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Derek Stevens 12/10

By
MV
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Grand Admiral Doenitz, the mind behind the submarine war against the Allies and who had been made Commander of the German Navy in 1943, was made leader of the German nation after the death of Adolf Hitler. On the instructions of the new fuhrer General Jodl, Chief-of-Staff of the German High Command, attended the HQ of the Supreme Allied Commander, General Eisenhower, on the morning of May 7, 1945 and signed the documents of an unconditional surrender. This marked the end of the war in Europe. It was fascinating, therefore, to read press reports of the time about two men from Lyme Regis who figured prominently in the historic career of the last of the Nazi leaders.

 

Under the heading ‘Lyme Commodore Sank His U-Boat – Last War Incident Recalled’, one report ran:- ‘Grand Admiral Doenitz was captured in the last war by a Lyme Regis Lieutenant Commander, now Commodore Humphrey Best, CBE, DSO, RN. He was senior officer of a convoy sailing to Tunisia on October 4, 1918. Here is the story as told by Commodore Best: “We were very much on the alert. One of the ships in the convoy had been torpedoed during the night. The weather was clear and the sea calm. At 6 o’clock one of the escort vessels ahead of the convoy reported a submarine on the surface. I was commanding HMS Snapdragon, a 1,200 ton sloop, which was bringing up the rear. I ordered the convoy to alter course away from the direction of the submarine. In the meantime the submarine, which we afterwards discovered to be the UB68, a medium sized vessel of about 500 tons, made a crash dive. In doing so she must have thrown her hydroplanes out of adjustment, for soon afterwards she broke surface astern of the convoy.

 

“She was hit repeatedly by the Snapdragon’s guns as well as by shells from the other ships and it was not long before we saw her men scrambling out of the conning tower and plunging into the sea. The U-Boat was obviously too badly damaged to survive, so after she sank we dropped depth charges to make certain. About 30 of her officers and men were picked up including her commanding officer, Oberleutnant Karl Doenitz. We were not favourably impressed with the Oberleutnant’s behaviour. He was surly and bad tempered; in fact he acted like a typical Prussian. He would not admit that he knew English.

 

“He was soaked to the skin, so I lent him a spare suit of my uniform. I landed him and the other prisoners at Malta a few hours later, and then the clothes were returned to me with a short note in English. Maybe it had been written for him. It read:- ‘Malta, 7.10.18, Valet Ëta Barracks.- Sir, I got these things from the captain of HMS Snapdragon. May I ask you to send them back to him with many thanks from me. I have the honour to be yours respectfully, Doenitz, Oberleutnant.’

 

“As far as we can gather the U-Boat had been operating under Doenitz’s command from an Adriatic base for some months. She had almost completed a patrol and was to return to her base when we sank her.” Commander Best was awarded the Distinguished Service Order for the sinking. He fought at Jutland, Served with the Grand Fleet and in 1917 returned to convoy work in the Mediterranean. Retiring in 1923 he settled in Lyme Regis, but returned to active service at the start of the Second World War. In December 1943, Doenitz told Hitler he was going to attack Allied naval convoys destined for the Arctic ports of Russia with the Battleships Tirpitz and Scharnhorst. Tirpitz had to be withdrawn from the attack due to damage inflicted by Royal Navy miniature submarines. Scharnhorst was the focus of national pride with its handsome clipper bow and its top speed of 33 knots. As she left her Norwegian port for the attack an alert was radioed by the Norwegian resistance. Further confirmation was gathered from Bletchley Park which had cracked the enigma code and had been listening into German radio traffic. As the battleship steamed towards the convoy 13 allied warships gathered to intercept her, including the battleship Duke of York, and cruisers Belfast, Norfolk and Sheffield. But it was the cruiser Jamaica who fired the last three of the 11 torpedoes to find their mark and it was in this action in which another Lyme naval officer figured. Under the heading, ‘Last Minutes of the Scharnhorst – Lyme Regis Officer’s Final Blow’, the press article ran:- ‘Lieut. Commander P. Chavasse, DSC, RN, whose home is in Lyme Regis, had the honour of delivering the final blow to the battleship Scharnhorst. He was torpedo officer of the cruiser Jamaica.

“We were astern of the Duke of York and were trying to dodge the Scharnhorst’s shells, and didn’t like it much. Then the C. in C. signalled Jamaica to close the enemy and finish her off. We altered course towards her bows and closed at high speed. By star shell we saw the black mass of the Scharnhorst and we let fly with our torpedoes. The target was blacked out with smoke at the critical moment so we did another swing and fired three more from our starboard tubes.

