On Thursday 24 September at 11.00a.m. The Shaftesbury & District Historical Society invited its members to take part in its first on-line Annual General Meeting. The meeting was comfortably quorate as members logged in from neighbouring counties and, in one instance, from a distant continent. The AGM is an essential part of the governance of the Society as a registered Charitable Incorporated Organisation, and was scheduled to be held at Gold Hill Museum on 07 July, when it fell victim to the Lockdown. It was postponed to a larger venue, the Town Hall, for early October, but as the end of the pandemic is nowhere in sight the Trustees decided to take advantage of a Charity Commission dispensation to hold a safer, virtual meeting.

At each AGM a third of the Trustees are elected or re-elected and their Annual Report for the previous financial year is up for scrutiny. Newly elected were David Hardiman, Mark Smith and Sue Stamp, while Sheena Commons was re-elected. Chairperson Elaine Barratt thanked many volunteers, past and present, and friends of The S&DHS, while paying tribute to retiring Trustees Ray Simpson and Janet Swiss. Treasurer Linda Wilton also spoke to the Trustees’ Annual Report for 2019-20, which was duly endorsed by the meeting. This includes a summary of the Society’s diverse educational activities as well as its Statement of Accounts, and can be found here.

The host of the virtual AGM was the Society’s President, Sir John Stuttard. In this troubled year of COVID-19 and Black Lives Matter, Sir John is eager that a champion of the abolition of slavery and many other progressive causes, John Rutter, should be remembered by a blue plaque on the site of his nineteenth century print and stationery shop in The Commons, Shaftesbury. ThisisAlfred’s Keri Jones talks to Sir John about this initiative here.

Forty-seven years after it was first made, homage continues to be paid to Ridley Scott’s Hovis ad. This time on 20 July 2020 the baker’s boy delivered fresh bread, not to “old Ma Peggotty’s place (t’was like taking bread to the top of the world”), but to the gate of Gold Hill Museum.

The Harbour Media team from Weymouth, led by Justin Glynn, were on an almost deserted Gold Hill to shoot some footage for the Visit Dorset website. The few passers-by, mainly local residents, impressed with their friendliness and willingness to co-operate with the demands of film-making. The bike, not alas the original from 1973 but one used by the owners of Hovis for subsequent publicity, was borrowed from Gold Hill Museum. Justin’s son, playing the star role, patiently pushed the leviathan up the same stretch of hill for several retakes, and did not require a stunt double when taking his feet off the pedals on the way down.

Memorabilia from the making of the 1973 ad can be seen in Gold Hill Museum (when it reopens) including material kindly on temporary loan from the family of advertising executive Dennis Dunkley. Hovis appointed the Collett, Dickenson and Pearce advertising agency in 1970 and it was they who devised the slogan “As good for you today as it’s always been.” This chimes perfectly with the atmosphere and tone of the Ridley Scott masterpiece, though this was not Dennis’s favourite in a long, prize-winning series. One of his tasks was to ensure that the bread always looked its best for the camera in studio shots, and Dennis worked with both of the Scott brothers, Ridley and Tony, before they departed to make Hollywood blockbusters.

In June 1520 King Henry VIII of England met with King Francis I of France at The Field of the Cloth of Gold. This was a diplomatic summit, an international sporting event, a fashion parade, and a festival all rolled into one: a spectacular opportunity for the rich and powerful to show off. Both kings were in their twenties and eager to prove that they were ideal Renaissance Princes: physically fit, handsome, lavishly dressed, skilled in the martial arts, well educated, well mannered, devout and accomplished. They wished also to cement an unusual peace between two countries almost perpetually at war.

The anonymous painting from c.1545 depicts Henry VIII at the head of the English contingent, almost 6000 strong, leaving Guines on the edge of the Calais enclave. This was the last piece of English-held territory in France, finally lost in 1558. To his left, possibly on a modest clerical mule (or a long-eared horse) is Cardinal Wolsey, the organiser of the entire proceedings. Ahead is the temporary English palace, a mainly timber and canvas construction deceptively painted to look like stone and tile and lit by impressive arrays of stained glass windows. The two fountains are reported to have run with wine. Behind the palace are some of the hundreds of catering and accommodation tents, and towards the top right the tiltyard, grandstands and artificial Tree of Honour bearing the arms of the participants.

