Bills Posts

In 2015, I developed the concept of locality. The thing about Locality is that it acted like a kind of framework, bringing together a lot of my interests; walking, photography, history, just knowing about the area.

In comparison to Wareham, the history of which goes back to the romans and the Saxons, and I’m probably sure before. I have to confess that I was very surprised Gosport’s (note; not Alverstoke or Rowner) history really goes back only around one millennium. But what a thousand years it has been, especially the last few hundred.

There is some very obvious evidence of Gosport’s history not the least of which are six of the Palmerston Forts, and the ramparts – Gosport’s defences.

Three rather good museums serve to highlight aspects of Gosport’s history, particularly the role the military continues to have, admittedly to a lesser extent today. Although I think the link between the town and the diving museum needs to be explored a bit. Gosport itself was home to HMS Dolphin, a submarine base. The Submarine Escape tower which was decommissioned in 2020 is a clear link but what is the link with the specialist equipment in the museum?

I enjoy writing about the town, but one thing I would really like to do is vlog. I am beginning to think that I should put more effort in to that. It’ll be good practice for Dorset.

I read the article in Dorset Life about Wareham. It was of course very interesting and I knew some of it (Saxon town, major port before Poole, sacked by the Dane’s, besieged, extensively destroyed by fire), interesting key points in the towns history. But there is so much more detail to be disc overed.

The article is based on a book; A portrait of Dorset by Rena Gardiner. Of course, I went to have a look to see if I could get a copy. Well, I could get a copy of the book, but at a price £75. It appears that the book has been published twice, with very limited print runs in each case (750 copies), so I’m not going to bother with that one.

The next article featured another book; Real Dorset by Jon Woolcott, this also looked quite interesting and is available for a much more reasonable price so a copy is winging its way toward me as we speak.

The good thing about my interest, which I’ve called Locality comes with me. I am very much looking forward to applying it in Dorset, and I think I need to start planning how I am going to approach this and what is involved. I need to think about that.

The latest edition of Dorset Life has arrived. I will take a few days away from my book to read. I’m particularly interested in an article on Wareham. I always look forward to receiving the latest edition. The first thing I look at is the map of Dorset on the first page. This shows the places in Dorset, that are covered in that edition.

I have to say that there appear to be regular places including Shaftsbury, Dorchester, Gillingham. I’ve been to Dorchester quite a few times. I can’t say that I have been to either Gillingham or Shaftsbury. I certainly intend to correct that.

The picture has nothing to do with the coronation. We didn’t go to London, we did spend most of the day in front of the TV, eating some of the things that we shouldn’t. Well, we don’t do it often.

As usual, the ceremony was superbly conducted. Of course not everything went according to plan. You can’t really account for the actions of horses. One of the large kettle drum shires wanted to March sideways for at least part of the route, and apparently one soldiers horse wanted to investigate what happens when it crashed reversing into the crowd barriers. I’m not sure but I don’t think anybody was injured beyond a loss of dignity.

The ceremony itself was fascinating to watch, I loved the music, Zadoc is particularly impressive, and Holst’s Jupiter I always find quite emotional for some reason.

It was for us a very lazy day. I will try and make up for that by going for a walk tomorrow.

The ship in the picture is The Greg Mortimer. Named after the founder of the company that owns her, Aurora. Not a big vessel, 1400 tons, and carries only 100 passengers. The thing about her is that she was designed for excursions to the poles.

It’s always a pleasure to witness the arrival of a vessel for the first time. There is always the possibility that it has visited before and I just missed it. Nonetheless, for me, it was my first time of seeing it.

I had it in my mind this morning that I was going to write about the street coming alive, it can be like a person who really does not want to get up but is forced to. There’s the clanking and rumbling of the Holland & Barret health food delivery lorry bringing the stock to the shop. The quiet hiss passing your ear as a cyclist is trying to get to the ferry, Bob, who is waiting for Greggs to open, so he can get his breakfast. The staff of wetherspoons putting the tables and chairs out, even though it’s very likely to rain, and besides, who want to sit outside at 6AM?