“The enemy seemed to resent this and blazed away with secondary armament and close-range weapons, but most of the stuff went over our heads. There were two heavy explosions, specially the second one. When the smoke cleared we saw the Scharnhorst lying on her side. She looked like a whale that had just come up for air, except that she was ablaze from stem to stern.

 

“I was doing a running commentary on the ship’s loudspeakers on the course of the action. I said ‘This is Boxing-day, 1943, bulletin No 49 – Scharnhorst sunk,’ A mighty cheer went up from every part of the ship.

 

“Some of the Scharnhorst’s stuff dropped so close about us that a great column of water rose high into the air and crashed onto the bridge, nearly drowning us, but we sustained no damage.”

 

Despite the flavour of victory which the Royal Navy must have savoured from the result of the Battle of the North Cape, as this naval engagement was to be called, it is sobering to think that out of a ship’s complement of 1,968 aboard the Scharnhorst, only 6 German sailors survived. Admiral Doenitz was indicted as a major war criminal at the Nuremberg War Crimes Tribunal. Found guilty he was imprisoned in Spandau Prison, Berlin, for ten years. He died of a heart attack in December 1980.

December in the Garden 2010

By
Marshwood
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It seems like a pretty standard descent into winter so far. It’s easy to forget that the newly bare stems will remain that way for almost six months because it is well into May before the leaf canopy is fully reinstated. A lot of weather can happen between now and then – remember the ‘big freeze’ last winter – so invest in some horticultural fleece and keep it on standby.

 

Dubiously hardy specimens that are too large to bring under cover, or are planted in the ground rather than in pots, might just make it through given a wrap of fleece. As ever, improving soil drainage with gravel and keeping the rain off (easier said than done) will guard against death by winter wet. In my own garden the most important borderline tender plants which I need to get through the winter, because they behave like biennials, are bushy Echiums. Having grown them from seedlings, given to me by a gardening friend, I really want them to reach flowering size so that I can then collect seeds of my own after their flowering finale next summer.

 

There’s not a lot in the way of propagating that you can successfully undertake at this time of year, but hardwood cuttings are an exception. Ribes (currants), Cornus (dogwoods), Rosa (roses), Spiraea and deciduous Viburnums are all possible candidates but it’s worth experimenting with anything deciduous. The most straightforward method is simply to cut a good length, at least a foot, of recently grown twig or stem. Make a sloping cut above a bud at the tip end and a flat cut below a bud at the base end. Insert this cutting into forked over soil in a sheltered spot in the garden so that only the top couple of inches, or three buds, are above ground level.

The location should be somewhere where the cuttings will remain undisturbed and exposed to as few extremes of light and temperature as possible. The reason for burying them so deep, and for having such a good length of stem, is that they have to have enough ‘oomph’ about them to survive a long dormant season and still have some stored energy left to start rooting as soon as conditions allow. If no sheltered spot is available then making a cuttings bed inside the protection of a coldframe will improve success rates. Keep an eye on how they’re doing as drying out is the major cause of failure – remember that when they break dormancy in the spring they may not have actually grown any roots!

 

Check the cuttings after periods of frosty weather because the freeze / thaw action may heave the rootless twigs out of the ground. Simply firm them back in if the soil in the cuttings bed has become loosened. Elsewhere in the garden this fracturing action actually helps to break down large clods of earth left over from rough digging. If you have any ground which is currently vacant roughly digging it over during dry weather, adding a decent amount of organic matter as necessary, will allow you to take maximum advantage of this helpful frost action.

 

Some less helpful aspects of freezing weather are fractured ponds where the rigid liner is split by solid ice forming and burst pipes to outside taps. The former can be avoided by floating deformable objects in the pond, I find lumps of wood have just enough ‘give’ in them, and the latter is prevented by draining down the pipe, where possible, or lagging with plenty of bubblewrap, fixed over the tap and exposed pipe, if draining is not feasible. It’s worth remembering to avoid walking on frosted lawns as there is a danger that the grass beneath the compacted frost will die and you’ll be left with semi-permanent footprints across your lawn.

