uk.

12 November - 2 February

The Art of Travel A photographic exploration of Central and Southeastern Asia as seen through the eyes of Chris Hilton. “The art of travel,” according to Chris,” is to find somewhere to get that zip fixed, or to get a watch battery, to go to the doctor, or to get a haircut. In other words, it exists in the cracks where our imagination failed to go. We need to let reality wash over us in all its messy, uncomfortable glory without the hindrance of expectation.” Rotunda Gallery, Lyme Regis Museum, Bridge St, Lyme Regis DT7 3QA, Tues-Sat 10am-5pm, Sun 10am-4pm, www.lymeregismuseum.co.uk

15 - 17 November

‘Parallel Origins’ Exhibition of work by Jason Anderson and Jon Adam. Please contact Jon or Jason (via their website contact form, www.jon-adam.co.uk or jasonandersonartist.com) to book a place at the Private View on Friday 15th November – 7.00pm to 9.00pm. The Salthouse, West Bay, Bridport, Dorset DT6 4HB.

Until 16 November

Searching for The Motherland The Windrush gereration and their community 25 years on. An exhibition of 50 photographs and poetry. Photographs by Robert Golden and poetry by Shaniqua Benjamin. Shire Hall Museum, Dorschester, Dorset DT1 1UY. 01305 261849.

GALLERIES IN DECEMBER Live or Online

send your gallery details to info@marshwoodvale.com BY NOVEMBER 12th

Emily Myers, Variations on a theme. Recent ceramics and C20th paintings, drawings & prints. Open Thursday - Saturday 10am - 3pm. The Art Stable Child Okeford Blandford Dorset DT11 8HB.

Washing Line Melody, Ilona Skladzien In Washing Line Melody, Ilona explores the space in between the mundane and the magical, inviting viewers to pause and reconsider their everyday domestic chores through a different lens— one of imagination and play. Allsop Gallery, Bridport Arts Centre, South Street, Bridport. www.bridport-arts.com.

30 November - 1 December

Eggardon Winter Sale Prints, Artist Blacksmith, Woodwork/Trees, Pots. Liz Somerville, Colleen du Pon, Dean Traquair, Sarah Gee and Katy Shields. 11-5 North Eggardon Farm, Powerstock DT6 3ST. insta: @ mappercombemakers.

Until 5 January 2025

Edge Of Land by gallery artists & guest artists featuring the strong theme of the shoreline from several artists. Philippa Headley writes of the series in oil that we are showing “Nature always unveils a myriad of surprises. Whatever time of day, the colours, textures and sensations of its beauty are available to experience and absorb. In this series I was particularly fascinated by the way in which the land and sea interacts with light and atmosphere.” Those

sentiments deeply inform Kim Pragnell’s stormwracked Cornish rocks, or Mary Gillett’s pieces from her own county of Devon or from farflung Canadian lakes. Bristolbased Ruth Ander contributes her limpid nature-drenched monoprints. Many other gallery and guest artists will also be exhibiting their various sculptures, ceramics, and oils including Johannes von Stumm, Alison Wear, Almuth Tebbenhoff and Colin Moore. Tincleton Gallery, The Old School House, Tincleton, nr Dorchester, DT2 8QR. Opening / performance times: 10am – 4pm Sat/Sun, or weekdays by appointment. Admission free. Tel. 01305 848 909. www.tincletongallery.com.

Until 16 March 2025

Artists in Purbeck: Spirit of Place, a groundbreaking exhibition at the Russell-Cotes Art Gallery & Museum in Bournemouth. This first-of-its-kind exhibition celebrates the rich artistic legacy of Purbeck, Dorset, through the eyes of renowned and emerging artists. It is a captivating exploration of the Isle of Purbeck’s diverse landscapes, including quarries, seaside towns, and iconic landmarks like Corfe Castle. The exhibition features over 70 works and provides a unique opportunity to explore the Isle of Purbeck over time, through the eyes of artists who capture its ever evolving beauty. Russell-Cotes Art Gallery & Museum, Bournemouth. www.russellcotes.com.

Street Barber of Hanoi by Chris Hilton. From The Art of Travel at the Rotunda Gallery, Lyme Regis, 12 November - 3 February.

Cultivated Meat

Edited by Michel Vandenbosch and Philip Lymbery

IN the eye-opening book Cultivated Meat, the authors delve deep into the harsh realities of the current meat industry, highlighting the alarming truth that “most meat eaten today comes from factory-farmed animals.” This industrial approach to animal rearing has wide-ranging implications: it is cited as “the biggest cause of animal cruelty on the planet, a major driver of wildlife decline, a growing pandemic risk, and is integral to driving climate change.” Through these poignant observations, the book lays bare the pressing need for change.

The book points out that a “sustainable future requires an urgent transformation of the food system to one that is nature-friendly, health-oriented, climate-safe, and sustainable.” This transformation, however, is not without its challenges. The authors acknowledge that there is always concern when new technological developments are presented, however, they say “overcoming these normal facets of technological development shouldn’t be a reason to throw the baby out with the bathwater,” emphasizing the importance of persisting through challenges to achieve meaningful progress.

The book doesn’t shy away from difficult truths either—“the killing of a sentient animal for meat remains an act of violence, no matter how painful or painless the act of taking such a vulnerable individual’s life is.” These realities are often hidden, shielded from consumers who might be unaware suggesting that “if labels on products adorning supermarket shelves were upfront, things would soon be different.” The stark image is painted: “many consumers would recoil in horror knowing their meat comes from disease-ridden factory farms where animals suffer in darkened conditions before an unceremonious end in a slaughterhouse.”

As cultivated meat, described by philosopher Julian Baggini in the book, “becomes viable, it could do more to reduce the number of animals we rear than over a century of animal rights, vegan, and vegetarian campaigning.” The book introduces cultivated meat as a transformative technology that could spark introspection, prompting greater “questioning of what

goes on to produce the conventional product.”

