Letters

Social practices and the ethos of their time

When we talk about the slave trade, or burning heretics alive, we cannot get into the minds of those who perpetrated or condoned such acts. But when we talk of unmarried mothers and adoption in the 1950s, there are plenty of us still around who lived in those times and do have some idea of the motives.

Until the 1960s there was a presumption that a child would be born to a married couple – a man and a woman. We knew that it sometimes happened otherwise but that was deeply discouraged. To have a child out of wedlock was shameful. Society was structured around this presumption. So a woman would give up paid employment possibly when she married, but certainly when she had a child, to be a full-time mother and home-maker. It followed that wages and salaries would be higher for men than for women, as the man was assumed to have the responsibility of looking after a family. I recall advice from my bank manager, who happened to be a family friend, soon after we were married: “Always budget on one salary, as you never know when you may lose the second one.” Contraception was still not wholly reliable.

So if a young woman or even a teenager did have a child when unmarried, society had to deal with that situation. Abortion was in those days unthinkable. The problem might be pre-empted by a quick marriage, often successful though sometimes leading to a strained household. Otherwise it would be a kindness to relieve a young woman of a responsibility for which she was not equipped or resourced and let her enjoy the freedom of youth, hopefully without repeating the mistake. It was a kindness also to the baby to place it in a loving family who wanted a child – IVF was still far in the future – and would have the resources to give it a good life.

We recognise, of course, that sometimes it didn’t work well. One can have no sympathy for parents who might cast off a child for this heinous sin – nor for some unduly harsh ‘mother and baby’ homes. We also hear of adoptions which did not work well, but dysfunctional families arise with natural birth, too. However, in most cases adoption at birth seems to have worked very well.

So let us not condemn a past social practice without understanding it.

Rather than adopting a rather arrogant attitude that we know better than our forebears, we should perhaps be honest about today’s practice. If we could reverse the pattern of judgement, the people of the 1950s would be horrified at some of the things which go on in the 2020s. We say that the interests of the child must come first – but in practice the mother’s career prospects often trump those of the child. When one thinks of today’s latch-key kids with both parents in demanding jobs, or young mothers going off to war and putting their lives at risk while leaving a couple of children behind, there are undoubted advantages in the full-time mother.

The concept of ‘single parent families’ is a biological contradiction – what we mean is ‘absent parent families’. In many of the high-profile child abuse cases one wants to ask: “Where was the father? He has both rights and responsibilities which are too often ignored. Is it really in the best interests of the child that we encourage, by means of housing and other subsidies, a situation where the father bears no responsibility for the upbringing of his child and leaves the mother to cope on her own?

So let us try to judge social practices on the ethos of the time, rather than making a retrospective judgement without understanding the context.

Mike Keatinge Via email

Cartoon by Lyndon Wall – justsocaricatures.co.uk

n Do you have a view on Mike

Keatinge’s letter or anything else in the New Blackmore Vale – if so, email newsdesk@ blackmorevale.net

I was chuffed the New Blackmore Vale printed my letter about Wellington the Goat in edition 46 and this is my second submission.

It was sports day for all the families at the Royal Naval Air Station, Portland, Dorset. We had entered Wellington the goat for the Dogs’ Race.

Driving in from our married quarter, passengers were ID-checked at the main gate as usual, and the MoD policeman was more than surprised to see a goat reclining in the back seat. Unfortunately, Wellington ran off in the wrong direction when the starter’s gun went off!

We came back from a holiday to find our neighbour had failed in her task of checking his peg had not worked loose. Wellington was very ill having eaten some laurel leaves – the vet saved his life and we bedded him down in the tool shed to recuperate.

On about day five my wife went to give him the usual TLC and he butted her out of the door. She said ‘you devil’ – or something like that – ‘you’re better’ and he was.

When I was re-appointed to London, I presented Wellington to the officers’ mess. He was taken onto the ship’s books as Ordinary Goat Wellington – later I read in Navy News he had been promoted to Able Goat, in the same way sailors climb the promotion ladder.

