There are few, if any, other places in Britain that have been shaped for so long by one industry as Bridport has been by rope, net and twine. The trade probably dates back to the ninth century. Read Mr Sims detailed book and you’ll never look at Bridport and its…
YOU KNOW the scenario – you’ve arrived in a place you don’t know well and you need to find a fine pint of real ale – and a good lunch. Here to help you around West Dorset is the new Campaign for Real Ale guide, listing all 273 pubs in the…
Let’s walk. Underfoot the scrunchy pea gravel scrapes and squeaks. Sudden patches of sand give relief to legs already wearied by trudging on banked and sliding stones. Look closer underfoot – individual pebbles lucent with seawater…
IN JULY 1953 Philip Larkin stayed at the Royal Hotel on Weymouth seafront. He came on holiday with his mother Eva and was often mistaken for her brother or husband. He didn’t seem to mind this. He enjoyed holidays, despite claiming not to, and he liked Weymouth. This is how he…
Books on sale from his collection remind me, uncomfortably, of my own encounters with the irascible author of The French Lieutenant's Woman…
In the latest issue of the London Review of Books, the essayist Stefan Collini reviews a new book by Jeremy Lewis, Shades of Greene: One Generation of an English Family (Cape, £25). It’s mostly about the novelist Graham Greene and his numerous brothers, sisters and cousins. There’s masses of detail, including…
BRIDPORT ARTS CENTRE is expanding its activities for families, starting with a production of Alice in Wonderland. Many families have apparently asked the arts centre about doing things there on a Sunday, and so it’s heading off down the rabbit hole… Alice in Wonderland, based on Lewis Carroll’s book, will…