The book also provides a disturbing account of current practices: “most of the world’s breeding pigs... experience motherhood in crates, facing the wall, unable to turn round. Cattle are often confined and fed grain instead of grass. Chickens are likely to be caged so they’ll never be able to flap their wings properly or packed so tightly when alive that they will have more room in the oven.” The disappearance of farmed animals from idyllic fields to “cramped, airless hangars and barns” is lamented, with a staggering “some eighty billion farmed animals” produced worldwide each year, two-thirds of them factoryfarmed.

Health risks compound the moral and ecological concerns, with “about three-quarters of the world’s antibiotics are fed to farmed animals, largely to ward off diseases inevitable in such unnatural conditions.”

The ripple effect extends to the landscape, where this “industrial system” causes fields to expand, leading to the loss of “trees, bushes and hedges...along with wildflowers” essential to ecosystems. The result is a grim chain reaction: as these foundational elements disappear, “the birds, bats, bees, and everything else that depends on them disappears too.”

Reflecting on land use, the book notes that “twothirds of arable land globally is used to feed factoryfarmed pigs, chickens, and cattle.” Yet, “without factory farming, we could feed everyone using less farmland, not more,” promoting a vision of transformation that reconnects “food production, animal welfare, and nature through regenerative, agroecological farming.”

The authors argue that achieving rapid progress requires more than a single solution, however, advocating for a “multiplicity of approaches that go beyond simple ‘sustainability.’” They propose “tomorrow’s sustainable food menu will need a veritable ‘three Rs’ approach—Regenerative farming, Rewilding of the soil, and Reduction of animalsourced foods.”

In closing, the book issues a cautionary note, recognizing that key figures in the cultivated meat industry have “warned that the first to market bears a responsibility for the perception of the rest.” This insightful and comprehensive examination of our current system and its potential future serves as a clarion call for reform, urging society towards a more compassionate, sustainable way of consuming meat.

Published by Lantern Books

Crippen: A Novel of Murder by

John Boyne

WHILE his later books tend to be more personal, experiential and introspective, John Boyne has also written a lot of ‘faction’ that is a fictional account of notable historical events containing actual real-life characters.

Among them have been Mutiny on the Bounty (Captain Bligh et al), The Congress of Rough Riders (Buffalo Bill) and The Boy at the Top of the Mountain (a youngster goes to work at the Berghof, the mountain retreat of Adolf Hitler).

The person in the title here is a certain Doctor Harvey Hawley Crippen whose name became associated with a gruesome murder at Hilldrop Crescent, Camden, London during the early 1900s.

If you don’t recognise the name and know nothing about the case, resist the temptation to do any ‘prior’ research and approach the book ‘untainted’ as it were. It’s best to wait until after you’ve finished the last page and then you can assess whether Boyne has ‘overegged’ the events or given an unbiased account.

Without giving too much away, the story actually starts on board ship as the central characters sail from Belgium to a new life in Canada. Boyne has assembled some colourful individuals here from the overbearing mother to the bookish, shy young woman and from the eccentric Frenchman to his obnoxious son.

Boyne, who has a flair for telling a good story, also gives mileage to Crippen’s background and what features of his young life and upbringing in Michigan have been influential in making him the person he is.

Boyne obviously has his own theories about Crippen and his crime and lays out his case rather like a court submission. Separating the fact from the fiction can be challenging particularly with this particular case but ‘all bets are on’ as there is speculation about the validity of the outcome of the case still today.

Published by Transworld Publishers Ltd

The Corfe Castle Murders by

Rachel McLean

GIVEN that I like an intriguing detection puzzle and Corfe Castle is one of my all-time most atmospheric favourite locations in history, what is not to like.

This is one in a series of thrillers, the titles of which read rather like a tourist brochure of Dorset. There is The Island Murders (Brownsea), The Fossil Beach Murders (Lyme Regis), The Clifftop Murders (Old Harry Rocks) and T he Lighthouse Murders (Portland) to name a few. The Poole Harbour Murders is due out next year.

For those familiar with the stories of Ann Cleeves and Elly Griffiths this is certainly for you. Plenty of twists, turns and red herrings that leave you (the armchair detective) guessing right up to the end.

The super sleuth here is DCI Lesley Clarke, seconded to work in the Dorset countryside as part of her recuperation following an incident on her normal patch, the West Midlands, that leaves her damaged.

She doesn’t have much time to hit the ground running either as before too long (first day actually) the body of an eminent archaeologist is found near the castle ruins and he certainly hasn’t died from natural causes.

Clarke has to quickly adjust to her new environment-from high octane city life to supposedly rural idyll. There is also the process by which she comes to terms with her new colleagues as they navigate around the ‘big fish’ that has arrived in their small pond.

For those less familiar with the genre there is some jargon to overcome, CSM, SOI and FLO for example, and the introduction of numerous characters, some dating back to the West Midlands, does tend to need cross referencing at times.

Published by Hera Books

Reviews by John Davis

Historical Novels

The Figurine

by Victoria Hislop

TO say that novelist

Victoria Hislop is a fervent Graecophile would be an understatement.

Most of the stories that she has written are about the people, scenery, culture and ambient atmosphere of all things Hellenistic and such is her respect in the country that the President of Greece made her an honorary citizen in 2020.

The figurine of the title is a delicate statuette of extraordinary beauty and rarity from the Bronze Age-a much sought after artefact by collectors, looters and unprincipled dealers.

The central character, Helena McCloud, inherits an apartment in Athens from relatives where she is to discover a hoard of hidden antiquities which, as we are to find out later, were acquired illicitly during a more turbulent time in Greek history- the dark period of the military junta that ruled between 1967 and 1974.

We plot Helena’s life through several time frames from her youth to the current day when she becomes fascinated on an archaeological dig. The author paints vivid pictures of colourful characters throughout and there are strong emotional elements with regard to family secrets, love, allegiance and betrayal.

The unfolding story sheds light on a period of Greek history that perhaps many know little about and emphasises that, as in many cases from the past, bad people are capable of doing bad things.

