Bridport Times March 2018

MARCH 2018 | FREE

A MONTHLY CELEBR ATION OF PEOPLE, PLACE AND PURVEYOR

MAKING WAVES

Wild Swimming with Stained Glass Artist, Flora Jamieson

bridporttimes.co.uk

WELCOME

F

unny how patterns emerge. It should be no coincidence of course considering our geography, but this month we find our ourselves faceto-face with the ocean. We meet ceramicist Björk Haraldsdóttir and learn, among many other things, of her grandfather’s prowess with herring.

We visit artist Janette Kerr whose powerful paintings harness the rage and spray of our seas and leave the taste of salt in our mouths. Alice Blogg talks with boatbuilder Gail McGarva and muses on the subject of tools. While the sea is stirred we catch prawns with Lyme Bay fisherman Donald Johnson and when still we go swimming with stained glass artist Flora Jamieson.

Here Flora shares her meditative, life-affirming morning routine before heading to the studio and her materials of equal provenance.

Have a wonderful month.

Glen Cheyne, Editor glen@homegrown-media.co.uk @bridporttimes

CONTRIBUTORS Editorial and creative direction Glen Cheyne Design Andy Gerrard @round_studio Sub editors Jay Armstrong @jayarmstrong_ Elaine Taylor

Martin Ballam

Tamara Jones

Xtreme Falconry

Loving Healthy

xtremefalconry.co.uk

@lovinghealthy_ @lovinghealthy_

Simon Barber

lovinghealthy.co.uk

Evolver @SimonEvolver @simonpaulbarber evolver.org.uk

Gill Meller @GillMeller @Gill.Meller gillmeller.com

Photography Katharine Davies @Katharine_KDP

Alice Blogg @alice_blogg

@angiporter

Feature writer Jo Denbury @jo_denbury

aliceblogg.co.uk

@angi.porter

Editorial assistant Paul Newman @paulnewmanart Print Pureprint Distribution Available throughout Bridport and surrounding villages.

Please see bridporttimes.co.uk for stockists.

Contact 01935 315556 @bridporttimes editor@bridporttimes.co.uk bridporttimes.co.uk

@alice_blogg

Angie Porter

southstreetbridport.com Molly Bruce @mollyellenbruce

Anna Powell

mollybruce.co.uk

Sladers Yard @SladersYard

Caroline Butler BSc (Hons) MNIMH

@sladersyard

herbalcaroline.co.uk

sladersyard.wordpress.com

Neville Copperthwaite

Adam & Ellen Simon

n.copperthwaite@gmail.com

Tamarisk Farm

Jane Fox

tamariskfarm.co.uk

@tamarisk_farm Yoga Space @yogaspacebridport yogaspacebridport.com

Emma Tabor & Paul Newman @paulnewmanart @paulnewmanartist

Kit Glaisyer

paulnewmanartist.com

@kitglaisyer @kitglaisyer kitglaisyer.com

Homegrown Media Ltd 81 Cheap Street Sherborne Dorset DT9 3BA

Cass Titcombe Brassica Restaurant @brassica_food

Martin Grier Bridport Museum

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4 | Bridport Times | March 2018

Charlie Groves

@bookshopbridprt

Groves Nurseries

@thebookshopbridport

@GrovesNurseries

dorsetbooks.com

@grovesnurseries grovesnurseries.co.uk

Sally Wellbourn Dorset Wildlife Trust

Annabelle Hunt Bridport Timber & Flooring @BridportTimber

@DorsetWildlife @dorsetwildlife dorsetwildlifetrust.org.uk

@annabellehuntcolourconsultant bridporttimber.co.uk

Kate Wilson @BridportArts @BridportArts bridport-arts.com

38 6

What’s On

MARCH 2018 26 Wild Dorset

60 Interiors

10 Arts & Culture

34 Outdoors

70 Gardening

22 Film

38 FLORA JAMIESON

73 Literature

24 History

48 Food & Drink

74 Crossword

52 Body & Mind

bridporttimes.co.uk | 5

WHAT'S ON Listings

or Curtain in a Day

Sunday 4th 2.30pm

____________________________

Unit 7b Browns Farm, Nettlecombe

Illustrated talk on Lyme’s

booking essential. 07533 344609,

Woodmead Halls Lyme Regis DT7

____________________________

Regis museum

Every Tuesday & Thursday 10.30am Walking the Way to Health in Bridport Starts from CAB 45 South Street. Free 30

DT6 3SS. All abilities welcome. £100,

recent history by Ken Gollop

hazelmasterssoftfurnishings.co.uk

3PG. Admission £3 in aid of Lyme

min walks with trained health walk leaders.

Saturday 3rd 7pm

____________________________

01305 252222 sarahdavies@dorset.gov.uk

Bridport Lions Club:

Wednesday 7th 9.30am–3.30pm

____________________________

Charity Barn Dance

Appliqué a House,

Every Tuesday 10am–1pm

The Tithe Barn, Symondsbury, Bridport

Scene or Landscape

Tickets £11 from Bridport TIC 01308

House, Loders, Bridport DT6 3SA. Full

Art Class Town Mill Arts, Lyme Regis DT7 3PU. £15 per session, first session half price.

07812 856823 trudiochiltree.co.uk

DT6 6HG. Ploughmans included.

Boarsbarrow Gifts & Crafts, The Barn

424901, bridportandwestbay.co.uk

tuition given, no experience required.

____________________________

£85 including all materials, homemade lunch and refreshments. More info on

____________________________

Saturday 3rd doors open

Every Tuesday 7.15pm

at 7pm for 7.30pm start

Uplyme Morris Rehearsals

Dorset Police Male Voice Choir

The Bottle Inn, Marshwood. Uplyme

The United Church, East Street,

Thursday 8th – Saturday 10th

07917 748087

artists. Refreshments available. Tickets

of Influence: the Secret Life of

Rotary Charities. 01308 424901

Thursday 8th 7.30pm

St Swithens Church hall. 01308 456168

Saturday 3rd 7.30pm-11pm

Friday 9th 7.30pm

____________________________

Bridport Ceilidhs

Every Saturday & Sunday 2pm-

St Mary’s Church Hall, South Street,

Morris on Facebook or The Squire on ____________________________ Every third Friday 10.30am-3.30pm Bridport Embroiderers

5pm & every afternoon 26th March to Monday 2nd April Exhibition of Stations of the Cross Paintings

boarsbarrow.com

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Bridport. Renowned choir with local

Fluff Productions present ‘Agent

£10.50 from Bridport TIC. In aid of

Pamela More’

____________________________

Melbury Osmond Village Hall 01935 83453 Briantspuddle Village Hall 01929 471002 Saturday 10th 7.30pm

Bridport. Amber Fire Ceilidh Band. Bring

Burton Bradstock Village Hall 01308

advance 01308 423442 or £9 on the door.

artsreach.co.uk

& share finger food supper. Tickets £8 in ____________________________

897421. £9, £6 u18s, £25 family.

____________________________

St. Peter’s Church, Eype. Painted by local

Saturday 3rd 7.30pm

Thursday 8th 6.45pm

artists. Free entrance, donations welcome for

Dreaming The Night Field

Wine & Jurassic Quiz with Garry

Churches Together in Bridport and Eype

Batt from Dukes Auctioneers

Centre for the Arts. Refreshments available

Wootton Fitzpaine Village Hall DT6

____________________________

6ND. This performance vividly evokes

the ancient Celtic legend of the Fourth

Furleigh Estate, Salway Ash DT6 5JF.

Branch of the Mabinogion. 01297

Soup and cheese board supper & raffle.

£25pp, booking is essential, furleighestate.

Friday 2nd 7.30pm Dorset Wildlife Trust - How Are West Dorset’s Butterflies Doing?

560948, artsreach.co.uk

____________________________

co.uk 01308 488991

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Bridport United Church Hall, East

Sunday 4th 10.30am-4pm

Friday 9th 7.30pm

Street DT6 3LJ. An illustrated talk by

Harmonic Temple Day Workshop

Just Us Dance Theatre presents

Nigel Spring, Butterfly Conservation.

with Nickomo and Rasullah Clarke

‘It’s Between Us’

Suggested donation £2 (£3 non-

members), includes refreshments.

St Mary’s Church Hall, South Street

Toller Porcorum Village Hall. An

____________________________

Bridport. Bring lunch to share. Cost

£25, £30 on the door. 01297 445078,

£25 family For more information 01300

Saturday 3rd 9am-5pm Make a Roman Blind 6 | Bridport Times | March 2018

franrois@hotmail.com

____________________________

evening of music and dance. £9, £6 u18s, 320373 or artsreach.co.uk

____________________________

MARCH 2018 & dessert. Tickets in advance from Fruits

Friday 9th 7.30pm &

____________________________

Saturday 10th 3pm & 7.30pm

Saturday 10th - Wednesday 14th

Bridport Youth Dance presents

7pm for 7.30pm start

Out Of The Woods

Netherbury Drama Group presents

Bridport’s Electric Palace. Bridport.

- Don’t Get Your Vicars in a Twist

Sunday 18th 8am-1pm

Tickets £10 plus booking fee (adults)

Bridport Gig Rowing Club

& £9 plus booking fee (children/

Netherbury Village Hall, DT6 5LS.

Open Morning

students) available from Bridport

Tickets £8 contact Colin or Susy

on 01308 488341 or book online. netherburydramagroup.co.uk

The Salthouse West Bay. Find out more

____________________________

about the sport, refreshments available

____________________________

TIC 01308 424901 and Bridport’s

Electric Palace 01308 428354 or online

of the Earth. Profits to Bridport Primary School Playground Fund.

____________________________

bridportelectricpalace.org.uk

Tuesday 13th 2.30pm

Wednesday 21st coffee 11am-12pm

____________________________

‘Joseph Clark: A popular

Nordic Walking at Furleigh

Saturday 10th 2pm-4.30pm

Victorian Artist and his World’

Estate Vineyard

19th Century Pilots in Sailing

with Eric Galvin

Boats in the Bristol Channel

Bridport History Society, United Church

Salway Ash, DT6 5JF. Booking

Loders Village Hall. Somerset & Dorset Family History Society talk by Diana

Trenchard. Members £1.50, visitors £3.

Hall, East Street, Bridport. Members £1, visitors £3. All welcome. Info: Jane on

is essential. £10, for tickets visit

furleighestate.co.uk or call 01308 488991 ____________________________

01308 425710, jferentzi@aol.com

Friday 23rd 8pm

____________________________

Concert - Sailing Stones feat.

jferentzi@aol.com

Friday 16th 6pm

Jenny Lindfors

____________________________

Partition by Barney

Saturday 10th 7.30pm

White-Spunner

Eype Centre for the Arts, Eype.

Agent of Influence:

Bridport Catholic Parish Church Hall,

Contact Jane 01308 425710 or email

The Secret Life of Pamela More Burton Bradstock Village Hall, DT6 4QS. 01308 897421, artsreach.co.uk

Victoria Grove. An illustrated talk on

Indian Independence & the creation of

Tickets £10 advance £12 on door.

Info: facebook.com/undercurrentsessions or call Eve on 07807 305881

____________________________

Pakistan. Tickets £7 from Bridport TIC

Saturday 24th 7pm

____________________________

Cantamus

Saturday 10th 7.30pm

Saturday 17th doors open 7.15pm

Shelbys Elbow

for 8pm start

Holy Trinity Church, Bothenhampton.

The Tithe Barn, Symondsbury DT6

Phil Beer - Folk Festival Fundraiser

Macmillan Cancer Support. Tickets £5.

DT6 3LF. St Patrick’s Day Special, £14

____________________________

Tickets £10 on the door (price includes refreshments). 01308 422044,

6HG. All ticket proceeds go to

Bridport Town Hall, Bucky Doo Square

01308 424116, symondsburyestate.co.uk

in adv/£15 on the door. Tickets from

Sunday 25th 4.30pm

424901, bridportandwestbay.com

led by the Bishop of Sherborne

British Legion Hall, Victoria Grove,

Saturday 17th 7.30pm-1am

setting of the “Crux Fidelis” by Matt

Green. Tickets £6 or £5.50 for members.

Freshwater Holiday Park, DT6 4BT.

