The Bath Magazine September 2020 by MC Publishing Limited

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ISSUE 213 | SEPTEMBER 2020 | thebathmag.co.uk | £3.95 where sold

We launch a new series to champion our independents

BACK TO BUSINESS LEADING WITH OUR LOCALS, FROM GOLDSMITHS TO GROCERS

PLUS...

KILLER WARDROBES

Fashion ideas from Villanelle’s costume designer

HOME WORKING

Ideas for keeping your personal work space slick

VERSE IN SCHOOLS Why poetry shouldn’t be optional

REFLECTING DIVERSITY

David Olusoga on his seminal James MacTaggart lecture

A N D S O M U C H M O R E I N T H E C I T Y ’ S B I G G E S T G U I D E T O L I V I N G I N B AT H

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Contents September 2020 5 THINGS

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Essential events to look forward to this month

5 PLAYING CARDS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .34 Monserrat Pis Marcos from The Holburne explains the story behind five papier mâché playing cards

KILLER WARDROBES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 BUTCHERS, BAKERS AND GROCERS

Amanda Nicholls chats to Charlotte Mitchell, the brains behind Villanelle’s show-stopping outfits in Killing Eve series two

TAKE 5 INDIES

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Melissa Blease talks to supporters of the shop local food movement

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BATH AT WORK . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46

Emma Clegg kicks off our new series of Take 5, designed to cherish our independents and celebrate all that they do for our city

As the series of photographic portraits by Neill Menneer comes to a close, he looks back at the personalities he bought to our pages

WHAT’S ON . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22

POETRY AND EDUCATION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50

Check out this month’s top virtual and socially-distanced events

After poetry becomes an optional element of GCSE English Literature, we asked five local poets for their perspectives

A FESTIVAL WITHOUT WALLS

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THE SCHOOLS GUIDE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .56

After the cancellation of the Bath Children’s Literature Festival this autumn, the Reading is Magic Festival is filling the gap

As the city’s schools reopen their doors, we look forward to the new year

TAKE TWO . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26 Millie Bruce-Watt delves into two of this year’s most talked-about films, screening at The Little Theatre Cinema this month

Andrew Swift walks the skyline from Primrose Hill

WORD WARRIOR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .28

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HOME-WORK IDEAS 30

After his powerful James MacTaggart Inaugural Lecture last month, Emma Clegg dives into conversation with David Olusoga

CITY ARTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .32 Find out what our city’s much-loved art spaces are offering this month

More content and updates discover: thebathmag.co.uk

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ALL WORKED UP AT HOME . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .78 How to create the perfect home office from the best in the business

Appearing virtually at the Reading is Magic Festival, Millie Bruce-Watt chats to Alex Wheatle about his latest novel

ROLLING THUNDER

LET’S DO THE SKYLINE AGAIN . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .76

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Interior products for your home study

ON THE COVER

Nick Cudworth’s new oil painting of Athena at Meticulous Ink is symbolic of the rise of our city’s independent shops.

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FROM THE EDITOR

❝

A city of stars sings above and in return I imagine my own light soaring into the black – not with rockets, fuel and radars but the thermodynamic radiation of spirit, chasing upwards and outwards as if nowhere is too far.

❞

ALYSON HALLETT (b.1963) Editor photograph by TBM

eptember means the end of the long holiday, but this month feels different for educationalists and scholars, after a break for many of over five months and uncertainty about what the new term will look and feel like. What we do know is that our schools will be doing their absolute best to keep their staff and pupils safe, their lessons vibrant and everyone’s educational journey valuable and rewarding. All institutions have been working around changing parameters, and our comprehensive educational listings for those researching schools and colleges, starting on page 56, is an impressive testament to this. It’s been hard for those pupils due to take exams this year, but lockdown has impacted all year groups. On page 50 we consider how poetry next year becomes an optional element of GCSE English Literature, to give schools more time to cover the syllabus thoroughly. We asked five poets from Bath and Bristol – including Alyson Hallett whose words are inscribed on a Milsom Street pavement – to give us their thoughts, and explain why poetry, both in and outside of school, has so much value to children. Their answers are full of passion and offer some refreshing perspectives on the power of the poem. With the increase in remote working, we draw inspiration from our interior specialists on page 78 as we debate how to make a home study space deliver, whether it is an exclusive room or a tucked-away niche, and on page 84 we offer an array of products that will give style and substance to your home working. There’s more design content on page 16 as we talk to Charlotte Mitchell, who designed the costumes for series two of Killing Eve. In a new series on page 20, we’ve visited five of Bath’s buzzing independent shops, and have been motivated all over again to buy local when we can, helping our businesses recover from the extended period of closure. Then on page 38 Melissa Blease celebrates our food communities, from grocers and butchers to markets and farm shops, and discovers what they have done to keep us fed and watered with delicious local fare and local products. A virtual festival called Reading is Magic is making up for the absence of the Children’s Literature Festival this autumn (see page 24) and Millie Bruce-Watt chats to Alex Wheatle, who is appearing at the festival, on page 28 about his new book Cane Warriors. I also had a fascinating talk to historian, writer, presenter and thought leader David Olusoga who has recently created waves with his James MacTaggart Memorial Lecture and has been appointed patron of Bristol’s Festival of Ideas – see page 30. We’ve also taken a critical look at our website this month and have given it some new zing for maximum engagement – so do take a look on thebathmag.co.uk. From poetry to loving our locals and from thought leaders to study spaces – here’s September’s edition!

EDITOR’S PICK MASKED WITH STYLE

Textile artist Carole Waller has designed and created a range of stylish face masks. One design uses simple pleats and the other is curved and more sculptural, shaped to fit the face. The fabric is painted organic cotton, so each piece differs slightly from the photograph. They come in limited editions of around six per colour and design and are machine washable. Visit Carole at ONE TWO FIVE Box Road, Bath by appointment, where you can also see her latest clothing collection.

Emma Clegg Editor

All paper used to make this magazine is taken from good sustainable sources and we encourage our suppliers to join an accredited green scheme. Magazines are now fully recyclable. By recycling magazines, you can help to reduce waste and contribute to the six million tonnes of paper already recycled by the UK paper industry each year. Please recycle this magazine, but if you are not able to participate in a recycling scheme, then why not pass your magazine on to a friend or colleague.

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ZEITGEIST

September

Learn

Drive-in night glow at Longleat Estate

Watch

Photograph by Jake Turney

On 11 and 12 September, Longleat is bringing a brand new drive-in evening event, with the chance to see a vibrant display of hot air balloons against the backdrop of the iconic Longleat Estate. Tethered across the banks of Half-Mile Lake, up to 30 hot air balloons will be ready to ignite their burners in a dramatic, musical showcase. And even better, visitors will be able to take in the glowing sights from the comfort and safety of their own cars. Alongside the drive-in, there will also be live music, entertainment and some tasty food huts to enjoy in the stunning grounds at twilight. longleat.co.uk

Sheku Kanneh-Mason

On 24 September, Bath Philharmonia will be joined by Sheku and Isata Kanneh-Mason, two of the brightest stars on the classical music scene, as they return to The Forum for a Covid-secure event that will bring the venue back to life. In a beautiful arrangement for strings and piano, Isata Kanneh-Mason will perform Beethoven’s dramatic 3rd Piano Concerto and in the second half classical superstar Sheku Kanneh-Mason will dazzle audiences with Dvorak’s glorious nature-inspired Cello Concerto. bathphil.co.uk

sepTeMber 2020

This month, a free exhibition at Bath Royal Literary & Scientific Institution is opening up for visitors to learn about their vast collection of historic objects. Each week five objects from the BRLSI archives will be selected as part of a theme. The theme links seemingly disparate objects through a fascinating common narrative. With a growing digital archive of over 20,000 photographs, the narratives have endless potential. For those following online, there will be a new posting on the BRLSI Instagram and Facebook pages featuring five images and captions every week. Now that BRLSI has opened its doors, an exhibition featuring nine themes – Dragons, Extinct, Ice Age, Belief, Cats, Transport, Archaic, Elephants and Armour – will be on show in Queen Square. There are also new talks and events available on the BRLSI website. brlsi.org Five objects will be selected as part of a theme each week

Listen Situated in the heart of the city, fans of live music should head to Chapel Arts this month. With a reduced capacity of 48 and a one-metre distancing rule in place until 1 March 2021, guests can enjoy music from the 50s and 60s, contemporary folk, swing and blues rock as well as an audience with King Henry VIII. All events are seated, with round café-style tables available for all and masks must be worn whilst moving around the venue. Bath’s alternative arts venue is Covid-ready and can’t wait to welcome old and new customers back to their much-adored venue. Booking in advance is essential, with a minimum purchase of two tickets. chapelarts.org

Enjoy

Admire

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Theatre Royal Bath is teaming up with Wise Children, Bristol Old Vic and Plush Theatricals to live stream Emma Rice’s critically acclaimed musical adaptation of Romantics Anonymous to audiences at home. The show is being performed live onstage at Theatre Royal Bath on 24 September at 7.30pm as part of the Digital Tour, which will see the musical travel to 30 partner theatres across the world. Each night of the tour will be tailored to audiences in different parts of the world, including Singapore, Chicago and New Zealand. Tickets cost £15 and can be purchased via the Theatre Royal Bath website. theatreroyal.org.uk n

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Our shelves are half empty

We need silver can you help?

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The city

ist

THE BUZZ THE BUZZ BRLSI FUNDING

My BATH

Jessica Johannesson helped to set up Extinction Rebellion Bath in 2018. Since then, she has dedicated her time to climate justice – and writing her first novel My partner and I moved to Bath from Edinburgh in 2015. I’ve moved around a lot, so this brought with it a new experience of local community.

The Bath Royal Literary and Scientific Institution (BRLSI) has received a grant of £40,000 from The Art Fund towards a new project ‘Forward to the future’. The grant places BRLSI in a far stronger position to overcome the financial and cultural impositions of lockdown, and will enable them to continue to share knowledge, stimulate exploration of science, literature and the arts, and reach out to audiences post Covid. The project will include a BRLSI branded app taking digital visitors on artefact trails around Bath, the creation of digital platforms to deliver BRLSI’s diverse programme, and a social media campaign marketing BRLSI and its mission to more diverse audiences. brlsi.org

ECHOING THE BUZZ

The exciting results of the the egg’s new online summer school can now be seen (and heard) across the city. The urban buzz has been lying low, held behind doors and closed-in spaces, so it’s time to turn the volume up. Echoing is a unique listening experience where you can join the young artists from Bath and beyond, as extraordinary auditory encounters are revealed here, on the streets we all walk. Armed with their personal devices, the public are invited to follow the digital breadcrumbs to eavesdrop on an evolving landscape. Start at the theatre, where the first code can be found on the doors of the egg. What are the stories that echo through our streets? Can you find them all? Echoing runs until 24 September. theatreroyal.org.uk

I’d been worried about climate change for a long time, but didn’t realise the urgency of it until a few years ago. There are different kinds of climate denial, not just denying human-made climate collapse; living as if the danger weren’t real is its own form of denial. As XR had just launched, my partner and I got together with about eight other people and formed a local group in late 2018. I think that humility and a healthy dose of uncertainty are essential parts of being any kind of activist. Whereas in the beginning I was focused on sounding the alarm, I’ve become convinced that all climate action must be aimed at greater justice, globally and in our own communities. If it weren’t for the inequality and racism on which so much of our society is built, we simply wouldn’t have a climate emergency. The crises we’re seeing, including the pandemic, are also impacting people in hugely unfair ways. As the brilliant poet Audre Lorde wrote: “Sometimes we are blessed with being able to choose the time, and the arena, and the manner of our revolution, but more usually we must do battle where we are standing.” I find this so empowering and honest: we need everyone in order to survive and help each other survive. It’s about letting change and truths permeate everything you do, be it selling books or looking after people in hospitals. I grew up in Sweden, with quite a few years spent in Colombia, where my mother was from, and in Ecuador. I suspect that this mobility has had an impact not only on what I write about, but also on how I approach the climate crisis. It’s a two-edged sword. As a child of several homes, it’s more difficult to become rooted. On the other hand, I think you gain an understanding of connections and different perspectives. Closed borders don’t make sense to me when there are people in need of help who did nothing to deserve their situation. Empathy is definitely one of the things I place importance on in my life. I think most of our greatest mistakes as a society come down to massive failures of empathy. Integrity and creativity – the ability to keep making things up

and being playful whenever possible is vital. A fantastic thing about my part-time work at Mr B’s bookshop is that I’m able to talk about writing and ideas in different ways. Putting a book about climate storytelling in someone’s hand is one, but so is running our podcast, chairing author events, just being able to highlight the questions I think are important. The Justice Season I’m curating for the podcast this autumn is a lovely example of that kind of freedom. The wonderful gang of colleagues is a massive perk too. My debut novel, How We Are Translated, is being published by Scribe in February next year. It’s a short novel about two young people struggling with what it means to feel safe, and to show empathy, in a time of personal and public crisis. It’s also about the role of language in all of this. I think it’s essential to acknowledge the kind of protest available to different people, and the difference in the risks involved depending on who, and where you are. There’s been a focus on arrest in XR, and part of the reason is a lack of understanding within the movement. I do think this is changing. To me, what it boils down to is striving for a movement that is inclusive and guided by the scientific truth as well as justice. The UK government still fails to tell the truth about the massive changes needed to save lives, and its emission targets are woefully inadequate. Civil disobedience has a history of making change happen. The worst kind of privilege is not using your privilege for the good of others, but we need to be led by the experiences of those who are most affected by climate breakdown. As XR takes action again, (including a rebellion in Cardiff and London starting on 1 September) I’ll be doing my utmost to highlight this. I do like public speaking, although it terrifies me. Most of us will find a scientific paper daunting, so if there were a way to stay faithful to science but make it accessible and connect with emotions, that’s something that I’d love to be able to do. The climate crisis, after all, doesn’t really exist because of science – it exists because of human behaviour and human cultures, so we need stories that speak to that. xrbath.org.uk

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CITY | NOTEBOOK

Richard Wyatt: Notes on a small city Columnist Richard Wyatt considers the merits of fruit, how lockdown has brought out his wild side and how it was right on his doorstep. Illustration by Brian Duggan

don’t know how many autumn ‘starts’ there are, but I can tell you that 1 September marks the meteorological launch of that season of mists and mellow fruitfulness so poetically penned and applauded by John Keats. By the way, if you’re by any chance reading this in Australia, the same date marks the arrival of spring in the Southern Hemisphere. For us in t he north, we see our crazy and unreal year start to mature as we turn our thoughts from blue summer skies to the leaf-strewn but golden pathway that leads towards darker and colder days. On the plus side – with harvest time in mind – it looks like a bumper 2020 crop of apples and pears to cheer fruit lovers like me. The orchards I pass on my early morning walks are full of trees practically groaning under the weight of so many potential pies, crumbles and upside-down tarts.

❝

When the roads fell silent and the streets emptied we had a chance to hear a different noise... one that had been drowned out by the din of modern living

❝

However, in these past weeks and with months of enforced change having taken hold of my normal frenetic routine, I have also begun to notice all the wildlife that shares the fields I pass on my daily strolls – AND what fills the skies above. I was finally paying attention and becoming aware of a world that has always existed alongside the more domestic one I used to inhabit. When I am not counting footsteps I have been growing my lockdown library of reading material, which is enough to fill a small bookcase. But one little paperback amongst my pile of teetering tomes has reinforced the wonder of finally paying attention to something truly amazing. I don’t do sport and ironically the book’s author, Simon Barnes, was until six years ago chief sports writer for The Times. However, it’s his plentiful and eloquently written nature books that have grabbed my attention, and one in particular called Rewild Yourself. I found myself nodding in agreement, page after page, as Simon explains how we are not just losing the wild world but we’re no longer noticing it. That we’ve lost the habit of looking and seeing and listening and hearing. He uses the analogy of author C.S. Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia to bring his point home and explain how easy it is for us to wash away the scales from our unseeing eyes. Lucy and her siblings walked through the back of a coat-filled wardrobe into a new and magical country. Simon suggests that longing for a magical new country is something that remains with us into adulthood. How long, he says, have we wished to escape from tedium into

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adventure, from restriction to freedom and from a familiar and well-trodden environment into a world of infinite possibility? It’s all achievable, he says, and without jetting off to the other side of the world. You have to move from one kind of place to a completely different one by just directing your feet – and your attention – to where the wild things are. I am not suggesting y ou all drop everything you were doing and march to the tune of this pied piper’s call, but he’s helped make me realise that we have had time to reacquaint ourselves with the natural world around us. Not only that – it’s blooming marvellous too! There’s much debate about how changed our world might be post Covid. I am more interested in how different we might be as people. Many of the positives we have experienced during this enforced slowing down of the world we are accustomed to has helped us notice another world – as we lived and breathed and changed alongside it. We have found time to slow down and take in what lies around us, in all its glory. Whether we like it or not, that wildness is part of us and we are part of it. When the roads fell silent and the streets emptied we had a chance to hear a d ifferent noise. One that was always there but had been drowned out by the din of modern living. Birds chatter, sheep bleat and the wind sighs in the tree tops. It makes me wonder why all those early morning joggers who pass me on my rural route are hiding from the beautiful reality around them by wearing earphones. Give me Mother Nature’s surround-sound any day . n Richard Wyatt runs the Bath Newseum: bathnewseum.com

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Killer wardrobes

aAll Killing Eve imagery courtesy of BBC America/ Sid Gentle Films

Villanelleâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s zany wardobe defines her character in Killing Eve. Costume designer Charlotte Mitchell was the brains behind her outfits in series 2 â&#x20AC;&#x201C; here she talks Liv Tyler and Jodie Comer, favourite characters and the instant fashion culture. Words by Amanda Nicholls

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COSTUME DESIGN

harlotte Mitchell studied fashion at Central Saint Martins before earning her stripes as a designer and buyer for several years and coming to realise it wasn’t such a snug fit. With more of a penchant for styling, she sidestepped into costume design, which she found less restricting than pure fashion design, allowing her to design a character and style them to fit into a certain genre or period of social history. There’s more to it than that though. “If I tell someone I’m a costume designer, generally the response is; ‘which costume did you make?’” says Charlotte. “Basically a costume designer is head of the costume department; I design the whole look of a production, manage a team of brilliant people who do the making for me and ensure my designs, which can include purchases, hires and makes, all come within the given costume budget.” The whole look of production feels like a daunting prospect – a little wave of anxiety courses through me just thinking about where to start. “Initially I receive the scripts and start creating mood boards which I show to the director and producers. I will then see what’s available. For period, I’ll check what can be hired or what vintage pieces I can find before deciding what I need to make and doing drawings. If it’s modern, I’ll start looking in the shops. I then take these mood boards, ideas and clothes to the actor and we do a fitting and watch the character emerge. It’s not a quick process and it shouldn’t be. It’s great to see the ideas grow.” Perhaps her most prestigious project to date has been the second series of Killing Eve, which switches up its writers and designers each season. “To have the freedom and large budget to design and style Villanelle was a dream,” says Charlotte. “A key word for her at mood board stage would be ‘attention seeking’, but she isn’t always this way, and sometimes as a designer you have to decide when your costumes are going to stand out and when they are not. It starts with the script. I was keen that she wouldn’t always be provocative in her fashion choices. There had to be quieter moments to allow other attention-seeking outfits to ‘pop’ more. In series two, when Villanelle is walking along the canal with Konstantin, Villanelle is wearing a vintage kimono, which I remodelled into a coat and red trousers – gorgeous, but not loud. Compare this to the pink blouse and skirt with extravagant vintage LaCroix earrings at the dutch café. Pop!” Despite the glamour of Killing Eve, her favourite character, looking back, has actually been Hermia, in the BBC Agatha Christie adaptation The Pale Horse. “She’s such a sad, yet incredible character. Emotionally abused by her husband, she has this powerful silence. I used the period (1961) and her class to dress her in a silhouette that felt like an armour, based on early 1960s Balenciaga and Dior. She was always immaculately turned out, but I designed her clothes to have a restrictive feeling. “I get so involved with the characters that my favourite is usually from the job I am currently working on,” explains Charlotte. “Liv Tyler was a joy to dress on Harlots, set in the 18th century. Liv plays a wealthy lady against the backdrop of prostitutes and brothels. We made everything from scratch and had all the fabric dyed to create the perfect colour. Liv is so game. She loves the dress up! And having fun with her character. I was able to go brilliantly flamboyant because she trusted me, and I feel really fortunate to be allowed that freedom by any actress.” Having established that the best part of the job is working with incredible actors, we move on to those aspects of working in toplevel costume design that constantly disappoint, and the industry’s ingrained bad habits. “I absolutely hate fast fashion, but sadly I have to shop in these high-street shops for my job due to late cast and late script changes, and I see the fast stock turnover. Every day the rails get filled up with new lines of cheap, badly made clothes. I can often be found running to a high street shop and throwing many options into a bag because the actor’s on screen the next day and I don’t have access to them for measurements or time to think through the look.” Charlotte recently joined a crew-led organisation to fight the climate crisis from her industry standpoint, and along with other costume designers is discussing how they can try and shop more ➲

Villanelle dresses a little differently for Amsterdam’s Red Light District

Rufus Sewell and Kaya Scodelario as Mark and Hermia Easterbook

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COSTUME DESIGN

Image: Monumental Pictures

“Liv is so game. She loves the dress-up!”

To have the freedom and budget to design and style Villanelle was a dream, says Charlotte

“Villanelle isn’t always attentionseeking; you have to decide when your costumes are going to stand out and when they are not”

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The Pale Horse images: Agatha Christie Productions Ltd 2019

COSTUME DESIGN

Charlotte designs the whole look of a production, and did so on BBC Thriller The Pale Horse

sustainably. “Our instant-fashion culture has to change. My industry needs to slow down and plan better and the general public needs to consider the implications of fast fashion. A well-chosen item of clothing can last a long time and be styled in many different ways to adapt to trends. I have clothes from over 10 years ago that I wouldn’t be without.” The lack of diversity in the film and television industry is also a source of chagrin. “Great black directors and actors are being overlooked when it comes to awards. Why was Queen and Slim not recognised? This was my favourite film from this year’s BAFTAs and I certainly voted for it. I know BAFTA have raised the question about lack of representation at nomination stage, so we wait to see their findings. There’s also massive lack of diversity in the filming crew. It’s important to make it clear that a career in film and television is available to everyone, promoting the success of BAME directors, designers and actors. We need more mentors to reach out and show these possibilities.”

At the moment, though, the whole industry is at a standstill, with the pandemic having stopped so much of its filming. “I was put on hiatus and have now been told, due to lack of insurance and not wanting to change the script to remove certain close moments between actors, we will not be filming again until November. Very strange times. Everyone is now waiting and watching to see who is going to be first to return to filming and how are they going to do it. Bristol-based Charlotte is proud of the diverse energy within the city and loves to keep up with its many personalities. “Bristol is such a creative city with so many hugely talented people. Director Gavin Strange and Aardman have just won an award for their Greenpeace commercial Turtle Journey – their work is amazing. Everyone needs to know about Miss Magpie Fashion Spy too – a brilliant illustrator. She is pushing forward diversity and disability in fashion illustration while selling her beautiful drawings. It’s clear that when it comes to costume, fashion and creativity, Bristol is in safe hands. ■ • charlottemitchellcostumedesign.co.uk

Charlotte Mitchell

ELLIS & KILLPARTRICK Styling Opticians

18 New Bond Street Bath BA1 1BA T. 01225 466954 www.ellisandkillpartrick.com

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TAKE 5

Take

independent shops

Our new series of Take Five is designed to cherish our independent shops and celebrate the big contribution they make to the city’s economy and to the lives of those who live here

Gold & Platinum Studio

Coopers

Goldsmith and gemmologist Michael Parsons and his team run an independent studio specialising in hand-making oneoff engagement rings and wedding rings, as well as offering a wide range of individual pieces. Step inside and the precious metals and gems surrounding you sparkle from all angles. Michael and his team undertake all types of commissions on site as well as carrying out remodelling and repairs. Above the studio is the workshop where Michael and his two highly skilled goldsmiths work. In addition Gold & Platinum Studio showcases a selection of independent designer jewellers – such as Linda MacDonald and Alexis Dove – and offers a superb choice to suit all budgets. Trading in Bath for over 40 years and with an enviable reputation for quality service, a visit is a must for jewellery lovers, anyone looking for a special gift or thinking of having a piece of jewellery adapted or specially made. If there’s one thing that our current more limited travel options have brought, it’s a prevailing idea of celebrating ‘things’ over experiences, says Michael. Whether you’d like a diamond solitaire ring in textured gold, a Sri Lankan sapphire and diamond trilogy ring in platinum, an emerald and diamond bar set eternity ring, a trilliant cut pink sapphire necklace or a pair of claw set aquamarine studs in gold, a gift such as 18ct yellow and white gold dragonfly this will last set with a sapphire and natural fancy coloured diamonds, £2,495 forever.

Coopers is an independent, Bath-based kitchen appliance retailer with over 70 years of continuous trading. Yes, even during lockdown – when fridges and washing machines continued to break down – Coopers were providing flexible solutions. “I had a huge number of customers Liebherr Monolith who really supported us fridge freezer, £15,500 during lockdown, and that has been really heart-warming”, says managing director Darrin Christan. With a large showroom in the centre of Bath, you can see a fantastic display of range cookers, refrigeration, laundry and small appliances before you buy, and the dedicated, expert team are always on hand to help choose the best products. Coopers Stores aim to be very competitively priced against the other high street players and online sellers too, and unlike the latter, they are about old-fashioned, bricks and mortar, face to face service, now unusual in the industry. The reality is that if houses have more than six steps, some retailers won’t deliver; not Coopers whose teams go out of their way to drop off all products and talk you knowledgeably through your purchase. They can deliver throughout the south west and offer flexible delivery slots to fit with a customer’s needs. They have also established links with a great team of expert installers to offer a complete advise, buy, deliver, and install service. This is independent retailing at its best – values driven and superb customer service – which is a real antidote to the spiritless online experience.

13–15 Walcot Street, Bath BA1 5BN Tel: 01225 311811; coopers-stores.com

19 Northumberland Place, Bath BA1 5AR Tel: 01225 462300; goldandplatinumstudio.co.uk

5 reasons why we love indie shops 1 You can see, feel and try out what you are buying in a shop – instead of looking at a website image that has been enhanced.

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Supporting local businesses helps to boost regional employment – small, local businesses provide the most local jobs to communities.

Buying local brings personality and character. An independent shop brings unexpected surprises and one-off products rather than mass-produced items from big chains.

Independents offer excellent customer service; you’ll have a one-to-one conversation, not a generic response; and you’ll most likely be remembered when you next visit.

Making purchases locally means that we are investing in our region and the money we spend stays in our community.

