‘I have lived and worked as a member of the Monkton Wylde Community since 2004. We each have special responsibilities because of our individual skills: mine is building maintenance, farming, gardening, but we all contribute to the daily chores. This morning I cut some hay using a scythe – nothing much changes here. This afternoon I’m on wash-up duties. We also have a volunteer coming this afternoon. I’m a ‘linker’ for her – I get the room ready, do the sheets, and welcome her.

The Monkton Wylde community grew out of the co-educational boarding school started in 1940 by Eleanor Urban, and her husband, Carl, a geography teacher. Carl, a German, was placed under ‘house arrest’ du­ring the war, and had restrictions – he wasn’t even allowed his maps. The school catered for sixty children, some offspring of the rich and famous who sought a more peaceful education for their children. Larry Adler’s daughter, George Melly’s sons, some of the Gielguds, and nieces of Sammy Davis Jr were all taught here. With the closure of the school in 1980, some teachers stayed on to start weekend and summer schools for children; soon adults became interested in the ethos of Monkton Wylde.

I was born in 1930 in Bruton, Somerset. My parents were academics and strongly against war, influenced by their experiences during the First World War. My father was Frederick Kirkwood Makins, MA, a botanist specializing in plant and tree identification. His books included The Identification of Trees and Shrubs and A Concise Flora, intended for schools. He did not rely on other sources: his objective was primary research, beautifully illustrated with his own drawings, and often used as a resource by others. He was a scientist and Fellow of the Linnaean Society: one of the original conservationists.

Before the Second World War my father promoted The League of Nations, and gave lectures aimed to move people away from going to war. He had received some education in the Black Forest in Germany while studying forestry and knew not all Germans were bad. With the start of war father was seconded to do Forestry Work.

My mother was Ethel Knight, and her father was the first headmaster of Sexey’s School in Bruton. The politician Henry Hobhouse, who drafted the 1902 Education Act, inspired the school. He founded it as a Trade School, funded by a charity. It became a boys’ grammar and, later, a state school. A qualified teacher, my mother had educated us at home for a while, but I started at Mrs Eyles school when I was six, and later went to Sexey’s School when it was just boys.

Father, being in India on important government work in the timber industry, escaped military service. Mother in England knew some boys killed in the first war – school kids from her father’s school – and was devastated. She supported Votes for Women, and regarded herself a Suffragist: non-violent, and not part of the extreme element of the Suffragette movement, while sharing its main objectives.

Mother was also against alcohol, though my father and grandfather both drank a little. She had seen too many men make over-time money in the factories, spend it in the pub, and then be too ill to work: it was a significant social problem. The government and railway industry supported the ‘corrugated iron hut’ non-conformist churches, which provided activities to keep people occupied and away from the pubs.

After failing my medical for National Service at 18, I started to look for a practical training – a reaction against academic parents I think. I’d always wanted to know about farming. This was the time that horses were being replaced by tractors. From 1949 I worked in the assembly line at David Brown Tractors at Meltham. I was an engineering apprentice, passing through all the departments, and, later, I did a two-year Diploma in mechanical and electrical engineering. I then went to Hill Sawtel who had a blacksmith’s shop in Yeovil, till I was offered a job at Braddicks (now Vincents) in Gillingham, where I worked for six years as a mechanical engineer on a variety of machinery including International tractor engines, and Field Marshalls, with their cartridge fired engines.

My next move was to a 500 acre Essex farm as a fitter and welder: a progressive, American style enterprise, with bulk milk tanks. I welded, made trailers, and became involved in building work. The big house belonged to Mr John Mackie, who had farms in different parts of the country. Mr Mackie stood for Enfield North as an MP for Labour in 1959, and became Undersecretary for State for Agriculture under Wilson. We had to fit speakers to his Morris Minor Traveller for electioneering – the Bentley did not give the right image! He instigated a farm shop by the gate to gain local favour.

Now 29, I wondered what I was doing with my life. I had never cared for the strong class structure of those days, which I felt cut me off from working people. I saw a newspaper article about the Albermarle Report on ‘Youth of the Nation’: a five-year plan for youth centres and training colleges. There were opportunities for those with life-experience rather than academic qualifications. I’d had interests outside my work: organised bell-ringing trips round the country staying in youth hostals, and I’d written an article for the YHA magazine. I gained a place on a two-year diploma course at West Hill College in Sellyoak.