Perhaps the over-riding theme is that artefacts from a nation’s cultural history need to remain with the people themselves and their ownership should not be in dispute. Little wonder then that Victoria Hislop is a patron of the research centre at Knossos on Crete and a member of the British Committee for the Reunification of the Parthenon (Elgin) Marbles.

Published by Headline Publishing Group

The Last Lifeboat by

Hazel Gaynor

GIVEN that the story involves a long sea voyage and the title itself is a big clue, you can probably see where this novel is going.

Alfred Hitchcock obviously saw potential in the same premise when he made his film Lifeboat back in the 1940s although I understand that, apart from background footage, most of the action was filmed in a large water tank on the back lot of a Los Angeles studio.

Hitchcock, as you might assume, packed his ninety minutes worth of entertainment with larger-thanlife characters who did surprising things to keep the suspense going.

Hazel Gaynor has to take a more measured approach so she focuses on the thoughts, fears, apprehensions and inner feelings of the lifeboat’s passengers whose futures hang in the balance.

I’ve never written a novel but I suspect the most difficult part might be the middle section when all the introductions have to be made and the build up to the crescendo is yet to begin. It will be up to you to judge to see whether Hazel Gaynor has managed to keep the impetus in full traction during this phase of the story.

The story, said to be based partly on true events, revolves around two main female characters, Alice King and Lily Nicholls. Alice is a librarian looking for some cause that will mean she is ‘doing her bit for the war effort’. Widow Lily Nicholls is searching for a way of ensuring the safety of her two children in Blitzbattered London.

Alice decides to offer her services to the Children’s Overseas Reception Board (CORB) who are transporting youngsters to apparent safety in Canada for the duration of the war.

All goes according to plan on aboard the SS Carlisle until the escorting convoy leaves the ship to complete its voyage and a certain lurking U-boat captain gets the vessel very much in his sights.

Published

by Harper Collins

Reviews by John Davis

WHO ARE YOU really?

Musician and actor Declan Duffy talks to Fergus Byrne about a new show exploring the dichotomy of the life of a migrant’s child

When you are born and raised in one country but have blood ties with another, how do you define, or even find, your true identity? That’s a question that locally based musician and actor Declan Duffy has been wrangling with for some time. Born and raised in London, with the accent and much of the character that a London upbringing might present, his parents came from County Cavan in Ireland, which meant he had strong connections to a culture and country that has, to say the least, a ‘complicated’ history with the UK.

That history, and the inevitable family ties that build with a dual upbringing, forms the basis of a new one-man show that Declan is premiering at The Marine Theatre in Lyme Regis in November. Exploring a conundrum that could impact people of various nationalities, Call Yourself an Irishman?! has the potential to educate, amuse, and enlighten its English audiences, whilst at the same time offer a comforting touch of sympathy and empathy to those who have faced similar dilemmas.

‘The dichotomy of the migrant’s child’ declares Declan in the trailer for the show. ‘I am not one, I am both. But yet, I am not either one.’ The contrariety—to use a term popular in Ireland—doesn’t just come from his own soul searching, the title Call Yourself an Irishman?! is an established comment often thrown accusingly at Irish diaspora all over the world, especially if they are living in or embracing another culture. The title, Declan explains ‘is kind of directed at myself and mostly comes from my cousins in Ireland who take active glee in telling me and my sister that we’re English.’

But Declan isn’t English, is he? He doesn’t have an ounce of English blood running through his veins. However, he was born in England, went to an English school, became obsessed with and played English football and English music as a youth, and sounds about as English as you can get. So, what should he call himself? The dichotomy of the migrant’s child indeed. All will be explained in the show.

Call Yourself an Irishman?! will be considering the history of Irish migration to Britain, the difficulties encountered by the people who made that journey, and how all of this has influenced their descendants in their understanding of who they are and what they are.

Living above the pub that his parents ran in London, Declan initially dreamed of becoming a professional footballer. He was always in the first team in school or university and even had a trial for Brentford United. But he admits that, although a good player, he would probably never have made the level that professional players need to be at today. Instead, he followed his

other love which was music. After a time spent in the London music scene, where, as he recalls: ‘My nascent career as London’s next great Rock and Roll star hadn’t progressed to the degree that I was hoping’, he was drawn back to Bridport where his then girlfriend, now wife, came from.

They had met at the University of Southampton while studying languages; he was focused on French and English, while she studied French, English, and German. Ironically, considering the subject of his upcoming show, Declan describes himself as ‘a real Francophile’ and says he would happily live in the South of France. But this simply reinforces one of the fringe benefits of being a migrant. Not only are you offered the potential to naturally embark on a fascinating pathway of learning about different cultures because you are caught up in one, but you are also likely to be open enough to enjoy learning about others. His study of English also left him with a great love of Dickens. ‘I love the richness of really well written prose’ he says.

A chance suggestion that he might suit the role of Peter in Willy Russell’s play Stags & Hens set him off on a trail of acting in plays for Encore Theatre in Bridport and community plays in Lyme Regis until one day someone suggested he write a show himself. ‘I immediately dismissed the idea’ he says. ‘Because I had never done anything like that before’. But the idea solidified, and he began writing about life in Irish pubs in London until the result broadened a little more than intended. ‘It broadened right out to every aspect of Anglo-Irish history you could possibly imagine’ he laughs. ‘And the Irish coming here, the Irish going to America, the Irish going across the world, our summer holidays in Ireland, the whole thing, and it got up to a hundred pages. I kind of realized that that really would be an undertaking, so narrowed it down. It’s about twenty pages now, and it’s become more of a specific exploration of why the Irish left, why they came here, and then the ramifications for us who were born here.’

In a multicultural society, a play like Call Yourself an Irishman?! has the potential to both ask and answer many questions, while hopefully clearing some of the many misconceptions of life as an Irish migrant. However, it also offers the possibility that it might go well beyond dilemmas faced by residents in the British Isles. Its wider appeal has relevance to many nations and cultures.

