A big thank you goes to Kingston Maurward College for hosting this year’s award ceremony and to Barbara Cossins and the Love Local Trust Local team for all their hard work in promoting and celebrating the best of Dorset’s food and drink.
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There’s no need to fly a bouquet of sad roses a thousand miles for Valentine’s Day this year, says flower farmer Charlotte Tombs
Both images show UK-grown Valentine’s Day bouquets. Flowers and images by Katie Priestly of Dorset Flower Co
Not all cultures around the world celebrate St Valentine’s Day (obviously), but for those that do, why do it with the gift of roses – and why red? Red can be seen everywhere in nature, from a holly berry to a red snapper fish. Of course it signals danger, but in western countries red is also a symbol of martyrs and sacrifice, particularly because of its association with blood. Red is the colour most commonly associated with heat, activity, passion, sexuality, anger, love and joy – quite a powerful colour all in all! Roses have been on Earth for 30 million years. When questioned, 90 per cent of people, regardless of their nationality, will answer “rose” as their favourite flower. Civilisations from the ancient Greeks, Romans and Persians to the present day have shown a passion for the rose, thanks to its transient beauty, its colour and of course its scent. Since the 1940s it’s easy to see why roses and carnations have led florists’ sales as we Brits give red roses on Valentine’s Day to our sweethearts. But prior to Second World War, British florists mostly sold violets in heart shaped boxes. These were grown in Victorian greenhouses and conservatories because of the season; mid-winter is simply not great for growing flowers in the UK – unless you want a bunch of daffodils or snowdrops!
International Valentine’s The Germans exchange pigs. No, not real ones! Cute cartoon ones on cards or keepsakes. Pigs are considered good luck bringers (Glücksbringer) in Germany and are as common at this time of year as seeing Cupid is in the USA. The sensible Finnish celebrate Friends Day instead, choosing to honour both friends and significant others. In Japan, it’s the women’s turn to give gifts to men in the form of a homemade chocolate honmei choco (true-feeling chocolate). Men return the gesture on the 14th March by giving white chocolate and white gifts as a sign of their affection. Historically the French celebrated Valentine’s Day with une loterie d’amour. Single French men and women would shout in the streets until they were paired off. The man then had the option to ditch the woman. The left-over women would naturally then get together and vent their anger by lighting a huge fire (so French!) and burning images of the men who had abandoned them. This event could get out of hand and the French government eventually had to ban it. A woman scorned and all that …
Flowers and images by Katie Priestly of Dorset Flower Co
Say NO to roses in February Regular readers know there is no need to buy imported roses (or any flowers). They are quite literally costing the earth. Flowers from the Farm has a clever search bar that will direct you to a grower in your area who will be able to send flowers. You can support a small business, help the planet and make all involved happy – what’s not to love? The brilliant Dorset Flower Co based near Dorchester and Eveline’s Flowers based in Sturminster Newton are both Members of Flowers From the Farm. Go on – make someone do a happy dance!
Between the rain and the frozen ground there’s been little to do this month, says Barry Cuff, but now’s the time for some potato shopping
Choosing from the 70 varieties on offer from Mill House Nurseries at Owermoigne Image: Barry Cuff
For the first time in many years we have not been able to carry out much work during January. Roughly five inches of rain and 12 days of frost have kept us off the soil. We have managed to cut down the raspberry canes and prune the currants and gooseberries. At least all the bare ground had been manured back in November and December, including the areas of green manure killed off by the hard December frosts. Of course we continued harvesting the hardy vegetables – sprouts, leeks, parsnips and carrots – as needed. We picked our first purple sprouting broccoli mid month and despite the weather there were still some usable oriental mustards and Mizuna for salads. We dug the last blue moon radish as well. We have really enjoyed these Asian radishes (Blue Moon, Red Moon and Accord round Daikon) and intend to sow a larger area in August. From the store we have been using onions, potatoes, winter squash and garlic, and from the freezer peas, French beans, broad beans, and sweetcorn. Our November-planted garlic has survived the winter and is looking good. However, for the first time in about 30 years we have no spring cauliflowers; all were lost during the hard frosts in December. We now believe these were lost to a combination of below-freezing temperature and Boron deficiency which can occur on high pH soils. The deficiency causes the stems to become hollow, which affects the water availability to the plant. We have now ordered a supply of Boron foliar feed for the coming season!