____________________________

British Heart Foundation. £15pp, hot meal

Roy Wood on Health and Wealth

____________________________

U3A monthly talk. u3asites.org.uk/

____________________________ Saturday 10th 7.30pm Quiz and Ploughman’s Supper

antamus-dorset.org

____________________________

Bridport TIC & Bridport Music. 01308

Service of Stations of the Cross,

____________________________

St Peter’s Church, Eype. Features a new

Bridport. In aid of Bridport Millennium

Charity Spring Ball

Info: Sue Wilkinson on 01308 425037

Fundraiser for Weldmar Hospicecare and

Tuesday 27th 2pm

included. 07983 712156 or 07762 374838

Bridport United Church, DT6 3NN.

Freshwater Holiday Park, DT6 4BT.

Saturday 17th 7.30pm

bridport/events

& 00’s. ticketsource.co.uk/freshwaterbeach

Bridport WI. £10 includes curry, drink

Saturday 10th 7.30pm School Disco is Back!

DJ’s playing favourites from the 80’s, 90’s

Curry & Quiz Night

Kingston.

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____________________________ Saturday 31st 9.30am-2.30pm bridporttimes.co.uk | 7

WHAT'S ON Meet the Bridport & Lyme Regis

First Saturday of the month, 10am

Bridport v Cribbs (H)

Group, RAFA

Antique & Book Fair

Tuesday 13th (8pm)

Bucky Doo Square, Bridport, DT6 3LF.

St Mary’s Church, South Street

Chipping Sodbury v Bridport (A)

____________________________

Saturday 17th

____________________________

Saturday 24th 9am-3pm

Bridport v Bitton (H)

Bridport Town Hall Craft Fair

Wednesday 21st (7.45pm)

Bridport Town Hall. Free entry,

Bridport v Wells City (H)

bridportandwestbay.co.uk

Bridport v Longwell Green

Supported by the Wessex Military Band.

Planning ahead... ____________________________ Sunday 1st April 11.30am Short Service of Remembrance Bridport War Memorial

variety of stalls. 01308 424901,

Saturday 24th

____________________________

Sports (H)

____________________________

Sport

Monday 2nd April 10am-3pm

____________________________

Exhibition - RAF 100 years

Bridport Rugby Football Club

in Dorset

1st XV. Southern Counties South Division.

Bridport Town Hall

____________________________

Friday 30th Street v Bridport (A) ____________________________

Bridport Leisure Centre. Skilling Hill

Road, DT6 5LN. pitchero.com/clubs/bridport

Fairs and markets

Saturday 3rd

____________________________

Bridport v New Milton II (H)

Every Wednesday & Saturday

Saturday 10th

To include your event in

Weekly Market

Wimborne II v Bridport (A)

our FREE listings please

South, West and East Street

Saturday 24th

email details – date/time/

____________________________

Oakmedians v Bridport (A)

title/venue/description/

Second Saturday

____________________________

price/contact (in approx 20

of the month 9am–1pm

Bridport Football Club

words) – by the 1st of each

Farmers’ Market

1st XI. 3pm start unless otherwise stated.

preceding month to gemma@

Bridport Arts Centre

____________________________ Every Saturday, 9am–12 noon

St.Mary’s Field. Skilling Hill Road. DT6 5LA. bridportfc.com

homegrown-media.co.uk Due to the volume of events

Country Market

Saturday 3rd

received we are regrettably

WI Hall, North Street

Brislington v Bridport (A)

unable to acknowledge or

Saturday 10th

include them all.

____________________________

8 | Bridport Times | March 2018

PREVIEW In association with

Lost Dog: ‘Paradise Lost’ Saturday 24th March Village Hall, Martinstown, DT2 9LF. 7.30pm. £9/£6. 01305 889963 artsreach.co.uk

A one man staging of Milton’s epic Paradise Lost and not like whatever came into

your head when you read the first bit of that sentence. Combining theatre, comedy and movement, this is a journey through the story of the creation of everything, a

show which brings you the highlights of this well known but often forgotten story

beginning with Lucifer’s rebellion and ending with Adam and Eve’s expulsion from

the garden of Eden. A single man plays all the characters, creates all the scenes and, despite his best efforts, falls a little short of perfection.

A show for anyone who has created anything (child, garden, paper aeroplane) and

then watched it spiral out of control. evolver.org.uk

bridporttimes.co.uk | 9

Arts & Culture

THE BRIDPORT PRIZE Kate Wilson, Bridport Prize Administrator

“Mention the Bridport Prize and the eyes of writers everywhere light up. It’s not just the money - though that’s not to be sneezed at - it’s a prize really worth fighting for in terms of prestige and genuine literary accomplishment.’”

Fay Weldon, Honorary Patron of the Bridport Prize

Illustration: Paul Blow

I

t may just be Bridport’s best-kept secret. The Bridport Prize – an international creative writing competition that has been known to writers across the world for almost fifty years.

The flagship project of Bridport Arts Centre, the Prize is much coveted by writers keen to follow in the footsteps of previous winners - now household names - such as Kate Atkinson, Helen Dunmore and Tobias Hill.

Founded in 1973 by Peggy Chapman-Andrews, 10 | Bridport Times | March 2018

who also co-founded Bridport Arts Centre (BAC), the Prize was established with the dual aim of raising funds for the fledgling BAC and providing a platform for emerging writers.

Forty-six years later it has an international reputation and attracts upwards of 10,000 entries each year with its prestigious judges and generous prize money. In 2017 entries were received from 74 countries including Australia, India, Brazil, Japan, Uganda, and the USA.

Kamila Shamsie

The competition has four categories: poetry, short stories, flash fiction (very, very short stories of 250 words or fewer) and the Peggy Chapman-Andrews Award for a First Novel.

The novel award is run in partnership with the London based literary agency A. M. Heath and the manuscript appraisal company The Literary Consultancy.

It is currently open to writers in the UK and Republic of Ireland and the other three strands are open to UK and international entrants.

The Bridport Prize is an ‘open’ competition meaning both emerging and established writers are welcome to enter. All work submitted must be original, previously unpublished and written in English.

The winning poems, short stories and flash fiction stories are published in a winners’ anthology which is unveiled at the prize-giving ceremony held for the winning and highly commended writers and their guests at BAC in October. The opening chapters of the winning and runnerup novels are published on the Bridport Prize website.

The prize-giving is also attended by the judges, who hand out the prizes and speak about the winning pieces.

For such a big competition, the Prize has a small staff comprising Administrator Kate Wilson and Web Administrator Victoria Bennion. They are assisted by a team of volunteers who help with the annual mail-out of postal entry forms and the ‘coding’ (numbering) of the postal entries. All entries are judged anonymously.

With so many submissions each year, it would be an impossible task for the judges to read them all, so a team of highly experienced readers assists at the first stage.

The thirty readers come from across the UK and make selections that go onto the second and third reading stages. Reading begins in February as the entries start to come in and continues until mid July when the judges are sent the shortlisted submissions.

The winners and shortlisted writers are contacted

Monica Ali

Daljit Nagra

during September and the results posted on the website following the prize-giving ceremony in October.

The judges for 2018 are Daljit Nagra for Poetry, Monica Ali for Short Stories and Flash Fiction and Kamila Shamsie for the Novel Award.

Daljit Nagra won the Forward Prize for the Best Individual Poem in 2004 and Best First Collection in 2007 for Look We Have Coming to Dover. His subsequent two collections Tippoo Sultan’s Incredible White-Man Eating Tiger-Toy Machine!!! and his version of the Ramayana were nominated for the T.S. Eliot Prize. He presents Poetry Extra on Radio 4 Extra and was Radio 4’s inaugural Poet in Residence.

Monica Ali is an award-winning, bestselling writer whose novels include Brick Lane, In the Kitchen and Untold Story. She was chosen as one of Granta’s 2003 Best of Young British Novelists. Her work has been translated into 26 languages.

Kamila Shamsie has been shortlisted for the Orange Prize for Fiction for her novel Burnt Shadows and for the Bailey’s Women’s Prize for Fiction for A God in Every Stone.

Her novel Home Fire was long-listed for the Man Booker Prize. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, and one of Granta’s 2013 Best of Young British Novelists.

The 2018 competition was launched with a new-look, fully mobile-compatible website on 22nd January and submissions are already coming in.

Entries can be made by post by collecting an entry form from the Arts Centre on South Street or downloading and printing out a form from the website at bridportprize.org.uk Alternatively submissions can be made online at the same address.

The deadline for entries to all categories is 31st May 2018 at midnight BST. We look forward to receiving your submissions! bridport-arts.com bridporttimes.co.uk | 11

Arts & Culture

SETTING THE SCENE Kit Glaisyer with Björk Haraldsdóttir

cargocollective.com/pjm

T

his month I talked with sculptor Björk Haraldsdóttir, winner of the Marshwood Arts Prize in 2017 and also the cover artist for our Bridport Open Studios Guide in 2016. Bjork is a unique talent, a genuine innovator with her distinctive ceramic pieces that have a sense of quiet authority. I was intrigued to find out more about the path that led her here: If art is an expression of life experience, here is mine. I was born in Reykjavík in Iceland although my family was from a small fishing village on the Snaefellness Peninsula called Olafsvík, in the shadow of the twin-peaked glacial 12 | Bridport Times | March 2018

mountain where the protagonists of Jules Verne’s novel start their descent to the centre of the earth. My mother had been born in a traditional vernacular house with a turf roof and an earth floor. My grandfather was a fisherman who was celebrated for being able to lift a whole barrel of herring with his teeth. I worked in the local fish factory in school summer holidays and in Reykjavik’s municipal graveyard as a punk teenager. I was at school with the ‘other’ Bjork. As a pronunciation guide, our name rhymes with “work”, not with “talk”, and translates as Birch; Icelandic names are all straightforward descriptions of

“My grandfather was a fisherman who was celebrated for being able to lift a whole barrel of herring with his teeth�

nature. I moved to Glasgow aged 19 in the mid-eighties and joined the School of Art to study Architecture, from where I collected degrees and the Glasgow Silver Medal for Architecture. I moved to West Berlin in early 1990, a few months after the fall of the wall. Both Glasgow and Berlin in those years were hard-edged but transformative urban environments. Although I have lived a great deal in cities, I come from and have returned to the land and the sea.

For a dozen or so years I worked for a small handful of architects in London, starting out with Richard Rogers where I worked on projects such as the Channel 4 headquarters and ending with Bennetts Associates where I designed the New Hampstead Theatre.

Architecture at the highest level is an incomparable creative endeavour but is a complex journey between conservative legislators, fickle clients and black-cabbie critics. I first started making ceramics as an antidote to those creative chains; small architecture with no brief and no client. I have now worked as a ceramic artist for longer than it takes to become an architect. Clay has replaced steel and glass but I still work as I was trained – pieces are planned and drawn before they are made, and made as they are conceived.

In 2016 I started the Portmanteau Gallery in Bridport, with no agenda other than to curate solo shows of interesting professional artists across a range of media - no dogs in clothes or seagulls. The gallery ran for about a year and showed work from great local artists including Fred Eve and Ian Williams. In the last days of June, the gallery became like a drop-in centre for the cultural classes of Bridport, seeking comfort from the trauma of Brexit. Bridport is a town full of artists but not of art buyers and the Portmanteau was closed ready for resurrection in another time and place.

My pieces are hand-built vessels which are, I suppose, manifestations of the enduring themes of my experience including architectural form, natural materiality, and Nordic pattern and folklore. The works are a conversation between the pseudo-perfection of geometric pattern and the tactile impurity of handmanipulated clay. They are not sterile and porcelainperfect but visceral mini-monoliths, which have layers of complexity built into superficially simple constructions.

I deliberately create warped planes through the careful pattern-cutting and jointing of would-be flat slabs so that vessels become deliberately and subtly off-kilter.

An overcoat of strong pattern tends to anaesthetise first impressions that they are organically shaped but the > bridporttimes.co.uk | 13

Arts & Culture

Image: Cavaliero Finn

play of light, even across matt surfaces, always belies a more expressive form. Amusingly in the circumstances, the Devon Guild of Craftsmen recently barred my potential entry to their ranks, due to a crafty repulsion of these engineered characteristics. There is no escape from armchair architectural critics at any scale it seems.

