The Blandford Express

WHO’S AFEAR’D is not just the motto on the Dorset Coat of Arms but also the name of a Spitfire which crashed near Meopham, Kent on 23 rd June 1942. This fighter aircraft had been funded by local contributions from Blandford & Sturminster Newton district people and paid for in a manner which today would be called crowd funding. Many years later, Graeme Sinden was excavating for a swimming pool in his back garden near Camer Park, Meopham when he came across aircraft wreckage. Experts were called in and the plane was identified as Spitfire WHO’S AFEAR’D. (P8531) It had been built at an aircraft factory in Castle Bromwich in the Midlands. In September 1940, Shroton had raised twenty six pounds for the Blandford & District Spitfire Fighting Fund. The next month, Child Okeford held a concert in the packed village hall and sent in seven pounds. A Winterborne Whitechurch Dance in November 1940 raised eight pounds, two shillings & sixpence (£8.12) while a Winterborne Stickland So...

        In 1863 , Blandford railway station opened on 21 st September when a line that previously ended in Blandford St Mary was brought into the town. Led by the owner of the Crown Hotel, Robert Eyers the Blandford Town Band won the National Brass Band Championship held at the Crystal Palace. There were four Hunt brothers in the Band. On returning to Blandford, they were met by the Rifle Volunteers and marched around the town amidst cheering crowds. After the railway station was opened, seven new inns were built in the town. Reverend William Barnes lectured on Dorset dialect to the Blandford Literacy & Scientific Institution. In 1864 , music hall star in the USA and Britain, Samuel Cowell died in his East Street lodgings and was buried in Blandford Cemetery. He had twice performed before Queen Victoria at Windsor and also before the US President yet died a bankrupt. A charity concert was organised to raise money to pay for his gravestone.  A horse drawn co...

If you were looking to get away at Easter in 1929, there were plenty of cheap railway excursion tickets on offer from Blandford Station. For six shillings (30p) you could buy a cheap day return to Lyme Regis or Seaton while for just two shillings (10p) you could spend a day in Bournemouth or go to the Steeplechase Meeting at Wincanton. On Easter Monday, you could travel to Yeovil and watch the home team take on Bath City in football’s Southern League at the Huish Park. (Yeovil won 3-1) Following Saturday, the Southern Railway Company was running a football special to London to watch Bournemouth & Boscombe Athletic play Crystal Palace at Selhurst in a Third Division (South) match. Claiming, ‘ it’s quicker by rail’ , and leaving Bournemouth Central at 10.00am, the return fare to Selhurst was six shillings & sixpence (32p). The football special was advertised to have both corridors and a restaurant car. For those wanting to spend more time in the capital, there was a late retu...

While Florence Nightingale may be regarded as the pioneer of modern nursing a now almost forgotten Dorset cleric played a not insignificant role. Reverend Sydney Godolphin Osborne from Durweston travelled out to Turkey, at his own expense, to witness the appalling conditions in a British military hospital in Scutari, Constantinople. This was during the Crimean War (1853-56) when the British, French & Turks were fighting the Russians. He found soldiers wounded and dying in horrifying conditions. There were rats and lice in the hospital which was located close to a cesspit. He observed men lying in bed with dysentery or with open sores who had not had a change in linen for months. It is reckoned for every British soldier who lost his life in battle there were seven who died due to disease. He wrote: ‘I sought the truth and took my own way to arrive at it. Whether that truth would please or displease the public or the Government was to me a matter of indifference.’ Osborne spe...

Blandford railway station opened in 1863 when a line that previously had ended at Blandford St Mary was brought into the town. After just over 100 years of service Blandford station was closed to passengers in March 1966 and soon after for goods traffic. Blandford station is remembered by songwriters, Flanders & Swann in their eulogy to the many quaintly named stations closed by the notorious Dr Beeching’s axe. Slow Train 'No more will I go to Blandford Forum and Mortehoe, On the slow train to Midsomer  Norton and Mumby Row. No churns, no porters, no cat on a seat At Chorlton-cum-Hardy and Chester-le-Street. We won't be meeting again on the slow train.' Blandford Station was one of the largest stations on the Somerset & Dorset line and was brick built with canopies on both platforms. These platforms were connected by a subway. There was also a goods yard, a corn store, landing docks and a seven ton crane. First station to the north of the town on a single track wa...

