Cecil Amor is the Founder Chairman of Bridport History Society. His background is in design, techonology and engineering, being a Fellow of the Institution of Electrical Engineers and a European Design Committee Member.
I am a ‘Moonraker’, born in Wiltshire, but with a Dorset Mother and grew up a couple of miles from the supposed Moonrakers site, a large pond at Devizes. The story is that about 200 years ago, smugglers were there at night with their contraband when they heard that the Excise Officers were hard on their heels. The smugglers threw their barrels of goods in the pond and held them under the surface with hayrakes.
This was a humorous phrase on the radio some years ago in affluent times, probably relating to the cotton and wool mills in the north of England. It may have resulted from the depression of the 1920s and 30s, but Read more »
Our Dorset dialect poet William Barnes wrote of Beaminster – ‘Sweet Be’mi’ster, that bist a-bound – By green an’ woody hills all round , .. ..Noo bigger pleace, noo gayer town, beyond thy sweet bells’ dyen soun’, .. But was Read more »