More and more people are now appreciating the importance of preparing Lasting Powers of Attorney ensuring that trusted individuals can, in the event of unforeseen events, make decisions about their personal affairs, whether concerning their finances and/or their health and welfare.
However, far fewer people consider the benefits of an additional Business LPA and the consequences of a key individual within said business suddenly being temporarily or permanently unable to act. Especially in these turbulent times we find ourselves, many businesses are having to evolve, adapting to an ever changing playing field. The tried and tested regimes relied upon previously are suddenly stretched by self-isolation requirements, by travel restrictions whether abroad or closer to home, or perhaps a prolonged illness or lack of capacity. A Business LPA could be equally adept at solving the smaller operational issues or indeed the larger more strategic ones.
In a business partnership, a “Partnership Agreement” may include provisions to deal with the above dangers. Equally, a “Shareholders Agreement” will assist Limited Companies.
However, in their absence, a Business LPA could appoint fellow Partners or Shareholders to act as Attorneys for each other.
If the individual is a sole trader then they should certainly consider preparing one as the business is effectively them.
Without a Business LPA, it would be necessary to make a costly and time consuming application to The Court of Protection. They would then be tasked with deciding whom should be appointed to act. This application could take months to conclude thus affecting the stability of your business and potentially its very existence.
For more information contact Adam Hillier on 01935 846165 or email adam.hillier@battens.co.uk
Ross Huey has been a master butcher for just over 60 years, and runs Dorset Farm Butchers at Sturminster Marshall. He is 79 years young and works with colleagues John (age 85 and about to retire) and the younger of the trio, Andy who is 66.
“When we started up, meat was sold in last night’s Echo with a bit of greaseproof paper. Can you imagine what Health and Safety would say today.”
“My dad had a big farm near Ringwood and we kept lots of pigs. When I left school I planned to be a draughtsman at Hurn Airport but within two weeks of me leaving, De Haviland went bust. Dad said to me, if I get a small van I could drive it round and sell our pork. So I did that and I passed my driving test on my seventeenth birthday. Well I was driving a tractor at nine!
I noticed the mark up in the butcher’s shops. We were selling at 1 shilling, and their price was 4s! I went back to Dad and suggested we sell our own meat. At the time he had a greengrocers shop, and we converted that to a butchers shop. At nineteen years old I had my own business.”
Ross Huey
Ross Huey 79yr old Master Butcher at Dorset Farm Butchers in Sturminster Marshall
It took six years for Ross to become a Master Butcher. His certificate – dated 21 June 1960 – hangs proudly in the back of the shop.
Ross has not always been at Dorset Farm Butchers in Sturminster Marshall.
“I had two shops in Christchurch. And then mad cow disease put paid to them. That was terrible.”
ross huey, master butcher
He has retired twice, but was headhunted to run Dorset Farm Butchers and returned to the trade. When an opportunity arose to buy the business in 2013, he jumped at the chance.
“I have control of what I sell. Most of my meat comes from the Broadlands Estate near Romsey. I know the life it has had, and the quality. My venison is from Dorset. And our products like faggots and sausages are all homemade here.”
Ross has seen many changes in the butchery business. “I’m still working in pounds and ounces. It’s what people understand.
And I remember when chicken was a luxury meat. People didn’t kill chickens as often because they produced eggs.”
He has noticed the method of meat being cut has changed too.
“Now they cut all the fat off and its more lean, which is good I suppose. But I was brought up on bread and dripping because that’s all we had.”
So how has the Covid-19 pandemic affected business at Dorset Farm Butchers?
“My trade has doubled.” Ross shares an infectiously impish grin “People are cooking at home and they can’t go out. It’s the husbands too. They can use shopping as an excuse to get out of the house! And after they have tasted my meat, they keep coming back for more.”
Ross and his team usually make 150 pounds of sausages each week but have recently increased it to 250lb so they can keep up with demand. “A good sausage has high quality free range pork, natural casings and is well seasoned.” advises Ross. In summer they have ten varieties on sale.
