Since last Spring, all the people in Dorset interested in the Dormouse Recovery Programme have been meeting every month at different reserves to see how these mammals are surviving in the County. The group started at Garston Wood last April and have looked at a number of the Dorset Wildlife Trust reserves and then Forest Enterprise sites where conservation is a major theme. It has been extremely interesting to find that no one type of habitat is essential; they are present in conifer and deciduous woodland and even live in hedges by the sea. They require a varied diet of flowers, insects, berries, and nuts but can survive on a wide variety of those ingredients rather than just hazelnuts and bramble, as was earlier supposed. It seems that the weather is the deciding factor in their breeding cycle rather than the availability of food. Very warm spells in winter can upset their hibernation and use up valuable fat reserves, while cold, wet spells in the Spring and Summer can prevent breeding completely.
In Garston Wood, they are present in mixed woodland, scrub and dense hazel stands but numbers are low after a couple of rather variable seasons. Breeding has been confirmed this year with six of a family of eight successfully leaving a nest. The work by our warden and the volunteers will continue to provide a suitable range of habitats and food sources for these delightful creatures, at the same time improving the biodiversity present in the woods.
As is usual at this time of year there is little bird activity in the woods. A plentiful supply of food and warm conditions mean the migrants can put on fat for their long trip home while the residents can catch some rays! The Chiffchaffs are still calling as I write and seem ready to hang on here for a bit longer. If your garden is anything like mine, then you will be seeing all kinds of unusual visitors, especially warblers. This year’s young are now able to look after themselves and leave their parents for good: They are willing to try all kinds of places for the food they need for migration. One new resident that you might look out for this winter is the Raven. This beautiful bird is now being seen regularly in the area, having recovered from years of decline in its range.
At the time the NHS began, life in a rural practice could be beset by many difficulties - lack of transport, electricity and running water being just a few. Two retired GPs from Sixpenny Handley - Dr. Zoe Harris and Dr. Ian Geddes - between them recall the development of the GP practice there over the decades.
Dr Zoe Harris begins...
The Health Service had just started when we came to our scattered Dorset practice.
It was a time of great goodwill; patients knew they could now afford to call a doctor.
For doctors, there was the satisfaction of being able to treat patients without money coming into the equation.
The Cranborne Chase was still recovering from wartime shortages.
There were very few cars, which meant that most patients had to be visited at home - 49 calls in one day was our record - and there were many night calls too.
Sixpenny Handley had no electricity, no mains water and no sewers.
Later we made our own electricity with a generator, but it was evening surgery by lamplight before that.
We did our own dispensing for the whole practice, making up large jars of stock medicines. Antibiotics were new and very precious.
To help outlying patients, medicines were left in Post Offices, village shops and friendly porches. None ever went astray,
The district nurse was also the midwife.
Normal confinements took place at home.
The older patients were still wary of hospitals. One old lady with a broken femur flatly refused to go, and was treated with traction provided by the weight of our grandfather clock. She made a complete recovery.
Our practice was very much a cottage industry, but it was a very happy one, with undemanding goodwill on both sides.
Dr Geddes takes up the story...
My predecessors had had to buy the goodwill in the practice for one and a half year's income - £1,500.
Twenty-five years later my wife and I took over the large house in which the dining room was the waiting room, the billiard room the consulting room and the butler's pantry the dispensary.
The kitchen was the scene of all practice meetings. We lived upstairs and were able to keep in close touch with local events from the talk in the dining room below - sometimes so intriguing that patients would not come through to be seen until the tale was ended or I would find that they had been taken to see our children's pony!
A part-time dispenser did the filing, but there was no secretary and when there was no surgery, my wife was the hub of the practice day and night.
The house was over two miles from Sixpenny Handley so surgery was held twice a week in the vicarage dining room.
One patient, after having his back manipulated, commented that it was the first time that he had been under the vicar's dining table.
In 1978 the practice moved - by horsebox - into a new surgery in Handley. The practice team increased to a district nurse/midwife, a shared health visitor, a secretary/receptionist as well as a new dispenser. My wife remained tied to the 'phone out of hours.
Record keeping was revolutionised by changing to A4 folders and a fortnightly meeting of the medical team was attended by a social worker.
