1979: A New Lease of Life for Abbotsbury? | A Diary of Britain | BBC Archive

Ajouté : 2026-05-12

[00:00:00]I'm a lease holder here. I came down five years ago and took a lease on this cottage. If people are prepared to come in here, as they have and put somewhere between 10 and £15,000 into a property, then they're saving the village, not destroying it.

[00:00:53]There's been a settlement here at Abbottsbury since at least the Iron Age.

[00:00:57]sheltered by surrounding hills, bordered on one side by fertile land, and on the other by a sea full of fish. In Saxon times, it was a favored retirement place for kings. In the late 20th century, it's a retirement place for the middle classes of London and the Midlands.

[00:01:16]>> Well, now it's a really upand cominging village. You know, there's more people come to live here, more new people, and there's still lots of the good old people living here. But none of us interfere with what they like to do because um we didn't come here to change the village. We came to join in with their lovely oldfashioned way. You see the oldfashioned ways were farming and fishing with a thriving rope and netmaking industry. Now the main source of income is tourism and that doesn't provide much employment for the locals.

[00:01:50]Abbottsbury is almost completely owned by the Strangways family, a small part of a much larger estate, and the family have always cared a great deal about the village, especially for the look of the place. A combined effort by owner and planners has controlled the way in which the village has modernized. It presents a facade of oldworld charm.

[00:02:12]But in order to finance this without selling off houses, the estate has had to resort to methods which alter the character of the community and they look like having a deep and lasting effect on the life of the village.

[00:02:24]The headmaster of the village school is David Bodell.

[00:02:28]>> We're now in serious difficulty to maintain a viable school simply because the number of children is dwindling and this itself reflects uh increasing difficulty in the village of getting housing. So that a young family who uh wants a house now uh can't obtain one uh this basically is because of the landlord's policy. If a house becomes vacant uh it suits their policy more to make this available to somebody with money who can take out an expensive lease and pay for the cost of modernization and this automatically excludes the uh kind of young family with children who would in fact keep the school population going. The newcomers of course are usually older and don't have young families and this is a disadvantage from the village point of view and we all realize this but I can't imagine that um the village would be any better without us.

[00:03:26]Well, you're getting the old older colonels and admirals and everything coming in and buying the houses and that extending them and everything and that is people with money and that coming in.

[00:03:37]The youngsters is just getting moved on.

[00:03:40]>> You know, we won't stand a chance of getting a house is as easy as that.

[00:03:43]We're going to have to find somewhere out of the village.

[00:03:46]>> Wide wide as the high as a heaven above.

[00:03:54]Deep deep as the deepest sea is my Savior's love.

[00:04:03]Why you so unworthy still have a child of his care?

[00:04:11]For his word teaches me that his love reaches mewhere.

[00:04:29]A great barrier of pebbles, the chzled beach keeps the sea at bay and protects an 8-mile brackish lagoon. The Fleet, a rich feeding ground for fish and waterfall. Swans have been protected and exploited here since the Benedicting monks first appointed a swankeeper in the 14th century and bred signates for the table. The last person to eat an Abbottzbury swan was the late Lord Ilchester and that was 16 years ago. Now at nesting time, they're an attraction for tourists. Dick Deli is one of the men who cares for them.

[00:05:02]>> Well, the days a day we uh make our annual swan counts. We usually count the swans in the spring and this time of year just after we release them. The swans, they winter down the fleet maybe 3 4 mile down from Abbert.

[00:05:20]There should be around about 5 to 600 birds on the fleet at this time of the year.

[00:05:28]Usually they stay because simple reason is there's acres of food here for them.

[00:05:39]Mr. Keech has lived in Abbertsbury all his life. His wife comes from a neighboring village.

[00:05:45]They work a small market garden and run a shop from the doorway of their house, selling their own produce and acting as news agents. Their daughter, Jackie Pitman, married a local gamekeeper.

[00:05:57]>> She organizes much of the village's social life, the weekly whistles for the village concert in two weeks time.