The vessels are mostly built in stoneware clay and painted with slip – black on stoneware or sometimes white on lava stone. This is then scraped back to reveal the base material in two-tone monochrome patterns, occasionally joined by a mid-tone painted slip to create more complex geometries. The scrape marks are visible, and the surface is a plane of shallow relief, like an elaborate braille. The tactile nature of these pieces 14 | Bridport Times | March 2018

is important - they are an invitation to touch. People are generally afraid of ceramics and are puritanically hands-off. Some of my pieces are ‘participative ceramics’ designed to challenge this convention. Sealed cushions of clay encapsulate loose clay beads that create ‘roulette wheel’ sounds available only to the brave. I am quite particular about the cuts and punctures I make in my vessels. Letterbox openings allow the soul of each piece to come and go as they please.

Björk can be contacted regarding a studio visit, commissions and purchasing of available items at ceramicsbybjork.com kitglaisyer.com

At the

Corn Exchange HARDEEP SINGH KOHLI: ALTERNATIVE, FACT

23 March 2018 8pm (doors & bar 7.30pm) £15 / £13 Members and concessions / £5 Live for 5 Join Hardeep as he gives his unique take on the political climate combined with his trademark ‘quick-witted patter’  (The Skinny).

‘Something quite special… in-between the laughter are stories of genuine power’ –  Broadway Baby

TEECHERS

Blackeyed Theatre

Saturday 24 March 2.30pm & 8.00pm £14 / £12 Members and concessions / £5 Live for 5 Blackeyed Theatre revives its highly-acclaimed production of John Godber’s classic comedy about life at a struggling ‘sink school’ for Mr Nixon, an unsuspecting new drama teacher. Crammed full of political left-hooks and razor-sharp comedy.

‘TOP OF THE CLASS’  British Theatre Guide

bridporttimes.co.uk | 15

Arts & Culture

NORTH

JANETTE KERR Anna Powell, Director, Sladers Yard

“B

ring your sou’wester!” Janette Kerr jokes when inviting me to her studio. She has a point.

Looking at her paintings is an experience of being immersed, overwhelmed, uplifted and returned to your body surprised to find you are still dry.

Janette Kerr is a true sea painter working outside with the salt in her paint and the sea heaving and crashing around her, the wilder the better. She divides her time between Shetland, her studio near Bath and projects which feed her inspiration.

In 2016 she sailed in a tall ship from Svalbard, in the Norwegian High Arctic, to experience the vastness of mountains and glaciers appearing and disappearing in flowing mist, the darkness, the cold, and the silence interspersed by the crashes of glaciers calving into sea marked on the map as solid ice.

“Back in the studio I try to retain that energy and 16 | Bridport Times | March 2018

bring it all together into much larger canvases.” Her strong intellectual engagement involves studying archives and collaborating with scientists, oceanographers, environmentalists and other artists. The powerful, large oil paintings that result combine a Romantic experience of the sublime – both terrifying and thrilling – with exploratory contemporary abstraction.

Dr Janette Kerr has an impressive list of credentials.

A PhD in Fine Art, she is a Past President of the Royal West of England Academy, an Honorary Royal Scottish Academician, and Visiting Research Fellow in Fine Art at the University of the West of England.

Janette Kerr’s solo show, ‘NORTH – new works from Shetland to Svalbard’ is at Sladers Yard from 10th March to 7th May. sladersyard.co.uk

Janette Kerr, Gipsvika, 78°26,2´N, 016°25,9´E bridporttimes.co.uk | 17

Arts & Culture

TOOL

“a device or implement, especially one held in the hand, used to carry out a particular function.”

Alice Blogg

W

hen I relate the word ‘tool’ to design it leads me through a holistic process.

There are many tools a designer uses to generate ideas, from brainstorms and mind-mapping to starting with words. For most designers the wellestablished methods and tools of observation, drawing and model-making still lie at the heart of their design development. None of these methods is an end in itself, a holistic process.

Observation is a tool which enables us to form our own narrative. Learning to see offers an opportunity for liberation. Drawing takes the idea out of the brain and onto paper; model-making is an extension of drawing, a tool to create in 3D. As a dedicated craftsperson and designer, I believe my hands are my tools, bringing me creativity, adaptability and freedom, alongside using machines to execute work, delivering speed, power, uniformity and precision. For me it is not a question of hand or machine as a craftsperson and designer, rather to utilise both as tools to create something exceptionally crafted.

Someone I hold in high regard at using their tools to create is the traditional wooden boat builder Gail McGarva, from Lyme Regis. She has a particular passion for working boats of historical resonance that she believes holds vibrancy in their present-day communities. The traditional clinker construction of her craft highlights the beautiful lines of the boat and their skeletal, sculptural form. I recently attended a talk

by Gail; she speaks with such enthusiasm about her dedication to creating ‘daughterboats’, her specialism of creating replicas of heritage vessels.

One tool McGarva uses to create her ‘daughterboats’ is lofting. This is a method of plotting the curves of streamlined objects such as boats and aircraft to ensure the lines of the boat are fair. Gail draws this out to scale 18 | Bridport Times | March 2018

on a whitewashed piece of ply, creating the drawing from which she will make the boat; this helps to ensure the ‘daughterboat’ will be accurate in its layout and pleasing in its appearance. The origin of the word ‘lofting’ derives from the lightly constructed mezzanines or lofts above the shipyards’ factory floors which were used for drafting the curves.

Clinker construction is a method of boat-building where the edges of the hull planks overlap, where the planks meet is called ‘land’. Gail stressed the importance of there being no gaps where these boards land, for the obvious reason of water entering the vessel. Gail uses a tool called a block plane to bevel the planks one at a time as they are fixed in place. As the hull is an ever-changing curve she uses her eye as a tool to alter the bevel, something I can imagine is very hard and which needs skill to achieve. To create curved shapes such as the stem of the boat, the swoop of a frame or the curve of a ‘knee’ she uses a tool called a spoke shave. A wonderful tool I love, allowing freedom of shape straight from eye to hand.

Gail has recently finished ‘The Story Boat’ in collaboration with wheelwrights Mike Rowland & Son, giving a new lease of life on land to the retired Dorset fishing boat “Vera,” the lerret of 1923. She has been transformed into an enchanting oral history recording and exhibition space. You may have seen her down on >

“As the hull is an everchanging curve, the spoke shave enables Gail to use her eye as a tool to alter the bevel”

Image: Martin Haswell bridporttimes.co.uk | 19

Gail McGarva, Image: Nick Matthews

Lyme Regis front. Gail is working on touring The Story Boat around schools in the local area: made from the past, keeping the stories alive in the present, the boat is a place where the stories of the Dorset lerret can continue.

Between different trades and cultures we use different tools in various ways to achieve similar tasks. A quick dish for the Koreans, for example, is a light fluffy omelette; they whisk the eggs using chop sticks, something I have tried but can’t seem to get to grips with.

The key difference between Western and Japanese woodworking tools is the pull-stroke. Many believe the pull-stroke allows for more control, offers increased accuracy and requires less effort. As I experience Japanese tools I am learning to believe this is true.

20 | Bridport Times | March 2018

The word tool in Danish translates to ‘Two Beers’ in English. Early last year I visited Copenhagen to soak in design and stumbled across some of the best beer I have ever tasted at a gypsy brewery called ‘Toøl’. This is what I automatically think of when anyone mentions the word tool. This is the moment I started to appreciate craft beer. Try some if you get the chance to, you won’t be disappointed, fantastic beer with lots of character.

We all have our favourite tools, whether they are our boots for walking, pencils for drawing or the spoke shave for shaping. What is your tool? Is it something you hold in your hand, an aid to carry out a task, or two beers? aliceblogg.co.uk

A D O R S E T- B A S E D P U B L I S H E R

Elementum is a biannual journal of new writing and visual arts that explores the natural world and our place within it.

The latest edition of Elementum includes new writing by Robert Macfarlane, Kathleen Jamie, Jim Crumley and Wyl Menmuir, with illustrations by Jackie Morris and Catherine Hyde.

AVA I L A B L E L O C A L LY O R O N L I N E

E L E ME N TU MJ O U R NAL . CO M

Jeremy Norton FURNITURE MAKER

jeremynorton.co.uk bridporttimes.co.uk | 21

Film

THE HIDDEN TREASURES OF D. PALMER Angie Porter

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ucked away at the far end of town is D. Palmer, an Aladdin’s cave for film enthusiasts. Doug’s shop is packed to the rafters with ephemera from popular culture and photography. You might find local Theatre Programmes from the 20s, a 1950s collection of film magazines, turn of the century postcards of local landmarks or some 1970s Kodak brochures. Sifting through Doug’s extraordinary collection of vintage photographs is one of my favourite ways to while away a Saturday afternoon...and looking is free!

Every two minutes, humans take more photos than existed on the planet 150 years ago. Today most photos are taken on people’s phones with little consideration of storage or the print process. The once treasured vintage 22 | Bridport Times | March 2018

photographs in Doug’s shop have never been “shared”, “liked” or “tagged”. Looking at these photographs you can see the careful consideration of composition and subject matter. This in contrast to most of the photos we scroll through everyday online makes for interesting study. The whole process of taking photographs from the early 20th Century was painstaking and technically challenging.

Doug’s huge collection of vintage photographs demonstrates the value they once held as an important record. Many of the photographs arrive in the shop bound in original presentation folders bearing photographers’ logos. Albums are lovingly ordered. Special photographs are framed in glass or printed on a postcard. These objects would have been very expensive in their day.

the joys of old style photography. The past few years has seen a resurgence of interest in 35mm photography and analogue film with keen amateurs beating a path to Doug’s door. The collection of photographic and camera equipment will excite anyone looking to set up their own darkroom. From chemical trays to enlargers, Doug’s shop stocks everything you might need.

The analogue trend continues in the Hollywood film industry. This year Kodak is releasing a new Super 8mm camera and films are still being shot on the old 35mm format. Interstellar, Spectre, Far from the Madding Crowd, Jurassic World, Star Wars and The Hateful Eight were some from recent years that used old style film. The Cannes film festival has recently added a Super 8mm section that is gaining the attention of the industry’s talent scouts. Bridport film makers can enter their work here straight8.net. Film delivery deadline: Monday 12th March 2018 The shop is normally open Wednesday, Friday and Saturday, from 10.30am to 4.30pm. Other times by appointment. You can keep updated with Doug on his blog filmisfine.com. southstreetbridport.com

As well as stocking vintage camera equipment, the shop holds a great collection of optical entertainment objects from early 20th Century.

From stereoscopes to the 1970s classic the ViewMaster, all in great condition. There are also more magic lantern slides than one is ever likely to see outside of the Bill Douglas Film Museum in Exeter.

But this shop is better than a museum. Here one can touch and feel the objects (carefully of course!).

The weight of a 16mm camera is surprisingly heavy. Pressing the button and hearing the shutter release of a 35mm camera is more satisfying than a digital bleep but perhaps that is just my age.

Doug confirms I am not alone in rediscovering

Doug Palmer – owner of the D. Palmer film antique shop – shares his Top 10 films with Angie Porter. It contains some of the best and most influential films ever made. Big screen please!

2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) Lawrence of Arabia (1962) Fitzcarraldo (1982) The Sacrifice (1986) Schindler’s List (1993) Citizen Kane (1941) Revenant (2015) Brazil (1985) War and Peace (Russian version) (1966) ET (1982) bridporttimes.co.uk | 23

History OBJECT OF THE MONTH

THE DRAPER SCRAPBOOK: THE CHANGING FACE OF BRIDPORT Martin Grier, Photograph Collection Volunteer, Bridport Museum

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t the Local History Centre we have some wonderful images of the area, stretching back more than 150 years to the very early days of photography. In view of that, my favourite object might not appear an obvious choice. It is a scrapbook compiled by a local man, Eddie Draper, which is full with photographs he took of the changing face of Bridport before, during and after the Second World War. Mr Draper died in 1975 and the scrapbook was donated to Bridport Museum by his nephew. They are not all wonderful photos, some are a bit blurred, but they are a unique collection. When buildings in West Street were demolished to make the entrance to Tannery Road and what is now the bus station, or when the new Police Station in St Andrew’s Road was being built (now the site of Peelers Court), Mr Draper was there to record different stages of the process. Unfortunately, the photos are mostly undated. The book also contains old postcards, wax seals and a threepenny piece which was on HMS Prince of Wales when she helped sink the German battleship Bismarck!