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TAKE 5

Beau Nash As you walk from the Circus to the Royal Crescent you will come upon Beau Nash. Here you’ll find practical items from bottle coasters, salvers and cutlery to ornamental tea kettles, urns and caviar pots, in styles from antique Georgian to 20th century, with stock selected for its quality and provenance. Beau Nash believe that silver should not be kept for ‘best’ – it is there to be used. Silver is beautiful and lustrous and antibacterial, with no taste to taint your food. Quite simply there is nothing better than silver to eat, drink and serve food with. Co-owner Duncan Campbell – who appears regularly as a specialist on Antiques Roadshow – explains that customers come from home and abroad, and tastes in silver vary from nation to nation, with the British preferring a clean Scandinavian style, the Americans loving a tea set (not the taste here) and the Chinese having a penchant for stately home grandeur, especially if it reminds them of Downton Abbey. Ebay has transformed the antiques market, making it easier for collectors to find out what things are worth and reducing the amount of antiques shops, but the physical stores which remain, such as Beau Nash, are more coveted than ever. Whatever your taste in silver, you’ll find it here.

31 Brock Street, Bath BA1 2LN Tel: 01225 334234; beaunashbath.com

Burmese bowl featuring scenes from the Jataka, £6,450

Triple Cut Ring, 18ct yellow gold set with Prasiolite, Peridot and Lemon Quartz, £4,000

Tina Engell A short walk up from the city centre is worth the effort to visit Danish goldsmith Tina Engell’s Scandinavian-style space in Bartlett Street. She has created an upmarket gallery space there that oozes a simple, clean northern European style with freshly plastered walls and swirling textures of limewash, and clean grey paving stones beneath your feet. You will find glass cabinets full of Tina’s beautiful handmade jewellery, characterised by big gold rings, stacking rings and jostling sparkling semi-precious stones. She also works with bands of silver, wrapped in a sheet of 18ct gold and then hammered to a matt finish. The gallery also has a selection of jewellery by five other designer jewellery makers. Peeping through the wide archway is Tina’s workshop, with two workbenches illuminated by industrial lamps and covered in precious metals, stones, hammers, chisels and clamps. Tina designs and makes every piece by hand, using traditional methods. Although you can buy off the shelf, she often works to commission, creating unique pieces of jewellery to order. She can design and make a bespoke piece, or take inherited jewellery and refashion it. Tina loves this process, seeing each commission as a creative journey where she can work with different design ideas. In this open-plan space the entire creative process is visible, and the results are bold and individual.

3 Bartlett Street, Bath BA1 2QZ Tel: 07717 410040; tinaengell.com

The Dressing Room A visit to The Dressing Room – where you will be welcomed by Ozzie the cockapoo – is a masterclass in independent merchandising. Every client matters. It’s a level of service and warmth that, quite frankly, is all too often elusive. Owner Tessa Brand packs in all the advantages of the independent shop experience – offering personal attention, useful recommendations, luxury products that are made to last, no hard sell and a retail experience that will keep bringing you back. “To me customer

Judith Red Brief, £50

service is free,” says Tessa, “It’s the easiest thing to offer a good service. I expect it when I go shopping. Listen to the customer, be polite, be respectful, remember people’s names.” Since opening in Bath in 1985, The Dressing Room has been the go-to place for the finest in lingerie, beach and nightwear. The shop offers exquisite lingerie collections from Marie Jo, Aubade, Empreinte and Prima Donna, and also has a wide range of basic T-shirt bras and invisible briefs. The beachwear collection features many brands, including Melissa Odabash, Maryan Mehlhorn, Gottex, Seafolly and Miraclesuit. The nightwear collection boasts Olivia Von Halle, Hanro Cottons, Laurence Tavernier robes, and silk gowns from Luna Di Seta and Marjolaine. “The thing about coming into your shop is that I’m always made to feel special.” This customer comment says it all. A comfortable, elegant interior, experienced and professional staff, and products that look and feel like silken treasures, you are certain to find elegant garments to keep close both day and night. n

7 Quiet Street, Bath BA1 2JU Tel: 01225 330563; dressingroombath.co.uk thebathmag.co.uk

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WHAT’S ON in September

GUTS: A CONTEMPORARY CULTURE SHOW n Until 4 September, 12–5pm, 44AD artspace Four graduate sculptors from Bath School of Art are exhibiting at 44AD Gallery in the contemporary sculpture show, GUTS. The exhibition is curated by Francie Brown who is a resident artist at the gallery. As a result, the pieces are expansive, taking up room with their form and colour, contending for attention. Free; 44ad.net BATHAMPTON VILLAGE SHOW n 5–13 September, 10am–4pm, Bathampton Village Hall As the show can’t go on in the same way this year, Bathampton is spreading the festivities across the village for an entire week. Residents and visitors alike are invited to take part in various competitions – including the largest sunflower head – and a scarecrow trail around the village. The main event will take place on 12 September, where the winners for each category will be announced. Free; bathamptonvillageshow.co.uk VIRTUAL MASTER CLASS WITH GLADYS PERINT PALMER AND GRAY M.C.A n 10 September, 6.30pm, via Zoom The esteemed British artist and illustrator, Gladys Perint Palmer, will join forces with Gray M.C.A, to co-host a virtual masterclass in partnership with the Courtauld Institute of Art. To mark the original opening date of Drawing on Style, an exhibition celebrating fashion illustration from post-war 1940s to the present day – now postponed to February 2021 – the event will provide an intimate glimpse into how a fashion artist works. Free; graymca.com FESTIVAL OF IDEAS: THOMAS FRANK n 10 September, 5–5.45pm, via Crowdcast People without Power: The War on Populism and the Fight for Democracy. Acclaimed political commentator Thomas Frank takes us from the emergence of the 22 TheBATHMagazine

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FILM SCREENINGS n Throughout September, The Little Theatre Cinema This month, The Little welcomes Christopher Nolan’s much-anticipated spy film, Tenet. Jonas Kaufmann: My Vienna will appear on 1 September, followed by Phoebe WallerBridge’s Fleabag, live from the National Theatre on 3 September. Max Ritcher’s Sleep – plus an exclusive recorded Q&A – will also grace the big screen on 8 September and France’s 2020 Oscar entry, Les Misérables, will appear on 11 September. A Night At The Louvre: Leonardo Da Vinci is set to dazzle audiences on 16 and 20 September and Andre Rieu's glorious Magical Maastricht will screen on 19 and 20 September. Six Minutes To Midnight will be out on 25 September and David Attenborough: A Life On Our Planet is on 28 September. Full programme available online; picturehouses.com/cinema/little-theatre-cinema

radical left-wing US Populist Party in the 1890s to the present day. Free; ideasfestival.co.uk FESTIVAL OF IDEAS: MICHAEL SANDEL n 15 September, 6–6.45pm, via Crowdcast Philosopher Michael Sandel argues that to overcome the partisan politics of our time, we need to rethink the attitudes towards success and failure that have accompanied globalisation and rising inequality. He is in discussion with Andrew Kelly, Director, Festival of Ideas. Free; ideasfestival.co.uk CRISS-CROSS: A KIND OF MUSIC n 15–27 September, 1–5pm, 44AD artspace An ongoing series of drawings and prints by Martin Cody and Tony Martin, A Kind of Music exhibition is made in a spirit of intention and invention, with a nod to the influence of jazz and classical music. Free; 44ad.net BATH PHILHARMONIA n 24 September, 7.30pm, The Forum Bath Philharmonia will be joined by Sheku and Isata Kanneh-Mason, two of the brightest stars on the classical music scene, as they return to The Forum. Isata will perform Beethoven’s dramatic 3rd Piano Concerto and, in the second half, Sheku will dazzle audiences with Dvorak’s glorious Cello Concerto. bathphil.co.uk

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ROMANTICS ANONYMOUS n 24 September, 7.30pm, via YouTube Theatre Royal Bath is teaming up with Wise Children, Bristol Old Vic and Plush Theatricals and 30 partner theatres around the world to live stream Emma Rice’s critically acclaimed musical adaptation of Romantics Anonymous. Tickets cost £15; theatreroyal.org.uk ECHOING: A DIGITAL TOUR n Until 24 September, 7.30pm, the egg A unique digital tour of the city, created by young artists from the egg’s online summer school can be seen and heard across the city this month. Participants will be able to follow a trail of QR codes (square ‘bar codes’ which link to websites when scanned by a smart phone) placed around the city and listen to the stories, tales, music and soundscapes, which the students produced with industry professionals during the lockdown summer school. Free; theatreroyal.org.uk FESTIVAL OF IDEAS: BRISTOL CITY POET HANDOVER n 23 September, 2–3pm, Bristol Old Vic As Bristol’s second City Poet, Vanessa Kisuule is increasingly a household name. This special event, hosted by Marvin Rees, will mark the end of Vanessa’s term and the appointment of Caleb Parkin as the new Bristol City Poet. Guests can enjoy Vanessa’s final performance as City Poet before she passes on the torch. n

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READING | FESTIVAL

A festival without walls

After the cancellation of the Bath Children’s Literature Festival this autumn, we welcome the Reading is Magic Festival with open arms – running from Sunday 27 September to Friday 2 October, here is what this free digital event offers young people

Jason Reynolds

Photograph by Ian Sharp

Photograph by James J Reddington

Jasbinder Bilan

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have a transformative magic in their unique ability to develop three key magical powers: intelligence, creativity and empathy.” The festival will include the chance to take part in live Q&As. Events will last between 10 and 30 minutes and will be broadcast on a schools-friendly platform. All visual events will have captions, a British Sign Language interpreter and the festival team has worked with the egg theatre’s young audio describers to advise the authors and illustrators on audio describing so that more children can enjoy them. Reading is Magic Festival has partnered with Calibre Audio to ensure that children who struggle to access print can enjoy the books featured in the programme. Each day will have a theme and everyone who has signed up will be able to watch events live in UK time, or download them afterwards. Alongside story time for infant school aged children from Jessica Love, author of the beautiful picture book Julian is A Mermaid, there will be a discussion on the murder mystery genre from writers including Bath kids lit festival favourite bestseller Robin Stevens and a session on adventure and magic in fiction with Bath-based writer Jasbinder Bilan (author of Asha and the Spirit Bird). One of the key areas that Reading is Magic will focus on is representation. Writers and illustrators are creating more books for children that reflect our diverse Photograph © CBBC

urope’s largest children’s book festival, the Bath Children’s Literature Festival, sadly had to be cancelled this autumn, to the disappointment of thousands of young readers who attend each year to see their favourite authors. But festival organisers in Bath wanted to fill the gap left by the cancellation and came up with a plan to stream a programme of events live online, which would allow children access to writers, illustrators and to reflect on some of the big issues of our times. The result is a six-day online not-for-profit festival for schools and families featuring some 25 events, all inspired by the Waterstones Children’s Laureate Cressida Cowell, creator of How To Train Your Dragon and The Wizards of Once, who will also appear at the festival. Presenting and introducing each event is CBBC’s Karim Zeroual, who was also a finalist on last year’s Strictly Come Dancing. Schools and families are invited to sign up at readingismagicfestival.com and already thousands of young people in the UK and across the globe have done so, as far and wide as New York, Paris, Rome, Toronto, Brisbane, Warsaw and Jakarta. Bath Children’s Literature Festival has also created partnerships with eight other book festivals: Borders Book Festival, Boswell Book Festival, Bradford Literature Festival, Brooklyn Book Festival, Henley Literary Festival, North Cornwall Book Festival, Wigtown Book Festival, and Toronto International Festival of Authors in Canada. The programme’s content is themed around five of the ten points on Cressida Cowell’s Children’s Laureate Charter which declares that “Every child has the right to… be creative for at least 15 minutes a week, have a planet to read on, see themselves reflected in a book, have advice from a trained librarian or bookseller, and read for the joy of it.” Cressida also said: “Books

Karim Zeroual

world. The Scottish model and activist Eunice Olumide will be addressing the Black Curriculum, a national campaign to include black British history in teaching in schools. Award-winning author Elle McNicoll, who wrote A Kind of Spark, will be leading a session encouraging children to create their own characters, while New York based writer Jason Reynolds will be talking about writing for boys who might be reluctant readers until they find books that reflect their own experiences. Joining the festival from Toronto in Canada is David Robertson, perhaps best known for his powerful graphic novels, who’ll be chatting about The Barren Ground, his latest book, which includes a quest and talking animals and has all the makings of a gripping classic. Closer to home audiences will be able to hear teenage influencer Mya-Rose Craig, who was educated at Chew Valley School and is an equal rights campaigner. She is also known as Birdgirl and was the youngest person to be awarded an honorary doctorate in science from the University of Bristol. Ian Stockley the chief executive of Bath Festivals, which is the city’s leading arts organisation, said: “We are delighted to be working with Cressida Cowell and our festival partners on this project. One of our core values behind what we do is positively impacting the lives of young people. For over a decade we have brought children’s authors and illustrators to Bath through our Bath Children’s Literature Festival and we want to continue to do that even through this uncertain time.” Reading is Magic Festival is supported by Baillie Gifford, Bath Spa University, Bath Recreation, Bath Business Improvement District, Kingswood School, Bath, Novia, Royal High School, Bath and Arts Council England. n Getting involved in Reading is Magic is really simple and it’s free. Schools and families can sign up and be part of it: to readingismagicfestival.com

Jessica Love

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SEPTEMBER 2020

ThEBATHMagazinE 25

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CINEMA | HIGHLIGHTS

Take two: films

As cinemas settle into their new regimes, we look forward to seeing big names back in lights. Here are two of the films on offer this month, Ladj Ly’s French Oscar entry, Les Misérables, and Christopher Nolan’s Tenet, says Millie Bruce-Watt

Les Misérables Les Misérables – a 2019 French drama by first-time director Ladj Ly, which was France’s 2020 Oscar entry – is set in the commune of Montfermeil in Paris in the aftermath of the 2018 FIFA World Cup. The story is based on real-life police brutality, which took place in the city on 14 October 2008, and was observed and filmed by Ly. The film’s title is a reference to the Victor Hugo 1862 novel and the movie has one of the most striking pre-credit sequences. It shows the cheering crowds on the streets of Paris, overflowing with joy when France had beaten Croatia 4-2. They’re mostly people of colour, and they’re watching their country’s football team win the World Cup. The title soon appears over their faces and the filmmaker’s message is clear. Many of these people are likely to live in a place such as Montfermeil, a tough district in the east of Paris, known for its violence. The movie shifts its focus to this commune – the same commune where Hugo set a section of his own Misérables. Ly’s film follows several characters, as a theft from a teenager spirals into the threat of chaos. As we follow a day in the life of Montfermeil's anti-street crime unit, the film depicts abuses against poor citizens, especially teenagers of sub-Saharan African or Maghrebi ethnicities. Stéphane (Damien Bonnard) is a police officer who has just joined the street crime unit’s day patrol. He works alongside Gwada (Djibril Zonga) and is under the command of the (he soon realises) cynical, streetwise Chris (Alexis Manenti), whose methods are not ethical. Their job is to be a visible demonstration of the law, but also to go in

Tenet In true Christopher Nolan (Inception, Dunkirk) style, his latest spy film has been shrouded with secrecy ever since the palindromic title first reached our ears. The enigmatic trailer painfully left us with a whole host of new questions and the knife-twists of the everchanging release date simply added to the film’s mystery. Due to the pandemic, Tenet was pushed back from 17 July to finally premiere on 26 August. The film has been eagerly anticipated by fans and critics alike, who were spoon-fed teasers over the summer months, with the film being described as an ‘event film’, and promising to wow audiences.

hard against anyone they suspect. Les Misérables is not another adaptation of Hugo’s novel and it is definitely not the musical we are familiar with. Set in the same Paris suburb that inspired part of Hugo’s classic, and about the neighbourhood's impoverished residents, this is a modern-day cop thriller, highlighting the daily misery in this region. The movie with a quote from Hugo that demands the viewer take a hard look at primary causes – “Remember this, my friends: there are no such things as bad plants or bad men. There are only bad cultivators.”

Filmed across seven countries, the story follows Protagonist, played by Denzel Washington’s son John David Washington (BlacKkKlansman), who is an operative of an organisation known as Tenet, tasked with preventing World War III. Starring alongside Robert Pattinson (Twilight) and Aaron Taylor-Johnson (Nowhere Boy), Protagonist is fighting for the survival of the planet while journeying through a twilight world of international espionage. Tenet is the next in line in a series of films directed by Nolan that have been highly acclaimed at the Academy Awards. The most recent of Nolan’s work to hit the big screen was the 2017 epic war film, Dunkirk, which told the story of the evacuation of over 300,000 soldiers from the beaches of Dunkirk in 1940. Nolan also reunites with long-time collaborators in his latest film, including acting veterans Michael Caine (The Dark Knight) and Kenneth Branagh (Dunkirk). But some faces are new to a Nolan picture. The international cast includes the much-loved likes of Elizabeth Debicki, Clémence Posey (In Bruges), Himesh Patel (Yesterday) and Dimple Kapadia (Saagar). So, why all the cloak-and-dagger? Book a ticket at the Little Theatre Cinema this month and find out. ■

SHOWING TIMES Tenet Running from 26 August Les Misérables Running from 11 September

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Little Theatre Cinema St Michael’s Place;

picturehouses.com/cinema/ little-theatre-cinema

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We deliver to over 20,000 addresses every month. But if you live outside our distribution area or would like us to send a copy to friends or family then we are able to offer a mailing service for only £15.00 (6 issues) or £40.00 Euro zone; £30.00 (12 issues) or £70.00 Euro zone World Zone 1 £95.00 World Zone 2 £120.00 To subscribe to receiving the magazine go to our website; www.thebathmag.co.uk and scroll to the bottom of the page where you can click to an instant link Alternatively send a cheque payable to MC Publishing Ltd 2 Princes Buildings, George Street, Bath BA1 2ED or Telephone 01225 424 499 for card payment

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SEPTEMBER 2020

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FESTIVAL | INTERVIEW

An unforgotten hero

Alex Wheatle is set to feature at the Reading is Magic festival this month (see page 24 for more details on the festival), with his latest novel Cane Warriors. Millie Bruce-Watt chats to Alex about growing up in London, honouring his Jamaican ancestors and how he came to be the word warrior he is today

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mentioned in schoolbooks. After spending most of his childhood in the notorious Shirley Oaks children’s home a few miles east of Croydon, Wheatle found that reading adventure stories like Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island was an escape that took him out of his everyday life. During his teen years, his creativity led him towards music, specifically reggae, where he wrote song lyrics, raps and later poetry – all of which continue to influence his unique style today. Wheatle’s experience of growing up in London, his involvement in the 1981 Brixton Uprising, and subsequent prison sentence, contributed to his hunger to share the important stories of marginalized voices. Wheatle recalls, “It was a very tumultuous period in London at the time. It was the late 70s, early 1980s and I remember it very well. The police oppression of black people had been going

issue 213

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You could be stopped for looking into a shoe shop or arrested for having an afro comb in your back pocket

❝

ince winning the London Arts Board New Writers’ Award in 1999 for his debut novel Brixton Rock and later presented with an MBE for his services to literature, Alex Wheatle’s rhythmic and unique writing has been providing young adults with an exceptional form of escapism for over two decades. Back with his latest novel, Cane Warriors, which follows the life of an enslaved 14-year-old boy in 1760s Jamaica, who is recruited by rebels to fight in the slave rebellion known as Tacky’s War, Wheatle brings one of the era’s most significant revolts vividly back to life. Although he recalls a fictionalised account of the uprising, Wheatle roots his characters in reality, sheds light on the horrors of colonialism, the subjugation of a people and provides readers with an educational yet sobering reminder of a vital part of British and Jamaican history – a part that is rarely

on for decades earlier. What happened in 1981 was a release of all this frustration and anger that had built up over many years. I was obviously in the middle of that and I had experienced that. Stop and search was used much more widely than it is even today. You could be stopped for looking into a shoe shop or even arrested for having an afro comb in your back pocket, so those

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haven’t really seen it. I felt that it was very important that these stories were remembered and these heroes are remembered, especially in this time of racial strife. “As a writer, I prefer somebody reading about where the source of racism comes from rather than just simply pulling down statues. If young people are reading a narrative of a young black boy, say 200 years ago, then they can learn to empathise with that young black boy. Pulling down statues, all you see is a spectacle rather than the history behind it, so this is my way of adding to the Black Lives Matter debate.” Wheatle hopes that his latest novel will encourage young readers to explore other aspects of history and to learn about other cultures, countries and people from around the world. “There are some amazing stories in this world,” he says, “we shouldn’t just be so narrow minded that we think we can only read stories from a British perspective. If we look elsewhere, we can find some amazing stories that can encourage us all and bind us all together, because really we are all the same.”

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I felt that it was very important that these stories were remembered and these heroes are remembered, especially in this time of racial strife

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were the aspects of police that we had to deal with, which elevated the anger of black people at the time. “This really politicised me, at 17, 18 and I was sentenced to a prison term after that. I went back to my reading while I was serving my time. I used that experience as a hunger to write about my pain, my trauma, so that’s where my early novels came from. Instead of writing lyrics or poetry, I was determined to explain that my life, my friends’ lives were important and needed to be written.” Wheatle has often been celebrated for the vastness of his imagination, which came to prominence in his much-adored Crongton series, published between 2015 and 2017. Mesmerised by J.R.R. Tolkein’s inventiveness of language in The Lord of the Rings, Wheatle’s creativity with words produced entertaining and fresh narratives for his young readers. “I’m in my 50s now so I cannot claim to know the current street slang all over the country, so to help me out I decided it may be easier to create a few more terms, and I hope it can be entertaining just like Tolkein can be entertaining. It’s a fictional place so I can play around with language and I find that liberating, I really do.” Wheatle’s irresistible writing makes his latest novel gripping and unforgettable. Cane Warriors retells a fictional account of Moa, a teenage boy who has only ever known life to be toiling on the Frontier sugar cane plantation, fearing the whips of the overseers. He learns of an uprising led by a man named Tacky and he yearns to become a cane warrior and fight for his freedom. However, before Moa can join Tacky, he must first escape his overseer. Remembering one of Jamaica’s most famous heroes, Wheatle pays tribute to the Jamaican spirit and honours his ancestors. He says, “I’ve always wanted to write this kind of narrative. Jamaicans throughout history have always revolted against their master. They never took to slavery kindly, there was always some revolt somewhere and I wanted to give honour to that.” For Wheatle, Cane Warriors also draws on his own personal connection to the rebellion and he recalls how he could be a direct descendent of the brave cane warriors who fought for the freedom of all enslaved people. “My mother grew up in a district where Tacky’s revolution started on the North Coast of Jamaica. My mother grew up adjacent to a plantation so I guess I kind of imagined could it well be that I might be one of the decedents of one of these cane warriors? This is the book I am most proud of because I am honouring my ancestors.” Paying homage to a hero of the kind who rarely feature in the school curriculum was of great importance to Wheatle, who believes teaching should be more inclusive of global narratives. He says, “I would have thought that somebody might have made a narrative about this earlier, but I

The importance of children seeing themselves in a book has also never gone amiss in Wheatle’s writing. “I can’t tell you how much it can mean to a family. Say you bring a child into the library at eight, nineyears-old and they’re looking around this library and they can’t see themselves in a book or a poem. If you really want to engage them with storytelling then half the battle is done when they can recognise themselves or find something they relate to within the story and so that is very important. “In the last few years, the publishing industry has addressed this but we do need more people of colour, not just as writers but in editing, marketing and publicity. We also need to look at the booksellers, the people who decide what books are going to be at the front of their store. We need to look at the airport shops. Airports are the most diverse places on earth yet, when I go to Heathrow or Gatwick, I see very little diversity in the shops there. Hopefully we can have a conversation about that because that is stalling a number of black writing

careers because there’s still this belief that black stories don’t sell and hopefully we can have that done with now because it’s been proven that black narratives do sell. I just hope the marketing and sales side of that catch up with it.” Wheatle’s novels tackle the issues that many young adults are facing today, addressing issues of knife crime, gangs and online bullying and providing guidelines for those in moral dilemmas. He says, “I try to put in moral guidelines in my writing so young people who might find themselves in a situation where my characters are maybe they can find their way a bit easier after they’ve read an Alex Wheatle book. “Young people have to contend with so many issues nowadays and I don’t think writers should shy away from that. Especially living in the city, there’s the threat of knife crime, gangs and so on. With the Internet, there’s all this bullying. Young people have to contend with a lot and we shouldn’t shy away from them, we should address these issues. It’s our obligation to address it because there’s no safer way to learn about these issues than in a book.” Literature unquestionably helps shape our moral compass from a young age and it is a responsibility that Wheatle has never taken lightly. “I’m very conscious of that so my themes have to be strong themes for me to take on that responsibility – I take pleasure in that I’m helping form a moral compass for someone out there.” Ultimately, as we step into a world of creativity at the Reading is Magic festival this month, we do so with a great deal more empathy, thanks to the works of Alex Wheatle and authors telling the vital stories of inspirational people that now live on forever through their words. n Cane Warriors, Andersen Press Ltd; £10.99; readingismagicfestival.com

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INTERVIEW

Rolling thunder

Historian, writer, presenter, broadcaster and Professor of Public History at the University of Manchester, David Olusoga seems to have it all, but he sees himself as a survivor rather than as a success story. Emma Clegg asks him about the racial inequality within the television industry that his recent powerful James MacTaggart Inaugural Lecture dissected

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lecture to “the decades of false dawns and unfulfilled industry pledges to tackle inequality”, but this year he has seen a real shift that gives him justified optimism. “I do have a sense of optimism about the future because I think this is a generational change. This is coming to a generation who see race differently. And who are willing to have the conversations with their parents and grandparents that generations weren’t willing to have before, and that’s the great hope. How complete this process is will depend on how much pressure is put on power, because power never yields without pressure. But I think this generation who feels very differently about these things is coming of age. And in 10 years time they will be running everything.”

