This has been a busy month. We have been fortunate to have an interview with Sir Anthony Caro (page 36) who is patron of Dorset Art Weeks. His career must be an inspiration to anyone hoping their art stands out during this great event.
We are also delighted to promote this year’s Bridport Food Festival. We have published a directory of food related businesses around the Bridport area and look forward to promoting other local food activities throughout South Somerset, West Dorset and East Devon during the summer and beyond. We also have an interview with Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall (page 28). Hugh talks about life after River Cottage and what has been keeping him busy over recent months.
However, of all June’s activities, none can be as important as the remembrance of D-Day. This year marks its 60th anniversary. A local restaurateur sent me his memories of the American presence in West Bay, the final passage of which has a powerful message. “Sixty years on from D-Day, I still remember the wonder of the American dream in West Bay. Such a great nation that came to us in our time of need and was personified by the selflessness and sacrifice of their individual soldiers. These anniversaries make you stop, think and remember. Without them such great and brave men could be forgotten. The present American leadership should reflect on 1944 and make sure that the sacrifices they ask individuals to make are for an equally just and honourable cause.”
Up Front 06/04
Up Front 05/04
Although I can’t say I salivate at the prospect of a trip to the bottle bank, I have occasionally returned with renewed enthusiasm for the world around me. On my last visit I couldn’t ignore a conversation between a local environmental campaigner and a woman with a strong Glaswegian accent. They had somehow got into a discussion on vegetarianism. Our Northern friend was highlighting the thread of an article she had read that argued for the future demise of moralistic vegetarianism. According to her, in the future, scientists will be able to grow prime cuts of meat without the need to create life. Therefore anyone who avoids eating meat purely through concern over the taking of a life would be able to sit down to steak, chips and three veg like all the other human carnivores. She went on to suggest that if we can grow any type of meat why not grow human meat for consumption? At this, our generally mild mannered environmental friend nearly blew a fuse and the conversation raced to levels of outrage and fury in seconds. They stopped short of trading insults but both certainly held forth with convincing arguments. All this was set to a background of bottles smashing and brief snatches of pounding rap music from passing car stereos. I left them to it but as I pondered the moral sensibilities of our future food chain I couldn’t help wishing I’d had a couple more empty wine bottles to recycle, I might have heard the outcome of the argument.
Jack Banfield
Jack Banfield was born at Brimley in the parish of Hawkchurch, Devon, in 1912. He is the village’s oldest native resident. Jack’s earliest memories go back to the start of the Great War, (1914-18) when his father’s horse and wagon was commandeered for the war effort.
Jack remembers when he was old enough to walk to the village shop for groceries: “Everything was weighed and put into blue paper bags. Bacon was sliced by hand, and wedges of cheese cut with wire. Mixed with all this was the smell of fresh bread baking in the ovens behind the shop and salted and dried fish on the floor.
The Post Office shared the same counter and they sold sweets, butter, paraffin, candles, brushes, and soaps.”
On leaving school, aged 14, Jack worked for Mr. A. Hayball delivering telegrams. Villagers bought 7lb, 14lb and half-hundred weight bags to feed their hens and ducks.
Jack, who was the village builder and carpenter by trade, is still very active and likes to spend a few hours a week in his workshop. Aged 91, he lives in a bungalow just a few hundred yards from where he was born.
In 1996, Jack recorded much of his life in his book Hawkchurch. Extracts will be on display at the Hawkchurch History Society’s Festival, Old Hawkchurch, 19-20 June, at the village church.
Julie Searle, a member of the Hawkchurch History Society, is compliling a family history of Hawkchurch’s oldest family – the Bowditch family. Anyone who would like to contribute to Julie’s work or to the society’s festival may call her on 01297 678622.
Flora Wellbeloved
Flora (Flo) was a child of the 70s. From the age of three, she and her younger sister lived in the village of Thorncombe on the border between Dorset and Devon. Many of her childhood memories are of her mother’s campaigning for CND or Friends of the Earth; and protests at Greenham Common. These activities have influenced Flo’s life, and her thinking and attitude to present day issues.
After leaving school at 17, Flo spent some years moving around before returning to Thorncombe to live with her mother prior to the birth of her son, Zeb, in 1996. She moved to her present home in late 2002 with Zeb and their cat ‘Tinker’.
Not surprisingly, Flo is very concerned to protect her own and her son’s future environment. All that can be is recycled. As both she and Zeb are vegetarians, an allotment provides them with all their own vegetables.
Fitness plays an important part in Flo’s routine and, in addition to her visits to the gym, she and Zeb go to Kenpo Karate classes twice a week. Not being a driver, Flo walks or cycles wherever possible and a favourite walk is along the coastal path to Lyme Regis, usually for her and Zeb to go to the cinema.
Flo is presently on a Counselling Course for Inter Personal Skills with a view to a higher-level Counselling Diploma. When time allows, she also models for photographic and art groups.
