The Blandford Express

When a  Baptist Minister predicted Weymouth would be destroyed by a mammoth tidal wave it caused quite a stir. The South London clergyman prophesied that this massive tsunami would arrive at exactly 3.53pm on Tuesday 29th May 1928. As this was a bank holiday weekend, Weymouth would be packed with people. The prediction received widespread coverage in the local and national press. Panic spread and a local resident announced he had placed his canoe on the roof of his house to await the tsunami’s arrival. The Mayor of Weymouth reckoned he would be alright because he would be entertaining visitors on a boat in Portland Harbour. As they were from Holland he claimed they would be used to flooding. Weymouth had been hit by quite large waves in the past. A Weymouth magistrate tried to allay fears by claiming the giant wave would instead hit Weymouth, Massachusetts in the USA. While enterprising restaurant owners were adverting Tidal Wave Teas. A bright red sunset the night before was said ...

Blandford is well-known today for brewing beer. Yet in the past, it was probably better known for the making of buttons – a trade known as ‘ buttony ’. All these buttons were hand- made. It is reckoned early in the 19 th century, there was an estimated 3,000 people around Blandford engaged in the button trade. The town was particularly known for the making of shirt buttons and a button known as the Blandford cartwheel. Robert Fisher opened a button depot in the 1830s in his draper’s shop in the Market Place. Travelling salesmen would visit the depot and buy buttons in bulk. Smallest buttons were known as mites and were made popular when Queen Victoria bought dozens for just a single dress. At its peak the town could boast of six button merchants. The making of buttons in Dorset had begun in Shaftesbury in 1650 by a man named Abraham Case. It is said a waistcoat that King Charles I wore to his execution had locally made buttons. The earliest buttons were made from the horns of the ...

Hector’s Brewery could once be found on the bank of the River Stour at Blandford St Mary close to Blandford bridge. Described as ‘most delightfully situated’, it had gained its name from John Hector who bought the lease and ran the brewery with his sons between 1826 and 1879. Hector played an important role in the local community and was also a churchwaden. The brewery had been in existence since 1789. Before this, many houses had their own malt houses. In those destroyed in the 1731 fire, there were six in Blandford St Mary with malt houses. In 1879, Hector’s Brewery was bought by Horace Baydon Neame. He was a Kent farmer and hop grower and a member of the Kentish Shepherd Neame brewing family from Faversham. Neame then sold the brewery, together with two maltings at Winterborne Stickland and 15 pubs, to Hall & Woodhouse in 1882. Brewing by Hall & Woodhouse continued for almost 20 years at both Ansty and Blandford St Mary. Some 30 people were employed at Ansty and around 4...

Juliette Kaplin who played Pearl in 226 episodes of Last of the Summer Wine was born in Bournemouth. As Howard’s domineering wife, she was forever suspicious of her philandering husband’s pursuit of the peroxide-blond, seductive supermarket check-out assistant, Marina. She spent her early years in South Africa and then New York before returning to Bournemouth at the age of eleven years. In her teens she attended classes at the Hampshire School of Drama. She paid her way by working as a chambermaid, telephone operator and sales girl. Juliette also trained as a dancer and appearing later in pantomime in Leamington Spa she performed the Sand Dance with Scottish actor Bob Fyfe who played her on-screen husband Howard. Her real husband, Harold, owned a series of gift shops on the Kent coast. After his death, she continued to run them until she joined the cast of Last of the Summer Wine. Juliette first played the role of Pearl during a summer season in Bournemouth in 1984 and then took on the...

Palace cinema, East Street (south-side), Blandford. Palace programme. Cinema interior. Original Palace cinema, East Street (north-side). New Palace cinema - 1920s , East Street (south-side) before frontage modernisation. Palace cinema street poster (circa 1940).                                                Footlight Follies Revue.

What are the links between Child Okeford, this Australian lady and the gentleman in the picture? Lisa Davidson is an Australian descendant of this distinguished gentleman who was born in Child Okeford in 1811. In 1835, Samuel Arnold married Ann Savery in Hamoon and a year later the young married couple left England with their baby daughter, Sarah. The Arnolds were seeking a better life in the new Australian colony of New South Wales. They became what were known as ‘Bounty Immigrants’ which was a very early assisted passage emigration scheme to Australia. The scheme, incredibly progressive for the times, was set up by the Macarthur family who were among Australia’s earliest gentry. The ‘Bounty Immigrant’ families were mainly from North Dorset and Samuel Arnold was appointed as their leader. The journey by sailing vessel, the Brothers to the other side of the world was particularly hazardous. During a storm in the Bay of Biscay a prized stallion was thrown overboard and drowned. T...

Onion Johnnies were once a familiar sight along the highways and byways of Dorset. They were French farm labourers and farmers who travelled on bicycles selling the distinctive pink and flavoursome Breton onion. These were sold door to door. The history of the Onion Johnny dates back to 1828. Breton farmer Henri Ollivier, put off by the prospect of a long road journey to Paris, decided to make the much quicker journey across the English Channel to Plymouth to sell his onions. Word spread of his success and others followed. Every July, farm labourers and farmers took their pink onions and sailed to England. For several generations, the county of Dorset experienced a mini invasion of French men usually wearing berets and Breton pullovers  riding bikes laden with onions. This became the stereotypical image of a Frenchman in England. Tragedy struck in 1905 when 70 Onion Johnnies were drowned when the London & South Western Railway’s steamer SS Hilda   sank off the French coast...