The tournament proper ran from 11 to 22 June 1520. Armoured individuals on horseback jousted across a wooden barrier, aiming if not to unseat, at least break their lance by striking their opponent. Unsurprisingly Henry and Francis topped the league with 6 broken lances each. Ace jouster Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, was tactfully off-form. In the next stage of the tourney, more of a free-for-all, the two kings were paired as a team, as they were in the foot combat. They may have met in an unofficial wrestling bout, where a French source has Henry thrown by Francis. English sources remain silent.

The Abbot of Glastonbury was invited but not, apparently, the Abbess of Shaftesbury. Thomas Grey, Marquess of Dorset, carried the Sword of State in the procession and can be seen ahead of his king, but Grey owned 100 manors in 16 different counties and was buried in Warwickshire. His granddaughter was the ill-fated Lady Jane Grey. At a humbler level, the gentry of Dorset were represented by Henry and Giles Strangways, John Horsey and Sir Thomas Trenchard.

Amid professions of undying amity the event broke up on 24 June 1520. Within two years Henry had declared war on Francis. As John Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, commented (and is quoted on the Hampton Court Palace website) “Where be all those pleasures now? They were but shadows …”

Mayor and Mayoress Lead the Revels.

Shaftesbury was beflagged as never before, and the oldest inhabitants declared that they had never seen such “goings on” in the streets, when the Mayor and Mayoress (Mr and Mrs Ralph Pearson) led off the dancing in the High Street with the “Palais Glide”, to music from loudspeakers. The crowd was probably the largest ever seen, and dancing continued with great zest for more than an hour. The Prime Minister’s speech was broadcast from the Town Hall after which the Mayor told the large crowd that the main theme was one of thankfulness and that their first duty was to attend one of the services at the churches in the evening to give thanks …. The Town Band played in the Square for an hour and in the evening there was a very successful dance in the ex-Service Men’s Hut, the proceeds of which were for the local hospital. Later there were bonfires on all the surrounding hills.

Thanks to Archivist Ray Simpson for providing this news cutting and the images below; the text is as originally printed.

The “Palais Glide” was an English sequence dance performed in lines of couples, popular from the mid-1930s. Winston Churchill’s speech was broadcast at 3p.m. He said that “We may allow ourselves a brief period of rejoicing” but pointed out that the War in the Pacific against Japan was still to be won. When interviewed by Shaftesbury School students for an oral history project, Mrs Benita Streeter of Fontmell Magna recalled that “The Grand Finale was a journey to the top of Melbury Beacon where an immense bonfire was lit by the youngest guide and scout; torches were lit from the fire and a flaming V was formed on the side of the hill.”

An alternative evening entertainment would have been a showing at the Savoy Cinema in Bimport of “Four Jills in a Jeep”. The film was based on the real-life experiences of American forces entertainers Kay Francis, Carole Landis, Martha Raye and Mitzi Mayfair who toured the UK and North Africa in late 1942 and early 1943. The New York Times declared that “It gives the painful impression of having been tossed together in a couple of hours.”

Rin Tin Tin, the canine superstar of the 1920’s, was a big hit with young Shaftesbury film-goers. A local resident recalls that her father, born in 1918, enjoyed going to the “The Fleapit” to see Rin Tin Tin. This might have been the Picture Palace which, according to Roger Guttridge in Shaftesbury Through Time, closed in 1925 or its replacement further up the High Street called the Palace. The Savoy Cinema in Bimport opened in 1933, two years after Rin Tin Tin’s last film.

Rin Tin Tin was rescued in 1918 as a puppy from a wrecked kennels in north-eastern France by an American serviceman, Lee Duncan. He took the German Shepherd back to California and trained the dog, which he called Rinty, to be very responsive to commands and to leap prodigious heights. In 1922 the dog made his film debut, doubling for a very unresponsive wolf. In 1923 he had his first starring role in Where The North Begins. This film made six times its production costs and was credited with saving the Warner Brothers studio from bankruptcy.

By 1929 Rin Tin Tin was an international favourite. He appealed to all nationalities and the absence of a soundtrack meant that no commands were heard. (The advent of talkies required Lee Duncan to devise a code of visual signals.) The first Academy Awards ceremony, hosted by Douglas Fairbanks, took place in that year and legend has it that Rin Tin Tin should have won Best Actor. The organisers, however, decided that a dog could not be nominated and German actor Emil Jannings won the rerun vote.

The original Rin Tin Tin starred in 27 Hollywood films and died in 1932. Lee Duncan never copyrighted the name and so there was a succession of imitators, including a television series which the writer vaguely remembers from the 1950’s.

If you have reminiscences of the early days of the cinema in Shaftesbury, please get in touch with us.