After a stay in Gillingham, where I was a Youth Leader, building a Youth Centre out of a reconstructed army hut with ten Open Borstal boys, I ended up in Shropshire. It was 1973 and I had become a member of SUBUD, an association of men and women from all religions and backgrounds who unite to follow a spiritual path together.

I have been on some thirty peace camps. In the end, my interest in working with people, dislike of the class structure, and a need for company, brought me to Monkton Wylde. This is where my life has led me, and here the philosophy suits me. Communities like this give an important message: living and working together as equals we aim to achieve peace, understanding and harmony internationally. We have people from all over the world. We must put across this non-violent approach! Monkton Wylde is a holistic education centre, where people can rethink how they live their lives. Nara is three and I am 77. We don’t each live in our little compartment, of different generations and classes. What a relief!

Nowadays, our message of non-violence, communication and resolving conflicts is as necessary as ever. These are troubled times and we need the strength of these principles to provide a solid foundation for the peaceful, secure and sustainable future we all long for.’

Ron Frampton

Jenny Hopkin met Veronica Bickford at Seatown, Dorset. This is Veronica’s story:

‘It was in 1954, that I came from Malaysia to live in Chideock. I was 26 and a pregnant widow, my daughter, Georgiana was only thirteen months. My husband, Humphrey, an engineer, had tragically died of anterior poliomyelitis. We were on leave in one of the hill stations and I remember him saying ‘I think I’m getting flu’. I insisted on him resting in bed.

He gradually became weaker. A doctor friend, staying nearby, was puzzled. Polio is rather rare in a 38 year old, and so, ruled it out. With kind help from some army friends, Humphrey was brought down on a stretcher in a jeep to the hospital in Taiping where he was diagnosed as having polio. He only lived for three more days.

Humphrey had, in his twenties, served in the Royal Navy, as indeed had his father and grandfather, but he was invalided out following a car accident. During the war years he worked at the Admiralty developing a special compass for use on submarines. After the war he joined the Colonial Engineering Service in Malaya, where, I, a young Queen Alexander’s Royal Army Nursing Service Sister, first met him. I had been posted to Hong Kong.

My brother, Edward and I were born and bred in Liverpool. We lived most of the time with two maiden aunts and their brother, uncle Bertie. I can remember accompanying one of the aunts to an agency to hire a maid. I asked the aunt to choose a pretty one, but the reply was ‘No, because of uncle Bertie’, which I found puzzling at the time. Edward was seven years older than me and joined the Royal Air Force before the war. He gave me a love of flying and used to take me to Speke Airport where we had ten shilling flips in a Tiger Moth. During the war I went to school in Llandudno, North Wales. From there one could see the fires of Liverpool. My beloved brother, an RAF pilot, was killed in 1943. It affected us all very deeply. Because of him, when I came to Dorset I took a few lessons with an ex fighter pilot at Dunkeswell Flying Club, but chickened out when we got to the stalling stage, so I never went solo; by then I had two children to consider.

When I left school I trained as a nurse in Liverpool. I also did a Diploma in tropical medicine. I think I became fascinated with the tropics because, as a child, I used to visit the Palm House in Liverpool. I loved the smell of the plants.

Having completed my training I joined the Queen Alexandra nurses, and was posted out to Hong Kong in 1949. I travelled out by sea. It took six weeks. We were officers, and went to lots of swish cocktail parties, but sometimes, some of the other girls and I went down to the soldier’s quarters, below deck, awful really, and danced with them.  While in Hong Kong, to eek out rather poor army pay, I worked, under an assumed name, as a DJ on Radio Hong Kong doing a Forces Hospital request programme. I used to sneak in one or two of my choices amongst the Vera Lynns, such as Jean Sablon or a bit of grand opera, hoping the soldiers would enjoy them too.

After Hong Kong I went to Singapore, and then Malaysia where I met my husband. My training in Liverpool had been excellent; the nurses were taught a lot of techniques; I often prepared and examined slides to test for leprosy.

