Bridport Times May 2019

MAY 2019 | FREE

A MONTHLY CELEBR ATION OF PEOPLE, PLACE AND PURVEYOR

CAUGHT IN THE MOMENT with Sally Allan of Sally's Fish Camp

bridporttimes.co.uk

Maggie and Milly and Molly and May went down to the beach (to play one day) and Maggie discovered a shell that sang so sweetly she couldn’t remember her troubles, and Milly befriended a stranded star whose rays five languid fingers were; and Molly was chased by a horrible thing which raced sideways while blowing bubbles: and May came home with a smooth round stone as small as a world and as large as alone.

For whatever we lose (like a you or a me) it’s always ourselves we find in the sea E.E. Cummings

CONTRIBUTORS Editorial and creative direction Glen Cheyne Design Andy Gerrard @round_studio Sub editors Jay Armstrong @jayarmstrong_ Elaine Taylor Photography Katharine Davies @Katharine_KDP Feature writer Jo Denbury @jo_denbury Editorial assistant Paul Newman @paulnewmanart Print Pureprint Distribution Available throughout Bridport and surrounding villages.

Please see bridporttimes.co.uk for stockists.

2 Bretts Yard Abbey Corner Sherborne Dorset DT9 3NL 01935 315556 @bridporttimes glen@homegrown-media.co.uk paul@homegrown-media.co.uk bridporttimes.co.uk Bridport Times is printed on an FSCÂŽ and EU Ecolabel certified paper.

It goes without saying that once thoroughly well read, this magazine is easily recycled and we actively encourage you to do so.

Whilst every care has been taken to ensure that the data in this publication is accurate, neither Bridport Times nor its editorial contributors can accept, and hereby disclaim, any liability to any party to loss or damage caused by errors or omissions resulting from negligence, accident or any other cause.

Bridport Times does not officially endorse any advertising material included within this publication.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in any retrieval system, or transmitted in any form - electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise - without prior permission from Bridport Times.

4 | Bridport Times | May 2019

Simon Barber Evolver @SimonEvolver @simonpaulbarber evolver.org.uk Alice Blogg @alice_blogg @alice_blogg aliceblogg.co.uk Molly Bruce @mollybruceinteriors mollybruce.co.uk Caroline Butler BSc (Hons) MNIMH herbalcaroline.co.uk Kelvin Clayton @kelvinclaytongp greenthoughts.me philosophyinpubs.co.uk Melanie Fermor Dorset Wildlife Trust @DorsetWildlife @dorsetwildlife dorsetwildlifetrust.org.uk Melanie Gale Dementia Friendly Bridport dementiafriendlybridport@gmail.com Kit Glaisyer @kitglaisyer @kitglaisyer kitglaisyer.com Charlie Groves Groves Nurseries @GrovesNurseries @grovesnurseries grovesnurseries.co.uk Emily Hicks Bridport Museum @BridportMuseum bridportmuseum.co.uk Annabelle Hunt Bridport Timber and Flooring @BridportTimber @annabellehuntcolourconsultant bridporttimber.co.uk Little Toller Books @LittleToller @littletollerdorset littletoller.co.uk Will Livingstone @willgrow willgrow.co.uk Sarah McConnell Hooke Court hookecourt.co.uk

Gill Meller @GillMeller @Gill.Meller gillmeller.com Lois Pearson Beaminster Festival beaminsterfestival.com Anna Powell Sladers Yard @SladersYard @sladersyard sladersyard.wordpress.com John Puckey Marine Theatre Lyme Regis @johnpuckeypaint marinetheatre.com Jo Saurin Bridport Arts Centre @bridportarts @bridportarts bridport-arts.com Ellen Simon Tamarisk Farm @ tamarisk_farm tamariskfarm.co.uk Charlie Soole The Club House West Bexington @TheClubHouse217 @theclubhouse2017 theclubhousewestbexington.co.uk Antonia Squire The Bookshop @bookshopbridprt @thebookshopbridport dorsetbooks.com Emma Tabor & Paul Newman @paulnewmanart @paulnewmanartist paulnewmanartist.com Cass Titcombe Brassica Restaurant @brassica_food @brassicarestaurant_mercantile brassicarestaurant.co.uk Chris Tripp Dorset Diggers Community Archaeology Group dorsetdiggers.btck.co.uk Nadiya Wynn Yoga Space @yogaspacebridport yogaspacebridport.com

44

MAY 2019

6 What’s On

42 Archaeology

74 Gardening

24 Arts and Culture

44 SALLY’S FISH CAMP

82 Philosophy

32 History

54 Food and Drink

83 Literature

34 Wild Dorset

62 Body and Mind

86 Crossword

38 Outdoors

68 Interiors

bridporttimes.co.uk | 5

WHAT'S ON Listings

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Pop-up Restaurant

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Tuesdays 6pm-8pm

Mondays 10am-12.15pm

Heritage Coast Canoe Club

Soulshine Cafe, 76 South St

Watercolour Painting

Westbay Watersports Centre,

Every 1st Thursday

westbaykayak.co.uk 01308 862055

Free Community Coffee Morning

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Tuesdays 7.15pm

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Mondays (term-time)

Uplyme Morris Rehearsals

Every 3rd Friday 10.30am-3.30pm

6.30pm-8pm

The Bottle Inn, Marshwood.

Bridport Embroiderers

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01308 456168

for Beginners LSI, East St. 07881 805510

marion@taylormade.demon.co.uk

Bridport ASD & Social

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Fisherman's Green, West Bay. Age 12+

10.45am-11.45am

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St. Swithun's Church Hall, Allington

Facebook: Uplyme Morris 07917 748087

St Swithun’s Church Hall, Allington.

Bridport Children's Centre.

Tuesdays 7.30pm-9pm

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Anxiety Support Group For teens, parents & carers

Bridport Sangha

Every Saturday 10am-12pm

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Meditation Evenings

FREE Chess Club

Mondays 13th, 20th

Quaker Meeting House, South St.

LSi Bridport, 51 East St.

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7.30pm-9.30pm Bridport Folk Dance Club

07950 959572

lsibridport.co.uk/chess-club-on-saturdays-2/

WI Hall, North St, DT6 3JQ.

Every 2nd Tuesday 7.15pm

Sundays 10.30am-12.45pm

01308 423442

Bridport Sugarcraft Club

(5th-19th) or Wednesdays

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6.30pm-8.45pm (8th-22nd)

Mondays 7.30pm-9pm

Ivy House, Grove Nurseries, West Bay Road, DT6 4AB

Keeping a Notebook

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with Kim Squirrell

Women’s Coaching Group

Every 2nd Tuesday 7pm-9pm

67 South St

Co-operation Bridport

Ink and Page, 29a West Allington.

Mondays 7.30pm-9.30pm

cooperationbridport.eventbrite.co.uk

Friday 19th April -

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23rd June 11am-4pm

bridportchoral.wordpress.com/Facebook

Wednesday or Thursday 9.30am-

Warm Beer & Cabbages

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12.30pm (term-time)

Mondays 13th & 27th 7.30pm

Painting & Drawing Art Classes

West Bay Discovery Centre, DT6 4EN

Biodanza @ Othona

Mangerton Mill Artist Studio.

Bridport Campfire -

____________________________ Bridport Choral Society

Othona Community, Coast Road, Burton Bradstock DT6 4RN.

Free. 07974 888895

07505 268797

07425 163459 inkandpage.co.uk

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Exhibition of American GIs. Free 01308 427288 westbaydiscoverycentre.org.uk

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Wednesday 1st

01308 897130 biodanza-bridport.co.uk

Wednesdays 7pm-10pm

Willow Fencing & Edging

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Bridport Scottish Dancers

9.30am-4.30pm

Tuesdays 10am-1pm

Church House, South St. 01308 538141

Creative Writing Walk

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Trill Farm, Musbury EX13 8TU

Art Class

bridportscottishdancers.org.uk

10.30am-12.30pm

07812 856823 trudiochiltree.co.uk

Every 4th Wednesday 7.30pm

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Philosophy in Pubs

trillfarm.co.uk 01297 631113

Tuesdays & Thursdays 10.30am

George Hotel, South St. Read Kelvin

Saturday 4th 10am-12pm

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St Swithun’s Church, N Allington.

Town Mill Arts, Lyme Regis DT7 3PU.

Walking the Way to Health in Bridport Starts from CAB 45 South St. 01305 252222 sarahdavies@dorset.gov.uk 6 | Bridport Times | May 2019

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Clayton’s monthly article on page 82

Plant Sale, Coffee, Cake & Jazz

Every Thursday 6pm

bridport-team-ministry.org/events/

The Monmouth Table -

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River Cottage

FOOD FAIr 25 - 26 maY 2019

Yotam ottolenghi • Kate humble hugh FearnleY-Whittingstall samin nosrat • Chetna maKan niKi segnit • gill meller CooKerY demonstrations / Food & CraFt marKet / Food & drinK masterClasses Feasts / Wild CoCKtails / street Food Firepit CooKerY / Free Fun For Children Foraging / bushCraFt / FalConrY displaYs gardening tips & tours

tiCKets £15 _

under 16s go Free

rivercottage.net/foodfair axminster, eX13 8tb

WHAT'S ON Bridport Community Orchard. Free - bring

trillfarm.co.uk 01297 631113

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Saturday 11th 10am-4pm

Sladers Yard, West Bay. £18

Sunday 5th 1.30pm

Living Spirituality Event - Grief

(£36 with dinner) 01308 459511

Afternoon Tea

as a Sacred Work of Healing

sladersyard.wordpress.com

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British Legion Hall, Victoria Grove.

Quaker Meeting House, South St.

Saturday 4th 7pm

Raising money for Cancer Research. £6. 01308 421097

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Saturday 4th 6.30pm Musical Performance John Etheridge & Vimala

Aperitivo Night

picnic. bridportcommunityorchard.org.uk

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iona.lake@aol.co.uk

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Saturday 11th 7.30pm

Ivy House Restaurant, Groves Nurseries.

Wednesday 8th 7.30pm

Bridport Choral Society

Master class. £25 01308 807053

The Salt House

presents Spring Fantasia

grovesnurseries.co.uk

'Got-Any-Gum, Chum’

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Bridport United Church, East St.

Saturday 4th 7.30pm

West Bay Discovery Centre, DT6 4EN.

01308 427288 westbaydiscoverycentre.org.uk

Samswara Sitar & Tabla

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Tickets £10 (inc. refreshments) Bridport Music or on door

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Axminster Minster EX13 5AQ. £12/10

Thursday 9th 7.30pm

Sunday 12th

from Archway Bookshop 01297 33595

Modou Ndiaye & Band

Coast to Coast Challenge

samswara.com

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Wootton Fitzpaine Village Hall.

Watchet (Somerset) to West Bay.

Sunday 5th 10am-5pm

01297 560948 artsreach.co.uk

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coast-to-coast

dsairambulance.org.uk/Pages/Category/

The Well Life Lab - Spring

Friday 10th 9.30am-11.30am

Cleanse Retreat

Card Appliqué Workshop

Monday 13th –

Kingcombe Centre, Toller Porcorum.

Boarsbarrow Gifts & Crafts, Loders

Friday 17th 10am–4pm

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DT6 3SA. boarsbarrow.com

Art Exhibition -

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Allan Green & Moira Baumbach

Sunday 5th 10am-4pm

Friday 10th 7pm

Bridport & District Model

Salway Ash Village Hall

Mayfair Town & Country, The Square,

Railway Club Open Day

Easter Bingo

Salthouse, West Bay. £1 wamrc.co.uk/

Top prize £50 & lots of other great prizes!

Sunday 14th 2pm-4pm

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Divine Union Soundbath

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Saturday 11th 10am-1pm

Sunday 5th 12pm-3pm

Foraging Walk

Bridport Unitarians, 49 East St, DT6 3JX.

Orchard Mayfest Celebration

Trill Farm, Musbury EX13 8TU.

07704 093016, eventbrite.co.uk

bridport-district-model-railway-club

OTTERTON SECRET GARDENS 2019

Sunday June 9th 11am-6pm Nr Budleigh Salterton 12 open gardens, plants galore, lunches and cream teas.

Tickets £6 including miniature train ride Children free. Dogs welcome www.otterton.info/ottertongardens 8 | Bridport Times | May 2019

Beaminster. mayfairproperties.net

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01935 389655 centreforpuresound.org

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Not just a sculpture park...

Wonderful gardens open all year round Delicious food from The Gallery Cafe Beautiful sculptures by Simon Gudgeon Dorset’s largest art gallery space Art and craft workshops Expert garden talks and workshops Yoga and meditation retreats A unique wedding venue www.sculpturebythelakes.co.uk www.gallerycafe.uk www.simongudgeon.com office@sculpturebythelakes.co.uk +44 (0)7720 637808 Pallington Lakes, Dorchester, Dorset DT2 8QU

WHAT'S ON Thursday 16th 7pm-9pm Wines of Klein Constantia Tasting

West Bay Discovery Centre DT6 4EN.

Therapeutic Writing Workshop -

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Bothenhampton Village Hall. £15, 07747

01308 427288 westbaydiscoverycentre.org.uk

Finding Your Writer

Bradstock. £20 pp

Saturday 18th 7pm

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New Elizabethan Singers - Elgar,

142088 george@georgegottscounselling.co.uk

Thursday 16th 7.30pm

Britten, Rutter, Tavener

Wednesday 22nd 7.30pm

Bridport & District Gardening

United Church, Bridport. Tickets £12

Bridport Story Cafe -

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The Lyric Theatre. £10

Seaside Boarding House, Burton

Club Talk - "Seaside Gardening"

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from Bridport Music & Goadsby

The Green Road

bridportgardeningclub.co.uk

Sunday 19th 11am-4.30pm

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Learn Letterpress Printing

Bridport TIC 01308 424901

Thursday 16th 7.30pm

with David Squirrell

Talk by Illustrator Chris Moore -

St Michael's Studios Riverside. £65

Friday 24th 7.30pm

WI Hall, North St. £2.

