As I write, we have paddling in Pimperne, the Winterbourne on the Wimborne St Giles road has risen to flood both the road and pumping station, while Garston Woods look more like a battlefield. If you want to walk there, either wear wellingtons or just do the lower loop to avoid getting very wet and muddy feet! Tonight's forecast says more wet and windy weather, perhaps by the time you read this, I will be able to paddle my canoe around the roads instead of on the Stour.
I am very sorry that the woods are so inaccessible at present but it is important that the current years' programme goes ahead so that ultimately the wildlife will benefit by rejuvenating the woods through a more varied habitat. To explain exactly what the RSPB is up to, we intend holding a public meeting in the village in August that will detail how the management plan covers all the various needs of bats, birds, butterflies, plants and mammals.
The RSPB is a charity that relies on members subscriptions, legacies, donations and sponsorship from various sources to pay for both it's domestic involvement in reserves and wildlife conservation and it's international role as expert advisor to and member of, many of the important conservation bodies throughout the world. The land the RSPB owns is therefore not public as is that managed by English Heritage on behalf of the Government, but is the equivalent of a private owner. However, the Society does aim to make its land available to members and the public as much as possible, subject to the needs of conservation. If at times the restrictions imposed on reserves seem a little annoying, please understand they are related to long term issues not always immediately apparent.
Finally, I would ask anyone visiting the reserve to keep an eye out for vandals. We have had various attempts to smash open the cairn, which is emptied regularly and therefore contains very little, while the leaflets are regularly taken from the box and thrown around the area, perhaps in frustration! The woods are in the neighbourhood watch scheme with visits by police regularly, but help from the village might reduce the number of vehicles and property damaged. Thank you all for your understanding, once again apologies to all the dog walkers and visitors who find the mud such a nuisance.
I am always curious to know why certain things are done in the parish and often make a nuisance of myself trying to find the answer. But one thing which has baffled me ever since they appeared is the introduction of Horse Watch signs near the Cobley Lane junction at Woodyates on the A354. The section of road covered by the signs runs for about one hundred metres and I can only assume that the fields adjacent to that section of road are the only ones covered by the scheme. But there are horses at various locations throughout the parish of Pentridge and all those should surely be included in the scheme. Would it not have been better to put up notices at the parish boundaries telling people that the whole of the parish is a "Horse Watch" area?
Tim Palmer's In Touch leaflet has reminded me that the District Council elections are taking place in May, and one day in the not too distant future Alan Humphries and his opponents will be making their way up the garden path to seek my support. It also reminds me that on the night of the 4th of May 1995, the date of the last District/Parish Council elections, I was elected to serve as a Pentridge councillor on the joint parish council. As things turned out, I remain the only Pentridge ward councillor elected that night still sitting on the council. But time moves on, and the community now needs to start thinking about the election of a new parish council. I say "election", but that in fact may not occur. Only if more people stand for the Parish Council than there are seats available will an election be contested. The current composition of the joint parish council means that there are seven seats to fill for the Sixpenny Handley ward and three seats for the Pentridge ward, The District Council has advised me that nominations for the new Parish Council can be submitted between the 29th of March and noon on the 8th of April, 1999, and that nominations papers can be obtained from the election office at Furzehill as early as the 1st of March 1999. Each nominee must have a proposer and a seconder from the parish, and from my original copy of the Candidate's Guide I am reminded that there are rules and regulations on who can stand; the main disqualifications include holding a paid office under the local authority, bankruptcy, and having been sentenced to a term of imprisonment (whether suspended or not) of not less than three months (without the option of a fine) during the five years preceding the election. There are certainly no financial rewards for having a seat on the Parish Council, but it is undoubtedly a very interesting way of becoming better acquainted with the community and with this special part of Dorset in which we live. If you have a love for the parishes of Sixpenny Handley and Pentridge and want to see them continue to be cared for and protected, please put your name forward -it costs nothing to do so.
All our villagers were perfectly happy and contented. The wages of the agricultural workers were from 11s. to 13s. a week with an extra shilling or two for haymaking and harvest, and they put in long days.
The corn was cut by the scythe and the women came behind and tied up the sheaves and stacked them. The fields were a hive of industry. Every morning at about 6.30 about 30 men and lads would assemble at the Cross. It was like a meeting of sorts.