He is open seven days a week, and is looking for a new butcher to help with the increase in demand.
I can’t help but spot the ‘Wanted’ poster behind Ross’ head as we talk. He’s looking to recruit a replacement for the now-retiring 85yr old John. And the poster? ‘…would suit a semi retired person”.
Chatting away to Ross, it’s obvious it suits him and his team, anyway. For someone with the right attitude there are opportunities in becoming a butcher.
“After all these years I’m doing exactly what I wanted to do – to be a master butcher selling quality locally sourced meat.”
Rachael Rowe is a freelance food, health and travel writer in North Dorset. Her portfolio is at www.rachaelrowe.com
Edward Jenner usually gets the credit as the world’s first vaccinator but arguably the title should belong to North Dorset’s own Benjamin Jesty.
Almost 250 years before covid vaccines hit the surgeries and 22 years before Jenner did his thing, Yetminster’s Jesty performed an extraordinary medical experiment on his own family.
Michael Sharp’s portrait of Benjamin Jesty. Picture: Wellcome Trust
As a farmer, Jesty knew of the country belief that people who’d had contact with cows that had cowpox were immune to the virus’s more serious cousin smallpox.
Smallpox was a ghastly disease that usually led to facial scarring and often death.
But people with cowpox escaped with a mild fever and lesions on the hands at the point where the virus entered the skin.
Dairymaids were known for their fair complexions in contrast to smallpox survivors, and Jesty had first-hand evidence of this.
His own dairymaids, Anne Notley and Mary Reade, had both been infected with cowpox by contact with the udders of cows they had milked yet both escaped smallpox even when nursing relatives with the disease.
Upbury, Benjamin Jesty’s home at Yetminster
When a smallpox epidemic broke out in North Dorset in 1774, Jesty made what his biographer Patrick J Pead describes as a ‘quantum leap’ in thinking.
‘Faced with the awful implications of his family suffering the ravages of smallpox, and knowing the hazards of inoculation, he conceived an ingenious idea,’ writes Pead.
Inoculation had been practised for several decades but involved introducing one of the actual smallpox viruses.
Although it saved some lives, it claimed others due to a lack of control over the type of virus used.
Jesty’s ‘quantum leap’ was to borrow the inoculation method but replace the smallpox virus with cowpox.
Displaying amazing confidence in his plan, he took his family to Chetnole, where William Elford had some cows with the marks of cowpox on their udders.
Jesty then used a stocking needle to take a tiny sample of pus from an udder and insert it into the arm of his wife, Elizabeth.
He then repeated the procedure with sons Robert and Benjamin, then aged three and two respectively, but omitted baby Betty.
Jesty’s effort may never have become known had it not been for a complication that arose.
While the infants suffered no significant ill effects, Longburton farmer’s daughter Elizabeth developed a fever and was treated by the slightly disapproving Dr Trowbridge of Cerne Abbas.
She recovered fully and none of the trio ever succumbed to smallpox despite the boys being inoculated with it by Dr Trowbridge in 1789.
Jesty tried to keep a low profile but word soon got around and he his fellow villagers proved seriously unsympathetic.
Suspicious of anything that did not conform to their existing beliefs and familiar with biblical warnings against contaminating the body with animal matter, people subjected Jesty to physical and verbal abuse.
Despite this, the Jestys continued living in their Yetminster farmhouse, called Upbury, until 1796, when Jesty moved them to Downshay Manor, Harmans Cross, near Swanage, which offered more land and more space for a family that now included seven children.
Coincidentally, 1796 was also the year that Jenner administered his first experimental cowpox vaccination on eight-year-old James Phipps at Berkeley, Gloucestershire.
The commemorative blue plaque at Yetminster
Because he was a village doctor, Jenner was better placed than Jesty to put the method on the medical map.
He also coined the phrase ‘variolae vaccinae’ – meaning ‘vaccine of the cow’.
This is the origin of the word ‘vaccine’ that we use today.