The photograph above shows the demolition of the fire station behind the Town Hall after the war. The fire station moved further down South Street to what is now the Library before moving again to its current site on Sea Road South, the area where the fire station was, being now the open space in Bucky Doo. 24 | Bridport Times | March 2018

Eddie Draper was a band leader and an expert cornet player. He founded Eddie Draper’s Bugle Band, a forerunner of the St Swithun’s Band which often plays these days in the place where the fire station stood.

Some of his photographs are on our Flickr site. To access it, go to bridportmuseum.co.uk and click on the Local History Centre heading. On the right, below ‘Areas we cover’ is a box ‘Explore photos’ where you will find our images.

There are albums on local villages and different areas of Bridport along with some of the events from Bridport’s past. There are also pictures of some of the art in our collection along with scans of the Chideock Egg Letters which were on display in the museum a few years ago. At present there are over 5000 images available to view and more are being added all the time.

If you like a picture, please contact the Local History Centre about getting a copy.

Bridport Museum Trust is a registered charity, which runs an Accredited Museum and a Local History Centre right in the centre of Bridport. The Museum recently underwent a major refurbishment and re-opened in May 2017. Entry to the Museum is free. The Museum also runs a Local History Centre which provides resources for local and family history research. bridportmuseum.co.uk

Seashore Safari

Sketching Owls

Photography Workshop

The Art of Enjoying Nature

Astrophotography Workshop

Needle Felting

Dawn Chorus Breakfast

Beekeeping Course

Stained Glass Workshop

Wild Learning Book a course or workshop with Dorset Wildlife Trust this year and enjoy learning something new about the natural world.

Visit: www.dorsetwildlifetrust.org.uk/ events and www.kingcombe.org

DORSET WILDLIFE TRUST Photos Š Dawn Blight, Cat Bolado, Ken Dolbear, MBE Julie Herring, Sarah Morrish, Carla Taylor & Paul Williams.

Wild Dorset

THE BEAUTIFUL BLUE TIT Sally Welbourn, Dorset Wildlife Trust

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or the novice bird watcher, the blue tit is a great place to start when developing bird ID skills. Small, colourful and agile, the blue tit is one of the easier birds to spot in your garden or local green space. This time of year, as spring arrives, the flashes of blue, yellow, white and green will appear more regularly, as they are gearing up for spring when they will be focussed on two tasks: breeding and feeding.

This time of year, when the weather is improving, fattening up after a long, cold winter is top of the agenda – birds need to be in their prime at the beginning of the breeding season. The extra energy produced from food will help them to produce eggs and keep the parents in good health for providing food to their chicks. Blue tits will be seen using garden bird feeders but also hunting for caterpillars, spiders and other invertebrates. For blue tits, this forms part of finding a mate: the amount of yellow on a male blue tit’s breast is indicative of how many yellow and green caterpillars he’s eaten and the brighter the colour yellow, the more attractive he is to a female.

Blue tits are found in woodland, parks and gardens, where they nest in holes in trees, however they are also very happy to use nest boxes if they are available. They are known to favour aromatic leaves such as lavender, mint and curry plants, which they use to disinfect their nests while building them.

The females build the nests entirely on their own using moss, feathers, fur and wool, which takes them between 1-2 weeks.

This spring, if you make room for wildlife in your garden, you will be rewarded with the sights and sounds of a wonderful blue tit family living their lives right under your nose!

• The blue tit eats seeds, nuts and caterpillars.

• Blue tits look similar to great tits but they are smaller.

• Great tits have black on their head while the blue tit has a blue patch on the top of its head. The great tit also has a black stripe down its belly, while the blue tit’s belly is plain yellow.

• A blue tit weighs the same as a pound coin.

• Blue tits have been known to open milk bottles to eat the cream on the top of the milk.

• The clutch size is variable, ranging from 7-13 eggs.

dorsetwildlifetrust.org.uk/wildlife-gardening

26 | Bridport Times | March 2018

bridporttimes.co.uk | 27

Wild Dorset

AROUND THE WORLD AND BACK AGAIN

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Neville Copperthwaite, Marine Consultant and Project Coordinator

arch comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb; hoorah! Some encouraging weather lore at last. Mind you, Donald Johnson will have mixed feelings about that. You see, Donald fishes for prawns at this time of year and he needs the water to be dirty, stirredup by gales, so that the prawns feel safe enough to leave their hidey-holes to forage for food under cover of the murky water, unseen by predators. If the water is clear, Donald will not see one prawn in his pots. He told me, ‘It’s a balancing act; if the gales are too strong the pots will be washed away so knowing just when to lay them is crucial.’

Donald Johnson's Seabird 28 | Bridport Times | March 2018

A little surprised to hear that there is a prawn fishery in Lyme Bay, I asked Donald where he sells them. He said they are stored alive in his store pots and each Monday they are loaded onto a lorry to be transported in seawater tanks all the way to Spain, where they arrive still alive. The lorry also collects live crab and lobster from the port.

Born locally, Donald was a bricklayer and spent 20 years building houses, but the hard graft of site-work took its toll on his back and he decided fishing would be easier. He put his construction skills to good use and built his own boat, a rugged little vessel named Seabird which is still serving Donald well after 25 years; it can be seen chugging in and out of West Bay harbour most days.

On calmer days Donald lays his nets to catch Dover sole whilst others prepare their cuttle-fish traps ready to deploy as soon as the shoals arrive. Whelk pots are going in and - this may surprise you - hundreds of tonnes of whelks are landed each year at West Bay and the surrounding ports, including Weymouth. The whelks are taken to Scotland via a holding centre near Exeter. From there they are exported to South Korea to be processed and packaged and then some of them make their way back to the UK as sliced whelks in soy sauce, which can be purchased by the boxful in any good Asian food outlet. Talk about unnecessary food miles. Don’t get me started on that or I’ll run out of ink!

Of all the creatures in our rivers and seas there can be none more fascinating than eels. We have two commercial species in West Bay: the largest eel in the world, the Conger, and one of the smallest, the Common or European eel. The Common eel, which is known in London as jellied eels, is now considered critically endangered and is not fished any more, but the Conger eel is rated as less vulnerable and, although fishermen do not target the conger as a rule, it can still be sold at market, usually as by-catch. ‘By-catch’ means caught while fishing for something else, for instance when caught in crab or lobster pots, which eels often are.

The life cycles of both species are truly remarkable and so complicated that as far back as 350BC Aristotle postulated that Common eels were born of spontaneous generation, growing ‘from the guts of wet soil.’ Of course, we now know that eels don’t appear by magic, they are born as larvae in the Sargasso Sea off the coast of Bermuda and it takes nearly a year for them to drift to Lyme Bay. By that time they have metamorphosed

into a transparent larval stage which we call ‘glass eels’.

They enter rivers such as the Brit and stay there for up to 20 years by which time they are known as ‘silver eels’ due to their adult colouration. It is then that they begin their migration back to the Sargasso Sea to breed and the whole cycle starts again.

What is not realised so much is that Conger eels have a similar life-cycle, except they can’t tolerate fresh water and are truly a marine species, unlike their common cousin. Another variation is that they live in coastal waters for 10 to 12 years, at which time they undergo strange physical changes; their reproductive organs enlarge, their skeleton starts to dissolve, their teeth fall out and they stop eating. It is at this point that they make their way to the Sargasso Sea, mate, and die, leaving their larval offspring to drift back to Lyme Bay and elsewhere.

A huge misconception is that Congers are ferocious and will attack people. As a younger man I was a professional diver and regularly dived underneath the Portland Tidal Race, on the Portland Ledges. For want of a better word, I ‘befriended’ a Conger eel that was larger than me and with a little care I could actually stroke its head. I suspect the stories of Conger attacks emanate from Congers that have been caught on hook and line and are not entirely happy about being hauled out of their environment by their lip.

Harbourmaster Jamie Radcliff has been involved with the harbour for 23 years, first as harbour assistant and, since 2007, as Harbourmaster. He knows the workings of the harbour inside-out and runs an efficient team.

He told me that March is a particularly busy month beginning with the organisation of a crane to lift all the boats that have overwintered on the quay back into the water. Also, a five-yearly mooring gear overhaul within the inner harbour will be completed on the next spring tide at low water. He explained that West Bay comprises an outer harbour and an inner harbour, both of which are prone to silting due to material deposited by the River Brit. A 5-yearly dredging of the inner harbour has just been completed but the annual dredging necessary to keep the outer harbour clear will start now.

So, just to sign off for this month, it seems that sleepy West Bay harbour has a truly global reach. Prawns, crab and lobster off to Spain, whelks off to South Korea and eels off to Bermuda. Who’d have thought? n.copperthwaite@gmail.com

bridporttimes.co.uk | 29

Wild Dorset

LIFE ON THE EDGE

SOILS AND SPRING Adam & Ellen Simon, Tamarisk Farm

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aking on a National Trust tenancy of 200 acres immediately adjacent to our farm 20 years ago was a chance for us to expand our arable production. Perhaps we should have been warned by the name of the farm, Labour in Vain, and better remembered the history of it: more than 30 years of continuous intensive grain production had eroded the top-soil and lost organic matter so that over most of the area the soil had become a glue-like clay. We knew it would be difficult to improve but taking on this land meant we could increase the arable rotation from the 20 acres we had on the home farm, hence we were keen to try. It has worked for us in many ways though the soil is 30 | Bridport Times | March 2018

improving more slowly than we hoped.

In the autumn we sow wheat and rye, to harvest next summer. Some is sold to watermills around the southwest and the rest is milled here on the farm for sale as flour. The stubble from these crops stands over winter to provide food and shelter for small native birds. Come spring, it is time to plough, harrow, sow and roll, and we put in barley, oats and, more recently, peas.

Having used no agricultural chemicals, we now have a wonderful variety of arable weeds. We are proud of these: round-leaved and sharp-leaved fluellen, nit-grass (an aptly named but nonetheless pretty grass with glossy goldengreen flower-spikes), sun spurge and dwarf spurge, hearts-

ease, blue scarlet pimpernel (a sub-species of Anagallis arvensis, not the rarer Anagallis foemina), and the pretty, pink, small-flowered catch-fly. We are less fond of some of the bigger, more thuggish weeds - the wild oats, docks and charlock and the insidious bent-grasses - but accept them as part of our commitment to organic growing.

However, even working this land as carefully as we have, improving the soil is slow. In the winter and spring we can see how difficult it is and how far we still have to go: the drainage is poor, the humus is sparse and the stones still rise. It hits our eyes as we look at the crops and it hits our plans for the spring. We would like to graze our sheep on the wheat to clean it of weeds and induce it to “tiller”, to make more shoots, but the wet clay is both cold and airless so the wheat is slow. The ground may not be ready for the ewes to graze on it before they lamb in April. The fields waiting for spring sowing are showing how much we still need to give structure to the soil. When it finally dries it will happen quickly, so we are waiting, poised to catch the short window of time when we can get on with plough, harrow and drill.

If we dig down in this land, we see a little darker soil near the surface but soon we are in yellow clay. We need to build up humus and plenty of it. We work at it by growing cover crops and herb-rich leys, the plants using the sunlight and the atmosphere to create fresh growth which, taken into the soil by the worms, increases humus. This feeds the worms so more can live here and, in turn, they help with drainage. The fertility-building crops are sometimes grazed by the sheep, adding the richness through the age-old technique of manure spreading without machinery. No-till systems, now in use in many arable farms worried about this, help soil structure, but choosing not to use herbicides makes our experiments with this challenging.

In other parts of the farm we do not need to wish for humus: we have it. The longer-established arable ground

at home, though it has the same geology, is darker and better drained, easier to work in late autumn and in winter. Here we will see the crops getting going sooner in the month. The soil under the flower-rich permanent pastures and meadows is darker again, with a leaf-litter layer below the grass with lots of invertebrates and, beneath that, rich loam which despite the clay below, drains well and can warm up more quickly. As March is starting, this is already beginning to grow good grass and the daisies and violets are already coming into flower, together with the sweet vernal grass and the early sedges.