There was generally a discussion over the previous day’s events, or what was likely to happen that day. It did not take long, for at 6.45 they all moved off, some to Town Farm, some to Manor Farm and the remainder to Frogmoor farm, and in a few moments all was quiet. The shepherds generally went direct to the sheepfolds, the woodsmen and hurdle makers to the Chase Woods and the tradesmen, carpenters, wheelwrights and smiths to their various jobs.
These men started work at 6 o’clock during summer months, May to November; breakfast at 8 o’clock to 8.30, dinner 1-2, and then worked to 6 p.m. During the winter months the time was from 6.30 to 5.30, and the days went on till May when, on the second Tuesday in this month, the Roe Buck Benefit Society held their feast. This was a great day. It was the first ‘break’ of the year. I daresay this was the subject of the early morning discussions at the Cross before work. It was these workmen who made up the membership of the Society.
For a week before the event, preparations could be seen going on. A large arch of scaffold poles was erected opposite the ‘Roe Buck’ decorated with evergreens and flowers. It looked very smart. Stalls were erected by the side of the street, laden with all kinds of funny toys, ginger bread and home-made sweets, etc., and there was a coconut shy in the lane opposite the Inn.
The Ebbesborne Band came each year. At 9.30 in the morning two or three members of the Club would take the Club Banner and go to the top of the Village to meet the band members who had walked from Ebbesborne, and generally a small crowd of Denland folk who had joined them, and it did not take long for them to form up and play a march to the Roe-Buck, where the other members were waiting to receive them. After many handshakes, and some pints of beer had been consumed, the whole of the members formed in procession, each with a rosette of red, white and blue in the lapel of his coat, and marched to the Vicarage to ‘call’ for the Vicar, who was waiting at the hall door. He too had a large rosette on his coat, and off everyone went to the Church. ‘Collecting’ Blind Jim Poolman, our organist, on the way. All this time the Church bells were ringing a merry peal. I well remember one hymn which was sung every year, ‘All People that on Earth do dwell’, and the out-going voluntary, ‘The March in Scipio’ I cannot say much about the feast, but I well remember seeing the local farmers and tradesmen joining in the crowd. Everyone appeared on a level, the workpeople mixing with their employers. In fact it was their day - the employers taking second place. The day was handed over to them to make merry - it was their club; it was their annual feast day. On Whit-Monday the same happened all over again, for it was the turn of the rival society at the ‘Star’ Inn.
About 1890, the Oddfellows’ and Foresters’ Societies were beginning to get strong and as these grew the older clubs began gradually to fade out. Although the monthly subscription was slightly higher, yet many left the old societies for one or other of the larger ones. The Oddfellows had, and still have, their headquarters at the ‘Star’ Inn and the headquarters of the Foresters was the ‘Roe-Buck’.
The subscription was on a sliding scale and a number of farmers and tradesmen paid the higher fees and became members.
These Societies, too, held a feast and fete, but not annually, and it was on a much larger scale. When, for instance, the Oddfellows decided in early spring of any year that a fete should be held in the coming summer, they formed a committee to draw up a schedule of events. The Secretary would be instructed to advertise the fete and solicit tenders for a band, sometimes two, and from caterers for the lunch and teas, etc.
A programme of pony races, donkey races, foot races, etc. were drawn up and the entries were open to a wide area. This drew a lot of people. The local farmers were invited to act as stewards, starters and judges, and were always willing to help.
Both these Societies generally joined together for this function. If the Oddfellows arranged this years fete, they would by general consent invite the Foresters to join them, which was always accepted.
On the morning of the great day, and after the roll call, two selected members would go to the Foresters Headquarters and call them.
The Secretary and Officers and the members, all in their best and many with their green sashes, others with the Foresters’ emblem in the lapel of their coats, and the lovely banner and bearers, would be found waiting.
The Secretary took his place between the two delegates, the Societies’ Officers next and the members following in procession to the Headquarters of the inviting Society. It was a very cordial reception, the two Secretaries shaking hands and members of all grades likewise.
Think of it! If during the last weeks or even days there had been a ‘tiff’ between any it was all forgotten today. If two bands had been engaged, one would lead the Oddfellows and the other the Foresters and a procession, four-a-breast, would form up and march to the Vicarage and invite the Vicar to lead them to church.