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This is like rolling thunder – it’s moving from country to country and institution to institution and the TV industry is not alone

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here are many who have a voice within the TV and media industry, but not so many of those voices are black. And when one of those voices is selected to give the James MacTaggart Inaugural Lecture for the Edinburgh TV Festival, as David Olusoga was this year, that voice has a unique platform. This event, which brings together all parts of the television and digital world to debate the major issues facing the industry, is a gig that matters. In his lecture Olusoga explained his own experience as a black man working in television and how his treatment by the industry led to clinical depression. He said that marginalisation is leading to people of colour leaving their work in television and warned that the TV industry has to share power with a Black, Asian, and minority ethnic community or risk losing the entire next generation of viewers, and face obscurity. He describes preparing the lecture as one of the most difficult challenges of his life. “To deliberately talk about difficult periods of my life and to talk about mental health when I didn’t need to, when nobody knew about this, was to do something that was very exposing. So I feel very uncomfortable having done it, but I decided it was worth doing because it would have been dishonest to talk about those issues in the year of Black Lives Matter to my industry and to pretend that those issues had never affected my own journey.” Olusoga is unwilling to direct criticism at individuals in the TV industry, seeing the problem as systemic. “These are failings over 30 years, many decades, a period over which the industry could have properly addressed the issues of inclusivity and diversity. But many of those in television now have only been in those positions of power for a couple of years. So it’s not right to blame people in power now for the mistakes of the past. A new clarity was brought about by the landing of BLM and the protests in the UK and people in power in television have made commitments. And let’s just see if the people in power over the next couple of years see those followed through.” “This is the biggest issue facing the industry and – alongside the pandemic – the biggest issue facing the country. This is like rolling thunder – it’s moving from country to country and institution to institution and the TV industry is not alone. We also have to look at the world of art and creativity and heritage and historically those sectors have not done very well – it’s not a great record.” Olusoga makes powerful reference in his

Edward Colston’s statue, toppled unceremoniously from its plinth in Bristol, did so propelled by the energy of the global rise of the BLM movement, further to the death of George Floyd in Minnesota in May. Olusoga is not sorry to see the statue gone. “The number one reaction I’ve had from people who have written to me was that they couldn’t believe we had the statue of a 17thcentury slave trader up on display in the first place. They couldn’t believe that in the 21st century this was OK. I’m pleased that this became known when the statue was removed, however it should never have come to this. It should never have come to the statue being toppled in the way it was. It should have been put in a museum decades ago.” Pointing out that Colston’s slave trading activity – which was primarily focused on The Royal African Company in London – wasn’t in fact directly linked with the harbour in Bristol into which he was plunged, Olusoga still sees the poetic justice. “It’s incredibly poetic that a slave harbour from which 2,000 slave expeditions left was the temporary watery grave of one of the most prolific slave traders in British history.” I ask what he would like to see installed

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on the empty plinth. “I don’t see the point of putting another statue on the plinth. Heroic statuary is a defunct art form,” Olusoga maintains. “It is about individuals rather than artistic interventions. They are invisible to us because they are a defunct form of memorialisation. A statue says ‘this was a great man’. Do we really want to uncritically celebrate people who are mass murderers?” “People don’t care about statues until somebody talks about toppling them and suddenly they look them up on Google and get very angry about it. I always say if you care about statues and their history then you should name them. People can’t name the other statues in the centre of Bristol. It is a false rage about a defunct form of artistry.” Olusoga likes Banksy’s suggestion for a slavery memorial that would incorporate Edward Colston and the protesters who tore his statue down. Other ideas are proposed, including the People’s Platform, which would showcase on the plinth the diverse visions of today’s Bristolians, brought to life digitally and on rotation. Olusoga has recently been made patron of Bristol’s Festival of Ideas. “I’ve long been a supporter of the festival and someone who has gone to lots of talks for many years – it’s one of the things that makes Bristol such an exciting and interesting place to live. It is a remarkable thing. You can go to a venue in Bristol almost every week and see somebody who otherwise you’d have to search out on TV or on YouTube and you can see them talking about their books and their ideas and they’ve all been lured to Bristol to be part of this endless ongoing phenomenon.” Many of the events this year and next will be virtual ones, however, and I ask how effective the virtual experience of events and lectures has been. “It has been far more effective than I think anyone imagined in March. It is possible to use this technology in this way. It obviously doesn’t make up for the excitement of a live event but I still think we’re never going to go back to a time when we do events and we won’t be streaming them as well.” “I’ve virtually attended things that I wouldn’t have attended physically. Every week I listen to Intelligence Square debates and discussions and I probably would have gone to one of their events a year. So it doesn’t make up for it, but it is an incredible stop gap and I suspect that all events will be a combination of the two from now on. And, importantly, it is a lifeline which is helping events like the Bristol Festival of Ideas survive during this period.” Olusoga’s book Black and British: A Forgotten History, tells the story of the long

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INTERVIEW

relationship between the British Isles and the people of Africa and the Caribbean and he has just finished writing a children’s version of the book. I ask whether the history syllabus within schools is falling short on delivering a representational black history. Olusoga is at pains to admire the efforts of individual teachers: “I have met hundreds of teachers who are making incredible efforts to deliver to their very often diverse classrooms a history that makes sense of everyone’s stories. So any criticism I have of the curriculum is not a criticism of teachers.” “The problem is that history has always been political, always part of a curriculum where people have thought about the functions it could perform rather than just the importance of learning about the facts. It is wanting in teaching the imperial colonial aspects of British history. How can you make sense of anything about the Empire, how can you make sense of the Industrial Revolution without talking about the money that came from British slavery and the cotton that came from American

slavery? It doesn’t make any sense – it’s a critical omission that is short-changing a generation of young people.” A House Through Time – of which there have been three series, the latest in a house in Guinea Street, Bristol, with a fourth series in Leeds showing in 2021 – is Olusoga’s comfortable prime time slot on TV. It takes a house and uncovers its history, so it becomes a living, breathing entity where you feel the stories of those who lived there. How does he feel about the series and its success? As ever, he places credit where it’s due, “It is a brilliant series; it wasn’t my idea, it was a clever woman called Emma Willis.” “It has changed since it was first devised because I felt that it would only work if I cared about the people. I wanted to show that these people were real people, not just figures from the past or characters we made up, but these were things that happened in their life. And if you stand in the house where somebody lived and walk up using the banister that they held and touched the front door that they touched and read their letters

and the documents that affected their lives, often tragically, and if you cannot feel anything, then history isn’t your thing. So it’s not reasonable for me as a presenter to expect anybody to care about these people if I don’t.” “In the first series I found where some of the people had been buried and I went one night to the cemetery where their graves were and I thought about them and I left some flowers. It’s about remembering that these people are real. Being someone who is in a position to publicly talk about their lives, often about the tragedies in their lives, is an imposition that demands a huge amount of respect.” Respect is what’s needed and David Olusoga has it in spades. As a human being and as a spokesman for injustice and the critical issues of the day. n

David Olusoga’s James MacTaggart Lecture at the Edinburgh TV Festival is available on YouTube.

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ART | EXHIBITIONS

STATE OF THE ART This month, some of the city’s much-loved museums and art spaces are offering us the chance to journey through 1930s Hollywood, celebrate our NHS heroes and escape to Wiltshire’s private gardens. Find out what’s on in September...

FRIENDS OF THE GARDEN West Leaze, Ogbourne Road, Aldbourne, Wiltshire SN8 2LD Open: 11am – 6pm, Wednesday – Sunday Tel: 01672 540180 Web: friendsofthegarden.org.uk SCULPTURE IN A LANDSCAPE 1969–2020 Running from 3–27 September In 1969, against the backdrop of a modernist architectural home in Wiltshire, a major exhibition of sculpture took place. It was one of the first contemporary sculpture exhibitions held in a private garden in this country. Now, 51 years later, Friends of the Garden are set to feature work by over 30 of today’s sculptors from across England and Wales in the relatively unchanged private garden in Wiltshire. A small number of pieces from those who appeared at the exhibition in 1969 will also be present. Adult entry £7.50; under 18s free; tickets must be pre-booked online. Image: Dancers by Devon-based artist Penny Hardy

AMERICAN MUSEUM AND GARDENS Claverton Manor, Bath BA2 7BD Open: 10am–5pm, Tuesday–Sunday Tel: 01225 460503 Web: americanmuseum.org NIGHT AND DAY: 1930s FASHION AND PHOTOGRAPHS From July The American Museum & Gardens has launched one of its most glamourous exhibitions ‘Pure Hollywood’: yet. The Night and Day A floor-length exhibition was organised by the gown featured in Fashion and Textiles Museum in the exhibtion London and takes visitors on a journey through sumptuous city tableaux. Visitors can expect to see a range of glamorous eveningwear and floor-length gowns created in satins, velvets and crepes. As part of the opening, the museum will also host music featuring local jazz musicians, provide entertainment from The Natural Theatre Company and hand out American-style treats. As well as the museum’s special exhibition, the New American Garden, the Mount Vernon Garden, and the Garden Café (takeaway only) have also reopened for business. The museum’s main collection inside Claverton Manor will be opening in due course.

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WALLER&WOOD One Two Five Box Road, Bath BA1 7LR Tel: 07803 033629 / 07840 420784 Web: wallerandwood.co.uk ONLINE EXHIBITION Open now Waller&Wood’s new online exhibition features the work of Christina Romero Cross. Christina spent her early years living in a houseboat on the San Francisco Bay before settling in Bodmin, where she Sonoma I by Christina Romero Cross lives now. Her memory of her time spent on the water, as well as her experience of living on the moors, has influenced her work. With miles of views, she says, “the horizon is the prominent feature of the landscape and the light is more brooding and bruised but no less significant than the rippling sunshine of my childhood.” Waller&Wood’s gallery is no longer based in central Bath, but Carole Waller’s hand-painted and handmade clothing and Gary Wood’s statement pots can be viewed at One Two Five Box Road, by appointment.

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ART | EXHIBITIONS

ABBEY HOTEL BATH North Parade, Bath BA1 1LF Tel: 01225 461603 Web: abbeyhotelbath.co.uk RUH HEROES Until 1 November A new exhibition in The Abbey Hotel’s ArtBar celebrates the incredible work of the NHS staff at the Royal United Hospital. The exhibition is an opportunity to raise money for the RUH as well as a way of marking the remarkable work and sacrifice staff at the hospital have made for us on a daily basis. The exhibition includes work by many local artists including Royal photographer Joe Short; Bath’s ever-popular Peter Brown, also known as ‘Pete the Street’; architectural studies by David Ringsell; artist and printmaker James Nunn; local scenes by Jane Riley; and an iconic angel image by artist Rob Highton.

All work is for sale and the Abbey Hotel has agreed to donate 40 per cent of all sales – its total share of the proceeds – directly to the RUH’s Forever Friends Appeal with the remaining 60 per cent going to the artist. Rhyannon Boyd, head of fundraising for the Forever Friends Appeal comments: “We have all been through such tough times recently, so it is wonderful to see our local community getting back on their feet and working through these new ways of living. This art exhibition is such a thoughtful way of acknowledging the remarkable work of the RUH staff over the past months.”

Bridge of Shadows by David Ringsell

THE HOLBURNE MUSEUM Great Pulteney Street, Bath Tel: 01225 388 569 Web: holburne.org GRAYSON PERRY: THE PRE-THERAPY YEARS Until January 2021 One of the Holburne’s most eagerly anticipated shows of the year, this follows a successful public appeal to source Perry’s early ceramic pieces, made between 1982 and the mid-1990s. Here are a broad range of Perry’s early works, including pieces from the artist’s own collection and works not seen publicly before. For his legions of fans, The Pre-Therapy Years will bring a new perspective to the 2003 Turner Prize-winner’s influential and inspiring outlook. Image: Essex Plate by Grayson Perry

EMMA ROSE The Art Studio, Knight’s Barn, Wellow, Bath BA2 8QE Open: 9am–9pm, Monday–Sunday Tel: 07885 235915 Web: emmaroseartworks.com OPEN BY APPOINTMENT Emma is an award-winning contemporary artist, specialising in semi-abstract and impressionistic painting with an emphasis on colour and texture. Using Indian inks and acrylics she produces vibrant and arresting work. Her limited-edition giclée prints, mounted or framed, along with original paintings and cards are available to view and buy at The Art Studio every day, by appointment. Image: Sunken Treasure by Emma Rose

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INSIDE | ART

Persian playing cards

Art curator and historian Monserrat Pis Marcos from The Holburne Museum explains the fascinating story of how five hand-painted papier mâché playing cards, once used to play a popular Persian game, landed in the hands of the Holburne

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women to travel solo to the Middle East, and most of the objects that she gave to the Holburne were acquired in 1894 during the first of her three trips to Persia (presentday Iran). Miss Tanner stood out from other contemporary female travellers in that she journeyed on horseback and on her own, with the assistance of local guides and personal connections. She stayed with friends and acquaintances, in caravanserais (roadside inns) or in her own tent, and she explored Baghdad, Shiraz, Teheran and Isfahan. She mostly purchased contemporary crafts, though she was also involved in the acquisition of historic artefacts.

varied collection of textiles, metalwork, lacquer and ceramics to various institutions in the area. n

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Ellen Tanner was among the first British women to travel solo to the Middle East [and] she journeyed on horseback

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hese five cards belong to a set used to play a Persian game called AsNas (‫)سان سآ‬. The term roughly translates as ‘Ace-People’, which fittingly describes the suits that make a standard pack: the As (Ace), often represented by a Lion – in this case fighting against a Dragon; a Serbaz (Soldier); a Shah (King); a Bibi (Queen); and a Couli or Lakat (Dancer). The highest score is the As, followed by the Shah, the Bibi, the Serbaz and the Lakat. The game is played by four people, with each player receiving five cards, and the rules resemble very closely those of poker. As-Nas fell out of fashion in the second half of the 20th century. The cards are made of lacquered, handpainted papier mâché. Lacquer was a popular technique in Persia between the late 18th and the early 20th centuries; it provided a protective glaze that preserved the paint layer while offering a glossy finish. The King and the Queen of this set are seated on richly decorated chairs that highlight their status, while the Soldier and the Dancer are both standing up. The former carries a weapon and the latter a bottle and a glass, and she is wearing a short, flared skirt that was in vogue in the late 19th century. The pack was part of a major gift of 85 objects donated by Miss Ellen Tanner to the Holburne Museum between 1917 and 1932. Ellen Georgiana Tanner (1874–1937) was the eldest daughter of an affluent attorney-at-law from Bristol whose passing in 1887 endowed her with a fortune that allowed her to travel extensively. She was among the first British

Miss Tanner’s experiences and observations were recorded in By Road and River: Journal of Journeys in Persia and Mesopotamia, where she declared that “Never by any possibility could I experience greater or more delightful hospitality and kindness than I met with in Persia.” She eventually settled in Bath, donating her

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The Holburne Museum Great Pulteney Street, Bathwick, Bath BA2 4DB Open daily from 10am – 5pm Tel: 01225 388569; holburne.org

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Lawrences

nick cudworth gallery

AUCTIONEERS

REMARKABLE RESULTS WITH SUMMER AUCTIONS OVER 87% SOLD!

Larger than Life Oil on canvas-prints available

SEPTEMBER EXHIBITION 1 – 3O September

Lawrences recently held their first week of Fine Art sales since the easing of lockdown and the auctioneers were delighted to report great successes despite rigorous social distancing regulations.

5 London Street (top end of Walcot Street), Bath BA1 5BU tel 01225 445221 / 07968 047639 gallery@nickcudworth.com www.nickcudworth.com

“We have always loved to draw good crowds to our sales,” says the firm’s Managing Director, Helen Carless. “A throng of bidders in a saleroom creates a brisk atmosphere and sales go well as a result. Last week, we were careful to enforce the strict distancing procedures and we imposed close monitoring of numbers coming into the building. During the auctions, chairs were placed at least two metres apart, and we did not permit more than forty people in the room at any one time. Thankfully, our clients were very compliant and they understood fully the gravity of the situation.” With over 2000 lots on offer across three long days of auctioneering, some vendors might have been anxious that such limitations would suppress bidding but this was not the case. “On the contrary,” says Helen. “We welcomed absentee bids, telephone bidding and live online bidding through two specialist platforms that allowed people from all over the world to join in. In a great many cases, this resulted in an eager flurry of bids. So, despite the saleroom being less full than normal, we had some terrific results across all three days. The unsold rate was remarkably low: well over 85% of the lots on offer found buyers and, as so often happens, we had delighted vendors as well as delighted buyers. Buyers spent over £1.1 million, so it was a very pleasing outcome all round.”

David Ringsell

Art Prints

A contemporary take on classic Bath architecture A2 - £120, A3 - £90, A4 - £75

ey at the Abb Exhibition 13/12/20 hotel until

FREE VALUATIONS AVAILABLE: If you what to find out about the value of an item in your home, feel free to contact them and a specialist will guide you through their valuation process. Online | Phone | Email | Whatsapp

lawrences.co.uk T: 01460 73041 enquiries: enquiries@lawrences.co.uk The Linen Yard, South Street, Crewkerne, Somerset TA18 8AB

Affordable custom Giclée prints of original paintings Email: david@real-images.com • Call 01225 469127 Prints, originals & exhibitions

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SEPTEMBER 2020

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ARTS

f n s

The Heidelberg Madonna

Artist Nick Cudworth’s latest work – shown on our front cover this issue – has certainly been a labour of love. He shares here his artistic inspiration and the crucial aspects of the creative process that brought it to life

he initial idea for this major work, Reproduction, came from a visual flash as I passed by Meticulous Ink – the fine stationery and letterpress print shop – in Walcot Street early one evening in 2011. The proprietor Athena was leaning studiously over the old Heidelberg printing press and the light was concentrated in a downward beam creating this tableau. I retained this visual idea, which gradually gestated into forming the composition for this large oil painting. I began by photographing Athena in the position that I remembered and taking detailed pictures of the working innards of the press. This painting is about contrasts; the light flowing gently over the head of the girl, recalling the breathless quiet of a Georges de la Tour or a Renaissance Madonna. It represents the perfect equation of someone young (and female) operating old and industrial heavy machinery (male) to make something new – a reproduction of herself. The softness of the female figure is placed against the heavy steel and

brass in the foreground with its jagged highlights, which puts me in mind of Norman Rockwell’s Rose the Riveter and the warm paintings of Laura Knight. I have spent over three years (on and off) making this work, as the accuracy of the Heidelberg is important in fully realising the initial idea. Once all the under-painting had been completed (detailed to the very edge of the canvas), the next day’s work involved glazing with a large brush, swiftly working a blue black into the outer edges to concentrate the eye into the centre. The final glaze provides the achievement of the original idea – that first glance through the window. The very first idea is always the best one and I can often spend months chasing, and sometimes losing, it. Nick Cudworth Gallery, 5 London Street, Bath; nickcudworthgallery Meticulous Ink, 134 Walcot Street, Bath; meticulousink.com

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What gets me out of bed at 3am? DUNCAN CAMPBELL HAS BEEN DEALING IN ANTIQUE SILVER SINCE 1986

The Thrill of the Chase

s much as I enjoy chatting to customers in the shop and selling silver, I have discovered over the last few months that, for me, the thrill of the silver business is unquestionably the chase. Unusually, I have really missed setting off at daft o’clock in the morning to a scruffy antique sale with all the optimism of a lucky gambler. I don’t think of it as gambling (in some ways it is) because I flatter myself that my knowledge takes away (some of) the risk, perhaps panning for gold is a better analogy. I find I am driven to look at every stall at a fair and to view every single lot at an auction on the basis that the one I miss could be the ‘big one’. If I’m not at a particular fair or auction, hearing that it was disappointing for those that did attend is no consolation whatsoever because: ‘if I’d been there, I’d have found something’. I could cheerfully spend the rest my days looking for, and sometimes finding, interesting silver. Although I must make a profit with my adventures, my compulsion isn’t really about money. In fact, the reason I became a full time silver dealer is simply that my habit was absorbing all my money and so, to keep buying, I had to start selling. Separating the interesting from the ordinary is such a powerful motivation that it almost feels like a duty. My very best days of the year are Antiques Roadshow events where I have a queue of people bringing silver to me, all the deep joy of chance discovery without even having to get out of my chair. This year, by necessity, I will have no queue at Roadshows and few opportunities to set off to antiques fairs and I guess I am just going to have to control my acquisitive urges for the time being. In truth, mine is a very minor complaint when compared to most retailers, particularly in Bath where tourists account for such a large part of the summer economy. My lovely old silver is even more antique than before we shut up shop in March and it won’t spoil before we get back to business as usual. Having said that, if any readers have a mind to support their local retailers, I’d be especially delighted to see anyone who might like to sell me some silver, in fact, it would make my day. n beaunashbath.com; 01225 334234

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FOOD | & | DRINK

Food, glorious local food Shopping for food within your own neighbourhood – if you’ve not been paying attention – is what has kept many of us sane and well fed over the last few rather odd months. And after some initial adjustments, how much more rewarding it’s been, says Melissa Blease, as she talks to some big supporters of the shop local and support the community food movement in Bath

an intrinsic part of the new normal, a staunch brigade of local shoppers and a flurry of local initiatives are backing, supporting and promoting Bath’s local neighbourhood businesses.

lockdown,” says Tracey. “Obviously, shopping has taken a little a bit longer to do what with social distancing and everything and the traders are understandably more stressed than usual, and traffic control measures recently brought in by the council made a big impact – there was considerable sympathy for the difficulties the businesses in Larkhall experienced when parking was mostly suspended in the village, and the petition against the council’s directives got 1,000 signatures very quickly. “But even while coping with all that,” Tracey continues, “the business community has been really fantastic – I’m so impressed by their support for the locality, and especially their support of those who are shielding: running next-day deliveries when supermarkets had waiting lists of weeks on end, and improvising their offerings.” Can we get some name checks, please? “Peter from Larkhall Butchers has worked tirelessly as the driving force behind the rejuvenated Larkhall Traders Association, Luke from the Larkhall Farmshop has stepped into his dad Ger’s shoes to run both the shop and all the fruit and veg deliveries, and Andy at the deli and Christophe and Brigitte at Ma Cuisine have worked around the constraints with aplomb. “I have to include an honourable mention here for Ma Cuisine’s extremely popular ‘steak-out’ nights and, now the pubs have reopened, Malcolm at The Larkhall Inn and Chris at The Rose and Crown have been much more scrupulous about following government guidance on pubs than some town venues I could mention. Overall, the Larkhall traders are all worth their weight in gold. I’d say everyone is very appreciative of the efforts the traders are going to, and I’ve seen the community work together, whether it’s to support those in need or to support the traders.” See also Larkhill Delivered: larkhalldelivered.co.uk

LARKHALL Tracey Hill, a professor at Bath Spa University has lived in Larkhall – home to Larkhall Butchers, Larkhill Deli, Ma Cuisine, Goodies Delicatessen, Larkhall Farm Shop and many more independent shops, pubs, takeaways and services – for 26 years. “I’ve always been a massive supporter of our local independent businesses so my shopping habits didn’t change during

BOUNCE BACK BATH AND MOORLAND ROAD Launched at the start of June by the team at the Walcot Street based marketing and printing franchise Minuteman Press, Bounce Back Bath and North East Somerset swiftly became an invaluable platform for local businesses to share and communicate updated opening hours and special offers with an overall aim of co-support within the

Gerald Rich at his farmshop in Larkhal Photography by TBM

ere it not for our local, independent food, drink and grocery businesses, the locked-down life that we’re only just starting to free ourselves from would have been far grimmer. As supermarket home delivery slots became more difficult to secure than tickets for a free Rolling Stones/Kate Bush doubleheader, and toilet roll stockpilers dominated the headlines, entrepreneurial spirit, perseverance and determination came to the fore on our very own doorsteps. And an undeniable fact that many of us had known for a very long time became more significant than ever before: local won’t let you down. As a whole new modus operandi becomes 38 TheBATHMagazine

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FOOD | & | DRINK

Adrian Campbell-Howard, Society Café, Kingsmead Square Photography by Derryn Vranch

business community. From the very start of the campaign, Covid-19 awareness and prevention posters were supplied free of charge to all businesses in Bath, and a free local advertising forum swiftly became a vital directory of services that represented a coalition of support, solidarity and promotion. “Bounce Back Bath has been really positive for everybody involved,” says Dave Dixon, Minuteman Press marketing director and active supporter of the shop local ethos. “We basically had two choices regarding how to deal with Covid-19 and the impact on local businesses: sit back and do nothing, or... bounce back! The effects for the businesses we’ve listed has been quite remarkable, and really, really positive; the campaign breeds success.” Meanwhile, away from his city centre life, Dave has much to say in support of his own shop local ‘territory’. “You can live off shopping in Moorland Road!” he says. “When Woolworths closed back in 2009 and Sainsbury’s moved in, lots of people thought it was the beginning of the end for the area. But they were proved wrong; there’s every type of shopping in the mix now, and a really good balance: Banable’s Butchers, Super Stokes Greengrocers, Francis DIY, the proper chemist, Panahar curry house, Velo Lounge ... you can even get your nails done at Planet Beauty! I think that over lockdown people have enjoyed rediscovering ‘new’ old places, and ‘new’ old ways to shop. Hopefully those habits will stay with us long after the current situation comes to an end.” bouncebackuk.minuteman.com

KINGSMEAD SQUARE Businesses in and around Bath’s beautiful, historic Kingsmead Square have good reason to feel cautiously optimistic about postlockdown life. The square is now pedestrianised between 10am–6pm every day to allow additional space for social distancing measures and increase outdoor seating areas for the eclectic range of independent restaurants and cafés in the area, including Society Café, The Kingsmead Kitchen, Mission Burrito and Yum Yum Thai. The fruit and veg stall at the epicentre of proceedings (which remained opened throughout lockdown) is thriving, and flower displays are further upping the bloomin’ lovely vibe. “Kingsmead Square shows what can be done when businesses come together and work for the benefit of all,” says Kingsmead ward councillor Andy Furse, who firmly believes that the square is setting a strong example to the rest of the city as it rises to the various challenges presented by Covid-19. “There’s a great sense of camaraderie in the area as businesses, independent retailers, restaurants and cafés strive to stimulate recovery. Kingsmead Square is open and ready for business!” THE I LOVE LOCAL CAMPAIGN Devised by BANES Council in partnership with Visit Bath, Bath BID and Invest in Bath, the I Love Local campaign aims to support local traders, reinforce public health messaging, champion local businesses and encourage people to shop locally. The campaign started in Widcombe in August, and areas including Larkhall, Bear Flat, Chelsea Road and Milsom Street are all to be included in swift succession. Flags and banners will fly high across each #ilovelocal location, and items including facemasks and tote bags bearing the specific area’s branding will be made readily available. “Everyone has a story of how their local shops have helped them during lockdown and we want to do everything we can to help our local centres reopen safely,” said council leader Dine Romero, at the campaign’s launch. “There are so many great retailers and independent businesses on each of our local high streets, from butchers to greengrocers, ironmongers to coffee shops, and we’re here to support and champion them, fostering community spirit and pride in our high streets for residents and businesses alike as we collectively recover from the impact of lockdown.” The I Love Local campaign is funded by the European Regional Development Fund through the Reopening the High Streets Safely Fund. n ilovelocal.info

LOCAL LOVELINESS: DID YOU KNOW THAT.... • Twerton-based bakery Bakers of Bath was founded in 1935, earning it the title of Bath’s longest-established craft bakery. bakersofbath.com • Bear Flat’s Good Bear Café stocks a range of Larkhall superchef Christophe ‘Ma Cuisine’ Lacroix frozen ready meals alongside a lively range of locally sourced and produced larder/specialist products. thegoodbear.co.uk • Avellinos Italian Deli stocks an abundance of pasta, pestos, jams, oils, Italian sausages, ’00’ flour by the scoop, incredible Cannoli and much, much more, making it a little oasis of Italian sunshine on the Cleveland Place/London Road corner. • Alongside fresh, seasonal fruit and vegetables in abundance, Super Stokes (Moorland Road) stocks an amazing range of fresh herbs, exotic spices, beans, pulses, fresh juices, vegan dairy alternatives and amazing freshly baked bread, including the best ciabatta outside of Verona. • Bartlett & Sons Butchers (Green Street) was established way back in 1931, but the shop’s history goes back even further than that. The building is part of a row of shops and former houses that were recorded by John Wood in his 1749 Essay towards a Description of Bath, a document that outlined his elaborate, grandiose plans to reinvent the city – and adjacent to the former bakery where English physician and philanthropist Dr William Oliver’s Bath Oliver biscuits were first baked and sold circa 1760. The best Lardy cakes ever! Bakers of Bath, Twerton

