Oh how we’ve missed it. A couple of months ago, when it seemed all hope was lost, Lush Places penned its very own community poem, each person contributing one or two lines and egged on by that Wondermentalist, the performance poet Matt Harvey, as part of an Artsreach show.

If, like me, you’re a lover of brevity, this poem is no haiku or limerick. But it’s well worth a read to the end. We’ve passed this love letter to our local to Palmers Brewery who say they have never seen anything quite like it.

So here goes…

An ode to the White Lion

In the bar the lion sleeps tonight

They say the White Lion roams on Lewesdon Hill

‘Is anybody there?’ said the traveller

The open pub will have to do good grub

I went there once and had a pie

One landlord with more than eyes for the ladies and another one who was as miserable as Hades

We need people to cheer where there is beer

Like Shipton Gorge’s New Inn, the Lion will be a-brewin

Ruling the world from Compost Corner

Warm and welcoming, friendly to dogs

T’was the White Lion in Lush Places where I did want to dine

Miss the hairy sofa

I have never seen a white lion

Fuggy, muggy air seeps through, contaminating passers-by

The Lion is closed, the Lion is dead, long live the Lion

Oh to be in the White Lion now that winter’s here

Endless possibilities

A warm glass of Chardonnay from a fridge too far

After a few wines I too roar like a lion

Don’t lean on the wall Fred

Come back John and Sue

An inviting place of comfort and warmth

I’d like ice with mine…

The White Lion has joined the other myths of Dorset, such as the black dog of Common Water Lane

Squishy, squashy dog-hair sofa. The pub with no beer or any other cheer

That Palmers is rank again, like making love in a punt – near water

The garden is full of frogs

Last orders…pleeease

Tricky Dicky and Domestic Pam

Please give us basic pub food e.g. local sausages and mash

The lion is white with fright at the beer here

We miss our pub which we should use for happy evenings, food and booze

Road safety, don’t tear round the White line/Lion

New Year conga round the village

All we’re left with is a lonely pub and no beer

‘What do you mean there is no Guinness?’

We miss the cheer. The clink of glasses – the bubble of voices

The White Lion lives with my husband under the kitchen table

Open again soon.

The White Lion, dream of the hunters? Where oh where is all the beer?

A giggling group gathered in Compost Corner. A pub of dwindling renown

Palmers, re-open our long dark pale pussy cat

The White Lion lost its roar and customers galore, smiling, laughter, no frowning or scowls.

The buzz and banter of a pub in the community

Come back, come back, the hunt is here

The weather vane on the roof spins round and round

Lots of jolly people, great expectations

We had a pleasant jar served up by landlord ex-QPR

The White Lion is closed

Will rise like a Phoenix

Brian Wood at Palmers Brewery in Bridport. His lorry has done more than 1.5 million miles. Above Brian's head is the trapdoor that leads though into Palmers' malt loft.

THIRTY years ago one of the unsung heroes of British brewing began criss-crossing the country with sacks of malt.

Brian Wood started carrying malt for Hugh Baird and Sons at Station Maltings in Witham in Essex in the Autumn of 1981. When Baird’s got taken over in the mid-1990s, he set up on his own.

I’ve met him a couple of times at Palmers Brewery in Bridport, where he’s been delivering malt since the early 1980s.

He’s a fine man, as I hope comes through in the video that I made about him for the Palmers Brewery YouTube channel.

Here, also, is a link to a story written about Brian Wood and Palmers.

What that story doesn’t contain is a list of all the UK breweries that Brian has been to.

It’s an evocative litany, so here it is. Fifty-nine different brewers, 63 separate breweries, some of them now shut for many years. Morrells’ Lion Brewery, for example, was converted into ‘luxury apartments’. Julia Hanson’s in Dudley was knocked down to make way for a Netto supermarket, turned this summer into an Asda.