The soil on the market garden is better again, ready to be worked within a few hours after rain, with the leafy vegetables showing how good they feel by growing almost before our eyes on any warm, dry day we get. Even better is the soil under the scrub on the hillside. We don’t often encounter this soil directly because we don’t have reason to work it, but we do encounter it in odd ways from time to time: we may have to crawl under the blackthorn to find a missing sheep. When we do, the smell of the leaf mould strikes us first, then the richness of the ground.

Here we will see perhaps the greatest productivity on the farm at this time of year. We see the start of the spring growth: in the few places we have them, the broad spears of ramsons (wild garlic) are pushing through and so are the narrower, fleshier leaves of the bluebells; our earliest orchids, the twayblade and early purple, are not in flower yet but they are finding their way to the light; there are more violets flowering here than in the open grass; and the ferns are putting out fresh fronds, uncurling them slowly. Overhead, the blackthorn is in flower and the hawthorn is freshly green, and the sallow and willow pollen have been feeding the bees for weeks.

Spring is almost in full swing. We will be ready for the next stage of the year as soon as the soil is ready for us. tamariskfarm.co.uk bridporttimes.co.uk | 31

Wild Dorset

THE BARN OWL FARMER’S FRIEND

Martin Ballam, Xtreme Falconry

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he barn owl‌personally I believe it is the most striking, iconic and widely recognised owl in our countryside. But what has happened to the population of barn owls? Why have their numbers declined so dramatically? What can we do to help them?

There is so much to learn and understand about this amazing, stunning, silent hunter of dawn and dusk.

I feel sure there will be many people, especially those who either live in rural areas of Dorset or commute through rural areas that may have been lucky enough to witness this ghostly figure on the hunt for rodents as it sweeps through headlights from one field margin to another. But what makes this owl such a supremely designed hunter? What call does it make? Where does 32 | Bridport Times | March 2018

it nest? How big is it? Well, let’s understand a little bit about the barn owl.

Although increasingly rare in Britain, the barn owl is very successful worldwide. Covering every continent except Antarctica, it has become widespread within its species, sub-species and generic family members. There are slight differences in size and colour depending on global origin but the classic British barn owl is simply breathtaking in its beauty - pale white on the face, belly, undersides of the wings and breast with the upper/top side being a golden sandy brown with either light or dark grey in mottled variations. Female barn owls tend to be darker in all of these colours and also have a few dark spots on the white undersides.

Barn owls are surprisingly small. It’s a very common situation where our captive barn owls are called snowy owls, but snowy owls are big, if not huge by comparison. Although a ghostly white owl may look big in the headlights of a car, the wingspan is only 85-95cm and the bodyweight around a quarter to a third of a kilogram. The body length is only around 30-40cm - this is not a big bird. Delicate in its build, the barn owl is perfectly designed for a slow ‘quartering’ flight over farmland and rough grassland but can easily suffer in adverse weather especially in the months of winter.

The barn owl has many names: the ghost owl, the white owl, the screech owl, the Messenger of Death

to name but a few, relating to its supposedly sinister reputation but it really is a farmer’s friend. These owls breed in the months of March to May and can lay anything from 2 to 11 eggs with 4-5 being normal. In years of high food numbers with the short tailed field vole providing over 90% of its diet, a family of barn owls can take over 1000 rodents in just 3 months!

Such a vast food intake is required as the young grow so quickly, hatching to fledging the nest in just 8-9 weeks. It’s a good job they grow fast; baby barn owls or owlets as we call them are not pretty, really not pretty at all. Fortunately, after 3 weeks growth the beauty shines through.

However, the voice certainly does not. Baby barn owls snore; or at least that’s what it sounds like. As mature birds they do not hoot. The wonderful woodland bird the tawny owl gives the classic hoot (too whit tu whoo) but the barn owl screeches and it’s quite an unpleasant call.

So why so few barn owls? Unfortunately, many things have changed in our countryside. Loss of habitat is common for many species and grassland and rough margin loss has been a major factor, but the distinct loss of barns and breeding sites has been a significant factor.

The biggest problem for barn owls however is traffic. The countryside is now a dangerous place for low flying slow hunters such as the barn owl with the vast road network and fast traffic resulting in around 3,000 deaths per year of barn owls alone. A population drop of some 76% over half a decade means help is required.

So why does the bird fly so low? The answer is amazing, a barn owl rarely spots its dinner, it hears it. The stunning heart shape facial disc traps and channels sound into giant ear openings which are positioned differently from ours - one is high and set forward, one is low and set back. This enables perfect pinpointing of prey noise.

Silent flight is acquired through supremely soft feathers with a serrated edge enabling air to flow through the feather thus giving absolute silence while hunting at low level; nature’s perfection in stealth approach.

So what can we do? Habitat is key, any areas of rough grass, flower meadow, margins etc can support food chains. Nest boxes are also key, if you have a farm, barn, smallholding or the like, and you have surrounding farmland then maybe you should have barn owls? There are many organisations assisting in the conservation of this species; talk to us for further advice here at Xtreme Falconry. xtremefalconry.co.uk bridporttimes.co.uk | 33

Outdoors

34 | Bridport Times | March 2018

On Foot

THE PEARL OF DORSET Emma Tabor & Paul Newman

Distance: 3 miles Time: Approx. 2 hours Park: Charmouth Road - fees apply Walk Features: A mix of field, wood and town with beautiful views over Lyme Regis and the Cobb with a delightful return alongside the River Lym, visiting the Town Mill.

Refreshments: Black Dog Tea Rooms

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ach month we devise a walk for you to try with your family and friends (including four-legged members), pointing out a few interesting things along the way, be it flora, fauna, architecture, history, the unusual, and sometimes the unfamiliar. For March we take a short walk around Lyme Regis and into some of the surrounding countryside to the east and north of the town centre before returning along the wooded banks of the River Lym. There is an option to extend the walk at the end by exploring Broad Street and taking a detour through the award-winning Seafront Gardens above the Cobb, returning along the Promenade. >

Image: Paul Newman bridporttimes.co.uk | 35

Directions

Start - SY343925 Charmouth Road Car Park. There are great views from here east along the coast, towards Golden Cap and Portland.

1 Turn right out of the car park onto Charmouth Road (A3052), walk uphill along the pavement for a few yards and you will then see a church on your left, with yew trees. To the right of the road is a Coast Path sign for Charmouth. Go through a kissing gate and up some steps, then head diagonally uphill across a boggy field to another kissing gate on the far side - you will be able to see grey wagtails here. Go through this gate then head towards a large wooden gate with another signpost for the Coast Path. Continue uphill towards some mixed woodland; there are some good views back across the Cobb from here. You will then see a signpost in a gap in the middle of the trees. Go through the kissing gate here and turn left onto a track.

2 Follow this track for a few yards and then turn right before a wooden five-bar gate. Here you will pick up a diversion for the Coast Path. Head through the trees, up some steps, meandering through the woodland with dips and hollows either side. There is a good variety of trees here and in spring you will be able to see bluebells. Keep following the diversion signs uphill and then to the left at warning signs for a landslip. After a couple of handsome oak trees, the path twists and turns, going back downhill towards some houses. Follow some steps down and then turn right onto a path to emerge at a road.

3 Cross the road and head down a narrow path, walking between large wooden fences bordering properties. After a few yards emerge back onto the Charmouth Road. Turn right and then cross the road to the entrance of Timber Vale Caravan Park - here you will see a public bridleway sign. Follow this through the entrance of the park, keeping to the drive which then becomes a track. Ignore a footpath sign to the left (by some electricity poles) and continue to where the track meets the corner of a tarmacked track. Here, turn left to follow a sign: Lyme Regis 1 mile. Go through a small gate and walk downhill across a boggy field towards a five-bar gate, with woodland on your right. Keep heading downhill across another field to reach a second five-bar gate with a small gate to the side of it and a sign for the Wessex Ridgeway. Keep on the track, entering into woodland with waterworks 36 | Bridport Times | March 2018

on your left. The track soon meets the Liberty Trail, with a pretty thatched cottage ahead. Here, turn left and follow the signs back into Lyme (away from Dragon’s Hill).

4 After a few yards, cross a small brook, keeping along the Wessex Ridgeway, passing by a signpost indicating the site of the Old Mill. Cross the river, go through a gate, turn left and follow the river back towards Lyme (ignore the path ahead uphill).

Follow the river on a well-worn footpath, through pasture, to a gate. Go through the gate, with a weir on your left and some small tributaries either side, into a mix of fern and woodland with robins and wrens calling above the gurgling water. Cross back over the river to keep the Lym on your right. Carry along the path which becomes more substantial until it joins the road coming from Middle Mill Farm. Continue down this road towards the town, climbing slightly above the river. Where it meets Roman Road, cross straight over onto Windsor Terrace. Continue, keeping the river on your right, past more buildings on your left. Cross Woodmead Road by another weir, then into Jericho (a ‘no through road’). After a few yards the road ends in the river so cross onto the right bank and continue to follow, now with the Lym on your left, to emerge at Mill Green. Follow Mill Green, passing colourful cottages, to meet Hill Road.

5 At the start of Coombe Street, the river flows under the road, with a leat running to the left of a raised path above the river. Here, turn right and follow the footpath (The Lynch) signed for the Town Mill, walking between the leat to your left and the river to your right. The leat is crossed by a series of small bridges leading to properties which line the path.

Eventually this path arrives at the Town Mill, with a range of facilities including galleries, studios and cafes as well as the working watermill. After the mill, make your way through the courtyard, cross the river and up some steps into Broad Street Car Park. Here, you have the option to either turn left onto Broad Street, returning to the start of the walk along Church Street leading to Charmouth Road, or to turn right and head up Broad Street, to explore the high street and take the detour (approx. ¾ mile) mentioned at the start. On your way back up Church Street, look out for the sign denoting the entrance to Long Entry, the old coast route to Charmouth, just after the Museum and Marine Theatre.

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38 | Bridport Times | March 2018

FLORA JAMIESON Words Jo Denbury Photography Katharine Davies

D

uring the night the thermometer registered minus three and at dawn it’s sitting close to zero. Standing on the cliffs above Eype Beach, the icy north wind cuts like a knife and even in bobble hats and high collars, our faces are numb. Below the cliffs the sea is mesmerizing and its velvety surface deceptively tempting despite being at its coldest this time of year.

“It’s like a beautiful madness,” says Flora Jamieson of her year-round passion for open water swimming. If the conditions are right and the sea is calm, she will make her way down to the beach before she starts work. >

bridporttimes.co.uk | 39

40 | Bridport Times | March 2018

“When my youngest daughter started school, I took up running and afterwards I would head down to the beach to take a dip and cool off. Both my partner Mike and our girls love swimming too, so as a family we began to seek out new places in the summer months such as Ringstead, Durdle Door and further afield. Then I started swimming earlier and earlier in the year and soon it was all year round.”

For Flora, it’s the buzz she gets from the swimming that’s addictive. “You’re so in the moment,” she explains “especially when it’s cold. Then it becomes a full-body sensation. I love the clarity of mind that I get from it and the meditative process of swimming.”

Many swimmers speak of the bodily liberation they gain from wild swimming; that in many ways it is subversive and from it you can reclaim a sense of freedom. Perhaps for swimmers like Flora, to swim in the wild is done as much for pleasure as it is to attain the feeling of a natural state.

Flora agrees, “It’s invigorating, but I feel so calm afterwards and there’s a satisfying, peaceful feeling that stays with me all day.” Wild swimmers have often said that it makes them more able to deal with feelings of anxiety and that it’s a way of going beyond your physical and psychological barriers. “The shock of the cold can be initially painful, but you know that afterwards you will feel amazing. You can apply that sensation to other parts of your life – that of knowing what it’s like to be strong and push through obstacles.”

“Even the act of going into cold water seems rebellious as it’s a bit nuts, she says. “But there aren’t many times in life when it feels like no one is judging.”

One thing that Flora feels is crucial is balancing her enjoyment of swimming with staying safe: she has a healthy respect for the sea and open water and only swims when conditions are favourable. And when it’s cold, she’s careful not to stay in too long, “which it makes it all the > bridporttimes.co.uk | 41

42 | Bridport Times | March 2018

bridporttimes.co.uk | 43

44 | Bridport Times | March 2018

sweeter – you have to embrace every single second”.

