The Amazing Story of Lise Meitner Synopsis The book describes how Lisa Meitner, of Jewish heritage, found herself working as a physicist at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute in Berlin when the Nazis came to power in 1933; how she was hounded out of the country and forced to relocate to...
Thomas Hardy: Christmas Carollings
Thomas Hardy: Synopsis Anyone fortunate enough to have heard the music of the Dorset folk group, ‘The Yetties’ would have been instantly transported into the world of Dorset poet and novelist, Thomas Hardy. For the Yetties made recordings of Hardys favourite music: using his own fiddle and other musical instruments...
Bound for the East Indies
Bound for the Synopsis The former cliff quarries of Winspit and Seacombe on the Dorset coast are very dear to my heart, for this was our destination, on the very first outing that my wife, Rachel and I had embarked upon together. Here, lying against the cliffs like a buttress,...
Dunshay: Reflections on a Dorset Manor House
Dunshay: Synopsis Every old house has a story to tell, but that of Dunshay Manor in South Dorset is more fascinating than most. Rediscover the extraordinary people who inhabited a remote Dorsetshire manor house over the course of several centuries, including the wife of a mediaeval knight; two painters of...
Tyneham: A Tribute
Tyneham: Synopsis When I first met Miss Helen Taylor and her older sister, Bessie in the summer of 1986, this opened the door to another world. Both ladies were former residents of Tyneham, a remote hamlet on the South Dorset coast, and they had now retired to Corfe Castle.Tyneham is...
Purbeck Personalities
Purbeck Synopsis When my children were young, we used to go, as a family, in our sailing boat out of Poole Harbour and into Studland Bay, with its glorious sandy beaches. Little did I know that in Elizabethan times this was the haunt of pirates. One of them was William...
Bournemouth’s Founders and Famous Visitors
Bournemouth’s Founders and Famous Visitors Synopsis In a casino in Las Vegas hangs a unique painting, executed by US painter, John Singer Sargent in August 1885. It depicts Scottish novelist and travel writer Robert Louis Stevenson and his wife, Fanny and it is the only image in existence of the...
Corfe Remembered
Corfe Synopsis Even in its ruined state, Corfe Castle retains a majestic aura, whether in sunshine, rain, mist, or snow, as I have witnessed over the years. For me, a resident of South Dorset, it remains a romantic and evocative place, despite the fact that many a dark deed was...
Robert Mugabe: Lost Jewel Of Africa
Robert Mugabe: Synopsis In the 1950s my father suddenly announced that we were to leave our home in Lichfield in the English Midlands and go to live in Southern Rhodesia, where he was to take up the post of headmaster at a school for white children. For my mother, Jean...