Latest news with #Dorchester
BBC News
8 hours ago
- General
- BBC News
Lyme Regis sixth form head dies after cycling collision
A cyclist who died following a collision with a car has been named as the head of a school sixth Police said Justin Loveland, 50, was knocked down at about 07:30 BST on Friday 16 May in Bridport Road, was taken to Southampton General Hospital where he died the following day.A colleague at Woodroffe School in Lyme Regis said Mr Loveland was on his way to work when the incident happened. In a tribute, the teacher's family said: "Justin was a much-loved son, brother, uncle and teacher."The expressions of sadness and love for Justin from the school, cycling community and many friends from Dorchester and all across the country have been over-whelming."We will miss him hugely."Police have appealed for information about the crash, which involved a white Fiat Panda. You can follow BBC Dorset on Facebook, X (Twitter), or Instagram.
Times
3 days ago
- Health
- Times
My grandfather wasn't who I thought — now I'm retracing his footsteps
Fordington in Dorchester is little changed since local Thomas Hardy hymned the 'intra-mural squeeze' of its passageways and thatched cottages with their eaves 'thrust against the church tower'. Today the centre of the action in this bucolic spot is Bean on the Green, a vintage-styled café where tables spill onto the slopes of the green and a board advertises Dorset Pilates, oat lattes and afternoon teas. Apart from that, it's the same sleepy scene a man named Bernard Sheppard strolled through in December 1944, before boarding a steam train for Penzance and a fateful tryst with my grandmother Virginia. Five million Britons have taken a DNA heritage test since 23andMe launched the first genetic home-testing kits in the UK in 2014. Many of these curious souls have been rewarded with a genealogical shock, in the form of a'non-paternity event', or NPE. The International Society of Genetic Genealogy estimates that 1-2 per cent of contemporary Britons have an unexpected father, with these numbers rising to 10 per cent at grandfather level. The travel companies Ancestral Footsteps, run by the former BBC Who Do You Think You Are? genealogist Sue Hills; Ireland's Roots Revealed; and Kensington Tours (which teams up with genealogists from Ancestry Pro on its Personal Heritage Journey packages) have crowded into the market, using clients' DNA results to offer tailored 'roots tours'. These tours explore clients' ancestors' lives by, for example, taking them for a pint at a forebear's local boozer; visiting the cemeteries she or he is buried in; or peering at homes they inhabited. These can be self-guided, or with a professional genealogist in tow. My own DNA detective journey began in 2019, at the age of 42, whenI took a DNA heritage test through Ancestry DNA (spitting into a vial and posting it off). Soon after receiving my results, I was contacted by Kevin, a sixtysomething from Texas who ventured that I might be his close genetic relative. A second surprise email arrived, this time from Beverly, a 69-year-old based in knew she had been adopted in Dorchester in 1955 and that I was her close relative; either her first cousin or half-niece. 'I wonder if the family knows about me …' she wrote, searchingly. Thus began a quest that led to the discovery my father's father was not, as I'd believed, a mild-mannered Brummie butcher named Sidney (I grew up in Birmingham), but a brewery worker from Dorset who had fathered at least ten children in his colourful life. These children included my dad, Ken, and Beverly, who was adopted. After we followed the DNA trail to its only plausible conclusion, Kevin, Bernard's nephew, wrote: 'Bernard was charming, but I'm afraid was a known rogue.' I planned my trip from my home in Lewes, East Sussex, to Bernard's home town, Dorchester, with the help of genealogists from AncestryPro, professional genealogy arm. As far as surprise ancestral homes go, I had struck lucky. The Dorset market town retains many of the features of Bernard's day, from the grassy adumbrations of the old Roman amphitheatre at Maumbury Rings, where I enjoyed a spectral sunrise jog, to the High Street's lofty Georgian townhouses (many still going by their Victorian names), and the red-brick muscularity of the Eldridge Pope brewery, where census records located Bernard working as a cashier totting up the sales of its 'celebrated strong ales' in 1939. These days the site is a glossy Dorchester restaurant and shopping district, Brewery Square, and the old 'bonded store' where Bernard dispatched brews on the train to London has been reborn as an industrial-chic tapas and cocktail joint. The genealogist Simon Pearce says the UK makes for rich rewards for DNA sleuths. 'There's plenty left to see: cemeteries, churches your ancestors attended, former homes that are still standing.' Pearce has a special interest in family history during the wars and says that as far as DNA big reveals go, my story is run-of-the-mill. 'The Second World War saw young people called up and sent across the country and to the other side of the world,' he says. 