The Sci-Fi Guy

bridportandwestbay.co.uk/tickets/

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07425 163459 inkandpage.co.uk

Bridport Folk Festival

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Fundraiser: The Fos Brothers

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Sunday 19th 2pm-4pm

Saturday 18th

Dementia Friendly Tea Dance

Bridport Town Hall, East St. 01308

Yarn bombing and Stall for

St Mary’s Church Hall, South Street,

LSi Bridport, 51 East St. lsibridport.co.uk, £6

Dementia Friendly Bridport

424901 bridportfolkfestival.com

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Bridport DT6 3NW. Tickets £2.50

Saturday 25th 10am-12pm

dementiafriendlybridport@gmail.com

Golden Cap Estate - A Look

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at Grassland Communities

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Sunday 19th 2pm-5pm

Saturday 18th -

Salway Ash Cream Teas

Meet at National Trust Stonebarrow

Sunday 19th 10am-4pm

Strongate Farm, DT6 5JB. Plus plant

Buckydoo Square, Bridport.

dementiafriendlybridport@gmail.com

Spring Tide Food Festival

car park. 01929 481535

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stall & raffle. Proceeds to Holy Trinity

Saturday 25th 10am-2pm

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St Mary’s Church House Hall, South

Church Salway Ash

Table Top Sale & Coffee Morning

01297 489481 nationaltrust.org.uk/

Sunday 19th 3pm

St. In aid of Bridport Millennium

Hive Beach, Burton Bradstock. Stalls, crafts, music & family entertainment. burton-bradstock

Allington Strings Concert –

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A Scandinavian Summer

Saturday 18th 2pm

St Mary's Church, South St. Tickets £10

First Infantry Division Living History Group

Green & Indian Street Children Charities. 01308 425037

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Saturday 25th –

Sunday 19th 6pm-8pm

Sunday 26th 10am-6pm

Minterne Spring Fair In aid of the RNLI and St Andrew’s Church

Sunday 12 May 2019, 11am–4.30pm Punch & Judy Show, Dog Show - Guest Judge: Kate Adie CBE DL, Craft and Food Stalls, Cream Teas, RNLI Souvenirs, Classic Car Display, Longbow Demonstration by World Champion and much more.

27 Acres of fabulous gardens as featured on BBC Gardeners’ World Entry: Adults £5, Children under 16 free A great day out for all the family Minterne Gardens, Minterne Magna, DT2 7AU On the A352 – 2 miles north of Cerne Abbas 10 | Bridport Times | May 2019

rnli.org The RNLI is the charity that saves lives at sea

Royal National Lifeboat Institution, a charity registered in England and Wales (209603), Scotland (SC037736), the Republic of Ireland (20003326) and the Bailiwick of Jersey (14)

THE DORSET OPERA

MMXIX

Country House opera with internationally-renowned soloists, a full orchestra and a chorus of 70 Marquee bar | Posh Picnics | Formal Dining Giuseppe Verdi

NABUCCO

23, 27 July at 19:00 | Matinée 25 July at 14:00 Sung in Italian with English surtitles

Gaetano Donizetti

LUCIA DI LAMMERMOOR

24, 25 July at 19:00 | Matinée 27 July at 14:00 Sung in Italian with English surtitles

OPERA GALA CONCERT Friday 26 July at 19:00

Box Office: 01202 499199 Online Booking: dorsetopera.com The Coade Theatre Bryanston Blandford Forum

WHAT'S ON River Cottage Food Fair Trinity Hill Road, Axminster, EX13 8TB. rivercottage.net/foodfair #RCFoodFair

01308 427288 westbaydiscoverycentre.org.uk ____________________________

Local Produce Market Customs House, West Bay

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Planning ahead

Sunday 26th 12pm

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Bridport Vintage Market

Companion Dog Show

Wednesday 5th – Thursday 6th

Show Field West Bay. Funds for

June 9.30am-4.30pm

St Michael’s Trading Estate, DT6 3RR

Every last Sunday, 10am-4pm

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Dorset Blind Association, Guide Dogs

Sweet Chestnut Bark Baskets

Saturday 4th 10am-2.30pm

& Rotary Good Causes. Free parking.

Bridport Vegan Market

£4 rotary-ribi.org

Trill Farm, Musbury EX13 8TU.

____________________________

trillfarm.co.uk 01297 631113

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Bridport Town Hall, DT6 3LF

Tuesday 28th 2pm

Friday 7th (6pm-9pm) & Saturday

bridportveganmarket.co.uk

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Former Producer/Director

8th June (10am–4pm)

Saturday 11th 9am-3pm

for BBC/ITV presents ‘50 years

Maiden Newton

Arts & Craft Fair

in Television’

Art & Craft Exhibition

Bridport United Church Hall, East St.

Village Hall DT2 0AE

Bridport Town Hall, DT6 3LF.

u3asites.org.uk/bridport

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01308 424901

____________________________ Friday 17th - Friday 31st 10am

Wednesday 29th 10am-12pm

Fairs and markets

DWT - Powerstock Common -

____________________________

A Look at Grassland Communities

Every Wednesday & Saturday

01929 481535.

Weekly Market

Wednesday 29th 6.30pm

____________________________

Saturday 25th 9am-2pm

Bring & Share Supper in aid of

Every 2nd Saturday 9am–1pm

Bridport Artisan Market

the Dorset Women's Refuge

Farmers’ Market

The Hub, Church St, Lyme Regis

Bridport Arts Centre

Bridport Arts Centre. Local arts,

____________________________

Every Saturday, 9am–12pm

To include your event in our FREE

Thursday 30th 10am

Country Market

listings please email details (whole

Stepping into Nature,

WI Hall, North St

listing in approx 20 words) by the

____________________________

1st of each preceding month to

Every Sunday, 10am-5pm

gemma@homegrown-media.co.uk

____________________________

DT7 3BS. forrestaerjones.k@gmail.com

West Bay at War West Bay Discovery Centre, DT6 4EN

12 | Bridport Times | May 2019

South, West & East St

____________________________

Love Your Local Market Bucky Doo Square. With announcements from the Mayor & Bridport Town Crier. bridportandwestbay.co.uk

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crafts & produce.

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ARTIST’S IMPRESSION

The Paddock Project will be a world class arts centre in the centre of Sherborne, supporting our community and artists, raising the profile of Sherborne as a tourist destination and significantly contributing to the economy of the town.

On March 21st our planning application was heard by the Planning Committee of West Dorset District Council. We were delighted that the Planning Officer had recommended it for approval but the decision was made to defer the application to a future meeting.

an inspiring future for sherborne

We have been overwhelmed by the public support for this project, made possible by a once in a lifetime philanthropic gift. We are confident our application will be approved and will continue to work as hard as we can to deliver this incredible opportunity for Sherborne and Dorset.

Find out more and register for regular updates at thepaddockproject.org

Contact us at info@thepaddockproject.org

PREVIEW In association with

AMANDA WALLWORK: FIFTY FIELDS Occupying the top floor of an early 19th Century former

or influences the landscape we see today. Also on show are

fascinating place to visit and see her intriguing and beautiful

time’ and the first works in a new series focusing on the lost

warehouse in West Bay, Amanda Wallwork’s studio is a

work inspired by the archaeology and geology of Dorset and Cornwall, including this new series ‘Fifty Fields’.

Departing from her usual work in oil on plaster, ‘Fifty

other works exploring our prehistoric past, geological ‘deep fields of Portland.

____________________________________________ Saturday 25th - Sunday 26th May, 11am - 5pm

Fields’ is a series of 50 small postcard-sized works on paper

(other times by appointment)

They are based on the research she undertook for a series of

Top Floor Studio, The Old Timberyard, West Bay Road,

landscape heritage of this area. The maps and accompanying

amandawallwork.com

featuring different fields of the South Dorset Ridgeway.

Amanda Wallwork: Fifty Fields

maps commissioned by Dorset AONB exploring the rich

West Bay, DT6 4EL 07816 224015.

Field Guide give an insight into this landscape and

highlight how the unseen geology beneath our feet dictates 14 | Bridport Times | May 2019

@amanda_wallwork

____________________________________________ evolver.org.uk

D I S C O V E R | E AT | S H O P | S T AY | C E L E B R AT E

Welcome to Symondsbury Estate, set in the beautiful Dorset countryside just a stone’s throw from the Jurassic Coast. Join us for lunch. Browse our home, garden and gift shops.

Explore our fabulous walks and bike trails. Relax and unwind in our holiday accommodation.

Celebrate your wedding day … … isn’t it time you discovered Symondsbury Estate?

DIARY DATES Country Fair, Saturday 18th May Open Farm Sunday, 9th June

SY M O N D SBURY E S TAT E

+44 (0)1308 424116 www.symondsburyestate.co.uk The Estate Office Manor Yard, Bridport, Dorset DT6 6HG

What's On

Image: Alan McNamee

Image: Eric Richmond

Image: Alan McNamee

BEAMINSTER FESTIVAL 22nd – 30th June 2019

E

Lois Pearson, Artistic Director

very year, in the last week of June, the little town of Beaminster bursts into life, with bunting around the square and shops and pubs buzzing, as both locals and visitors from far afield enjoy a seeming embarrassment of cultural riches. The Beaminster Festival started as a long weekend of musical events some 24 years ago and it now flourishes as a festival of the arts encompassing music, both classical and other genres, theatre, literary events and visual arts. For a country town of about 4000 population Beaminster punches far above its weight, attracting both internationally-renowned artists and those on the cusp of stardom.

The festival has had several directors over the years and currently has a board of trustees and a newly invigorated organising committee headed by a new Chair, Jonathan Wales. It is run almost entirely by volunteers and is currently aiming to draw more people into helping with stewarding, offering accommodation, meals and lifts to visiting artists, thus enabling more residents to feel some ownership. One long-standing supporter declared that the best part of the festival was 16 | Bridport Times | May 2019

having young musicians to stay for a couple of nights.

The festival now runs over 9 days, usually with 3 main events each day: a coffee concert, a literary event and an evening concert. Local schools are invited to perform in short pre-coffee concerts, thus giving the audience a chance to see what the local youngsters are up to. The Mountjoy Handbell Team are always welcomed for their wonderful performances, as much a treat for them as for us. The week starts with a free Party in the Park, with bands, food, a bar, dancing and entertainments for the youngsters and, at the end of the week, there is family BBQ and picnic, also free and again with plenty of activities and fun for the whole family. A biennial visual arts exhibition showing work by local artists and local schools, takes place in the Public Hall and brings visitors to the town. Other events include a comedy night, a tea dance and rock concert so it’s a fairly eclectic mix.

The current Artistic Director, Lois Pearson, is particularly keen to bring music to those who would not normally attend the classical concerts. There are song concerts, workshops and musical activities for all, from parents and tots to seniors. The festival supports

Image: Tania Esquivel

OPEN DOORS history, drama, music, art and photography in the schools and endeavours to provide an opportunity for exciting work experience.

Whilst broadening the festival’s scope and inclusivity, the main aim is to provide top-quality artists at reasonable ticket prices. With a reputation for inviting BBC Young Musicians - both Sheku Kanneh-Mason and Jess Gillam came in 2017 - this year sees both the current winner, the phenomenal pianist Lauren Zhang, and the 1984 winner, clarinettist Emma Johnson, perform on the same day.

Mark Padmore, the renowned tenor, joins our resident guitarist Morgan Szymanski, and Eric Lu, winner of the Leeds International Piano Competition, will perform a stunning programme. Rose Opera will present Cosi fan Tutte in a lively and witty production. Duo Dorado presents a charming Baroque Extravaganza preceded by a talk on the art, architecture and design of the period. The 12 ensemble, an unconducted string orchestra, will bring the week to a thrilling finale.

The festival excels in the quality of its artists, its professional presentation and its knowledgeable and enthusiastic audience. Most important, however, is the hospitality it extends to artists and visitors alike and the relaxed and friendly welcome that greets all who come to join in the festivities. beaminsterfestival.com

6 May 10.00 12 June 10.00

We are creative A Co-educational Diamond Model School Flexi, weekly and full boarding Daily buses across Dorset and Somerset

01963 211015 www.leweston.co.uk NURSERY

PREP

SENIOR

SIXTH FORM

bridporttimes.co.uk | 17

What's On

18 | Bridport Times | May 2019

DRAWN TO DRAWING

I

Jo Saurin, Artist

s drawing about line? Or materials? Or sketching? More than that? A new exhibition at Bridport Arts Centre, Drawn In, invites viewers to explore a variety of approaches by nine artists from London, East Anglia and the South West.

Many of us have a limited understanding of what drawing is but this exhibition promises to open up the possibilities. Workshops for young and old, led by some of the artists, are being held during the exhibition so the public can experiment with different methods and materials.

One unlikely drawing in the exhibition will be made from sound – is it possible to hear a drawing? Penny Brice uses sound in response to the material presence of places, with their lives, social issues and forgotten histories. They are sonic traces in the landscape. Caroline Chourou’s drawings can also be very surprising. She uses the transformational possibilities of drawing as a means to think, a tool to channel imagination and memory.

Extraordinarily intricate and large drawings by Helen Dean which depict the essential structure and strength of places such as Stair Hole at Lulworth Cove, minutely observed and drawn in pen and ink, will feature in the show. Helen will be leading one of the workshops.

Jindra Jehu, who has curated the exhibition, is showing work which is inherently expressive of movement and energy in the natural world. With stunning charcoal images of twisted balls of ‘littoral litter’ found along the coast, and drawings sensitively inserted into rocky crags where nature itself becomes the drawing, she explores the flows and rhythms of nature. Jindra will be collaborating with Claire Benson, formerly of Motionhouse, to lead a workshop for the Dorset Youth Dance Company in the main gallery space of the exhibition on 18th May. The aim of this playful workshop is to create choreography with the dancers inspired by the exhibition and generate some drawn images on paper.

Jo Saurin’s work too is about movement and energy in the natural environment but she also celebrates the mysteriousness of nature. Her drawings disrupt the rational visual experience and recording of nature; they are an exploration of what we cannot always see but might feel.

The urban environment, on the other hand, is the focus of London-based Karen Wood’s work; Karen unusually works with a scalpel to draw. Cutting into and layering electrical tape on paper, she creates dynamic perspectives mixed with subtle and suggestive spaces. Karen will be leading a workshop using this method during the exhibition.

Zara McQueen uses cut-up and torn images to help construct carefully drawn landscapes. She might include pieces of self-portrait drawings, collaged in for the inquisitive viewer to find. Antonia Phillips, from Cambridge, peels away layers of the natural world in her drawings and prints to reveal the skeletal structure, or perhaps chaos, of nature. The freedom of her line is partially created by the spaces, which in turn are created by line.