[00:06:05]>> And you start this one. Yeah, >> this round I find helpful in other ways because it gives me the chance of when I'm organizing anything or if I've got things to tell people, I tell them at the same time that I'm delivering papers. Ted, could you tell Annie please that the whis at the illustr?

[00:06:30]>> Yeah. Well, you know, we'd like to see you all there and get you the >> Yeah, very good. Could I give a message to your dad? Yeah.

[00:06:39]Could you ask him if he could come to the WI hall >> Wednesday for a rehearsal? Mr. Yes. I should think about uh Oh, 8:15.

[00:06:47]>> Yeah.

[00:06:48]>> All right.

[00:06:56]>> Or the swans itself, you find each pair is a little bit different to the other.

[00:07:02]You get some which are more fierce.

[00:07:05]For instance, once I was down there and there was family of swans this particular year, I went there and attempted to catch usually the female first because she won't leave the signets. I caught this female and they had seven signets and I felt a blow in the back of the head. I didn't know what hit me. Apparently her mate was out on the fleet feeding nur stress school and came into her assistance and just flew into me and knocked me out. He must have caught me behind the air with his wing. It's like somebody coming along and clinging with a heavy stick because they can they have to be known to bite arms and legs.

[00:07:48]And you imagine a bird weighing up 25 30 lb and they can fly about a speed of 30 mph. takes some stop in some of its relatives way. There was one poor old lock going down.

[00:08:03]>> I've got two elderly relatives living still in the village. They're my great uncle and my great aunt. That's Elsie Gil and William Roer.

[00:08:14]Auntie Elsie is 85 and Uncle Will is 92.

[00:08:19]>> They're marvelous characters because they have such marvelous memories and I never get tired of listening to them. My father, he was swan keeper cloud and he used to to rear 35 signets for the table.

[00:08:32]>> Yeah.

[00:08:33]>> And he used to have to rear these and kill them and dress them and bring them right to Abbottsbury, one each side for and take them to the station to send for Alland House in London and Melbour >> because there was a lot more employment in your then, wasn't it? I mean, how many men would work on a farm? by the farm.

[00:08:54]>> Yes. On on the farm when I worked >> there were >> there was 22 men >> Yeah.

[00:09:01]>> working >> cuz there's nothing to keep the young people here anymore, is it? There's no dogs for them.

[00:09:08]>> To get married, you see there's there's no houses for them.

[00:09:11]>> No.

[00:09:12]>> Not like you used to be years ago.

[00:09:14]>> I like to go back and see Clouds again.

[00:09:16]>> I don't suppose you've been there for a long time.

[00:09:18]>> No, I haven't. I didn't seem to have heart to go cuz they said it was knocked about. So >> would you like to go back and see it?

[00:09:23]Would you?

[00:09:24]>> I would love to. Yes.

[00:09:27]>> We came here to live about 18 years ago now. Moved into the house. It's not used now because we moved down into the village. The house itself is called Clouds Hill and it belongs to the Stoneways estate. You know, there's people really willing to pay a lot of money to come here to live. But they just don't want anybody to have it. Once you do that, see that would be the end of the point because of birds to see it be disturbed too much. Used to always be a smaller live one side and I'm a farm labor or shepherd used to live the other side. And the swan's job was to see keep things quiet on this end of the fleet.

[00:10:13]See that nobody came up over the boundary. So that the birds had perfect shy.

[00:10:31]All right, hold it there a minute. Now it's coming quite nicely, but I would like you to go a little bit slower, especially when the treble's coming. And remember that this is the last practice, but one until we go in the hall. So, if you can really put the polish on now, keep it nice and steady at the same speed we started. Once more, we'll start at the beginning and going straight through.

[00:11:09]Abbottsbury is famous for its tropical gardens. The influence of the sea on its sheltered position makes it almost frostfree. For one of Dick Del's sons, there's the rare chance of work in the village.

[00:11:20]>> Now you've seen what I've done. Now you have a go yourself. Don't forget to take the current year's growth about 3 in long right down to a leaf joint.

[00:11:29]>> One of us just worried about getting a job cuz no transport, you know, getting away before Bridport >> cuz the buses only run a certain time.