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FOOD & DRINK

The fragrant veggie moussaka was a hit

The virtuous-looking field green risotto

Following the science

We’re fans of Field Doctor, the smart new food service offering dietician and chef-created meals delivered directly to your door. Words by Alysha Chase

ristol and Bath’s new purveyor of ‘nutritionally supercharged’ ready meals, field doctor. (Field Doctor) had this closet chemistry nerd at “hello” – with the cute little take on the periodic table on its planet-friendly packaging. It assured me my veggie moussaka would make for a working lunch packed with Fi (fibre) and leave me better off in the Pr (protein) and K (potassium) departments. Not only upping my vitamin stores (A, B and C) via three of my five-a-day quota, it was bringing folic acid and its feel-good friend selenium to the party – the latter an immune-boosting antioxidant that, like vitamin D, we just don’t get enough of in this country as our soils aren’t too rich in it. The Field Doc gang had smuggled the lesser-known nutrient in via Brazil nuts which are a great source of the stuff – and actually, now’s a really good time to mention that this chef and dietician-led west country team are nuts about nuts, so if you’re not (or worse, they’re your health kryptonite), then these are not the ready meals for you. But it was the beefy Brazils I was to partly to thank for the depth of flavour from the fragrant aubergine, courgette, British puy lentil, yellow pea, red pepper, white bean béchamel and pecorino cheese Greek-inspired creation – although the labour-intensive cooking methods employed make a real difference too. Cooking down the veg in extra virgin olive oil, soffritto-style, to concentrate the taste, and focusing on umami flavours, also help keep the salt levels down. It’s the famously robust Mediterranean diet that food-loving entrepreneur Martin Dewey and dietician Sasha Watkins – the company’s co-founders – built their range around with the Michelinstar experience of head chef and food educator Matt Williamson. Wholegrains and pulses are added to all meals, which are largely plant based, cooked in small batches and flash frozen to lock in their freshness. When meat does feature, it’s organic. We also tried the field green risotto comprising British naked barley with peas, broad beans, asparagus, courgette, kale, pecorino and 40 TheBATHMagazine

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another choice nut, chopped almond, and it was equally moreish, with none of the clagginess that risotto sometimes has (at least, when made by my hand) and a red pepper and chickpea curry with green beans, broccoli, cashews with a very light and fluffy turmeric brown basmati and lentil rice mix. While more importance is placed on substance, and we’re told the dishes are “not designed for Insta”, each looks noticeably high-quality and pretty appealing even in their frozen state, and with the flavour profiles to back them up once out of the oven, you feel confident that you’ve genuinely given your body a boost, with zero effort. It’s a satisfying fix when you’re time-poor, up against the clock with a work deadline. Ordering on the website, you can whittle down what’s best for you using your dietary requirements or sorting by health claim – meals specifically designed to benefit the muscles, skin, bones, brain, eyes, heart or gut; meals that are better for energy or immunity. We’re just witnessing the germination of Field Doctor, but the aim is to nurture a regenerative relationship with nature – hence the brand name – and support the move away from intensive farming practices and modern food manufacturing towards sustainable farming, biodiversity and soil restoration, to look after both human health and that of the planet. That’s something we can definitely get behind. ■

• Delivered direct to your door, single meals priced at £6.75 (£9.95 for two), minimum order £25. Use code fdtbm10 for £10 off your order; fielddoctor.co.uk

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DELICIOUS | ROUND-UP

Delicious

bite-sized news LUCKNAM’S COOKING AGAIN

GOOD FUSION FOR HILTON The newly refurbished DoubleTree by Hilton Bath officially opens its doors on 1 October, complete with a swanky bar and restaurant area and a more casual café area for guests and non-guests to grab a speciality tea or coffee and a homemade cake or two to go. Head chef Simon Stevens is sure to excite palates across Bath. His passion for fusion cuisine emerges in every dish, from tandoori chicken to steamed buns and ramen. His cuisine will also feature in a series of supper clubs and seasonal taster evenings this autumn. Located on Walcot Street in the heart of the city centre, the hotel boasts unparalleled riverside views. The hotel’s Secret Garden is a unique orangerie overlooking the River Avon, complete with living wall and intimate outdoor seating area, the perfect spot to experience two of Bath’s favourite pastimes – taking in the view and drinking tea. The Secret Garden offers guests the choice of a sweet or savoury afternoon tea from £25.50 per person and includes a selection of either sandwiches, savoury amuse-bouches or sweet treats. DoubleTree by Hilton Bath, Walcot Street, Bath BA1 5BJ Tel: 01225 463411; dtbath.doubletreebyhilton.com

FROM ACORN TO OAK Acorn in North Parade Passage have taken the time over lockdown to craft something different, something kind, something they think the world needs. They want their restaurant OAK – previously known as Acorn – to be one that puts the soil first, that refuses to comprimise and understands that it is part of a bigger picture. They will make good food first, tasty, nutritious and full bodied. They want OAK to be a place that forms memories, where you have raucous good times with friends, whisper quietly in the snug or idly enjoy lunch while crowds saunter past the window. The restaurant will use food and ingredients that haven’t been messed around with and their wine and drinks will all be low intervention, grown naturally without chemicals and fermented without interference. There are plans for Acorn, including supper club and cookery school dates, to be revealed soon.

Following a successful reopening over the summer, Lucknam Park once again has a culinary offering for non hotel residents, available from 1 September. With enhanced safety measures in place, including socially distanced seating, the hotel can confidently welcome visitors to enjoy their dining experiences. For a special treat, fine Michelin Star dining will be on offer at Restaurant Hywel Jones for evening dinners from Thursday to Saturday – this is the pinnacle of culinary excellence with an impressive wine list including wines by the glass, Champagnes and aperitifs. For a more informal dining experience, guests will be welcomed at The Brasserie – stylish, contemporary and perfect for al fresco dining during the warmer months, it has something to suit all palates. New offerings include the Luxury Picnic Hamper experience where visitors have a hamper set up in the grounds. Also recently launched is the selection of BBQ Hampers where a BBQ is set up in a secluded area and the hamper will be delivered to guests – picnics are served with salads, fresh bread, homemade relishes, nibbles, summer fruit trifles and homemade elderflower cordial punch. Lucknam Park Hotel & Spa, Thickwood, Chippenham SN14 8AZ Tel: 01225 742777; lucknampark.co.uk

BOUVARDIA AT BATHEN HOUSE

Oak Restaurant, 2 North Parade Passage, Bath BA1 1NX Tel: 01225 446059; oakrestaurant.co.uk Try out a true hidden gem; the all-new Bouvardia restaurant within the Bathen House Hotel. A relaxing and luxurious atmosphere surrounds a dining experience crafted using the best of fresh locally sourced ingredients. Expect friendly and welcoming service, a range of delicious finely prepared gourmet dishes, and an elegant dining space worthy of every special occasion. Open during evenings only, advance booking is strongly recommended, vegetarian and vegan options available. Bouvardia is located on the perimeter of the city centre in the Newbridge area and is surrounded by free unrestricted street-side parking. n Bouvardia, Bathen House Hotel, 88 Newbridge Hill, Bath BA2 8PH Tel: 01225 805549; bathenhouse.co.uk/dining 42 TheBATHMagazine

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CITY | NEWS

CITYNEWS TOP LAWYERS Lawyers from Bath firm Stone King have been recognised by the prestigious Chambers High Net Worth Guide. The independent journal researches lawyers across the UK through client interviews and by examining work quality, and has ranked five partners in the firm’s Private Wealth Law Team. It praised the client-focused work of Alison Allen, Dan Harris, Andrew Mortimer, David Whitworth and Paul Sutton. The guide spoke to a client who said: "I cannot find an occasion where I have been anything less than 100% happy with the service I got.” “Our clients are at the heart of what we do and we strive to do our very best for them,” said Alison, who is Stone King’s Chairman and Head of its Private Client Sector. We are therefore delighted that our clients feel the same and have helped us gain these excellent rankings.” stoneking.co.uk

VISIT ENGLAND AWARDS The Roman Baths has triumphed at the VisitEngland Awards, winning a Silver for Large Visitor Attraction of the Year and Silver in the International Tourism category. It was also the only finalist to win two awards at the ceremony, which was held as a virtual event. Finalists were put forward to the national competition from local award schemes in 2019 and early 2020, and industry experts then selected Gold, Silver and Bronze national winners for each category. The Herschel Museum of Astronomy, also won a bronze award for Small Visitor Attraction of the Year. The VisitEngland Awards champion the very best of the country’s tourism industry, celebrating quality, innovation and best practice; romanbaths.co.uk; herschelmuseum.org.uk

CORONAVIRUS RESPONSE FUND Since they issued their urgent charity appeal in March and started grant making days later, Quartet Community Foundation has now awarded over £1 million to more than 200 projects across the west of England. The grants are helping voluntary groups and charities adapt and survive Covid19, while continuing to offer vital Bath Ruby services to those in need. Foundation’s Hundreds of philanthropists, local donors, charitable trusts, the Summer National Emergencies Trust (NET) Break Out and the media joined the appeal to ensure money is available to support the vital services needing help throughout this crisis. The 40 charitable groups in BANES who’ve now benefited from over £177,000 in grant funding include Age UK, Julian House, Young Carers Development Trust, Bath Rugby Foundation, and Keynsham Food bank. Over a fifth of this £1million is helping feed vulnerable people. quartetcf.org.uk 44 TheBATHMagazine

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ABBEY LOTTERY SUPPORT Bath Abbey has received £155,800 from The National Lottery Heritage Fund to support its recovery from the impact of its closure of all places of worship for over three months. Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the abbey was closed for 15 weeks, during which time close to 150,000 people would have visited. It has been unable to hold any events or large-scale services, including during Holy Week and Easter, in normal times one of the busiest times of year. Despite being open for a month now, the number of worshippers and visitors have had to be restricted and are expected to be greatly reduced for the rest of the year and beyond. The abbey is also pleased to have received a Tripadvisor Traveller's Award, putting the site in the top 10 per cent of attractions worldwide based on Tripadvisor reviews. bathabbey.org

TWO WHEELS NOT FOUR Getting around Bath and North East Somerset on foot or by bike will be made easier under proposals put forward by the council and the West of England Combined Authority (WECA) for additional funding. Ten new ambitious schemes to provide better walking and cycling routes and ease the pressure on public transport as well as helping improve people’s health have been identified by Bath & North East Somerset Council. The proposals could see a new cycle route along Upper Bristol Road, a cycle route which could also cater for e-scooters, if approved for use in the region, along North Road to the university, low traffic routes at Entry Hill and improvements to the off-road cycle path from Bath Spa University to the city. The council and WECA have been asked by the Department for Transport to put schemes forward for it to consider funding under its Emergency Active Travel Fund to support more walking and cycling as part of the response to Covid-19. The new campaign comes as the number of people cycling and walking reached record levels during lockdown and new cycling and walking measures have been put in place to build confidence and enable residents to cycle and walk more easily. westofengland-ca.gov.uk

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ocl A C C O U N TA N C Y

141 Englishcombe Lane, Bath BA2 2EL Tel: 01225 445507

www.oclaccountancy.com

How to deal with an estate as an executor during the coronavirus pandemic

SEISS checks are coming - be ready! If you claimed a Self-Employment Income Support Scheme (SEISS) grant be aware that HMRC will be checking claims in future and that you should have records to support your claim. HMRC published more information about record keeping for the scheme in late June and there are two components the claim, and how coronavirus affected your business. As expected, HMRC said that you should keep a copy of records in line with normal self-employment record keeping, including how much you claimed under SEISS and the claim reference number (and this should be kept for at least five years after the 31st January tax return deadline or, if later, four years after you send your tax return). The SEISS grant is business income & taxable, so keep a copy of the calculation. The second element of the requirements is not so easy, as HMRC advise you must keep evidence of how your business was adversely affected by coronavirus. Originally it appeared that making a claim and confirming that your business was “adversely affected” by coronavirus was sufficient, but now it appears you must have records evidencing the nature of the adverse effects to your business. HMRC suggest that evidence could include your accounts showing a reduction in turnover, coronavirus-related business loans you have received, dates you were closed because of lockdown, and dates you / staff couldn’t work because of coronavirus symptoms, shielding or caring responsibilities. Best advice has to be to keep a more detailed record of the negative impacts. Think about historic business patterns and record the difference; point to jobs you expected to be working on, or customers you expected to have; show cancellations and delays; where you have regular clients, show what you would usually be doing and invoicing but haven’t because of the pandemic. The more detail you can supply (dates, names, addresses, usual charge-out rates etc) the more credible you will be.

For tax saving tips contact us – call Marie Sheldrake, Tom Hulett or Mike Wilcox on 01225 445507

The continuing challenge and increased financial hardship resulting from the pandemic have increased the pressure on executors. Chartered Legal Executive, Kat King sets out what is required of executors to avoid claims. Act promptly Social distancing restrictions brought about by the pandemic are making it more challenging for executors to carry out their duties. Many institutions including HM Revenue & Customs and the Probate Registry are experiencing significant delays. As an executor, you are legally obliged to meet any deadlines, regardless of any delays caused by these financial institutions. Use experts to maximise the value of the estate One of the main duties of an executor is to maximise its worth for beneficiaries. This may be more challenging as some investments could have fallen in value during lockdown. Seeking professional advice from a financial advisor is advisable to ensure you are minimising any losses and to help keep accounts up to date. Take action to protect the estate Make sure any property forming part of the estate is secure, any valuables are removed from the unoccupied buildings and all insurers are notified the property is empty. Stay in regular contact with beneficiaries of the estate Under ‘usual’ circumstances a beneficiary may be feeling emotional after the loss of a loved one. Add to this the economic uncertainty created by the pandemic and beneficiaries may well be more worried about the value of any property or investments in the estate. Staying in regular contact with beneficiaries can help to alleviate any fears. Can I be sued? Yes, executors can be sued by beneficiaries if they suffered a loss as a result of your actions. Additionally, executors may be sued or penalties may be imposed by creditors if debts were not repaid and by HM Revenue & Customs if you did not pay the correct taxes. Acting as an executor is not an easy task and therefore, should not be taken on lightly. Speak to a member of our Estate Administration Team for support on 01225 750000 or email kat.king@mogersdrewett.com.

Call Marie Sheldrake, Tom Hulett or Mike Wilcox on 01225 445507 to arrange a no-obligation meeting

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PORTRAIT: Neill Menneer at Spirit Photographic. Visit: capturethespirit.co.uk, tel: 01225 483151

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Bath @ work

The series of photographic portraits by Neill Menneer, which has run in the magazine for the last nine years, has shown Bath people at work. As the series comes to a close, we thank Neill for his time and for the insightful images and the personality he has brought to our pages.View a gallery of Bath@work subjects at: thebathmag.co.uk

A message from

Neill Menneer

or the last nine years I have contributed one portrait per month to The Bath Magazine. Sadly I’ve now decided to stop and the 100th portrait of Christophe Lacroix in the April issue was my last. It has been an absolute joy and honour to photograph so many wonderful people. How did this project begin? Well …I was cycling past Sainsbury’s in 2011 and saw Tony Brown sitting carving a headstone in his workshop near Midland Bridge. An idea was spontaneously born, but like most solid ideas it had a history and a many layered bedrock. I had been a portrait photographer in London from 1980–87 and worked for The Sunday Telegraph in particular, photographing celebrities. Rex Harrison, Alan Parker, Lord Brockett, Monty Don, Tommy Steel and Victor Lansdown had all been in front of my lens! Although Jo and I had set up Spirit Photographic in 2007 to photograph families, these commercial shots for clients were often not individual portraits as such. I wanted to produce a body of work that was of value to readers of The Bath Magazine and was also historically interesting and technically challenging. I therefore proposed the idea to Georgette McCready to contribute a monthly portrait called Bath@Work. She happily agreed and was most encouraging throughout the years she was editor. It was simplicity itself as a concept, I would find and produce one working individual per month and ask the sitter to either contribute the words or be interviewed by me. Over the last nine years I have met, photographed and got to know 100 amazing individuals. They ranged from professionals to artists, from suited home workers to entrepreneurs and tradespeople. I like people. I find what they do and how they go about their lives endlessly fascinating. Photography like journalism gives you an insight and entré into the nuts and bolts of a city. I had spent many years photographing architecture for the book Bath and now I was finding out how it ticked and functioned. Every job was different, from the people to the issues and sometimes with exciting technical challenges! I found sole traders or small independent business people the easiest to arrange as they were approachable, could make their own decisions and the project would be mutually beneficial. Mostly I suspect they were just being kind and supportive to the magazine or even me. I tried to involve those who worked in ‘organisations’ or bigger businesses but the red tape often got in the way. I never got to photograph a postal worker or street cleaner for instance. The council who I had to approach sometimes were, I regret to say, very unhelpful. However I have many, many memories of so many kind people that it doesn’t matter. It would be difficult to thank everybody but I should make an exception of Peter Rollins who had to pose twice (the second time in the sauna!) because I wasn’t happy with the first session (lesson number 256; always be prepared to go back if you’re not happy). One day I will have an exhibition of these portraits so maybe you will see them all together (the images opposite are only a small selection) or come and hear some interesting ‘tales of the unexpected’. Presently I am writing a history of portrait photography, so watch out for that. I am glad if you have liked this series; it was always heartening to hear when people had seen one (or two!). It has been a pleasant and fruitful relationship for all concerned and a special thank you to all my sitters. I hope that Bath will be back @ work normally very soon. n

QUESTIONS CLIENTS ASK BEFORE THEY BUY Clients ask 3 questions before they decide to buy your services: “Do I like and trust you?” “Do you understand me?” “Can you help me?” Have you answered those in your marketing? Marketing your own service is more than just creating a sexy slogan or a cool website. It’s about showing clients that you care and can help them. Let’s put ourselves in their shoes. What makes them like and trust you? Is it your list of achievements and awards? Well, maybe in part. But in my experience, it doesn’t start with achievements. It starts with intention. People can feel your intention. Do you care more about getting the sale for yourself, or do you really care about solving their problems? “People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care” may be cliché, but it’s true. So what problem are you passionate to solve? Why? Next, how do you show that you understand your clients? Many of you are selling a solution because something has happened in your life that makes you passionate about helping others with the same challenge. How do you share stories about yourself that makes them feel like you understand what they’re going through? And finally, how do you show that you can help them? Many of you just talk about your products, and don’t start by talking about your client’s challenges. And this is why you sound salesy. When you start with the issue that your target market is experiencing and then discuss your service as a solution to it, you become a problem solver. Remember the 3 questions clients ask before they choose a service provider: “Do I like and trust you?” “Do you understand me?” and “Can you help me?” Make sure your marketing shows them the answers to these questions. I hope this has given you some insight. Please book a call if you want an objective set of eyes. I help dedicated selfemployed professionals create a comprehensive marketing approach in only 3 sessions, so they can reach their dream life without wasting time and money. Find out more about The Brave Zone at www.thebravezone.com or book an Initial Discovery Session to get fresh perspectives for your business. Email her at cynthia@thebravezone.com

PORTRAIT: Neill Menneer at Spirit Photographic; capturethespirit.co.uk, divinedivas.co.uk; 01225 483151 THEBATHMAG.CO.UK

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CITY | PERSPECTIVES

Transforming animal lives

The new chief executive of Bath Cats and Dogs Home (BCDH) Rachel Jones talks about the challenges of lockdown and how home visits to prospective owners have been made virtual to keep everyone safe

’m passionate about our animal welfare work, rescuing, rehabilitating and rehoming those animals most in need, and as my colleagues will agree, working with our animals isn’t just a job, it’s a way of life. Despite being new to this role I’ve been with the organisation for over nine years, previously as head of fundraising and communications and over that time I’ve welcomed many rescue animals, through fostering or adoption, into my life. As for all of us, it has been a difficult year. When I started in my new role, I expected challenges, but a worldwide pandemic was not something I had considered, and my thoughts continue to go out to all those personally affected. Like many of my charity peers, I’ve felt a huge responsibility to make sure BCDH comes through intact so we can continue to save animals that have been abandoned, cruelly treated or neglected. It is hard to imagine what would happen to them if we weren’t here. Overwhelmingly, thanks to the amazing support of our partners, our local community and our brilliant team of staff and volunteers we have so far succeeded, and I extend huge thanks to everyone that has been a part of that, but that’s not to say it hasn’t been tough. Many of the activities we usually rely on to raise funds for the home stopped overnight. Our charity shops ceased trading and our events and community fundraising activities were cancelled. The team had to adapt quickly to find other ways to raise funds for the home, and many new and creative virtual ideas were put into action. During the height of the pandemic and while lockdown measures were in place, we had to close the home. We could only carry out urgent veterinary treatments and all adoptions were on hold. Before lockdown we had made sure as many of our animals as possible had made it to their lovely new homes, but we were still caring for close to 100 animals on site. With no animals being adopted, we were worried. Urgent welfare cases arrive with us all the time, and there was now a chance we might run out of space. Thankfully, this never happened and we always managed to find room. While our office-based teams were getting used to the ‘new normal’ of working from home, our animal care teams covering welfare, veterinary and behaviour continued working on site.

bathcatsanddogshome.org.uk

18-month old St Bernard Odin has recently been adopted, shown here with his carer Rhiannon Player

Hamish is four and is waiting for a forever home

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Classed as key workers, they continued to care for our cats and dogs throughout lockdown, with less support than normal as our dedicated volunteers couldn’t come in. Those of us who are more desk-based made the transition to working from home and many of us are still here. Office accommodation is in short supply at the home and with social distancing in place it’s impossible for the majority of us to return. This will be one of the challenges I will be looking to solve over the coming months. May finally brought good news when we were able to start adoptions again, although very differently. (Rescue centres had to follow guidance issued by DEFRA). We could not have visitors on site but our rehomers met all of our adopters and carried out home visits virtually. Once a match was finalised our dedicated team then set out to deliver the rescue pet, a very different way of working but it was brilliant to see our cats and dogs heading to their new homes. More good news followed in June when, by appointment only, adopters could start to collect their new rescue pets from us in person. This followed strict social distancing measures but this felt a bit more like normal times. This is such a delightful part of the job, when we see the result of all our hard work and watch our animals heading off to their forever homes. The site has felt incredibly quiet. We are still closed except by appointment but there are some positives. The animals have really benefitted from a quiet, stress-free site and moving forwards, we are committed to having a closed site at least once a week. On these quiet days you will either find the cats and dogs we are caring for snoozing or spending extra time with their carers – maybe having playtime in one of our paddocks or exploring the cat enrichment garden. This is a lovely and rewarding sight. As a charity we are always ambitious, wanting to do more for animal welfare in our area, but this year we had to put key projects on hold while there is a risk to our ability to fundraise. Our plans included an all-weather training barn for our dogs and further outreach projects in our local communities to support pet owners, especially those who are vulnerable. It has been hard to see these projects postponed, but I’m confident in our future. The passion and enthusiasm of our staff, volunteers and local community for our animal welfare work stands us in good stead, and I know we will continue to transform animals’ lives for as long as we are needed. ■

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Bambi is a six-week old kitten who has been found a new home

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SEPTEMBER 2020

ThEBATHMagazinE 49

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EDUCATION

Poetry please?

Alyson Hallet Alyson is a prize-winning poet with a PhD in poetry whose books of poems include The Stone Library, 365 and Towards Intimacy. Alyson explores poetry in public art and has had a poem carved into a pavement on Milsom Street, Bath.

Poetry was the one place where I felt free as a child. Here was a way that I could live in language, and build a space where I belonged. From skipping rhymes, to word play, to puns, to the adventure of learning words and the voyages I made when I put those words together. The universe of poetry said, ‘Come in, play, find whatever way you can of articulating the world around you and the world inside of you’. It was a way of celebrating being alive. Poems are timeless things. They exist out of time and they resonate again and again when we read them. They allow us to be time-travellers. They also help us to understand that we stand on the shoulders of the people who have gone before us,

“Inspiration comes from the materiality of language – the way it can leap and bend, roar and whisper...”

hings have felt chaotic recently, not least in education. But it’s not just GCSE and A Level pupils who were due to take exams this summer whose algorithmically calculated results have formed part of a furious national debate about fairness and inequality, eventually leading to the decision to use teachers’ original predicted grades. The extended period of lockdown home schooling has affected all pupils in terms of teaching time, and concerns for pupils about to enter their final GCSE year has also raised the idea of delaying next year’s exams to give schools more time to prepare students. The recent announcement that GCSE students in England will be able to drop subject areas in English literature is another reactive measure that will affect students. Poetry – along with the 19th century novel and post-1914 British fiction and drama – is one of the topics that will become optional, enabling schools to focus on a smaller number of texts. We spoke to five local poets about their own experience of poetry, what value they believe it brings to children, how it can be best brought to life for them, and how they felt about their career defining form of English literature becoming less than essential in the classroom. 50 TheBATHMagazine

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and that those who come after will stand on our shoulders. There must always be a diverse poetry offering in schools. Teachers work very hard to teach poetry and the syllabus includes a wide variety of poems. Roger Robinson calls poems ‘empathy machines’. Why would the government not want young people to develop empathy? Making poetry optional says more about the people who made the decision. Maths is difficult. Will that be the next thing to be removed from the syllabus? Poetry is an opportunity to explore language and to express the things we feel and think. Audre Lorde wrote about the need for expression in her essay Poetry is not a Luxury. If we do not express what we think and feel we become less human, we store everything up and then one day we explode. Inspiration comes from the beating of the human heart. From the feelings that bubble up inside of us. Inspiration comes from the materiality of language – the way it can leap and bend, roar and whisper, fly and build a picture in your mind that’s so vivid it’s as real as your own elbow. To make poetry a target is a curious thing to do. Poetry makes us free. It makes rebels of us. It lets us know that we can open our minds and our hearts. It gives us a vehicle that’s big enough for our enormous feelings. It gives us a place where we can speak the truth and so why would Ofqual want to put this to one side? It is a piece of subtle violence to make poetry optional. It is a sly way of saying that the human heart is less important. Poetry will not die or be caged. The question is do we want our schools and curriculums to be relevant and alive? We need to teach the origins of the empire. We need to address colonialism. We need to experience language as a living,

Photograph by Sean Malyon

Ofqual has recently announced that poetry will be an optional element of the GCSE English Literature syllabus next year. We asked five local poets how they felt about this form being deprioritised in the English classroom, and why poetry can bring such value to our lives

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EDUCATION

Tjawangwa Dema

Tim Liardet

I studied in Botswana and in the classroom it was the reading of stories that drew me to language, not poetry, specifically. However outside of the classroom I heard (not read) poetry with some regularity. It impressed me and impressed upon me an appreciation for how a stranger’s story can resonate personally. At university, I suddenly recognised this educational gap and wished I had been exposed to poetry earlier; its absence/sporadic presence made the climb much steeper.