Jesty, meanwhile, continued vaccinating people in his new parish, where his method was better received than at Yetminster.
There’s a memorial inside Worth Matravers church to someone whose mother was ‘personally inoculated for the cow pox by Benjamin Jesty of Downshay’.
A Swanage clergyman, the Rev Andrew Bell, was so impressed that he campaigned for some recognition for a man ‘so often forgotten by those who have heard of Dr Jenner’.
As a result, in 1805 Jesty was invited to the Vaccine Pock Institution in London, whose members questioned him at length and tested his and son Robert’s continued immunity by inoculating them with live smallpox.
Jesty’s gravestone at Worth Matravers
Both proved immune and the Institution praised not only Jesty’s pioneering work but his ‘superior strength of mind’ in the face of ‘prevailing popular prejudices’ and the ‘clamorous reproaches of his neighbours’.
They also presented Jesty with a testimonial scroll, a pair of gold-mounted lancets, 15 guineas to cover his expenses and a portrait by Michael W Sharp, whose other subjects included the Duke of Wellington.
Jenner later acknowledged Jesty’s contribution as ‘corroborative evidence’.
Jesty died in 1816 aged 79. His gravestone at Worth Matravers describes him as the ‘first person (known) that introduced the cowpox by inoculation’.
Elizabeth lived to be 84. Sons Robert and Benjamin died in their sixties in 1839 and 1838 respectively.
• This article was adapted from Roger Guttridge’s book Dorset: Curious and Surprising (Halsgrove, £9.99).
It’s not Wimborne’s prettiest building but what Church House lacks aesthetically it makes up for in prominence.
Standing alongside the Minster, the two-storey parish room is the scene of social and charity events and church admin in normal times.
Sansom & Son’s ironmongery in 1900
Together, the Minster church and Church House dominate the view as you look down Wimborne High Street from the Square.
But 120 years ago we’d have seen a very different building alongside the Minster.
In Victorian times the site hosted Sansom and Son’s ironmonger’s shop.
The grand opening of Church House on the same site in 1906. Picture from Wimborne Camera by Barbara and Derek Willis
The oldest of my pictures shows Sansom’s in 1900.
It was given to me 40 years ago by Bill Topp, who worked there in the early 1900s.
The property had been left to the Minster in 1617 but in 1905 they gave Sansom’s notice to quit to make room for the construction of Church House.
Church House in 2000
Sansoms announced a sale of their ‘stock, ironmongery, furniture etc’ and later moved to new premises at 9 and 25 High Street.
One of these eventually became Bill Topp’s own shop, Topp & Bollen.
Bill was also chairman of Wimborne Urban District Council in 1950.
Meanwhile Church House arose from the rubble of the original Sansom’s shop.
Church House in 2021
Mrs Bankes of Kingston Lacy House laid the foundation stone on September 13, 1905, and the Bishop of Salisbury dedicated the new building on July 25, the following year.
Building costs totalled £2,870 4s 11d, raised by public subscription.
As hard as it may seem there is more to life than Covid and governments must be able to demonstrate to their electorates that they can ‘walk and chew gum’ i.e do two things at the same time.
Simon Hoare MP
Perfectly properly the widest of bandwiths is being expended on tacking and controlling the virus that has bedevilled us all. Having seen for myself, at first hand as a volunteer, the testing efforts taking place in our schools and the Herculean vaccine efforts taking place through the auspices of our GP surgeries, I can tell you that there is a lot of incredibly impressive stuff going on.
We are all watching more television to help fill the time. That said I have also resurrected my long forgotten love of jigsaw puzzles and am driving my daughters mad as we embark upon the search of ‘just one last piece before supper/ bedtime / breakfast’.
Hopefully you, like my family, sat glued to David Attenborough’s A Perfect Planet. As with everything he does I foundit gripping, enthralling, enlightening and frightening.