Shopping for spuds We made our annual trip to Mill House Nurseries at Owermoigne to buy our seed spuds for the coming season; there were about 70 varieties to choose from, all laid out loose in trays. This year we chose Maris Bard for our first early, and bought our tried-and-tested favourites Charlotte, Picasso and Rooster, along with a new variety Sagitta which did exceptionally well last year. Each year we try a line of something new so we bought five tubers of each of Caledonian Rose, British Queen and Marvel. The nursery also sells loose legume seed, and for £3 we bought about 1,800 seeds of Hurst Green Shaft peas, which is very good value. We now look forward to the beginning of the growing season.
Tracie Beardsley meets Richard Lee, Dorset craftsman, founder of Plankbridge and pioneer of a global revival of shepherd’s huts
Richard Lee, founder of Plankbridge, inside his office – a 1921 Bournemouth tram All images: Courtenay Hitchcock
In a moment of quiet reverie, she’s rolled out to greet the bright winter sunlight. A majestic diva, she is a super-hut – the shepherd’s hut equivalent of an executive home. This is a luxury lodge made from English oak, insulated with Lakeland sheep’s wool with very modern fittings. Six weeks in the making from chassis to chimney, behind her stands a 37-strong ‘making team’ of skilled Dorset craftspeople – carpenters, joiners, painters, metalworkers and more. This is the Plankbridge family; they are makers of fine shepherd’s huts, the only ones boasting the prestigious endorsement of the Royal Horticultural Society. It’s a rural business that enjoyed a 30 per cent increase in turnover with the sudden growth of working from home during the pandemic. As well as garden offices, these shepherds huts are used for accommodation and treatment rooms by the upmarket hotel chain The Pig, by the National Trust for offices and visitor meet and greets, for glamping, as B&Bs, and they are sold to celebrities including TV’s countryside champion Kate Humble, a 90s rock star (whose name must remain a secret) and even, occasionally, to shepherds!
Plankbridge’s 50-strong team of crafts and trades people simultaneously works on a number of huts in various stages of build
Hardy country huts At the top of the family tree are Richard Lee and his partner Jane, who started Plankbridge 23 years ago, initially working out of a converted chicken shed. By 2007, they had recruited their first employee, ‘part-time and a big step’. With 37 employees including Richard’s brother, who makes the chassis units, plus a further dozen ‘crucial’ subcontracted electricians, plumbers and powder coaters, Plankbridge works out of a huge converted grainstore in Piddlehinton, deep in Thomas Hardy territory.. And it’s thanks to Dorset’s most famous author that the idea of building 21st century shepherds huts came about. Richard says: ‘We live in the heart of Far From The Madding Crowd country. Waterston Manor, the inspiration for Bathsheba’s Weatherby Farm is just down the road. Smitten Farmer Boldwood was at nearby Druce Farm and Hardy’s own cottage at Higher Bockhampton is near us too. ‘Walking my dog near Hardy’s cottage I spotted a dilapidated shepherd’s hut and I started researching. I was self-employed at the time, making kitchen and garden furniture, but it wasn’t really satisfying my creative bent. Back then, lots of people were restoring old huts but I wanted to make my own from scratch, be true to the original style, but with all the modern qualities of a timber-framed building.’
The home of Plankbridge is a huge converted grainstore in Piddlehinton
Richard did just that; his first hut incorporated cavity insulation, a breather membrane and electrics. He kept and used the hut in his garden, and later advertised it and sold it easily. ‘Then a lady from Wells called me wanting to buy it. I told her I’d already sold it but could make her another one – and that’s how the business began!’ Plankbridge now ships much further afield than Wessex. The latest super-hut is bound for the Channel Islands. Huts have been shipped to America and across Europe. One customer, a real shepherd in Scandinavia, needed her hut as protection from wolves! Continuing the Hardy link, Plankbridge also worked on Gabriel Oak’s shepherd’s hut in the 2015 film of Far from the Madding Crowd. Look closely and you may even spot Richard Lee in his role as an extra!