Twice shortlisted for the T.S.Eliot Prize, Tim Liardet has produced 11 collections of poetry and his work has been widely published, including in The Times Literary Supplement and The Guardian. He is Professor of Poetry at Bath Spa University.

“I wished I had been exposed to poetry earlier; its absence made the climb much steeper” I’m quite shameless about my preoccupation with multiple influences and voices, regardless of era. However I believe strongly in a growing, responsive canon that remains open to reflection and builds and dismantles itself accordingly. In the context of a canon like this, the poets of the past still have much to offer. In isolation, or to the exclusion of newer, or underrepresented voices, they undo or skew ideas of who is capable of producing great poetry and what counts as good poetry. Children may find poetry hard when it’s not responsive or relatable to them. This responsiveness also has implications across intersections such as race and gender – if we are barely beginning to come to grips with including the experiences and work of people not racialised as white in mainstream publishing or prize lists or reviews, then it’s unlikely their work was was included or prioritised in old canons. Additionally, there’s just tons of exciting, explorative, exemplary writing happening in recent literary history and in real time. Diversifying prescribed texts is one way of auditing what might be considered stuffy or boring, but more needs doing. Children, rightfully, have notoriously exacting palates and by bringing in well-chosen, practising writers into the classroom we can mitigate these ideas of boredom. I expect that teachers have their curricular obligations to meet, while visiting poets have some leeway to bring creative freedom to the students. Poetry as an optional element of the English Literature curriculum shows us an ungenerous educational model with dangerously low regard for what poetry and creative thinking offers us as human beings. But I suppose poetry is always having to prove itself – is it dead? Is it thriving? Is it valuable? Is this form ‘real’ poetry? My fear is that when we remove subjects like poetry from mainstream education they can be lost to those who can little afford to access them any other way. Look, ‘everyone’ engages with poetry and what this moment has taught us is that it is a life skill rooted in self-expression, it’s not the preserve of the elite. We all benefit from a relationship with it. We know this, though the children might not yet. Poetry was here before all of us and will be here after us so I’m not concerned about it as an art form. But yes, education is all the poorer for not remaining fully and consistently in conversation with poetry. TJ Dema is a poet, arts administrator, teaching artist, and an Honorary Senior Research Associate at the University of Bristol. Her Careless Seamstress (2019) won the Sillerman Prize for African Poetry.

My first confrontation with poetry at school was strange. The poems chimed with some natural affinity I did not fully understand, and I constantly felt I was on the brink of remembering something of significance. The poems were a deep source of intrigue, but they were badly taught. A potential mistrust of this mysterious art form was worsened by the teaching method. I felt I was encouraged by the teachers to feel like poetry could never belong to me; that I should not expect to understand it, let alone ever write it. I think contemporary poets have often found their formal foundations in poets of the past. The influence of Milton, Donne, Dickinson, Eliot, Berryman, Sexton, Plath, Rich and many others can clearly be perceived in the work of contemporary poets. I know of many who regard Milton’s Paradise Lost – a surprisingly modern masterpiece of enjambment – as the source of the river. For me, the work of the great American poet John Ashbery is of preeminent importance. If I get stuck, I always return to Ashbery. There are many strange permissions I find in his oddly tilted wit and apparent looseness of form. Keeping track of the new waves of highly energised and experimental poetry being written is of the upmost importance. I encourage my students to read Milton, but also to read Tishani Doshi, Sarah Howe, Emily Berry, Jericho Brown, Jennifer Militello, Raymond Antrobus, Jay Bernard, Ocean Vuong, and Kaveh Akbar, to name but a few. Young people wishing to be poets should read all poetry, but they should be particularly aware of its cutting edge, and there is a very particular glint to the edge of what is happening now. All ambitious poetry students should actively woo influence. Only then is it possible to decide exactly how, and what, their own work will add to it.

“Poetry is not considered good preparation for the world of work” Younger children have an instinctive relationship with musical sound, and poetry is musical sound. They will never find poetry stuffy if a teacher concentrates on its euphonic effects, the catch of repetition, and its musical qualities. As regards the curriculum, I think it could be a lot more inclusive: though there have been self-conscious attempts to add more breadth, it is still too built around its go-to stalwarts. Ofqual’s decision about poetry is highly concerning, but not altogether surprising. Poetry is always the art form that gets marginalised. By policy-makers it is not considered good preparation for the world of work: it has no practical purpose, it is thought of as too frequently obscure and unable to solve problems. They are wrong. A tightly argued and thoroughly edited poem gives the writer many skills that could be of immense value in a wide range of future jobs. What poetry offers is a feeling or an idea or an experience distilled and compressed into something that is fixed and permanent. While life offers chaos, poetry finds order.

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EDUCATION

Connor Macleod

Caleb Parkin

Connor Macleod is a writer, performer and compere. He is studying as a Masters of Research student at Bath Spa University and is developing a pilot for a new model for teaching performance poetry at undergraduate level.

Poetry resonated with me, as a wordy, sensitive child. We’re a talkative family and for me poetry feels like a way of honing that chattiness into an artform. What can squidging language into different forms do? At GCSE, I wrote a book of poems as my extended project and that really confirmed poetry had a special place in my creative and inner lives. If I hadn’t been offered that space to write, explore and develop poems, I might not have ended up carrying a notebook around with me ever since. There are poets who reach across time, although which poet is different for each of us. For me, John Donne was a contemporary thinker in the 16th century. Sometimes it feels his poems reach across centuries and right into my thinking, right now. But the ‘canon’ as it’s currently framed is too narrow. It tends to be one perspective (privileged white men) because different voices weren’t equipped to write poems or didn’t have them documented. That’s not the case now and poetry should offer a broader view. The curriculum should be truly representative, allowing teachers to make decisions about what will engage students. Educators might combine poetry from across centuries to demonstrate how themes and ideas can be shared, as well as the ways we’ve changed and, perhaps, made progress… One of the joys of my education work is finding exactly the right poem, approach, and activity for an individual or group. Sometimes, this means finding poems about things I’m not really into (football!) so that a group can get into the idea of poetry, through that topic. I also use approaches drawn from experimental traditions: cut-ups, black-out poems, decks of cards, collages. These can disrupt what we think a ‘poem’ is or should be and free people up to play and experiment. Even when you work with personal stories, adding in that unexpected element can make it possible to articulate things you didn’t even know you knew, or felt.

I loved poetry analysis as a kid. My classmates called me ‘Death Metaphor’ because I could usually argue that any particular image in a piece was somehow a metaphor for death and decay. I really resonated with this analysis and it sparked my interest in more general literary analysis which is now what I do for a job. Poets and poems from the past are useful texts for exploring an evolution in language, theme, and imagery as it pertains to a shifting historical context. Certain poems like First They Came, by Pastor Martin Niemöller, for example, ought to be essential pieces to discuss in a classroom for at least a lesson. I’m much more inspired by my contemporaries than historical poets, but I have written pieces directly inspired by classic work such as T.S. Eliot’s Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock before.

“It’s wild how quickly children go from being perplexed that a human being makes poetry to producing their own work” It’s essential to bring modern poetry, especially modern local poetry, into classrooms. It’s all well and good giving students Auden and Owen to pick apart, they are hugely influential writers after all. But without modern poetry or even poetry being written within the student’s lifetime, poetry can sometimes feel like this dead thing, an archaeological subject. It’s also vital to showcase Black poets in the same vein. My experience with Black poetry began and ended at Benjamin Zephaniah’s Talking Turkeys. I wouldn’t find out about famous contemporary Black poets like Maya Angelou and Akala until well after I left school. It needn’t be hard to inspire kids about poetry today. The biggest step to bringing poetry to life is to show that people are still making it. I’ve gone into classrooms to talk to children and get them writing poetry and it’s wild how quickly they go from being perplexed that an actual human being still makes poetry as part of their career to enthusiastically producing their own work. Ofqual’s decision is diabolically wack. You wouldn’t make Algebra an optional part of GCSE Maths, would you? That being said, it completely makes sense. Education in our country has less to do with letting kids explore the world as they wish, and more to do with creating productive workers. The sciences are more employable than the arts, so of course the government is going to atomise the curriculum as a means of minimising our kids’ exposure to anything that isn’t going to get them a ‘proper job’. Aside from the cultural enrichment, discussing, analysing, creating and performing poetry gives kids a whole host of skills: creating efficient and persuasive writing; debating artistic merit and meaning; and understanding local, national, and international history through the evolution of artforms. An understanding of contemporary, living history and current events. Anthony Anaxagorou’s I Am Not A Poet uncovers a greater swath of the sins of the UK, both internationally and domestically, in just under six minutes than any one-hour lesson ever could.

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“Poetry felt like a way of honing chattiness into an artform, seeing what squidging language into different shapes can do” The government has said that poetry as an optional element will alleviate the pressures teachers and young people are under, because of the pandemic. But what if they’d made one of the sciences optional instead? (I’m not denigrating other subjects and think cross-curricular work should be the norm.) Perhaps capacity did need to be freed up in the curriculum, but it’s interesting that poetry was viewed as expendable. At a time when young people are facing huge challenges, and with the UK poetry scene so energised, why drop it now? If we want young people to feel able to cope with uncertainty, ambiguity, ambivalence, differences of opinion, to think flexibly, and be critical and inquiring about language, then they’ll need poetry as much as they’ll need trigonometry. ■ Caleb Parkin is a day-glo queero techno eco poet, facilitator and poetry tutor. In 2019, he completed an MSc in Creative Writing for Therapeutic Purposes. From October this year, Caleb will be the third Bristol City Poet.

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MUSIC | INTERVIEW

New king pin

Andrew Gordon Brown joins Kingswood School as its headmaster this month. He tells us about rowing for South Africa and how it inspired him to become a teacher and explains why he welcomes his new school’s big airy campus and large indoor spaces Q: How do you look back on your time at Truro School, Cornwall? It certainly doesn’t feel that I was headmaster there for nearly eight years. How quickly it seems to have gone. Truro School was my first headship and you learn that nothing can fully prepare you for the role other than doing it. I loved my time there; it has been enjoyable, challenging, interesting and rewarding. When I moved to Truro in January 2013 someone observed that as a head you are likely to overestimate what you think you can achieve in a year, but underestimate what you can achieve in five years. Looking back over my time, I think this was right. I inherited a good school and I hope people would say that I have moved it forward in many positive ways, but it takes time to shape and influence a school’s culture. There are a good number of things that I am proud of: the strength of the leadership team I have built and the quality of the staff I was 20 54 TheBATHMagazine

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able to recruit and develop, the breadth of the enrichment programme enjoyed by our pupils, the wonderful partnerships that we forged with other organisations which allowed our pupils to excel in areas like music and sport, and the reputation we have built as an engaged member of our local community, to name a few. Q: Are you and your family all relocating to Bath? We are all relocating in the sense that Bath will become home, but next year I will have three children in different schools, my eldest daughter will be boarding at Truro School for her final year as she completes her A levels, my son will be boarding at a school in Oxfordshire for his A Levels (and a bit of freedom from his dad!) while my youngest daughter has already been at Kingswood for a year and can’t wait to return to start her GCSE years.

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EDUCATION

Q: What can be done to ensure that the quality of education won’t suffer from Covid-19 restrictions? Kingswood is in a very fortunate position when it comes to welcoming pupils and staff back to school. We are blessed with a big, airy campus with many different classroom blocks and large indoor spaces. Small class sizes are the norm which certainly facilitates physical distancing during the day. We have zoned the classrooms and so have year groups taught in separate areas for the vast majority of the time. If another group has to enter one of these zones, and for shared specialist classrooms e.g. labs, we have allowed a lesson for cleaning before another group uses the room. We have made plans for enhanced cleaning and new sinks are already in place around the school. We have also secured extra toilet facilities secured in order to have separate blocks for each year group. We have signed up to the Boarding School Association’s Covid Charter to ensure our boarding pupils are kept safe. Returning boarders have the opportunity to quarantine in the boarding houses in the fortnight before term starts, should they so wish. Our teachers were generally very pleased with the academic progress pupils made during lockdown. The creative challenge has been to ensure that we can continue to offer the breadth and balance of co-curricular activities that the school is so well known for. Q: What level of normal service do you think Kingswood can offer when school starts in September? We learned some valuable lessons when the vast majority of pupils at Kingswood Prep School came back last summer term. I’m sure it will take a week or two at the senior school for everyone to get used to the new way of working, as year groups and boarding houses operate in their bubbles, and observe the stricter protocols in place. There are some obvious areas where ‘new normal’ will be quite different given the limitations of getting pupils physically together for things like chapel and weekly assembly. Likewise with the restrictions in sports like rugby and hockey, the games programme has had to be altered. Overall, I expect the educational offering to continue to be excellent, broad and balanced. Q: Covid-19 aside, what do you see as the direction of your headship of Kingswood? Kingswood offers an education which, at its heart, places a huge emphasis on the quality of relationships between people and where the values of love and kindness underpin the pursuit of excellence in all areas of school life. My job is to ensure that Kingswood earns the reputation as the first choice school in Bath and the south west, from parents looking for such a community for their children. Q: Your background is in South Africa – do you miss living and working there? Despite its many challenges, I love the can-do attitude and enterprising nature of South African culture. It is the most beautiful country and as someone who loves the outdoors, the majesty of the

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...someone observed that as a head you are likely to overestimate what you think you can achieve in a year, but underestimate what you can achieve in five years

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Q: What do you see as the initial challenges of your new role, which will have been hijacked by Covid? Hijacked indeed! I would summarise the initial challenges/priorities as threefold: to ensure that the reopening of school happens in the safest possible manner and that the precautions and processes are in place to minimise the risk of contracting and spreading the virus; secondly, to carefully reintegrate our pupils back into school life, mindful that there will have been a wide range of individual experiences during lockdown and so many different pastoral contexts that will need to be supported, and finally, to ensure that the pupils continue to enjoy the very best education of breadth and balance, even as we work within the parameters of government guidance.

landscape and hospitality of the people always draw me back. That said, for well over 20 years I have felt totally at home living and working in the UK where I intend to stay. Q: Having worked as a chartered accountant, what drew you to the teaching profession? It sounds clichéd but the short answer is that I wanted to do a job where I was able to make more of a positive difference to other people’s lives. I’m sure it also had something to do with rowing. Finding and fulfilling my rowing talent was truly life-changing, opening up so many opportunities. I was keen to share some of what I had learned along the way. Teaching and coaching was an amazing way to do this. Q: You trained as a chartered accountant, have qualifications in agricultural economics and social studies, have rowied with the men’s eight for South Africa, and have an interest in music and education. It sounds a pretty ideal combination for a head who can make a difference. How do you see your new role? I see the school’s mission to produce confident, compassionate, unpretentious young people who are ready to lead fulfilling lives and change society for the better. I have benefited enormously from the experience of doing different jobs in different sectors on different continents, and I would like all Kingswood school leavers to be able to respond to a good opportunity wherever in the world it may be. Q: Kingswood has 1,100 pupils from 9 months to 18 years, a wide spectrum of ages. How do you get to know classes and individuals? It is a real priority of mine to get to know the pupils and staff, and I manage my diary so as to get out and about and be visible around school every day. Getting to know individual students by name takes time and I have various strategies including teaching lessons, hosting lunches and attending loads of school events. I also give myself homework to study class photo lists! Q: Were you able to meet the school’s previous head, Simon Morris? I have had the pleasure of knowing Simon for quite some time. Kingswood is a school associated with the Methodist Independent Schools Trust which owns Truro School. This link has enabled me to work with Simon and other MIST heads for many years. Q: What are you most looking forward to about being in Bath? Since I was appointed to succeed Simon Morris, I have heard only great things about Bath. I’m looking forward to the opportunity to become part of the local community and, as much as I’ve loved living in Cornwall, I’m excited about living in a more cosmopolitan area surrounded by a network of other really good schools. kingswood.bath.sch.uk

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Cranmore Hall, Shepton Mallet, Somerset, BA4 4SF. Tel: 01749 881600 www.allhallowsschool.co.uk info@allhallowsschool.co.uk Open Morning: Regularly – please see website for details www.allhallowsschool.co.uk/admissions

Kipling Avenue, Bath, BA2 4RE Tel: 01225 480466 www.beechencliff.org.uk Twitter: @BeechenCliff Autumn term: 3 September - 18 December 2020 Spring term: 4 January - 1 April 2021 Summer term: 19 April - 23 July 2021 Age of pupils: 11 - 18 years

Age of pupils: 3 - 13 years Number of pupils: 1,300 (including 400 in a large mixed Sixth Form)

Number of pupils: 265 approx Day fees: Nursery £51.50 per day, Day: £2,800 to £5,450 Boarding: £7,200 to £8,250 per term

Boarding Fees: £11,300 per annum Religious denomination: None

The curriculum: Younger children enjoy an exciting, hands-on, thematic-based curriculum including Forest School in the school’s extensive onsite woodland. Further up the school, the children work towards 13+ CE, or academic scholarship. Creativity is embedded within the curriculum throughout the school, equipping the children with the skills to think critically and to work collaboratively, coming up with solutions to complex problems. Opportunities for creative design, art, music, drama and games are outstanding as demonstrated by the children’s success at Year 8. Sport plays an integral role and we hope to instil a love of taking exercise as part of a healthy lifestyle. Extra curricular activities: Extensive opportunities including Tennis (with links to Team Bath), Judo, Ballet, Creative Design, Speech and Drama and many more. Pastoral care: Children learn best when they are happy and so first and foremost, we set out to ensure that our pupils are happy, healthy and well supported to meet the numerous and varied challenges that their childhood will throw at them. Full, weekly and our hugely popular flexi boarding options are available to help parents manage busy lives.

The curriculum: This heavily over-subscribed, distinctive, traditional and high-achieving school offers an exceptional all-round education. The vibrant and unpretentiously academic curriculum of predominantly GCSEs and A Levels includes the Extended Project Qualification and inspirational super curricular and Future Horizons programmes. Extra curricular activities: Whilst one of the strongest in the region for academic achievement, the school’s commitment to the developing and celebrating activities beyond the classroom is legendary. These range from the characterdeveloping outdoor challenges (Centurion Challenge, Ten Tors, Three Peaks, Coast-to-Coast cycle ride) to the performing arts (in addition the long-established musical activities the sell-out Bands Nights and the spectacular Musical Theatre Production week have become new highlights on the school calendar. Sport at Beechen Cliff needs no introduction! Pastoral care: The pastoral system revolves around the house system. Each student is placed into one of five houses. In lower school house tutor groups, boys of all year groups are mixed together which helps to contribute to the Beechen Cliff family atmosphere about which so many visitors comment.

Name of principal: Dr Trevor Richards CPsychol

Name of headmaster: Mr Andrew Davies

Outstanding characteristics: With Dr Richards (a child psychologist as well as an educationalist) at the helm, the school has a clear vision on how best to support the children and prepare them to thrive at their next schools and in the rapidly changing world in which they will live and work, where creativity and resilience will be key. It is an approach which is proving outstandingly successful with around 65% of Year 8 pupils each year gaining a scholarships to their next schools.

Outstanding characteristics: Home to the academy programmes of both Southampton FC and Bath Rugby, the school also has a popular boarding house. We are heavily over-subscribed in the lower school and Sixth Form. Counter to prevailing culture, at Beechen Cliff working hard and doing your best is the accepted norm. Beechen Cliff provides a schooling that is purposeful, down-toearth, outward looking and successful – a timeless schooling that provides rich and warm memories for generations of students.

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DOWNSIDE SCHOOL

Stratton-on-the-Fosse, nr Bath, Somerset, BA3 4RJ Tel: 01761 235103 admissions@downside.co.uk www.downside.co.uk twitter.com/downsideschool www.facebook.com/DownsideSchool/ www.instagram.com/downside_school/ www.linkedin.com/school/11123663/admin/ Age of pupils: 11 - 18 Number of pupils: 340, Sixth Formers 128 Number of boarders: 76% Day fees: £5,603 - £6,642 per term Boarding Fees: £8,707 - £11,682 per term 2019 exam results GCSE % 9-4 (A*-C): 94% A Level % A*-C: 89% Religious denomination: Catholic Unique characteristics: The School provides over 100 exciting and engaging co-curricular opportunities, many of which offer outdoor learning in the magnificent rural 500 acre campus. Taking advantage of one of these activities could take your child on a journey that defines the rest of their life, create new friendships, help them to perfect a new skill, and develop their confidence -- such as Ten Tors, Rock Night, CCF and Environmental Group. Pastoral care: At Downside we are fully committed to providing the best possible pastoral care for each individual pupil. The House communities are at the heart of the School and they are where lasting friendships are made and memories forged. The Houses always have plenty of activities, competitions and social events at weekends and there are numerous trips especially offered to the younger years. There are chances for responsibility and leadership in each year group throughout the School and everyone is encouraged to step out of their comfort zone, enjoy new challenges and embrace a growth mindset. Name of principal: Mr Andrew Hobbs Outstanding characteristics: At Downside we want every child to be excited and challenged by the curriculum they will follow. The personal growth and change that occurs by being part of a community with Benedictine values at its centre allows every pupil to feel accepted and valued unconditionally. This means that they can grow and develop in confidence to achieve their best and to support others to do the same. We are uncompromising in our pursuit of excellence, in the classroom and out. In 2019, for adding value at A level, Downside was placed second in Somerset and 39th nationally in the DFE performance tables, ranking our value added score in the top 30 independent schools in England.

Please Note: All information here was checked at the time of going to press. Please check the schools’ websites for updates.

BEECHEN CLIFF SCHOOL

ALL HALLOWS PREP

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HAYESFIELD GIRLS’ SCHOOL & MIXED SIXTH Upper Oldfield Park, Brougham Hayes, Bath, BA2 3QU. Tel: 01225 426151 www.hayesfield.com

OLDFIELD SCHOOL

PRIOR PARK COLLEGE

Kelston Road, Bath, BA1 9AB. Tel: 01225 423582 www.oldfieldschool.com enquiries@oldfieldschool.com

Autumn term: 3 September - 18 December 2020 Spring term: 4 January - 1 April 2021 Summer term: 19 April - 9 July 2021 Age of pupils: 11 - 16 years girls, 16 - 18 years co-educational

Autumn term: 3 September - 18 December 2020 Spring term: 6 January - 1 April 2021 Summer term: 19 April - 21 July 2021 Age of pupils: 11 - 18 years boys and girls Number of pupils: 1,250

2019 Exam Results GCSE % 9-4(A*-C): 91% A Level % A*-C: 76% Day fees: N/A Religious denomination: Non-denominational Unique Characteristics: Hayesfield provides an inspirational environment in which girls flourish. Here, all girls experience a strong sense of belonging, enjoy freedom from stereotyping and grow limitless aspirations. The curriculum: Students achieve exceptional outcomes by studying a traditionally academic curriculum. The vast majority of girls study a language to GCSE and results in the Basics (English and Maths) and English Baccalaureate are always well above national expectations. Extra curricular activities: All students participate in the school’s “LEAP” after-school enrichment programme. There is something for everyone – debating drama, wind band, choirs, Duke of Edinburgh (Bronze, Silver and Gold) as well as a huge range of both competitive and social sports teams. Hayesfield is also very proud of its thriving Navy CCF contingent, which is active and prominent in school life. Pastoral care: There is a strong belief in traditional values at Hayesfield: we set high standards in our work, conduct and appearance. We place emphasis on developing the skills and values that will enable our pupils to become thinking, informed and confident young women who will be able to meet the challenges of the 21st Century. Each tutor group belongs to a House, each named after an inspirational woman, which allows students to form friendships across the school community.

The curriculum: Oldfield has a broad and balanced curriculum delivered through seven learning areas. In Years 7 to 9 the curriculum broadly follows the National Curriculum. Over 25 subjects are offered at A Level and students usually study 10 subjects at GCSE. Extra-curricular activities: The school believes a vibrant and wide-ranging extra-curricular and enrichment programme is an essential part of personal development. Participation is encouraged from all students. Extra-curricular activities include the debating society, language clubs, drama, and music clubs. Sports clubs include netball, football, boys’ and girls’ rugby, athletics, dance, cross-country, badminton, basketball, tennis, and cricket. Residential and day trips are seen as an important part of the students’ educational lives, with trips offered to Barcelona, Paris, Moscow, Belgium, Dorset, and a week-long activities week, with all students participating in a wide variety of activities in this country and abroad. Pastoral care: Seeing students as individual learners and promoting a fully rounded education is at the heart of what the school aims to achieve. Staff work in partnership with students and parents to raise students’ expectations and standards of achievement in a caring, secure and supportive environment. Each student is supported by a tutor who monitors their group attendance, celebrates their achievements and raises any concerns. There is a Year 7 evening in September for parents to meet the tutors and staff. Tutors remain with their tutor groups throughout a student’s time at Oldfield, enabling them to support them through their school life. Name of Headteacher: Mr Steven Mackay

Name of principal: Ms Emma Yates Outstanding characteristics: All students participate in the school’s ‘LEAP’ after-school enrichment programme. There is something for everyone – photography, debating, drama productions, wind band, orchestra, choirs, Duke of Edinburgh (Bronze, Silver and Gold) as well as a huge range of both competitive and social sports teams. Hayesfield is also very proud of its thriving Navy CCF contingent, which is active and prominent in school life. 58 TheBATHMagazine

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Outstanding characteristics: An exceptional education in an environment that challenges all students and fosters ambition. Students have respect for themselves, each other and their school and are well-prepared to face the world as compassionate, confident and resilient young people. The behaviour and conduct of students is excellent. Good work and behaviour is recognised and rewarded. The principles underlying this policy are based on respect – for self, for others and for the environment.

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Ralph Allen Drive, Bath, BA2 5AH Tel: 01225 835353 Website: www.priorparkcollege.com Email: admissions@priorparkschools.com Autumn term: 7 September - 17 December 2020 Spring term: 7 January - 31 March 2021 Summer term: 19 April - 4 July 2021 Age of pupils: 11 - 18 years Number of pupils: 618 Fees: Day, £5,085 - £5,750 per term Weekly boarding, £7,320 - £8,665 per term Full boarding, £8,250 - £10,500 per term International boarding: £9,500 - £11,165 per term Religious denomination: Catholic, but all faiths welcome. The curriculum: Prior Park College offers a broad but balanced curriculum, allowing every child to find their talent. The College offers 26 A Level subjects while students study 10 or 11 GCSE subjects. The College prides itself on the very strong teacher/student partnerships based on mutual respect and commitment to learning. Extra curricular activities: The College has outstanding facilities including a Sports’ Centre, Art and Design Faculty and Sixth Form Centre. An impressive number of music and drama productions are held in the Julian Slade Theatre and John Wood Chapel. Our Daily Activities programme features over 60 activities ranging from CCF to Sci-Fi club. Saturday Active runs throughout term time and offers over 25 courses to choose from, including computer programming, sailing, street dance and golf. Pastoral Care: The Pastoral Care programme is classed as outstanding and aims to provide pastoral care of an encouraging, supportive and disciplined nature. All pupils are members of a House where Housemasters and Housemistresses, supported by a dedicated group of tutors, address the needs of their students. Name of Headmaster: Mr Ben Horan Outstanding characteristics: A happy, purposeful, high-achieving community which aims to develop as fully as possible the many talents of each student, to ensure an education of the whole person.