Still the medicines were routinely left in friendly porches and a 'snow box' was left in each village in November. My life was transformed by regularly swapping weekends with the doctor in Cranborne.
In 1984 I set up a partnership with another single-handed doctor practising with one part-time secretary /dispenser from two rooms in a converted garage in the neighbouring Chalke valley and with Dr Hugh Pelly.
Another new surgery, including a room for the district nurses and health visitor, was built in Broadchalke and we were joined by two practice nurses.
The primary care team had arrived and our regular team meetings included, for part of the time, the local vicars and local volunteer group leaders. In 1991 it was agreed that one health visitor should cover the whole practice. A district nurse was seconded later on the same basis.
They thus formed a cross boundary integrated team, managing themselves and with flexibility to swap roles.
Later we were able to create a locality nursing team of nurses resident in the area, working when required and paid from savings in the nursing budget. Now more changes are in the pipeline.
Undoubtedly after 50 years of the NHS our patients are receiving a far wider range of care delivered locally, a much more skilled primary care team of 30 - plus visiting therapists.
The recent public meeting at Pentridge village hall to discuss the application for a telecommunication mast at Cobley has indirectly focused my thoughts on the shortcomings of our local electoral system.
The meeting was informed that the Parish Council's Plans Committee had decided to support the application and that if anyone wanted to change the situation, the opportunity to do so would arise next May. This was supposed to mean that the chance to remove those councillors who disagreed with the wishes of the electors of Pentridge would occur at the next parish council elections. The only problem with this suggestion is that those living within the parish of Pentridge, which comprises the village of Pentridge, plus East and West Woodyates, are only allowed to vote for three out of ten parish councillors. Conversely, the people living within the boundary of the parish of Sixpenny Handley are allowed to vote for seven of the ten councillors. Therefore, the opportunity for Pentridge parishioners to remove the offending Sixpenny Handley councillors does not exist.
This anomaly has troubled me for some time and the need to re-examine the local powers of the electorate, or should I say the lack of them, is of great importance to anyone who believes in the democratic power of the people. The choice seemed quite clear: either there was one register of electors which covered the two parishes of Sixpenny Handley and Pentridge, but this would inevitably lead to an even greater domination by Sixpenny Handley; or the two parishes should be separated as they were in the past.
In January, I wrote to the District Council about the viability of full separation of the two county parishes, and I was pleasantly surprised to learn from the reply that Pentridge would qualify for "district" parish status (i.e. one which would normally be allowed a parish council) under the Local Government Act of 1972, simply because it has more than 150 residents. However, since it is already "parished", the only way this can be achieved now is for the "Sixpenny Handley with Pentridge" Parish Council, or a majority of the residents of the parish of Pentridge, to write to the Chief Executive requesting a "review of the parish" and the possible separation of Pentridge.
On receiving the request for a review, the Chief Executive would refer it to the Council's General Purposes Committee to determine whether or not to undertake the review. If the Committee decide to go ahead with the review then it must pass through several protracted stages of consultation between the Parish Council and the General Purposes Committee, and other interested parties, before the Committee can formulate the final recommendations to the full Council. These must be adopted by the Council and submitted to the Secretary of State for the Environment for approval, rejection or referral to the Local Government Commission.
It was clear from the response to my letter that the process to create a separate parish council was unnecessarily lengthy and typical of the way in which the District Council works. But the need for proper democracy and a forum for the residents of the parish of Pentridge to discuss issues germain to their community far outweighs any inconvenience the District Council may contrive.
The two parishes are already separated in a number of ways. Not just in geographical terms but in other ways: a separate church; a separate village hall; separate home watch schemes; a separate definitive map and statement on public rights of way; a separate footpaths officer and tree warden; as well as a separate register of electors, hence, a separate electoral system; and last but not least, a separate parish tax. From these differences, it seems logical to conclude that the act of separation would be fairly painless and, in the interests of democracy, should therefore be delayed no longer.
Few villages in the British Isles escaped the awful litany of death that has become a permanent reminder of the First World War. Pause to look at any of the memorials commemorating the fallen from the two world wars and it becomes clear that the sacrifice of the 1914-1918 conflict was far greater than that of 1939-1945. Our village of Sixpenny Handley is no exception; twenty-six names are recorded on the memorial that stands on the triangle of green bordering the entrance to St. Mary’s and of this terrible total for small a community, twenty-three died in the former conflict and three in the latter.