Paul Carpenter, a freelance illustrator based in London, is displaying wonderfully observed drawings of people at work and play. His images capture their character and suggest their stories through their particular physical attitudes.

The variety of drawings on show will challenge the expectation of visitors. They live up to the words of Emma Dexter (Curator of Contemporary Art, Tate Modern), ‘To draw is to be human.

Drawing is everywhere, we are surrounded by it, it is sewn into the warp and weft of our lives.’

‘Drawn In’ will be at Bridport Arts Centre from 11th May to 15th June 2019. bridport-arts.com bridporttimes.co.uk | 19

Elementum Gallery South St, Sherborne

A N I L L U S T R AT E D J O U R N A L O F N AT U R E W R I T I N G

Opening Weekend ‘It is an absolutely extraordinary text: a book, not a journal, really.’

–11th May– Robert Macfarlane

elementumgallery.co.uk

colouration ll five Dorset artists in a further collaboration of colour Sue Barnes Malcolm Giladjian Zee Jones Chris Neaves Chris Wilmshurst

each determined to make a colourful impression

Eype Centre for the Arts

Saturday 11th to Sunday 19th May 10.30 – 4.30

20 | Bridport Times | May 2019

THE LIMITED EDITION

E L I Z A B E T H BY V I S P R I N G E XC LU S I V E TO A N D S O TO B E D

And So To Bed Bridport Pymore Mills, Bridport, Dorset, DT6 5PJ 01308 426 972

What's On

HOLLIE MCNISH THE ACCIDENTAL POET John Puckey, Artist

S

ometimes she is known as the YouTube Poet, a slam poet, or — more recently — the Instagram Poet. Hollie McNish is a figurehead of a new wave of performance poets, often seen in the same lists as Kate Tempest and Rupi Kaur. But she’s keen to point out that she has only appeared at two poetry slams and says that “performance is my least favourite aspect of everything I do...I think of poems more as something written than something you go and hear.” In fact, she likes to schedule all her “really boring social media stuff on Mondays and Tuesdays to avoid going mad.” Writing is something that she has to fit in: “on the train between gigs. I don’t sit in a field and wait to feel inspired. I wish I could sit down and write... A lot of my day is doing admin, and doing interviews I guess!” Poets have to wade through emails like the rest of us then, but Hollie’s side projects are less mundane. “At the moment I am narrating Peter and the Wolf for Birmingham City Ballet, recording it for their tour. For the last month I have gone to Scotland every Wednesday because I have radio shows for the BBC. I was commissioned to write poems about postnatal depression.” The running thread in her poems is the importance of common problems, which explains why Hollie is known as a voice of young ordinary people. Breastfeeding, sex, and motherhood are common subject matters, keeping her relevant to the scores of fans online. It helps too that she is instantly warm, likeable, and intelligent. I have read that she loves hip-hop, but she seems more interested in talking about Wilfred Owen and her current reading list; “At the moment I’m reading Rebecca Perry’s poetry collection and Claire Pollard’s poetry collection...Every time I read it makes me want to write. When I put my daughter to bed she reads for an hour and I’ll stay in her room and read my own book.”

As a youth, Hollie did not long to be a poet. In many ways it is accidental: literature was not her subject at Cambridge University (a career in economics seemed much more likely).

22 | Bridport Times | May 2019

“I started just after I did a Masters in London when I was 25 and working in a nightclub and a shop at the same time. It was an open mic thing at the Poetry Cafe.

The first time I went there I was scared to go in the door...the plan was to do one performance of one poem to prove to myself that I wasn’t a chicken, and then go and be an economist. But at the gig I was asked to do another gig, and then at that one I was asked to do another — it just spiralled. About three years later I got made redundant from the charity where I worked, and chose to do poetry for a living...I had a pact with myself that I would only do a gig if I was asked to. I never liked the idea of forcing poetry on people.”

Since 2010 Hollie has written books that are rumoured to have sold in their hundreds of thousands, when many poets would be pleased with a few hundred: “I feel so privileged that I was asked to publish… [although] it’s not something I chased. I never submitted poems to magazines.” She won the Ted Hughes prize for Nobody Told Me, a poetic memoir. There is no doubting her popularity, but the poetry world is divided. The PN Review slammed her ‘consumer driven content’, while Lemn Sissay said, “There is a new horizon in poetry.

Hollie McNish and Kate Tempest are it.” Some reviews are scathing, so I ask if this was why she appears to downplay the success of winning the prize: “You’re going to look like such a nob if you say ‘because my poetry is the best’. Obviously the poetry I write is not the best poetry. The Ted Hughes Award is meant to be for someone doing something slightly different.” holliepoetry.com

____________________________________________ Thursday 16 May, 7.30pm Hollie McNish Marine Theatre, Church Street, Lyme Regis DT7 3QA.

£12 advance / £15 on the door. 10% off for Theatre Friends.

01297 442138 marinetheatre.com

____________________________________________

bridporttimes.co.uk | 23

Arts & Culture

CLAUDIO MUÑOZ Kit Glaisyer, Artist

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his month I chatted with illustrator Claudio Muñoz. Claudio has illustrated nearly thirty books, mainly for children, his own Little Captain winning the Prix du Livre de la Mer in France, and several shortlisted for the Smarties and Mother Goose Awards. He has made three books in collaboration with his wife, Jill Newsome, an artist and teacher, others with writers and poets including Ivor Cutler and Fay Weldon. He was a regular contributor to The Economist for twenty-two years and has also been an editorial illustrator for many leading newspapers and magazines.

On a sunny spring day, we sat in Claudio’s garden amongst budding flowers and plum blossoms, outside the idyllic house he shares with Jill near the quiet hamlet of Puncknowle, West Dorset. Claudio tells me he was born by the sea in the windblown, rainy port of Talcahuano (‘Place of Thunder’) in southern Chile, where his father, who was a draughtsman for the Chilean Navy, would bring him reams of discarded ship plans and pencils. These Claudio covered with drawings illustrating the main incidents of his day and the adventures of invented characters, much to the 24 | Bridport Times | May 2019

Image: Pete Millson

amusement of his family. He was never short of material, recalling the port and its surroundings, the alarming earthquakes and stories of tsunamis, the varied and sometimes terrifying local characters, excitedly watching the lightning during stormy nights, along with the theatrical cacophony of rain and thunder.

As he grew up, he drew and built imagined cities, so his parents decided that it made sense for him to study architecture. After three years he decided to leave to heed the call of illustration. Claudio then married and his son David was born. His first job was working for an academic magazine, an endeavour cut short by the military coup of 1973. He found a regular job with a publisher colouring the work of other artists. However, his ability to quickly draw any subject on the spot was soon noticed by the editors and, for the next few years, he spent his time illustrating for them, as well as doing design work.

Life was pretty hard under General Pinochet and so, when his marriage came to an end, Claudio took the chance of a trip to Europe in 1978. He met Jill in the Canary Islands and then visited her in London where she was a designer and a part-time lecturer

bridporttimes.co.uk | 25

Arts & Culture

at St Martins School of Art. He never returned to live in Chile. Instead, with Jill’s crucial support and often working for free, he rapidly built a portfolio of work and clients, leading to a career creating editorial illustration and cartoons for most newspapers and magazines in the city but always with a view to going on to illustrate children’s books.

Jill and Claudio got married and following the birth of two daughters they decided to move to what appeared to be the healthier environment of Bath. After a difficult couple of years looking for work, Claudio was delighted to land a regular job with The Economist, his brief being mostly to add humour to what was considered a rather dry publication.

With a regular income Claudio was able to focus more on his book work and, following some initial disappointments, his first children’s book illustrations were published in Big Baby, written by their English poet friend John Ward. Many more followed, Nobody Likes Me with writer Fay Weldon; Man Mountain with Martin Waddell; The Mouse and his Child with Russell Hoban; two books with the poet Ivor Cutler: Doris the Hen and The New Dress; and, more recently, Tia Isa wants a car with Meg Medina, which has been published in both Spanish and English in the US and is 26 | Bridport Times | May 2019

now in its sixth reprinting.

In 2004, with his son already a graduated musician in the North and their girls leaving for London colleges, Claudio and Jill decided it was time to leave the city and, joining forces with an old friend, became the owners of an old and lovely farmhouse in the Bride Valley, their present home and place of work, and for Claudio a circle back to life by the sea.

Claudio says he enjoys both the pensive pace of working on a picture book and the instant response required by current affairs, as well as unusual or local requests such as producing one of the murals for the Electric Palace or designing cartoons to help save St Michael’s Trading Estate. He is now working again with poet John Ward on The Busy Cat, a story in verse, and has also designed the programme for Andrew Rutherford’s recently premiered play, The Country Team, shown at the Bridport Arts Centre, as well as the poster for Mallets, a play by Rex Fisher due to premiere this July in Dorchester on its way to the Edinburgh Fringe. claudiomunoz.com @claudiomunozillustrator kitglaisyer.com @kitglaisyer

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Arts & Culture

BENDING THE RULES Anna Powell, Director Sladers Yard, Gallery & Cafe

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ate last summer my husband, Petter Southall, was asked whether he could design, and make, a large sand-dune-inspired pavilion in steam-bent wood for one of the show gardens at the Chelsea Flower Show. Garden designer Tom Hoblyn was creating the Majlis (place of sitting) desert garden and he needed something spectacular.

A former boatbuilder, a furniture designer-maker and expert in steam-bending large sections of wood into arches, rings and twists, Petter, unlike most woodworkers, thinks in curves. Now he had sand dunes on his mind. Petter is Norwegian but spent part of his childhood in Morocco. His fluent Arabic has sadly gone. Memories of riding horses on the beaches and the desert will never leave him.

He sat down with Tom Hoblyn at Sladers Yard to talk about the possibilities. ‘Without thinking really, I just drew the shape of the pavilion,’ Petter told me afterwards. ‘It’s an idea I’ve been wanting to try.’ Tom had Petter’s sketches made into scale drawings and the sand-dune-inspired pavilion, possibly the most ambitious steam-bending project imaginable, was on.

Dorset furniture-maker Jim Tory, an essential member of the team, found a barn big enough to 28 | Bridport Times | May 2019

house the stupendous steam-bending machine they would have to build. However nobody seemed to have 36-foot lengths in any timber for them to bend. A tree big enough to make a 12-inch-wide board, 2 inches thick, 36 feet in length, has to have a diameter of about 4 feet at ground level. Learning that Scots pine that size is protected in Scotland, we were glad for the trees but worried for the project. Finally, a trusted Herefordshire timber merchant found some Douglas fir trees. Luckily, they had the mastery and daring to cut it.

Full of enthusiasm, Petter began to build the steambending former and a 30-foot steam box which would lift off on pulleys in three sections. For his oak furniture, he has a mechanised ring-maker, built with an Arts Council grant. The pavilion would be bent in the Viking way, using ingenuity, skill and muscle power alone.

Steam bending is an ancient technique which has been used in wooden boat building for thousands of years. The straight piece of solid timber comes out of the steam box and, using correctly applied pressure, is utterly and permanently transformed in under a minute. Petter learned how to build his Norwegian Oselvar Færing boat from two old brothers whose skills had been passed

down, father to son, from the Vikings. However, the steam bending on even the greatest of Viking ships was not as ambitious as the 300° curve to which Petter had now committed himself.

When the timber arrived, on the largest possible lorry, it was so long that picking up each end still left most of the plank lying on the ground. Flawless it was not. Nevertheless, they fed the first piece into the steam box and fired up the burners.

They took a film of each bend they made and one can watch the nerve-racking progress as, time after time for one reason or another, these expensive, crucial 36-foot planks crack. With aching backs, they work out why, rebuild the jig and try again.

The heat, the weight of the timber and the incredible pressure needed to push the wood round the former, took their toll on team and equipment. Add to that the anxiety when, after the first week, two bends a day had all cracked. Petter came home increasingly exhausted and downcast. That weekend, desperate to turn the tide, thinking madly of Samson and Delilah in reverse, I cut his hair.

The second week they reduced the length of the curve and started to make perfect bends. Once they

had enough of the short lengths, they went back to the full length. Having mastered the technique, the timber curled round the bender beautifully. In all, to get the 14 bends they needed for Chelsea, they bent 25 boards.

They will all be used in different ways, eventually.

Cooled and dried into components of great simplicity, strength and integrity, and carefully jointed together, the bends make a structure like a wave or a cave. ‘You always try for perfection,’ Petter commented as he sat looking up at the pavilion. ‘As it is, the imperfections, the knots that gave us so much trouble, now make the points of interest. I see the beauty in them.’

Now Petter is ready to tool up to make more of these curves as architectural components. We cross our fingers for a sunny Chelsea. ‘Long-term, I’d put a roof on it,’ Petter says, pulling his sketchbook towards him.

A selection of Petter Southall’s steam-bent furniture can be viewed at Sladers Yard, West Bay. Tom Hoblyn’s Majlis Garden will be at RHS Chelsea Flower Show. pettersouthall.com sladersyard.co.uk bridporttimes.co.uk | 29

Arts & Culture

30 | Bridport Times | May 2019

THE MIGHTY OAK Alice Blogg

Oak before ash, we’ll have a splash; Ash before oak, we’re in for a soak.

G

rowing older, feeling grounded and choosing to live my life at one with the materials I use for creating, has enhanced my view of the change in seasons. Watching the trees grow and come into leaf every year is always a magical experience. Despite knowing it happens and that it’s part of a deciduous tree’s life cycle, it still amazes me every time. The winter allows us to see the oak tree’s body structure, a marked contrast to its summer presence when it is in full leaf, adorned with leaves and fruit, and with luscious green canopies stretching far and wide.

In England, the oak has, for centuries, been a national symbol of strength and survival. To quote Edward Step, FLS, from Wayside and Woodland Trees: ‘There is no necessity for entering upon a minute description of the botanical characters of so well known a tree. The sturdy massive trunk, firm as a rock; the broad, rounded outline of its head, caused by the downward sweeping extremities of the wide-spreading lower limbs; the wavy outline of the lobed leaves, and the equally distinct egg-and-cup-shaped fruit – these are characters that cannot be confused with those of any other tree, and are the most familiar objects in the landscape in most parts of our island.’