After my husband died I wanted to live in Dorset, so, I put an advert in The Lady magazine for a cottage and had a reply from Chideock, where I lived for two years before I moved to Seatown. It was wonderful to be so near the sea. The children and I swam almost every day and I acquired the reputation of being the first woman to be seen on Seatown beach wearing a bikini – this was in the late 1950s.

When the children started school I returned to nursing at Bridport Hospital. I worked there for 26 years until I retired. My father and mother came to live with me in Seatown, and ended their days here. My aunt and uncle Bertie also lived with me in their later years.

I am interested in the stock market and dabble in pharmaceutical stocks and shares. A few of us meet in the George in Bridport to share information and tips. I once went to a meeting at Olympia run by the Investors Chronicle. I saw Adam Faith, a great favourite of mine, so I went across to ask him for his autograph. He signed my programme and underneath wrote the name of a company. I didn’t realise exactly what it was until a few days later. In the Sunday Observer the tip of the week was that these shares had gone from ten pence each to one pound. I quickly bought some and they went up to three pounds. Unfortunately, I didn’t sell then, and they dropped away to nothing. But at least I got his autograph.

I always wanted to go on the stage, but of course my parents wouldn’t hear of it when I was a girl. In Malaysia I once got a chance to play the lead in a production of The Importance of being Ernest, but sadly I was in a car accident just before rehearsals started, and, as I had cuts and bruises to my face, I had to withdraw. Later I joined, and performed with, the Chideock players. Quite recently I was filmed by Countrywide Films for the DVD Coastal Ways. I’m still a busy person and read twice a week to a lady of ninety-eight in Bridport, and I swim in the sea whenever the tide and weather are right.

I’ve always tried to live a healthy life, so I eat lots of honey; I use it to sweeten my tea. Some years ago my son, Humphrey, bought me two beehives, complete with bees. He arrived with them in his van. It was dark, but the bees were very angry. I was frightened they would see the light in my studio and come in. I was sleeping there as I had rented the cottage out to holiday makers. I was so concerned, that I slept in my bee keeper’s suit. The next morning I checked the bees through binoculars to see if they were peaceful before I took off my outfit. Now I’m eighty I have some sheep’s milk yogurt every day – apparently there is an enzyme in it that stops you getting Alzheimer’s.

I still find Seatown magical and on a clear night I drink my cocoa sitting on the veranda listening to the sea and looking at the stars, which my father had taught me to identify. My son, Humphrey, recently featured in Dorset Men, lives in Bridport, but keeps his lobster pots here. My daughter, Georgiana, who was also widowed young, lives in Crewkerne. Her son, Hugh is on a yacht skipper’s course in Australia. The sea is in our blood.’

‘In 1941 I came to Axminster by train from Catford, London, with my granny. I was three months old and my name at that time was Michael Roberts. My birth mother, Winifred Roberts, was an unmarried teenager in wartime London. Granny left me in Axminster with my adoptive parents – a brief encounter – then back to London. I so much want to meet my London family, but so far my search has been unsuccessful; my birth mother would now be in her early eighties.

My adoptive parents, John and Irene Hine, looked after me well. Irene had also been adopted at a young age. John Hine was a foreman bricklayer with Mouldings in Axminster; we lived adjacent to the Plaza cinema, at Bristol House. St Mary’s was my first school, then on to Axe Valley. I was not particularly happy at school on account of being born with cataracts in both eyes. This was thought to have been caused before I was born, by the London bombings. I had numerous operations, often missing school for long periods, but still had difficulty in reading the blackboard.

Mechanical things and art were my main interests. School didn’t mean much to me, but I was fascinated by the cinema; my playground was outside the projection area of the Plaza. One day, in the late forties, I was invited into the projection room. They were using hand-cranked projectors, showing films such as Laurel and Hardy, King Kong and Frankenstein. When the heavy steam trains came through Axminster, the vibrations would cause the projectors to shake; the screen would then judder, much to everyone’s annoyance.

When I left school, fifty years ago, Mr Pat McDevitt, the Plaza manager, offered me a job as trainee projectionist. Jimmy Crabb was second projectionist and Henry Salway, known as Tappy, was chief projectionist. We showed top films, many from the 1930s and 40s.

