I must apologise for the lateness of this newsletter.  My only excuses are a very busy summer on the campsite and exhaustion!  I hope to catch up with another newsletter covering the rest of the summer shortly.

The “wild area” was just finished in time for the Whitsun holiday [end of May long weekend].  Alisha and George insisted on putting an excellent fence around the paddock so that no one would fall into the River Char!  A tractor and belt [1]  [2] were used to pull the pig netting up tight and then George stapled it all into place. [3]  The spaniels had a great time in the river at the same time as they were fencing.  [4]  I decided to widen the hardstanding that was already in place and filled in the grassed areas with more road planings after enough soil was dug out.  [5] [6] After this the planings had to be “thumped in” to give the surface a solid base.  [7] We also drew another gate into another part of the fence to allow cars if the hardstanding had a caravan on it.  [8]  In hindsight the gate should have been made a lot wider to allow motorhomes to fit through!  A group of 3 families specifically asked to use the “wild area” [as they had the same area last year].  They really enjoyed their stay despite the inclement weather, mud and using lattice treads to walk around the site! [9]  [10]  Indigo and Aurora, who often stay at the site, loved frolicking through the buttercups. [11]  They also very much enjoy when their grandparents come to stay. [12]

A second-hand mowing machine was purchased to mow the main site to save paying out on the contractor’s fees.  [13]  The only problem with this is that it doesn’t pick up the grass, which is later traipsed into the cabin on wet days.

During this period there seemed to be a lot of maintenance issues.  The water heater in the shower/toilet at the side of the farm house had problems with air locks, the whole system had to be changed at great expense.  The oldest water heater in the cabin gave up the ghost and had to be replaced at short notice.  Also one of the shower token boxes jammed on the first day of the Whitsun holiday with no emergency service available from my electrician.  On top of that there was trouble with drainage from one of the showers.  This proved to be a build up of hair over the years, which couldn’t be reached by normal means.  Additionally one of the toilets refused to flush properly.  This fault was put down to the fact the system wasn’t completely level.  The latter two items cost me £130.00 as the minimum fee for a call out!  An expensive exercise indeed!

Over the years I have realised how destructive sheep can be.  Everything has to be protected including little apple trees.  We protected them with goose wire only for the sheep to go on tip toe and eat off some of the top branches. [14]  They were also eating this year’s loganberries as well as next year’s shoots so we had to put fencing around them too. [15]

Twenty two goslings arrived from Somerset at the beginning of July being hatched on 7th June.  Unfortunately one died within a few days which left one less for a Christmas dinner.  [16]  As usual the bigger animals were an attraction for campers, even for adults without children.  [17]  George continued to hatch out chicks and ducklings with the incubator, [18] and once they were big enough to be outside, went into the “nursery” where there was a paddling pool to splash about in.  [19]

Unfortunately between 8.30 and 11.30 one morning a fox came and killed 30 of George’s poultry in BROAD DAYLIGHT!  The dead bodies were strewn all over the farm with only a few being taken back to the fox’s den for its cubs to eat.  This has definitely dampened George’s enthusiasm about incubator work, more’s the pity!

By late spring some of the shrubs and fruit trees in the garden were magnificent. [20]  [21]  [22]  [23]  [24] [25] Thus I was expecting a great summer for selling flowers and my produce.  But the very peculiar season we have had with the weather this year caused half of the climbing rose on the front of the farm house to die. [26]   The Eucalyptus tree looked as if it was dead, [27] but did sprout out again later in the season.  A very sturdy Rue plant in the herb garden which usually grows to be at least 6-7 feet every year, completely died by the end of May and the Golden Rod plant which normally flourished with dozens of stems only gave me 25 blooms.  Even the dahlias weren’t so prolific, and the gladioli was a complete wash out with less than 10 blooms!

Representatives from the West Dorset Branch of the Somerset & Dorset Family History Society and the Bridport History Society always share a stand at this event every year at Mountfield in Bridport. [30] It was well attended and there was plenty going on in the marquees [31] and on the green [32] including maypole dancing and the crowning of the May Queen plus annual awards for service to the community presented by the Mayor. [33]

Bridport qualified for the receipt of its first Royal Charter from Henry III in June 1253. This was because of the growth of the town’s economy and status, due largely to the stimulation of industry to meet the demand for rope to supply King John’s military ventures. The net, rope and sail makers were fully established by 1250 and were based upon hemp and flax grown locally.