Timber in Britain has and always will be a valuable resource in domestic and industrial uses, especially the oak: the Royal Navy used many an oak and elm to build their ships. Henry VIII’s flagship, the Mary Rose, consumed some twelve-hundred trees in her construction, enough to clear all the trees from seventy-five acres that’s roughly forty modern-day football pitches! Between 1730 and 1789, the six main British shipyards were said to have used forty-thousand cubic metres of oak, equivalent to about eighty thousand trees every year. Can you imagine what the landscape used to look like?

Oak forests provide a habitat rich in biodiversity and oak trees support more life forms than any other native tree. They host hundreds of species of insect, supplying many British birds with an important food source.

In autumn, mammals such as badgers and deer take advantage of the falling acorns. The soft leaves of English oaks break down with ease in autumn and form a rich leaf mould beneath the tree, supporting invertebrates, such as the stag beetle, and numerous fungi, such as the oakbug milkcap. Holes and crevices in the tree bark are perfect nesting spots for the pied flycatcher and marsh tit. Several British bat species may also roost in old woodpecker holes or under loose bark, as well as feeding on the rich supply of insects in the tree canopy.

Oaks produce one of the hardest and most durable timbers on the planet; even its Latin name, Quercus robur, means strength. It has so many uses. I love creating and making furniture and interiors with it, there is something so special about it - the grain, figure, colour, the way it ages. We are currently making a large dining table from a customer’s tree that we cut down 2½ years ago, an extremely exciting project. I can’t wait to see the finished piece - such an incredible and stunning tree and a pleasure to work with from the start to the end.

Typically, oak over 150 years is used in construction for architectural beams and architectural structure. In Korea, oak bark is used to make shingles for traditional roof construction. The acorns can be roasted and ground for a drink which tastes like coffee. Until wheat flour took over, historically acorns were collected and processed into flour for making bread. Traditionally the leaves, bark and acorns were believed to heal many medical ailments including diarrhoea, inflammation and kidney stones.

It is not only oak we see on our land but many other trees, wildlife, fauna and flora. When you walk past a tree, take in its stature and try to guess the name.

Look for the signs: blossom, buds, leaves, bark. Go on a journey to appreciate the nature around us and its uses in our day-to-day lives. A wonderful and informative video on oak trees is A Year in the Life of an English Oak Tree by the Woodland Trust. aliceblogg.co.uk bridporttimes.co.uk | 31

History

FAKE OR FORTUNE Emily Hicks, Director, Bridport Museum

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ou might think you recognise this painting… but it’s not the original by J.M.W. Turner: it’s a copy of The Fighting Temeraire by Captain Alfred Percy Codd who founded Bridport Museum in 1932.

In that year Codd took the lease of the ‘Old Castle’ building, now our museum, for £1800 in order to house his art collection. He later gave the building to Bridport Borough Council to be an ‘art gallery and museum’ on the condition that the council would pay for alterations.

He also transferred his art collection to the council for the sum of £20.

Codd was a huge Turner fan; the gallery included 26 of Codd’s own copies of Turner watercolours and 39 of his own Sketches by Nature of which the description was, ‘to appeal to the average lover of Nature rather than to artists or art critics.’

The Bridport News reported the opening by the Mayoress Mrs. F.W. Knight, which read like a who’swho of Bridport and included local family names such as Gundry, Colfox, Cornick, Whetham, Palmer and Gale. It wrote of Codd’s ‘magnanimous gift’ and included the fact that several paintings by William Holman-Hunt were also loaned by his son, Cyril, who was living locally at that time.

5 years later, the council were considering increasing admission charges to the museum. Codd wrote an open letter advising against it, suggesting that such a charge would be, ‘likely to keep people away altogether.’ However, he went on to be cynical about the cultural tastes of the town: ‘this raises the question of whether the pictures are worth seeing at all, or whether there is no-one in all Bridport, high or low, rich or poor, who cares to pay 6d. to see them […] the greatest mistake of all my own in ever supposing that the pictures could be of any real benefit or interest to a small country town, and if I keep the exhibition open for a few more 32 | Bridport Times | May 2019

weeks, it will be for reasons of my own and nothing to do with Bridport. It will then be closed for good and all, and the Corporation will doubtless find a more popular and profitable use for the Castle’. (Bridport News, 1937) As a younger man, Codd had spent many days in London at the National Gallery, carefully analysing and copying many of Turner’s paintings. He visited for periods between 1897 and 1899, making 56 copies including the rather beautiful painting shown here, a copy of perhaps Turner’s most famous work.

About 100 years earlier, Turner himself had visited Bridport and sketched West Bay, or Bridport Harbour as it was then known. This watercolour now resides in the collection of Bury Art Museum in Lancashire and we are incredibly excited that Bury will be lending us the painting in June as part of our summer exhibition. The exhibition will feature many of Codd’s copies alongside the original Turner watercolour.

The arrival of the painting is eagerly anticipated in the town, and there will be a large, cultural celebration focussing on the sea and the painting. New artwork is also in the process of being created by many different people as we continue the tradition of creativity inspired by nature.

More information and a full programme of events will be available at the Tourist Information Centre.

Bridport Museum Trust is a registered charity, which runs an Accredited Museum and a Local History Centre in the centre of Bridport. Entry to the Museum is free. The Local History Centre provides resources for local and family history research. bridportmuseum.co.uk @bridportmuseum facebook.com/BridportMuseum

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Wild Dorset

HOVERFLY HEROES Melanie Fermor, Dorset Wildlife Trust

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e’ve probably all heard about the importance of bees for pollinating plants.

These vital fuzzy flyers have received a lot of press in recent years but how many of us are aware of the hard work going on by our resident hoverflies?

Imagine yourself lying in a meadow with the summer sun shining above and the hum of insects all around.

The understated murmur of the hoverfly is part of the soundtrack to any British summer and the seemingly gravity-defying stillness of their flight is an endless source of fascination for children.

Like the bees, these insects carry out essential pollination as pollen from one flower rubs onto their bodies when they feed on nectar and then rubs off inside the next flower visited, thus fertilising the plant and enabling it to produce fruit or seeds. Without these busy pollinators, our harvests would be in big trouble.

Sadly, also like the bees, hoverflies are suffering from lack of habitat. Hoverflies love to live in wildflower habitats and we have lost 97% of our wildflower meadows since the 1930s.

Thanks to habitat conservation efforts, Dorset is still a great place to see hoverflies. Dorset Wildlife Trust nature reserves, such as Kingcombe Meadows and Fontmell Down to name but two, are fantastic places to take in the warmer season’s buzz.

34 | Bridport Times | May 2019

Image: Hamish Murray

Hoverflies come in a surprising array of shapes and colours and have some quirky habits to boot. The Heineken fly has an astonishingly long snout, which it uses not to dip in to your beer but to reach down into tubular flowers to suck up the nectar hidden inside. The impressively chunky hornet mimic hoverfly is 2cm long and has evolved to look like a hornet in order to keep it safe from predators. It can be distinguished by its larger eyes. This summer keep an eye out for these handsome garden visitors - and why not plant some pollinatorfriendly plants to get them buzzing in your garden?

220 species of hoverfly have been recorded in Dorset, making it one of the best places in Britain to see them!

The vollucella bombylans hoverfly is one of the best bumblebee mimics and looks just like a bee at first glance.

Sign up online to our Get Dorset Buzzing campaign, download a pack with wall planner, pollinator information book and collect your free wildflower seeds from one of our visitor centres in Dorset. This year marks the 10th anniversary of Dorset Wildlife Trust’s Wildlife Friendly Gardening Competition. You can enter the competition if your garden is big or small. Entries close 31st May. dorsetwildlifetrust.org.uk/wfgc dorsetwildlifetrust.org.uk/gdb-signup

Sign up to our Get Dorset Buzzing campaign and join our buzzing community to help pollinators in your garden.

Sign up for your FREE pack today: wtru.st/gdb4

Photos Š Cat Bolado, Ken Dolbear MBE, Katharine Davies.

Wild Dorset

THE SPICE OF LIFE Ellen Simon, Tamarisk Farm

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hen I was a child, the only other farm in the village changed from being a mixed farm to an entirely arable farm. I don’t recall exactly when we stopped seeing the cows walking past the house for milking morning and evening and stopped seeing the milk-churns every day waiting on the solid stand of railway sleepers for collection by the milk lorry.

Looking back, I can make an intelligent guess about it: I think it very likely that the farmer’s choice to stop dairying tied up with that collection of milk.

Early in the 1970s, the Milk Marketing Board changed from collecting 10-gallon aluminium milk churns, which were man-handled onto a small flat-bed lorry, to sending a tanker to the farms. Every farmer producing milk now had to put it in a bulk tank from which it could be pumped into the tanker. This tank needed to be cooled, insulated and mechanically cleaned and the farm needed to have good road access for a larger, more sophisticated vehicle. For many small farms, this would have been an enormous investment, and farmers were less keen to borrow than is usual now. It is my guess that this was when our neighbour chose to change. From then on his farm was purely arable, growing winter barley pretty continuously and exhausting the soil. This changed his life. Instead of a regular milk cheque every month he had to wait for the one crop of the year to be sold.

Instead of having work every day of the year alongside the cows he loved, he had a busy autumn of cultivation 36 | Bridport Times | May 2019

and sowing and a busy summer of harvest, with a little spring fertiliser and pesticide applications to do. The pattern of the year was different.

The investment required for a bulk milk tank is just one of many factors which pushed small mixed farms to become more specialist. Another was the increase of mechanisation. A good farm worker in the 1960s would have been able to turn his hand to the whole range of tasks on a mixed farm (and it usually would have been ‘his’ – there were many women farmers sharing the skilled work and decision-making with their husbands or continuing to run the farm if he died, and earlier there were many women doing very hard menial labour - think Tess in the turnip fields - but few women were paid as skilled general farm workers). Machines, however, tend to be specific to particular tasks so, if you had many small, related enterprises on the farm, with increasing mechanisation you needed a lot of different machines and this was prohibitively expensive, especially as the drive for cheaper food demanded greater efficiency leading to more sophisticated machinery. The system of agricultural contractors helps but it does not answer fully for small farms. For example, we found that it was impossible to persuade a contractor to bring a combine to harvest only a few acres when he could be starting on a couple of hundred elsewhere, so we now have a very small, very old Claas combine which did not cost much but which needs loving care every year to keep it going.

We have never taken to the idea of specialisation because we rejoice in doing lots of different things and learning different skills. The old phrase ‘Jack of all trades and master of none’ is true to an extent but life is more interesting that way. And different enterprises support each other; the whole becomes more than the sum of its parts. So, the sheep grazing the arable land when it is growing clover, grass and other deep-rooted herbs builds the fertility and soil structure for better arable crops.

The cattle and sheep, which produce the meat and the skins and the knitting yarn, graze most of the year on wildflower pastures, keeping them diverse and beautiful.

The sheep and cattle housed in the winter are using straw from the corn crops as bedding and the resulting muck feeds the vegetables. The laying hens are fed from different aspects of the farm as the year goes by - last month, for example, they returned from a winter of scratching for invertebrates on the arable to scrounging the last of the goodness from old compost heaps on the market garden, with a generous helping of fresh weeds from the garden every day as well as their fermented barley, which itself is a leftover from last year.

There are downsides to having lots of different enterprises. One is that no time of year is really slack so we always feel busy. After our neighbour lost his dairy herd he was able to spend hours on the beach, fishing, which he’d struggled to find time for before. But the converse is that our work is very varied and spread

through the year so it is never unmanageable. In fact, even the most repetitive jobs aren’t boring because they never go on too long. Jobs that might come up any time - cleaning or milling grain, cultivating a field, weeding vegetables – rarely last more than a day and even then are usually broken up with small jobs or interesting things to see. Take lambing, for example: we have nearly 200 ewes and they lamb over about six weeks. While we are busy during lambing, the amount of effort in each day is nowhere like that of someone who has a larger flock (say 1000 ewes) lambing over a shorter period (say 4 weeks). That is an average of around 40 per day, whereas we have days with none and days with a dozen or more. We have enough lambs to marvel at the birth, rejoice in the lambs’ competence and their play but not enough to send us demented. On top of that we have chosen to lamb in late spring, outdoors and on herb-rich native pastures, which involves less intervention than early indoor lambing plus we all have a sea view! We believe it is good for the sheep but we also know it is good for us. We do spend quite a lot of time with the ewes and lambs but never all day; never enough to lose the joy of the miracle. We may be tired and on lambing duty 24/7 but, with calves to check, early summer flowers to see, peas to drill, first broad beans to pick, we are never bored. tamariskfarm.co.uk bridporttimes.co.uk | 37

Outdoors

38 | Bridport Times | May 2019

On Foot

HOOKE AND TOLLER WHELME Emma Tabor and Paul Newman

Distance: 5 miles Time: Approx. 3 hours Park: On the road outside St Giles church, Hooke Walk Features: A fairly gentle walk from Hooke to Toller Whelme which then climbs Toller Down before returning via Westcombe Coppice and Burnt Bottom.

The route takes in Hooke Court and the Manor House at Toller Whelme, passing various ponds and lakes. The return section from Toller Down has good views across the former transmitting station site at Rampisham Down and beyond.

Refreshments: There are plenty of eateries and pubs to choose from in Beaminster.

E

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 May, we follow the River Hooke to its source at Toller Whelme (Whelme is Anglo-Saxon for spring), in a beautifully secluded valley, before heading out onto Toller Down.

For two of the smallest settlements in the area, there is a wealth of fine architecture to admire including Hooke Court, built around the time of the English Civil War, and the Manor House and church at Toller Whelme. > bridporttimes.co.uk | 39

Directions

Start: SY 535 001 St Giles church, Hooke 1 With the entrance to St Giles church on your right, walk along Higher Street Lane towards Hooke Court. After a few minutes, the road bends sharp left; pass a lake on your right and in 250 yards, you will see Hooke Court on your left.

After 150 yards, look for a signpost on your right for Toller Whelme 1¼. Go through the gate here, following a fence on your left across a field. You soon pass through another small gate; follow the right-hand edge of a field next to a copse. Once the wood thins out, look for a large metal gate in the right-hand corner and side of the field. Go through this into the next field then aim for a gate in the left-hand corner across the field. There are reed beds and a marshy area to the right.