With an on-site forge, even the hut wheels are made by Richard’s team of craftsmenimage Courtenay Hitchcock BV magazine
Sitting in the 1921 Bournemouth tram which is now his quirky office, Richard is currently planning his latest creation – The Gardener’s Bothy. Designs are under wraps until the big reveal at RHS Chelsea Flower Show in May, but it will be made from home-grown ash, chestnut and oak. ‘The show is a great launchpad for innovation,’ he says. Richard trained in woodcraft at Hooke Park in Beaminster, the brainchild of renowned furniture maker John Makepeace. ‘Makepeace was ahead of his time – he wanted to make us entrepreneurs in wood. You didn’t just learn to make things. You learned about British timbers, marketing, accounting, running a business. We used to get high-powered furniture designers from London to lecture us, which I found enthralling. ‘I’m really driven by the Arts & Crafts Movement and it’s incredible to think shepherds huts, which historians date back as far as 1596, are still evolving and are now a familiar sight. But now it’s not just in fields – they’re in many back gardens too.’
Richard’s tram-cum-office sits inside the old grainstore
Quick fire questions: Dinner party guests around a campfire by your hut? Musicians Mike Scott from The Waterboys and Paul McCartney, actress Kate Winslet, biological anthropologist Prof Alice Roberts, rewilding expert Derek Gow, American politician and activist Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and comedian Billy Connolly. That should be an interesting mix!
Current reading list? A biography of Terry Pratchett – I’m not a particular fan of his work but I like finding biographies of people I don’t know much about. I’m also reading Lee Scofield’s A Wild Fell – Fighting for Nature on a Lake District Farm. Rewilding and nature books are a bit of a passion of mine.
Inside an original shepherd’s hut that the team is currently renovating.
Rob Nolan was thrilled to capture an image which, due to its orbit, we are potentially the only humans ever to have a chance to record
January usually feels like a long month for most of us, but for astronomers this particular one felt really long! We were blessed with a spate of crisp clear and moonless nights, so that meant not a lot of sleep for many of us, including me. Those of you familiar with Blackadder, the 1980s TV show, may recall Lord Percy trying to create gold, and ending up with a ‘nugget of purest green’? Well I hoped last month that I would be able to share with you a very special once-in-a-lifetime capture of a green comet that has not passed our way for thousands of years. As you can see opposite, I’m happy to say, I got it! It really is a great feeling when you try to capture a rare target, those first images start coming in and you see the object for yourself in glorious detail. Comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF) is a long-period comet from the Oort cloud and is approximately 1km in diameter. It was discovered as a very faint 17.3 magnitude smudge in the constellation of Aquilla, and the 1.2m telescope at Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF) is credited with the comet’s discovery. What is remarkable about this comet is that it last appeared in our skies 50,000 years ago, when Neanderthals roamed the Earth. There’s talk in the science community about the comet currently moving in an open parabolic orbit; it may move into deep space and never pass this way again. This would mean we would be the only humans to have ever witnessed this comet in our skies with the ability to image it. Amazing! C/2022 E3 passed within 26 million miles of Earth on 1st February, and should be visible as a faint smudge in the sky to those out looking for it well into mid-February – a pair of binoculars or a small telescope will help. This image was captured with my 350mm refractor telescope and the ZWO ASI2600MM Pro Astro camera with RGB filters. Only 30 minutes of capture time was needed to bring out the detail of the comet’s tail due to its apparent brightness.