During the early hours of Sunday 16 February 1958, the Irish Republican Army (IRA) raided Blandford Camp. Brandishing revolvers, masked raiders shot a soldier and overpowered seven others. During the attack, the men were heard to shout, ‘this is with the compliments of the IRA.’ Despite this, the raiders appeared concerned about the young soldier shot in the stomach. They intended to raid the armoury for arms but were unsuccessful. The IRA assault on Blandford Camp was probably an inside job. Frank Skuse was a young Royal Electrical & Mechanical Engineers (REME) corporal. His home was in County Cork. A man answering Skuse’s description had hired accommodation in a country house at Charlton Marshall. When the police forced entry they found ammunition, weapons and three suits of battledress with REME shoulder flashes. Two weeks after the attack, a tommy-gun, small arms and ammunition were discovered in a converted bus parked in a Bournemouth caravan park. Frank Skuse had hired the bu...

When Admiral Horatio Nelson defeated the French and Spanish Fleets at Trafalgar on 21 st October 1805, there was a Blandford man aboard his flagship, HMS Victory. Able seaman, Samuel Johnson had been born in the town in 1770. By 1805, he was an experienced seaman having served in the British Navy for at least five years. Such were his capabilities, he was able to take over from the Victory’s helmsman and ensure the vessel remained on course. He had joined the Victory in April 1804. Why and how he joined the Navy is not known. He could have been forced to join by a marauding ‘ press gang’, he could have volunteered or chosen the sea as an alternative to a spell in prison. The latter was a frequent method of sailor recruitment at the time. Initially, Samuel during his first year at sea would have been described as a ‘ landsman ’, then an ‘ ordinary seaman’ before promotion to ‘ able seaman’ .  Samuel Johnson survived the Battle of Trafalgar on HMS Victory, a vessel that suff...

When a Member of Parliament disappeared in December 1881 off the coast at Eype’s Mouth, near Bridport, it made the national news. What was unusual was that Walter Powell MP was the sole occupant of a balloon. It was named ‘Saladin’ and filled with coal gas. Rumour has it that so much coal gas was needed that the people of Bath had to do without. Walter Powell had taken off from Bath to carry out research for the Meteorological Society accompanied by friends Arthur Agg-Gardner and Captain James Templar. They had flown over Glastonbury, Crewkerne and Beaminster. Approaching  Bridport, at around 35mph, they realised they were heading in a direction that would take them out to sea. Anxiously hearing the roar of the sea, Templar opened a valve to allow gas to escape to make a hurried emergency descent. They landed heavily and Powell’s two passengers fell out with Arthur Agg-Gardner  breaking his leg. The Parliamentarian remained in the basket and the balloon much lighter took off a...

Tom Cox, the son of a Blandford gentleman, was known as the ‘ handsome highwayman. ’ With a colourful life, his story had all the ingredients for a Hollywood adventure film. When his father died he was left some money which he soon squandered. So to fund his high living lifestyle, he took up highway robbery. Near Shepton Mallet, he met Killigrew who was the court jester to King Charles II. Killigrew had been given licence by the King to mock and revile even the most prominent in the land without penalty. Nevertheless, Tom ordered Killigrew to ‘ stand and deliver. ’ ‘ You must be joking’ was the jester’s reply to which Tom retorted: ‘Nay, I am in earnest for though you live by jesting, I cannot. So deliver your money before a brace of balls makes the sun shine through your body!’ Three times in Gloucester, Winchester and Worcester, Tom Cox was tried for highway robbery. Thanks to his charm and silver tongue, he was acquitted. A moneyed lady in Worcester was so besotted that she ...

  In August 1918, the Ministry of Information made a film about rural life in the North Dorset village of Iwerne Minster. Filmed during the last summer of World War I, this remarkable record has survived and still is available to view today. The silent film features many of the Iwerne Minster villagers engaging in country activities such as butter making, poultry farming and beekeeping. There is also the local cattle market, hurdle making and the breaking in of a horse. Apparently, everyone in the village kept pet rabbits at the time. Children are seen entering their school and maypole dancing. Although generally painting an idyllic picture, there are still reminders of the war. There are scenes of German prisoners of war being put to work on the land with local farmers. They haul wood to be used for aircraft manufacture. While close to the village pump there was a notice board, known as the ‘W ar Office, where news from the battlefronts and from local newspapers was posted. ...

  Nicknamed ‘ Diamond Pitt’, Thomas Pitt was a clergyman’s son who was born in Blandford St Mary in 1653. During his lifetime, he bought and sold a diamond considered by many to be the most pure and beautiful ever discovered. In 2018, it was valued at £14,000,000. Today, it is on display in the Louvre Museum in Paris. It is known as both the ‘ Pitt Diamond’ and also the ‘Regent Diamond’ . The diamond was found by a slave in southern India and he hid it in a large wound in his leg. An English sea captain found out about the diamond and lured the slave onto his vessel. He threw the slave overboard and stole the gem which he sold to a diamond merchant. The seaman later committed suicide. Thomas Pitt, who was the Governor of Madras and a testy character, bought the diamond for £20,400. His son, Robert brought the jewel back to England hidden in the heel of his shoe. The jewel was cut, a process which took two years and cost £5,000. The cut-off fragments fetched around £4,000. By then...

One of Dorset’s first railways was built on the Isle of Portland. Opening in 1826, it was not designed to carry passengers but to carry Portland stone. It was a response to a growing demand for the stone and to improve transportation between the quarries and the shipment point at Castletown Pier. Here stone was loaded onto ships. The railway cost £5,000 to build which was financed by the issue by the Portland Railway Company of a hundred fifty pound shares. Income was generated by the quarry operators who used it. The company had been formed two years earlier by local residents and people involved in the stone trade. The railway had no power other than gravity. The weight of the loaded wagon descending pulled by cable the empty wagon back up the slope. Bizarrely, the track had just three rails on stone sleepers with the middle rail shared by both wagons. However, at the mid-point there were separate tracks to enable the two wagons to cross over. At the top of the slope there was a brak...