On one occasion, during a security exercise, the Royal Marine ‘attackers’ came over a fence and were met by an indignant goat causing them to retreat.

Volunteers needed at old station

The Spetisbury Station Project Group has been dissolved. We simply did not have the required number of people willing or able to fill the vacant officers’ roles, so we were not able to continue operating as a group.

Happily, though, it is still very much business as usual up at this former Somerset & Dorset Railway station (pictured) which closed in 1956.

The few remaining volunteers have come to an agreement with Spetisbury Parish Council to continue work under its supervision, something we are all very pleased about.

After ten years’ hard work creating this pleasant, landscaped setting on the North Dorset Trailway, and uncovering the station’s history, the last thing we wanted was for our efforts to go to waste.

However, there remains much work to do and additional help, particularly from the local community, is always appreciated. More details can be found at

He went to goat heaven years ago and no doubt is still amusing his compatriots.

Vernon Phillips Mere

I do so sympathise with Leslie and Dawn Head with regard to impatient drivers versus their cows.

Unfortunately, a message has been given out that the countryside is a playground for all and sundry to enjoy.

Yes, I hope people do enjoy the countryside, but if they are visiting, or have moved from towns, they must realise that living in the country is not all about fresh air and nice views – it is a working environment.

Farms are where their food comes from, so I would ask them to respect all the work which goes into production with all the inconvenience – and possibly even mud and muck, heaven forbid!.

J. Hukins High Street, Sturminster Marshall

Only a few weeks ago I and another reader wrote to complain about the inclusion in the New Blackmore Vale

www.spetisburystation project.co.uk

We would like to record a big thank you to our former project manager Dean Cockwell, who since 2012 has done so much hard work, both on- and off-site, to get the project off the ground.

Magazine of an unpleasant rant against Chris Loder MP.

So, it is disappointing to find that the latest issue (22 July) includes a deranged and semihysterical outpouring of antiBoris bile from Greg Williams, representing Dorset Labour.

This kind of toxic stuff not only coarsens debate, it also demeans the political party on whose behalf it is put forward, and it demeans the publication which gives it space.

Roger White Sherborne

n The views of the New Blackmore Vale’s columnists

Dean has sadly now had to stand down due to ill health but his efforts continue to be appreciated by the many visitors who enjoy this tranquil spot overlooking the Stour Valley.

Kevin Mitchell Via email

and letters writers are their own, not the magazine’s.

The New Blackmore Vale seeks to provide a platform for a variety of opinions, within legal constraints.

Politicians will inevitably sometimes be the subject of strong criticism but we would hope that they express their views respectfully.

We leave it to readers to make their own judgements on the writer’s viewpoint and to draw their own conclusions on the basis of how it is expressed.

NBVM

A walk around... Pimperne

by Chris Slade

Park near the church, where, at the roadside, is the stump of an ancient stone cross.

After visiting the church, head north up the road for 100 yards then turn right and head north-east up a road which, when the Tarmac runs out, becomes a bridleway leading in a straight line uphill to the parish boundary, over which is Pimperne Long Barrow, which is worth a visit as it’s the biggest in the country!

I paced it as more than 100 yards long. It’s never been excavated so take a trowel – only joking! There are wide views in all directions especially across Cranborne Chase.

Return south-west along the bridleway for a furlong, then turn right and join a bridleway north along a field edge for a mile, the last quarter mile of which is along the edge of Pimperne Wood.

At a meeting of ways turn left and head south-west downhill for half a mile where you turn left and head south through a woody lane then alongside a field for half a mile. Lots of pheasants can be seen.

Next, turn right and head uphill north-west for a furlong, then turn left southwest along a straight path across Pimperne up and down for three-quarters of a mile. You can look down on the village from here.

Continue along the path until you reach a road. Here you turn left, and walk east downhill for half a mile, passing Manor Farm. There’s a bend to the left, heading north-east for a quarter of a mile where it meets the village road. Turn right and in a furlong you’ll be in sight of your car.

When you reach it you’ll have walked six miles. Chris Slade is a retired Dorset rights of way officer.