The night sky, February 2023 – Rob’s guide for your stargazing this month:
Comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF) continues to grace our skies into February, having passed closest to the Earth on the first of the month and should be visible with the naked eye! It is visible near the north celestial pole and located within the Camelopardalis constellation. Our local neighbours Venus, Mars and Jupiter continue to shine brightly in the evening skies throughout February, alongside some pretty high profile stars. The month ahead sees Orion drifting further west with the constellations Leo and Boötes continuing to rise higher in the east. Canis Major, the larger of Orion’s hunting dogs, is in full view towards the East in the evening, crowned by the dog star Sirius, the brightest star in our night sky, hot on the heels of Lepus (the Hare). Other nearby stars to take a look at are Mirzam – The Announcer in Arabic, due to the fact it rises just before Sirius – and Adhara which, five million years ago, held the crown for the brightest star in the night sky due to its relative position to the sun. Nestled in Canis Major is M41, a relatively small star cluster of around 100 young stars. It is quite possibly the subject of the earliest known description of a deep-sky object, made by the Greek Philosopher Aristotle in 325 BC, though we can’t say for certain that this is what he referred to when he described ‘a cloudy spot’ in the constellation. You can observe M41 through binoculars or with the unaided eye. I’m told Comet C/2022 E3 will appear to pass close to Mars on the night of the 11th, which would be a fantastic sight to behold, involving our local planetary neighbours dancing with the Moon in a neverending stellar waltz. Other events to watch out for besides the comet? On the 15th February, Venus appears close to Neptune, which will help stargazers find the outermost planet in our solar system. Find Venus, and then look to the lower right of the brightest planet to bring into view the dimmest. Compared side by side, Venus is 60,000 times brighter than Neptune. On the 22nd, look west after sunset to see the crescent Moon adorned by Venus and Jupiter. The following night you’ll witness a similar entanglement, with Venus and Jupiter below the crescent Moon. And since we have a short month in February, why not finish off on the 27th with a look at the Moon’s first quarter with Mars close by and the star Aldebaran shining brightly. Until next time, clear skies!
Tickets for the ever-popular Countryside Alliance point-to-point, which will take place at Badbury Rings on Sunday, 19th February, are now available to buy online – with the option to purchase Patrons’ tickets, with a number of exclusive benefits. Gates open at 10a.m., with the Countryside Alliance Club Members Conditions race the first contest of the day, starting at 12 noon. This allows plenty of time for racegoers to peruse the shopping stands, enjoy the entertainment and make the most of the selection of food stalls and licensed bar, as well as, perhaps, a visit to the bookmakers for a flutter. Another firm favourite of this annual event is the family dog racing, so get those pet pooches in training now!
Badbury Rings point-to-point. Image: Tim Holt
Patrons’ tickets offer a thrilling raceday experience which includes entry and parking, of course, plus all day access to the Patrons’ tent, positioned in a prime location. Patrons ticket holders enjoy seating, a welcome aperitif and buffet lunch, refreshments throughout the day and a complimentary race card.
We look forward to welcoming you to enjoy a great day’s racing at Badbury Rings; always a popular and highly-regarded point-to-point course. As well as a men’s and a ladies’ race – both of which are usually hotly contested – the six-race card includes two Countryside Alliance Club Members contests, where entered horses must be owned by Alliance members. To secure your Patrons’ tickets for a fantastic day’s racing please click here. Applications for Patrons’ tickets close at 9am on Friday 10th February.
Further details can be found on the point-to-point website; just click on ‘Buy Racegoer Tickets’. View the full list of point-to-point meetings here.
Pauline Batstone has spent a lifetime working with ex-offenders as a probation officer, and spends retirement working for her community
Pauline Batstone
Pauline Batstone was born a stone’s throw from Dorchester. Her parents moved to Mappowder when they were offered a tenancy on a small council farm. ‘My parents were delighted to have their own farm – father was a dairyman when they took it on in 1954. Although it wasn’t considered a ‘small’ farm in those days – they were all that size back then! There were a number of council-owned farms around Mappowder; most were about 40 acres. Ours was about 70 acres. ‘Now I find myself chairman of the committee which deals with the management of Dorset Council farms. I have come full circle!’ Having moved away in the late 1960s as she entered her working life, Pauline returned to Dorset as a probation officer in 1975 – a job she held in various forms until she retired in 1990. ‘I seemed to change roles every three years – that was the way it what was done in those days. My first probation officer job was working with the families of offenders in the middle of Bournemouth. There followed three years in West Howe, again with families. Then I moved on to Poole where I covered some very difficult cases and was regularly in court. A three year spell at The Verne prison on Portland was next, which was a fascinating experience. I did two years doing Duke of Edinburgh’s Award with offenders, which meant plenty of VERY cold nights on Dartmoor, and trying to drag offenders out for walks and away from the pubs! Next was my time as a senior probation officer, managing the probation centre and officers in West Dorset. I went from there to managing a charity that worked closely with the probation service, overseeing seven projects. Then finally as a senior officer I was managing the two probation hostels in Dorset, initially the one in Boscombe for a year and subsequently the Weymouth Hostel as well.
