The Blandford Express

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...