'It also brought well-dressed American and Canadian servicemen to the UK at the same time as life was unpredictable and people, rightly, feared they might die tomorrow.' Little wonder, then, that shock parenting events, as well as divorces, spiked in the 1940s. • Read our full guide to Dorset I'm staying at the King's Arms, a Georgian coaching inn that was recently renovated by the boutique hotel group Stay Original. The group's managing director, Rob Greacen, gives me a tour of the hotel's unearthed original features: the 17th-century posts that led to the inn's stables, a 16th-century inner room and a 1950 restaurant menu that was discovered tucked in a wall cavity and is now framed in the hotel's smart, American-style bar. The menu advertises steamed chicken with mushroom sauce and boiled potatoes with a choice of fruit jelly or sprats on toast for dessert, which Greacen agrees doesn't sound like the sort of fare to put lead in a philanderer's pencil. These days the King's Arms is a more toothsome proposition, with gourmet à la carte breakfasts including local smoked trout omelette Arnold Bennett and, in its smarter double rooms, freestanding bathtubs commanding the old Georgian bay windows. The next morning I stroll around Victorian Borough Gardens, where, in Bernard's day, brass bands would have blasted out rousing tunes from an ornate painted bandstand. Then I head on to the Shire Hall Museum, a preserved Georgian courtroom and jail that's now a tribute to the lowly souls who passed through its notorious docks, from the Tolpuddle Martyrs to children imprisoned for infractions such as stealing vegetables. It stands as a timely reminder, not to romanticise the routinely hard-knock lives of those who went before us. • 19 of the best UK pubs with rooms Back in the King's Arms, a smoking room occupies the spot where wagon wheels and horses' hoofs would have clattered through the gates of this ancient wayfarers inn. I dine here on crispy Dorset coast fish, a dish Bernard might have recognised, although the wild garlic aïoli and samphire might have confused a 1940s lad (mains from £18). Time moves on, and lemon posset with pumpkin seed biscotti finds favour over fried sprats for pud. After a week on the DNA trail, I think I've cleared up the mystery of how Virginia and Bernard met, with local records showing Bernard's family link to generations of sailors who lived between Weymouth and Sennen Cove, a few miles from Virginia's native Pendeen. I'll never know the full truth about Bernard and Virginia's rendezvous, though I feel this mission has given me a fresh appreciation of our emotionally open — and gastronomically improved — modern times. I also have a sense of my secret grandfather's life from the houses, streets and pubs he passed through. Here's to you, Grandad, you old rogue. This article contains affiliate links, which can earn us revenue Sally Howard was a guest of Discover Dorchester ( and the King's Arms, which has room-only doubles from £150 a night ( Curated DNA heritage tours from Ancestry Pro and Kensington Tours start from £276 (
CBS News
5 days ago
- Entertainment
- CBS News
Billboard-topping saxophonist "pays it forward" with program for young musicians in Boston
The Boys and Girls Clubs of Dorchester have offered music instruction for decades. But band instruments were not in the lineup, largely because of the cost. "It only works with instruments that we can share with as many kids as possible," explains music director Carleton Burke. "I can teach 20 kids to play piano on one piano. I can teach 20 kids how to play guitar on one guitar. I can't teach 20 kids to play trumpet on one trumpet." Brass, woodwind instruments, and drums were prohibitively expensive... until Billboard-topping saxophonist Elan Trotman chose the clubs as the Boston site for his Headstart Music Program. Headstart Music Program Trotman, who is also an associate professor at Berklee College of Music (his alma mater) established the Never Lose Your Drive Foundation to support the next generation of musicians. The foundation funds the Headstart Music Program which provides new band instruments and instruction to kids. He launched it in his native Barbados and added the Dorchester site in November 2024. "Music brings people together," he says smiling. Saxophonist Elan Trotman CBS Boston On a spring night in May, music also brings families to the Dorchester Avenue clubhouse for the kids' first recital. Six months after receiving the instruments, the performers--ages 10 to 17-- are ready to play. Elan arrives just as the event starts, fresh off a flight from California where he performed the night before. "Thank you for making room for us and giving us a home," he tells the crowd. He thanked his two instructors, Stephan Papandrea and Akili Jamal Haynes who teach the students several times a week. "You guys have two wonderful teachers who love music." Trotman's inspiration for the program was born years ago when, as a Boston Public School teacher at Mozart Elementary in Roslindale, a VH1 "Save the Music" grant purchased band instruments for beginner students. He left the school in 2012. But the idea stayed with him. "I knew that once I could get access to instruments and instructors, I had a curriculum-a vision for a curriculum-and how it works," he said. Companies donate the instruments and components. The single biggest donor is Utah-based Cannonball Musical Instruments. Other donors include Needham Music, Theo Wanne Mouthpieces, and Legere Reeds. Elan hosts two fundraising golf tournaments-one in Barbados and a newer tournament in Greater Boston-to pay the program's instructors. Burke, who accompanies the kids on guitar during the recital says, what was impossible now couldn't be easier. "Elan coming here just took all the issues-all the barriers-away from being able to do a concert band," Burke said. Students showcase talents For students Ellis Maynard, Dakhari Jones, and Jaralaney Ruiz, the