The best of Dorset in words and pictures for 50 years
Joël Lacey looks back at some key moments of the last half century of this magazine’s evolution and also reflects on the magazine itself
Published in June ’18
There are certain times when a moment of self-reflection is not only permitted, but practically mandatory. We have chosen this issue to be that moment, for, 50 years after Rodney Legg issued a clarion call to reclaim the village of Tyneham for the people, Dorset is once again in need of action to preserve and protect its countryside.
‘How did they come up with the name Dorset Life – The Dorset Magazine?’ I hear you ask. Well it took a fair bit of brainstorming. These are the last editions of the separate magazines
That matter is covered on page 24, but it is nonetheless instructive that 50 years after Rodney’s call in the newly launched Dorset, the County Magazine, we should be making a similar one now.
There are some key moments in this magazine’s history, but in terms of defining how it would look – and also how it would be manufactured – the most important happened exactly 25 years ago this month: the introduction of the centre-spread image. June 1993 featured a picture of Loscombe by Colin Varndell and since then we have chosen to put an image, unadorned by text, literally at the very heart of our magazine.
The design changed quite radically from Rodney’s last issue top) to John’s first issue (middle) before the magazine went monthly five months later (below)
Over a period of just four and a half years, the magazine that became Dorset Life had three other names
Because of this image, we choose to be saddle stitched (stapled through the middle) to ensure that we do not obscure part of the centre image. Because of that centre staple and the heavy quality of paper on which we print Dorset Life – The Dorset Magazine, we cannot have issue sizes larger than 100 pages. That is, we feel, a sacrifice well worth making.
Each of the three editors of this magazine, from 1968 to 2018, has made changes, but each of us has clung to the idea that there really is nowhere better on earth than this small lozenge of land in the middle of the south coast of England.
Each of us has aimed to bring you things you knew about Dorset, but had forgotten, things you thought you knew about Dorset but in fact didn’t, and – that jewel in the crown – something which you had not heard of before about Dorset.
Between them, the cover (and the centre spread of the first magazine to feature one) epitomise our love of a verdant, bucolic Dorset under a spring sky next to an azure sea
We have striven, as the technology of printing and origination improved, to bring you the very best pictures of the loveliest places in Dorset, and to peep into the lives of those not just who live or who have moved here, but those whose stories are inextricably linked to the county.
It is perhaps no surprise that, strictly speaking, all three of the editors of Dorset Life – The Dorset Magazine were incomers when taking the helm of the magazine. Rodney’s birthplace of Bournemouth was still in Hampshire when he launched the magazine, but he actually returned from working as a newspaper man in Essex before launching the magazine, John Newth and I both originally came down to Dorset from London but were born outside the county. There is an old saying that ‘there is no zealot like a convert’ and it is perhaps unsurprising that our wish to keep Dorset as we found it makes us sensitive to changes in the county.
Elsewhere in this month’s magazine you will find anniversaries of different elements of life in Dorset, including reflections on what the last – and the next – half century has meant and will mean for Dorset’s countryside from DWT Chief Executive Simon Cripps, how the British Army has been a benign landlord for 75 years of the village of Tyneham and its surroundings and also how a young Roger Guttridge had his first piece of journalism published in the first year of Dorset the County Magazine’s existence.
Elsewhere in the pages of this article we will track the evolution of the two magazines that eventually merged to form Dorset Life – The Dorset Magazine and while there will be more talk of editors, it is perhaps apt to end this section of self-reflection by acknowledging that those of us who get to opine within the pages of this magazine can only do so firstly because of the dedicated help of those of our administrative colleagues here in the office whose light is always hidden under a bushel.
Secondly, without our stellar advertising team, this magazine could not be published and they would be first to ask that we also recognise the contribution of our advertisers – some of them very long-term partners of this title – who allow us to produce the product that we do.