 

Fortunately Santa will not be leaving footprints across your lawn as he, as everyone knows, comes down the chimney. In this new era of austerity I think it would be a real false economy to neglect your garden. Your major expense should be time, not money, as the more you grow yourself, rather than buying ‘instant’ plants, the more money you will save. With this in mind I guess the best Christmas presents have to be propagating tools, seeds and a sharp cuttings knife. Compliments of the season to one and all…

Up Front 12/10

By
Marshwood
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I should preface this by saying I think there are probably a lot of good things on television… however, these days I have four young children obsessing about the X factor, the dance factor or whatever other factor programmers have devised to hook their viewers. I do understand though: I can remember at various times being a little obsessed by Tom & Jerry and later Batman, Mission Impossible was great for a while too, and then there was Tomorrow’s World – I may have even sneaked a peek at The Waltons a few times. I remember how television influenced my view of what the world would be like. Tomorrow’s World not only gripped me, but it convinced me that many of the world’s problems could be solved by scientific advances. We would be able to deal with hunger, energy shortages, disease and other global problems by working together and investing in science, technology and medicine. Of course I hadn’t taken into account the one factor that is the lynchpin of every game show on television – the human factor. Much of what I saw on Tomorrow’s World was inspirational; it pushed many a youngster toward a career in science and must take credit for producing at least a handful of useful inventors. Sadly, the human factor is more likely to push today’s budding scientists to look for short term financial or celebrity gain than long term solutions to global problems. So instead of seeking tomorrow’s world solutions, prime time programming is now designed to inspire children to become pop stars, celebrities or hard nosed businessmen and women. And just in case they decide to look beyond those aspirations, it seems we now want to make it harder for them to afford a university education.

Tim Laycock

By
Marshwood
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“I was actually born in a village called Sherston, in 1952, which is in Wiltshire near Malmsbury, where my Dad was a teacher at the village school. When I was about 4, Dad became headmaster at Fontmell Magna School, near Shaftsbury, so we moved there, and lived as a family in the Victorian school house. That was where I grew up, and because there was a door which led straight from our kitchen into the classroom, of course I was never late for school. In one of the kitchen cupboards was an old metal handle which in former times would have rung the school bell. I remember in the middle of one night, when we were all asleep, there was a terrible crash, which turned out to be the bell falling off the tower into the classroom below; had it happened in the day-time when there were children in there, it would have probably led to tragedy in Fontmell Magna.

 

I’ve got three brothers, one a sailor, the others teachers. I’m the only one who’s stayed in Dorset, the others moving away for their work. I went to Fontmell Magna School as did all my brothers, and later in life my children went to the same school. So the whole family was very much involved in education, and I don’t remember there ever being a problem having my parents as teachers. Dad was always scrupulously fair, and because it was a small school, only three classes with about 25 children in each class, it all seemed very friendly and laid-back. After the village school, I went to Shaftsbury Grammar School, and then to Norwich to the University of East Anglia. The two subjects I’d enjoyed most at school were English and History, so that’s what I did, but I hadn’t really got a clear idea of what I wanted to do after that.

 

The music started in dribs and drabs, really. At school, I took violin lessons, mainly to avoid having double geometry on Thursdays, but it wasn’t my instrument and I stopped. It was of course the late sixties, the time of the Beatles, Simon and Garfunkel, and Bob Dylan, and many of my friends and I were learning and playing acoustic guitar so I arrived at University able to play guitar to a reasonable level. I’ve never actually had any music training. In Norwich there was a very vibrant folk music scene, and I became completely hooked on it. I was infatuated with traditional music, “story songs”, and squeeze boxes, and I began to think this might be something I could do. I was lucky to have a mentor in Norwich, a remarkable man called Peter Coleman, a butcher. There were still traditional singers in the area whose songs, performed unaccompanied, had been handed down orally through family and friends, and Peter felt it was very important that these songs shouldn’t disappear. There was something he liked in my approach to the music, and he taught me many of the songs. He also taught me something about the philosophy of these old songs, about why anyone would want to sing this 300-year old music and pass it on to other people. So I have a lot to thank him for; he instilled in me a love of oral tradition, of inherited stories and song, which has really informed everything I’ve done since.

 

There was quite a lively folk music scene at the time, folk clubs were well-attended, and I came in on the tail-end of that. After university I wanted to perform, and like Dick Whittington, that necessitated a move to London. Getting residencies in folk clubs, I started by singing and accompanying myself on guitar, and on concertina which I had started learning in Norwich. There were many famous performers on the London folk scene in the 1970’s like Martin Carthy and the Waterstons, and they remain famous, their talents running in their families. In the late seventies I worked with Taffy Thomas, who ran a group called Magic Lantern, which was a shadow puppet show with story-telling and traditional music. It was quite a big Arts Council supported national touring show, and they recruited me, which was my first professional job. As well as the singing and playing, it involved different performing styles such as acting and puppet-making, and this experience reawakened my interest in acting, something I’d done right back in Fontmell Magna.