Call Yourself an Irishman?! premieres at The Marine Theatre in Lyme Regis on November 27th. To find out more or watch a trailer visit: https://generationirish.net/. To book tickets visit: https://www.marinetheatre.com/

Just when you thought it was behind you...

IT’S PANTO TIME AGAIN!

PANTOMIME— it’s hardly behind you and it’s in front of you again! Now November is here, it really is time to make your choice of show and stars and book your tickets.

The big productions in the south west are at Plymouth, where Lesley Joseph and Rob Rinder are leading the cast of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Weymouth, where Peter Pan is flying in for Christmas, Exeter Northcott, which hosts the only Cinderella in the region, and Yeovil, where a new company will be taking to the stage of Westlands while the refurbishment of the Octagon continues. Beauty and the Beast is on at Weston Super Mare and Pinocchio at Taunton Brewhouse.

If you are enjoying the new look Amazing Hotels with Monica Galetti and Rob Rinder, you will be able to see him as the face in the mirror, telling Lesley (Dorien from Birds of a Feather) Joseph that she’s the fairest in the land ... until Snow White takes over her position. The show runs from 13th December to 7th January at the Lyric Theatre Royal at Plymouth, with lots of matinees for all the family.

At Westlands in Yeovil from 13th December to 5th January, an all-new cast and company will take on the mantle of Evolution Pantomimes to perform a new version of Jack and the Beanstalk Mark Lamb is Jack Trott, with Alana Robinson as Fairy Motown, and Daniel Page as Dame Trott in this home-grown production from a team responsible for memorable Christmas shows in recent years, at the Octagon and last year at Westlands.

The Croc is ticking at Weymouth Pavilion for Peter Pan, on stage from 20th December to 5th January. Jamie Riding will be donning the petticoats as Mrs Smee, with BGT star Tony Rudd as her son, Smee. The identity of Captain Hook is yet to be disclosed ...

Exeter’s Northcott Theatre has the city-based Le Navet Bete performing the much-loved story of Cinderella from 28th November to 5th January, promising a new look pantomime and fun for all the family.

Pictured: Daniel Page and Alana Robinson, Jamie Riding from Weymouth and Rob Rinder and Lesley Joseph from Plymouth.

November PREVIEW

Feeling the Zaltgeist

BRIDPORT

SATIRICAL comedian and presenter of BBC Radio 4’s News Quiz Andy Zaltzman is on an autumn tour, coming to Bridport’s Electric Palace on Saturday 23rd November at 8pm. In the cleverly titled Zaltgeist, Andy will attempt to concoct vaguely plausible answers to perennial questions such as What?, Who?, Where?, and above all Why?

As chairman of The News Quiz since 2020, Andy has brought his inventive brand of satirical comedy to BBC Radio 4’s long-running flagship topical comedy show, earning the show multiple awards, critical acclaim and a growing listenership.

Among his extraordinary achievements, Andy is (apparently) unquestionably among the very best of the one-person list of Satirical Stand-Up Comedians Who Are Also Professional Cricket Statisticians. Since 2016, he has been a key member of the Test

Match Special team, adding his distinctive blend of knowledge, expertise, humour and numerical inquisitiveness to the BBC’s legendary cricket broadcast.

Celebrating a great Dorset polymath STURMINSTER NEWTON

MOST people who know the name of William Barnes will think of him as the poet of the old Dorset dialect, the writer of Linden Lea, and a near-contemporary of a more famous Dorset literary star, Thomas Hardy. But who was the real Barnes? Historian, musician and actor Tim Laycock is performing his play, The Year Clock, with his regular collaborator, folk fiddler Colin Thompson, at Sturminster Newton Exchange on Sunday 3rd November at 3pm. Tim has revived his 2001 play to raise funds for the cataloguing and digitising of the William Barnes Archive

Stand up comedian and professional cricket statistician Andy Zaltzman will be in Bridport in November

The Year Clock: A Celebration of Language, History, and the Life of William Barnes, which has also been staged in Dorchester, is a poignant and vivid celebration of the remarkable life of William Barnes, who is not only one of Dorset’s most beloved literary figures, but also a true polymath. Barnes (1801–1886) was a self-educated teacher, parson and poet, renowned for his works in the Dorset dialect, including Linden Lea, later set to music by Ralph Vaughan Williams. But perhaps his greatest claim to fame was his passion for philology - he studied more than 60 languages in his quest to uncover the roots of human speech. He considered this work to be his greatest legacy—his Philological Grammar remains a vital contribution to the field.

Tim Laycock’s play brings Barnes’ life to the stage, drawing on his notes letters and contemporary accounts sourced from the William Barnes Archive, which is currently held in the Dorset History Centre. The play is structured around the four seasons, symbolising key stages in Barnes’ life, and features poems and songs composed between 1835 and 1870. The final piece, The Geate a-Vallen To, was dictated by Barnes to his daughter shortly before he died in 1886.

Accompanied by traditional Dorset folk music performed by Colin Thompson on violin and guitar, the production delves into Barnes’ inner conflict as a highly educated man who chose to write in the rural Dorset dialect, offering a moving exploration of the tension between Victorian England’s industrialisation

and the fading rural way of life.

Described by Thomas Hardy as “the most interesting link between the past and present forms of rural life that England possessed,” and by Francis Kilvert as “half hermit, half enchanter,” Barnes left a legacy that remains deeply rooted in England’s rural traditions and social transformations.

This revival is hosted in collaboration with the William Barnes Society, and is supporting the Barnes for All! campaign, raising funds to preserve Barnes’ rich archive at the Dorset History Centre.

Making music in new ways CONCERTS IN THE WEST

THE November series of Concerts in the West brings the Berkeley Ensemble to Bridport Arts Centre on Friday 15th for the usual coffee concert, at 11.30am, and Ilminster Arts Centre that evening at 7.30pm. The last of the series, and the final concert in the 2024 programme, is at Crewkerne’s Dance House on Saturday 16th at 7.30pm.

