Praise for history of Bridport rope and net making
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 surrounding villages in quite the same way ever again.
CAMRA West Dorset pub guide published
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 area roughly bounded by Lyme [...]
A walk on Eype beach
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
Philip Larkin’s verdict on Weymouth: “delicious”
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 described the resort to his [...]
Finding myself in John Fowles’s library
Books on sale from his collection remind me, uncomfortably, of my own encounters with the irascible author of The French Lieutenant’s Woman
Found on Chesil Beach wearing women’s underwear
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 this, in passing, about West [...]
Lyme Regis fossil hunter Mary Anning acclaimed as top British scientist – and secret inspiration for John Fowles
THE LYME REGIS fossil hunter Mary Anning has been named by the Royal Society as the third most influential female scientist in British history. The move comes as yet another book is published about Anning, once an almost entirely forgotten figure. The Canadian novelist Joan Thomas has written a novel – out next week – [...]