Most people came to the cinema on foot, cycled, or on the bus from local villages. When we showed Gone with the Wind, the queue stretched up through the town to Trinity Square. Cinema was important to teenagers and courting couples; it was one of the few warm and dry places a young man could take his girlfriend on dark winter evenings. There was the Hollywood glamour and romance: Clark Gable and Errol Flynn; Joan Crawford and Marlene Dietrich. When we screened Wuthering Heights people cried. And of course, there were times when young people got over amorous – Mr McDevitt would then walk down the aisle and shine his torch on the couple – that stopped them.

I soon discovered a projectionist’s job could be unpredictable and hazardous. One night, in the early months of my training, I was left for a while on my own; the film which was supposed to be showing was The Pride and the Passion, starring Sophia Loren and Frank Sinatra. Somehow, the reels got mixed up and I’d put on the wrong one – the audience soon pointed out the problem – I rushed to get the film changed. I tried to keep everybody happy, but we were running very late, most people didn’t get home before midnight.

Many cinemas had flea problems – but we had a rat. I spotted it when I was lighting the emergency exit gas lamps. The manager got out his gun to shoot it, but in the end said: I can’t kill an animal, so the rat ran off and continued to be a cinema resident.

In stark contrast to the small Axminster Plaza, I went on a trip with my parents to see the high-tech world of cinemas in London. Pat McDevitt had arranged for me to visit the projection room of The Empire, Leicester Square. My parents were overwhelmed with unexpected complimentary tickets for the best seats in the house; we were treated like celebrities. The film they were showing was Island in the Sun, everything was twice the size; the projector and screen were enormous. You can imagine the impact this technology had on a young mechanical enthusiast from Devon.

As television came in, the regular cinema customers dwindled; many small town cinemas were forced to close. The Plaza closed in 1961. After this I found work at cinemas in Dorchester and Bovington Camp. At Bovington I worked for the AKC, Army Kinema Corporation. I showed top secret films and therefore had to sign the Military Secrets Act. I also showed the famous 1966 film about the World Cup, all the solidiers and their families were standing in the aisles.

With cinemas on the decline, I decided to return to Axminster – I followed my cinema colleague, Henry Salway, and got a job in engineering at Shands. I started on type-making, and later moved onto heavy engineering.

I met my wife, Jenny Knight, at the Marine Theatre, Lyme Regis; we married in 1970. We have two children: Jason is a resident at Monkton Wyld Community. He read English and film studies at Kent; and Juliette is currently reading anthropology at Brighton University.

After we married, I got a job as a turner-fitter at Axminster Carpets, and eventually became the head of engineering. These jobs were quite different from being a cinema projectionist. My natural affinity with machinery led me to enjoy the new challenges. I spent thirty-seven years with Axminster Carpets, working on lots of interesting projects; I had the opportunity to travel to Holland, Belgium, France and Italy. I retired in 2004.

I felt a need to go back to the cinema, and took a part-time projectionist job at the Regent, Lyme Regis, where I still work today. It’s certainly a relief from the big multiplex cinemas of the larger towns. The Regent opened on the 11th October 1937, so will be celebrating its 70th birthday this year – it certainly has plenty of character and lots of charm. This listed building houses Silverscreen: a thriving film society, as well as popular mainstream films. Alec Orme has been its dedicated manager for twenty years, and he’s a popular character.

Even today’s cinema technology sometimes has its problems. Recently, on a Saturday evening, I had a phone call from Alec Orme to say the projector had broken half-way through a film, and could I come and fix it. The film showing was Harry Potter; the cinema was full, and some people were making a fuss. I drove across from Axminster and carried out the repair within ten minutes. The manager was still in a panic, so I addressed the public, apologised, explained the delay, and everyone was happy.

In my retirement I had the opportunity to travel further afield, including a recent trip to India, where I had a close encounter with Bollywood. In the town of Sultanbatheri, in Kerala, I was invited into the projection room of a local cinema during the film. People were up in the aisles dancing and singing along to all the music, I was overwhelmed by the friendliness of the cinema staff.
The world of cinema will always be a major part of my life.’