• Whitbread (Sheffield, Cheltenham, Salford)
• Boddingtons (Manchester)
• Joseph Holt (Manchester)
• JW Lees (Manchester)
• Timothy Taylor (Keighley)
• Samuel Smith (Tadcaster)
• Bass (Burton)
• McMullens (Hertford)
• Julia Hanson (Dudley)
• Banks (Wolverhampton)
• Hardy Hanson (Kimberley)
• Brains (Cardiff)
• Buckleys (Llanelli)
• Felinfoel (Dyfed)
• Wadworth (Devizes)
• Hall & Woodhouse (Blandford)
• Palmers Brewery (Bridport)
• Otter Brewery (Blackdown Hills)
• Butcombe (Blagdon)
• Smiles (Bristol)
• Hook Norton (Oxon)
• Morrells (Oxford)
• Fullers (Chiswick )
• Tring (Hertford)
• Adnams (Southwold)
• Tolly’s (Ipswich)
• Harveys (Lewes)
• Hepworths (Horsham)
• King & Barnes (Horsham)
• Hull Brewery
• Batemans (Wainfleet)
• Robinsons (Stockport))
• Thwaites (Blackburn)
• Jennings (Cockermouth)
• Moorhouse (Burnley)
• Higsons (Liverpool)
• Burtonwood Brewery
• Everards (Leicester and Burton on Trent)
• Marstons (Burton on Trent)
• Ind Coope (Burton on Trent)
• Castlemaine (Wrexham)
• Oldham Brewery
• Hart Brewery (Preston)
• Mitchells (Lancaster)
• Vaux (Sunderland & Sheffield)
• Federation (Newcastle)
• Courage (Bristol & Reading)
• Crouch Brewery (Essex)
• Gales (Horndean)
• Devenish (Redruth)
• St Austell (Cornwall)
• Halls (Oxford)
• Tisbury Brewery (Wiltshire)
• Ringwood Brewery (Hampshire)
• Shepherd Neame (Faversham)
• Trough Brewery (Idle)
• Brakspears (Henley on Thames)
• Pilgrim (Reigate)
• Mendip Brewery (Somerset)

Imagine going to the Trough Brewery at Idle for the first time! And seeing this, when you got there.

Nowadays Brian delivers mostly to Palmers in Dorset, Arkell’s in Swindon, Felinfoel near Llanelli, Harveys in Lewes, Elgood’s in Wisbech, Wadworth in Devizes and Fuller’s in Chiswick.

Good reason, I’d say, to favour those seven brewers.

Alistair Chisholm. Best known as Dorchester's award-winning town crier, he's also an independent member of West Dorset District Council, where he feels his voice is not quite so well heard.

IT’S ALMOST three months since I was elected to West Dorset District Council (WDDC) as an independent candidate for Charminster and Cerne Valley and time, perhaps, to make some early observations.

Unfortunately much that I’d been warned about in relation to the way in which the District Council conducts its affairs appears to be true.

There is precious little “democracy” as evidenced by the fact that there’s virtually no debate on major issues.

Decisions affecting the district are taken by an executive committee comprising seven members of the majority party (Conservative) each of whom is personally selected by the leader of that party (Cllr Robert Gould). I sense that their selection is based on the degree to which they can be relied on to go along with and enthusiastically support every decision he makes.

West Dorset has, effectively, an unelected Mayor.

I’m not suggesting that WDDC are behaving in an unlawful way but I am saying that, within a total of 48 elected representatives, there are bound to be different views and differing priorities. In my innocence and ignorance I fondly thought that there might be room, at this lowly but important level of local government, for the free exchange of ideas and opinions on issues which affect the people of the district.

No individual or party group is all-knowing and proper open debate is a fundamental safeguard of our much vaunted democracy which, if unavailable to democratically elected representatives, makes for a dangerously narrow and limited view of what is appropriate for the district.

The building of £10million new offices for WDDC (and a new £5million library for Dorset County Council) on the Charles Street site in Dorchester is a classic (and most expensive) example of a decision reached by the very few but claimed to be in the interests of the many.

There needs to be more open discussion at an early stage so that ideas are properly tested and do not become a sticking point from which the leader will not withdraw for fear of losing face. “Cabinet” style local government, brought in in 2000, has done little for democracy in West Dorset.

I should add that my comments apply to the manner in which important decisions are made by elected members and in no way reflect on the majority of council staff. The staff have their hands full facing, as they do;

1. a 25% decrease in central government funding,

2. an uncertain future in the case of some staff as WDDC and Weymouth and Portland Borough Council develop their “partnership working” arrangements,

3. an increased workload linked to the move into new offices and

4. a considerable number of additional tasks associated with next year’s Olympics.

I admire the staff of both councils who continue to perform their duties in challenging times. I most sincerely hope that the independent support measures, which I’m assured are in place, are sufficiently robust to cater for those who currently, and in future will increasingly, feel the pressure associated with these challenges.