Like many, my first ‘Attenborough experience’ was the ground breaking Life On Earth broadcast when I was just ten (41 years ago for those who are interested). I wanted my daughters to see it so have purchased the DVD
We have watched some episodes, and Imogen my eldest remarked ‘that’s strange he didn’t mention Climate Change’. I had to explain that ‘back then’ none of us knew the term but that the harm was being done. We eventually heard about acid rain, but for the layman that was about it, wasn’t it?
If there is one policy area where governments need to walk and chew gum it is in addressing this issue of a changing climate and the massive impacts it is having on us all. We have to stop murdering our Planet and thereby committing a massed suicide, or perhaps genocide is the better word, of our own species alongside everything else that walks, crawls, flies or swims across our shared home.
It is great that the USA have returned to taking this issue seriously and rejoined the international community in this great and solemn endeavour. The UK’s Presidency of the G7, and our hosting of the 2021 UN Climate Change Conference later this year in Glasgow, provide two incredibly powerful platforms not just to preach to the converted but to win converts to the cause.
Pollution, wind, our oceans do not recognise national boundaries or territorial sovereignty. If we are to save our planet we must act as a planet.
I have great hope in the progress being made but there is so much still to do and for us all to do.
It is true that air quality has improved during lockdowns as fewer road and air trips have been made. It’s good news, but it’s a drop in the ocean when the global task is surveyed.
The urgency for personal and corporate behavioural change has not diminished. Covid’s economic consequences provide a rare opportunity, usually only seen after major war, to rethink and recalibrate our economy. There is no merit in merely going back to ‘normal’ when we have the chance to reshape our entire economy focussed on low carbon, renewables and sustainability. We must use a large swathe of our aid programme to encourage environmental projects, use the tax system as an incentive to decarbonise and share our fast progressing technologies with those countries trailing the ‘First World’ in their economic development. They don’t have to echo the environmental impact of our Industrial Revolution.
Climate Change is not ‘green crap’. It is the biggest risk to our survival. Our Government gets it and we must all too.
February brings a host of night sky activity that will surely delight. On the 6th a very bight Venus will pass Saturn, if you look to the east-southest horizon just before dawn you will be able to see them together easily in the same view. On the 10th in the same view you will also be able to spy the slim crescent of the old Moon. On the 11th however the Moon will officially reach its new Moon phase. While new, the Moon is travelling between Earth and the Sun light can only reach the far side of the Moon, and the Moon is in the same region of the sky as the Sun, the moon becomes completely hidden from view for about a day. The new Moon will then return to shine in the western evening sky.
On the 13th at about 7.15pm the Pleiades cluster (otherwise known as the Seven Sisters) will be easily visible in the southern sky all night. The cluster is composed of medium bright hot blue stars names Asterope, Merope, Electra, Maia, Taygeta, Celaeno and lcyone. In Greek mythology, thos characters were the daughters of Atlas and half sisters of Hyades.
Moon phases February 2021
On the 14th (Valentines Day) lovers might appreciate the night skiys brightest star, Sirius as it reaches its highest point over the souther horizon at around 9.30pm.
February sees a lot of Moon activity. On the 17th the crescent Moon will aid a good view of Uranus and in the 18th it becomes the turn of Mars. On Friday 19th of February the Moon in its first quarter passes Taurus. On the 21st the Moon is in what is known as the winter Hexagon (also know as the winter Football and winter Circle). Composed of the brightest stars in the constellations of Canis major, Orion, Taurus, Auriga, Gemini and Canis Minor – specifically Sirius, Rigel, Aldebaran, Capella, Castor and Pollux and Procyon. After dusck, the huge pattern will stand upright in the south-eastern sky, the Milky Way passing vertically through the middle. The Hexagon is visible during evenings from mid-November to spring every year.
On Satrurday the 27th February the full Moon, known as the Snow Moon or Hunger Moon, always shines in or near the stars of Leo. Since its opposite teh sun on this day of the lunar month, the Moon is fully Illuminated, adn rises at sunset and sets at sunris. when full, no shadows are cast by the lunar terrain – so all of the Albedo variations are produced by the Moons geology and is super bright!