 

At the end of its life Magic Lantern led me to Suffolk, and living back in East Anglia I became involved with local music-making, where there was a strong presence of an older generation of singers and musicians. They hadn’t learned their music through folk clubs, they’d been performing it all their lives in their own traditional way, and listening to people like them playing and singing has always been my main inspiration. I’m fascinated by the way they sing their songs, the way they tell their stories, and I’m trying to carry some of that on, by listening to them, and analysing why the way they perform is so effective, rather than trying to sound like them. If I go to watch the Symondsbury Mummers play at Christmas, not only has that play been performed continuously for hundreds of years, but the performance style is inherited as well. That comes from a respect for tradition, and its timeless quality; it’s not about nostalgia, it’s about a long-established way of performing the actual work, and that excites me. The strength of the music, written in very different times, keeps it relevant to the present day. It can be performed in so many different ways, with different accompaniment or harmonies, and even though the words may be dated, the emotions within the songs have as much power as ever. The love stories, the stories of troubled times, the celebrations, are as much a part of our lives today as they ever were. Here in Dorset, probably more than any other county, there’s an extraordinary wealth of tradition in local folk songs, and also in Thomas Hardy’s and William Barnes’s work.

 

My wife Angela and I came back to live in Dorset, to Iwerne Minster, just before George, our youngest son, was born. It was a very special time for us; by now we had three children, Gabriel, Polly and George, and we lived just over the fence from their Granny and Grandad. I was lucky enough to work with the National Theatre, playing the concertina in the Beggar’s Opera and several other plays. That led to quite a long working life with other theatre companies, but it was mainly work based on knowledge and love for traditional music. I’ve also worked on community plays, On Green Rock in Shaftsbury, and A Time to Keep, in Dorchester in 2007. It was fantastic working on a local production, getting to know the local community in a different light and watching different talents emerge.

 

I’ve been playing with the New Scorpion Band for 17 years now. We play a huge range of instruments and different regional styles of traditional music that appeal to a wide audience. Lately I’ve been working on Thomas Hardy’s The Distracted Preacher, adapted for the stage by a good friend of mine, Ray Sergeant, who sadly died of cancer, as a kind of tribute to him. Again, we’re lucky living in Dorset having access to so much good performance, and I’m sure one of the main stimulants to this is Artsreach, whose programme encompasses an astonishing range and quality. You can see stuff which is every bit as good as anything in London, with the bonus of being so close to the performance.

 

Two years ago, riding my bike into Dorchester, I suffered a heart attack. One of the positive things to come out of that event is that I no longer travel ridiculous distances to performances, and mainly work locally. Our house here in Bradford Peverell has become the hub of the family wheel. My Dad lives here with us, we have a large garden and love working in it, and now we’re grandparents to my daughter Polly’s little Rosie, so they visit frequently, as do my brothers and their families. As a family we lived closely when I was young, and we’re still close. Dorset, and my family, has been an inspiration.

Strictly Christmas

By
MV
-

Only a few short weeks to go now… the agony of expectation, the excitement, the joy and the disappointment… I can’t wait… No, I’m not talking about Father Christmas and what he might put in my stocking. I’m talking about who will be Strictly Dancing Queen and King for Christmas and who’ll be crowned as Exalted X Factor winner? Yes, we might have global starvation, riots, civil strife and catastrophic floods and England might even win the Ashes, but it seems more likely that people would rather watch Matt singing on Saturdays dressed in his new skimpy vest. So, let’s forget about important things like the Prime Minister’s speech or Afghanistan, and concentrate instead upon Ann Widdedombe’s Latin Mambo. Is your company going bust or are you losing your job? Don’t worry because Strictly will lighten the gloom. Hurry, hurry – only another 10 X Factor days till Christmas.

Really? Is this Reality TV? No, it’s a total escape from Reality – not something linked to it. But it doesn’t make any difference what I think, because the whole nation has been captured by Simon Cowell. I feel as if I’m living in a sci-fi horror movie. You know the one… I’m the only human being left alive after Saturday night when the rest of the country has become zombified – all of them comatose, wide-eyed and unconscious in front of their tellies.