2 Through the gate, emerge onto a road, turn right and, after a short uphill stretch, turn right onto a tarmac track; look for a cul-de-sac sign. After 600 yards you will see a Dorset Wildlife Trust reserve, Michael’s Peace, on the left and a pond, which is worth visiting. This is a lovely section of quiet road, lined with hazel hedge and small outcrops of chalk 40 | Bridport Times | May 2019

in the surrounding fields. Pass a small lake, looking out for heron and cormorant and, after Lake Farm/ East Farm, the surface of the road turns into an unsurfaced track. Here, look for a bridleway sign on the left, signed right for the B3153 - you’ll come back to this in a short while. Continue downhill along the track, through a wooded section - listen out for wrens, chiff-chaffs and green woodpeckers along here. You soon reach Toller Whelme; take time to look at the Manor House then follow the track up and round to the right to visit the church.

3 Turn around and retrace your steps to the bridleway sign for the B3153 by West Farm Cottages. Now turn left and up a drive. After a few yards, continue straight on through a large metal gate, up into a field. Keep a ditch and hedge on your right, leaving Toller Whelme behind you. In the top right-hand corner of the field, go through a small metal gate into a larger field. Follow the hedge on your left, aiming for a large metal gate in the left-hand corner of the field. Great views across Hooke Park now open up behind you and you can also see Westcombe Coppice on your right, which you will pass though shortly. Keep the hedge on your left

through the next field and aim for a small metal gate in the left-hand corner. Go through this gate and turn immediately right.

4 Follow the hedge on your right to soon pass through a small wooden gate and then turn immediately right again, to follow the outer edge of the previous field. Note the old quarry in the valley ahead and the remains of Rampisham Transmitting Station, which was one of the main transmitters of the BBC World Service until closure in 2011.

Rampisham Down is notified as a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) for its large area of lowland acid grassland. Keep walking along the right-hand side of this field and pass through two large metal gates, towards Westcombe Coppice just to your left. New hedges have been planted across the field which may differ from some of the boundaries indicated on Ordnance Survey maps.

Follow the hedge on your right to meet Westcombe Coppice, with the edge of the wood and a bank now on your right-hand side. In a few yards, at a small dip in the field, turn right into the wood.

Westcombe Coppice has a special feel to it; oak and ash glow with green mossy coats in a space singing

with light. Follow a rough track to soon emerge on the other side of the coppice.

5 Leave the coppice through a gate and cross a track, to go through a small wooden gate into Burnt Bottom. Walk down a shallow valley and pass through another small wooden gate, then through another two small gates either side of a track. Go through these, continuing with woodland on your right and ahead. Follow the edge of the wood, keeping it on your right. As the path follows the contours of the hill, and continues round to the left, start to head away and slightly uphill from the field edge. You will soon see a large metal gate, just up from the corner of the field. Go through this into a small field and aim for a large metal gate on your left, now keeping level. Through this gate, head downhill to a small wooden gate, past a large red-brick house. Pass through another small wooden gate, into a boggy dell. The bottom part of this path turns into a stream and soon meets a bridge; cross this and turn left onto the road to take you back to the start. bridporttimes.co.uk | 41

Archaeology

IRON AGE DORSET

A

Chris Tripp BA(Hons) MA, Field and Community Archaeologist

s you drive around our wonderful county you may see lines and shapes in the landscape, especially if there is low light at the start or end of a sunny day. One can see them as ‘ghosts’ within the much larger modern field systems. Some are not that old but some are of great age, set out by people that lived over two thousand years ago. One of the best examples can be found at Grimstone, a well-defined forty hectares of hollow trackways leading to enclosed settlements. Others are at Sydling St Nicholas, Cerne Abbas and Kingston, Purbeck, the latter being sixty-one hectares on a flat-topped spur.

Visit the Ringmore-Turnworth site and see how the landscape rolls and dips with the remains of our ancient ancestors’ homes, enclosures and field systems.

You can enter into the depressions where once large roundhouses stood and walk along the raised trackways and banks of stock enclosures. The settlement at Pimperne was surrounded by at least twelve more within the Tarrant parishes.

The people were the Durotriges, a loose confederation of tribes living in the area of Dorset, East Devon and West Hampshire. Iron ore can be found at Hengistbury Head and Abbotsbury; its use created a different economy from that of the Bronze Age. Iron ore is more widespread and local and can thus be controlled by the elite within an area whilst bronze is basically made of tin and copper and needs to be brought in by trade from ore-bearing areas. Trade routes would have existed along the coast, as attested by the anchor with a 6.5m chain found at Bulbury Fort (now in Dorset County Museum) and a boat of the 4th – 3rd century BC found in 1964 off Brownsea Island (a replica is now on show in the Waterfront Museum in Poole). This trade would have extended to the continent through Hengistbury Head, however this ended with the Roman conquest of Gaul (France). The main entry point after that was along the Thames into Londinium.

Many of the artefacts would be familiar to 21st century smiths. Tools such as adzes, saws, chisels, 42 | Bridport Times | May 2019

Image: Colin Tracy

hammers, tongs and scythes would be needed by most people for everyday use. Weapons would be needed by the warrior elite. Finer and more beautiful objects were made for those who could afford them, such as the Portesham mirror of burnished bronze with its swirling decoration on the back, one of the finest ever found in the UK. Kimmeridge shale was used to create jewellery such as rings, armlets and beads. Silver and gold coins could be made, marked with distinct designs from the territory of the Durotriges. Pottery would be traded with new styles coming in from the Roman Empire, the local and distinctive Black Burnished Ware (BBW) being exported in return.

Many of these artefacts would have been found

in graves. The middle-aged woman at Portesham was not just buried with her bronze mirror but also with BBW pottery, brooches, a knife blade and bronze panstrainer. The ‘Whitcombe Warrior’ had his iron sword and spearhead and a young girl her ten glass fragments, beads and samian ware bowls.

Eggardon Hill and Maiden Castle have been mentioned previously but there are many ‘hillforts’ to be found in Dorset, ranging in size from under one hectare at Woolsbarrow to twenty-two hectares at Hod Hill. Woodbury Hill, Bere Regis, was used as a market space until the 1950s and may hint at the main use of these hillforts.

Back to Hengistbury Head: double dykes cut off the

seventy hectares of low-lying land between open sea and Christchurch Harbour. Settlements were excavated on the shore of the sheltered waters of the harbour with good routes to and from the hinterland along the Avon and Stour. Amphorae were imported from Italy along with glass, coins, hides and slaves. This lasted until the 1st century BC when the Veneti of Brittany, a seafaring Celtic people, were suppressed by the Romans.

The Iron Age gives us a glimpse of the beginnings of a distinctive West Country culture before the Romans imposed theirs. facebook/archstories dorsetdiggers.blogspot.com bridporttimes.co.uk | 43

SALLY’S FISH CAMP Words Jo Denbury Photography Katharine Davies

S

ally Allan admits she is a bit of a show-off.

‘I just love working with people,’ she says, which is why she has spent the last 20 years working in hospitality. There was a brief flurry in graphic design, however it is on the front line, in the thick of the action that she likes to be. Sally’s exuberant personality and boundless energy is addictive and when it comes to her passion – seafood – it’s clear she is keen to spread the word. >

44 | Bridport Times | May 2019

bridporttimes.co.uk | 45

46 | Bridport Times | May 2019

‘It was when I was on a trip to New York with my husband, Tom, for his 40th birthday that I got the idea for Sally’s Fish Camp,’ she explains. ‘There you can order a simple tray of seafood on ice, a nice bottle of something and sit out on the street on a summer’s evening and devour it,’ she says. ‘I wanted to bring people a similar experience here. My dream eventually is to open a seafood bar.’ But for now her business will deliver a box of seafood to your home, your party on the beach or anywhere else in the locality that you might be.

Sally grew up in Milborne Port and spent most of her summers on the beach. ‘Ringstead was my favourite,’ she says, her eyes lighting up. ‘My childhood memories are of parking in the car park at the top of the hill in Ringstead, filling the rubber dinghy with supplies and spending the day on the beach from sunrise until sunset.

We were brought up on days out to the beach, come rain or shine. I always enjoyed the seaside nostalgia of eating cockles and mussels, crab sandwiches and ice-cream.’

Sally’s affection for the coast grew when her husband started an engineering job in Weymouth; at the time they were living in Yeovil. ‘It just made sense for us to live closer to the sea as we both love it; it also meant less of a drive for him,’ she says. So they moved to

Abbotsbury seven years ago. ‘Just living by the sea fills my soul with ‘feel good’ aspirations,’ she says. ‘We are so very happy here; we love where we live and feel immensely blessed to wake up every day to blankets of green fields and that amazing blue sea.’

You could say that seafood is in her blood - in the 1900s Sally’s grandmother lived in the Wirral and worked shelling and potting shrimps. Sally is keen to get people involved in the preparation of their seafood. ‘At first I found a lot of people were unsure how to prepare and eat a whole crab, for example, so, although I am more than happy to stay and prepare the shellfish for them, I thought it would be fun to run workshops,’ she explains. ‘From private entertaining in people’s homes and open festival workshops — this year at Poole’s RNLI college Food & Drink Festival and Food Rocks in Lyme Regis to name but two — to local collaborations such as the pop-up oyster shucking night at Dark Bear Bar in Bridport, wine pairing at Morrish and Banham in Dorchester and corporate days, they have become an amazing success. And today it’s my first ‘kids’ crab crack’, on the beach which is proving to be so much fun.’

The wind is biting cold but the children don’t seem to care. They have the Chesil Beach to themselves and > bridporttimes.co.uk | 47

48 | Bridport Times | May 2019

bridporttimes.co.uk | 49

50 | Bridport Times | May 2019

have set up camp ready to get stuck in. The box of seafood has arrived and they all sit, intent on watching Sally explain how you tell the difference between a male (cock) crab and a female (hen) crab (the female has more ‘brown’ meat in her body while the males have more white meat in their claws), and how you clean a crab and crack the claws. As she shows the youngsters how to use the tools, they are eager to pick them up themselves and give it a go, nibbling at the meat as they work. ‘It’s a new life skill,’ says Sally, who hopes to do more kids’ crabcracking parties in the future.

It’s this simplicity of eating that Sally likes best. It began when she was a child and she would visit her uncle who lived in Jersey. ‘We’d go over to stay with him,’ she says, ‘and he would take us down to the beach and say, “pick your own lobster”, then he’d show us how to clean it and we’d just barbecue it on the beach. If it wasn’t lobster it would be scallops or we would catch a mackerel.'

It continued when she travelled around the world on an open return ticket (in her early 20’s). ‘From eating freshly-caught fish on the beaches of Koh Samui in Thailand and barbecuing shellfish nearly every night on our rooftop pool apartment in Sydney, to scouring the streets of New York for a lobster roll, it was just a way of life,’ she says. ‘It was simple, delicious and very affordable food back then for a backpacker. I just wish I knew then what I know now,’ she laughs. ‘Nowadays Tom and I will take a cooked crab and a bottle of wine onto the beach and watch the sun set across Lyme Bay then cycle home.

That’s our summer date night! You can’t get much better than that,’ she adds.

When Sally isn’t running her fish camp she likes nothing better than walking with her dog along the

Chesil Beach. The proximity of the sea has given her and her family a sense of freedom that is hard to replicate elsewhere. It has also allowed her to build up a business that is authentic and bespoke. The seafood, apart from the North Atlantic prawns, is all sourced locally. The oysters are from the Fleet and most of the crab and lobsters are from the Portland day boats. The fishermen are reliable; all have to use a gauge to ensure that the body of each crab or lobster is of size, otherwise it is deemed too young and has to be thrown back. ‘They do a marvellous job,’ says Sally. ‘Fishing is a business that could go into decline so it’s important that we support our local fishermen. It’s hard to go out in bad weather and risk your life for crab.’

She makes a point avoiding plastic and using only sustainable goods. Her father makes the wooden crates for the deliveries and she even offers the option of ‘fill your own crate’ which gives customers the choice of what they want to eat. Inevitably the customers keep the crates and they often end up being used as log baskets.

It’s very much a family affair: her two children, Freddy (15) and Molly (12), help out. Freddy hoses down the van whereas Molly likes to help with the deliveries.

‘It’s just wonderful to see everyone’s faces light up when they see a crate full of their favourite seafood presented on ice,’ says Sally. ‘They’re ready to party and eat straight from the crate. It might be a romantic night or a hen night, but you can while the time away cracking, twisting and pulling at the seafood, maybe with a glass of something chilled. It’s about simple pleasures,’ she says with a sparkle. sallysfishcamp.co.uk bridporttimes.co.uk | 51

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Food & Drink

POTATO AND WILD GARLIC FLAT BREADS WITH FRIED EGGS AND OLIVE OIL Gill Meller, River Cottage

hese potato flat breads are soft, tender and full of character, and make a somewhat unconventional alternative to toast in the morning. You can flavour them in all sorts of tasty ways but in the spring I like to use wild garlic. It’s a strong and heady herb that mellows once you’ve incorporated it into the dough. Later on, in the summer, parsley makes a lovely substitute and works magically with the potatoes and eggs.

T

3

Ingredients Makes 8

4

To serve

5

about 200g (7oz) potatoes, peeled and cut into chunks 400g (14oz) strong white bread flour, plus extra for kneading 1 large bunch of wild garlic leaves, finely chopped 2 teaspoons instant dried yeast 1 teaspoon fine salt 1 knob of butter 4 chicken or duck eggs 4 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil wild garlic leaves and flowers, if available (chive flowers also work well) salt and freshly ground black pepper Method

1 Bring the potatoes to the boil in a large pan of salted water. Cook for 15–25 minutes, until tender. Drain in a colander, then leave for 15 minutes to allow the steam to evaporate. Mash until smooth.

2 Combine the flour, mashed potato, chopped wild garlic leaves, yeast and salt in a large bowl, then gradually stir in up to 250ml (9fl oz) of water, until the mixture forms a soft dough. Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and knead for about 5

54 | Bridport Times | May 2019

6

minutes, until it feels smooth and elastic, sprinkling on a little more flour only if the dough feels very sticky. Cover and set it aside somewhere warm to double in size. This should take 2–3 hours.

When you’re ready, divide the dough equally into eight pieces. Flour your hands and roll each piece into a ball. You can either use a rolling pin to roll out little rounds or simply flatten the balls with your hands. Use plenty of flour, as the dough will be soft and sticky.

Heat a large frying pan over a high heat until hot.

Shake off any excess flour from one flat bread and lay it in the hot pan. After a minute or so, check the underside – if you can see dark brown patches, flip it over. Cook the second side for 30–45 seconds, then remove and set aside to keep warm. Repeat for all the flat breads.