Up Front 04/04
City & Guilds, the UK’s leading awarding body for work related, vocational qualifications, recently announced the findings of a piece of research on what was called the ‘Happiness Index’. Compiled to track the satisfaction of the country’s workforce, the research has come up with some interesting findings. The happiest workers in the country are apparently care assistants – whilst the most unhappy are estate agents. Overall, the happiness in the workplace gap was most noticeable between trade and white collar. It seems that twenty one per cent of trade professionals such as plumbers, electricians, builders and hairdressers are ‘extremely happy’ with their job, while only nine per cent of white-collar workers such as accountants, lawyers, architects and estate agents could say the same. Researchers were quick to point out that, ‘hands on’ jobs, such as those done by trade and vocational professionals may well give more immediate job satisfaction, as tangible results are often more easily apparent. The West Country is not exactly awash with high paid jobs and most people eke out a living as best they can, happy to be away from the extra stress of city living and its associated expense. It does have a higher than average number of retired people and with an ageing population and a growing burden on governments’ ability to finance a quality care system, we should be glad that care assistants are the happiest at their jobs. Long may they be happy.
Niki McCretton
Born in Germany, Niki’s early years were spent in Devon before moving to Somerset.
In her arts career Niki has directed, choreographed, written, taught, managed the Tacchi Morris Centre near Taunton and been Press and Publicity Officer for the Chard Festival of Women in Music. In 2000 she received a Year of the Artist award with Bridgwater Arts Centre, coaching local workers to create their own original dance pieces.
However, her first love is performance. In the early days she learned circus skills in Paris and became an accomplished trapeze artist and unicyclist. Her solo performing career was launched in 2001. Her one-woman physical theatre show Worm-Hole received critical acclaim at the Edinburgh Fringe and toured throughout the UK, North America and Prague. A South West Arts award for her next production Heretic led to Niki touring the show throughout the South West, before four months on the road through Canada and the USA.
Niki’s Jack Russell, Paddy, is her devoted companion. They pine for each other when Niki tours. He provided the inspiration for Niki’s children’s show, for the Prague Fringe Festival in 2003. In Throw Me a Bone, Niki plays a small dog awaiting her dinner, passing the time with imaginary adventures. A sell-out success in London and the USA, the show is currently on the Take Art! Rural Touring Circuit in Somerset before further international venues.
For more information about Niki see her website www.nikimccretton.com
Up Front 03/04
Leaked documents are standard fare these days and often serve as a method of deflating public reaction to government initiatives or even to test the strength of opinion on certain issues. The recent ‘leak’ regarding the use of GM products came at the same time as a press release from a team of independent academic researchers studying the value of last summer’s Government-sponsored GM Nation? public debate. The core evaluation team comprised researchers from Cardiff University, the University of East Anglia and the Institute of Food Research. The evaluation team also unveiled a major (UEA/MORI) survey of British public opinion on GM food and crops, conducted immediately after the end of the GM Nation? debate. Key findings suggested that overall opposition to GM food was found to be 36% against, while 13% supported and about two in five (39%) neither supported nor opposed GM food. A large majority (85%) thought that we don’t know enough about the potential long-term effects of GM food on our health and there were very high levels of agreement (79%) that organisations separate from government are needed to regulate GM food. However the report also found that whilst being both innovative and an important experiment in public engagement, the debate failed to engage the uncommitted public (one of its key objectives). It remains to be seen whether the government listens to the ‘uncommitted public’ or those that did engage in the debate.
Up Front 02/04
The story of campaigning pensioner Albert Venison has made many headlines recently. His efforts to make the Government understand the plight of pensioners who are asked to absorb council tax increases far in excess of inflation, has resulted in much media attention. Albert’s efforts are an inspiration to the least mobile and yet most at risk group in our society. The over 60s now make up 20 per cent of the national population and that percentage will increase when the ‘baby-boomer’ generation reaches retirement age. Today’s pensioners are the founders of the welfare state, faithfully paying into government tax funds all their lives. Many now feel they have to take action, even threatening to break the law by not paying their council tax. Children are growing up in the knowledge that their grandparents break the law, believing the law doesn’t care for them. If this is the case why should our children have any faith in any law? Is it any wonder the percentage of voters dwindles, when those we vote for can’t help those most in need. Albert Venison highlights the fact that we can afford to spend vast sums of money on war but can’t pay our citizens a decent pension and protect them from tax hikes. The sad fact is that politics is a short term business, and though many good men and women have entered the fray, the battle to survive what is called the ‘game of politics’ takes up so much energy and time, that real work simply gets sidelined.
Rose Dennison
Rose Dennison farms 260 acres at Pulham, Dorset, with her son John. They run a 120-cow dairy, grow organic vegetables, and produce organic free-range eggs, selling locally through a box-scheme. Long-term members of the Countryside Stewardship Scheme, the Dennisons’ farm is a haven for wildlife and threatened plant species.
Molly Chesil
Molly Chesil was born within a stone’s throw of Chesil beach. She has lived in Dorset ever since and has a great appreciation of its countryside. Currently, she is working for her A levels, is particularly enjoying the psychology course and hopes to go on to study Law. In her spare time, Molly works at a stable training racehorses and is a keen supporter of the Dorset Horn Drag Racing team.