If the Oddfellows had issued the invitation this year, the Foresters, with their band and banner, would be given the place of honour, and lead the procession to church and after the service, the Oddfellows would lead to the field, which had been kindly placed at their disposal by one of the farmers. The procession through the village street was really a lovely sight.
The banner which preceded the Oddfellows was about three yards square, with a wide blue border depicting the Good Samaritan in beautiful colours attending to the wounds of a traveller lying on the ground and the ass standing by, the Priest in the distance and the Levite midway, looking back over his shoulder. The Foresters’ banner was the same size, but with a green border, depicting a forest scene, with a stag in the distance, and a Forester standing by his horse with a bow and a quiver of arrows and a bugle slung over his shoulder. There was one man to each pole and two men in front and two at the back with long white cords attached to the top of the banners to support it.
It was usual to invite a local gentleman to take the chair at the luncheon, which was held in a large tent in the grounds. This may have been the local MP or the Lord of the Manor, who was supported by all the farmers and tradesmen from a wide area. There were steam roundabouts, shooting galleries, swing boats, coconuts, stalls with toys etc.
There was cricket on the Common for the men; our Vicar, Rev. T. F. Bigg, was very keen and played in most matches, which started at 11 a.m. and always played out two innings. continued in Apr 99 issue
The victims lay poignantly in a chalk pit. The young women had been fit and healthy with perfect teeth. The other three were children. And they were about 5,500 years old.
How they died and why they were buried together might have a perfectly innocent explanation. But with modern science now on the case, it is beginning to look increasingly like a Stone Age murder mystery. Experts believe that they may have uncovered the sacrificial killing of a young mother, her daughter and two playmates.
The grave came to light two years ago when Martin Green, a farmer and amateur archaeologist, took a microlight flight over his fields in Cranborne Chase, a dramatic and beautiful area of chalk hills on the Dorset-Wiltshire border, rich in mysterious burial mounds and ancient folklore.
He spotted an extraordinary pattern like the shadow of a "henge" or ceremonial Neolithic timber circle, and decided to investigate.
With the soil stripped off, the circles stood out in brilliant white chalk - more than a dozen circular pits a few feet across, set around a large depression 50ft wide. Martin decided to keep digging and stumbled upon a huge shaft, extending nearly 25ft into the rock, carefully excavated by stone and antler-bone tools.
Alongside was another pit covered by a layer of large chalk blocks. As the first of these was prized out, Martin saw the dome of a human skull. He remarked: "Now I know how Howard Carter felt when he looked in the tomb of Tutankhamun."
After hours of excavation, more bones were revealed, including three more skulls, and it became clear that Martin was looking at a grave. Two skeletons lay at each end, crouched as if asleep. Poignantly three of them were small.
"When you see that it's three children it's quite disturbing," said archaeologist Julian Richards, who helped Martin to excavate the site. "It's a very sad burial group!'
The bones were sent for analysis and slowly clues to the identity of the ancient skeletons took shape. The investigators found that the woman was slim, about 5ft 3in tall and aged about 30. The most remarkable feature of her perfectly preserved skull was her teeth. All 32 were present, with no sign of decay or disease, reflecting her healthy, sugar-free diet.
A reconstruction by computer reveals an elegant, slightly-built, woman, far removed from the "cave-dweller" image of popular imagination.
The children - two girls and a boy - were aged about five, eight and nine. They too seemed healthy, although one of the skulls showed the early signs, of a rare bone cancer which at that stage would not have been fatal.
The skeletons were dated at between 5,400 and 5,500 years - older than the Pyramids and just a couple of thousand years after the Ice Age breathed its last chill over England.
DNA analysis showed that one of the girls was the women’s daughter. The other two children were possibly brother and sister, but not related to the woman. Further chemical analysis of the bones allowed the scientists to work out where they had lived.
Trace metals from the 1ocal environment find their way into our teeth and bones at an early age, and the woman was almost certainly born in the Mendips, around 50 miles to the north. The two unrelated children were from Cranborne, but how they all came to be united remains unknown.
The cause of death, too, remains a mystery, although experts suspect that it was not natural. Ancient Britons had a sophisticated religion, which almost certainly involved human sacrifices.
Julian Richards said, "The grave has something dark about it. You have this awful feeling that if they were sacrificed, they went willingly"