[00:11:38]You know, if you got a job early, start about 7 years. That's right.

[00:11:42]>> You ain't got no transport getting there. So that's why I took this job.

[00:11:46]>> Judging from the cousins and that, you know, they're sort of 20 and 30. A lot of them's moved out, >> you know, couldn't get out in the village.

[00:11:54]>> It should do.

[00:11:57]>> The garden itself is uh 17 acres.

[00:12:02]It was started by the same family who still own it, the Strangways estates, the Spock Strangways. And it was started in about 1760.

[00:12:11]In those days, of course, they sponsored the old plant collectors who went abroad and collected seed. And we've got trees from all over the world. In fact, we employ five. We're the biggest employers now of the village. never used to be because the estate always farmed their own land and they had a had quite a workforce then but that's all finished now and most of the land is out to tenant farming. So all in all I think that the gardens play an important part in in the village because of the it was great attraction for the tourist trade.

[00:12:47]We're a village that still has a village school, but the problem is that the numbers of children are dropping uh steadily. We used to be having six a year uh intake of children. This has now fallen to about two a year. So, our numbers have plummeted from something like 45 to 50 when I first began here over 10 years ago to uh approaching high 20s and still falling. So, uh we're now in serious difficulty to maintain a viable school.

[00:13:16]the age structure of the village is changing uh drastically. I believe that now uh almost a third of the village is over 65. Uh this tendency will will go on. I see this getting worse and uh it seems to me this will completely alter the whole uh social mix of the village.

[00:13:36]If you have a local argument with, you know, somebody you know and you happen to mention a few things that shouldn't have you shouldn't have mentioned at the time with uh being a newcomer here, if you do that, you'll end up getting a solicitor's letter. But with say people you known for years and you'd have a right row with them, you'd just sort of, you know, uh be a few days and the air would clear and you'd be all right again.

[00:14:03]>> Cuz that didn't happen in the village, didn't it? not so long ago >> with uh a person that have came into the village. He just happened to mention something about newcomers and uh he had a solicitor's letter to say that um uh he took his name in vain and called him a newcomer or something like that. You just got to mind your P's and Q's. I suppose there's an enormous problem with transport. Uh we're a village which is 10 milesi distant from three towns Bport Dorchester and Weimoth and each of those towns we have problems getting to. Uh getting to Dorchester we have no transport at all. No public transport.

[00:14:47]In Briport we have no buses in the winter and we have um a bus in the summer which is so time that if you go want to go to Bridport shopping and come back you can't do it on the same day. Um in Wemouth we have I think five buses a day go to Wemouth. Um, normally if you want to go into Wemouth and shop and come back, it's a day's job because of the timing of the buses. If you want to go into Wemouth for the evening, uh, you can't because the last bus in is, uh, at 10 to 7 and there's nothing back.

[00:15:19]>> Mom, want to go, Mom?

[00:15:21]>> Oh, shut up, Willie. Go get yourself a Booker Summit.

[00:15:28]>> What were you saying, Mrs. Seal?

[00:15:30]>> I was Oh my god. Hey, what are you doing?

[00:15:34]>> Damn, Willie, you don't know where he's been.

[00:15:37]>> Jeremy, >> my father's love, man.

[00:15:40]>> Silly boy. That's for the doctor when he comes in.

[00:15:42]>> Don't just sit down there. So help me, I'll belch you, silly boy.

[00:15:49]>> Just him here. Yeah, that's him. Who's first?

[00:15:54]>> And me, I think.

[00:15:56]>> And don't be all day. We ain't got all day to spare. Even if you haven't.

[00:15:59]>> I got that.

[00:16:00]>> Oh, you have. Well done. Well done.

[00:16:04]Move, please. Diamonds in your >> number three.

[00:16:08]>> Where's number four?

[00:16:30]We're not ready.

[00:16:31]>> No, it's yours.

[00:16:34]>> She didn't want to take it. That's >> Come on then.

[00:16:39]>> Oh dear.

[00:16:51]There's a lot of thatched houses in Abbottzbury.