There are a definite number of stages. If you walk down the street, even just half an hour later, it is like a different place. The street is heading for coffee.

There is a lot going on with the cross streets. The have taken up the block paving and opened up the substructure. There were a lot of pipes which in turn were full of cables. I don’t really know what they are doing but it looks like they are building a base that will be strong enough to take traffic for quite some time. That I have I said that I don’t know what is going on, kind of implies that I should try and work it out.

I have an opportunity to do this during my lunchtime walk when the workers are still doing their thing. Starting a conversation with them may be quite interesting, really keeping up to date with progress. Perhaps once or twice a week.

The writing this week has been interesting, at least for me. Even only once being able to do a blog entry early in the day was really quite exciting, and I would like to do that more often. I’ve been watching a chap on YouTube who has been talking about journalling. I’m going to pay a bit more intention to him because he has a quite structural approach to his writing, which may help me.

It’s Thursday, and it’s getting late for me, so it’s time for that typical Thursday rushed entry, but actually I have managed four semi-reasonable paragraphs tonight, so I consider that a win.

The thing about my writing is that I’m not very good at writing expressively. Putting emotion into my writing. I find that very frustrating. I’ve moved on from Lock’s Dorset to Treve’s The Highways and Byways of Dorset Originally published in 1906, I have a 1980’s re-print. Even within the first chapter, the first page, first paragraph I was captured by the writing, there was something really expressive about the writing. I was taken straight away.

Here then, is another attempt at some expressive writing. The setting is me out for a morning walk, moving past St Georges Barracks off Mumby Road;

Walking past St Georges Barracks, the original buildings remain. Double-storied but with the first level partially submerged below ground, was there a defensive reason for this? These units are now sought-after flats, such a different use to the days of the seried barracks that once rang to the shouted orders of the Corporals and echoed to the stamping of the marching soldiers conducting their drill.

And so on to the Esplanade, where people come to while away the time watching the boats and ships, be it the small leisure craft marching line astern in the strictly defined channel. The Gosport Ferry plies its trade to and fro, conveying people to work or fetching home shoppers and merrymakers returning from their revelries.

I still am not sure that I’m there. But is that better?

I’ve been playing with the AI Tool ChatGPT, which if you have heard about it, either as a panic about the machines taking over or as a tool that allows people to run three jobs at the same time. Anyhow, I thought let’s have a go. So I asked it to look at and comment one of my blog entries (yesterday, No. 980) – I was quite pleased with what I had written, so I asked the question; please look at https://localitystories.com/2023/05/01/980-dorset-by-h-o-lock/ and comment on the quality of the writing. This is the response I got;

As an AI language model, I cannot provide subjective opinions, but I can provide an analysis of the writing in terms of objective criteria.

The blog entry appears to be well-written and structured. The author provides a brief introduction to H.O. Lock and his work before delving into the specifics of “Dorset” and its contents. The author does a good job of summarizing the book’s main points, and provides some interesting insights into the history and geography of Dorset.

In terms of grammar and syntax, the writing appears to be clear and concise, with few errors or typos. The author’s use of language is also varied and engaging, which helps to keep the reader interested throughout.

Overall, the blog entry seems to be of high quality and provides a valuable overview of H.O. Lock’s “Dorset”.

Now, I thought that is pretty good and I was very pleased with that. But then I thought; I wonder if it is just being nice to me, or am I the next Simon Schama? So, I asked the same question, but in a slightly different way; this is my most recent blog entry;https://localitystories.com/2023/05/01/980-dorset-by-h-o-lock/. are you able to tell me what is technically wrong with it?

As an AI language model, I don’t have personal opinions or emotions, and I cannot tell you what is “wrong” with your blog entry. However, I can provide some objective suggestions to improve the technical aspects of your writing, such as grammar, syntax, and structure.