And with that she wades into the sea, mist rising as the cold meets the warmth of the sun. A wave reaches her and then she dives before resurfacing and swimming parallel with the shore. Enveloped in the blue, her body looks tiny in the expanse of water. There is nothing around except the cliffs, the sand and Flora in the sea.

Flora moved to Bridport 14 years ago, when padding up from West Bay with her partner Mike, covered in sand and carrying towels, they happened to look in an estate agents window. The house that caught their eye had once been a slaughterhouse at the back of the Cross Keys pub and after viewing it, they decided to buy it. “I saw the garden and fell in love with it,” she says. At the time, Flora was pregnant with her first child – Nelly – and 4 years later her second daughter, Isla, joined them. While bringing up the girls, she also grew a successful stained glass business.

“I have always lived close to water,” says Flora. “A large part of my childhood was spent in the river and canal that ran close to my house. Then I was at university in Brighton, and later I commuted from Whitstable to London - I used to get the train home and go straight in the sea. Flora later moved to London and after a stint in a photographic studio, her training as a stained glass maker took over and the swimming took a back seat.

Now her daughters have also taken to wild

swimming and family holidays in the VW camper are often centred on a new swimming destination. “As well as sea swimming, I love swimming in rivers and lakes,” says Flora. “It’s that earthy smell that takes me back to my childhood, and you get a very different view of the flora and fauna. Dragonflies whizz alongside you and a mass of midges will dance above the surface of the water in a golden cloud.”

Flora’s passion for wild swimming has led her to self-publish a book on the subject. “I gave a talk on wild swimming last year and I had the idea to make a short book to go with it. I contacted the illustrator Gemma Koomen, whose work I love, and she agreed to work with me. It was certainly and leap of faith, and a steep learning curve, but it was just like plunging into cold water!”

Watching Flora swim along the beach at Eype reminds me of Oliver Sacks’ words about the long-distance swimmer Lynne Cox: “Swimming, like flying, can stretch the wings of the spirit.” Flora makes her way back out of the sea, her skin pink with the cold. She quickly dresses, sips a cup of hot chocolate, then smiles, “Do it while you can! That’s my motto.” And I have to agree.

The Wild Swimming Book by Flora Jamieson is available from Yellow Gorse, Bridport, Ryder & Hope, Lyme Regis and online at florajamieson.co.uk/shop bridporttimes.co.uk | 45

Mothers Day 11th March 2018

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46 | Bridport Times | March 2018

THE

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Iconic coastline. Fantastic Food Phone: 01308 898302 Web: www.theclubhousewestbexington.co.uk Email: bookings@theclubhousewestbexington.co.uk

bridporttimes.co.uk | 47

Food & Drink

NETTLE, CHORIZO AND WHITE BEAN SOUP WITH SOURDOUGH TOAST

I

Gill Meller, River Cottage

’m thankful it’s March, a month that marks a change in the seasons. When I step out of the house in the morning I can almost feel the winter giving in to spring. I can hear it reluctantly releasing the land that it’s held for so long, in damp pools, in cold air, in grey cloaks.

March is a synopsis for spring; it’s a line drawing for the painting April and May will become. Everywhere I look there are gentle signs that a warmer, brighter way of life is just around the corner.

The beautiful yellow daffodil is March’s birth-month flower; they represent spring, rebirth, and happiness, things we could all do with after a hard winter. But daffodils aren’t the only plant that I connect with March and the onset of spring. For me, nettles have an equal significance.

I can remember cooking nettles as a child - I’d stew them up in an old pot set over a camp fire and stir the concoction as it bubbled away. However, it wasn’t until I started cooking professionally that I realised what a wonderful ingredient stinging nettles really were.

I believe we should all be cooking and eating a lot more nettles. Not only are they free and abundant, they’re absolutely delicious and, as if that weren’t enough, nettles are also exceptionally good for you.

They are crammed with vitamins and minerals which nurture and fortify our bodies as well as having antiinflammatory, antioxidant and antimicrobial properties.

March is one of the best months to pick nettles, while they are still very young and tender. Take only the top four or six leaves from each plant. You’ll need some gloves for picking and washing them but their sting disappears as soon as you drop them into hot water or stock.

48 | Bridport Times | March 2018

They make a great alternative to our more familiar cultivated greens, such as spinach or kale, and can be cooked in very similar ways. I love them simply wilted, seasoned and served with butter and good olive oil.

This rustic country soup is packed with nettles, spicy chorizo and white beans. I use a homemade pork stock as it adds a real depth of flavour to the dish but you could use a good chicken stock instead. When stingers are out of season, you can use kale or chard in the same way.

Ingredients

Serves 4 150g dried cannellini beans, soaked overnight in cold water A dash of good extra virgin olive oil 200g chorizo sausage, sliced into rounds 1 large or 2 smaller onions, peeled and finely sliced A sprig of rosemary 4 garlic cloves, peeled and finely sliced 1 litre pork stock or chicken stock

Image: Gavin Kingcome

4 slices of 2–3-day-old sourdough, or similar good bread A colander full of young nettle tops, washed and roughly chopped Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper Method

1 Drain the soaked beans and tip them into a saucepan.

Cover with fresh water and bring to a simmer, then cook for 45 minutes or until tender. Drain and set aside.

2 Warm a heavy-based saucepan over a medium heat and add a trickle of olive oil. Add the sliced chorizo and fry for 2–3 minutes to release some of the oil, then add the onion, rosemary, cooked beans and garlic (saving the end bits to rub on your toasts).

Season with salt and pepper, then continue to cook, without colouring the onion, for a further 5 minutes.

3 Pour in the stock, stir well, and then bring to a low simmer. Simmer gently for 15–20 minutes.

4 Meanwhile, toast the pieces of sourdough on each

side, trickle with olive oil, rub with the reserved garlic and sprinkle with flaky sea salt.

5 Add the nettle tops to the pan and cook for a further 5 minutes. Taste the soup and adjust the seasoning.

6 To serve, ladle the soup into large soup plates or bowls and serve with the toasted sourdough. Finish with a trickle of extra virgin olive oil, if you like.

This recipe features in River Cottage Handbook No. 14, Pigs and Pork, written by Gill Meller, published by Bloomsbury and available from rivercottage.net.

Discover the wild food secrets of Britain’s hedgerows, with a day of countryside foraging at the River Cottage Cookery School with expert forager John Wright.

Bridport Times reader offer: Get £40 off a River Cottage Hedgerow Foraging day when you quote BTCOOKERY40.

For more details and to book see rivercottage.net or call Tamsyn in the Events Team on 01297 630202. bridporttimes.co.uk | 49

Food & Drink

PAELLA WITH MUSSELS, CUTTLEFISH AND WILD GARLIC

W

Cass Titcombe, Brassica Restaurant

ith the wild garlic season now in full flight, what better way to use it than combining it with some amazing West Country shellfish for a twist on a Spanish classic.

Wild garlic grows in abundance in West Dorset along the twisting lanes and the edges of woodlands and streams, sprouting in early February and blooming until early April.

It is best used before it flowers, mainly as it is less astringent and over-powering. Pickling the stems and buds is also a brilliant way of preserving for use later in the year.

In the past paella rarely featured on our menu at Brassica but, since we purchased our huge paella pans and catered many outside events from private parties to Beaminster Festival and Forde Abbey Day, we now hold a Paella Supper on the last Wednesday of the month in our restaurant.

Paella originated in Valencia and was made with rabbit, beans, snails and rice. It then spread to coastal 50 | Bridport Times | March 2018

areas and the more familiar seafood paella was born containing shellfish, tomatoes and saffron. A paella with mixed seafood and meat is considered to have been created for tourists but nonetheless all the variations are delicious. The one constant is that to be truly authentic it needs to be cooked outside and ideally over wood with bomba rice (the King of paella rices). We have had great success making a meat-only version with chorizo, bonein chicken thighs, thick chunks of cured Berkshire pork belly and green beans. The variations are extensive but the main thing to remember is that it is principally a rice dish, so the most important elements are the stock and the rice along with a shallow paella pan.

Cuttlefish are plentiful along the Dorset coast from April through to June - large numbers are caught in pots and mainly exported, as they are not appreciated as much in the UK. This is a great shame as they are not only delicious to eat but can be used in place of squid in

so many dishes. It is also possible to use different types of shellfish such as clams, cockles and razor clams, or a firm-fleshed fish such as Huss. The green vegetable addition could be anything in season such as broad beans, peas, small courgettes or even asparagus.

After cooking the paella there should be a crispy layer of rice on the bottom of the pan known as ‘socarrat’ in Spanish - THE essential part of a good paella. This can be achieved quite simply as long as you cook over an open flame and pay close attention to the amount of liquid left and the heat of the flame. Do a test by pushing a spoon through to the bottom and lifting some rice to see if it’s starting to brown. Be careful it’s not too hot, as this will cause the rice to burn.

Most of the larder ingredients for this recipe are available in our shop in Beaminster and a range of enamel paella pans are also available at Brassica Mercantile.

One 28-30cm paella pan Fish Stock

1kg mixed fish bones including prawn shells 2 cloves garlic glass of dry white wine parsley stalks, thyme, bay leaves 1 onion 2 sticks celery 1 small leek ½ bulb fennel a few strips of lemon peel 6 peppercorns remaining juice from tinned tomatoes in the main recipe 1 Remove gills from fish carcasses and discard; peel and thinly slice the vegetables.

2 Put everything into a pan large enough to hold and pour over 2 litres of cold water and add the remaining ingredients.

3 Bring to the boil and then reduce heat and simmer for 1 hour. Stir a few times to break everything up and cook on the lowest heat for another ½ an hour.

4 Strain and discard bones and reserve liquid.

Paella

Serves 4-6 people 500g calasparra rice 80ml olive oil 2 medium onions

3 sticks celery 1 bulb fennel 6 cloves garlic 400g San Marzano plum tomatoes drained (use juice in stock) 1 tspn smoked paprika 500g cuttlefish (or squid if not available) (ask the fishmonger to clean the cuttlefish and cut the bodies into strips ½ cm thick and cut the tentacles into chunks) salt and black pepper big pinch dried wild oregano pinch saffron 250g peas or green beans handful of wild garlic leaves mussels parsley & lemon to serve 5 Dice the onions, celery and fennel; peel and chop the garlic.

6 Chop the drained tomatoes, wash the wild garlic and roughly chop.

7 In the paella pan heat up the oil and fry off the onion, celery and fennel on a medium heat, cook for about 10 minutes stirring frequently.

8 Add the garlic and stir, then add the tomatoes and paprika. Cook for 5 more minutes and then add the cuttlefish and season well with salt, black pepper and the oregano. Cook for a few more minutes and add the stock and the saffron.

9 Bring to the boil and add the rice, stir well and add the peas (or beans) and wild garlic leaves. Ensure the rice is evenly spread as after this point you do not stir it! Bring to a simmer and cook for 10 minutes.

10 Place the mussels on top of the rice, evenly distributed and pushed in slightly, and cook for 10 more minutes. Keep an eye on the liquid levels as after this second 10 minutes you should not have very much liquid left. If it starts to look dry before the time is up, then add another ladleful of stock.

11 Check the rice by tasting a grain and it should be just cooked (if you think it needs longer then cook for 5 more minutes).

12 Cover loosely with tin foil with the heat switched off for 10 minutes (this will allow the rice to absorb any liquid left).

13 Serve with lots of chopped parsley and wedges of lemon. @brassicarestaurant_mercantile bridporttimes.co.uk | 51

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52 | Bridport Times | March 2018

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Body & Mind

MOMENTUM

F

Jane Fox, Yogaspace

or me, March is about keeping up the momentum.

Cold, short, rainy days can begin to take their toll.

This might be reflected in life feeling a little dry and boring. Spring will come; heat and sunshine will return.

My feeling gloomy will not speed up the process. March is one of those months when I often really need my yoga skills to manage myself and to find that ‘invincible summer’ to carry me through into the warmth. Here are some of the things I do to keep up my momentum.