Some years ago, I wrote to the Commonwealth War Graves Commission at Maidenhead to ask where these twenty-six men now rest and I am indebted to the Commission for the information that appears in the first of the two tables that accompany this article. I also wrote to the military historian Martin Middlebrook (his books dealing with the dreadful carnage that marked the opening day of the Battle of the Somme in July 1916 and the final German offensive of March 1918 are recommended to anyone wishing to gain some insight of the terrible conditions in which the armies of both sides fought between 1914 and 1918) asking if he could pinpoint some of the battles, or causes, that led to their deaths. Thus, I am grateful to Martin for much of the material used in the second section.
Now, with Remembrance Sunday approaching, it is hoped that as many as possible will attend the service in front of our memorial to honour the memory of:-
| Pte Fred Weeks | 27-Aug-14 | 1st Bn Wiltshire Regt | Bethencourt Communal Cemetery France |
| Pte Williams George Phillips | 24-Oct-14 | 1st Bn Wiltshire Regt | Bethune Town Cemetery, France |
| Pte Hector Card | 21-Feb-15 | 3rd Bn Dorsetshire Regt | Weymouth Cemetery, Dorset |
| Spr Arthur New | 23-Mar-15 | 12th Fd Company RE | Houplines Communal Cemetery |
| Pte Edwin Hobbs | 30-Apr-15 | 5th Bn Dorsetshire Regt | Sixpenny Handley Churchyard |
| 2Lt Sidney Vandyke Hasluck (Mentioned in Despatches) | 14-Jun-15 | Indian Army reserve of Officer; attached 14th Sikhs | The Helles Memorial, Gallipoli |
| L/S Jack Fitz-Roy Waters | 25-Feb-16 | 1st/1st Dorset Yeomanry | Chatby War Memorial, Alexandria, Eygpt |
| Pte Fred Card | 20-Jun-16 | 1st Bn Dorsetshire Regt | Authuile Military Cemetery, France |
| Cpl Maurice George Messer | 26-Jul-16 | 1st Bn Wiltshire Regt | Louvencourt Military Cemetery, France |
| Pte Lionel Thorne | 26-Sep-16 | 5th Bn Dorsetshire Regt | Regina Trench Cemetery, Grandcourt, France |
| L/C Thomas Latta | 07-Oct-16 | 5th Bn Dorsetshire Regt | Etaples Military Cemetery, France |
| Pte Henry Edward Harrison | 25-Mar-17 | 2nd Bn Dorsetshire Regt | The Basra Memorial, Iraq |
| Pte William Rose | 02-Apr-17 | 2nd Bn Wiltshire Regt | Bucquoy Road Cemetery, Ficheux, France |
| Pte Maurice Jesse | 09-Apr-17 | 2nd Bn Wiltshire Regt | The Arras Memorial, France |
| Pte Charles Scott | 12-Apr-17 | 6th Bn Dorsetshire Regt | Level Crossing Cemetery, Fampoux, France |
| Pte Samson Rose | 01-May-17 | 5th Bn Dorsetshire Regt | Red Cross Corner Cemetery, Beugny, France |
| Pte Douglas Lucas | 04-Jun-17 | 2nd Bn Canadian Infrantry (Eastern Ontario Regt) | Sixpenny Handley Churchyard |
| Pte Tom New | 01-Jul-17 | 2nd Bn Dorsetshire Regt | The Basra Memorial, Iraq |
| Pte Joseph Arthur Chaldecott | 13-Nov-17 | 1st/1st Dorset Yeomanry | Ramleh War Cemetery, Palestine |
| Pte Henry William Lucas | 15-Nov-17 | Devonshire Regt Trans: 194 Coy Labour Corps | Sixpenny Handley Churchyard |
| L/C John Hall | 21-Apr-18 | 1st Bn Dorsetshire Regt | St-Sever Cemetery Extension, Rouen, France |
| Pte Ernest White | 01-Jun-18 | 2nd Bn Wiltshire Regt | The Soissons Memorial, France |
| Pte W T Chaldecott | 10-Oct-18 | Royal Defence Corps, Serving aboard RMS Leinster | The Hollybrook Memorial, Southampton |
| O/S William Chedley Lucas | 25-Nov-41 | HMS Barham | The Portsmouth Naval Memorial |
| Pte Harry Frederick Charles Neave | 10-Jul-44 | 4th Bn Dorsetshire Regt | St-Manvieu War Cemetery, France |
| O/S Donald Lionel Bennett | 01-Sep-44 | HMS Hurst Castle | The Chatham Naval Memorial |