London’s Blandford Street can be found just off Marylebone High Street. The latter was once described as the ‘ best street in London.’ Nearby are Shroton Street, Bryanston Street and Durweston Mews. So why are there so many North Dorset street names in such a select part of the capital where a small apartment can cost several million pounds? The reason is due to the Portman family. The family acquired land in Marylebone in the 16 th century and then bought an estate in Bryanston in the 1680s. Edward Berkeley Portman was the first Viscount Portman (1799-1888) and he served as a Member of Parliament for both Dorset and Marylebone. In 1827, he married Emma Lascelles who became a Lady in Waiting and close confidante of Queen Victoria and keeper of her close secrets. The Portman family benefitted from the growth of London onto agricultural land which they owned north of Oxford Street. They also benefitted from the effects of leases coming to an end which saw the estate’s income increas...

When the Venerable Archdeacon Charles James Hoare was looking for a subject for his sermon in Blandford on the 13 th August 1820 his choice was obvious. Everyone was talking about the execution by hanging of the two Blandford brothers, John and Moses Blanchard. They had been found guilty of highway robbery. The day before the delivery of the clergyman’s sermon both had been hung ‘ at the new drop’ at Dorchester Jail. This was after their trials at Dorchester Assizes. Using a slang term, the two highwaymen were ‘ stabbed by the Bridport Dagger’ . The hangman would have used rope made in Bridport which was one the country’s biggest rope making centres. It is hard to believe but for many years public executions were a popular form of entertainment. Many Dorchester folk turned out to witness the ’Hang Fairs’ held just below the Jail.  By daybreak, the best places would be taken. Time spent waiting for the executions would be spent dancing and drinking. Executions would be delayed ...

A Dorset village was once recognised as the bravest in England. That village was Shillingstone in North Dorset. After the outbreak of World War I, the newspaper the Weekly Dispatch inaugurated a competition for the village that sent, in the first six months of the war, the highest percentage of its population into the British Services. According to local newspaper, the Western Gazette Shillingstone sent 90 men out of a total population of 565. (Western Gazette Friday 26 th September 1919) Across the country,  365 other villages sent in their returns. However, the competition would not prove to be short of controversy. The award was made to Knowlton in Kent which with 39 inhabitants and six houses had sent 11 men. However, the Rector of Shillingstone, Dr Cooke protested that Knowlton was too small to be a village and in fact was a hamlet. The matter was referred to the Attorney General, Sir Frederick Smith who held that the original decision should stand as no minimum populatio...

  There have been harsh winters since but nothing has quite compared with the Great Freeze of 1962/63. This long cold spell was reckoned to be the most severe in Dorset for two hundred years and the month of January 1963 was the coldest ever recorded. On the 29 th & 30 th December 1962, a two day continuous snow blizzard swept across the county. There were massive snow drifts and outlying villages were completely cut off. The River Stour froze over completely at Blandford and for around 15 miles of its length and it remained so for around two months. This enabled both ice skating and ice hockey to take place on the thick ice. While at Poole harbour, even the sea froze over. While roads were blocked, the Somerset & Dorset railway line and Blandford station still operated. Somehow, the line’s steam locomotives were able to push their way through the snow. At the time, there were proposals to close uneconomic lines like the ‘S & D ’. This led to some tongue in cheek...

  While it may not be unusual for members of the Rail & Maritime Trade Union to take industrial action, it is much more unusual for members of a British military base to do so. Yet, that is what happened in Blandford Camp at the end of World War I. Today, the military base is associated with the army yet in early 1919 it was a large but only recently opened Royal Air Force (RAF) establishment. Recruits to the RAF were received there for initial training and the RAF Records, Equipment and Personnel Depot had been relocated to Blandford Camp the previous year. Having only been opened as an RAF base in 1918, Blandford Camp was not a happy place. There were accommodation problems due to construction delays caused by a shortage of building workers. The War Cabinet had flatly turned down an Air Ministry plea to improve construction worker pay rates to aid recruitment. Such delays resulted in widespread overcrowding in tents particularly unsuited to bad weather.   Blandford’s RAF...