So this annual fair is arguably Bridport’s most historic, celebrates both the granting of a Market Charter over 700 years ago, and Bridport’s Citizens’ Charter, reflecting the principle of 1998 Human Rights Act and confirming Bridport as the UK’s first Rights Respecting Town. Finally Brdport can boast of having the longest running butchers’ shop [Balsons] in the whole of England dating back to the 1500s.

As I have said in a previous newsletter this church is now facing possible closure, except for funerals – and there has been plenty of those in the last few months. Fortunately there is a local group who are trying to raise people’s awareness about the plight of this lovely church in the hopes that it can have a brighter future. With that in mind they organised an exhibition to celebrate events that had occurred in the church and local area over the last 100 years. I spent a frantic few hours just before the event pasting up four boards on weddings and funerals of friends and relatives at Marshwood. [35] My mother was an avid collector of Bridport News archival material since the 1930s and put it into scrap books dating back a long time. She also had mountains of wedding photos. The oldest photos were of my grandparents’ Creed’s wedding photo from 1907. There were plenty of material to be viewed in the church. [36] [37] [38] [39]

On the second day of the celebrations Marshwood School had its Annual School Fair in the field opposite This had exciting stalls which included a coconut shy, [40] face painting, [41], a fire engine [42] and archery practise. [43]

Attendees to both events were asked to fill out a questionnaire to help with some ideas about new and exciting events and clubs which could use the school in the immediate future.

CAROLE’S LIFE AS A TV DOCUMENTARY MAKER, AUTHOR AND PRIEST

I first met Carole at Broadoak Hall when she gave a riveting talk about her “adventures” as a  journalist and documentary maker, especially in war zones!  [44]  Carole says that she first became a journalist as she has always loved communicating, especially telling people’s stories, highlighting injustices and making a difference.  She had so many stories to tell.  She had been in prison – three times in the UK and once in Africa, she’s been sunk in a ship, and escaped from a burning plane.  Fortunately the last two experiences were both training exercises.  She has been to every single continent on the globe except Antarctica, although she was only in Australia for a day to do an interview!

Carole has found herself in the middle of war zones and sadly has seen people killed in front of her.  She has also had loaded guns held to her head and was machete ambushed in a jungle, and has been within inches of standing on a landmine, and was in New York on 9.11.  Talk about a cat with nine lives!!  It seems that she did have some time off and this photo shows her relaxing, [45] after a long and hot day’s filming in Vietnam.  Another one is on a beach in Fiji. [46]

She met some very interesting individuals during her career in the media including politicians, generals, warlords, mass murderers, a host of British celebrities and Hollywood stars and was even  asked on a date by a Rwandan war criminal.  [I don’t think that she took up this offer!]   On a more frivolous side Carole once dressed up as Marilyn Monroe wearing diamonds worth over a million pounds.

On a quieter note Carole has decorated around 40 homes of complete strangers working on the BBC Television series Changing Rooms, and dug up the gardens and fields of many more in the name of archaeology with the Channel Four series Time team.

Carole stated that the real joy and privilege was talking to people about everything from their wedding in the Ho Chi Minh Trail, to the death of their child in the Aberfan disaster and everything in between.

The newsworthy item that Carole is most proud of is fighting a 7 year battle to expose a miscarriage of justice that led to the execution of Derek Bentley in 1953. It resulted in a posthumous pardon for Derek in 1993 and then the quashing of his conviction in 1998.

Carole said the story that most affected her in the journalistic career was Aberfan when there was a catastrophic collapse of a colliery spoilt tip onto a primary school killing 116 children and 28 adults, but the aftermath was just as traumatic. Working now as she does for an international Christian Maritime Welfare Charity she is very aware of how important it is for people to be able to talk about their trauma. That’s why Sailors’ Society has chaplains, a 24/7 helpline and peer-to-peer support groups available to seafarers and their families. She wishes that such resources had been available to Aberfan.