To serve, heat another large frying pan over a medium– high heat. Add the butter and, when bubbling, crack in the eggs and fry them to your liking. I prefer them over-easy, so I flip them for a moment.

Top the warm flat breads with the fried eggs. Trickle over the olive oil and season with salt and pepper. If I’m able to get hold of any wild garlic or chive flowers, I like to scatter these over at the last moment.

rivercottage.net Time by Gill Meller (Quadrille, £25) Photography © Andrew Montgomery

bridporttimes.co.uk | 55

Food & Drink

CHOCOLATE AND BEETROOT CAKE Cass Titcombe, Brassica Restaurant

Image: Katharine Davies 56 | Bridport Times | May 2019

T

his is an amazingly moist chocolate cake that has the surprising addition of beetroot as its main ingredient. The earthy, sweet notes of the beetroot are a perfect foil for the bitter chocolate. New season beetroot should be in the shops or your garden and the smaller sweet beets are perfect for this dish. You could buy pre-cooked beetroot as this works equally well but make sure it isn’t in vinegar! The white chocolate should be bought in a bar not buttons, as you need to keep the chunks quite large to ensure that they don’t melt and totally disappear.

I got the recipe, which I believe to be Scandinavian in origin, from the very first issue of Wallpaper* magazine and I have tweaked it slightly over the years to arrive at this particular version.

Ingredients Makes a 28cm cake

4 free range eggs 230g caster sugar 350g cooked beetroot, peeled 165ml sunflower oil 2 tsp pure vanilla extract 150g plain white flour ½ tsp salt 2 tsp baking powder 40g bitter 100% cocoa powder, plus extra for dusting 200g white chocolate chunks

Method

1 Preheat the oven to 160°C. Whisk together the eggs and sugar with an electric mixer until pale and thick.

2 In a food processor, blend the beetroot with the oil and vanilla extract until smooth.

3 Sift the flour, salt, baking powder and cocoa powder into a bowl.

4 Whisk the beetroot into the egg and sugar mix, then gently fold in the sifted dry ingredients. Mix in the white chocolate.

5 Butter a 28cm cake tin with a removable bottom and line the bottom with baking parchment. Line the side of the tin with a separate strip of parchment.

6 Pour in the cake mixture. Bake for 40–50 minutes until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean. Allow to cool.

7 When cold, remove the cake from the tin. Dust the top with cocoa powder.

This is one of the range of cakes sold daily in the Brassica shop in Beaminster along with freshly baked focaccia, organic pork sausage rolls and a selection of chilled meals to take home. @brassica_food @brassicarestaurant_mercantile

bridporttimes.co.uk | 57

Food & Drink

PAN-FRIED KING SCALLOP WITH ASPARAGUS AND CRISPY SMOKED BACON Charlie Soole, The Club House, West Bexington

S

pring should be in full swing as you read this; as a chef, it is the season that I look forward to the most. Whilst I love the hearty dishes that come from winter, seeing the new shoots and the tree blossom that spring delivers fills me with anticipation for what is to come.

Asparagus is one of those amazing products that comes along but which all too quickly is gone again.

We produce some of the best in the world and I just can’t wait to get my hands on it. You can use it in many different ways: blanch or steam it as I have done here; grill it on the barbecue; fry it in a bit of butter and lemon; or slice it thinly using a vegetable peeler and add dressing for a salad. Whichever way you choose to prepare asparagus, it is always delicious.

I have prepared this dish as a starter but you can use more scallops if you want to make it into a main course.

I hope it brings you all the joys of spring.

Ingredients Serves 4

4 large king scallops 500g asparagus 150g smoked bacon lardons 1 small shallot, finely diced 100ml extra virgin rapeseed oil juice of half a lemon 1 teaspoon cider vinegar salt and pepper

Method

1 Make a dressing by whisking together the rapeseed oil, a squeeze of lemon juice and the cider vinegar.

Season to taste with the salt and pepper. Set this aside and let it infuse.

2 Place a pan of salted water on the stove and bring to the boil. This will be used to blanch the asparagus.

3 Prepare the asparagus by trimming off the woody bases and then slicing the tips off at an angle. Slice the stems thinly on an angle. Set aside until ready to serve.

4 Place a non-stick frying pan over medium heat and add a splash of rapeseed oil until just smoking.

Add the bacon lardons and fry until crispy. Strain the bacon out of the pan and set to drain on some kitchen paper.

5 Season the scallops with salt and pepper and fry in the pan that you have just used for the bacon. Cook for a 1-2 minutes on each side until golden brown.

6 While you are cooking the scallops, blanch the asparagus in the water for 2 minutes. When just cooked, strain and place in a mixing bowl with the diced shallot. Add a little of the dressing and combine.

7 To serve, arrange the asparagus on a plate in a flower-like pattern. Place a scallop in the centre and arrange the crispy bacon around. Garnish the plate with edible flowers such as rocket flowers (as I have done here) and a drizzle of dressing.

Enjoy the full blossoming of spring. theclubhousewestbexington.co.uk

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bridporttimes.co.uk | 59

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HOLISTIC HEALING YOGA FOR CANCER Nadiya Wynn

T

he story of cancer is changing. People with cancer are living longer after their diagnosis than they did 40 years ago. Cancer is increasingly about living with cancer. (Macmillan Cancer Support) Alongside medical treatment, yoga can serve as a valuable self-care tool for ‘wellbeing’ because it works holistically. Whilst generally enhancing your mood and calming your mind, a yoga practice can have many benefits such as increasing body awareness and confidence. This in turn reduces anxiety, depression, tiredness (fatigue) and stress by having a positive effect on the nervous system, muscle strength, joint mobility, balance, co-ordination, breathing and sleep.

By uniting the body, breath and mind we start to shift blockages on all levels of our system, restoring balance and allowing our whole self to function at an optimum level. In yoga philosophy, the concept of there being five layers of self around the human soul is known as Pancha Kosha, meaning five sheaths. This is used to describe the metaphorical interactive layers within the human body encasing our soul - imagine them as a set of Russian dolls or the layers of an onion. When we practice yoga, whether it’s asana (yoga postures), pranayama (breath control), meditation, mantra or relaxation, we are having an impact on one or more of these layers of the body.

These layers are interconnected and, by making changes to one, we can affect the others.

Yoga postures initially affect the physical body, Annamaya Kosha, the ‘outside layer’, which will impact the second layer, Pranamaya Kosha, the ‘breath body and life force’. As we moderate our breath we can moderate our emotions; as our flow of energy is improved this affects the third layer, Manomaya Kosha, the mind. We often find ourselves living in our mind but, as we begin to increase and balance out our awareness, we find ease in our physical body, shift blockages in our energy body and 62 | Bridport Times | May 2019

calm our busy and anxious mind.

By working on these three layers, we become more aware of the intuitive body, Vijnanamaya Kosha, the ‘wisdom layer’. Clarity of mind and a subtle connection to a deeper level of intuition arise here, which leads to feeling more grounded with a relaxed and open mind. The innermost layer is Anandamaya Kosha, the ‘bliss body’, our authentic self, the deepest level of our being - a feeling of expanded awareness or interconnectedness and a state of peace. Through a therapeutic yoga practice we can cultivate selfcompassion and self-acceptance – both important tools for healing.

Image: Cristina Conti/Shutterstock

Yoga not only helps us to improve our relationship with ourself by feeling less separate but also improves our relationship with others and the world around us. This is supported by a sense of community whilst living with cancer. Having taught a yoga practice on the Stepping Out Programme for Cancer Recovery since it started in 2015, I have been inspired to see how this has provided not only a range of enjoyable and holistic activities for wellbeing but also an opportunity for communication and support for each other – contributing to the sense of wholeness.

Yoga teacher and yoga therapist in Bridport'

Yoga is just one of the many sessions that are offered on the Stepping Out Programme at Bridport Leisure Centre, a 12-week specifically designed exercise and wellbeing programme for people living with or beyond cancer.

During the programme, you can take part in a number of taster classes designed to introduce you to activities you may not have tried before such as yoga, mindfulness or walking football. There’s also time to relax, share your experience and make new friends. bridportleisure.com/activities/stepping-out yogawithnadiya.co.uk @yogawithnadiya bridporttimes.co.uk | 63

Body & Mind

Image: Pixy Nook/Shutterstock

64 | Bridport Times | May 2019

GUELDER ROSE ‘CRAMP BARK’

Caroline Butler BSc Hons, MNIMH, Medical Herbalist

G

uelder rose, Viburnum opulus, is a beautiful native plant, either a large bush or small tree depending on your perspective. It grows wild but is also kept in gardens for its lovely white, flattopped flower clusters in summer and bright red berries and colourful leaves in autumn. Guelder rose is a pretty name for describing a pretty plant but I like its other name, cramp bark, for describing so succinctly what you can use it for and which part you need.

As the name suggests, it’s used to relieve cramps and muscle spasms. It works on the skeletal muscles that move us around as well as the smooth muscle of our intestines and blood vessels, so it can help wherever muscular tension is causing problems. Because of this it’s effective for many things from leg cramp to high blood pressure.

It can be used for aching, cramping muscles, either taken internally or combined with other ingredients as a rub. Whether they are from overwork or arthritic pain, the spasms will be soothed. It’s also helpful for restless legs and, if taken soon enough, can see off a tension headache before it takes hold.

Cramp bark’s action on smooth muscle give it its use in hypertension. Our veins and arteries have a layer of this muscle which reduces the size of the blood vessels when it constricts, creating resistance and raising blood pressure. By relaxing this layer of smooth muscle, cramp bark helps these vessels dilate, lowering the blood pressure to normal levels. For the same reason it helps with Raynaud’s syndrome, where constricted blood vessels don’t allow the flow of blood to the fingers.

Herbalists often combine it with other herbs that have an effect on the cardiovascular system such as hawthorn, tilia and motherwort for hypertension, or chilli and ginger for Raynaud’s.

Cramp bark is one of the best remedies for menstrual pain and combines well with valerian, another smooth muscle relaxant, for low-down, dragging pain and backache. This is one of its most well-known uses and

it’s certainly effective in most cases. If these herbs, plus a combination to address the person’s overall health, aren’t enough, there are some other herbs that can be brought into the picture to give pain relief such as anenome pulsatilla, jamaican dogwood and, in extreme cases, drop doses of the restricted herb gelsemium. It also relieves cramping in the bowels, for example in irritable bowel syndrome or constipation. Colicky stomach pains also benefit from cramp bark’s ability to relax spasm.

The bark can be harvested at any time of year but late spring or early summer are good times to do it as the sap is rising and flowing freely, making the bark much easier to remove. As stripping bark from a branch will expose the tree to infection and possibly kill it, the best way to go about it is to prune your tree and then remove the bark from your prunings. Once you have the bark, you can use it straightaway, dry it or make a tincture to use later.

I mainly use cramp bark as a tincture, as it’s more concentrated, quicker to use, and I find when people are in pain they don’t want to stand up for 20 minutes stirring a decoction! To make a simple home tincture, put chopped-up cramp bark in a jar and cover it with vodka so that no bark is sticking out and exposed to the air. Put this jar in a place out of direct sunlight and shake it every day for about a month. Then strain off the liquid, put it in a sterilised bottle and label. For period pain, take 20 drops as needed. Personally, I don’t mind the taste but I’ve been reliably informed by non-herbalists that it’s absolutely disgusting, so be prepared! Whatever the taste, the effect is worth it.

Hypertension is a serious condition and you should not attempt to treat it without consulting a trained healthcare professional. Consult a medical herbalist before taking herbs alongside other cardiovascular drugs. herbalcaroline.co.uk

bridporttimes.co.uk | 65

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Interiors

68 | Bridport Times | May 2019

SENSE OF BELONGING Annabelle Hunt, Colour Consultant, Bridport Timber and Flooring

W

e all know that home is the most important place in the world. For some, home begins at their own front door, whilst for others it embraces a wider area. There are many factors which make a place feel like home. The physical spaces we occupy, our relationships with others, the things we choose to surround ourselves with and a sense of place within a community are all important: the comfort of feeling content and at ease in our surroundings; the privacy to feel in control of where and how we disconnect and reflect; the security to feel safe and grounded; a sense of control over the spaces we live in.

At the very core of it all is a sense of belonging.

One of the biggest causes of stress in most of our homes is too much stuff. I have tried Marie Kondo’s approach, the 30-Day Declutter Challenge, and I gave away forty things for Lent. You might think my home is immaculate, with only the things that I love and which ‘spark joy’, artfully arranged on my shelves. It isn’t. Ours is a busy family home with four inherently messy individuals in it who need ‘stuff ’ whether we love it or not.

Belongings represent memories and dreams and are emotionally meaningful, whether it’s a collection of rare snuff boxes or ticket stubs from all the music gigs you went to in your teens. Getting rid of everything can cause enormous anxiety, so don’t just ruthlessly chuck everything out. Having said that, if we don’t allow our living spaces to evolve as our lives move along, life can feel harder. Embracing small changes can make all the difference, allowing us to take on new challenges.

Whether a general refresh, the redecoration of just one room or a total top-to-bottom transformation, even with countless beautifully styled images on Instagram and endless Pinterest boards, it can be difficult to know how to bring out the best in a space and make a longlived-in house feel like home again. Often the thought of not getting it finished is enough to prevent us from even starting. Apparently, ‘deliberately unfinished’ is a

thing (phew!) and everything doesn’t have to be ‘matchy matchy’. It needn’t be expensive or time-consuming; armed with a brush and roller, paint is one of the cheapest and quickest ways to refresh a room.

With sunshine flooding in and longer evenings, pastel shades provide a soft palette for spring homes.

Pretty, soft and slightly old-fashioned, they can look a little sugary and prim though. Also, when taking inspiration from nature, it can be easy to underestimate the complexity or strength of a supposedly natural, or neutral, tone. Many of Farrow & Balls’ soft, delicate pastels have a big dose of black pigment added to them which results in famously subtle and sophisticated shades which magically shift and change with the light. Try adding warm, natural wood elements, a lush green houseplant and a black accessory here and there to ground your colour scheme and stop it from feeling insipid. Another trick is to go for unexpected colour combinations which give an interesting counterbalance to the sweetness and give a little visual jolt of excitement.

Don’t feel restricted to the walls and ceiling alone though. Totally transform floorboards by sanding and refinishing (at Bridport Timber we have a Hepa filtered dustless sanding system) or give them a light sand and get creative with a tin of floor paint.