Finally, I speak for all of the staff past and present and those of the magazines that came before us when I thank you, the reader, for your support, encouragement, knowledge and wisdom. We know that the only stories that are truly interesting are those about real people, and we are blessed with a continuing stream of fascinating insights from our readers on the past and present life of this county which we all love. As long as you keep it up, we shall endeavour to continue to bring to you each month the best of Dorset in words and pictures.
In late spring 1968, general strikes and student protests were both crippling Paris and rewriting the history of France. Meanwhile, a firebrand of an altogether different flavour was trying to prod sleepy Dorset into action.
In possibly the only editorial column ever to equally praise the Sun and The Countryman in the same paragraph, Rodney called on the populace of Dorset to rise up to seize Purbeck back from the military. While left-wingers in Paris were singing about keeping the red flag flying, Rodney Legg was talking about hauling red flags down – those of the firing ranges indicating they were closed to the public.
The following final paragraph is classic Rodney: ‘If this was some Celtic fringe of the country there would be bomb incidents and other colourful demonstrations. I am not advocating that type of militant action in Purbeck (it would be sedition if I did) though this would immediately solve the publicity problem. Some expression of feeling is necessary – we have not even managed to paint “Surrender Purbeck” on a wall. It is time, belated yes, to form a Tyneham Action Group … to end the indifference and silence which is golden for those in authority who refuse to acknowledge a wartime pledge.’
See the article following this piece on page 15 for a longer term view from the British Army on the village of Tyneham during its 75-year stewardship.
Dorset, the county magazine founded for and by a campaign
Up to issue 114 (the same numbering system we use for this current issue, which is 471) Rodney shied away from using dates on the cover of the magazine. This had the twin benefit of making the issue timeless (even the years of issues 1-114 can often only be established by the number plates of the cars in the adverts) and allwing him a certain amount of flexibility on deadlines.
Upon the sale of the magazine to John Newth, issue 115, the first under his editorship, bore the legend October/November 1987. That issue had 36 colour pages and features on John Constable in Dorset, Tarrant Rushton airfield in World War 2, a garden in Morcombelake, Smedmore House, a Dorset Drive and the first incarnation of ‘Eating out with Freddie’ – the review column which, while not to everyone’s taste, was loved by those who knew Freddie and the long-suffering Mrs Freddie. Within 18 months, Dorset County Magazine was monthly. Four years later it was simply The Dorset Magazine.
Dorset West to Dorset Life
If one branch of the Dorset Life – The Dorset Magazine lineage comes from Rodney Legg’s Dorset the County Magazine, the other half comes from Roy Smart’s Dorset Life, but before that title came into being, it had been through a number of iterations.
Launched in May 1980 as Dorset West monthly it became Dorset & Bournemouth Monthly in March 1983. Shortly afterwards (in January 1984) it transformed again to Dorset Life incorporating Bournemouth Monthly. By the end of that year it had changed, finally, on the cover at least, to simply Dorset Life.
The editor during this period was Jack Rayfield and features in that December 1984 issue included an interview with broadcaster and naturalist Desmond Hawkins by DL’s interviewer, Madeleine Harvey, a piece on the decade 1920-30 in Bournemouth, a three-page
review of the Christmas concert at Bovington, Jean Bellamy on Sturminster Newton and its mills, a photo feature on Marnhull and a review of the new A-reg Volkswagen Golf. The only colour pages were the cover, an advertising centre-spread and pages 2 and 67 (both adverts).
By November 1992, the last issue before the merger of Dorset Life and The Dorset Magazine, Dorset Life was a 60-page magazine of which 6 were colour (5 ads plus the cover). Rodney Legg had defected to the ‘opposition’ for his walks (a feat he would later repeat when Dorset – The Magazine For People Who Like To Explore was launched), Jean Bellamy was writing about Fromes Vauchurch and St Quintin, Marion Watson wrote about Dorset lace, the sixth in a series of articles on twinning, Bob Devereux asked London if ‘we could have our stone back’ and Kim Henson tested the £91,488.97 Bentley Brooklands… he liked it.