Please Note: All information here was checked at the time of going to press. Please check the schools’ websites for updates.

Number of pupils: 1,495 Sixth Form pupils: 340

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St Mark’s School, Bath, seeks to provide excellence in education as a mixed comprehensive school rooted in Christian values and is at the beginning of an exciting new chapter as part of the Midsomer Norton Schools’ Partnership. We continue to build on our successes and progress our programme of continuous improvement to benefit all of our students both inside and outside the classroom. As a member of the Midsomer Norton Schools Partnership, we work together as a Multi-Academy Trust (MAT) across county boundaries - St Mark’s School benefits from the sharing of expertise and resources and the opportunity to collaborate and share good practice with six other secondary schools and their staff teams.

Our vision is to promote self-worth that inspires our students to live well, achieve their goals and be a force for good in their school and in the world.

We are committed to providing a supportive yet challenging ethos pursued through our school values of Ambition, Resilience and Community. St Mark’s is a caring, respectful, inclusive community, where we cultivate a desire for students to learn, take risks and accept challenges. Feedback from our parents is exceptional, as quoted by one Year 7 parent: ”The communication from all teachers is absolutely fantastic and the individual support for students and parents at St. Marks is outstanding.” It is a great time to be part of our school or to be considering St Mark’s School for the next part of your child’s education. Tune in to our virtual Open Event available from the 21st September 2020 on our school website www.st-marks.org.uk to ﬁnd out more or contact us for information about School Admissions on 01225 312661.

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SHELDON SCHOOL

ST GREGORY’S, BATH

ST MARGARET’S PREP, CALNE

Saint Gregory’s Combe Hay Lane, Odd Down, Bath, BA2 8PA Tel: 01225 832873 www.st-gregorys.org.uk Curzon Street, Calne, Wiltshire, SN11 0DF Tel: 01249 857220 Email: office@stmargaretsprep.org.uk www.stmargaretsprep.org.uk Pupils: 180 Age: 3 - 11 years Fees: Kindergarten – session/funding dependent Pre-Prep: £3,370/Prep: £4,120-£4,590

Hardenhuish Lane, Chippenham, Wiltshire SN14 6HJ Telephone: 01249 766020 www.sheldonschool.co.uk sixthform@sheldonschool.co.uk

Religious denomination: Non-denominational

Pupils: 1612 Sixth Form pupils: 292 Age: 11 - 18

Autumn term: 2 September - 18 December 2020 Spring term: 4 January - 2 April 2021 Summer term: 19 April - 18 July 2021 Age of pupils: 11 - 18 years Number of pupils: 980 Religious denomination: Catholic

Unique Characteristics: Expectations and aspirations are high and we are committed to developing the young people in our care, whatever their talents. Children of all abilities succeed at this school and are encouraged to develop academically, physically and spiritually, fulfilling their potential in a happy, caring environment. Extra curricular activities: Pupils have a wealth of opportunities available to them, which are provided by staff volunteers and specialist coaches, usually out of school hours. These range from DofE, Ten Tors, sport, drama, music and public speaking opportunities to chess, gardening and knitting clubs. Pastoral care: Year groups are organised into tutor groups under the guidance of the same tutor, head of year and deputy from Year 7 through to Year 11. There are separate tutor groups in the Sixth Form with specialist tutors. Parents have the opportunity to meet the tutor and involve themselves with Parents’ Forums for each year group regularly throughout the year. Head of Sixth Form: Mr Eugene Spiers Outstanding characteristics: Sheldon Sixth Form is justly proud of our consistently strong A level results and wide-ranging Sixth Form package, aimed at developing confident and happy young adults. This includes one-to-one pastoral and subject support.

The curriculum: Saint Gregory’s curriculum encourages students to develop their talents, deepen their knowledge and become motivated, independent learners within a caring Christian pastoral setting. High expectations and excellent teaching and learning opportunities create an atmosphere that allows students to attain outstanding results. Specialisms in the Performing Arts and Science inspire a particularly creative and engaging focus whilst an exciting international programme promotes learning in a global community. Extra-curricular activities: Students at Saint Gregory’s are encouraged to explore their talents in a wide range of sports and activities outside of the classroom so that they develop a sense of self-awareness, an appreciation for healthy lifestyles, deepen key employability skills and build lasting friendships through teamwork and camaraderie. With a broad and balanced range of opportunities beyond the classroom, each and every student has an opportunity to shine. Pastoral care: At Saint Gregory’s, the personal development and well-being of students is paramount with Christian values central to their educational purpose, creating an aspirational, enriching and supportive environment for all. In the day-to-day life of the school, these values are evident in a strong ‘family’ atmosphere and a highly valued House System. Name of Principal: Ms Ann Cusack Outstanding characteristics: Saint Gregory’s is the only secondary school in B&NES rated ‘Outstanding’ by Ofsted in three consecutive inspections making it one of Ofsted’s highest achieving secondary schools locally and nationally. They were recognised once again in 2019, as an ‘Outstanding’ secondary school in their Section 48 Diocesan Inspection, highlighting Saint Gregory’s as a flourishing educational community where every child is valued and encouraged to grow as individuals.

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The curriculum: Children at St Margarets engage in a wide range of carefully planned, meaningful learning experiences designed to promote not only learning but also their personal growth and development. They are active participants in their learning journey; developing effective learning skills whilst deepening their knowledge of specific subjects and topics. The curriculum is delivered, in the main, by class teachers, all of whom are experts in the relevant ages. This is then enhanced by specialist provision in Sport, Music, Computing, Art and Modern Foreign Languages. Teaching throughout the school is tailored to meet the needs of the individual child and children are encouraged to reflect and evaluate their own learning and with support identify their next steps. Extra-curricular activities: The school offers an extensive range of clubs. In addition to the core school clubs such as sport, music, gardening, cookery, dance and art, children have the opportunity to participate in a varied and rich program of extra-curricular activities which is designed to ignite pupils’ curiosity and provide ample time for them to develop positive relationships with their peers. Each child will learn to grow into positive, responsible adults who can work and co-operate with others, whilst at the same time developing their knowledge and skills in order to achieve their true potential. Pastoral care: Every effort is made to ensure that children flourish both in terms of their learning and personal growth. We fully commit to providing a nurturing, safe and supportive environment with a firm sense of belonging and community. Communication between staff, children and parents is both flexible and open, leading to the best possible outcomes for growth and development. Head: Mr Luke Bromwich Outstanding characteristics: A school with real spirit and energy, which lives each day to the full and brings about a love of learning. We purposefully pack excitement and learning experiences into every moment. The children are thoroughly prepared for entrance examinations to senior schools and St Margaret’s has an impressive record of success in academic and specialist subject scholarships, as well as consistently gaining entry to firstchoice schools.

Please Note: All information here was checked at the time of going to press. Please check the schools’ websites for updates.

Autumn term: 2 September - 18 December 2020 Spring term: 4 January - 31 March 2021 Summer term: 19 April - 16 July 2021

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Sarah Wringer Kaplan International Languages Bath, 5 Trim Street, Bath, BA1 1HB Direct Line (01225) 473502 Email: sarah.wringer@kaplan.com

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Bay Tree Road, Larkhall, Bath, BA1 6ND Tel: 01225 312661 info@st-marks.org.uk www.st-marks.org.uk Twitter : @StMarksBATH Autumn term: 2 September - 20 December 2020 Spring term: 6 January - 3 April 2021 Summer Term: 20 April - 20 July 2021 Age of pupils: 11 - 16 years Number of pupils: c.300 Day fees: N/A Religious denomination: Church of England The curriculum: St Mark’s is a school where children thrive and reach their full academic and personal potential through a combination of quality teaching, enriching opportunities and high expectations. The dynamic curriculum presents opportunities for all types of learners. St Mark’s also provides a place at The New Sixth, providing a high-quality sixth form education as a platform for future success in higher education and the workplace. Extra curricular activities: An inspiring careers programme, extra-curricular activities and enrichment opportunities allow students to build on and expand their personal achievements and experiences. Pastoral care: A nurturing and supportive pastoral system which enables us to develop strong working relationships with students, allowing them to reach the best of their abilities. Name of Principal: Mr Barnaby Ash, BSc (Hons) NPQH Outstanding characteristics: St Mark’s is a coeducational secondary school in the heart of Bath. Our vision is to inspire students for future success. We achieve this by developing confident, ambitious learners through an unstinting focus on academic excellence whilst prioritising well-being and self-esteem.

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STONAR

THE PARAGON SCHOOL

Cottles Park, Atworth, Wiltshire SN12 8NT Tel: 01225 701740 www.stonarschool.com

Lyncombe House, Lyncombe Vale, BA2 4LT. Tel: 01225 310837, email: reception.paragon@priorparkschools.com, www: paragonschool.co.uk

Autumn term: 3 September - 11 December 2020 Spring term: 5 January - 26 March 2021 Summer term: 19 April - 9 July 2021 Age of pupils: 3 - 18 Number of pupils: Junior school 130, Senior school 220 Day fees: Boarders: £8,150 - £12,320 per term Reception/Prep: £3,040 - £4,105 per term Senior school: £5,475 - £5,905 per term

Autumn term: 7 September - 17 December 2020 Half term: 22 October - 1 November 2021 Spring term: 7 January - 26 March 2021 Half term: 13 February - 21 February 2021 Summer term: 19 April - 6 July 2021 Half term: 29 May - 6 June 2021

Open Days: Virtual whole school open morning – Saturday 26 September – 10am

Number of pupils: 258

Religious denomination: Non-denominational. The curriculum: The school offers a broad and imaginative curriculum. Small class sizes and excellent teaching ensures that each pupil is developed in line with their individual strengths and weaknesses. Stonar is regularly in the top 10% of schools at GCSE for value-added, meaning pupils achieve on average up to a grade higher than predicted in all subjects. The school motivates pupils to think for themselves, explore new ideas and develop independence, imagination, resilience, high aspirations and a sense of responsibility for their own progress. Pupils gain confidence in their strengths, acquire life-long learning skills and the ability to adapt to change. Extra curricular activities: Through the huge range of extra curricular activities on offer in the 80 acre campus pupils discover their own interests and talents and learn to respect and celebrate those of others. An array of clubs at lunchtime and after lessons enrich the experience at Stonar and academic work is enhanced by subject specific trips. Forty percent of Stonar pupils ride at our British Horse Society approved equestrian centre, which offers outstanding facilities including stabling, indoor and outdoor schools and a cross country schooling field. Pastoral care: Pupils, parents and teachers alike often describe Stonar as a family. As a small school each pupil is known individually. A nurturing ethos is integral to the school, backed up by an outstanding and robust pastoral structure that ensures the very best care for every child. Stretched and inspired by everything they experience at Stonar, pupils develop into confident and outgoing young adults. Name of principal: Mr Matthew Way, BSc.Econ. (Hons), PGCE, MEd Outstanding characteristics: Stonar is proud to be part of the NACE Education Group, which consists of over 50 schools around the world. As a result pupils attending Stonar benefit from developing a global outlook that will be essential for the world in which they will live and work. Through its partnerships with the schools in the group, pupils engage in a wide range of academic and cultural events that allow them to work alongside peers of other nationalities and forge long-term connections and friendships. Stonar is fully co-educational and applications are welcomed from both boys and girls for all years.

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Age of pupils: 3 - 11 years

Termly fees: per term, Juniors: Years 3-6 £3,650 per term including lunches. Years Reception, 1 & 2 £3,280 per term including lunches. Squirrels Pre-School: Full time, including lunches: £2,989 per term. Part time (cost per day) including lunch: £600 per term. Per morning, including lunch (until 1 o’clock): £440 per term. Per afternoon, without lunch (from 1pm): £270 per term. Religious denomination: Christian The curriculum: Broad, balanced curriculum with cross-curricular links and some topic based work. Emphasis on core subjects and attaining high academic standards, with an engaging humanities curriculum and crosscurricular ICT. Sport, art, music and outdoor learning are also extremely strong. Extra curricular activities: A fantastic range of extra-curricular activities from sewing and pottery to cricket and African drumming. Staff and external specialist teachers and coaches run over 65 lunchtime and after school clubs. The majority of the clubs focus on enjoyment and exploring new interests. Some of the clubs are by invitation only to provide the children with the opportunity to develop their skill level. There is also a rich mix of school trips and activity days, including a week in France for Year 6 children, a trip to Osmington Bay for Year 5 and a residential to Mill on the Brue for Year 4. Visits are to local historical and educational sites, and many themed days make full use of the school’s grounds. Pastoral care: Every child at The Paragon should feel secure and affirmed, valued for who they are regardless of their ability. Children feel comfortable about approaching a teacher to talk about something that’s bothering them. Strong relationships with parents help identify problems at an early stage. A school council, with democratically elected representatives from Year 2 up, meets monthly with the Head. Name of principal: Mrs Rosie Allen Outstanding characteristics: The Paragon feels so special: its friendly family atmosphere and belief that happy children learn best is at the heart of what they do.

Please Note: All information here was checked at the time of going to press. Please check the schools’ websites for updates.

ST MARK’S SCHOOL

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King Edward’s Pre-Prep & Nursery School, Weston Lane, Bath BA1 4AQ Junior School: 01225 463218; Pre-Prep & Nursery: 01225 421681 King Edward’s Senior and Junior Schools, North Road, Bath BA2 6HU Main Reception: 01225 464313; Admissions: 01225 820399 www.kesbath.com; Twitter: @KESBath; Facebook: KESBath; Instagram: KESBath Autumn term: 9 September - 16 December 2020 Spring term: 6 January - 31 March 2021. Summer term: 19 April - 14 July 2021 Open Days: Senior, Junior and Pre-Prep & Nursery Open Event Saturday 17th October 2020 from 09:00. Sixth Form Autumn Open Event - 16th October 2020 from 18.00. Age of pupils: Junior school: 3- 11 years Senior school: 11 - 18 years Number of pupils: Junior school 205 & Pre-Prep 104, Senior school 822 Day Fees (Per Term): Junior School £3,900 Pre-Prep £3,520; Nursery £2,905. Senior School £4,935; Sixth Form £5,020

Co-curricular activities: The Junior School and Pre-prep co-curricular programme is varied, broad and interesting, creating opportunities for children to increase their knowledge, pursue their interests and talents or simply to try something new. Recent additions to the outdoor facilities include a dipping pond and an all-weather sports pitch. Senior school pupils take part in the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award, Ten Tors, Combined Cadet Force, sports, drama and music with connections to Bath Abbey and Bath Philharmonia Orchestra. In addition there are more than 100 lunch-time and after-school clubs. Pastoral care: The school’s most recent ISI report found the quality of pastoral care, sport and guidance to be excellent. This was echoed in The Good Schools Guide which stated that that ‘everything is directed toward the well-being of the pupils. No wonder they enjoy their education and do so well in it. The school offers a strong, caring and supportive pastoral framework, working closely with parents to ensure that all member of the school feel respected and valued. Headteachers: Pre-prep and nursery: Mrs Jayne Gilbert Junior: Mr Greg Taylor. Senior Principal: Mr Martin Boden Outstanding characteristics: Awarded ‘excellent’ in the most recent whole school ISI report, with the school’s extra-curricular provision achieving ‘outstanding’. The school was also recently awarded Independent School of the Year for performing arts by Independent School Parent. King Edward’s was ranked as one of the top five independent schools in the south west for its outstanding A level and GCSE results in The Sunday Times Schools Guide, Parent Power survey 2019.

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Please Note: All information here was checked at the time of going to press. Please check the schools’ websites for updates.

The curriculum: King Edward’s Pre-Prep and Nursery follow an enhanced version of the Early Years Foundation stage and the national curriculum and boast specialist teaching in DT, art, music, French and dance as well as weekly forest school sessions. At the Junior School the children study a broad curriculum enhances by a wide and varies enrichment programme. The school, has high aspirations for its pupils in all aspects of school life with a strong emphasis on each individual’s needs and abilities, ensuring that each child develops into a wellrounded, happy, caring and active participant in later life. In the senior school, every young person is encouraged to strive for excellence and to acquire a life-long passion for knowledge, discovery, adventure, creativity and culture. There is a broad offering in the academic curriculum at both GCSE and A level.

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The Benefits of Relocating to the South West By Sue Macey, Lodestone Property Lansdown, Bath, BA1 5RG . Tel: 01225 734210 Email admissions@kingswood.bath.sch.uk. kps-admissions@kingswood.bath.sch.uk www.kingswood.bath.sch.uk. www.kingswood.bath.sch.uk/prep Open Days: Nursery and Prep School Open Morning: 1st October Whole Senior School Open Morning - 03 October, 09.00am-12.00pm Sixth Form Open Evening - 29 September, 06.30pm - 09.00pm Age of pupils: Prep school: 9 months - 11 years Senior School: 11 - 18 years Number of pupils: Prep school 354, Senior school 800

Lodestone Property, based in Bruton, Wells and Shaftesbury, is an independent modern estate agency that prides itself in providing a high quality, personal service to its clients selling and lettings properties in Somerset and Dorset. www.lodestoneproperty.co.uk

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The curriculum: Kingswood Schools are co-educational settings with a reputation for outstanding pastoral care. The prep school serves children from 9 months – 11 years with boarding from 7 years old, and the senior school takes pupils from 11 – 18 years. The nursery, The Garden At Kingswood, the prep and senior schools all offer an inclusive, extended family day and boarding community which is free of pretension and provides academic rigour and real objectives for all pupils. Younger children benefit from learning-friendly classrooms which cultivate curious, confident and independent learning. In the senior school, strength in the arts and sport with traditional values, forward thinking and a can-do attitude prevail. Co-curricular activities: There are more than 100 extra-curricular activities available to pupils both during the week and at weekends which means there is something for everyone. The prep school’s Activities Programme focuses on music, drama, sport, design and technology as well as offering more diverse activities that might ignite a spark in a child, increasing their self-confidence and self-esteem. Senior school options might include outdoor pursuits, model United National, fashion and textiles, climbing, script writing or jazz. Kingswood believes that an all round education is vital for you people in preparing them for life beyond school. Pastoral care: Pastoral care in central to everything staff do at Kingswood Prep and it both supports and defines the school’s holistic approach to education. The schools child-centred framework drives the motivation to find and celebrate the uniqueness of every individual ensuring that children feel good about themselves, recognise their strengths and constantly develop the areas they find challenging. The senior school was ranked outstanding in every area of its latest inspection and relationships between staff and pupils are highly regarded by parents. Personal tutors mentor and assist with the pupil’s independent learning plan and personal targets and offer support to achieve individual aims. For boarders, the house system ensures a strong sense of community. Prep school headmaster: Mr Mark Brearey Senior school headmaster: Mr Andrew Gordon-Brown Outstanding characteristics: Both schools have outstanding teaching staff, a strong sense of community and fantastic co-curricular opportunities. Ambitious and determined, pupils at Kingswood are genuine with a strong conscience. An intelligent and outward looking school that provides excellent value for money and an outstanding education.

Please Note: All information here was checked at the time of going to press. Please check the schools’ websites for updates.

t the start of 2020 the biggest challenge for the housing market was Brexit: was it going to result in a downturn even though we had certainty about which direction we were heading? But none of us knew that Covid-19 was just around the corner which was going to affect every single one of us. During lockdown for those of us working, we knew the demand for houses was growing and that there was likely to be pent-up demand when restrictions were lifted. When the government lifted those restrictions on estate agents we, with less than 12 hours’ notice, we experienced in one of our busiest periods – for selling and buying. There is no doubt that demand for lettings and sales from those who have been living in cities has significantly increased. The combination of wanting more space inside and out as well as realising that working from home is likely to become a permanent arrangement, accelerated some people’s plans and made them realise that relocating to the countryside could become a reality. For others whilst spending more time in their houses than ever before lockdown gave an opportunity for reflection and as a consequence have decided that it is time to move on. With active buyers and sellers there is a sense of urgency in the current market, particularly for those families who have decided to relocate to Somerset and need to have their children in schools for September. With the south west having been the area with the lowest infection rate during the recent pandemic, relocation has become an even more attractive proposition. It is a beautiful part of the world but at the same time it has good transport links for those who have to get back to the cities for meetings. If you are looking for a school in Somerset with plenty of outdoor space, why not take a look at Downside. Set in 500 acres of glorious English countryside, just 25 minutes from the famous World Heritage City of Bath, Downside is a co-educational, forward-thinking catholic school. The school welcomes pupils and parents of all faiths who set store by emphasising the importance of moral courage, integrity and service to others. To book a Virtual Visit to see why Downside could be the school for you and your family, please email admissions@downside.co.uk or call on 01761 235103. The visits are personalised – you will be able to explore the school from the comfort of your own home and talk to the Head Master, Director of Admissions and current pupils. www.downside.co.uk

Day fees: Nursery fees from £175 per week, Prep day fees from £3,431 per term and Prep boarding fees from £6,795 per term. Senior school day from £5,208, weekly from £8,187 and boarding from £9,371 per term

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BOOKS

Autumn reads for children The autumn schedules are always bustling with big books, but 2020 has even more literary riches to look forward to because also publishing are titles that were due to appear during lockdown, says Gill McLay A guaranteed bedtime favourite for our youngest bookworms is the new book from Michael Rosen and Chris Riddell. Honey for You Honey for Me is a first book of nursery rhymes that has flying pigs, wobbling plates of jelly and a giant who trembles whenever he meets a mouse. These topsy-turvy tales are a feast of words and amazing pictures.

You Choose Fairytales by Pippa Goodhart and Nick Sharratt will be a hit, too. The latest in this popular series of choose your own adventure books is one you can read time and time again. Which fairytale hero would you like to be today and what fairytale baddy would you least like to meet? The possibilities are infinite. Audiobooks are booming – and new to the format this autumn is a very special version of The Complete Tales by Beatrix Potter. There’s a stellar cast of award-winning and contemporary voices including Olivia Colman, Mandip Gill, Tom Hardy, Will Young and Joanna Lumley. The full list is long and impressive. These narrations bring Beatrix’s much-loved animal characters to life like never before and will keep little listeners entertained for ages. Big books don’t get much bigger than a new story for children by Harry Potter author, JK Rowling. Serialised online (for free) during the spring and early summer to help entertain children, parents and carers confined at home – The Ickabog is released in physical book format later in the year. It’s set in the very happy, almost perfect kingdom of Cornucopia. But legend tells of a monstrous Ickabog in the Misty Marshlands to the North. Is the Ickabog just a myth to scare children into behaving? Or could a myth thrust two children into an adventure they didn’t ask for? The Day I Fell Into a Fairytale is Ben Miller’s third book for children and he just keeps getting better. This one is about a girl called Lana who loves stories and make-believe games – unlike her brother Harrison who has decided he’s too grown-up to play anymore. Until… something magical happens! Lana discovers a 70 TheBATHMagazine

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portal to a fairytale world with an evil witch that she’ll need help defeating. This is a story about stories, and about about a brother and a sister finding their way back to each other through the power of imagination. Graphic novels for children have never been better, either. Our highlight this autumn is from the talented French artist Penelope Bagieu. Her version of Roald Dahl’s darkly funny masterpiece The Witches is the firstever Dahl story to appear in this format and is published just in time for its latest big screen adaptation (when it’s available in cinemas). Witches are real, and they are very, very dangerous. They wear ordinary clothes, have ordinary jobs and live in ordinary cities. Alas, there’s nothing they despise more than children. When an eight-year-old boy and his grandmother come face-to-face with the Grand High Witch herself, they may be the only ones who can stop the witches’ latest plot to stamp out every last child in the country! It’s a classic in a great new format. Witches next, too. Never and Forever is the final adventure in Cressida Cowell’s Wizards of Once quartet, the followup to her Hollywood hit series How To Train Your Dragon. Set in an ancient, magical time, Xar and Wish are on the last leg of their journey and their biggest quest so far. Warriors and Wizards combine forces against the dreadful power of the Kingwitch, whose searing evil threatens not only the Wildwoods, but all its creatures. Look out too for The Deep End – the new Wimpy Kid caper from Jeff Kinney and The 130-Storey Treehouse by Australian funnyman Andy Griffiths. Both will be snapped up in huge volumes. Details about the new 2020 books by David Walliams and David Baddiel were thin on the ground at the time of going to press – but they are sure to be two of the biggest pre-Christmas bestsellers as well. Yes, Christmas! It’s not as far away as you’d think... Lastly, for older readers, Bath-born mega star Jacqueline Wilson’s new book is Love Frankie, illustrated by Nick Sharratt. It’s about growing up and falling in love and has everything you’d expect from a familiar and favourite author – ups, downs, feelings and fun. This author never disappoints. If you’re a young bookworm in need of new stories – there are treats aplenty in the local bookshops for you this year. n eventsofwonder.com

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Prep School: Combe Down, Bath, BA2 7ET Tel: 01225 833 158 www.monktoncombeschool.com Senior School: Monkton Combe, Bath, BA2 7HG. Tel: 01225 721 102. www.monktoncombeschool.com Autumn term: 2 September - 16 December 2020 Spring term: 11 January - 26 March 2021 Summer term: 19 April - 2 July 2021 Open Days: Pre-prep and prep school: 10 October – 9.30am-12pm Senior School: 3 October – 10am-1pm Number of pupils: Pre-prep and Prep school 318. Senior school 390 Fees (per term): Pre-prep and Prep school. Day Pre-Prep (aged 2 - 7): £3,340 – £3,435. Day Prep (aged 7 - 13): £4,035 – £4,160 Boarding Prep (aged 7 - 13): £7,850 – £8,150 Senior School. Day fees: £6,820 – £7,170 Boarding Fees: £11,145 – £11,440

Please Note: All information here was checked at the time of going to press. Please check the schools’ websites for updates.