As part of her long career as a probation officer Pauline Batstone spent three years working at The Verne prison on Portland
I was particularly working with drug offenders during that time, and together with Dr Peter Turnbull and Cllr Steve Spiegel we set up The Providence Projects, an addiction treatment centre in Bournemouth, which is still going strong and which has had some quite well known people going through it’ Providence success stories include footballer Paul Gascoigne. Matt Willis from the band Busted also credits Providence with his own recovery; “I tried three other private rehab centres but this was perfect. I had a life-changing experience here,” he says. ‘Finally, I had ten years to set up and manage the Youth Offending Team for Bournemouth and Poole and for three of those years I was national chair of Association of Youth Offending Team Managers. I stayed there until I retired! Alongside my probation work I became involved in local politics – between 1983 and 1999 I was a district councillor in East Dorset, and a county councillor from ‘90 to 1999. So I’d be at meetings in County Hall in the morning, and then would start work at midday and work through the evening on my probation officer stuff!’ ‘In 1999 I stood down from local politics – but I came back when I retired, first as a town councillor, then as a county councillor, then as North Dorset district councillor. Now I’m a town councillor for Sturminster Newton, and also a district councillor.’
A life in music And so to Pauline’s eight music choices, along with how and why they have stuck in her life:
The Marching Strings Ray Neil And His Concert Orchestra We used to listen to the request programme, Uncle Mac’s Children’s Favourites on the radio, and as a six-year-old I took it upon myself to write in to ask for Marching Strings which was played for ME. Much to the shock of my parents and family members as I had apparently done it all on my own – precocious brat!
Singin’ The Blues Tommy Steele Aged around ten, I would argue with my best friends Mary and Sheila about the merits of their idol, Elvis Presley, against my favourite, Tommy Steele. Interestingly, just yesterday I saw a programme on Tommy Steele, who’s now 86. I’m still a fan – even more so since I saw the documentary and learned more about him and his career.
Love Me Do The Beatles When the Beatles came on the scene it was such a different music from anything that had gone before. It was so distinctive. They were the musical experience to my generation – we were suddenly blasted apart hearing them for the first time….”Love Me Do” I think was the first track I heard, I remember grooving away to it with my classmates in the hockey sticks shed at Lord Digby’s School. Come on, you can’t not. Everyone loves the Beatles!
Blue Danube Waltz Johan Strauss II This is just wonderful, and always makes me think of my parents, who loved dancing and especially loved Viennese music. As a small child, I remember being waltzed around the garden by my father to the Blue Danube. When I was studying for my A-levels, it was me staying at home in the evening and they would be out dancing somewhere until one in the morning. Me calling ”what time do you call this to come home?”. Even worse, one night they locked their keys in the car down in Weymouth, phoned me, and I set off across deepest Dorset in my old Morris Eight on my own to rescue them with the spare keys! We still had the farm at that time, so they would get home in the small hours and then get up at 5.30a.m to do the milking!
Do The Reggae Toots & the Maytals Reggae music was the soundtrack of my time in Bristol. I went to secretarial college down in Bridport, where they ‘provided young ladies with a good education…’ I learned to do shorthand, typing and bookkeeping, and went on to work in Bristol in 1968. There were a lot of West Indians living or arriving in St Pauls in the years after the Windrush. I used to help with an Anglo-West Indian youth club, and made some great friends. I still have my steward’s badge from the first St. Paul’s Festival. My new friends were also country people who had moved to a big city – we were all constantly locking ourselves out thanks to Yale locks which none of us were used to! Although their countryside roots were very different from mine, obviously, our experiences in Bristol held many similarities.