[00:16:56]I would like to live in a thatched house in Abbert. Not necessarily a thatched house really. I mean, any house would do, but the estate do not sell very many of the houses in Abbert, so there's not much chance of getting one really. But, uh, yeah, it's one of those things. We're just waiting and hoping. So, Teddy bear has no hair. Me and my teddy bear just play and play all day. land. This land is my land. From California to the New York Island, from the Redwood Forest to the Wryers, I could be happy with you.

[00:18:23]If you could be happy with me, >> I'd be content to live anywhere.

[00:18:31]What would I care before men the foe shall fall like the sickle grain for Drake is going westward led to swing. Now I love my Sarah and she'll live down on her farm and so long as she meets Ly and I'll do her no harm.

[00:19:03]>> Dear Georgie, with a strong dear Georgie, dear Georgie, with a ST >> but the ST is too dry, dear Lizer. Dear Lizer, the ST is too dry, dear Lizer.

[00:19:18]Too dry.

[00:19:28]Well, the ownership of the fleet belong to the Strangways estate or the bed of the fleet belongs to them.

[00:19:36]pre of it is strictly private mainly for birds and I'm allowed to do a little bit of fishing there mainly for catch some fish to eat for the big house and for the workman also do a little bit of a fishing It's nice, very quiet. You You can come here know that there won't be nobody else about and you can just go along, amble along, please be yourself.

[00:20:19]It's um something different.

[00:20:22]There's a job to explain. It's peaceful.

[00:20:25]The solitude of the place peaceful. All you hear is the cries of the birds.

[00:20:30]Casey. You hear the fish jump in the fleet.

[00:20:34]Well, it's peaceful. It's away from the rat races I might call it, people rushing about.

[00:20:42]Once you get down into village, well then it's ordered. Then you got the noise of the cars and found lries and moving about. But once you get onto the back wall is a different all together for a craftsman to work in this area.

[00:21:00]It's a good setup because you you've got a good tourist um industry and um you don't have the fuss and bother of having to sort of go through other businesses to sell your work. Um there's been quite a bit of talk in the since we came here of setting up other craftsmen in the village but so far nothing has happened.

[00:21:22]There's um been a few people who've sort of looked around but um no other workshop facilities have so far been made available. If other people did come in, it would be benefit to the village and um probably um people would be able to take on the youngsters in the village and so on and train them to do their sort of work and so on and um it would make uh for a good setup to have sort of other craftsman around but uh until there is property available I can't see sort of this coming What is going to happen? These um cut rusters.

[00:22:25]Vigilantic patrol.

[00:22:29]>> I don't really know what's happening actually. All I know is there's a reward at the moment. That's all.

[00:22:33]>> Best day we've had this year.

[00:22:35]>> Yeah. I can't understand Indian summer weather.

[00:22:43]>> You can't walk into a farm with a 10 ton cattle and and drive off with 13 he can.

[00:22:49]>> Somebody must have seen some whoever's doing it pretty good. Professionals.

[00:22:53]Yeah.

[00:23:15]How was that thing?

[00:23:32]The duck decoy was first erected about 1655.

[00:23:38]The locals was employed to dig the pond out by hand and four tunnels or pipes as we call them was erected. One each corner of the pond so that you could come down most winds and catch duck.

[00:23:53]These things was used I suppose for food before guns ever come into being.

[00:24:00]The idea was that the man in those days, he had some dogs which were trained to walk in and out the screens because the duck is a very curious bird. As we saw this year, there was a fox walking along the side of the fleet and there was about 200 duck following in within 10 yards. So, they must have noticed that years ago. So they thought if they could get a dog resembling a fox in size and color, maybe that that would follow the dog into the tunnel.

[00:24:33]So they done that and they found it worked quite well.

[00:24:37]But over the years they done away with the dogs and we've got what we call corbers now, which are very small white duck.

[00:24:47]They come into the pond, we feed them there and they go off onto the fleet.

[00:24:52]When you get the winter birds coming here, they mix up with them and gradually they bring them back into the pond. When we put more food into the tunnels at the small end, the birds, they come on the pond and gradually they will feed and not knowing they're going up into a tunnel.