I think I now understand the secret plan. It’s to make us all forget the real world and become smiling yes-people. No pain, no more problems, no economic gloom – just smile and let Louis Walsh wash over you. Life’s a bewitching game show – all organised at a very high level since both ITV and BBC have been told to co-ordinate their schedules. No longer do both channels fight each other’s ratings like they normally do. Instead, they’ve joined forces to transmit a double blast in successive minutes… it’s unstoppable – Strictly followed immediately by X Factor. The energy generated by 30 million people clicking their remotes at the same time to change channels surely generates enough power to illuminate the many thousands of Christmas garden light displays throughout the Marshwood Vale area. Earth may be about to be struck by an enormous asteroid, but luckily there’s no panic as everyone’s much too busy watching TV. And if they did look up into the night sky, they’d probably think the rapidly approaching interplanetary object was a TV promotion for Cheryl Cole. Either that or it’s a Laser powered Christmas hairpiece to publicise Bruce Forsyth.

By all meanings of the word, it’s a phenomenon. The huge success of both programmes (and the major boost in publicity to those brave enough to take part) has not gone unnoticed in Westminster. For no other reason would Vince Cable have apparently agreed to star on Strictly Come Dancing this Christmas! So is this to be the pattern of the promised electoral reform? Will our elections now be judged on the candidates’ singing skills or their ability to walk a tightrope? Perhaps electoral losers will be voted off stage one by one amid tears and screams from crowds of teenage fans. I can see Euro elections similar to the Eurovision song contest – all decided by panels of international ‘experts’ and massed phone-in votes with a strong anti-UK bias. In which case, the next President of the European parliament is likely to be an overweight blonde singing group from Oslo. This might even be an improvement. It would certainly generate considerably more public interest than a normal Euro turnout and transform a rather dull democratic process into a top rated TV show. With this in mind, our Prime Minister has been spotted practicing his air guitar technique for the next Conservative Party Conference while Mr Miliband is doing a crash course in fire eating and stage juggling. President Obama should by now be practicing his Cha Cha Cha routine for the 2012 US nomination. He may need to improve his Salsa.

Nearer to home, I gather that Lyme Regis Town Council will in future be judged not on the members’ political abilities but on their flower arrangement skills. Will Labour hold onto Exeter in the forthcoming Morris Dancing election? Will the Lib Dems still retain Yeovil if the candidates are to be judged on their rap and hip-hop dance techniques? Can Oliver Letwin hang onto West Dorset if he can’t dance the Charleston? The answers to all of these questions are veiled in a future haze of showbiz glitz and flashing light bulbs and have nothing to do with reality. But Simon Cowell will probably own every UK TV channel by then, so they’ll all have to ask his permission before they take part. And you think I’m joking…

Sprouts

By
Marshwood
-

Sprouts are delicious eaten raw, crunchy and slightly hot in flavour. Over-boiling has damaged the reputation of sprouts, as they are difficult to get just right when cooking next to over a dozen other dishes on Christmas Day. Do them a favour and stir fry with bacon and chestnut this year.

Generally, the earlier you sow, the earlier the sprouts form, regardless of variety. Plant between March and May, in March you may need to start them indoors for a healthy and strong start, and will harvest in the autumn. We start all ours in large modules, and plant out only the strongest plants, sinking them as far below ground level as we dare, to give them a strong stem.

To do well, the plants need 2 feet spacing each way, which looks like a lot of bare soil at the time, but which should fill by July. You could try planting a catch crop of early carrots or lettuce in the gaps.

All cabbage varieties are preyed on by a multitude of voracious pests. My answer is plenty of organic matter in the soil, and enviromesh. Enviromesh doesn’t look great and is expensive, but is wonderful. No caterpillars, root fly, flea beetle or pigeon damage.

In our area we had no Large Cabbage White caterpillars this year. Our curly kales and purple sprouting, which we can’t afford Enviromesh for, were untouched. More dry and hot years, please, obviously the butterfly didn’t like it. If your brassica were under large mesh netting, there was quite a bit of the small cabbage white caterpillar damage. Birds will eat the Small White but not the Large White, which has developed an unpleasant toxin to repel prey.

This Enviromesh, my favourite new toy, acts like a mini greenhouse, and in this dry summer cut out much wind, and so the need for water, and our cabbages are bigger than ever. Not to mention our leeks, kept completely clear of the dreaded leek moth. If you suffer from flea beetle, get that mesh or fleece on the day you plant, and seal firmly at soil level.

This Enviromesh is useful also for keeping cabbage root fly at bay if you are growing in an allotment. Growing your own plants will avoid the introduction of nasties such as cabbage root fly and clubfoot.