In 2006 Carole published a book entitled “Harold Shipman – Mind set on Murder”** This tells of why Shipman killed and killed again. [47]

She came to the ministry later in life. Carole always felt that she had a calling, but as a young woman, CofE priesthood wasn’t open to her and by the time the Church voted to ordain women she was off flying around the world. But later on the time came and the call was too strong to ignore. She was ordained as a priest and served as the Rector of several rural parishes in South Northamptonshire before her two careers were re-united when she became the Communications Director for the Diocese of Salisbury. She is now settled in West Dorset and works from her home in Fishpond Bottom as Global Communication Officer and Honorary Chaplain for Sailors’ Society and is also an Associate Priest for the Eggardon and Colmers Benefice, near Bridport.

The following photos shows the variety of roles she has been involved with as an Associate Priest. [48] [49] [50] [51]

As a footnote I happened upon an article in the West Dorset Magazine about The Melplash Agricultural Society’s Gardens and Allotment Competition 2024.  It seems that Carole and her husband Barry won first place in the Medium Gardens section.  Carole looks after the spectacular flower beds, except the sweet peas, and Barry the growing of the vegetables.

My friend Liz from New Zealand came over to Europe to attend a wedding in Norway and to visit friends in England. I first met Liz and her husband Garth in Tokyo when we were visiting Japan en route to England from Australasia. We did quite a lot of sight seeing together which included temples at Nikko [52] [53] [54] and visiting the Kegan Falls. [55] At the end of that we had a big climb up to the local youth hostel. It was usual for young travellers like us to stay at Youth Hostels along the way and this photo shows Garth and three Japanese girls near Toba [56] We also went to the Yoyogi Sports Stadium and this one shows a very young me with reddish hair. [57] Oh those were the days when I was thin!

I was in Japan for about 3 weeks all together. The wardens at the youth hostels were always very good about writing the names of train stations in both English and Japanese so that I would know where to alight at far flung stations, as more isolated places didn’t have English names displayed.

When I arrived in Tokyo airport it was discovered that my rucksack had been left in Seoul airport by mistake.  I was given expenses to go out and buy some new clothes as obviously I only had the clothes that I stood up in on arrival.  The airport official who was in charge of sorting out this fiasco was amazed that I was travelling on my own, wasn’t married, knew no-one in Japan and didn’t speak a word of Japanese!  He arranged on his days off to take me sightseeing around different parts of Japan.  That was a real bonus on the trip.

I lived with Liz and Garth in Kent for about a year when I first came to London to train to be a primary school teacher , and have kept in touch with Liz ever since.  She has been down to Dorset on several occasions on later trips to England, after she returned to New Zealand to live.  On her most recent trip to England we met at Waterloo station and got a taxi to the Tate Modern to soak up the UK’s national collection of international modern and contemporary art created on or after 1900.  [58]  [59 ] [60]

This last photo shows a Wish Tree.  This is an ongoing art installation by Yoko Uno, started in 1996, in which a tree native to a site is planted under her direction.  Viewers are usually invited to tie a written wish to the tree, except during the winter months when a tree can be more vulnerable.  The concept of a Wish Tree is growing rapidly throughout the world.  It is the innate desire of the human race to want to wish for a better life.  Locations of the piece have included New York City, California, Tokyo, Venice, Exeter and London, England and Calgary, Alberta, Canada.

Yoko Uno has said “As a child in Japan, I used to go to a temple and write out a wish on a piece of thin paper and tie it around the branch of a tree.  Trees in temple courtyards were always filled with people’s wish knots, which looked like white flowers blossoming from afar.”  Yoko was born in 1933 and was married three times, latterly to John Lennon [one of the Beatles], who was murdered in 1980.

The Tate Modern is one of the largest museums of its type in the world.  The nearest transport hub to the Tate is Blackfriars which is in the south west area of the City of London.   We had a delicious meal there [61] and were spoilt by the views of that part of London. [62]  [63] [64]

It was good to see Liz,  and I would love to visit her again in New Zealand, but doubt whether I will ever do another long haul journey, more’s the pity.  I think that my jet setting days are well and truly over!!

** Published by Better World Books

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Liz Swanston, The Revd Carole Peters-King, Valerie Widger, Pauline Bailey, The Revd Sarah Godfrey and Pearl Bentley.