The Berkeley Ensemble come together from diverse corners of musical life, to make music in new ways and to reach new audiences. The line up is: Sophie Mather, Francesca Baritt and Dan Shilladay, violins; Gemma Wareham, cello, Martin Ludenbach, double bass, John Slack, clarinet, Andrew Watson, bassoon and Paul Cott, horn.

The group was formed by friends in a spirit of adventure, sharing a desire to explore new repertoire,

Berkeley Ensemble coming to Bridport Arts Centre in November. Photo Liz Isles.

November

be it newly written or inadvertently forgotten. Its acclaimed performances and recordings celebrate contemporary chamber music, especially by British composers.

There have been nine albums, which include 18 premiere recordings among a diverse catalogue ranging from Knussen to Beethoven. The ensemble regularly appears at venues and festivals throughout the UK including Southbank Centre’s Purcell Room, St David’s Hall Cardiff, Wiltshire Music Centre and the Cheltenham, Spitalfields, and Lake District Summer Music Festivals.

Away from the concert platform, the Berkeley Ensemble works tirelessly to foster the creation, appreciation and performance of chamber music at every age, level and ability.

The programme for the November tour will be Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition (arranged for string quintet and Howard Ferguson’s Octet (at Bridport) with an additional work, Schubert’s Octet at the evening venues.

Favourites at The Old School House TINCLETON

THE beautiful living room at The Old School House in Tincleton is not only architecturally interesting, with fine windows, but it is home to not one but two beautiful grand pianos. They will be put to good use over the weekend of Friday 15th and Saturday 16th November, when old favourites John Law and David Gordon return to give a recital.

On the Friday, John Law, a brilliant improviser, composer and jazz pianist, joins the versatile David Gordon to play a mixture of solos and duos—expect jazz and Latin music, classically themed improvisation and original compositions from these two awardwinning musicians.

On Saturday, David Gordon will introduce a talented Somerset-based multi-instrumentalist, Jenny Bliss Bennett. She specialises in violin, viola da gamba and is a brilliant improviser across many styles. Together David and Jenny will play a wide range of music from William Byrd to Mozart, folk tunes ancient and modern and more—with the focus on joyous improvisation. Both concerts begin at 8pm.

This year’s Tincleton series ends on the weekend 13th-15th December with another audience favourite,

the Dorset-based pianist Duncan Honeybourne, who will give a programme of piano classics.

WOW in the House of Fun

WEYMOUTH

WEYMOUTH’s talented musical group WOW Youth Musical Theatre have chosen the Madness musical, Our House, for their autumn production at the Pavilion from Wednesday 13th to Saturday 16th November at 7pm with a Saturday matinee at 2pm.

The Olivier Award-winning show, by Tim Firth (of Calendar Girls fame) with its invitation “Welcome to the House of Fun!” features a string of Madness hits, including House of Fun, Baggy Trousers, Driving in my Car, It Must Be Love and Our House.

Set in 1980s London, Our House follows the story of Joe Casey who, on the night of his 16th birthday, makes a decision that will change his life. Trying to impress Sarah, the girl of his dreams, he breaks into a building, where things take a turn for the worse as the police turn up. The story then follows the two paths that Joe could take after that night.

The show is directed and choreographed by Martyn Knight, whose previous shows with WOW have included Sister Act (2014) and Me and My Girl (2017), which won the NODA district achievement award.

After Ionesco BRIDPORT

ONE of the greatest avant-garde writers of the postwar period was the French experimental dramatist, Eugene Ionesco. And one of his best-known plays, Rhinoceros, is the inspiration for an event at Bridport’s Lyric Thestre on Saturday 9th November at 8pm.

Dorset-based Stray Dog Jammers will perform Rhino, adapted from Ionesco’s powerful absurdist drama which was a response to the upsurge of Fascism in the 1930s.

Rhino explores the themes of conformity, culture, responsibility, logic, mass movements, mob mentality, philosophy and morality—all still highly relevant in today’s world. Its central character, Berenger, the non-conformist, is the only one not to capitulate to the herd mentality—and the only one not to metamorphosise into a rhinoceros.

The performance is part of this year’s Bridport Literary Festival.

New production of War Horse PLYMOUTH

THE brilliant and award-winning National Theatre production of War Horse, adapted from Michael Morporgo’s novel, was a massive hit at the National, in the West End, on Broadway and around the world. Now a new production of this beautiful and deeply moving story is on a national tour, coming to Plymouth Theatre Royal, from 26th November to 7th December.

War Horse is an unforgettable theatrical experience which takes audiences on an extraordinary journey from the fields of rural Devon to the trenches of First World War France. Powerfully emotional and stunningly imaginative, the drama is filled with stirring music and songs.

It is a celebration of phenomenal theatrical inventiveness. At its heart are astonishing life-sized horses created by South Africa’s Handspring Puppet Company, who bring breathing, galloping, charging horses to thrilling life on stage.

At the outbreak of the First World War, Joey, young Albert’s beloved horse, is sold to the Cavalry and shipped to France. He’s soon caught up in enemy fire and fate takes him on an extraordinary journey, serving on both sides before finding himself alone in No Man’s Land. Albert, who remained on his parents’ Devon farm, cannot forget Joey. Though still not old enough to enlist, he embarks on a treacherous mission to find Joey and bring him home.

The production is returning to the West Country next year, at Bristol Hippodrome from 3rd to 21st June.

Fort—a play about Dorset

DORCHESTER AND TOURING

DORSET has a lot of Iron Age hill forts. Locallybased theatre company Dorsetborn is touring a highly praised new play that uses this atmospheric setting for a play that asks deep questions about the meaning of friendship. The tour begins at the Allendale Centre in Wimborne on Sunday 10th November, is at Dorchester Corn Exchange on Tuesday 12th and has two Artsreach dates, Langton Matravers village hall on Wednesday 13th and Ibberton village hall on Saturday 16th. (Other dates below).

Away from dysfunctional families and small-town gossip, Viv and Daisy can be entirely themselves. With so much beyond their control, Fort is their stomping ground ... their escape ... until the ghost turns up.