Getting back to sprouts, F1 varieties are reckoned to give best results, with lots of uniform sized and firm sprouts. Generally you get quite a few seeds in each packet, around 150 even for F1, which will last most growers for several years. This year I used 3 year old organic F1 Igor seeds. My planting in May was on the late side, and they’ll most likely be ready after Christmas.

Not only do you get the sprouts, but also the top growth of the plants, delicious cooked whole. If your sprouts are loose rather than tight buttons, the flavour is just as good. A busy mole has moved in under ours this year, but the sprouts are looking tight, even though they like firm soil.

What’s the most popular wine at a Christmas meal? “Do I have to eat my Brussels sprouts?”

Derek Stevens 11/10

By
MV
-

One of the memorable events of the early part of the victory year of 1945 for the children of Uplyme primary school was the start of a daily delivery of hot lunches. Cooked in the canteen of Axminster secondary school the food was ferried over by van in stainless steel containers. One problem, I can remember, was that the vegetables had a distinctly metallic flavour, but it was certainly an improvement on the tin oven on top of the large classroom heater in which pasties could be heated or, if the wind was in the right direction, potatoes could be baked. Somehow it seemed to be part of the reward for the coming victory which was becoming an assured thing.

When victory in Europe eventually came local newspapers ran headlines such as Cheers at Victory Parade in Honiton, Hi Jinks in Ilminster, Colyton Goes Gay. In my village of Rousdon a VE-Day celebration was held on the playing fields of Alhallows School. I remember I won a black rabbit in the raffle which I named ‘Victory’. Four months later we were to celebrate VJ-Day, the end of the war in the Far East. I was in Barnet, north of London, with my cousin Jean with whom I had been evacuated at the outbreak of war. We walked around the streets in and out of street parties and around bonfires. I remember being somewhat shocked as I heard crowds singing ‘Roll me over in the clover, lay me down and do it again’. Quite shocking I thought.

So the war was over, a war I had lived through as a small child, an experience with several memorable highlights along the way. Finding ourselves surrounded by parked up tanks one morning, the British army on manoeuvres. Wire wool patterns of con trails in the sky as RAF and Luftewaffe pilots fought it out in the blue. The sound of bagpipes as the Black Watch route marched around Devonshire lanes. Passing Czech soldiers on sentry duty as I passed the dower house on my way to school. A ‘Queen Mary’ aircraft recovery vehicle outside our front gates loading a Spitfire which had crash landed and capsized in the field opposite, and from which my mother had extracted the pilot from his inverted cockpit. The arrival of convoys of American GIs showering us with candy and chewing gum. The sight of 94 Lancaster bombers flying at treetop height along the valley of the river Axe on their way to a target on the Franco-Swiss border. Playing on the golf course at Seaton one summer’s day when two Focke Wulf 190s flew in from the channel on a hit-and-run attack, hitting the town’s gasometers and leaving a plume of orange smoke rising into the sunlit evening sky. The build up towards D-Day of long lines of US Army vehicles, so many that it was jokingly observed that the only thing stopping the UK from sinking into the sea was the number of barrage balloons keeping it aloft. The great armada of aircraft blackening the sky on D-Day as they flew soldiers off to war on the Normandy coast. Being driven home by a GI friend from Lyme Regis in a jeep with gifts of a baseball kit and a turkey, unwanted by soldiers of the 66th Division as they were being shipped off to war on that Christmas Eve of 1944. The surprise arrival of new evacuees crowding out the classroom as Nazi vengeance weapons, V1s and V2s, began to arrive in London and the home counties. Of another surprise arrival as, unexpectedly, my father came into view over the brow of the hill as I made by way to school one morning. I played truant that day.

Perhaps the most significant event marking the end of the war for us in the west was the surrender of the first Nazi submarine at Weymouth. The local press report ran:-

In Weymouth Bay on Thursday morning, only a mile out from the sea front, the first German submarine surrendered to the Royal Navy. She was the U249 and had on board 5 officers and 43 ratings. She is believed to have been at sea for 40 days, and her young looking commander was Ober-Leut, Kock.

The U-boat had surfaced west of the Lizard on Wednesday and two Plymouth sloops were ordered to escort her into Weymouth Bay for the surrender. The submarines was flying a black flag as she surfaced. When sighted off Portland she was seen to be flying the White Ensign over the German flag.