[00:25:26]Heat.

[00:25:31]Heat.

[00:25:57]I know you mard.

[00:26:11]Today we don't catch quite so many because there's more wild pers and the birds don't seem to come onto the fleet like they used to. So we still get a few thousand birds coming on the fleet mid of the smalle was for food before ringing started.

[00:26:45]Instead of putting rings on the legs they had their next ring for the table.

[00:26:51]But as the years went by, other countries were ringing birds. So we stopped catching for food and they uh wanted to find out more about the duck where they go to breed during the summer months. So they started having the rings put on them. And by that we've had rings back now or old Fred ass from over 19 countries as far as way as central Russia, >> Germany, Poland, Finland, places like that.

[00:27:23]Things have come back and it's much more interesting that is just catching them for food. Right. Off you girls.

[00:27:49]You reckon they ought to bring back hanging? Of >> course I ought to die.

[00:27:52]>> Well, you reckon he did, too.

[00:27:54]>> Only for special cases. You can't You can't do You can't bring it back like it was years ago. You You You've got to be a very special case. And I think probably you ought to use it as deterrent. They wouldn't everyone else would would then look at at it as a a very serious crime. But it's becoming becoming a routine with some people known that.

[00:28:11]>> Yeah.

[00:28:12]>> Okay. Good. Even the resol cattle thing you probably should give you try to defend your cattle.

[00:28:16]>> Get no more for that. Ring the cattle.

[00:28:18]>> No, that's true.

[00:28:20]>> The happiest time in all my life was under the stairs and a nice iron went under the stairs. A barrel of beer in the corner stood. Besides to make me bundles of wood and I vowed I might cook I would under the re you lost all these cattle. You know how much were them worth?

[00:28:41]>> Well 5 years ago I lost I lost 10 calves. I lock locked everything up afterwards and um I about a 3 weeks later the whole chains the gates the doors were all broken down. They were all gone. Oh >> you Oh you reckon you was wrong when you were counting them? You've been losing very bad.

[00:28:59]>> It's all very well for you fellas joke.

[00:29:02]This is the second third time I've lost animals.

[00:29:04]>> Got all your locked up Peter.

[00:29:06]>> Safe look out yours.

[00:29:11]>> Oh, now we're married. Still we meet.

[00:29:14]Under the pile of stairs. Me wife will say, "Come along, my sweet." under the part of stairs. We'll have a cozy cup of tea and we'll sit again upon your knee and drink at the T when you courted me.

[00:29:29]>> Under the stairs.

[00:29:31]>> Under the pile of stairs.

[00:29:38]I believe that >> on Sunday, the Deli family join their close relatives for the fishing.

[00:30:05]It takes judgment and combined effort to launch a beach boat successfully.

[00:30:14]They watch the pattern of the breaking waves.

[00:30:17]To avoid a caps size and stay dry, they need to choose their moment carefully.

[00:30:53]in Abbert. There's been as many as five or six boats, you know, gone right down to just us now.

[00:31:02]Well, I suppose there's other things to do now. The people don't go to fishing too much.

[00:31:10]I started when the war was on and they just Well, it's different. I mean, not not every day the same sort of, you know, not like just going to a shop or an office and doing the same thing all the time.

[00:31:35]Like my sister said, it's different.

[00:31:37]Every day is different. So you do not sort of get in a rut. These 9:00 to 5 sort of thing.

[00:31:57]years ago, mackerel was their main diet, wasn't it? Especially in along the south coast. Um, now they go for other things, don't they? Place all the salmon even people go out for a meal. or only working class people who buy have salmon in their dinner and it years ago. You wouldn't Well, macro was one of their main fish, wasn't it?

[00:32:22]>> I think we're back in the wrong side.

[00:32:26]>> Yes, I would say that also too. But certainly David should allow Ian Smith to come here for discussions.

[00:32:34]>> Indeed.

[00:32:35]>> The Queen Mother think so too.

[00:32:37]>> Yes, of course he should. Of course he should.

[00:32:39]>> Right to stop him. Yeah, indeed not.