program provides an opportunity to showcase their budding talents. As they perform the Herbie Hancock classic "Cantaloupe Island" audience members, including Elan, bob their heads and tap their toes to the rhythm. Earlier in the month, the trio performed for hundreds of people at the club's main fundraising event, the New England Women's Leadership Awards. Jaralaney says, partly because it is so challenging, it feels "amazing" to play trombone. "I just feel that I am heard through music," Jaralaney said. Young musicians perform during at the Boys and Girls Club of Dorchester. CBS Boston Trotman can relate. He says he has always expressed himself through music and the arts. As a child, music and science, he says, were not his strengths but creative pursuits were. His music teachers, even early on, saw that he had a gift. His first instrument was piano. He fell in love with the sound of the saxophone as a teenager and never looked back. His full scholarship to Berklee made it possible to pursue his passion and graduate from the school debt-free. He does not take that good fortune for granted and says, "I want to create those opportunities for other people." Hope and happiness Thirteen-year-old Dakhari, who proudly belts out the Miles Davis classic "So What" could not be more thankful. He says that, without the program, he probably would not be able to own a trumpet. Playing makes him feel confident and grounded. It's a stress-reliever. Dakhari eventually wants to be a music producer. Asked what music means to him, he smiles. "Hope," he says and adds, "Happiness." Happiness also sums up what people feel listening to Trotman play the saxophone. His talents as a sought-after smooth jazz artist take him all over the world to perform. It seems that he is living his dream as a professional musician, educator, and philanthropist. Nurturing young musicians is central to his mission. "I see a lot of potential in some of our students," he says proudly. "There's one or two of them in each group that have that 'x factor,' that special thing." In addition to the 17 kids in Dorchester, he connects with high school students in Boston who participate in the five-week Aspire Program at Berklee. In 2023, his foundation provided scholarships to the program for two students from Barbados. Skilled and supportive, Trotman takes special pride in seeing--and listening to--the young people who'll be making music we all listen to in the future. "That's the hope. Plant the seeds and let them blossom." Elan Trotman upcoming tour dates Boston, June 22 (City Cruises) Martha's Vineyard, July 19 Boston, July 26 (House of Inspiration Family Music & Arts Festival) Cambridge, July 27 (Cambridge Jazz Festival)
The Courier
5 days ago
- The Courier
The Great Scottish Tea Blag — Perthshire businessman guilty of £550k tea firm fraud
A Perthshire businessman who claimed to have created the Queen's favourite brew at 'Scotland's first tea plantation' has been convicted of an elaborate £550k fraud. Thomas Robinson – better known as Tam O'Braan – made up awards and qualifications to blag sales from some of the country's top hotels and stores including the Dorchester, the Balmoral and Fortnum and Mason. The father-of-four also duped growers from around Scotland into buying Camellia Sinesis tea plants from his remote facility in the hills of Amulree, south of Aberfeldy. In reality, the crops were purchased wholesale from a plantation in northern Italy. Other plants were used to decorate a 0.3 acre 'kitchen garden' at this farm ahead of visits from potential buyers. Robinson bought these 'show plants' from esteemed tea vendors in the UK, and even demanded one sign a non-disclosure agreement to keep his sales a secret. The 55-year-old's too-good-to-be-brew story sensationally unspooled following a three-year investigation by Food Standards Scotland and a four-week jury trial at Falkirk Sheriff Court. Robinson – who once told the press 'call me Mr Tea' – was remanded in custody and told jail will be 'inevitable.' The jury deliberated overnight for six-and-a-half hours before returning unanimous guilty verdicts to two charges of forming a fraudulent scheme over a period of more than four years. Sheriff Keith O'Mahony told Robinson: 'The jury have convicted you of two very serious charges, with a total combined value of between half-a-million-pounds and £600,000. 'There will be significant sentencing consequences for you.' Robinson will also face proceeds of crime action to claw back his ill-gotten funds. He showed little emotion as he was led out of the dock in handcuffs but could be seen shaking his head as the jury delivered its verdict. Claims Robinson's tea was grown in Scotland using some kind of miracle plastic sheeting sparked a media buzz, helping to secure sales with high end customers. Michelin star chef Jeff Bland of Edinburgh's Balmoral Hotel was among those who were tricked into buying it. Between November 2014 and February 2019, Robinson's Wee Tea Plantation made £84,124 selling nearly 460kg of loose leaf tea to the Balmoral for its Palm Court menu. Mr Bland, known as Jeff the Chef who referred to Robinson as Tam the Man, told the trial he would not have bought the tea if he knew it was not Scottish. Similarly Robinson sold £54,648 of tea to the Dorchester, £39,875 to Fortnum and Mason and £32,878 to gourmet tea company Mariage Freres. Robinson also duped Jamie Russell and Derek Walker of Fife's Wee Tea Company, who agreed to package and sell his teas, again believing they had been grown at Dalreoch. Between 