Motcombe Community Shop sails on

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18 April 2024

Early in April, Stalbridge’s Olympic hopeful, 17-year-old Ruby Else White, travelled to Croatia for the EUBC Youth European Boxing Championships in Poreč. Fighting in the Under 48kg category, Ruby beat the French junior champion, Mathilda Fragnieres, in the final by RSC*. Reporting on the bout, the French Boxing Federation’s website FFboxe, commented ‘The young Frenchwoman was dominated by an excellent English boxer, undefeated and reigning European junior champion, who surprised her with her left hook and her speed of execution.’

Ruby White is crowned 3 x European Champion

Coming home to Dorset, a swift ‘meet-and-greet’ was organised so the village could show their pride and affection for the teenager who has grown up in their midst, and whose stepdad is the village butcher.

Crowds greet European Champion Ruby Else-White in Stalbridge. Image: Courtenay Hitchcock

As the crowd lined the pavement of Stalbridge’s High Street, they couldn’t help but chat about Ruby:

‘What an accomplishment. I remember when she was a little thing at Stalbridge Primary – and now look at her! Second in the world! What an amazing girl she is, she’s worked so hard,’ one Stalbridge resident was heard to say. Another agreed: ‘Its not easy, with all the distractions a teenager faces. What a moment for her! The whole village is so proud of what she’s achieved.’

‘She’s amazing,’ chimed in a third member of the waiting crowd. ‘To come from a little place like Stalbridge, and be second in the world, and that’s really something!’

Ruby Else-White in Stalbridge. Image: Courtenay Hitchcock

Ruby walked up through the village with her mum, and hesitated when she saw so many people cheering and applauding – seemingly overwhelmed that so many had turned out to congratulate her on her win. Later, as she signed cards for well-wishers she said, ‘This is mad! It’s like I’m a celebrity!’

In an exclusive interview with The BV last month, coach Shaun Weeks had warned Ruby would find the European tournament tough: ‘She could be coming up against girls who are well into their 18th year,’ he said. ‘She could be giving away nearly two years to the oldest girls in her new age bracket.’

Ruby (left) in the final against Mathilda Fragnieres of France

Ruby is now ranked second in the world for her weight, and has been named Great Britain’s most hopeful Olympic athlete for 2028.

Julian Else with Ruby Else-White. Image: Courtenay Hitchcock

Julian Else, Ruby’s stepdad, couldn’t disguise his joy as he wrapped her in a hug.
‘We’re just all so, so proud of her!’ he told the BV. ‘It’s amazing to see everyone out, supporting her. She’s worked so hard, and most of what she does goes unseen, so to have everyone turn out like this, it’s amazing. We just couldn’t be more proud of her.’

‘I’m just so full of pride for her. I’m still not sure she realises just how good she is!’ added Heidi Else, Ruby’s mum. ‘My famous saying is “let’s see what happens” … and it keeps happening! Her focus is now on the Tri-Nations – if anyone will get in the ring with her! – and then it’s her dream, the Worlds in November.’

Ruby White with her family. Image: Courtenay Hitchcock

While letting Ruby enjoy her win, Shaun is also looking firmly to the big year ahead: ‘After the Tri-Nations, we have our eyes firmly fixed on the World Championships. We’re hoping Ruby will be boxing for a world title at the end of the year.’

Ruby Else-White Honours:
3 x MTK Lonsdale Box Cup Champion
5 x Western Counties Champion
National Cadet Champion
Bristol Box Cup Champion
Riviera Box Cup Champion
National Schools Champion
2 x National Junior Champion
2 x GB Tri-Nations Junior Champion
European Nations Cup Junior Champion
2 x Women’s Winter Box Cup Champion
National Youth Champion
4 x Golden Girls Box cup Champion
2 x European Junior Champion
1 x European Youth Champion

*Referee Stops Contest: if a boxer, in the referee’s opinion, is being outclassed or is receiving excessive punishment or hard blows, the bout is stopped and the opponent declared the winner of the bout by RSC.