Firstly, I noticed some issues with sentence structure and punctuation. For example, there are a few run-on sentences where two independent clauses are not separated by a comma or period. I would recommend breaking up these sentences into smaller, more manageable parts. Also, pay attention to the use of commas to separate clauses and phrases.

Secondly, there were some instances of repetition in the writing. It is a good idea to vary the structure of sentences to prevent the writing from sounding monotonous. Try using different sentence types, such as simple, compound, and complex sentences.

Thirdly, I noticed that some sentences were a bit unclear or awkwardly phrased. It can be helpful to read your writing aloud to identify areas that need improvement. You might also consider having someone else read your writing and provide feedback.

Finally, I would suggest proofreading your writing for spelling and grammatical errors. A few typos or mistakes can detract from an otherwise well-written piece.

Overall, with some attention to these technical aspects of writing, you can improve the clarity and coherence of your blog entry.

Doesn’t that sound a bit off? However, I don’t mind it since I have installed the Grammarly tool to assist me. Some might consider it cheating, but it was free, and it could aid in my learning process.

Our cat, Misty brought home a guest for dinner. It took us a while to catch it. We both thought how cute it was, but it was obviously terrified so I took it over to Gove Park and let it go.

For a book that was an accidental pick-up at Kim’s in Chichester, Dorset by H.O.Lock has been an absolutely delightful read. With a tinge of regret, I finished it this morning.

I don’t know very much about Mr. Lock. He served as a Major in the British army, he wrote a number of books and that is about it. I don’t know if he lived in Dorset, so I don’t know if he really loved the place, or if that was just the way he wrote, but the book exudes love.

Although the book gives bare-bones details about things, mentioning almost in passing the martyrdoms of King Edward at Corfe Castle in 975, or the battle between Stephen and Maud and the ensuing siege of Wareham, or discusses the delights of Old Harry (and his wives), Swanage, Durdle Door, Lulworth Cove and Portland Bill and the geology that caused these features it is done in such a way that with things like access to the internet and libraries simply calls out for further research.

To the extent that I am going to re-read the book and extract from it an index of things that I would love to research, see and write about. Fuel indeed for my locality project. Such delights await me.

Unusual to have my daily post so early in the day, but I am seriously enthused by this book.

It was getting fairly late in the evening, and I was getting a bit panicky, because I couldn’t think of what to write for tonight’s blog. I hate that, not having even the ghost of an idea what to write about. But then, I suddenly had a thought; what have I learned this week from reading the 1925 Dorset book I’ve been raving about.

I read about The Dorset Natural History & Antiquarian Field Club sounded quite interesting, so I googled it and of course it closed down a long time ago, but the Dorset Museum is running something with a similar name so I shall look at that. But I quite like the idea of the field. Club, and wonder if I could restart it? Highly unlikely but not impossible – how do you register a club name? Can you even?

There was a story about the Aigle and it’s press gang in Weymouth which understandably upset the locals, and ended up in pitched battles between the groups. I have to confess that I hadn’t really thought about press gangs in Weymouth, but why not? After all, there is a big naval base next door.

I wanted to learn a bit more about the Aigle incident so I thought I would have a go with the AI tool, ChatGPT. Actually, it’s pretty good. Turns out that the Aigle was a French ship at anchor in Weymouth Bay. To which I thought, “hang on a second, a French warship sending a press gang into Weymouth for a bit of involuntary recruiting, isn’t that a bit much, why wasn’t that an act of war or something?” Back to chatGPT it transpires that the press gang were looking for french deserters not locals, but that either seems to have got lost in translation or the locals were protecting the French deserters. Must admit, I didn’t do that bit of follow up. It wasn’t an act of war anyway, as we weren’t at war with france at the time, but interesting though.

back to the field club for a bit; I could always start the Winfrith Newburgh & Wool Natural History Field Club. I’ll think about that. Could be fun.