Before commencing the second section, it is worth remembering that apart from the first few weeks of World War I and the closing months of 1918, the war was principally a static campaign slugged out from a myriad of trench systems that stretched from the Channel coast of northern France to the Swiss frontier. Throughout four years of abject misery, the driving force in the minds of the commanders was that once the front line had been broken, then the cavalry would be free to pass through the breaches in the wire and take control of the enemy’s rear areas. Sadly, it was not to be and millions of soldiers from both sides perished in long and protracted battles that sapped the strength of every nation involved. Today, the Battle of the Somme has become the focal point of remembrance, perhaps because of the involvement for the first time in the fighting of Kitchener’s "new army". Comprising of volunteers who answered the patriotic call to arms in the first few weeks of the war, this "new army" suffered harrowing losses as wave after wave attempted to cross the few hundred yards separating the forward British trenches from their German counterparts. Twixt dawn, when the artillery barrage, that had been going on for days in an attempt to destroy the German wire defences lifted, and dusk it is estimated that close on 60,000 had become casualties, the majority cut down in murderous cross fire from well dug-in enemy machine gun posts. It was, as Martin Middlebrook writes, "two men for every yard of their front ... casualties exceeded not only the entire infantry strength of the present British army (1971) but the combined battle casualties of the Crimean, the Boer and the Korean wars and fifteen times the British casualties on D-Day (1944)". It was slaughter on the grandest of scales. Prior to the Somme, the British Expeditionary Force had fought hard at Mons, le Cateau and on the Marne (these battles mark the period of some fluidity before the trench warfare that was to dominate the front for the next four years came into being), while in 1915 the names of Neuve Chapelle, Ypres, Aubers Ridge, Festubert and Loos came to be added to the battle honours of many battalions. Also, in 1915, came the awful attrition of the ill-fated Gallipoli campaign with Britain and France sustaining around 250,000 casualties.
In the wake of the Somme (the battle continued until the autumn of that year, by which time both sides were totally exhausted) came the equally numbing campaigns of 1917; Arras in the spring, Passchendaele and Cambrai all exacting a heavy toll in human lives. Then, following a massive enemy offensive in March 1918, the Allies at last contained the Kaiser's armies and with the Royal Navy imposing a highly successful blockade of the German ports, which was bringing near starvation to their country, an armistice was duly sought and obtained.
| Pte Fred Weeks | Killed during the retreat from Mons |
| Pte Williams George Phillips | Probally killed near the La Bassee canal |
| Pte Hector Card | Possibly a training accident, or natural causes |
| Spr Arthur New | Killed during general duties at the front |
| Pte Edwin Hobbs | Possibly a training accident, or natural causes |
| 2Lt Sidney Vandyke Hasluck | Killed in bitter trench fighting, during which his Commanding Officer was wounded |
| L/S Jack Fitz-Roy Waters | Possibly died from wounds received at Gallipoli |
| Pte Fred Card | Killed in the preparatory period leading up to the Battle of the Somme |
| Cpl Maurice George Messer | Believed died of wounds, Battle of the Somme |
| Pte Lionel Thorne | Killed in the attack on Mouquet Farm, Battle of the Somme |
| L/C Thomas Latta | Believed died of wounds, Battle of the Somme |
| Pte Henry Edward Harrison | Mesopotamia campaign |
| Pte William Rose | Killed in what is referred to as "routine trench warfare" |
| Pte Maurice Jesse | Killed on the first day of the Battle of Arras |
| Pte Charles Scott | Killed during the Battle of Arras |
| Pte Samson Rose | Killed in trench warfare near Bapaume |
| Pte Douglas Lucas | Possibly died from wounds received in France |
| Pte Tom New | Mesopotamia campaign |
| Pte Joseph Arthur Chaldecott | Palestine campaign |
| Pte Henry William Lucas | Not established; possible natural causes |
| L/C John Hall | Believed to have died from wounds received in the German spring offensive |
| Pte Ernest White | Not established; has no known grave |
| Pte W T Chaldecott | Presumed lost at sea |
| O/S William Chedley Lucas | Presumed lost at sea |
| Pte Harry Frederick Charles Neave | Killed in the Normandy fighting |
| O/S Donald Lionel Bennett | Presumed lost at sea |
Fire service driver in the Blitz who kept driving after her car was holed by a bomb, merely asking for a cup of tea and another car.