From D Day to Douglas Adams

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18 April 2024

The Sturminster Newton Literary Festival, now in its fifth year, is presenting an ambitious lineup from 8th to 16th June, including a special D Day event.
Highlights include Kevin J Davies discussing Douglas Adams’ early work, Bridport Prize winner Fiona Williams on her novel The House of Broken Bricks, and Colonel Guy Deacon sharing his epic solo adventure driving from London to Cape Town while battling Parkinson’s Disease.
A unique exhibition at The Exchange, enriched with local D Day testimonies, will be opened on 9th June by Taylor Downing and James Porter, focusing on D Day deceptions and the Dorsetshire Regiment. The festival also celebrates Far From the Madding Crowd’s 150th anniversary with a special film screening and actor meet-and-greet, alongside literature-themed walks in Bere Marsh, Marnhull, and Bagber.
A Crime Writing Day on 15th June promises intrigue with a workshop, competition, and talks from authors like Mark Bridgeman, Jane Labous, and Paula Harmon.
Diverse talks range from Celia Brayfield on Anna Sewell’s animal welfare contributions to Jim Carter’s naval insights, Emily Wilson on Inanna and Gilgamesh, and Robin Walter’s nature poetry.
Joanne Burn will discuss The Bone Hunters, set in Lyme Regis, via Zoom.
Festival chairman Pauline Batstone said: ‘Each year the Sturminster Newton Literary Festival gets better and better and we look forward to greeting even more visitors to our fifth Festival. | sturlitfest.com

A dog kills a lamb – should the farmer display it to walkers?

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18 April 2024

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Laura & Courtenay Hitchcock award ceremony

In the first of the April BV podcasts (just hit the PLAY button above to listen), we of course start with all the letters – including editor Laura’s exciting news.
Then, in his monthly round up, Chris Loder MP takes a look at how rural Dorset will gain from the latest NHS dentistry reforms, and the latest record funding of £408,022 for Adult Social Care reforms in the county.

For the Green Party, Ken Huggins takes a sideways look at the blurred lines between party funding and policy making, offering an alternative to those disillusioned by their usual voting.
Gary Jackson of North Dorset Labour says when you look at the water companies, it’s double the sewage, and triple the stink. And Gerald Davies of the LibDems looks at how Dorset Council’s housing policies are failing local people.

In the April issue, Andrew Livingston reported on one Sturminster Newton farmer’s dramatic response to a lamb’s death by dog attack. It fuelled a viral online debate – and a call for prosecution

Lastly, Jennie chats to Jules Bradburn – circuit judge, event organiser and whose market empire expands to Dorchester this month as it becomes the latest Dorset town to benefit from a new 200-stall monthly artisan market.

April’s BV is OUT NOW … grab a coffee and jump in to this month’s Dorset-ness. News, opinion, people, wildlife, art, farming, what’s on, SO many horses … and frankly stunning photography. Did I mention it’s FREE? Why *wouldn’t* you want a flick through? You can click here https://bvmag.co.uk/Apr24 to dive straight in. Frankly, it’s so jam-packed with Dorset goodness, it’d be rude not to.

The BV is the ‘glossy’ monthly digital magazine from Dorset, shortlisted in the 2024 Newspaper & Magazine Awards for ‘Best Regional Publication in the UK’.

(*don’t forget, we’re proud to be purely digital. The only way to read us is right here online!)

Dorset bluebells walk | 8.8 miles

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17 April 2024

This is a lovely woodland walk at any time of year, but if you’re looking for a Dorset bluebells walk, then this is the one to do when the bluebells are in bloom – I promise you won’t regret it.

Parking is simple in Winterborne Stickland – there’s plenty of roadside parking in the village, but do be considerate to residents. The route itself is very easy to follow, with a few sharp hills, but nothing too long or too arduous. It is also endlessly adaptable – the woods are criss-crossed with tracks, and it’s a simple matter of choosing a different path if you want a different length route.

Dorset is spoiled for choice when it comes to seeing bluebells – the rural heart of the county has them flashing their rich blue from every copse of ancient woodland, with swathes of them coating much of our countryside. However, many are in smaller copses – worth a visit, of course, but they do not a decent walk make. So we set out to plan a route inside a large, ancient forest, allowing for as much of it as possible to have a good chance of seeing the famous English woodland’s spring carpet. And having walked it at the start of the bluebell season in early April, we can confirm: at a guess, around 80% of this Dorset bluebells walk you’ll be utterly surrounded by a deep, sweeping scented blue. Every turn, every stretch of woodland will have that long endless expanse of hyacinth stretching away among the dark trunks and splashes of fresh acid green of new spring leaves on the beech trees.
And on the bit where it’s not present, wild garlic takes over and provides an endless snowy alternative.

It’s not all bluebells – there are vast carpets of wild garlic too

One small warning, however – if you are walking this when the bluebells are out, expect to take much longer than you normally would.
Unless, of course, you’re dead inside, and won’t enjoy simply standing and staring and breathing in the heady scent of the Dorset bluebells, or taking endless photographs as you desperately try (and fail) to capture their magic on your phone.

See all previously-published Dorset Walks by The BV here. You can also find every route we’ve walked (including many which are unpublished in The BV) on OutdoorA c tive here (just zoom in/out on the map) – all include a downloadable gpx file.