[00:32:41]After all, he was flying Spitfires for us during the war. A >> which is more than many of them can say.

[00:32:48]>> The Queen Mother like Ian Smith when she's such a splendid little lady.

[00:32:51]>> But I think she's Why shouldn't she like him?

[00:32:54]>> Because he's not likable, is he?

[00:32:56]>> I don't agree with you at all.

[00:32:57]>> Who's not likable?

[00:32:59]>> Oh, I don't very likable. I think he's my sort of man. Well, >> I've said the wrong thing.

[00:33:14]Oh, that was lovely.

[00:33:19]>> As Ashley said, uh the cell is just no good. One time you used to have a lot of orcas. Well, now there's no orcas about people come on the summer's evening and couple free or be ready to take some fish on and sell around the local villages and that. or the like the government stepped in, they'd have so many things, hot water, cold water that it was uh in licenses to sell the fish and it wasn't uh commercially good for them at all. They, you know, a waste of time. So gradually they died out. Well, now if it's just the buyer taking the fish in the shops and there's a the London market is when you have fish here, they seem to have fish other places. In time you get to the market, it's more or less full up with other lries in with fish. But we don't want the Vinnies be all retired people. No, we want some of our youngsters to come on. You see, I blame the schools. And they take our boys and girls into Wyth and Dishers school and about 10 years old. They don't know nothing about their own village. We used to. You ask the name of that wood up there where the stream rises. They don't know. No, but they had interest in it, but now they ain't got no interest in it. Football and all that nonsense.

[00:34:37]>> The younger generation of course have got to leave the village in order to obtain employment.

[00:34:41]>> Well, how old used to it then? How did them used to do it then?

[00:34:44]>> Well, of course, in years gone by, there was very much more employment. those roads >> in the village and adjacent to the village and the more employment now with modernization of farming >> there are less less far less labor required the only alternative of course is to uh introduce industry and develop the village >> which I'm afraid um would not be in you fellers to come down from Birmingham and one place and tell her with all this apen and buying up the cottages they don't get in our village fell a chance.

[00:35:59]When I left school, there was nothing much to do. So, I just came straight down here and uh you know, I've been here ever since.

[00:36:09]Sometimes you can earn quite a lot and then you get a lean time and you won't earn nothing for say 3 4 weeks or more and that's I suppose the bad part about it but apart from that it's not too bad.

[00:36:22]It's uh you know it's quite exciting at times.

[00:36:26]You know when you have a lot of fish you know it's really exciting then you're running around everywhere trying to get things to go right. Right.

[00:36:34]Sometimes it's uh you raise your cuss like you know like uh you know if you don't have nothing for say 3 weeks you start to get a bit on edge like you know blood.

[00:37:00]>> But telling someone else When you get some of these newcomers come down here, I watch it. They want to take charge. The women's union, >> the mother's union, the schools, the church.

[00:37:16]>> No.

[00:37:17]>> See, although the admiral does a good job. I know that. But that's what happened.

[00:37:22]>> But never mind.

[00:37:25]>> Somebody's got to >> Somebody's got to Something's got to keep things going.

[00:37:29]>> Never mind, Mrs. You're going against time.

[00:37:39]Oh, there's a house up there.

[00:37:42]>> Ain't it terrible?

[00:37:44]>> We never had it like this all the 41 years my dad was here.

[00:37:49]>> Well, it cost money. See, >> it's just a trouble. Well, >> they don't want to cost don't want to put out the money to pay for it. That's a trouble >> because of the estate. Yes, but I mean the state could do that, couldn't they?

[00:38:03]>> Of course, the state could do a lot of things, but they don't do it.

[00:38:06]>> No. Well, no, I know, Will. But >> it's there.

[00:38:10]>> Instead of leaving this house to be Well, I can't say it. It's my home and I can't say anymore.

[00:38:20]>> Shak.

[00:38:22]>> I should be dreaming about this when I get home.

[00:38:25]Shepherd.

[00:38:27]Happy memories of years ago.

[00:38:30]>> Yes. Happy memories.

[00:38:34]>> Sh.