Shop in your own home by plundering other rooms for accessories such as cushions. Re-hanging pictures and repositioning lamps is easy and objects that may have become overlooked are often rediscovered.

Painting furniture is always a great way to update a look. Obviously, it’s best not to paint the family antiques but vintage pieces can be revamped and saved from landfill. Even Ikea items can be reworked and made into something more individual. Give kitchen units a new coat of paint and new handles and, hey presto, your kitchen feels like a much nicer space to be in. bridporttimber.co.uk

bridporttimes.co.uk | 69

Interiors

DOING OUR BIT

I

Molly Bruce, Interior Designer

write this article accompanied by the clamour of building work blasting from every direction.

Spring is here and so are the home improvements - scaffolding has appeared over the road and a skip outside my neighbour’s house accompanies a team of builders as the renovation projects begin. From my own back yard comes the monotone hum of a sander on wooden cladding - our own restoration project in dire need of repair and a fresh coat of paint. We are all at it, inside and out, with the hope that the mess we make will eventually be worth the time, money and effort we expend, enriching our surroundings and quality of life.

But where does the mess go? What happens to the building rubble and rejected old kitchens, bathrooms and general homewares? Can you imagine the amount that would end up in landfill if there weren’t any other facilities in place to deal with our rubbish? Thankfully there are ways to recycle as much of our building waste as possible. We all know about our weekly collections for food, glass, tin and plastic but I worry that less is known about ways to reduce building waste.

It is my responsibility to try and reduce the amount of waste my profession makes. So, if you are planning a renovation project this spring and feel the same, help is available. The ‘Dorsetforyou’ website has a section entitled Bulky Waste Collection with information on how to dispose of building waste. If you are employing builders, check that they are registered waste carriers as the rubbish you’ve handed to someone else is legally your responsibility until it is correctly disposed of. The site provides details of local household recycling centres and there is a link to Dorset Reclaim, who encourage reuse and recycling and who will collect your unwanted items to supply low-income families with discounted furniture.

When undertaking a project which is likely to produce a large amount of waste that cannot be taken to the tip - or which will be charged for if you do - it’s best to plan and budget for its disposal at an early stage.

Skips are a good idea when undertaking large projects. If you are hiring a skip, check the company’s environmental policies to ensure they recycle as much as possible.

If you are replacing a kitchen that is still in good working order you can sell it through ‘The Used Kitchen Exchange’ who work in a similar way to an estate agent, 70 | Bridport Times | May 2019

advertising kitchens on behalf of sellers. Gumtree is a free classified ad website for buying and selling, great for making a bit of cash to boost your build budget, and Jurassic Reclamation in Bridport buy a range of interior and exterior items.

When it comes to furnishing a property, before buying all new consider buying second-hand, or look at what you already have and see if it can be improved.

The picture shows a fantastic example of this: a curvaceous, vintage dressing table revamped by Sarah Parmenter of RelovedMCR. Using wallpaper by Anna Hayman, the legacy of this beautifully designed piece remains preserved with a modern twist. I agree with the expression, ‘They don’t make ‘em like they used to’, and there is a lot of what I call ‘fast furniture’ out there; it might be cheap but, due to the poor-quality materials used, it won’t last long and will inevitably end up in landfill. If commissioning a well-made piece of furniture from a professional is out of your budget, Bridport is full of outlets selling good-quality vintage pieces that will add character to any space. If purchases are in need of some work, this provides the perfect opportunity to get creative, experimenting with paint, fabric and wallpaper to create a one-off piece that no-one else will have.

As consumers, we hold the power to choose suppliers with ethical credentials, forcing other less conscientious businesses to follow suit. For example, I love it when I receive my product samples in biodegradable packaging, and I am more likely to continue working with these companies if they are open about how they are working to reduce their impact on the environment.

It is obvious that we need to make more of an effort to respect and protect this beautiful planet we are privileged to call home. The information we hear on a daily basis can be conflicting and overwhelming but one thing we can do in our own small world is make an effort with all our waste, and together we will make a difference. dorsetforyou.gov.uk usedkitchenexchange.co.uk gumtree.com jurassicreclamation.co.uk mollybruce.co.uk @mollybruceinteriors

Photo: relovedmcr.com Wallpaper: annahaymandesigns.com bridporttimes.co.uk | 71

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Gardening

T

BETTER THE WEEDS YOU KNOW Will Livingstone, WillGrow

he term ‘weed’ has no botanical significance because a plant that is considered a weed in one situation is not a weed when growing in another.

Some weeds are delicious: chickweed, for instance, is a lovely addition to a pakora, hairy bittercress adds pepperiness to salads, and young nettle leaves are tasty when whizzed into soup. Many are edible and all are very important for biodiversity and providing habitats for beneficial insects. Over the years I have become mildly obsessed; I can’t walk into a garden without my eye being drawn to a dastardly dandelion or to a patch of bolshie bindweed. Identifying the problem plants in their early stages will help stop the problem from growing. It is easy to reach for the Roundup but the long-lasting harm you’re doing to the rest of the ecosystem outweighs the benefit of getting rid of a few weeds. The organic approach takes a bit more attention in the short term but in the long run it benefits you and the environment in which you grow.

There are two types of vegetable plot weeds: annual and perennial. The perennial weeds are the most troublesome to the gardener; with deep roots and a pernicious growth habitat they can create a lot of work all year round. It is important when removing perennial weeds that you get all of the root, as many can selfpropagate from the smallest piece left behind. Also be aware that, when composting pernicious weeds, it is wise to burn the really persistent ones: ground elder, mare’s-tail, bindweed, perennial nettle, knotweed and couch grass are the worst culprits. It is usually safe to put annual weeds on the compost as they don’t readily propagate from the root. Meadow grass can be one of the most troublesome weeds for the kitchen gardener; keeping grass paths and borders mown and weeded will stop grass seed spreading. Annual weeds such as redshank, fat hen, mayweed, groundsel and chickweed are easier to control but you need to keep on top of them. It’s important to learn the difference between annual and perennial weeds.

The seemingly endless task of weeding and hoeing will become less of a problem as the years pass. By reducing weeds in the garden, you reduce the weed seed bank; over time fewer weeds will appear and the job will become easier. Make sure you regularly hoe on dry days, letting 74 | Bridport Times | May 2019

the sun kill the weeds as they dry on the surface. Ensure when spacing plants that you leave enough room to hoe in between rows. Thoroughly mark direct-sown rows so you know exactly where your newly emerging seedlings are.

This will help you avoid accidents when hoeing.

Allowing weeds to run to seed will obviously perpetuate the problem. If you are sowing green manure, leaving them in the ground too long in the spring means that they could set seed and produce weeds, so cut down and incorporate before they reach reproductive maturity.

If you are starting a new plot or reclaiming an old piece of ground, removing the inevitable blanket of vegetation will be your first task. Once cleared and roots and stones removed, laying old carpet or cardboard on bare soil will control any rogue weeds until you are ready for cultivation and planting. Excluding the sunlight will make the weed roots weaker as they struggle to photosynthesise. I often use a reusable woven nylon fabric mulch to look after new areas of development.

This allows water to penetrate but excludes light. This means I can grow ground-cover plants such as squash and courgettes through the fabric whilst keeping weeds at bay - a good trick if you have a large garden and don’t have time to work all the soil in one season. When you lift the mulch you will have a nice patch of bare soil to work with. Just be aware that as soon as you expose the soil to sunlight the weeds will return.

Avoid rotovating weedy beds at all costs, as you run the risk of chopping up the roots and spreading the weeds further. If you want to rotovate, remove all the weeds by hand first. It takes longer to begin with but it’s definitely worth the effort. Burning weeds with a blowtorch or weed burner can work too, especially with newly emerging weeds. Regular burning can help weaken weed roots over time and can be very effective with stubborn weeds such as couch grass.

All that being said, sometimes it pays to leave the unknown seedling to mature. It might be a field poppy blown in on the wind or some borage that has jumped the neighbour’s fence. Without any effort at all you may get a beautiful surprise addition to your garden. willgrow.co.uk

bridporttimes.co.uk | 75

Gardening

EAT A RAINBOW Charlie Groves, Groves Nurseries

I

f, like me, you’re a parent of young children, you’ll know what hard work it is sometimes to get them to eat certain vegetables or fruits and how, occasionally, they weirdly love things you don’t expect them to.

Chillies - really? These likes and dislikes can last well into adulthood but, for our health and wellbeing, it really is essential for all of us, not just the children, to try and eat a rainbow of colour daily.

Why? Well, fruit and vegetables fall into five different colour categories: red, purple/blue, orange, green and white/brown. Each colour carries its own set of unique, disease-fighting chemicals called phytochemicals. It’s these phytochemicals that give fruits and vegetables their vibrant colour and, of course, some of their healthy properties.

There’s such a fantastic choice no-one should have a problem eating a rainbow of colour. Many are things you can grow together as a family, which has the added 76 | Bridport Times | May 2019

benefit of teaching the little ones about growing things and gives you both a bit of exercise, another health benefit. Also, to make it more fun for the children, a great way to keep track of the colours they eat each day is to let them create their own fruit and vegetable rainbow poster. Every time they eat a colourful fruit or vegetable, they can place a corresponding coloured sticker on the rainbow, or colour in a small section of the rainbow. It’s a way to educate them about a healthy diet and also helps you keep an eye on what you’re all eating.

So, this is what you need to know about the benefits and what you need to eat.

Red

Red fruits and vegetables are coloured by a natural plant pigment called lycopene. Lycopene is a powerful antioxidant that can help reduce the risk of cancer and keep our hearts healthy.

Another carotenoid called lutein is stored in the eye and has been found to prevent cataracts and age-related macular degeneration, which can lead to blindness.

Also try: lemons, pineapples, mangoes, oranges, peaches, nectarines, apricots, grapefruit.

Green

Green vegetables contain a range of phytochemicals including carotenoids, indoles and saponins, all of which have anti-cancer properties. Spinach and broccoli are good sources of vitamin B12 and B9 (folate) that help to avoid iron deficiency.

Also try: asparagus, avocados, peas, green apples, green grapes, limes, kiwifruit, green beans, runner beans, lettuce, cabbage, celery, cucumber, green peppers.

Brown/White

White fruits and vegetables contain a range of health-promoting phytochemicals such as allicin (found in garlic) which is known for its antiviral and antibacterial properties. Some members of the white group, such as bananas and potatoes, are also a good source of potassium.

Also try: cauliflower, mushrooms, dates, onions, ginger, parsnips, turnips.

Image: Katharine Davies

Try: tomatoes, red peppers, radishes, strawberries, rhubarb, cherries, red grapes, red apples.

Purple/Blue

The plant pigment anthocyanin is what gives blue/ purple fruits and vegetables their distinctive colour.

Anthocyanin also has antioxidant properties that protect cells from damage and can help reduce the risk of cancer, stroke and heart disease.

Try: beetroot, aubergines, blackberries, blueberries, plums, red cabbage.

Orange/Yellow

Carotenoids give this group their vibrant colour. A well-known carotenoid called beta-carotene is found in vegetables such as sweet potatoes, pumpkins and carrots. It is converted to vitamin A, which helps maintain healthy mucous membranes and healthy eyes.

Getting children to eat more vegetables doesn't have to be a fight. You can try lots of creative ways to introduce them; I’ve found that my children are more likely to eat things they’ve grown and harvested themselves. Start them off with easy things such as strawberries, radishes, lettuce, courgettes and tomatoes. If they’re old enough, let them help in the kitchen, washing and preparing the vegetables with you, or maybe allow them to add a few to their favourite pizza or pasta dish. Some children love raw vegetables e.g., baby carrots, sugar snap peas and celery with a hummus dip. It’s the dipping and eating with fingers!

You have to make it fun but making food attractive isn’t just for children; try it yourself with stir-fries using each colour – red onion, carrots, baby sweetcorn, broccoli - or create mouth-watering tropical fruit salads with oranges, strawberries, mango, melon, kiwi, bananas and blueberries.

Once you start concentrating on eating the rainbow, it’s amazing how creative you can be. Some things however are a step too far - I’m sure you’re pleased that I didn’t mention the dreaded Brussels sprout once! grovesnurseries.co.uk bridporttimes.co.uk | 77

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Community

HOOKE COURT IN MALAWI Sarah McConnell

H

ooke Court in Malawi is a small charity based in Hooke, West Dorset. As well as aiding education in the poorest country in the world, the charity aims to provide opportunities for teachers in the UK and Malawi to exchange ideas and learn from each other. Education is known to play a significant role in aiding a population out of poverty, yet the schools are poorly equipped and lack even basic necessities such as chalk, paper and pens.

Over the past five years Hooke Court in Malawi has worked with the nine schools in the Bandawe Zone, encompassing over 5,000 children. Through fundraising activities and working with other local charities such as School in a Bag, our charity has provided school resources for all nine schools on an annual basis. A volunteer programme takes place each July/August when volunteers from the UK visit and undertake a myriad of tasks – teaching children and teachers, sports provision, helping to provide aid to disabled children, distributing donated clothes from the UK and so on. Last year we were able to take out a container full of items including 10 bikes generously donated by a local charity, Prodigal Bikes, based in Crewkerne. As a result of our work, children are progressing well and the schools in Bandawe Zone are now placed 5th in the District, up from 15th place.

This year our Trustees have taken the decision to expand into the next Zone. Instead of supporting 9 schools we will be working with 22, a very large increase.

This of course means we now need to start raising funds to provide educational supplies, individual blackboards 80 | Bridport Times | May 2019

etc. for these schools.

Many schools do not have electricity. Over the last 5 years we have provided a limited solar power system to several schools but still need more installations.

Older pupils return to school in the evenings for extra lessons and then sleep on the classroom floor ready for the following day’s lessons. Accor Hotels have donated several laptops over the last couple of years. We now need to arrange power so that each school has a basic supply.

Our Trustees visit several times each year to ensure all aid provided is fully used and accounted for. Trustees and volunteers pay all their own expenses, meaning that 100% of money raised or goods donated goes directly to benefit the children and teachers for whom it is meant.

We fundraise for the charity locally and depend on local people helping by donating items such as clothing, toys, pens etc., as well as attending our events and fundraising themselves. We also run a 100 Club — a chance for the public to win prizes by donating £5 a month. Last year, Babygear in Bridport sourced a muchneeded pushchair for a little girl who could not walk; her mother had to carry her to and from school every day.