Best friends for as long as they can remember, their bond has survived school bullies, witchcraft, jealousy and vengeful cows. But at the end of a summer when everything is changing, can it survive the ghost?

Dorsetborn is an associate company of the National Youth Theatre, and creates new work across Dorset and the South West. Fort is Tabitha Hayward’s debut play, inspired by the people and places around us, about two girls who’d do anything for each other. Originally drafted on a Royal Court Introductory Group, Fort was long-listed for the Bruntwood Prize 2022 and shortlisted for the Masterclass Pitch Your Play Award.

Other Dorset dates for the tour are Poole Lighthouse on Thursday 21st November, Palace Court Theatre, Bournemouth, on Friday 22nd and the Ancient Technology Centre, Cranborne, on Saturday 23rd.

Music at the Marine LYME REGIS

FROM a much-loved folk “big band” to a veteran of the UK’s urban music scene, the November programme of live music at the Marine Theatre in Lyme Regis is varied and exciting. The first date is Blazin’ Fiddles on Friday 8th November.

One of the world’s most prolific fiddle groups, the band formed for a one-off tour of the Scottish Highlands in 1999 and is still raising hell—and the roof—more than two decades later. Encompassing a rare and virtuosic selection of the fiddle’s diverse Highland and island voices, with ensemble and sololed sets, backed by powerhouse guitar and piano,

New production of War Horse in Plymouth

Photo by Brinkhoff-Moegenburg

Screen Time

with Nic Jeune

Top Six at the Flix

Bridport Electric Palace

The Outrun (2024)

Amy Liptrot’s astonishing debut memoir

The Outrun is a brutally honest tale of inglorious addiction in hipster-central Hackney, and a lyrical meditation on the long path to recovery after she washes up back home on the clifftops of Orkney

“The Outrun is the rare two-hour movie that made me forget to check the time.” The Guardian. Adrian Horton.

Transformers One ( 2024)

“Transformers One is simply good storytelling. It offers detail, solid action, and narrative depth that longtime fans will appreciate while being a nice entry point for those who are newer to the world of Transformers.” Screen Rant Mae Abdulbaki.

Plaza Cinema. Dorchester

Paddington in Peru (2024)

“Here’s something feel-good to get into, as that cheeky, amusing bear returns once again” Critical Popcorn. Dan Bullock.

Gladiator 2 (2024)

“The original Gladiator was a major hit, winning five Academy Awards…. Return to the sands of Rome after two decades as a new hero rises in Ridley Scott’s Gladiator 2” The Moviesz.com

Odeon Dorchester

Anora (2024)

“Baker’s subversively romantic, freewheeling sex farce makes “Pretty Woman” look like a Disney movie.” Variety. Peter Debruge.

Conclave (2024)

“Conclave is packed with unexpected twists and its final reveal is one viewers will never see coming, an increasingly rare occurrence in modern movie-making and the mark of an impeccably crafted thriller.” Entertainment Weekly. Maureen Lee Lenker.

the Blazers combine all the power, passion and sensitivity of Scotland’s traditional music.

On Saturday 9th, Huey Morgan, radio and television broadcaster, author and DJ, comes to Lyme Regis. He came to prominence as the driving force of the eclectic American rap/rock group Fun Lovin’ Criminals, and led the band from 1993 to 2021. The band released six albums and sold more than 10 million records.

Adam Sweet’s rootsy rock and Joanna Cooke’s bluesy soul promise an electrifying night of music on Sunday 10th. Both are well-known on the West Country music scene and are now achieving national recognition for their song-writing, recordings and live performances.

The seven-piece band Hejira come to Lyme Regis on Friday 15th with a Celebration of Joni Mitchell, playing the greatest works of the brilliant Canadian singer-songwriter.

The following night, Saturday 16th, the Marine welcomes General Levy, a veteran of the UK urban music scene, and still one of the country’s most in-demand MCs. He grew up in a community heavily influenced by reggae music and black culture and from an early age, a certain militancy was instilled in him along with a love and respect for rebel music.

The month ends with another show dedicated to one of the folk scene’s great women, the late Sandy Denny, the lead singer with Fairport Convention who died in 1978 at the tragically early age of 31 from head injuries after falling down a flight of stairs. The Sandy Denny Project, at the Marine on Thursday 28th November, celebrate her ever-growing reputation, both as a songwriter and interpreter of traditional material.

Little Red Riding could ...

BRIDPORT

Red Riding Could comes to Bridport Arts Centre on November 2nd

WHY did Red Riding Hood need a man to rescue her from the wolf?

Why do we know her by an article of clothing rather than her real name? Why are the victims of the story all women? What would Little Red Riding Hood do if she could? And what is stopping her? In an imaginative new play for children and families, coming to Bridport Arts Centre on Saturday 2nd November at 2pm, Bristol-based Roustabout Theatre takes the audience on an exhilarating journey through a story you thought you knew.

Little Red Riding Could imagines how this and other familiar fairy tales we share with children might be different if we dared to ask these vital questions.

Written and directed by Roustabout’s artistic director Toby Hulse, with

Little

original songs and music by Robin Hemmings, Little Red Riding Could dares audiences to step off the path and write their own story—what would you do if you could?

Nothing’s quite what you’d expect in the deep, dark woods. Little Red Riding Hood is no longer little, she no longer wears a hood and she wants to be called by her real name. She’s questioning everything. And so are Mother, the Woodcutter and even the Wolf!

Toby Hulse says the initial idea for the show was developed with two Year One classes in Barnsley and Stockton-on-Tees: “The five and six year olds we worked with had so many clearly articulated opinions and questions.” What had started as a play about gender roles developed into “an exploration of how we all respond to the expectations put upon us, as well as encouraging us to be wildly imaginative in the way we told the story.”

Songs from the Isle of Man HONITON

TOURING for the first time in four years, Christine Collister comes to Honiton’s Beehive Centre, on Thursday 21st November, performing songs from her new Children of the Sea project of nine original songs inspired by Manx folklore and a magical sense of place.

