What on earth is Gordon Haskell doing here? Nearly nine years after he beat a tactical retreat from his beloved Dorset to start a new life on the Greek island idyll of Skopelos, the Bournemouth-born singer-songwriter-musician is back under grey skies on frozen home soil. He obviously hasn’t come home for the weather, but he Read More…
Category: Interviews
Shaftesbury’s Big Cheese
It might have started as an accident of geography, but over the last fifteen years, Charlie Turnbull’s relationship with Dorset has blossomed into an abiding passion. Just as he has taken its many moods to his heart, so too is Dorset assimilating the energy, expertise and barely bridled enthusiasm of this most irrepressible of settlers. Read More…
Faking it: Nina Camplin’s trompe l’oeil
Rarely has fake been so fashionable – from fake news to fake tans, faux is determinedly à la mode. All of which causes some amusement for Poole-based trompe l’œil artist Nina Camplin, who has made the art of faking it into something positively authentic since moving to Dorset at the turn of the century. ‘Within Read More…
Life’s a bike for Dandy Roger
No sooner could he stand on two feet than Roger Street had to be on two wheels, or three or, on occasion, four. An old black and white photo shows young Roger astride a wooden hobby-horse, his face a picture of prescient pride perhaps, for some sixty years later he finds himself at the head Read More…
The Ninebarrow boys
Firm friends since meeting at school in Poole some twenty years ago, they have grown up together, moved away to study apart and come back to Dorset in order to reach out to the world. Now with an emerging talent Horizon Award nomination at this year’s BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards, Ninebarrow – Jon Whitley Read More…
A life being lived for kicks
Although he’ll underplay his role at every opportunity, Brian McIntyre has helped many of Dorset’s semi-professional football clubs, but perhaps especially Wimborne Town where he’s held a few posts including General Manager and Director of Football. The only one he’ll comfortably accept though is Good Friend. For more than 20 years he has raised money Read More…
Bournemouth’s poison professor is on the right side of the law
On 28 April 1882, Bournemouth GP Dr George Lamson went to the gallows for the murder of his teenage brother-in-law in an attempt to get his hands on a greater share of a family inheritance. The evidence that convicted Lamson hinged on a taste test performed on the victim’s bodily fluids by the country’s leading Read More…
Shelleyan Orphan – box set go
From Branksome Beach to the world, maybe there’s a parallel reality in which Shelleyan Orphan are as famed as Kate Bush, as cool as the Cocteau Twins and as revered as Portishead; a place where Caroline Crawley and Jemaur Tayle are Britain’s answer to Blondie’s Debbie Harry and Chris Stein – a creative hothouse that also Read More…
Jill’s life with jam on it
Time was when jam and pickle making were the preserve of every homemaker, traditional weapons in the fight to stave off famine by making the most of the fruits from times of feast. From late summer into autumn, kitchens everywhere were busy with fruit and vegetables being boiled, simmered, pickled, blanched and steeped in readiness Read More…
The art of nostalgia
Having swapped blackboard and chalk four years ago for canvas and brush, former teacher Richard Watkin is enjoying a new lease of life as a painter, turning the Dorset landmarks he loves into vintage-inspired artworks. With wife Judi acting as marketing manager, administrator, sounding board, critic and tea maker, what started life as a hobby Read More…