Oliver Letwin MP

It is not at all surprising that there is an enormous amount of concern about what is happening at Bridport Community Hospital. 

As I mentioned in my column last week, my first-hand experience when an elderly relative was at the hospital was so good that it wanted to make you dance for joy.  The human scale [...]

Last week, I found myself at the Woodmead Halls, high up in Lyme Regis. 

The occasion was a discussion of the balance between freedom and security. 

The idea was that there would be a conversation between Clive Stafford Smith and me about this – succeeded by a conversation between the two of us and the audience.

I am [...]

August this year was not exactly a prize winner in the summer weather stakes. So I woke up with some apprehension on the day of the Melplash Show. Would this be the first rainy day in many years?

These anxieties intensified during the early part of the morning as the rain fell.

But the rain clouds had [...]

I must have mentioned before in this column that I am continually amazed by what one finds in Bridport.

Part of the reason is the number of little jewels that the town hides away.  Lurking in each corner of Bridport, there are things you didn’t know existed and which you wouldn’t have expected to find.

But it [...]

It is often said that rural communities are “isolated”.  I would be very glad to have a pound for every time I have read some official publication or some worthy report from a think tank or academic institution that refers to “isolated rural communities”.

Of course, anyone can see why this cliché has arisen.

If you start [...]

The wonders of modern technology will never cease.

I know this for a fact – but, like many other people, I still experience shocks from time to time, when I discover anew just how viral the properties of the internet can be.

Last week, I met somebody in London who told me that they had seen a [...]

At the risk of appearing to have a fixation about one particular spot in the town of Beaminster, I want – for the third week in a row – to draw attention to something that is happening at Yarn Barton.

This week, in contrast to the previous two, the item I have in mind is not [...]

I was absolutely delighted to hear last week that that Yarnbarton Centre in Beaminster is now back in use. 

This initiative on the part of the Town Council and a large number of volunteers is a splendid example of a community getting together to improve its quality of life through collaborative effort.

I gather that the Centre [...]

I don’t know how many readers of this column are old enough to recall the programme Twenty Questions.

Those who, like me, are sufficiently long in the tooth will recall that the contestants were required to identify an item about which they could ask twenty questions. Most famously, the contestants were permitted to enquire whether the [...]

There is a rather wonderful short story by H H Munro (otherwise known as Saki) in which the narrator observes that the island of Crete has had more history than it can consume locally.

I have to admit that I felt rather the same way about the UK in the last 10 days.

It all began with [...]