2014 and 2018, he sold £67,109 to the Wee Tea Company. Robinson was further convicted of defrauding 12 individual buyers – 11 in Scotland and one from Jersey – out of £274,354. Suspicions started to grow around 2016 when, on the back of press reports, Perth and Kinross Council investigated Dalreoch to see the scale of the operation for itself, only to be told production was carried out in Fife. A subsequent probe by Fife Council found this was not true. At the same time, people who had bought plants from Robinson were surprised to find their own teas listed on The Balmoral menu. Food Standards Scotland, set up in the wake of the horse meat scandal, was tasked to investigate. As the probe progressed, the teas were yanked from hotel menus and Robinson's contract with the Wee Tea Company was terminated. During the trial, it emerged Robinson made up outrageous claims about his product, telling one customer it was the Queen's favourite tea. His tall tales including signing a contract with President Barrack Obama's US administration for crop trials, deals with Kensington Palace and playing and coaching rugby for several well-known clubs. Robinson, most recently working as a chef at Taymouth Castle, claimed to have invented a 'unique' plastic sheeting that allowed his tea plants to grow at record-breaking speeds. He fabricated awards, including the prestigious-sounding Salon de Thé prize, to boost his company's profile. He pretended to be former employee Lindsay Deuchars, using her old email address without permission to communicate with customers and media – usually when trying to avoid troublesome questions – signing off messages with 'Lins x'. Robinson tried to explain he had a four-and-a-half acre plot near his land which was used to grow thousands of tea plants. The land, he said, had been leased from a shepherd but he could not remember his name. No one who visited Dalreoch – such as potential buyers and investors – was shown this land. Robinson struggled to explain how he claimed 70,000 plants had been removed from the four-and-a-half acre plot, when he had earlier said he grew plants at a rate of about 1,000 per acre. He said the plants and all the equipment at Dalreoch had been moved to Ireland, because he was quitting Scotland after Perth and Kinross Council gave funding to a competitor. But he said he could not produce photos of the plants and equipment sitting in Ireland because he had been let down by an IT guy called Mike, whose surname he could not remember. Prosecutor Joanne Ritchie told jurors: 'This was a scheme to deceive, a scheme to make money on the basis of lies. 'This man has lied to every single witness who encountered him. 'But more than that, he lied to the public at large.' She said Robinson made himself out to be a 'knowledgeable and credible person,' while exploiting a gap in the market but urged jurors to reject his testimony entirely, branding it 'absurd.' Defence advocate Colin Neilson KC urged jurors to acquit his client, even if they had suspicious about his business practices and his tendency to 'big himself up' to others. Giving evidence at his trial, Robinson said he was 'proud' of his achievements. 'This is what I consider to be my life's work,' he said. 'This will stand in the history of tea.' Robinson said he felt 'injured and hurt,' but also 'annoyed and angry' by the allegations. 'The first time I've heard the evidence is here, at the same time as the jury,' he said. The case represent a significant win for the Food Standards Scotland's crime and incident unit. Ron McNaughton, who heads up the department, said: 'This was a highly complex and protracted investigation which required a significant amount of time, expertise and coordination across our team with partner agencies.' He added: 'This is not a victimless crime – individuals, businesses and an emerging sector of genuine Scottish tea growers suffered real financial and reputational harm as a result of deliberate deception.'
BBC News
7 days ago
- General
- BBC News
Dorchester pedestrian signals works throughout summer holiday
Pedestrian signals are being modernised to improve traffic management in a Dorset signals in High East Street junction with Church Street in Dorchester have "reached the end of their maintainable life", according to Dorset authority explained they would be replaced to make the crossing safer and easier to use. Work is expected to start on 2 June and last for six weeks. The authority said signed diversions would be in place and asked people to "be prepared for some disruption". In a statement, the authority said the junction will be controlled with three-way lights and there would be road closures in place Way will be closed from 2 June until 6 June, while Friary Lane will be closed from 2 June until 17 Jon Andrews said: "Technology has advanced significantly since these signals were installed many years ago."The new signals will improve the experience for pedestrians and the smart technology will adapt to traffic conditions to keep vehicles flowing."During the works, we will be using the same temporary signals used during our recent Maumbury junction works, which served motorists and us well."As with all highways work, there will be some disruption during the improvements and we encourage all road users to allow extra time when planning their journey in this area."The authority confirmed further improvement works were planned for later in 2025 and in 2026, with details yet to be announced. You can follow BBC Dorset on Facebook, X (Twitter), or Instagram.