Getting curious

The structure of yoga helps me to turn inside and find out what’s going on, to listen to myself and hear the answers. Many traditions tell us that all we need is inside of us, but we need a method that helps us to become quiet enough to open the door to our hearts and listen to ourselves. Yoga is about self-inquiry and getting curious about our bodies and minds. Scheduling in a daily practice, usually first thing in the morning, is essential for me. Start with small goals - 10 to 15 minutes each morning. It may be yoga poses (asana), meditation, or reading the yoga teachings; see how your day feels having gifted yourself this time.

Mixing it up

Life is full of cycles bringing waves of all sorts: challenging ones, those holding more ease, and the ‘all is well’ ones among many others. They keep us moving and evolving and we learn to allow, ride and perhaps even like these waves! My yoga practice is definitely the foundation that guides me through these cycles with my “Breathe. Feel. Flow. Repeat.” mantra. However sometimes, when a particularly difficult period comes along, it might be too hard to practise or sit quietly.

American Yoga Teacher Jason Crandell talked about this when his wife was diagnosed with breast cancer, saying that he didn’t want to be quiet or process. He went to the gym. He allowed himself to do what his body needed, which was something more physical, knowing that his practice was always there for him. We need to let these rhythms have their momentum.

Mixing it up and adding in another physical activity can be an invigorating part of your life and feed into your yoga practice, bringing new knowledge and understanding 54 | Bridport Times | March 2018

of your body and being. For me, running is a wonderful addition to my yoga practice. It built my strength after an illness and now gets the endorphins flowing and supports my body and mind with a different focus.

Staying open and keep the passion flowing!

Opening up to great teachers from all walks of life brings different and exciting new perspectives. I have been inspired by listening to Brene Brown’s “The Power of Vulnerability”. It has set my 2018 alight! She talks of how we are born like a house with all its windows open but how, slowly through our lives, we begin to close the windows for safety, as we get hurt along the way.

Eventually all the windows are shut and we are safe, but we have also created a dark, airless home for ourselves - or is it a prison? Take a risk. Open one of those windows. Embrace your vulnerability!

• Put your art on the walls • Go to a new yoga class • Invite a friend over to practise yoga and have tea • Start that difficult family conversation • Practise the yoga poses you most dislike!

Whatever it is for you, just do it and see what happens.

By making ourselves vulnerable and allowing ourselves to be seen we become alive again. It’s not easy, indeed it’s often very uncomfortable, but it carries with it great riches.

Having the courage to stand up and be seen also ignites our passion, and when we are passionate about something that energy will drive us forward. It will burn through our deepest fears. It will set us free to manifest and be the lights we are meant to be in the world.

As Yoga Master Maharaji says: “ You are an incredible gift that has come upon this earth. Open that gift and appreciate it.”

As we use the infrastructure of yoga within our lives it teaches us that, ‘that which we focus on, so we become’. It is the discipline of yoga that keeps my focus and momentum steady. We just need a little added enthusiasm sometimes to help uncover our ‘invincible summer’ and treasure our finds. yogaspacebridport.com

“In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer.�

Albert Camus

bridporttimes.co.uk | 55

Body & Mind

Image: Lara Thorpe

NINE FOODS TO BOOST YOUR IMMUNE SYSTEM

A

Tamara Jones, Nutritional Therapist and Founder, Loving Healthy

lthough we are coming into spring, many of us are still suffering from coughs and colds. If you’re looking for ways to prevent flu-like symptoms, your first step should be a visit to your local greengrocers.

56 | Bridport Times | March 2018

Along with staying away from stress and sleeping better, feeding your body certain foods may help keep your immune system strong. Reach for these nine foods to boost your immune system and keep sickness at bay.

OATS

VITAMIN D

Oats are a rich source of beta glucans, which enable our immune system to recognise and destroy harmful organisms responsible for infections and disease. Eating a bowl of porridge every morning can effectively gear up your white blood cells into rapid response mode, giving you a helping hand to keep the bugs at bay.

A vitamin as opposed to a food, Vitamin D is vital for maintaining a strong immune system. The cells that make up the immune system contain Vitamin D receptors, meaning that without adequate levels of this important vitamin the immune cells become weak, leaving us susceptible to sickness and infection.

Although wild salmon, eggs, and fortified breakfast cereals can provide some Vitamin D, absorption of sunlight via the skin produces most of it.

PUMPKIN SEEDS

Pumpkin seeds contain a large amount of the mineral zinc, essential to the functioning of the immune system. Zinc may also be directly involved in antibody production, which helps the body to fight infection.

Research shows that when taken within 24 hours of the first symptoms of a cold, zinc can reduce its duration and significantly reduce the severity of symptoms.

SWEET POTATOES

Sweet potatoes are packed with beta-carotene, a potent antioxidant that is converted to Vitamin A in the body.

Beta-carotene fights off those damaging molecules called free radicals that harm our immune system.

BRAZIL NUTS

GARLIC

Brazil nuts contain selenium, an essential trace mineral which is needed for the proper functioning of neutrophils, macrophages, natural killer cells and other immune mechanisms. Its antioxidant properties enable it to protect healthy cells from free radical damage and support immune function.

Garlic is packed with antioxidants and is a great way to protect against a cold and cough. Garlic also contains a compound known as allicin, which is known for its anti-bacterial, anti-viral and anti-fungal properties.

Unfortunately, if you want to get the full benefit from this wonderful plant, it’s best to eat it raw.

YOGURT

TURMERIC

About 70% of our body’s immune system is found in our gastrointestinal tract and, because our gut is on the front line when it comes to contact with external bacteria, it’s important to keep our gut healthy. Yogurt is full of beneficial bacteria such as Lactobacillus and Bifidobacterium. These ‘beneficial’ bacteria positively affect the development of immune cells in the gut. While you can take a probiotic, it’s best to get these ‘beneficial’ bacteria through food so that you can also get other important vitamins, minerals, and nutrients. Look for ‘live and active cultures’ on the nutrient label. Avoiding dairy? You can still get immune-boosting probiotics from fermented foods such as sauerkraut and kombucha.

Curcumin, turmeric’s yellow pigment, has demonstrated significant anti-inflammatory properties. Why not try my recipe for an immune boosting tea?

RED BELL PEPPERS

Vitamin C is essential for the proper functioning of the immune system. However, our stores of this vital vitamin become depleted during times of stress and when we have infections. If you think citrus fruits have the most Vitamin C of any fruit or vegetable, think again. Red bell peppers contain twice as much Vitamin C as citrus. Other sources include kale, broccoli, spinach, strawberries, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts, and mango.

Immune Boosting Turmeric Tea 1/2 fresh turmeric root, sliced 1 tsp raw honey fresh juice of 1/2 lemon freshly ground black pepper 1 thumb-sized piece of ginger, sliced Finely slice the fresh turmeric and ginger root and add to a mug. Add the honey. Pour some warm water over the fresh root and honey. NB: it is important that the water is off the boil as otherwise it will destroy the nutrients. Add the lemon juice and some freshly ground black pepper. The black pepper will help with the absorption of nutrients. Cover your cup with a small plate and let the tea properly infuse for 4-5 minutes before you drink it. lovinghealthy.co.uk

bridporttimes.co.uk | 57

Body & Mind

HERBAL SPRING TONICS

A

Caroline Butler, Medical Herbalist BSc (Hons) MNIMH

s the year continues and the days lengthen, the earth warms up and plants grow fresh green shoots. Though it’s still cold outside, these early spring plants bring back visible life and, if we use them as food and medicine, they can revitalise us as well. Let’s look at three of the first plants or ‘weeds’ to appear: cleavers, dandelion and nettle.

Cleavers (also called goosegrass or sticky weed), is known for its velcro-like ability to stick to clothing, but the whole plant, picked while it’s still young and tender, can be used as a cleansing spring tonic. You can drink it as tea, juice the whole plant, or add it to green smoothies. Taken on its own the juice is surprisingly strong, so dilute it with water or mix it with honey to make a succus, which tastes delicious and can keep for months. Cleavers loses a lot of its effectiveness when dried so, to preserve it, freeze the fresh juice in an icecube tray for later use. This wonderful herb works mainly by supporting the body’s lymphatic system, the network of vessels and tissues around the body that transports lymph fluid, carrying waste products and toxins away and circulating immune cells. A lot of immune system activity takes place in the lymph nodes, such as the ‘glands’ in your neck that can be raised during infections.

Cleavers can ease these when they become enlarged or tender, and by aiding the removal of waste products throughout the body it improves overall health. It has a cooling effect and so is especially useful in conditions such as inflamed eczema or feverish tonsillitis.

Dandelion is another well-known plant with an unfortunate reputation as a weed, however once you get to know its many uses you will find it much harder 58 | Bridport Times | March 2018

to pull it up out of your garden. The young leaves can be eaten in salads and are high in vitamins and minerals; their slightly bitter taste stimulates the flow of digestive juices and improves the appetite. As with cleavers it has a cleansing action but, instead of working on the lymphatic system, dandelion works on the digestive and urinary systems. The leaves and the root both gently stimulate the liver and gallbladder and increase the production of gastric fluid, which improves assimilation of nutrients in our food as well as elimination of wastes through the bowel. The benefit of this can be seen in other areas too, such as improved skin quality or mood. The root has a stronger action on the digestion and is the part most often used by herbalists in this way. Dandelion leaves act on the

kidneys, promoting the flow of urine, which is useful in cystitis and invaluable in the treatment of hypertension, helping to lower raised blood pressure and ease swollen ankles. This diuretic effect has passed into folklore with the child’s warning that picking dandelions makes you wet the bed! The opposite is actually true, as dandelion also has a strengthening effect on the urinary system.

Add to all this the fact that the flowers are a cheerful, bright yellow, and can be made into wine, and you might understand why I welcome this plant into my garden.

Nettles have a painful sting but cooking them for a few minutes will neutralise this and then you have a free source of iron, vitamin C and many more nutrients.

There are lots of recipes for nettle soup, but if you start off with fresh young nettle tops, fried onions, potatoes

and vegetable stock, you can’t go far wrong. This is one of the top ‘food herbs’; as long as you use the young plants and leave the older, fibrous growth, it’s extremely nourishing. All parts of this plant have medicinal uses.

Young nettle tops are used for allergies, including hay fever, as they have an anti-histamine effect, and also for gout and arthritis amongst other things. The root is used for prostate enlargement, and nettle seed is a tonic for the kidneys and adrenal glands, providing energy when exhausted through overwork or after an illness.

Although each of these plants has specific medicinal uses, as spring tonics they clear the stagnation of winter so that we can start afresh. herbalcaroline.co.uk bridporttimes.co.uk | 59

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Interiors

Torcello velvet, from the Palazzo collection, Osborne and Little 62 | Bridport Times | March 2018

SPRING FEVER Molly Bruce, Interior Designer

O

ne of the best perks of my job is keeping an eye on the design industry’s new collections.

This involves taking time to gawp at the fresh sets of designs released throughout the year and seeing what new colours, patterns and textures will be weaving their way into the tapestries of our own homes. It is a pleasure to get paid to fondle velvet, examine new wallpapers and test the new selection of paint colours available, imagining how they can be incorporated into an interior design. By March I am truly ready for the Spring/Summer collections and the inspiration they bring. There’s nothing like the therapeutic kick I get from freshening up my home, shaking off the winter hibernation by introducing some new pizazz.

The movement of interior design in 2018 is an exciting one. We are being dictated to less and less about what and what not to do. Instead, individuality is encouraged, with a vast selection of choice available to us. This is a liberating time, an undercurrent partly created with the help of social media and its empowerment of individual expression. For example, we can now publish images of our own creations with the use of Instagram or Pinterest, sharing our ideas with each other and bypassing the traditional media channels. We are capable of contributing to the design world by believing in our own ideas and our individual way of executing them within our homes. The ‘lived-in’ home for example is now appreciated and stands equally alongside the ‘show home’.

Whatever plans you have for your space, I recommend seeking out this season’s new collections and finding ways to put your own spin on them. You can research them yourself online and in interiors magazines, but the best way to view them is in the flesh, for true colour accuracy and to judge the quality and appreciate the textures by hand. One place you can do this locally is Country Seats Interiors in Bridport. Here you can browse through an extensive library of collections both old and new from suppliers such as Osborne and Little, Sanderson, Designers Guild, and Romo. Trawl through their books; you are sure to be inspired.