  Village cricket in Dorset goes back many years. Dorset County Chronicle reports a cricket match between the villages of Pimperne and Chettle which took place in August 1867.  In the 50s and early 1960s, the Pimperne club played at Langbourne on a concrete batting pitch overlaid by matting. Cow pats were a particular hazard as the pitch’s more normal use was for dairy cattle. If there was one match in the 1960s the Pimperne club was determined to win, it was against a village that it would be politic not to name. Their team, which seemed to consist mainly of members of the same family, were masters of gamesmanship. If Pimperne’s tail end batsman was a youngster, they would collectively seek to undermine his confidence. While the Pimperne scorer had to keep an eagle eye on the recordings of his opponent’s counterpart!   Yet Pimperne in their tussles with this opposition had their own secret weapon…lardy cake. This calorie laden, greasy, fatty delight had a key tactica...

  There’s Sooty, Sweep and Soo, who make up the Sooty Show, and Harry Corbett, the Show’s creator, who lived locally for many years in Child Okeford. Sooty is, of course, a naughty little bear glove puppet who loves squirting his best pal, Sweep with his water pistol. He is also a magician and despite having no voice has his own special magic spell, ‘ Izzy wizzy, let’s get busy!’ Sweep is a little dog with a distinctively squeaky voice and a liking for sausages and Soo is a panda whose dream is to be a ballet dancer. Harry Corbett was a Yorkshire man and the nephew of Harry Ramsden who founded a chain of fish & chip shops. Corbett bought the original Sooty glove puppet at the end of a Blackpool pier for seven shillings & sixpence (37.5p). In 2019, a complete set of original Sooty Show puppets would be sold for £3,100. The original bear was yellow but so it could be seen on black and white television it was given a black nose, mouth and ears. The additions gave Sooty his...

  Blandford Camp has always been associated with the British Army. Yet at Christmas 1914, the Camp was jammed packed with sailors…and they weren’t happy! These miserable matelots had joined the Royal Navy to serve at sea in, what was at the time, the world’s largest, most powerful and prestigious maritime force. However, they now found themselves on land at wet, muddy Blandford Camp.  They were billeted in poorly heated wooden huts many of which were leaky. Furthermore on the exposed downs it was bitterly cold, it was raining continuously and there was mud everywhere. These sailors were being trained to be soldiers. They had been allocated to the Royal Naval Division which had been set up by Winston Churchill because too many volunteers had applied to join the Royal Navy. Many of this unhappy crew were naval stokers who were renowned for their resourcefulness, rowdiness and heavy drinking. Their normal role was to stoke and maintain ship boilers, a dirty, dusty, thirsty and ex...

  He has his own dedicated memorial plaque and Corner in Blandford but is now almost a forgotten man. His name is Henry Durden and he was the founder of the town’s first museum. Henry Durden was born in 1807 and in 1859 was listed as a grocer and seller of wines and spirits. The Durdens were a respected Blandford family and they played an active part in the town’s life. There is a Durden listed in a 1791 trade directory as a Blandford grocer. Henry’s father, John was Mayor in 1837. Henry held this role on three occasions while his son, another John, was Mayor in 1893. In his shop, he opened a highly regarded museum. On display were 60 urns which were over 2,000 years old and all found within eight miles of Blandford. Most exhibits in the museum were from Dorset including prehistoric items from Hod Hill and various local barrows. There were also flint arrowheads, bracelets and coins including a ten shillings piece of Elizabeth I’s reign. So respected were his acquisitions that i...

  Around 100 years ago, there was an influenza outbreak in Blandford and the surrounding villages which had similarities with the corona virus pandemic. Just as Boris Johnson and Prince Charles have been viral victims so were Prime Minister David Lloyd-George and King George V in 1918. Called ‘ Spanish Flu’ , there is little on record showing how the Blandford district was affected. This was because of widespread press censorship. At the end of World War I, newspapers were not allowed to publish stories that might have undermined national morale. However, at Blandford Camp there were so many ‘ Spanish Flu’ deaths that the authorities were unable to suppress this story. Today, the camp is associated with the British Army yet in 1918 it was a massive Royal Flying Corps/Royal Air Force base. Blandford Camp’s story broke in October 1918, when it was suggested that sick recruits had to lie on dirty straw mats and there were insufficient doctors and nurses. Despite this, new recruit...