Mediterranean Divorce
You might have noticed that I wasn’t here last month. This was owing to our summer hols driving around bits of France and Spain to (a) check if they were still there and (b) to remind myself of some of Read more »
Author Archives: MV
Spirit of Place
Why is that some locations have a special place in our hearts? Is it the landscape, the people, the personal connection or the way some places can literally ground you to the here and now and also to the past Read more »
The Maer: One of Exmouth’s Hidden Gems
Towards the end of July, I visited the Maer, a nature reserve situated at the eastern end of the promenade in Exmouth. With its sand dunes and sandy grassland, the Maer is a remnant of a much larger dune system Read more »
UpFront 10/19
Many decades ago, I started a small company with a couple of friends. We had become tired of clocking on for someone else’s benefit and decided to launch ourselves into the world of corporate video production. To begin with, our Read more »
“If You Don’t Go To Chapel You Will Never Get On Here”
When I was 16 I took up a General Engineering apprenticeship with a large manufacturing company and was placed with a foundryman for a few months. The Works Manager, an impressive figure, processed through the factory, rotund with a prominent Read more »
Land fit for Heroes
In 1882, legislation was started to enable Somerset County Council to acquire land for smallholdings. But it was not until the passing of the Smallholdings and Allotments Act of 1908 that Somerset began to create a smallholdings estate. Margery Hookings’ Read more »
Up Front 09/19
As a youngster, I was what my mother described as ‘soccer-mad’. I’d wake in the morning wishing I could dribble like George Best and shoot like Bobby Charlton. And by the time I got to bed in the evening—after a Read more »
Margie Barbour
‘My parents, Jane Galbraith and Michael Barbour, were born in the early ‘20s and joined the services when war came. My mother became a meteorologist in the WAAF, and my father a submariner in the Navy. They were both keenly Read more »
Chris Chapman
On Chris Chapman’s 40th birthday he handed in his notice at work and returned home to his wife Steff. Cheerfully walking in through the door, he called out, “I’m home, 40 and unemployed”. He had been wanting to set up Read more »
James Brigden French
‘Frenchie’ has never been called James, he’s been Frenchie from the start, as long as he can remember. A local lad, who grew up in Litton Cheney, he has lived in Bath for a bit and Italy for a while, Read more »