Margery Hookings is intrigued after receiving a phone call about an innovative project aimed at combating loneliness. She goes to East Devon to find out more. The wonderful sweet smell of waffles is the first thing your senses pick up Read more »
A large group of us is sitting around a big table at Marsh Barn, on the outskirts of West Bay towards Burton Bradstock. I’ve been here before, to learn about family history with local expert Jane Ferentzi-Sheppard. I’ve done a Read more »
Margery Hookings makes some musical connections when she discovers the raucous singing past of her local pub, The White Lion at Broadwindsor. When folksinger and folklorist Nick Dow visited West Dorset with his wife in the late 1980s, it Read more »
Margery Hookings has a go at drumming and meets the founder of Organic Rhythm to find out her story I’m in the parish hall at Ilminster where there’s a drumming session organised by Organic Rhythm. The sound of friendly chatter Read more »
Margery Hookings meets young Bridport man Luke Shirley who leads horse trekking tours of Mongolia Photograph © Steve Luck Photography (www.steveluckphotography.co.uk) A lust for life and a quest for adventure have led a young Dorset man to set up an Read more »
The Plunkett Foundation’s Rural Community Ownership Awards are an annual celebration of the contribution community businesses make to creating resilient, thriving and inclusive rural communities. Broadwindsor Community Stores, which was nominated in the ‘Community Story of the Year’ category, is Read more »
Margery Hookings is invited along to the launch of a very special boat at Hestercombe House and Gardens, near Taunton, where she meets the West Dorset team who created it. The punt glides through the calm water of a lake Read more »
A school garden project in the heart of Bridport won a special award this year at the Melplash Show. Margery Hookings visited the edible garden to find out more about it. She was very taken with what she saw. Photographs Read more »
When I first moved to West Dorset in 1982 as a newly-qualified journalist on the Bridport News, one of the stories that began to gather momentum was the development of Bridport Leisure Centre. The land at Skilling Hill Road was Read more »
A visit to Somerset Rural Life Museum sends Margery Hookings on a nostalgic trip into the past, as it tells the story of how things used to be in the countryside. Many years ago, I visited Somerset Rural Life Read more »