PATRICIA MORPHEW, who has died aged 80, was awarded a BEM for conspicuous bravery as a young staff car driver for the National Fire Service during the London Blitz.
She was driving to a fire along Dowgate Hill, near the Monument, in the City of London, on the night of May 10 1941, when a high-explosive bomb detonated only 15 yards from her car.
"It was a hell of a night," she later recalled. "I had to drive my chief, District Officer Craggs, to a fire which had just started. I got soaked from a hose, but before I had time to think, there was a flash. The car leapt into the air and came down 25 yards away. Somehow I was still holding the wheel.
"A whole building seemed to be coming in on us. The chief threw himself over me and stopped a lot of bricks and debris. Then I found that the car was on fire."
There was mayhem and confusion all around her. But with "courage a man can envy", in the words of Craggs, she coolly climbed out of the hole in the car's roof and extinguished the flames. She then drove the car on three flat tyres back to her fire station, where she calmly requested a "cup of tea, please, and another car."
The air raid lasted another 12 hours, during which she remained on duty, scotching incendiaries with anything she could lay her hands on, sometimes stamping out flames. At the height of the attack, she saved a building from fire by promptly removing two incendiary bombs from an upper floor.
She recorded in her diary how, during a brief lull in the bombardment she sat down to rest in front of some wooden doors but quickly got up again when she realised that the green paint behind her was bubbling with the heat.
On May 11, her diary entry simply read: "Leave, full moon, slept."
She was born Patricia Dorothea Dewing on June 6 1917 at Southsea. When she was a year old, her father, Lieutenant-Colonel Robert E Dewing, DSO, was killed in action leading the 10th Battalion of the Royal Berkshire regiment in France.
Her mother died shortly afterwards in the great influenza epidemic of 1919.
Patricia and her sister were brought up by their grandfather and, when he died, by two uncles. She was educated at Ancaster House, Bexhill and then at a finishing school in Montreux, where she learned skiing and "a little French". She began training as a physiotherapist in the French town of Rennes, then returned to England to complete her training at King’s College Hospital, qualifying shortly before war broke out.
She volunteered for the Fire Service because, she explained, she had a "girl’s love of fire engines with bright red pumps and clanging bells".
She was immediately posted as a staff car driver to Cannon Street Fire station. She had to drive officers through an area which included London’s docks, Beckton gasworks and the City of London, including St Pauls.
During the Blitz, Patricia Dewing’s station had to cope with massive destruction. The docks were a constant target, the vast reinforced concrete plant at Beckton was blasted into gargantuan wreckage and in one night six million books blazed in the publishers’ warehouses around St Paul’s. It made Patricia’s driving duties something of a challenge.
"Called to St Paul’s about 12pm. Spent unhappy time outside waiting for Craggs," read a typical entry, for April 16 1941. "No one in sight. Bombs very near all around. Things crashing down. Many fires. Land mine on church, and several dead. Tried to give First Aid to one man covered with dust, but he was dead."
On another occasion she volunteered to go into the street to give first aid to some injured firemen, regardless of the danger from falling bombs. Afterwards she helped fight a fire in the station itself, and prevented the flames from spreading. .
During another raid, she recalled, she was working on a bombed site, and tugged at some ropes in the dark, lost her balance and fell into a tank full of oil in a warehouse basement, ruining her uniform. By daylight it turned out that the ropes were attached to a UXB parachute mine.
When not employed driving her car, she would often be sent off on other errands. She recalled being instructed by one fire officer to "just nip up to the dome [of St Paul’s], girl and tell us how the fires at Cheapside are going".
After the war, she returned to her practice as a physiotherapist.
She was twice married. Her first marriage, to Martin Burnett, was dissolved. She married, secondly, Christopher Morphew, who died in 1986. She is survived by a daughter by her first marriage.
Patricia Morphew lived in Church Cottage in Sixpenny Handley until her death.