You don’t have to spend a fortune to create huge impact. You don’t need to redecorate every year or even swap winter furnishings for summer, I could never be that organised, but you can add layers and rearrange. If I want to make an eye-catching statement, I might buy a metre or two of amazing fabric and use it to maximum effect: a few striking scatter cushions or a re-covered headboard in the bedroom. I often update a space to incorporate a new fabric or wallpaper because the design is so inspiring. Sometimes I just hang fabric on the wall, especially if it is embroidered. Such pieces can be a work of art in their own right. If I fall in love with something really special I save up for it and, when it finally graces my home, I appreciate it all the more.

It is important not to be seduced by the new trends unless you feel a connection with them. Always be open to ideas and listen to advice. Consider shaking things up but keep your feet on the ground when deciding if a concept suits your personality, your lifestyle or other family members. Embrace your individuality and choose what is relevant to you. If you find it hard to imagine what a design would look like in your own space, take notice of the way it is presented in the brands’ photography. Observe the background, the styling, and overall display of the fabric or wallpaper. Also, take into account the fact that, when you look at a single creation, it may look completely different seen up close to when viewed from far away. When considering a new fabric or wallpaper, pay attention to your first impressions and take notice when something jumps out at you. Don’t let the fear creep in: entertain all possibilities, trust your instincts, and go for it.

I hope you have as much fun as I do soaking up the eye candy laid out for us in the new collections and that you return home with fresh zest and renewed enthusiasm to add positivity to your own environment. @mollyellenbruce countryseats.co.uk Stockists of Osborne and Little osborneandlittle.com

bridporttimes.co.uk | 63

CHARTERHOUSE Aucti on eer s & Va l u e r s We are now accepting entries for our forthcoming auctions: Coins, Stamps & Medals Thursday 15th March Model Trains, Cars & Collector’s Items Friday 16th March Classic & Vintage Cars Wednesday 11th April Hunting, Shooting & Fishing Items Thursday 19th April Asian Works of Art with Pictures & Books Friday 20th April Contact Richard Bromell or Beverley Garrett for advice and to arrange a home visit The Long Street Salerooms Sherborne DT9 3BS | 01935 812277 www.charterhouse-auction.com

Collection of Steiff Teddy Bears in our March Auction

RUBY in the DUST Vintage Home Antiques Decorative finds St. Michaels Lane, Bridport

rubydust57_ 64 | Bridport Times | March 2018

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Interiors

PATTERN IS BACK

Annabelle Hunt, Colour Consultant, Bridport Timber & Flooring

T

here has been a reaction against the Scandi minimalism and Japanese-style decluttering trends which have reigned for the last few years. Maximalism is back!

Gorgeous wallpapers are everywhere this spring and they’re no longer reserved for feature walls. The fashion for papering behind the sofa is over. Wallpaper looks so much better on all four walls. Or be like the French and paper up and over the ceiling too!

Using striking pattern and strong colours alongside eclectic furniture and objects can result in fantastic interiors which really tell a story about who lives there. Experiment with patterns and have fun. Be bold and embrace pattern and texture. Express your individuality and personality, whether that’s through clashing wallpaper or large-scale patterns.

This look works best in strong, saturated colour palettes; it is not for the faint-hearted.

However, over-sized designs in subtle colour combinations are beautiful too and create movement and interest in a room. Or, if you are only wanting to add a little interest and texture to your current decorating scheme, you can introduce pattern as an accent, just as you might with colour. Try using wallpaper in the back of a bookcase or kitchen dresser, or inside an alcove.

With this in mind, this spring Farrow & Ball have introduced three of their most popular wallpaper patterns in striking new colourways by adding bold accents of Hague Blue, Vardo and Arsenic, along with a bespoke metallic. Wallpapers are usually made with ink, but not at Farrow & Ball. Made in the Wimborne factory using their own paint and traditional, painstaking methods, and inspired by archives of timeless wallpapers, fabrics, and patterns from all over the world, they create a seamless connection between paint and paper.

Beginning with rolls of high-quality paper, a coat of paint is brushed on creating the first layer of texture. For larger designs and longer pattern repeats, a traditional block printing method is used, each block being carefully engraved by hand. Roller block printing is used for the more intricate designs. Similar to the flat-bed block prints, the tactile nature of these wallpapers is the result of how the roller releases the paint as it peels off the paper.

For striped and dragged papers the trough printing method is used. It’s a process that requires absolute attention to detail and a great deal of patience. The texture of the paint must be just right for a smooth and even flow through the trough pads and onto the paper. These pads are also carefully cut by hand, with each needing to be replaced as often as every five rolls to maintain accuracy and quality.

Finally, the wallpapers are finished with a glaze so not only is it wonderfully tactile, it’s tough as well. bridporttimber.co.uk

66 | Bridport Times | March 2018

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bridporttimes.co.uk | 69

Gardening

70 | Bridport Times | March 2018

FORM AND FUNCTION Charlie Groves, Groves Nurseries

I

f you’ve visited our nursery lately then you might have noticed that there has been a bit of building work going on. For a few years now we have been planning our new restaurant, “Ivy House”.

We are proud of our horticultural heritage and we wanted to build something that would fit into this environment, which is why we have gone for such a unique design. We are well on the way to completion in May; the building has been in the hands of the main contractors for a while now. During this time, I have been putting more attention into the area around the restaurant, in particular the area around our giant koi pond.

I would really like Ivy House to be a reflection of the relationship between food and the garden, so we have been looking at ways of developing the gardens around Ivy House to be a source of inspiration to our customers. Personally, I love a bit of vegetable gardening. I had an allotment which I shared with friends for a few years, then children arrived and I created a vegetable garden in my own garden at home.

Whilst I really want the areas around Ivy House to be a source of food for the restaurant I am aware of the fact that, for a large part of the year, and particularly during the winter, a vegetable garden can be a fairly boring looking patch of ground with not a lot going on - not something that I want to happen with customers looking for inspiration all year round.

I reckon the key to overcome this is to create a “Potager Garden,” a French term for a garden where flowers and herbs intermingle in groups of beds that are designed in attractive patterns, with the plants chosen for their functionality as well as their colour and form.

Your choice of crops will be one of personal taste but anything you would grow in a normal vegetable plot or allotment and love to eat would be suitable, subject to room and growing conditions. Remember most crops should to be rotated annually so you’ll be redesigning some aspects every year. The great thing about mixing flowers with vegetables is that when you harvest the vegetables, the flowers tend to grow and fill the gaps until you plant something else.

Just a few tips to get you started:

• Plan the design on paper first, doing a scale drawing incorporating pathways for easy planting and maintenance, and shapes for your beds that can be varied – square, rectangular, triangular or cross-shaped.

Whatever you fancy.

• A central focal point such as an obelisk flowing with runner beans, or a grapevine over a sturdy arch, with pathways or lines of plants drawing your attention to it will bring your whole design together.

• If some sort of boundary is necessary, use plants like raspberry canes to create a hedge or train espalier or fan apples or pears to form an attractive screen with their spring blossom and autumn fruits.

• Use herbs such as lavender, marjoram or parsley as edging plants, or even stepover apples that create a great divider, and then fill the bed with vibrantcoloured vegetables such as chard or radicchio lettuce.

• Larger perennial herbs like mint, sage and rosemary can take up a lot of room so site them carefully.

• Get some height by incorporating wigwams and pyramids to grow upward climbing vegetables such as runner and French beans or some gorgeous sweet peas.

• Try to find room for perennial vegetables such as asparagus, rhubarb or globe artichokes. You may be able to intersperse them with other, fast-growing vegetables.

• Use colour combinations for visual impact and drama try planting red cabbage next to common green ones.

• Intercropping a fast-growing crop such as radishes with a slower growing one such as parsnips, or a combination of lettuce and sweetcorn, maximises yields.

• Plant flowers for their beauty and for the pollinators you need for your potager to thrive, plants such as calendula, pink Echinacea, golden sunflowers, electric blue cornflowers, and bold yellow, red and orange nasturtiums.

Well, we will see how things develop as this will be a project that will carry on well beyond the opening of the restaurant. I will be sure to keep you updated with what works and what doesn’t! grovesnurseries.co.uk bridporttimes.co.uk | 71

Literature

LITERARY REVIEW Esmeralda Voegele-Downing, The Bookshop

The Hazel Wood by Melissa Albert £7.99 (Penguin Books) Exclusive Bridport Times Reader Offer of £6.99 at The Bookshop

T

he hallmark of authentic fairy tales is that they are never sweet. They are metaphysical mine-fields in which everything has a price and everyone is capable of far more than they understand. Even the most beloved characters become transformed in plot twists that render “better” and “worse” meaningless.

Additionally, an authentic fairy tale doesn’t have to marinade in a dustcovered Grimm manuscript for centuries to gain power - it can be spun at any moment in time. The Hazel Wood is an authentic fairy tale.

Melissa Albert’s debut novel brings back something more than magic - it brings back impossibility and legend. Our heroine is Alice, a short-tempered teenage waitress in New York who has spent her life on the run with her mother, Ella Proserpine. Her grandmother is Althea, a reclusive author with “an odd kind of fame” whose book of stories, Tales From The Hinterland, fuels nightmares and dreams. Alice and Ella have moved like nomads, upping sticks and fleeing each apartment and trailer park with inexplicable urgency. To the untrained eye, the man who attempts to abduct Alice at age six is an unlucky fluke, just like a home flooding, a wildcat breaking in, or Alice waking up to find her hair braided around her pillow. Ella keeps them moving, deflecting questions about Althea and The Hazel Wood, her fabled, unreachable estate, until one day the news of Althea’s death halts them.

Just as Alice begins to settle in New York with a new step-sister and an awkward friendship with Ellery, a boy who knows more about her grandmother than she does, the fairy tale strangeness seeps through again. When, one night, Alice comes home to a disappearance, a gun, and a page ripped from Althea’s book, she runs to Ellery for help. Armed with his knowledge of the Hinterlands,

Alice realises that, despite every single law of logic and nature, the forces following her might not be human at all. The stories of the Hinterlands are brutal, uncanny and unstoppable, and they have wanted something from Alice all her life. She and Ellery are forced to the conclusion that finding The Hazel Wood may be their only option.

The most enthralling facet of The Hazel Wood is that Melissa Albert pulls a Lovecraft - that is to say, she spins an original universe of brand new fables and figures that seem somehow to have existed for millennia already.

The Hinterlands have the sort of gravity and clout that Little Red Riding Hood does, with the advantage of drawing on the already-established pantheon of fairy tales we know inside and out, and respect warily by instinct. Things matter in threes, tricksters speak in riddles, and unassuming women are not to be underestimated. This breed is pre-Disney, pre-happilyever-after, and leans instead on the earthy yet unearthly stories that warn, chastise, and sometimes (most eerily) make no sense at all. The Hazel Wood is all this, with a fresh coat of twenty-first-century paint.

With intoxicating detail and honed imagination, The Hazel Wood is a dark Young Adult novel of appropriately uncertain morals. The book is a door for escapism, and the worlds beyond it will not disappoint wayfaring readers, especially in our current climate of fact versus fiction, in which this story refreshingly relies on both and neither. Maybe that’s why it’s already signed for a major motion picture. However, if there ever was a story that convinced one of the magic of an ink-andpaper book before all other storytelling forms, The Hazel Wood is it. dorsetbooks.com bridporttimes.co.uk | 73

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FEBRUARY SOLUTIONS

ACROSS 1. Act evasively (11) 9. Smooth textile fibre (5) 10. Mythical monster (3) 11. Ordered arrangement (5) 12. ____ Sarandon: US actress (5) 13. Wine container (8) 16. Relating to an empire (8) 18. Delicious (5) 21. Competed in a speed contest (5) 22. Sense of self-esteem (3) 23. Showery (5) 24. Persistent harassment (11)

74 | Bridport Times | March 2018

DOWN 2. Take back (7) 3. Fluctuating (7) 4. Casino _____ : James Bond film (6) 5. Ice cream is often served in these (5) 6. Runs at a moderate pace (5) 7. A parent's Mum (11) 8. Admit to be true (11) 14. Decipher (7) 15. Small flute (7) 17. Lunatic (6) 19. Breathe heavily at night (5) 20. Linear measures of three feet (5)

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