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Alan
read in turn examples of their poems, firstly an extract from 'Rabin Hill's
Visit to the Railway', followed by 'Fippen Okford Diggens' (based on a rumour at
the time that gold and silver was to be unearthed at Okeford Fitzpaine!) Whilst
the second of these was more subtle in form, and both jovially captured the
essence of simple rural speech, they were not poetry as such, but accomplished
humorous verse, and did not approach the artistry of "The Turnstile', by
William Barnes.
Moving from Sturminster Newton in the early 19th century to Portland in the 20th
century, Alan read two of Skylark Durston's poems from his 1987 collection Tales
from the Ragged Louse (The Ragged Louse is a public house). These were "The
Wedding' and "The Coming of the Masons, or the Quarryman's Lament', the
former comprising an amusing
folk-tale and the latter, arguably Durston's best dialect poem, being a
significant
In conclusion, both Robert Young and 'Skylark' Durston were fine writers, but
neither compare with William Bames as poets. The writing of deeply felt
sentiments in the dialect is very difficult, most poets being impelled to be
comic and restricted to simple tales. Only William Bames and Thomas Hardy have
had the actual confidence needed to express sincere emotion and achieve true
poetry in the Dorset dialect. Alan's
thoughtful talk was given with great vivacity and the audience was captivated.
Many subtleties were pinpointed and the outline given here is proof indeed of
how essential it is to revive the practice of recording all such enlightening
talks verbatim, for future reference, in the Proceedings. The
talk was followed by coffee and biscuits and the most timely opportunity to
purchase [signed] copies of Alan's highly relevant book that had just been
published, A Bit of a Bumble An affectionate look at the Dorset dialect. The
next talk in the Society's current Programme was by Douglas Ashdown, on
Thursday,
19th February, entitled 'How I became a Writer' and was actually delivered by
his wife Brenda. It
was Doug's long-standing interest in William Bames, inspired as it originally
was almost by chance, that had progressively led to him becoming a writer and to
the climactic
publication last year of his delightful book William Bames - My Hwomeward Road.
The story of the background to all this goes back some thirty years to the 1970s
when he andBrenda were living atBroadmayne in an old property there, the 1818
deeds of which bore the signature of William Bames, at that time clerk to the
Solicitor, Mr. Thomas Coombs. From this fortuitous discovery and the timely
acquisition of a copy of Dugdale's biography, William Bames of Dorset, the seeds were sown.
Brenda and Douglas both took early retirement and moved back to Dorchester and soon after that, prompted by Doug, in 1983 the Society was founded (Doug's own account of this having appeared in Newsletter No. 42 in May 2001). Dedicated regular research in the Bames archives at Dorset County Museum ensued, gradually with more and more emphasis on investigating the family of William Bames, this leading in turn to extensive researching of other resources (The National Record Office among others). Progressively, and with much helpful commentary from Brenda herself, the text of Doug's latest book was painstakingly put together. To find a publisher is often a difficulty that writers face, but. after much frustration, by good fortune Douglas was talking one day to a near neighbour, Mr. Tony Kennett, Chairman of Henry Ling Limited, the Dorchester printers, who expressed interest and some eighteen months later the gem that we have today was published.
The
rest of the talk was devoted to an outline of Bames's life and times (with
emphasis on the importance of Lucy Baxter's Life of William Bames), his humble
origins and ultimate achievements, his personality and benign nature, his
writings and his repute during his lifetime, and the bearing that all of this
had on the background of
This was a very well
presented and most entertaining talk, the factual details of RB
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