Christine’s career now spans an incredible 40 years—she has released 24 albums, a DVD celebrating 20 years in the business and a hit single of the theme tune for the hugely acclaimed television adaptation of Fay Weldon’s The Life and Loves of a She-Devil, in 1987. The new album links back to her childhood, growing up on the Isle of Man. Following the success of The Life and Loves Of A She Devil, she enjoyed a period of great critical and commercial success working with Clive Gregson, followed by a long association with Richard Thompson.

Children Of The Sea is a special project that has been partly funded by the Isle Of Man Arts Council, Culture Vannin and Fledgling Records. The CD comes with a beautiful book complete with lyrics, inspirations and stories with original illustrations by Manx artists.

Growing up with a chronic illness

DORCHESTER AND TOURING

A THREE-actor, one-woman play coming to Dorchester Arts at the Corn Exchange on Thursday 28th November, explores the challenges for a young woman growing up in the shadow of a chronic illness. Bright Places, by Rob Mainwaring, produced by Carbon Theatre, is a darkly funny and deeply honest autobiographical story about multiple sclerosis.

“I was 23 when it came crashing into my life—without warning, when everything was going so well, just when I was really, really happy ...”

Performed by three women, with 90s pop, a costume box and a whole heap of glitter, Bright Places lifts the lid on living with multiple sclerosis, MS for short, not to be confused with M&S or S&M.

Carbon Theatre is working with charity partner, Shift.ms which is the digital community for people with MS. Other dates on the tour are: Exeter Northcott Theatre on 13th and 14th November, Barbican Theatre, Plymouth on 16th November, Taunton Brewhouse arts centre on 12th December and Crediton Arts Centre on 13th December.

The Young Lit Fix

By Mikey Please

Published by HarperCollins Paperback £7.99

Review by Nicky Mathewson

“Rene dreamed of fine cuisine, And so she saved up every bean, Then built a building beam by beam… The cafe at the edge of the woods.”

RENE is a talented new chef creating exquisite plates of food and she has a dream to open her own cafe. She builds her dream at the edge of the woods and awaits her first customers.

First through the door is a huge ogre who requests pickled bats, battered mice and slugs in goo. It would seem her clientele don’t care for fine dining and desire something less refined.

Rene begins to think she’s made a huge mistake, but Glumfoot the waiter comes up with a plan. You don’t want to anger an ogre so he encourages Rene to cook what she loves, while he then tweaks her dishes to resemble the monstrous plates that would make an ogre drool.

This rhyming picture book has all the warmth of a cosy fire in autumn. The richly coloured quirky illustrations really bring the story to life and it’s lots of fun to read aloud to children aged 3 years and up. It’s also great for independent reading for new readers.

The Cafe at the Edge of the Woods

Gardener/ Handyman

wanted to work one day per week thro ughout the year, can be flexible.To carry out heavier duties such as spreading compost, managing bonfires, mowing, strimming. Also the exciting opportunity to progress & manage a new area of woodland./garden. Please contact firstly via e mail to: christinewoodibiza@ gmail.com

Kitchenaid, brand new, still boxed, unwanted prize. Ice blue. RRP

£469.00 in J Lewis (Ref5KSM15OPSBIC)

Reasonable offers, buyer collects, cash only as bank-free town. Ideal wedding present. Fitness fans! All brand new, unwanted prizes. Brand new Opti weighted hula hoop. Opti Gymball. Opti yoga mat. Any reasonable offers. Buyer collects, cash only as bank- free town. Ph : 01297639200.

Kitchen units for sale. Light grey gloss slab front. Base and wall units. Can be separated. Open to offers. Collection only. Tel. 07472 741159.

Leisure cuisinemaster CS90F530X dual fuel cooker and back plate.

SITUATIONS VACANT

Digital Media Freelancer

Are you a creative and tech-savvy individual with a passion for digital media?

Do you have a knack for engaging audiences and driving brand awareness through various digital channels? If so, we want to hear from you!

We are seeking a freelance talented Digital Media Expert to manage our online presence and assist in creating content that resonates with our target audience.

In the first instance please send your CV to info@marshwoodvale.com

FOR SALE

Full working condition. Open to offers. Collection only. Tel. 07472 741159.

3 black padded carrier guitar cases: 2 x Fender cases 109 x 42 cm plus 1 x CNB case 106 x 44 cm - £12 each or £30 for 3. Baby/child car seat (9 months -4 yrs, 15-36kg) - Gracco in grey & red, good condition £49. High chair adjustable to two levels, brightly coloured plastic in primary colours, sturdy with padded removeable cushion

£23. Beaminster 07780358719. Edwardian sideboard with two drawers and locking doors with key. Beautiful carved doors. Top in need of some TLC. £85 ONO.

French pot cupboard with drawer and

marble top. £35 ONO. H&M Faux fur jacket. Size Medium. Worn once. £15. Mob: 07969372076.

Piano free to good home, upright A Knauer & Co by Offenbach a.M (German) with matching piano stool and sheet music. Must be collected by 5 November. Call 07742190490.

Dunlop ladies city bike 2. (Equestrian). Micklem Multibridle Standard horse size/ brown. Can be used as a bit less bridle. Excellent condition. £55 Ono 01460 52289 (Ilminster).

Trailer Caddy 530 high side drop down tailgate, length 1505mm width 855mm. £160. Seaton 01297 20151.

Ex-display sheds, stables, fieldshelters, stables, garages, summerhouses, offices, beachhut, agricultural, workshops. 01935891195 Dec 24

Book collection, 50 volumes in good condition. Subjects: Art, artists, antiques, houses etc. Full list available. £250 - no offers. Tel: 01460 54919.

Accordions for sale, private collection, 120bass, Italian, German, electric Roland, Call 07758134593

Garden work, strimming, clearing, digger work, chainsaw, woodland work, coppicing, mowing. Efficient fast worker. Call: L. Warner 07765666775

The UK is not alone on the beaver debate

Conversations about releasing beavers back to the wild have had their fair share of passion and disagreement, and recent research from Germany doesn’t look like it will help.