Our four-legged friends play an important role for many of us as this pandemic continues to disrupt our lives. For those living alone, their dog is often the only living being they see all day. And who can argue that a welcoming waggy tail or a cuddle with your canine doesn’t lift your spirits in a world where we can no longer hug each other?
But worryingly, our dogs are in danger. So called “dog-napping” is reportedly reaching epidemic proportions across the country. Mark Shelford, Conservative Police and Crime Commissioner candidate for neighbouring county Avon and Somerset, is highlighting this increasing problem and holding online meetings with concerned community groups.
He explains: “This is a particularly heartless crime, cruel to the animal and cruel for their owners. Even working dogs, found in many parts of our rural region, become companions. Losing them causes anguish, anger and despair. Lockdown has encouraged more families in our cities and towns to own dogs, while in rural communities the loss of working animals, such as gun dogs, can directly impact owners’ income.”
My Puppies were stolen from Marnhull, and then dumped
In December of last year, a dog-loving Dorset resident from Marnhull (wishes to remain anonymous) went through the agony of two eight week-old Weirmardoodle puppies being stolen. Here’s her story:
“I’d let the puppies out in our garden, which is completely enclosed, to enjoy some early morning winter sunshine. I went into the tack room nearby to do some chores for a few minutes. I just had a feeling I should check on the puppies and when I did, the two chocolate Weirmardoodles from the litter were missing. I’d literally only been about 30 yards from where they were playing! It was such a dreadful feeling to discover they had just vanished in broad daylight.”
“I immediately rang my vet and the microchip company to report the dogs had been stolen. I also contacted the police.
I then posted on Facebook to alert people and within about three hours it had about 5000 shares. I’d shared posts in the past for other people about dog thefts so really hoped this would help.
I was just heartbroken. One of these puppies was going to be for my boyfriend and the other was going to a lovely old couple.
“The old couple had never owned a dog before. They’d decided to call their puppy Hope – hope that they were doing the right thing to get a dog, and hope that we would get out of the pandemic ok. I had to let them know the sad news that Hope had been stolen.”
“I spent an agonising day until later that afternoon I got a call from a woman in Verwood.
She had found the puppies dumped just 150 yards from a busy main road. She alerted a nearby farm owner who had fortunately seen my post on Facebook.
When I went to rescue the puppies, they were crying with excitement to see me again. I was just glad they were together as I’d no idea what trauma they may have been through, snatched from their familiar surroundings. People who commit these crimes clearly have no feelings. And leaving them by a busy road just shows how cruel they are.
My puppies were only lost for a day but that was bad enough. The culprits were never found – I think it was opportunists who then got scared when they saw the posts on Facebook. Dog theft needs to be addressed as a crime that warrants a jail sentence – it causes so much hurt behind the scenes for dog owners and their families.“
Dogs are stolen for breeding, to sell, held to ransom, or even so thieves can claim the reward which many desperate families offer for the safe return of their canine friend. Worse still, some end up being used in illegal dog-fighting.
Mark Shelford: “The criminals behind these cruel crimes are often highly sophisticated. They trail potential target animals, then watch their house or farm until the owners are away.”
People working from home and having bored children to entertain are two factors driving up demand for dogs, thereby encouraging an increase in dog thefts. Stolen pedigree breeds now sell for thousands of pounds.
A pet shop in Wimborne recently had an enquiry from a harassed father wondering if £2000 was the right amount to pay for a non-pedigree puppy!
Research by Dogs’ Trust Salisbury shows demand for dogs is at an all-time high and prices for some of the UK’s most desirable dog breeds are at their highest in three years, and possibly ever, with the costs for some dogs increasing month on month since lockdown began. During 2020, the Kennel Club reported a staggering 168 per cent increase in people searching for puppies.
Throughout the first lockdown, the charity DogLost found an increase of 65 per cent in thefts between March 23 and June 1 2020.