The nightingale sang… on vanishing scrub

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17 April 2024

says wildlife writer Jane Adams

The British Trust for Ornithology estimates that nightingale numbers have probably reduced by more than 90 per cent since the 1960s

They are part of our natural heritage. We hear recordings of their melodic songs on the radio and social media. Their name appears in literature, poems and WW2 love songs. They feel familiar, as if we should somehow know them. Yet how many of us have ever heard, much less seen, a living, breathing nightingale?
I found an old handwritten notebook in a local library recently. Dating back to the early 19th century, it documented the wildlife that once thrived in our village. The dormice crawled through the hedgerows. There were red squirrels in the woods and thousands of butterflies flitted over the flower-rich meadows. Yet, it was the mention of nightingales singing at night in the nearby fields that made me realise how much we have lost. Back then, I would have heard nightingales from my garden – all I hear now is the traffic.

Due to their small size (about the size of a robin) and rather drab brown colouring, spotting a nightingale is a challenge

Where did they all go?
Along with other summer migratory birds, such as cuckoos, nightingales are now frighteningly rare. The British Trust for Ornithology estimates their numbers have probably reduced by more than 90 per cent since the 1960s – there are likely to be fewer than 10,000 nightingales visiting our shores this spring.
Due to their small size (about the size of a robin) and rather drab brown colouring, spotting them is a challenge in their preferred coppiced woodland or scrub.
Sadly, suitable habitat is also hard for them to find.
Modern landowners don’t have much tolerance for scrub, and our woodlands don’t have the dense understory of foliage nightingales need.
A few years ago, I was told about a spot where nightingales had previously nested. In a clearing, next to blackthorns iced with blossom, and long after the sun had disappeared, I waited.
The song started softly.
Gradually it grew, becoming more confident, much louder and more urgent. There was a brief silence. Then more lingering tones, and short, sharp notes. On and on it went, holding me captive, unable to move. Perhaps I perceived a desperation in this bird’s song? Or was I acutely aware of its rarity? Or maybe it was my menopausal hormones.
Whatever the reason, I cried.

Ten years ago, on a warm April night, we were on our way home around midnight and surprised to hear loud birdsong through the car window. Pulling into a layby on the usually-busy A-road, we simply sat – silent and still – listening to my first nightingale. You can hear a minute of that utterly magical moment in the video below – Ed

Could rewilding initiatives in Dorset be the lifeline nightingales need?

Rewilding initiatives like Wild Woodbury, Mapperton Wildlands, and West Dorset Wilding, with their hands-off approach to land management, may be just what nightingales need to survive in Dorset, and hopefully to thrive in the future. After conservationists spotted a nightingale at Wild Woodbury last year, hopes are high that nightingales will return to breed in 2024. At other established rewilding sites, such as Knepp in East Sussex, nightingales have made a welcome comeback.

The church tent helps local students

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17 April 2024

A reliable fixture at the Gillingham & Shaftesbury Show is the Church tent – a refreshment marquee run by the Church of England in Gillingham, Shaftesbury and Stour Vale. They provide a welcome opportunity to sit down and enjoy a coffee or tea and homemade cake. All profits are given to selected rural community charities.
One recipient in 2023 was The Student Fund, founded by the G&S Show itself in 2020. The fund helps to remove some of the financial barriers faced by students and trainees embarking on new careers in land-based industries such as agriculture, horticulture and forestry. Their needs are varied, from safety boots and laptops to travel expenses. Nothing is off the table – one student, with exemplary practical and technical skills but who struggled with dyslexia, was helped with private tuition to achieve the higher level courses.
The image is of Matthew Price, chairman of the Student Support Fund, accepting the cheque with a helpful band of Ouessant Sheep. The Church Tent will be at the G&S Show ithis summer and welcomes all to visit and ‘rest a while’. Please let us know if you have a favourite rural charity that we may be able to help.

Get ready for some muddy good fun!

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17 April 2024

This year’s Dorset Mud Run is proudly supporting Diverse Abilities, the county’s dedicated disability charity. The event, to be held Saturday 18th May at Stock Gaylard near Sturminster Newton, promises a challenging 6km obstacle course – swinging over ditches, a scramble up mud hills, crawling under cargo nets and wading through ponds. There’s plenty of mud, stunning scenery … and it finishes on the best obstacle course in the UK.
Diverse Abilities participants benefit from entry discounts and fundraising support, with proceeds aiding over 1,600 individuals with disabilities and their families in Dorset. Francesca Potton of Diverse Abilities said, ‘We are incredibly grateful to the Dorset Mud Run organisers for supporting Diverse Abilities’ through their event.
Taking part is a great way to fundraise for us, as well as having a great day out.’
Entry is priced at £25, with perks for Diverse Abilities fundraisers including a Mud Run t-shirt, a charity goody bag, and a complimentary beverage post-race. For registration and more details, visit Diverse Abilities

Dorset Spring Show debut: crafts, demos, and family fun

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17 April 2024