Waltzing Matilda Christina Macpherson My uncle was living in Australia when I was a child, and I grew up constantly hearing about it. My own first trip to Australia was in 1971, to visit uncle, aunt and cousins in Fremantle. I was on a British Council Scholarship and had two months working in the immigration department at Canberra before travelling to the other side of the country to my relations in Fremantle, crossing the Nullarboor Plain by bus. It was before the roads were made up with hard surfaces all the way! Subsequently I discovered that my great grandparents had migrated to Australia (NSW) in 1867 and I had family there. My great great grandmother (originally from Winfrith Newburgh) was actually called Matilda. I have since linked up with the cousins on the eastern side of Oz as well and I think I have been over to visit at least ten times now. It’s my second home.
Rhapsody in Blue Gershwin I just … love it. The Jazz Age – the fashion, the music … Gershwin brings so many memories. And it’s such a moving piece of music.
Beethoven’s 9th Symphony Movement IV – Ode to Joy It’s just fantastic! It is beautiful in its own right, and makes me think of being in church (I’m the church warden at Mappowder) when we sing the Gloria. As a politician it also reminds me of the utter stupidity of Brexit …
A book for a castaway I think I’d take Robert Young’s The Poems of Rabin Hill. Robert Young was the son of a tailor in Sturminster Newton, and by the 1880s he was a prosperous businessman and property owner, affluent enough to build one of Stur’s finest houses, The Hive, to live in. He owned several others in town, including the one in which Thomas Hardy lived. He was known for writing comic poems in the local dialect – Rabin Hill was one of his characters. Robert wrote an account of Rabin Hill coming down from Stoke Wake in a trap; he’s never seen a train before, and is determined to see the train at Stur. He goes on a train ride to Templecombe and back, and can’t believe how quickly they were back again. He also thinks he sees the devil on the train but it was the stoker, black from the coal and the smoke! I recommend it, the poems are fascinating.
A luxury item? A satellite phone. I don’t care if it’s cheating, I’m smuggling it in anyway.
One to keep? And if a giant wave was coming, and there was only time to snatch ONE record, which would Pauline save from the water? ‘Gershwin. Always the Gershwin. It’s the most moving of them all.’
The times are challenging, says Dorset Chamber CEO Ian Girling, but businesses are ignoring the negativity and keen to move forward again
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Hello and welcome to my February column! I am so pleased to see the evenings starting to draw out and even see the first signs of spring in my garden – one of my favourite times of year. Christmas already seems like a long time ago and business in Dorset has quickly got back to full-speed. Many businesses I speak to are optimistic about the future. But there is no doubt we are still seeing some challenges: access to finance is still a problem for many businesses, Brexit has had an extremely negative impact on export activities and many are still facing severe recruitment problems. And of course the energy cost crisis continues, genuinely threatening to put many out of business. However, it was encouraging to see that inflation has dipped to just over 10%; nowhere near the 17 to 20% that was predicted not that long ago. The sharp intervention of raising interest rates to 3.5% by the Bank of England, the highest rate for 14 years, seems to be working. Although this brings much pain for many with mortgages and loans, interest rate rises are one of the primary weapons for tackling inflation by decreasing money circulating in the economy. It’s a hard pill to swallow but one that we must. Despite this, I still see much optimism from the business community; many are simply switching off from the constant negative messaging in the media and just want to get on with things. I totally understand this; we must maintain a positive approach, look for solutions if we encounter problems and, crucially, not be afraid to seek help and ask for advice and guidance. Research shows that businesses that take advice at an earlier stage have a far greater chance of survival than those that leave it until later. There is help out there and if Dorset Chamber can support in any way, don’t hesitate to contact us. Dorset Apprenticeship Awards National Apprenticeship Week begins on 6th February and I am delighted to announce that once again we will be running our Dorset Apprenticeship Awards in partnership with the Dorset and Somerset Training Provider Network. The awards are completely free to enter and open to people of all ages on apprenticeship programmes and all sectors. They naturally celebrate the contributions of apprenticeships to business but also the personal journey and achievements of apprentices themselves. From Monday you can apply for the awards on our website (dorsetchamber.co.uk) – we will celebrate finalists and winners at a special ceremony on 16th May. If you are on an apprenticeship programme, or employ an apprentice, I’d really encourage you to enter! Until next time, Ian.