The beaver’s return to its former habitats in Germany is said to be a biological success story but is fraught with social conflicts, according to recent insights shared by researchers from the Leibniz Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries (IGB). While beavers are celebrated as keystone species because of their significant ecological contributions, including restoring crucial ecosystem processes, their activities often put them at odds with agricultural and forestry interests.

A study led by Jonathan Jeschke from the IGB surveyed nearly 1,500 individuals in Germany to gauge public sentiment towards beavers. The results revealed that 60% of respondents expressed interest in these industrious animals, with 36% showing positive sentiments. However, a significant contrast emerged between the general public and those in the agricultural and forestry sectors. While only 25% of the public felt annoyed by beavers, a substantial 75% of those in agriculture and forestry expressed negative feelings. Regional disparities were also noted, with respondents from Bavaria, a beaver-rich state, holding more negative views on average.

Mr. Jeschke noted that these findings mirror the national debate on beavers while underscoring the need for forwardthinking management and enhanced public engagement. This approach, he suggests, is crucial for harmonious cohabitation between human activities and keystone species like beavers.

Sonja Jähnig, another researcher from IGB, said the beaver’s was a “positive troublemaker” in freshwater ecosystems.

By building dams and altering waterways, beavers increase ecosystem diversity, which is crucial for ecological health. She acknowledges the challenges this poses to cultivated landscapes and agriculture but highlights opportunities for leveraging beaver activity to revitalize natural areas and boost biodiversity.

Fish ecologist Christian Wolter added that beaver dams typically alter water flows, benefiting still-water species at the expense of current-loving and migratory fish. To mitigate the impacts on fish populations, Mr. Wolter suggests strategic river management, including providing more space for rivers and reviving floodplains.

Maria Magdalena Warter, who studies water flows, pointed out that the beavers at the Demnitzer Mühlenfließ in Brandenburg have successfully improved water retention and quality. Yet, their activities heavily depend on climatic conditions, as seen during recent droughts.

So, while beavers support ecosystem revitalization and biodiversity, their complex reintroduction process requires balancing environmental benefits with human economic considerations.

For articles for sale, where the sale price is under £1000 (Private advertisers only — no trade, motor, animals, firearms etc) simply email the details to info@marshwoodvale.com.

Unfortunately due to space constraints there is no guarantee of inclusion of all free ads. We reserve the right to withhold advertisements.

For guaranteed classified advertising please use ‘Classified Ads’ form.

CHIMNEY SWEEP WANTED

Stamps & Coins wanted by collector / investor. We are keen to purchase small or large collections at this time. Tel Rod 01308 863790 or 07802261339.

Coins wanted. Part or full collections purchased for cash. Please phone John on 01460 62109 or 07980 165047.

Dave buys all types of tools 01935 428975

Do you have a shed / garage full of old tools, car bits, unfinished projects etc? I buy job-lots of vintage items. Also enamel signs & slot machines & complete collections, 07875677897

Vintage & antique textiles, linens, costume buttons etc. always sought by Caroline Bushell. Tel. 01404 45901.

Collectables, bygones, vintage, autojumble, Job-lots & collections a specialty. Good prices paid 07875677897

Secondhand tools. All trades and crafts. Old and modern. G. Dawson. 01297 23826. www. secondhandtools.co.uk.

RESTORATION

FURNITURE. Antique restoration and bespoke furniture. Furniture carefully restored and new commissions undertaken. French polishing and modern hand finishes. Phil Meadley. 01297 560335. phil.meadley@ btinternet.com

TUITION

Piano, violin, theory tuition at your home. Highly qualified teacher. Adults and children welcome. Beginners to advanced. Dr Thomas Gold 07917 835781. Dec

STUDIO WANTED

Professional Artist requires large studio space to rent, must be private secure and quiet Call 07960406333

BOOKKEEPING

Experienced self employed bookkeeper seeks new client. One day per week, or for monthly/quarterly processing. Ilminster +20 miles. Call Alison on 07849 467667.

WANTED

Old Tractors and Machinery, Pick-up Vans and Tippers. Best prices paid. Tel. 07971 866364.

Marshwood+ November 2024

Kirsty McGee

in your Marshwood Vale Magazine

Contributors

Regenerate Rethink Rewild

November

EVENTS

Friday, 1 November

Saturday, 2 November

Monday, 11 November

Friday, 15 November

Saturday, 16 November

Friday, 22 November

Friday, 22 - 23 November

Saturday, 23 November

EVENTS IN DECEMBER

BROADWINDSOR

LYME REGIS

BRIDPORT

HALSTOCK

WEYMOUTH

LandAlive

Conference hopes to help farmers

ONature Studies

FARMING for natural resilience

at Bridport’s Washingpool Farm

November in the Garden

This Month in the not so distant past

Food&Dining

TUNA CEVICHE

INGREDIENTS

DIRECTIONS

SPICY BUTTERNUT SQUASH SOUP

INGREDIENTS

DIRECTIONS

Ilaria’s Italian KITCHEN

Make Good

November

GALLERIES

5 - 17 November

GALLERIES IN DECEMBER Live or Online

Until 5 January 2025

Until 16 March 2025

Cultivated Meat

Crippen: A Novel of Murder by

Historical Novels

The Figurine

WHO ARE YOU really?

IT’S PANTO TIME AGAIN!

November PREVIEW

Feeling the Zaltgeist

Making music in new ways CONCERTS IN THE WEST

November

Favourites at The Old School House TINCLETON

WOW in the House of Fun

WEYMOUTH

After Ionesco BRIDPORT

Music at the Marine LYME REGIS

Screen Time

Top Six at the Flix

Growing up with a chronic illness

The Young Lit Fix

Gardener/ Handyman

SITUATIONS VACANT

Digital Media Freelancer

FOR SALE

The UK is not alone on the beaver debate

CHIMNEY SWEEP WANTED

RESTORATION

TUITION

STUDIO WANTED

BOOKKEEPING

WANTED

DISTRIBUTION