The curriculum: Monkton Pre-Prep aims to help make the transition from home to school as gentle as possible, believing that the relationships between parents, staff and children are vital. There is a stimulating, childcentred curriculum in a safe and vibrant learning environment with outdoor learning integrated into day to day activities. Moving into Monkton Prep, the children are encouraged to strive for academic excellence and develop a love of learning. Staff have the flexibility to choose new developments in education while preserving traditional standards and aiming the syllabus the National Curriculum and Common Entrance and Scholarship examinations. Outstanding results from the Senior School demonstrate the academic ambition inspired by the teaching. Students work hard and are well motivated and are supported and encouraged through the care enthusiasm of the staff who are committed to delivering lessons that are both lively and enjoyable as well and rigorous and demanding. Extra curricular activities: The wide range of activities, clubs and societies enables each pupil to find areas of enjoyment that both motivate and give them confidence. While the school hopes to inspire the next Olympic rower, poet laureate or national fencing champion, the aim is to teach pupils the skills they need for life and the characteristics necessary for today’s working environment as well as giving each child the chance to experience something different or pursue excellence. Pastoral care: Monkton thinks differently, starting with a proactive pastoral environment ensuring that every student knows and truly understands themselves which provides a foundation for everything else. The happiness and well-being of each child is central. The school believes that the outstanding exam results are testament to this approach.. Head teachers: Prep School: Mrs Catherine Winchcombe Senior School Principal: Mr Chris Wheeler Outstanding characteristics: For children attending the Pre-Prep and Prep schools the 30 acre site provides ample space and fantastic facilities to ensure that every child can find their inspiration. The Senior School is a deliberately smaller setting allowing staff to consider each pupil as an individual. Focussing first and foremost on how much a child knows about or understands themselves, Monkton inspires young people to become confident, kind and ambitious adults who live fulfilling lives.

Royal High School Bath, GDST Tel: 01225 313877 www.royalhighbath.gdst.net Autumn term: 7 September – 16 December 2020 Spring term: 5 January - 30 March 2021 Summer term: 19 April - 8 July 2021 Age of pupils: 3 - 18 years Number of pupils: 615 Day fees: (Per term – 3 term year) Nursery – Year 6 (£3,432-£3,616), Year 7 – Year 13 (£4,661-£4,865) Full Boarding Year 6 – Year 13 (£8,906-£10,762) Religious denomination: Multi faith The curriculum: The stimulating curriculum promotes intellectual rigour, creative enquiry and critical thinking to ensure that girls will lead and shape the world confidently and positively, now and in the future. With excellent academic results, RHS girls become welleducated, well-rounded and well-balanced, able to navigate a global, multicultural, and technology-driven world successfully. It is the only school in Bath to offer the International Baccalaureate Diploma. Extra curricular activities: RHS girls get involved in just about everything offered on the extensive list of clubs and activities, during lunchtime and after school. Whether it's fencing or French, swimming or science club, debating or digital photography, the school encourages girls to try something new. They meet challenges, develop passions, have fun and make new groups of friends. Pastoral care: Pastoral care and academic development go hand in hand. Girls perform best when they are happy and secure, so the caring and supportive community gives girls a real sense of belonging. The school understands the pressures, uncertainties and challenges moving from childhood to adulthood. If girls have any worries at all, there is always someone qualified to talk to, or sometimes just a friendly chat, cuddle with the school's wellbeing dogs or a cup of tea is just the ticket. Name of Head: Mrs Kate Reynolds Outstanding characteristics: The school is a mix of day and boarding girls, a happy, thriving community, free from stereotypes. The girls build confidence and high self-esteem, whilst fostering the 6 Cs; courage, commitment, critical thinking, compassion and creativity. Royal High School Bath is part of The Girls' Day School Trust (GDST) which has 25 UK schools and academies nationwide. RHS is an innovative, high-achieving school, providing a wonderful environment for girls to excel academically, thrive emotionally and develop socially. The Royal High Prep School is situated in the beautiful grounds of Cranwell House in Weston, with a dynamic curriculum and opportunities for outdoor learning, which fosters an interest in ecology and conservation. Girls develop a deeper understanding of their studies, to help them see the connections within and between disciplines, to develop a flexible and creative mindset, and to enjoy learning. A great education lays the foundation for life-long learning, through RHS and beyond.

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HEALTH & WELLBEING

HEALTH & WELLBEING Things have opened up in the health and beauty sector, but we discover that there are many regulations that salons as well as the medical sector need to follow. We also welcome back a meditation group to provide refuge in anxious times

BEAUTY AFTER COVID-19 The hair and beauty industries were some of the first to close when lockdown was announced in March, due to the personal contact required between the beautician and their client. They were also among the last businesses to reopen in midJuly – along with nail salons, massage parlours and spas – a delay that frustrated many people because the industry has been one of those worst hit economically by the virus, and one that has always had impeccable standards of safety and hygiene. Abi Beszant of Frontlinestyle has given us an overview of all the procedures now in place in her salon – details that show the lengths to which salons have had to go to keep their staff and their clients safe. Frontlinestyle new beauty regulations Hand sanitise all clients on entry and exit — temperature check all staff and clients — staff uniform to be only worn on premises and hot washed daily — visors and masks to be worn by all staff, and masks by clients — disposable eco towels used for each client

(towels and gowns hot washed after each client) — all stations and rooms to be sanitised between each client — each client to be given extra time for treatments — clients and staff numbers to be limited to allow social distancing — one way system in place — card payments only — no product testing. Frontlinestyle special offers Frontlinestyle are offering a virtual online skin and hair analysis with a free consultation. There is also a click and collect service available for all hair and beauty products, available for free for purchases over £35. There is a reward scheme in place on purchases, with credits that can be redeemed against free products or services. The salon’s full treatment menu is now available except for selected treatments such as threading – while this is now allowed by the government, the salon are exercising extra caution. The building has full natural ventilation, with all doors and windows open

DENTISTRY AFTER COVID-19 by Philip Pettermerides, Edgar Buildings Dental and Implant Clinic The aftermath of Covid continues: social distancing, masks when shopping, cancelled holidays and an unsure future. Dentists and their patients have also been affected. From the middle of March, we were unable to see patients face to face. We did our best to give advice on the telephone for those with broken teeth or in pain. We could only prescribe antibiotics and pain killers when required and advise on travel kits to temporarily repair fractured teeth. For those in severe pain the NHS eventually opened Emergency Dental Hubs. In time we were able to reopen, but not all practices could acquire the enhanced PPE needed to treat patients safely. Portman Dental, however, had gone to great lengths to provide us with the correct PPE and we prepared our own standard operating procedures. These have been altered over time as new research has indicated that some procedures could be relaxed and others became more stringent. . Our main concern in Post-Covid dentistry is the creation of aerosols when we use the high-speed drill and when the air and water syringe is 72 TheBATHMagazine

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used. The Covid virus is thought to exist in aerosols, so the dental team need enhanced protection and to remove the aerosol that may have been used in the surgery before the next patient. This means wearing surgical gowns and a very closefitting mask that prevents inhalation of the aerosol. These masks are extremely uncomfortable and often leave the wearer with red marks on their face and even abrasions. I often think it’s more uncomfortable for the team than for our patients! We have had a backlog of patients, which has been challenging because we have to leave 60 minutes after an aerosol-generating procedure with a further 30-minute clean down for each surgery after every patient. We are awaiting clearance to use new air purifiers which may help to reduce this time, but it may be a while before we return to our usual regime. Fortunately, we are now able to offer all the treatments that we were offering pre Covid 19; it might just take us a little longer to see you. • Edgar Buildings Dental and Implant Clinic: smileofconfidence.com

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and private rooms are available for at risk and vulnerable clients. Early or late appointments are available and spa days can be shared by clients in the same ‘bubble’ or family. • frontlinestyle.co.uk

MEDITATION REFUGE The Bath Sakya Buddhist group will open its doors again on Tuesday evenings from 6 October, 8pm, at the Museum of Bath at Work, and welcomes anyone new to, interested in, or familiar with meditation and Buddhism. The venue is a big space allowing physical distancing and social togetherness. Their philosophy is that meditation practised in the context of the teachings of the Buddha can provide a refuge in these disruptive times. Learning to unwind our always-busy minds leads to experiencing stillness and space. It gives the ability to be present, more aware of, and in touch with the actual here and now, both internally and externally. The Bath Sakya Buddhist group, run by students of Lama Jampa Thaye, has been in Bath since 2006, offering weekly meditation sessions and introducing the basic principles of the profound teachings of the Buddha; a practical way out of suffering and a spiritual path to enlightenment. • Bath Sakya Buddhist group: 07842 855790; bath@dechen.org; sakyabristol.org/bath

Fully qualified integrative counsellor Molly van der Weij meets people from all walks of life in her therapy room. Trained and skilled in a variety of therapeutic approaches, Molly applies what feels most suited to each person. • meadowcounselling.com

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B A C K S T AG E AT E L I E R

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ADVERTISEMENT FEATURE

“I was in constant pain and some days I couldn’t walk or sleep” Jo Lee, CNM Graduate in Naturopathic Nutrition

got through the days with over-the-counter pain relief and spinal injections. I constantly looked pale with dark rings under my eyes; being in so much pain was soul destroying. Suffering with very bad back and nerve pain made getting through the day a real challenge. The spinal injections offered some relief, but the pain soon returned. I was told by doctors that surgery was the only option left; I wasn’t keen to go down this route, so I kept it at the back of my mind as a last resort. My focus on food began when juicing had just become fashionable and I went on a weeklong juicing retreat. The positive impact that nutrition had on my body soon became clear. Changing my diet was a real turning point in my health. I decided to try acupuncture and explore further nutrition and lifestyle changes. I started to feel so much better and this was a real light bulb moment for me.

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I made the decision to study Naturopathic Nutrition, so I began looking for courses. I found the College of Naturopathic Medicine (CNM) on a Google search and went to meet a college representative to discuss the course in more detail. I was thrilled at the thought of starting and signed up to the three-year diploma as soon as I could. After years of studying via distance learning, I was ready to meet other students on a regular basis and I loved the fact that CNM involved time at the college with other students. I was so lucky to study with an amazing group of people. Every lecture inspired me to learn more about the subject. I also loved the final year student clinics. Even though they were nerve wracking at the beginning, the clinics gave me the confidence to be able to practice on my own. We had incredible support from our clinic supervisors and peers. The course helped me to focus on my health and realise the importance of healing my body in a holistic way. I’ve been able to get to the root cause of my ill health, rather than just silencing my symptoms; this has been so powerful. I now have the skill-set to help others and empower people to take charge of their health which is an amazing feeling. Since graduating, I’ve set up a private clinic at home called Vitalife Nutrition. I create recipes and meal plans for other clinics and therapists. I’m constantly learning new things, following the latest research and reading everything I can about nutrition. I love helping clients understand how their body works and inspiring them to take the first step towards positive change. If you’re curious about health and nutrition,

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consider studying with CNM. Even if you don’t want to practice, you’ll leave feeling so in awe of your incredible body and you’ll be equipped to take the very best care of it. You’re never too old to learn something new!

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CNM Online Open Events Discover how natural therapies promote true health and vitality. Our events are packed with inspiring tips on how to nurture yourself in natural, sustainable ways. And if you are thinking of turning your passion Geoff Don into a career, an Online Open Event will also cover what you need to know about studying at CNM.

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The Care Industry has had its fair share of criticism over the years with many vulnerable people needing help but not knowing where to turn, families want to help out more but are unable to do so because of work commitments and everyday life, because of this they encourage their loved ones to go into a home or respite. The staff in homes do the most amazing job but for some residents it simply is not the place for them because home is where their heart really is. I run an agency that allows people to live in their own homes so they can be around their cherished possessions, memories and have someone with them to ensure they are safe, eating and drinking and are taking their medication and attending appointments. The feedback that I get from numerous clients when I visit them for their first initial assessment is how much cheaper Live In Care is compared to Domiciliary Care or Night Care and what value you get for your money as someone is there to support 24 hours a day as opposed to half an hour or hour visit 2 to 3 times per day, giving families complete peace of mind knowing that someone is with their loved ones at all times, and seeing to their every need. I have experienced carers who work tirelessly to provide good care and companionship, they all have their different strengths, some carers like to provide companionship only where as others like more challenging Live In Assignments like End of life care, Dementia and Parkinson’s. We will tailor make a package that suits all involved and we will provide a compatible Carer to meet all of their needs.

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SEPTEMBER 2020

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THE | WALK

Let’s do the skyline again

Walking with a clear view of the skies and surveying the hills and the landscape stretching out beneath them is always a special experience for the walker, says Andrew Swift, who follows a skyline walk starting from Primrose Hill

lthough Bath’s Skyline Walk is justly popular, it is but one of many panoramic walks which can be enjoyed on the hills surrounding the city. Among the finest is a five and a half mile walk starting at Primrose Hill on Lansdown (ST741668; BA1 5RG). This not only commands superb views of the city, but also distant prospects of Wiltshire, Somerset and, on a clear day, Wales. To get to the starting point on foot or by car, head north up Lansdown Road. Shortly after passing the Royal High School on the right, turn left along Hamilton Road. After 325m, at a T junction, turn right up a No Through Road. At the top, turn left along a rough lane where there is usually ample parking.

At the end of the lane, go through a wooden gate on the right into Chelscombe Farm. Continue along the metalled track for 100m, before veering uphill to follow a wellwalked track towards a beech copse on the summit. When you reach it, turn to take in a spectacular view over the city – look, in particular, for Prior Park, which looks surprisingly different from this altitude. As you carry on through a wide gap in the hedge, Beckford’s Tower comes into view ahead. It was built in 1827 and, according to William Beckford, commanded “the finest prospect in Europe”. The land around it, surrounded by a high wall, was originally laid out as pleasure gardens, but after Beckford’s death became a cemetery. Below you is 17th-century Chelscombe Farmhouse.

Beckford’s Tower

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THE | WALK

Follow a track running along the contours and at the end of the field go through the kissing gate (KG) ahead to continue along a track below the cemetery wall. After 300m, carry on through two more KGs and follow a waymark sign straight on. After another 300m, as you pass between stunted trees, take a narrow, rocky track climbing between brambles. Carry on alongside a drystone wall and through another KG. After going through a wooden KG (ST732678), continue in the same direction, with the drystone wall now on your left as the path joins a metalled track for a short distance. When the metalled track curves right, however, head straight on to emerge in a large field.

on the edge of the escarpment, trees mask any views. Eventually, when the railings carry straight on, follow the wall as it curves left (ST718687). After 250m, when you come to a metal gate with a footpath sign, don’t go through it but continue alongside the wall as it curves right. A little further on is Prospect Stile, the highlight of the walk. According to John Wood, writing in 1742, it was to this spot that “the curious” resorted, “not only to look down upon the cities of Bath and Bristol ... but to behold ... a region that sets paradise itself before one’s eyes”. Today, a topograph has been installed to indicate the location of various landmarks, including Alfred’s Tower and the White Horse at Westbury.

View from below Beckford’s Tower

Keep to the left-hand side and at the end go through a KG onto Lansdown Lane. Turn left along the verge and after 50m cross and follow a footpath sign through a gap in the wall. This is Bath Racecourse, where there is a distinct shortage of waymarks. Trying to follow the public footpaths marked on OS maps is fraught with difficulty, as they not only cross and recross the racetrack, but there is no indication to show exactly where they do this. The undesirability of this arrangement has long been recognised and there are plans to reroute them. Fortunately, you can already follow the proposed route. To do so, follow the footpath into the field, heading towards the buildings in the distance. After about 125m, however, bear left along a path running parallel to the wall on the left (ST725685). After 200m, as you approach the railings bordering the track, follow the wall as it bears sharp left. For the next 800m, the path runs between the wall and the railings, but, although you are

Go through the KG (a replacement for the original stile) and follow the path downhill. You are now on the Cotswold Way. A high KG leads into Shiner’s Wood, on the far side of which another KG leads onto a crosspath which follows the course of the Roman Road from Bath to Sea Mills – or Aquae Sulis to Abonae to be precise (ST712680). Turn left through a handgate and immediately right through another one to continue along the Cotswold Way, with Kelston Round Hill on your right. After going through two more handgates, the views open up as the path heads downhill, straddling the ridge between the valleys of the Avon and the West Brook. By Pendean Cottage the path joins a lane. After a few metres, however, when the lane swings left downhill, the path continues over a stile and across the top of a field (ST718666). At the end of the field, a handgate leads onto a path between hedgerows which grows steeper and slippier before steps head

down to another handgate. Follow a waymark across a field, through a KG and across another field, on the far side of which a KG leads down steps onto a road (ST727663). Turn left along the pavement and take the second left down Penn Hill Road. Cross the zebra at the bottom, turn right along Weston High Street, and, after passing the bottom of Trafalgar Road, follow the pedestrian walkway ahead past the library. Follow the path as it as climbs up to the church before curving back downhill. As you leave the churchyard, bear left uphill. Carry on uphill, crossing a road, and, after the lane dwindles to a track, go through a KG into a field (ST733665). Here you have a choice of footpaths. If you walked to the starting point, you can carry on along the Cotswold Way, with the prospect of more great views as you cross High Common on the way back to the city centre. If you drove up to Primrose Hill, however, you need to follow the path bearing left uphill. After crossing a stony track by a bench, well sited for a final view over the city, carry straight on through a KG to continue uphill. After going through a handgate, the views to the west, over Kelston Round Hill and Prospect Stile, open up. Then a KG leads into Primrose Hill Community Woodland, celebrating its 20th anniversary this year, and well worth a leisurely exploration. The way out is in the top right-hand corner, and, if you want to head straight for it, turn right alongside the hedgerow. After the path narrows, you emerge in an open space with a choice of three paths. Take the middle one, heading diagonally uphill, and go through a gate at the end to return to the starting point. n

FACT FILE n Distance: 5.5 miles n Time: 2.5–3.5 hours n Map: OS Explorer 155 n Terrain: Some rocky, muddy and slippery sections, especially on the descent to Weston. One stile. Cows and sheep may be encountered.

Andrew Swift’s books include Country Walks from Bath and On Foot in Bath, a new and revised edition of which has just been published by akemanpress.com.

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INTERIORS

All worked up at home Lockdown propelled many office workers into remote working. Not everyone was set up for it, so kitchens became central work zones, tables in bedrooms took on new lives and hallways and understair cupboards have provided study potential for the inventive. It’s clear remote working isn’t going away, so Emma Clegg gets some advice from those in the design know

orking from home is not a new phenomenon. The freelance life has always accommodated creatives, artists and writers, individuals offering administrative or advisory services or those making small-scale products who base themselves in a domestic setting. It makes sense doing this rather than hiring an office or premises, space permitting – the business is cheaper to run, there’s no commute, your time is your own to manage and what better colleagues are there than the dog or budgerigar to have morning coffee with? As digital technology has opened up communication pathways, remote working, too, has gained momentum over the last 10 years. Employers have recognised that having the flexibility to work from home can make their employees more productive, reduces operational overheads and gives people a better work life balance. It also improves air quality and our environment. Lockdown has exploded the trend towards home working, catapulting anyone whose employment allowed it into working from home. And it’s been pretty successful. Employers previously doubtful about how effective employees might be without a corporate supervisory eye have been able to evaluate the success of the working from home phenomenon and the results have been positive. As lockdown eases, many employees continue to work from home, keeping in touch with colleagues via digital technology such as video conferencing – Zoom, BlueJeans, Zoho, Cisco Webex et al – and using collaboration tools such as Google Drive, Dropbox, ProofHub and Basecamp, which have enabled the mass adoption of working remotely. It seems likely that more companies will adapt this operational flexibility into the business model long-term. But how does working from home impact on the home interior? For new lockdown home workers, it’s been a case of make and make do. But what if you live in a one bedroom flat? What if the only table you have is in the kitchen? What happens when you want to give a bed to a friend in your spare bedroom come office? Where does the printer go? How does an office fit into an open plan living space?

How do you avoid a work desk taking over a room, and how do you keep a good work-life balance if your desk is always visible? From a dedicated office space if room allows, to the corner of a bedroom if needs must, home studies can thankfully be ultra-flexible, and like most environments, there is an art to designing a workspace that meets your needs, doesn’t impinge on your home life and that looks stylish too. Here we’ve asked for some practical design advice from some of our local specialists. You’ll also find some more inspiring product ideas for home offices on page 84.

Joel Bugg “We’ve seen a general increase over the last decade to adapt rooms for study or working from home, and without doubt the trend for incorporating a study area in our homes is set to rise. “To incorporate a workstation within open-plan living, you need to think about ‘broken-plan’ living, to create zonal areas in your space for cooking, dining, relaxing and work. These could be created by adding partitions through the inventive design of furniture such as bookshelving or temporary screens. You can think about choosing different flooring materials to separate the zones. And to create a hideaway workstation, one trick would be to construct a cabinet that uses a pocket or sliding door which would not be visible in work hours and then covers the desk area when finished for the day. “Utilise a niche and don’t overlook a small space where you might think furniture won’t fit. Uunder the stairs might look like a compromised space, but with bespoke furniture every nook can be built around. And for storage, even the stairs themselves can house books on the treads if cleverly engineered. “Another solution would be to look out for vintage or antique pieces of furniture. Mid-century Danish design was very good at creating fold-away work stations such as the lock-away bureau and such a piece adds character and style to the room. And a roll-top or antique writing desk can be an aesthetic addition to an office.”

Having a work station in a cupboard means you can switch off at the end of the day. Space designed by Architect Your Home

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Castanea Desk, £485, TR Hayes

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â&#x20AC;&#x153;Clients are more conscious of the backdrop in their office as the use of virtual technologes put us and our homes on displayâ&#x20AC;? NICK WOODHOUSE

Designed and produced by Joel Bugg, this is a dedicated room for children to undertake home study

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Richard Hayes, TR Hayes Create an office desk by slipping a worktop to fit into a niche between two walls – design by Joel Bugg

“With increasing numbers of us being able to work from home, having a separate, designated work space will encourage creativity and enable a separation between work life and home life. “Once you have identified a good place to set up your home office, make sure it is clutter free and organise good storage for files and papers. TR Hayes have various ranges to help with this, and they come in all sorts of styles, including the traditional Harbour Office range. A modular system can be helpful, such as Optimum Office Furniture, where you can buy filing cabinets, shelving, desks and more and build up an arrangement that works for you. “If you can’t allocate a whole room to your office, think about a discreet desk such as the British made Dali Glass desk, just a sheet of toughened glass bent into a desk shape. There aren’t any drawers or places to hide wires, so this is not for everyone, but it certainly makes a stylish design statement. “Something else to consider is a small office cabinet that you can close up and leave all your work things hidden and a chair that is comfortable and adjustable. Most come on castors and are height adjustable, but look out for those with extra lumbar support and further adjustment options (eg a tilting back rest or adjustable arms). A Stressless® recliner is a top-notch option, but there are plenty for more modestly sized pockets.”

“To incorporate a workstation with open-plan living, think about ‘broken-plan’ living, to create zonal areas in your space for cooking, dining, relaxing and work” JOEL BUGG Nick Woodhouse, Woodhouse and Law

The Linea Garden Office from Garden Affairs

“While we are accustomed to designing dedicated work spaces for our clients, we anticipate a stronger focus on the importance of these spaces. For example, investment in bespoke solutions to ensure ergonomic desk chairs, clever storage solutions and larger desks. Clients are also more conscious of the backdrop in their office as the use of virtual technologies such as Zoom put us and our homes on display each day. “You don’t need a dedicated room to create a functional, comfortable and inspiring home office. Bespoke cabinetry can be designed with sliding panels to conceal a desk and all of the paraphernalia that comes with home working, from box files to printers and shredders. A simpler, more cost-effective alternative might be to buy a desk with a lift-up section so that laptops can be placed out of view, quickly and easily. This method of working will suit people who store files digitally. “Another solution is to make rooms multi-functional. If your guest room is rarely used for the majority of the time, swap the bed for a sofa bed or day bed (with the option of a trundle underneath) to free up floor space for a desk and office chair. Bespoke solutions work particularly well in this type of environment as it allows you to make the very best of the space available with clever storage solutions and the option to conceal the work space behind doors. “Providing a combination of closed and open storage will enable you to ensure the space looks neat as well as display those carefully edited books. Good cable management is a quick win and will instantly help a space feel less cluttered and more fit for purpose.”

Jude Law, Architect Your Home

A multifuctional space with study and a day bed – design by Woodhouse and Law

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“The enforced period of time at home has shown us that there are serious alternatives to the trek into the office every day, and the idea of a more flexible approach is very appealing. “Working from home, however, does throw up its own issues, the biggest of these being the practical issue of space – where to set up a permanent work station? While some may have a study or dining room

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INTERIORS

to work from, many have found the only place is the kitchen table where you are surrounded by the noise and distractions of family life, your computer and papers are always in the way and it’s simply not conducive to productive work time. “One of the most important factors is to have a designated space where your computer and printer and basic equipment are set up and don’t need to be constantly cleared away. “The next thing to decide is what is your commitment to working from home – it is part time or full time? And for the next few months or for years to come? And do you need it to be quiet? “When thinking about the space, locate the spaces in your home that are underused or not used at all, such as under the stairs, the garage or in the loft. Or you may have an area of a room that isn’t used much where a compact desk with drawers would fit. One simple idea is to build a cupboard and install some sliding or folding doors that open up to a desk space within – this creates the space you need and the doors can be closed at the end of the day.”

Den Desk by Loaf, £645

Catriona Archer “With the increased time we now face at home, and the multifunctioning needs we demand of it, many of us feel it’s time to shake things up a little. “The ideal of open-plan living with a seamless flow between multifunctional spaces has become increasingly popular, but there are issues that should be considered. We are all aware of how sound carries and privacy is often compromised. This is especially noticeable during important Zoom meetings during working hours! Pocket doors or sliding doors are an efficient way of maintaining an open-plan feel, but allowing us to section off an area when concentrated work is required. “Consider also the finishes used in the space – rugs, textured wallpapers, plants and hung artwork can all help buffer sound that resonates throughout the space. Plants not only benefit our air and wellbeing, but act as a wonderful soft partition between areas – for me, the bigger the better! Do consider the plant’s need for natural sunlight, a decent sized pot and good soil. Certain indoor plants such as weeping fig, rubber plants, spider plants, ferns, aloe vera and chrysanthemums are known to be particularly effective at reducing harmful Catriona Archer transformed a client’s wardrobe into a home office

electromagnetic toxins and numerous other air pollutants. “No matter how large or small our homes are, most of us have an uncanny knack of filling them with more than we could ever need. Decluttering helps feel more in control of our space and let go of items that are no longer relevant. Creating more efficient and user-friendly ways of storing our possessions saves us both time and money in the long-run: Making it quicker to tidy up and avoiding unnecessary purchases due to not being able to find something in a hurry. “A client of mine wanted an office in her bedroom but was concerned it would be too much of a distraction. So we transformed her much-loved free-standing wardrobe into a home office – the inside was painted, wallpapered and simple drawer brackets were used to provide a slide-out desk top. It even stored her printer and paperwork. At the end of the day it could easily be closed up and allow the space to feel like a bedroom again.”