Now, thanks to our local community, she can be pushed in an all-terrain buggy, which has enhanced both her and her mother’s life incredibly.

Hooke Court in Malawi are holding a fundraising evening in June at which all are welcome. Visit their website for details. malawi.hookecourt.co.uk

DEMENTIA-FRIENDLY BRIDPORT Melanie Gale, Group Facilitator and Volunteer for Dementia-friendly Bridport

W

hen a person is told that they have dementia they are at the start of a new and unknown journey. Dementia has a huge impact on everyday life and a person with the symptoms of dementia has needs which change constantly.

Dementia is often in the media and sometimes the wrong messages can be spread, so here are a few myth-busters: • Dementia is NOT a natural part of ageing.

• Dementia is NOT simply memory loss; it can cause confusion, communication problems, perception issues, lack of inhibitions, mobility problems and struggles with everyday tasks.

• Alzheimers Disease is the most common form of dementia, and there is currently no cure.

Dementia is caused when the brain is damaged by disease or a series of strokes. It is progressive, meaning it begins with mild symptoms that get worse over time.

Dementia affects every person differently and so it’s important to get to know the person and be in the moment with them.

• Over 40,000 younger people (under 65) in the UK have dementia.

• Unpaid carers save the economy over £11 billion a year.

• 225,000 people will develop dementia this year (that is one every three minutes).

Two thirds of people with dementia live in the community. This is why we set up Dementia-friendly Bridport - a group of volunteers who are passionate about making life easier and more enjoyable for those in Bridport who are affected by dementia. We believe that small steps can make a big difference to people. We love our town and want to make it a place where people with dementia, and their carers, can live well and where they know they will be treated respectfully.

The group includes people who work in the dementia field, carers and local healthcare professionals. We aim to form links with local services and consult with those affected by dementia to find out what would help them in Bridport. Our consultations so far have led to

campaigns and projects such as: • The ‘Use Our Loo’ scheme, where local businesses allow people to use their facilities without explanation or making a purchase. As dementia progresses, people may find it harder to use a toilet and may experience incontinence. See our website for a map of these.

• Funding a dementia-friendly yoga session for a group of people diagnosed with dementia and their carers.

Thanks to Alex Ross for making it happen.

• Raising awareness of dementia - two members run regular, free Dementia Friends information sessions to share an insight into how dementia could affect someone. Dates of future sessions are on our website.

• Creating a website which will allow people to find out about local dementia-friendly activities, useful contacts and some coping strategies.

• Working with the town council to implement policies and procedures which take account of the needs of people with dementia.

• Spreading the word about a Dorset initiative called ‘Carers Card’ which entitles carers to discounts in local shops and cafés.

Dementia Action Week unites people, workplaces, schools and communities to take action and improve the lives of people living with dementia. We will be honouring the week by yarn-bombing the town centre (as we did last year!) and holding a stall in Buckydoo Square on Saturday 18th May. Please come along with any questions or suggestions you may have and see all the beautiful bunting our local community groups have made.

There are many local groups which can help people affected by dementia, from befriending and socialising to singing and swimming. Please see details on websites below. dementiafriendlybridport.co.uk alzheimers.org.uk ageuk.org.uk/Dorchester dorsetaonb.org.uk bridportleisure.com bridporttimes.co.uk | 81

Philosophy

AN OPEN MIND

P

Kelvin Clayton

erhaps I should have become a psychologist. I’m fascinated by questions concerning what the mind is and how it works, and particularly by how it fails or misleads us. Our minds seem prone to a number of ‘built-in’ biases that suggest we are much less rational and objective than we like to think we are. This will be the topic of a future Philosophy in Pubs discussion. At last night’s meeting, however, I personally experienced this potential failure of reason.

The proposition put forward for debate was: What we do in life, and what we are, is up to us and up to us alone. Without waiting until the actual debate to make-up my mind about this proposition, without waiting to hear the full argument supporting it, I immediately interpreted it as a strong libertarian statement and started to gather my arguments against it. Libertarianism, in its current reincarnation, is a general political movement strongly supportive of individual freedom of choice and commonly associated with an extreme form of capitalism, one that opposes any degree of state or community control.

Whilst I do not have the evidence to hand to support this, I strongly suspect that most of us, most of the time, act in a similar way. We not only interpret any new piece of information according to our pre-existing beliefs, often forcing this new piece of information to fit into our existing belief structure, but also, once interpreted, we set about defending or attacking it according to its allotted location. Rather than trying to understand what a new piece of information means and making an attempt to assess its value, we set about defending our existing belief structure. In evolutionary terms there may well be good reasons for doing this. We seem predisposed to strengthening our existing beliefs rather than asking whether they actually apply to a new situation. We seem to struggle to approach a situation with an open mind.

As it turned out, during the course of the debate, I gradually realised that what the proposer meant was not what I had interpreted him to mean. Had I been more aggressive in my approach, or had the proposer been more sensitive, had our language deteriorated into an exchange of abuse towards someone who had the audacity to attack our obviously rightly held belief, nothing positive would have been achieved. Thanks to the ethos of our group and to the respect each member has for the others, I think everyone left having developed their own thinking to some degree. Is there a wider lesson to be learnt here?

Philosophy in Pubs is a grass-roots community organisation promoting and practising community philosophy in the UK. Discussions take place regularly in venues around the country. Anyone can attend and anyone can propose a topic for discussion. The Bridport group meets on the fourth Wednesday of the month in The George Hotel, South Street at 7.30pm. Attending the discussion is free and there is no need for any background knowledge of philosophy. All that’s required is an open mind and a desire to examine issues more closely than usual. For further details, email Kelvin Clayton at kelvin.clayton@icloud.com

82 | Bridport Times | May 2019

Literature

LITERARY REVIEW Antonia Squire, The Bookshop

Underland: A Deep Time Journey by Robert Macfarlane (Penguin, 2019) RRP £20.00 Bridport Times reader price of £17.50 available only from The Bookshop, South Street

H

ow can one possibly begin to write about a book of such extraordinary eloquence and evocation? From the first sentence we know this work will take us on a journey unlike any other: The way into the underland is through the riven trunk of an old ash tree.

From there Macfarlane sets the scene of lazy late-summer before taking us back six thousand years to an ancient burial site that is now an integral part of our landscape.

Now Northern Europe, next the Mediterranean, on to Africa, the Himalayas, South America. Throughout the world, throughout history, the deep parts of the earth have held special meaning for Homo Sapiens, something that continues to this day.

Each journey within this book takes us across the world to natural caving, urban exploration and invisible cities, deep diving though underwater caverns, each journey summoning deep and visceral, almost primal, feelings with a depth of language only a true master of the craft can create.

Never before have I read a piece of non-fiction that conjured images I had thought could only be found

within beloved works of storytelling such as Winnie the Pooh and Wind in the Willows, as Macfarlane takes us into the barrows of the Mendips.

Or science fiction, as he takes us deep underground with researchers studying dark matter in the here and now.

Or heart-pounding adventure stories, as we follow him through the ‘invisible cities’ in the catacombs of Paris. I even found myself in the realm of cinema following the ‘understory’ of the forest, and I have images of Disney’s Pocahontas and James Cameron’s Avatar swimming around my head, exclaiming to myself, ‘now I understand!’ On to Italy and echoes of Poe and Coleridge: Through caverns measureless to man. Down to a sunless sea. And on.

Within Underland, Macfarlane has delved as deeply into the human psyche as he has into the underground labyrinths he seeks to unearth. An exploration of relationships, language, ecosystems both natural and engineered, this is a book in which to immerse yourself.

Take your time and experience the wonder. Extraordinary. dorsetbooks.com bridporttimes.co.uk | 83

Literature

AN EXTRACT FROM KING OF DUST: ADVENTURES IN FORGOTTEN SCULPTURE

By Alex Woodcock (Little Toller Books, 2019), £16.00

T

he slab was the first thing in the van. A piece of Irish limestone about three feet by one foot by three inches thick. Probably the heaviest single thing I owned: I could just about lift it. I’ve moved enough times since carving it to know that it goes in first, sandwiched by double-thickness cardboard. Everything else can pile on top and I know it’ll be alright even though it’s one of my most treasured pieces, carved with a repeating Romanesque star design that always seems to look new.

I was moving into a friend’s spare room. My place in Falmouth had turned out to be not just damp but wet. There had been a few warning signs. The sea mist that came in through the closed windows. The warped folder of drawings I’d picked up one afternoon that started to drip. The carpet that oozed around my toes. The metal picture frame that had rusted on the wall. The only thing left was to get out, put everything in storage and move into Matt’s house across town.

As I heaved the stone into the back of the van I remembered how I’d found it: in a skip at a monumental masons’ yard. It took a fair amount of shifting of other offcuts to reach it, the single, pale grey corner that had initially caught my eye gradually increasing in size as I got closer. It wasn’t a perfect rectangle. One of the ends was at a slant, and there was a vent along one side, presumably the reason why it was discarded in the first place. Being sawn on six sides, there were no rough

84 | Bridport Times | May 2019

surfaces, though there were a few chipped edges. Otherwise it was a good find.

As I would discover, Kilkenny limestone is a lovely stone to work. It’s hard but cuts cleanly. It holds edges well – it will chip rather than crumble. The colour is the thing, though: cut it and it’s pale grey, polish it and it goes a glassy black, like marble. (In fact, it’s often called Kilkenny marble.)

For several months I wondered what to do with that stone until a trip to a Romanesque church in Herefordshire showed me the way. It was the lintel to the south door at St Andrew, Bredwardine, which became a lesson in the possibilities of repeated geometric patterns. The Bredwardine lintel is carved with one giant rosette or hexafoil motif similar to those on the Cornish fonts at Altarnun, Warbstow and so on. This one, however, was divided so that each spoke or petal crossed a dividing line into an outer ring. Between each point in the outer circle there were smaller circles, each one containing a four-pointed star. On either side of the rosette the remaining space of the lintel was carved with massed star patterns. The design even carried on underneath. Look at it long enough and new patterns were formed from the building blocks of each square. It was an incredible piece of work, showing the potential of simple motifs and their repetition.

Not long after that visit I started to carve test pieces of star motifs on different offcuts of stone, just to get the pattern into my hands. Then, once I was confident, I set out the design on the slab.

Star ornament is relatively straightforward to set out. First, you only really need a square with two diagonal lines crossing in the middle to work from. Each quarter, which is a right-angled triangle, becomes a shallow, sunken, unequal-sided pyramid, in effect, as you carve each face at the same angle. Do this for each quarter, twelve faces in all, and you have one four-pointed Romanesque star.

Second, the design is flexible enough to fit all manner of imperfectly sized stone. So long as a foursided shape can be drawn onto it, or squeezed into a corner, it is possible to produce a star motif.

On my slab I intended to do thirty of approximately similar size, in three rows of ten. The slight angle at one end of the slab could be accommodated by stretching the design; one point of some stars would appear slightly longer than the others. I thought that would look good: human, imperfect and purposeful (‘Good sculpture is purposeful,’ as John once said to me. ‘You may not know what its purpose or meaning is, but you can feel its presence.’)

I carved it in my friend Rosie’s studio on the edge of Dartmoor over several months, a day here, a day there, whenever I could find the time. I averaged about three to four stars per visit. ‘Edge’ of Dartmoor doesn’t really do the location any justice – the gate to the moor is right next to it, a former barn now carpeted in white marble dust and stacked with pieces of stone: Portland, Carrara, Spanish alabaster. Sometimes I’d cycle there from where I lived in Ashburton, taking a short cut through the grounds of Buckfast Abbey and up the ridiculously steep hills behind Scoriton and Combe, several miles of gradient. It seems to me that where you make something is almost as important as the making itself. The studio, remote and at the end of an unsurfaced road, the weather, my journey there, the conversations we had, all went into the stone in some way, which itself drew from the long heritage of decorated lintels, grave slabs and other architectural sculpture. Centuries of working practice, not to mention daily life, live in each project.

While sculpture, like other artistic practices, can bend itself into the shapes of words, it takes its life from the sensory realms beneath and beyond them. These ‘empty spaces where art happens’ are impossible to quantify. It can be difficult to know, let alone explain, the feelings a work inspires, not just during its making but in the life it then takes on when finished, separate to the circumstances in which it was produced. The artist and teacher Philip Rawson believed this was due to the complex connections between memory and sensory experience. Those works of art that resonate with these submerged memory traces are like powerful beams of light illuminating forgotten or hard-to-reach aspects of ourselves. littletollerbooks.co.uk

bridporttimes.co.uk | 85

Pete Millson | photographer Editorial Portraits Local Arts & Business Projects Cover Artwork

CLOCKTOWER MUSIC Records of all Types and Styles Bought and Sold Open Wednesday to Saturday 10am - 5pm

01308 458077

petemillsonphotographer.uk | 07768 077353

www.clocktowermusic.co.uk

10a St Michael’s Trading Estate, Bridport DT6 3RR

APRIL SOLUTIONS

ACROSS 1. Old plodding horse (6) 4. Puts in position (6) 9. Series of boat races (7) 10. Matured (7) 11. Interior (5) 12. Timber framework (5) 14. Female opera singers (5) 15. Cut a joint of meat (5) 17. Two times (5) 18. Precondition (7) 20. Country whose capital is Kiev (7) 21. Hotel patrons (6) 22. Person staying in another's home (6) 86 | Bridport Times | May 2019

DOWN 1. Come off the tracks (6) 2. Novice (8) 3. Inert (anag) (5) 5. Clinging shellfish (7) 6. Dean ___ : US actor who played Superman (4) 7. Moves smoothly (6) 8. Meat-eating (11) 13. Indefatigable (8) 14. Excess of liabilities over assets (7) 15. Managing (6) 16. Thin decorative coating (6) 17. Trunk of the body (5) 19. Woodwind instrument (4)

GIVING WEARING LIVING COOKING

GREAT PLAINS LO N D O N OPEN S Y SUNDApm 10am-4

4 East St, Bridport Dorset, DT6 3LF 01308 459854

Beaminster (Shop & Café)

22 The Square, Beaminster, Dorset DT8 3AU 01308 863189

Hardwood Flooring Specialists Registered Farrow & Ball Stockist Bespoke In-Home Colour Consultancy Certified Bona Contractor

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