Here's one I wrote earlier

Amongst other things, I write a column for a county website. Generally, all goes well but we had a slight hiccup on arriving at Beaminster...the piece was rejected for being too negative. Not wanting to totally discard it, I've decided to place it here on the assumption that no-one from that hidden corner of the world will ever read it.


I have to own up: I might have reached an impasse. I am charged with making all the beautiful towns and villages of Dorset even more inviting by recalling or researching persuasive and interesting features that might make the reader want to stay a little longer. Thus far, this has been an easy task because our county is truly wonderful and full of living history. However, I now reach Beaminster, a civil parish at the head of the River Brit with a population of 2,800. Had I the right to do so, I would, at this point, set a competition in which the winner would come up with at least five good reasons to visit the place. In fact, Dear Editor, this could be the best creative writing competition of the century.

The first problem with this quaint market town in the west of Dorset is that folk keep trying to burn it down. This is not a good sign. The first of these incendiary events took place in 1644 and was started by the occupying Royalist forces. It doesn’t bode well: if they were in charge of the place, why were they setting it alight? Having put that behind them and presumably done a spot of rebuilding, Beaminster again burnt down forty years later; allegedly, by accident. How does a whole town get demolished by accident? Where was everyone? I’ve lost track of the third fire but I think it was in 1781: it doesn’t matter because many Tudor and Georgian buildings were thankfully saved, over two hundred of which are listed. Or listing.

We are deep in Hardy’s Wessex: Emmanster to be precise and as this is THE town in ‘Tess’, all is forgiven. I love Tess, even care of the idiosyncratic Polanski who chose to film most of his enigmatic version in France. Let’s face it, everyone loves Tess and the town is therefore redeemed with a little imagination even if avante garde film directors gave it a miss. Let’s ignore all the combustible links too and look at the town’s heritage: for a start it’s famous for its sackcloth which brought it prosperity. Hang on…doesn’t that go with ashes? Well, there’s plenty of those from all those fires. Wearing sackcloth and ashes is, incidentally, a sign of penitence for past sins. Possibly those involving matches. Time to bring the place up to date.

Beaminster is home to the children’s’ author, Lynne Reid Banks which offers the place a heightened sense of importance. It’s always good to have a living author in town and Dorset is a real draw for them. It’s also the birthplace of Martin Clunes. Someone had to claim him I guess. I’ll say no more as I know he’s a popular guy in some quarters. I can’t quite understand why the school website claims the institution to be optimistic about its future. It’s full of young people; why wouldn’t they be optimistic? They might, of course, have caught sight of the list of clubs available in Beaminster which starts with Age Concern and is followed by the Allotment Association; not too promising for the youngsters. That’s as far as I got in the list: tentatively perusing the ‘A’s’ I had a horrid suspicion that next in the list was going to be Amateur Arsonists and could bear to look no longer.