Poppy Squire, Garden Affairs “Many customers tell us that they will be working from home permanently now, or for the foreseeable future, while others will only be going back a couple of days a week. “Setting up an office in your living space is not always straightforward. In our business we talk to people who want to carve out extra space for working in, and we have seen an unprecedented demand for garden offices – this is because the only option for many is to turn to the last available space left, the garden. A garden office provides an ideal solution for working from home. You get your own space, peace and quiet, and time to concentrate away from the rest of the family and the distraction of household tasks. Plus there’s no commute! “You don’t need acres of land to accommodate one of our buildings. A small garden office pod like our popular Mini Office (2.4 x 1.8m) is an affordable, comfortable and stylish way of creating your own office, even in the tiniest of garden spaces and the cost is modest compared to a loft conversion or extension. At the other end of the scale, we also have multi-room buildings with additional space for working, hobbies, garden storage, even bathrooms and kitchens. “One customer who has one of our garden buildings wrote to us saying, ‘We used it every day before lockdown for work and homework, and hanging out with friends. During lockdown, however, it has really come into its own and I don’t think we would have survived the past few months without that extra space at the bottom of the garden!’” n joelbugg.co.uk; trhayes.co.uk; woodhouseandlaw.co.uk; architect-yourhome.com; loaf.com; gardenaffairs.co.uk; catrionaarcher.com THEBATHMAG.CO.UK

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Stuart Jones Interior Design is a South West based design and restoration company covering all aspects of interior design. Joanne Jones, head designer, has been working in the local area for 20 years and has formed a reputation for a keen eye for detail and prides herself in transforming interior spaces to best suit her client’s needs. Joanne’s early studies in archaeology and working with historical buildings solidified her passion for building restoration which has created a unique approach to her design style. Working with an eclectic collection of properties from beautiful Georgian townhouses to country farmhouses and modern new builds, Joanne has been able to adapt her design skills embracing the old and combining contemporary styles with traditional features. 3D design software has brought the design process into the modern age and has opened a platform for Joanne to create room designs which help inspire and encourage her clients to visualise the finished space in all its glory. She has even taken it a step further with 4D design, enabling the client to ‘walk’ around their space - open cupboards, turn on a tap or lie back in a roll top bath. Combining these two design elements Joanne can work with her clients to update or renovate a space to its true potential. Stuart Jones also offers a bespoke, in house curtain and blind making and installation service. Using a wide collection of drapery fabrics, Joanne believes that quality window dressings can change the feel and ambiance of a room dramatically and is a cost effective way of updating a space. So whether your lounge needs a little love, you are thinking of redesigning your kitchen or bathroom, or are about to start a full renovation project Stuart Jones Interior Design will provide a full design service, assist in sourcing products, create full specifications and design pack including 3D room designs, elevations and mood boards, leaving you with a home to enjoy for years to come. Joanne also offers this service to and collaborates with other members of the design community, including architects and other residential and commercial designers

info@sjrestoration.co.uk Phone: 01454 603947 Mobile: 07484 693019 www.sjrestoration.co.uk

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Image shows: Karndean Kaleidoscope Collection

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CITY | INTERIORS

Home-work comforts

There’s been a clear upswell in remote working in recent months, so we investigate products that will give your home office some essential practical solutions as well as a classy design edge says Emma Clegg

Pencil Sharpenings Smelly Wax Candle in stoneware vessel, £40, one of a series of perfumed candles by Loaf; loaf.com

Create a moodboard with fairy lights. LED Fairy Lights £12.99 lights4fun.co.uk

Snail paperweight, £19.95, Homefront Interiors; homefrontinteriors.co.uk Montblanc pen pouch and pens, pouch £215, pens from £655, Mallory; mallory-jewellers.com

£550, med prints, from Large Audubon fra ebathframer.co.uk th r; me The Bath Fra

Ibsen Corner Desk, £475, TR Hayes; trhayes.co.uk

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Anglepoise Margaret Howell Type 75 table lamp, £160; Fiat Lux; fiatlux.co.uk

Chockablock Console Table, 1m width, £445, Loaf; loaf.com

Royal Crescent Mug, £26, Homefront Interiors; homefrontinteriors.co.uk

Kaye Adjustable Kneeling Stool, can be height and angle adjusted, £125, TR Hayes; trhayes.co.uk

Handmade Afghan Kelim, 292 x 192cm, £750, Oriental Rugs of Bath; orientalrugsofbath.com

Prima Jake Gazebo, 3 x 6m, from £4256, Garden Affairs; gardenaffairs.co.uk

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Lead with your kitchen Kitchen retailer Kutchenhaus – part of Nobilia – has opened its new store in Bath in Saracen Street, its 34th showroom to open in the UK. The new showroom harnesses the latest technology to provide virtual appointments and use its new online 3D planning and design tool to create kitchens remotely for local customers who do not wish to visit. The store will be managed by Rob Cash, who has over 15 years of kitchen design experience. We asked Rob for more details...

from architect plans if the customer is planning an extension, or we can carry out a home visit. We would invest time in producing an initial design that we would go through in more detail during our design meeting. Once we have finalised the kitchen design and a customer chooses to purchase we have a team who will manage the process of the order through to completion. What are the price points for a kitchen? We can cater for a wide span of price points, from the £5,000–10,000 bracket all the way to the £40,000–50,000 bracket. Our average order value in Bristol is around £15,000–20,000, however price is all relative to the size and the materials.

What are the advantages of this German brand of kitchen? German manufactured products are known for their attention to detail and high quality. This is no different with our German kitchens, where each is made to order to customers unique specifications. Our friendly local team are passionate in designing and supplying our kitchens, reflected in the great reviews we receive. Is there a style that typifies Kutchenhaus? Not really, as we can offer a wide range of styles, colours and materials. We offer Contemporary and Traditional kitchen ranges and a large selection of true handleless designs. Every kitchen is unique to customers’ specifications and we have options which will suit most tastes. The manufacturer is always improving their offer and are constantly improving their range of units and finishes. Can you explain more about the technology that is used for virtual appointments? One of the best outcomes of lockdown for us has been the introduction of our virtual design service, where we can design kitchens remotely. This has meant that we can share our screen with customers in the comfort and safety of their home. While this has enhanced our service, there really is nothing better than visiting our showrooms to get inspired about your future kitchen project. 86 TheBATHMagazine

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Why do you think your kitchen offering will fit well in Bath? We have had a successful 3.5 years in our Bristol store, and we have identified Bath as a key location to grow our business. The location fits within the home improvement area of Bath, which creates a destination location. How many different kitchen styles are there? Our Bath showroom will feature six full kitchen displays complete with a range of appliances, worktops, sinks and taps. We will also be showcasing some of our media centres, bathroom vanity furniture and office furniture, demonstrating that we do more than just kitchens. Does Kutchenhaus offer a complete service from design to installation? We can offer a mixture of options from supply only to full installation. Our teams can take care of the whole installation, including electrics, plastering, flooring etc. We find this is the best option when purchasing a new kitchen, as the installation teams are familiar with the product and can install everything quickly and correctly. What is the process that will be followed with a new client? We start the process off by having a chat about the customer’s project and understanding the brief. We can work

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What options are there with appliances and accessories? There is a wide choice of appliance companies to choose from which vary in price and quality, which allows us to cater for different budgets and requirements. We deal with some great quality brands including Bora, Quooker, AEG, Smeg, Neff, Blanco and Caple, to name just a few. What are some of the difficult decisions about commissioning a new kitchen that Kutchenhaus can help with? Customers want to know that they are going to get their quality kitchen and to make sure they are getting a good deal. We believe that the price vs quality that we offer is very competitive and we can compete with the majority of the main players supplying kitchens. We also offer competitive finance options to help make purchasing our kitchens more affordable. Will clients have continuity in their dealings with the company? Our team manages the whole process of ordering the kitchens once a customer has made their order. There are no call centres to deal with, and you deal directly with our local team. We have a well-rounded team, who deal with all aspects of running the business and we all have the same goal, to achieve stunning completed kitchens and glowing reviews. n Kutchenhaus, 5 Saracen Street, Bath BA1 5BR; 01225 634025; kutchenhaus.co.uk

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Create space with a garden room GARDEN OFFICES • LOG CABINS • STUDIOS • SUMMERHOUSES POSH SHEDS • TIMBER GARAGES • OUTDOOR LIVING SPACES

01225 774566 • www.gardenaffairs.co.uk Visit our Display Centre at Trowbridge Garden Centre 288 Frome Road, BA14 0DT THEBATHMAG.CO.UK

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the directory

to advertise in this section call 01225 424 499

Electricians

Holiday Rental

60+ luxury properties for lets 2 nights to 5 months Holidays – For business – Friends & family – Temporary accommodation during renovation/relocation Contact: 01225 482 225 alexa@bathholidayrentals.com www.bathholidayrentals.com Providing 4 & 5 star self-catering properties since 2006

Health, Beauty & Wellbeing

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House & Home

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Aromatherapy • Reflexology/Facial reflexology Japanese Cosmo Facelift • Deep Tissue Massage For more information, please visit:

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Trowbridge & Neal’s Yard Bath

MEADOW COUNSELLING Humanistic and Integrative Counselling in central Bath and beyond Molly van der Weij MA, DipHIC, UKCP Reg

IS AVAILABLE TO PICK UP FOR FREE AT

meadowcounselling.com 07842 855790

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CENTRAL

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PROPERTY | HOMEPAGE

charming beautifully presented, 3 bedroomed Grade II listed semi-detached villa, situated in the sought-after village area of Widcombe, only minutes from the city centre of Bath. This is a most attractive villa built in an Italianate style with large overhanging roof and full length windows, and a canopied terrace to the front. The property has beautifully presented accommodation featuring a large drawing to the front overlooking the good sized garden, together with withdrawing room and separate glazed garden room. To the rear is a dining room and fully fitted kitchen, and at first floor level three good size bedrooms, all of which have a light and airy feel. In addition the property has the benefit of gravel driveway with parking for several vehicles and a separate garden to the rear with fruit trees and a timber shed. Prior Park Road is situated in the village area of Widcombe, a highly desirable residential area on the south side of the city with a charming High Street and a good range of local shops, restaurants and other amenities. It is also within a short walk from the city centre and Bath Spa Railway Station. This is a quite exceptional property and a viewing is strongly recommended by the sole agents Cobb Farr.

Prior Park Road Bath • Beautifully presented accommodation • Large drawing room and withdrawing room • Three good sized bedrooms • Canopied terrace • Level ornate attractive good size garden • Off street parking for several vehicles £1,000,000

Cobb Farr, 35 Brock Street, The Circus, Bath. Tel: 01225 333332

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Take advantage of the Stamp Duty Holiday and make your move to the country. With fibre connectivity making home working even easier – but if you need to get to the office the train station is minutes away. Make your appointment today to visit one of our 2, 3 or 4 bedroom view homes. Some plots are available for immediate occupation. You can also explore The Granary (our showhome) online at www.churchfarmrode.co.uk

£325,000 Stunning Two-bedroom Cottages ready for immediate occupation. These homes are positioned within an idyllic courtyard setting and complete with two parking spaces.

Three-bedroom homes starting at £395,000 Spacious and practical accommodation, ideal for retiring to the country or offering a peaceful base to work from home. Some are available for immediate occupation and qualify for the Help to Buy scheme.

Chalkhill. Priced at £840,000 and 2250 sqft. A magnificent, traditionally styled home. Benefitting from countryside views to the rear, a secluded position, and accommodation that ticks all the boxes.

Cherry Tree Lodge. Priced at £675,000 a fabulous four double bedroom home available for immediate occupation. Fit for family life, there is a kitchen diner, stunning dual aspect living room, a practical utility and separate ground floor study/additional reception room.

01225 333332 | 01225 866111

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Richmond Place, Bath OIRO£750,000

• • • • • •

2 beautiful bedrooms 2 lovely bathrooms Stunning German kitchen Charming sitting room Separate utility room and guest cloakroom Impressive designer landscaped grass gardens

01225 333332 | 01225 866111

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TALKING | PROPERTY

Peter Greatorex Managing director of The apartment Company

Landlords, are your electrics up to the new standard?

othing ever stands still when it comes to lettings, and last month new regulation came into practice, The Electrical Safety Standards in the Private Rented Sector (England) Regulations 2020. With the pandemic and all the uncertainty that it has brought, at The Apartment Company we want to make sure that you haven’t overlooked this legislative change and have made sure that your electrics are up to the new standard. When it comes to electrical installation of your residential premises, as a landlord in the Private Rented Sector (PRS) you need to ensure that your installation is inspected by a qualified and competent person, and also tested at intervals of 5 years or less. The regulations apply to all new specified tenancies in England from 1 July 2020, and also existing specified tenancies from 1 April 2021. There are some exceptions to this new regulation, including social housing, being accommodation that is shared with a landlord or landlord’s family, long leases, and hostels and refuges, amongst others. An Electrical Installation Condition Report (EICR) is typically used within the industry. This report assesses the safety and condition of the existing electrical installation within your rental properties. Switches and sockets, consumer units, protective bonding and lighting are just some of the parts of the system which are required to be reported on. This is so it can be confirmed, as far as possible, that the electrical installation work has been completed safely and is also safe for continued use. When you receive your EICR report, it will clearly state whether the electrical installation in your property is in a satisfactory or unsatisfactory condition. A ‘competent person’ is required to undertake the electrical inspection; this is someone who has the necessary qualification. We can provide you with a recommendation, but also check for electricians registered with governing bodies such as NICEIC and NAPIT. According to the regulations, they must also have: • An up-to-date qualification which covers the current version of the wiring regulations (BS 7671). • An up-to-date qualification that covers periodic inspection, testing and certification of electrical installations. • At least two years’ experience in carrying out periodic inspection and testing. • Adequate insurance in place, which includes at least £2 million public liability insurance and £250,000 professional indemnity insurance. You also have responsibilities once the inspection and testing is completed. As a private landlord you must receive the report from the electrician who conducted the test; as well as the results of the inspection and test, it must also state the date of the next inspection

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and test. A copy of this report should then be given to your existing tenant within 28 days of the date of the inspection/test. After receiving a request from your local housing authority, you must send a copy to them within seven days of that request. It is essential that you keep a copy of the report until you have obtained a new one when your next inspection and test is due. When you have a new tenant, they must also receive a copy of the most recent report before their tenancy starts. Should a prospective tenant request a copy of the report in writing, you must ensure they receive the report within 28 days.

Unsatisfactory If you receive an unsatisfactory Electrical Installation Safety Report, it will identify what works are required to bring your property up to standard. In this case, you need to make sure that any works are undertaken by a qualified electrician within 28 days, or within the period that is stated in the report – bear in mind that this could be less than 28 days. When the works have been completed, you must obtain from your electrician written confirmation that all the works have been undertaken and your property now meets the standard, or that further work and investigation is required. Again, a copy of this report must be sent to your existing tenant within 28 days.

Paperwork We’re sure you understand why this measure has been put in place; it will not only protect your property but also help to keep your tenants safe from electrical faults due to old or faulty wiring. For those properties we manage, our lettings team at The Apartment Company are working with our landlords to ensure they are compliant in all aspects of lettings. Please don’t ignore this new regulation, as local authorities can impose a fine for those who don’t comply, of up to £30,000. The Apartment Company Pg@theapartmentcompany.co.uk or call 01225 471144

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Fabulous show apartment launches at Belvedere House, Lansdown

MARDAN, BATH’S BESPOKE REMOVALS AND STORAGE COMPANY, HAS A VISION OF BEING ‘GREEN’ Mardan Removals and Storage Ltd is a bespoke family run removals and storage company. It has a vision of being ‘green’, taking steps, both big and small, to limit its impact on the environment. Mardan strives to be sustainable, preserve natural resources and to minimise unnecessary waste.

Traditionally Mardan has taken small steps to overall reduce its environmental footprint, for example through recycling, where possible, onsite materials and waste. Mardan also offers to take customers’ unwanted goods to charities or recycling centres, thereby helping to reduce the amount of waste ending up in landfill. Moving to a new house can be a stressful time, and customers often feel they have limited time to ‘get organised’, so the offer to recycle or donate their unwanted goods is well received.

Daily Mardan uses environmentally friendly cleaning products and reuses water where possible, using this to water any customers’ plants being stored on site. The team have a shared passion for nature and the environment and enjoy feeding the diverse range of birds that visit the storage yard.

eveloper Juniper Homes’ have achieved their uncompromising vision for this luxury development. From the moment you step in to Belvedere House, you’ll know this select eight apartment development simply exude style and quality. Designed to make the most of its unrivalled position, Belvedere House is perfect for discerning buyers. The meticulous attention to detail and bespoke design shines throughout. Set in a delightful landscaped environment, apartments are at ground and first floor levels. All four ground floor apartments enjoy private courtyard space. Two of the first floor apartments have a private balcony and two are exceptional duplex penthouses, enjoying a rooftop terrace with far reaching views. There is also a residents garden with two charming arbours. Internally nothing has been left to chance. From the open plan living space with high-specification kitchens through to superbly specified bathrooms and bedrooms that include thoughtful finishing touches such as walk in wardrobes, in a nutshell the interiors are stunning. Anna Fairman, head of residential development sales for Savills in Bath, said: “Lansdown is a much sought-after community. Residents will enjoy large open plan living spaces, uncompromising in style and quality. Contrasting clean modern lines with the softer tones of Bath stone, the apartments strike an architectural balance that offers the best in contemporary living offset by the comfort of a warm and inviting space.” With open countryside on your doorstep and Bath City Centre a little over a mile away, residents can enjoy the best of both worlds; great gastro-pubs and Lansdown Golf Club on your doorstep and easy access to Bath with its culinary expertise and cultural events. Belvedere House is ideally positioned to make the best of both worlds.

As a consumer, Mardan also strives to make choices that reduces its impact on the environment, for example using recycled paper for both packing and admin paperwork. Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, Mardan employees would also reuse packing materials. When buying materials, Mardan buys in bulk, avoids single use items, and buys from local suppliers. Reducing Mardan’s emissions is an important goal. To help achieve this Mardan has replaced their diesel vehicle used for quoting journeys with a small petrol car and when possible staff cycle to work.

Mardan’s biggest area for improving emissions was through the upgrading of its fleet of vehicles. Mardan’s vehicles are used daily so the cost to the environment had been relatively high compared to other areas within the business. Heavy goods vehicles are historically renowned for being ‘gas guzzlers’ and for contributing to carbon emissions. This, together with the introduction of Bath’s Clean Air Zone encouraged Mardan to look at ways of ‘cleaning up’ its fleet. Mardan has therefore invested in a Euro 6 category HGV, restricting diesel Nitrogen Oxide emissions. Mardan feel really proud of its new vehicle and look forward to being sign written.

To help continue to improve its sustainability and reduce its impact on the environment, Mardan has teamed up with ‘Proud to be Green’, a community of green-minded, greenacting businesses, proud to be leading the way to greening-up the UK’s business community.

Prices start at £575,000 and reservations are now being taken. Each apartment includes two dedicated private parking spaces. The Show Apartment is open to view by appointment, please call: 01225 474591 or visit www.belvederehouse.co.uk

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DOMESTIC & COMMERCIAL MOVERS • PACKERS • STORERS • SHIPPERS

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The Andrews Property Column

When should I be putting my property on the market?

ack in July the Chancellor announced that the level at which stamp duty is charged would be temporarily raised to £500,000. This means that any property purchases below the new level will not need to pay stamp duty as long as the purchase is completed before 31 March 2021. How much you could save when purchasing a property all depends on individual circumstances, however if you’re not a first-time buyer purchasing a house for £275,000 then you’ll look to save around £3,750. In Bath the average property price is just under £380,000 which means that previously you would have paid £4,000 in stamp duty, which will now be saved. If you’re thinking about taking advantage and benefiting from this saving and have a property to sell before you purchase then you might want to think about starting the process now. Now we’re into September there are just over 6 months of the stamp duty holiday left, and while this may sound like a long time, once you consider the average time taken to sell a property you might need to get a move on. According to The Advisory, the average time to sell a property, from first day of marketing to completion, is between 16 and

25 weeks. In a hot market, it can take on average 16 weeks and a cold market, 25 weeks. With pent-up demand from lockdown and the increased interest that the stamp duty holiday has brought to the market, properties are selling at a reasonably quick rate. So it’s likely that if you put your property on the market in the next few weeks it will sell quicker than the 25 weeks. Buyers are likely to be more active this side of the year knowing that they could look to save thousands of pounds, and if you’re looking to purchase after selling then you’ll want to benefit from the holiday too. Now is the right time to start getting organised for your move and to ensure you don’t miss out on making it to completion before the end of March next year. Now is also a great time to invest in property as well because these changes also apply to buy-to-let investors, although a 3% surcharge does remain in place. This situation opens up a real opportunity for landlords, as the stamp duty holiday could enable landlords to invest in property with a lower initial outlay. For example, an investor purchasing a property worth £500,000 will now be looking at halving the stamp duty paying £15,000 instead of £30,000. At Andrews we’ve been property experts in Bath for 43 years which means there isn’t much we don't know about property in Bath and the surrounding villages. We also understand how tricky it can be to navigate the property market in these uncertain times. If you’re wondering how much your property price may have changed over the last decade then have a look at our instant online valuation tool on our website, andrewsonline.co.uk, or book a valuation with one of our local experts across our five branches in Bath. Sources: The Advisory, Dataloft. For further information, updates and advice on the current property market contact: Andrewsonline.co.uk

Southwinds Farm, Woolverton A superb development of six beautifully crafted, individual homes in an eclectic mix of designs, located within easy reach of Bath.

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SEPTEMBER 2020

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Central

Andrewsonline.co.uk

Kennetside Darlington Road £895,000

01225 809 571

A fabulous, detached home with four double bedrooms, a double garage and gardens. Located on a no through road in central Bath adjacent to the Kennet & Avon Canal. Energy Efficiency Rating: D

bath@andrewsonline.co.uk

To view more properties and other services available visit Andrewsonline.co.uk

Camden

Andrewsonline.co.uk SOLD STC

Fairfield Terrace BA1 £525,000

A spacious, four bedroom, period home. With two reception rooms, sun room, and off street parking for two. This fabulous home is situated on Raglan Lane and offers an impressive 1546 square feet and has far reaching valley views to the rear. Energy Efficiency Rating: C

01225 809 868 bath.camden@andrewsonline.co.uk

Andrews July.indd 1

To view more properties and other services available visit Andrewsonline.co.uk

25/08/2020 12:14

Newbridge Andrewsonline.co.uk

Wellington Buildings, Weston BA1 ÂŁ400,000

This charming grade II listed house is approached by a no through road in Weston Village. Inside the property is full of character and has a conservatory, sitting room and kitchen/dining room at the rear leading out to a courtyard garden. On the upper two floors are three bedrooms and the family bathroom. The front, being south facing, is a lovely, sunny place to sit and relax, while the rear garden has mature plants and shrubs. The property also benefits from a single garage with off street parking. Energy Efficiency Rating: TBC

01225 809 685 bath.newbridge@andrewsonline.co.uk

To view more properties and other services available visit Andrewsonline.co.uk

Bear Flat

Andrewsonline.co.uk SOLD STC

Bloomfield Crescent, BA2 ÂŁ1,150,000

This is an elegant Grade II* listed Georgian townhouse renovated to very high standards. The spacious family property features 4/5 bedrooms, 2/3 reception rooms, beautiful interior features, an energy efficient heating system and enjoys spectacular views, landscaped gardens, a two-storeyed garage and off road parking space. Energy Efficiency Rating: C

01225 805 680 bath.bearflat@andrewsonline.co.uk

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To view more properties and other services available visit Andrewsonline.co.uk

25/08/2020 12:15

Columbus House

O.I.E.O

£625,000

Boasting some of the most spectacular views across Bath, is this fabulous two bedroom apartment which is sure to excite. Comprising: open plan sitting room/kitchen, master bedroom with ensuite wet room, second bedroom, shower room and private roof terrace.

Claverton Lodge

O.I.E.O

£500,000

A truly unique apartment that commands some of the most magnificent views over the city of Bath. This property is accessed via its own private tiered garden with sun decks and water feature leading to its own front door. The rooms are generous and light arranged over two floors.

Vineyards

£375,000

Nestled in the heart of Bath’s city centre and located on the ground floor of this fabulous Grade II Listed townhouse, is this beautiful two bedroom apartment which is sure to impress. Comprising: sitting room, kitchen, two double bedrooms, one ensuite bathroom and shower room.

SALES

01225 471 14 4

£600,000

Alexandra House

O.I.E.O

£590,000

This luxury first floor apartment offers riverside living at its finest, with access to the footpaths lining the River Avon, Royal Victoria Park and the Botanical Gardens. The apartments high specification creates an atmosphere of sophisticated contemporary living.

Kensington Chapel

O.I.E.O

£435,000

A beautifully presented and well-finished Georgian maisonette with a contemporary feel. Nestled on the banks of the River Avon, this property has been perfectly designed to combine city living with a quiet relaxing environment.

O.I.E.O

A beautifully presented three bedroom, two reception room Georgian apartment. The property is located in a highly sought after position on the Southern Slopes. Comprising: sitting room, kitchen, three bedrooms and two bathrooms.

St Stephens Road

Henrietta Street

O.I.E.O

£380,000

This is a recently refurbished and beautifully presented well proportioned, second floor apartment in a much sought after location. The accommodation comprises; sitting room, modern oak kitchen, two double bedrooms and luxury bathroom.

Rivers Street

O.I.E.O

£300,000

This delightful one bedroom apartment is situated on the north side of the city in the heart of Georgian Bath. With its stunning period features, this apartment offers a spacious sitting and dining room, a complementary kitchen, a double bedroom and a bathroom. This property is not one to miss.

Belvedere

O.I.E.O

£245,000

Nestled on the northern slope of Bath is this delightful and well-presented one bedroom Georgian courtyard apartment in sought after location. Boasting private front and rear courtyards, comprising: sitting room, kitchen, master bedroom, bathroom and two private vaults

LETTINGS

01225 303 870

sales@theapartmentcompany.co.uk

Park Street

£1,325 pcm

Unfurnished · Sought after location · Two double bedrooms · No Students · Residence parking permit · Council tax band C · Available 28th August 2020 · EPC: D

Caxton Court

Unfurnished · Ground floor · Beautifully presented · Two bedrooms · Riverside location · Spacious living · Council tax band D · Available 8th September 2020 · EPC: C

Royal Crescent

£950 pcm

Furnished · Studio apartment · Newly fitted kitchen · Close to City Centre · Stunning views · Council tax band B · Available 16th September 2020 · EPC: C

ATTENTION LANDLORDS Did you know that there are over 170 pieces of legislation that landlords must comply with when letting out residential property...? You simply can not assume that what was ok last year, is ok now! Given all the new rules and regulations, we have decided to offer landlords a FREE COMPLIANCE HEALTH CHECK.

£1,300 pcm

For more information, please call us on 01225 303870 where our Lettings manager and compliance expert Nicola Wilkes, will be on hand to assist...

Green Park

£1,375 pcm

Unfurnished · Level walk to city centre shops/ amenitie · Period features · No Children · No Sharers/No Students · Central zone parking permit · Council tax band D · EPC: D

Catharine Place

£1,200 pcm

Furnished · Central location · Residence parking permit · Suitable for professional person · Council tax band C · No Agency Fees · Highly recommended · EPC: D

Belgrave Terrace

£895 pcm

Unfurnished · One double bedroom · Fabulous views · Ground floor apartment · Newly refurbished · Residence parking permit · Council tax band B · EPC: D

www.theapartmentcompany.co.uk

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