Commander Wier of the RN boarded the submarine. A Polish armed guard was also put aboard. They later escorted the U-Boat’s crew to a prison cage.

Receiving the signed declaration of surrender Rear-Admiral Scott commented “It seems appropriate to me that the first U-Boat to surrender after the war should do so at Weymouth, the spiritual home of the Royal Navy’s Anti-Submarne Service” The Admiral then ordered the following signal to be made: “The German Ensign is to be hauled down at sunset and is not to be hoisted again”. In a following item, as though to endorse the surrender, it was reported :- The Secretary of the Admiralty has announced that lighting restrictions in coastal areas are no longer needed for defence purposes and are to be removed from the whole country”.

A little later I was to learn that I had passed my scholarship to Lyme Regis Grammar School. I would be spending the following three years there before my return to London, so there is a little more to tell.

Fergus Byrne P&F

By
Marshwood
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After nearly ten years producing the Marshwood Vale Magazine I have been fortunate to have enjoyed memories, anecdotes and stories from hundreds of local, as well as not so local people. They have ranged from fishermen and farmers, policemen and politicians and gardeners and chefs, through musicians, artists, potters and writers – and that’s naming just a fraction of the many careers we have been fortunate enough to hear about over the years. It surprised me recently when I realised that very few of them had kept a diary, their stories brought back through memory alone. In this issue of people and food we feature Josceline Dimbleby, whose new book, Orchards in the Oasis, benefitted hugely from the fact that she kept a diary, which she told me recently she still writes in every night before she goes to bed. It is full of memories of people, places and the food that surrounded her as she grew up. Her stepfather, Bill, was a diplomat, so she spent time in many different countries in her formative years. She writes of Bill’s descriptions of celebrations for the Queens birthday while he was based in Peru. ‘At midday we had the Peruvians and the diplomats – four hundred,’ he wrote, and continued, ‘and in the evening we had the British Colony – five hundred of them, who fell on the food like vampires, ground their cigarettes into the carpets and drank five dozen bottles of whisky, two dozen of brandy, one dozen of gin and a lot of vermouth and beer’. Her memories of Jemaa el Fina in Marrakech describe ‘Bowls of hot snails and plates of just-grilled mutton, goat, lamb’s brains, merguez sausages, chicken, whole fish, aubergines and other vegetables…’ Of her time spent in London, Josceline describes the local butcher’s shop in Old Brompton Road: ‘pale sawdust on the floor and the butcher, with his round, rosy face and large stomach under blood-spattered overalls’, as just what she thought an English butcher should be. No so long ago I came across some old notes in my father’s handwriting which I didn’t immediately recognise. He had been asked by one of my brothers to jot down some of his memories of growing up in the village where we lived, and had obviously not had time to write more than a few sketchy details. I still treasure those few descriptions he left and wish he had kept a diary. I hope that Marshwood Vale and people and food will stir good memories for our readers for many years to come.

Up Front 11/10

By
Marshwood
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You’d think that launching a new food magazine and visiting one of the most popular Food Fairs in the country would be two good reasons to forget about a healthy eating diet for a while. But no, two weeks after the launch of our new magazine, people and food, I spent a day at the Eat Dorset Food Fair outside Beaminster, marvelling at (and only occasionally sampling) a selection of some of the finest foods produced in the South West. On a crisp autumn weekend the crowds came out in their thousands and producers, chefs and food lovers combined to give the whole event a party atmosphere. One local chef showed recipes using foraged food from nearby woodland. Foraging has been popular for some time but has recently become even more in vogue after being heavily promoted by many high profile chefs. However the question of legality still rears its head occasionally. Which is why I was delighted to read a comment this week from a representative of the National Trust about scrumping. Throughout October many people in the country have been celebrating Apple Day and one BBC journalist highlighted the question of legality asking ‘if you don’t own the land on which it grows, can you legally pick it?’ In most cases the answer is no, it’s not legal. However Matthew Oates, the National Trust’s conservation advisor has suggested that the chances of being prosecuted for taking a couple of apples from a National Trust orchard are pretty slim. “Our view” he said “is to invite people to come and do it on National Trust land if it’s for personal or family consumption.” In a week where government cuts are going to bite hard into rural pockets, that sounds like a good, healthy invitation.

November in the Garden 2010

By
Marshwood
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November is one of those months when gardening activity is largely dictated by the whims of the weather. In a ‘normal’ year it is the final chance for those activities which depend on the last vestiges of warmth and active root growth – such as moving trees, shrubs, herbaceous perennials and the like. It is also the first chance to start those tasks which rely on the lack of plant growth and the onset of winter dormancy; pruning of roses, planting bare root stock, digging fallow soil.