Simon Perry, Inspector with the North and East Dorset Neighbourhood Policing Team told the Blackmore Vale:
“Whilst dog thefts continue to remain low in Dorset at present, we understand that social media channels have reports of dog thefts across the UK with sightings of suspicious vehicles. As a crime trend, gun dogs appear to be desirable to offenders. Thefts have occurred when dogs were left unattended in vehicles or in back gardens. If your dogs are kennelled, are they out of public view? Also think about security lighting or CCTV and always lock garden gates.”
A spokesperson at The Margaret Green Animal Rescue at Church Knowle, Wareham told us: “We’ve heard of an increased amount of attempts of theft in Dorset from owners out walking their dogs and strangers coming up trying to get information about their pet. There’s also been an increase of dog owners reporting on social media of attempted thefts locally.”
This organisation, which helps home unwanted pets, advised: “Make sure your dog always has a tag on its collar and if your dog has a tendency to run ahead on walks, keep them on a lead. As required by law, make sure your dog is microchipped and the details kept up to date, if you move for instance, so that the chip company can be alerted if the dog goes missing. This way if the dog is found or sold on and the new owner gets a vet to scan it, the microchip will flag up that it’s a missing pet. There’s also a website called DogHorn. This not-for-profit organisation has lots of advice and products to deter dog theft.’’
When the theft of a beloved family member is ranked merely as a minor crime, similar to the theft of a microwave, it looks like a small fine will not stop greedy criminals. Dogs Trust Salisbury’s Rehoming Centre Manager, Claire Rowe said: “Current sentencing does very little to deter thieves and doesn’t take into consideration how devastating it can be to have your dog stolen from you. Punishment for dog theft is determined by the monetary value of the dog, meaning perpetrators are often given fines which don’t reflect the emotional impact on the families involved.
“We fully support any action to introduce tougher sentences that will act as a deterrent for those committing these crimes. At the very least, a community order or custodial sentence being given, rather than a fine.”
A second series of the acclaimed Dorset Growth Hub Podcast hits your ears this month (February) with a line-up of online workshops to complement areas covered in the episodes.
February follows a Sales & Marketing theme, March is about Strategy & Planning and April covers all things Finance & Growth.
DGH
All are considered key focuses for businesses right now.
To kick-off the Sales and Marketing month, the podcast features local guest speakers:
Kasia Bigda, Marketing and Comms Director at Mr Lees Noodles
Stephanie Carswell, Founder and Creative Director at Hawthorn Handmade
Chris Chapleo, Associate Professor at Bournemouth University
Podcast co-hosts Nick Gregory, Mary Lloyd and Rich Burn from DGH chat to Dorset businesses.
Their guests share insights, perspectives and strategies which have led to successes and failures in recent times.
February will cover what has worked in marketing to impact business growth and increase sales, from international marketing campaigns to personal branding, Instagram and e-mail.
Alongside the podcast episodes, you can also join free, interactive and expert-led workshops:
Build a Personal Brand to Boost Your Business, with Ella Orr, Much More Social
Generate More Results from your Social Media in 2021, with Amy Squires and Emma Jones from South Coast Social
6 Ways to Reframe Your Sales Effort and Mindset to Increase Your Sales in 2021 with Matt King, Sales Change
Dorset Marketing Leaders Forum – Q&A Panel – Strategies, tips and tech discussed with marketing professionals from the region
Rich Burn said: “It’s been a real honour to be able to explore the minds of some great local talent.
“We all have such a mixed view of the world right now.
“The interesting part is to hear how people are adapting what they do in these current times.
Dorset Growth Hub
“Dorset is full of innovation, ideas and talent that we have the privilege of showcasing via the podcast platform.
“I hope whoever listens gets a small inspired moment that could change their work world for the better.”
DGH is working in partnership with Bournemouth University on the Sales & Marketing Month and the podcasts feature questions from students.
To find out more about the upcoming events and catch-up on series one of the podcast visit the DGH website here.
