The Blandford Express

Keith Floyd was a flamboyant celebrity chef and popular television personality who had strong links with Dorset. He filmed one of his early programmes Floyd on Fish in the George Inn in South Street, Bridport. Floyd developed his own unique and eccentric presenting style, which often involved haranguing his cameraman, while he cooked with a glass of wine in his hand. However, he did not consider himself to be a chef as he had not been professionally trained. Keith Floyd was born in Sulhamstead, near Reading in December 1943 and joined the British Army in 1963. He left after three years reckoning that he and the army were mutually incompatible. After the army, he became a dish washer, vegetable peeler and eventually a restauranteur. One of his restaurants was in the Vaucluse Department in Southern France. In 1984, he was offered his first television series Floyd on Fish. One of the scenes featured Floyd cooking on a trawler.  Floyd on Food, Floyd on Great Britain and  Floyd on ...

  James John Farquharson of Langton Long was a man who loved to party and also  quite liked a drink. Nicknamed ‘Old Farqy’, he was the Commanding Officer of the Blandford Troop of the Dorset Yeomanry. They had been recruited in 1831 to put down the prospect of the locals rioting in the town. The Troop exercised on Blandford Race Down. ‘Old Farqy’ was a splendid sight in his uniform of a scarlet jacket with blue facings and trimmings of silver lace. There was a regulation cap with red and white plumage and trousers with red stripes at the side and a red and yellow girdle. Troop membership required the attendance at an Annual Troop Muster for six days but there was the privilege of exemption from hair powder and horse taxes. When the Blandford Troop of the Dorset Yeomanry was stood down in 1841, it became the excuse for a Grand Dinner in the town’s Crown Hotel. ‘The Dinner was served up with a sumptuous, profusion and elegance.’ Toasts drunk at the end of the meal were too numer...