Rose pruning is something which, as far as I am concerned, can wait a while longer as roses will only just be ‘slowing down’ and there is the whole winter still ahead of us. On tall specimens, especially those in exposed positions, it is a good idea to reduce the growth by about half to lessen the likelihood of ‘wind rock’ in autumnal gales. They can get their full prune towards the end of winter.

Recently I have been getting ‘stuck-in’ to a garden in Netherbury which is blessed with a huge variety of trees, shrubs and roses. Whilst musing, with the proud owner, on why I enjoy pruning so much I rather inadvisably blurted out that it was most satisfying to tackle those plants which are really ‘thug-like’ because it feels good to ‘teach them a lesson’!

The reality is that it’s the vigorous specimens which need to be kept in balance with their less brutish neighbours and pruning is one way to achieve this. For the record I count roses, especially the climbing varieties, as particularly ‘naughty’ and for that reason I show them no mercy; this is the secret to successful rose pruning.

It’s definitely chilly now so tender plants should be under cover with some frost protection. Use bubble-wrap fixed with special glazing clips, readily available from garden centres or online, to insulate the greenhouse so that additional heat input will only be necessary on the coldest nights. For those people fortunate enough to have a lovely wooden greenhouse, good old-fashioned drawing pins (remember them?) can be used in place of the glazing clips.

If you can run power to your greenhouse then a simple electric greenhouse heater, with a ‘frostguard’ setting, should protect your plants even when temperatures remain sub-zero for a prolonged period, as they did last winter. Paraffin heaters are a bit more temperamental plus they have the side affect of producing water vapour and carbon dioxide which can be a problem in a ‘bubble-wrapped’ greenhouse. They are, however, better than nothing where electricity is not available.

Most borderline hardy plants can survive a British winter as long as they are kept relatively dry. It’s the cold combined with winter wet which is their undoing so just being under cover, even without additional heat, is often enough.

Any specimens which I do not trust, even in the ‘frostguarded’ greenhouse, I bring indoors and leave on the few windowsills I possess. I have single-glazed windows, draughty floorboards and no central heating so they are not subjected to the tropical temperatures which most people expect in their homes these days – what’s wrong with putting on another jumper? It is, by the miracle of a ‘Rayburn’ left on its lowest setting, warm enough to keep a plant such as Sprekelia formosissima (Aztec Lily) just ticking over which is what it needs if it is to flower the following summer.

Looking ahead reminds me that now’s the time to plant tulips if you’ve been holding off, quite sensibly, to reduce the threat of ‘tulip fire’ (a nasty disease which is less prevalent in tulips planted as late as this). I’m always on the lookout for new containers for filling with bulbs as there never seems to be enough space in the garden proper. In the past, when working with a certain ‘thrifty’ presenter, I was tasked to check that wine boxes were widely available so that viewers with no gardens could copy her technique of raising vegetables. Our local brewer was less than helpful but, on a national scale, I was assured that they could be tracked down with a bit of ingenuity.

Imagine my delight when it turns out that a neighbour of my sister’s in Morcombelake has taken it upon herself to source them so now I don’t have to spend hours on the phone tracking them down – I can just get them from our brilliant Bridport market. Of course they won’t last forever as planters, wet soil and wood conspire to decay, but they look better as they age and they will last longer if lined with old compost bags, remembering to make drainage holes in both the polythene and the boxes. Alternatively don’t get them wet but use them stacked up to store all those bits and pieces that otherwise just swill around in the shed. While I think of it; filled with layers of damp sand they could be perfect for storing root vegetables for the winter…

Rather than getting carried away with ‘100 uses for a wooden wine crate’ I should be doing some of those mundane tasks which become necessary at this time of year. Collecting leaves from the lawn is one such chore. Even though the lawn will only require cutting in very mild weather, if at all, sometimes you can save yourself the bother of raking up leaves by running your lawnmower over it, at its highest setting, so that the mower shreds and collects the leaves for you. Not a good idea to do this on wet and soggy lawns, or if the leaves are inches thick, but a regular run over the lawn in dry weather should get the worst of them up. Corral them in chicken wire ‘cages’, in a hidden part of the garden, to rot down over time to make lovely leafmould.

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Sibyl King

Marshwood -
'I have loved Dorset from the first moment that I arrived. I was 25 and had never been abroad before. Each new sight and...

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