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January 2024 January 2024

Mind you the fields out there are hundreds of acres if not a thousand or more
than those in this country. However he was glad to return home in mid November To all contributors to the Dates for your Diary
because the snow was already at a great depth across the great flat expanses of
the agricultural land on which he had worked. As soon as you have planned your programmes for 2024, it would be really
He has come back to the UK where he has to get used to tractors of half the helpful if you could let me have the information as soon as possible. This helps
horsepower he had been used to in Canada. Even so the tractors here are far others know when key dates are booked. It also helps me to set out this section in
greater than when I first worked on a farm some fifty plus years ago. I remember a one fell swoop, rather than in bits and drabs over several months - it can be
new Fordson Major tractor arriving on the farm, which had cost our employer quite time consuming. Even if a session has not yet been finalised, it’s better to
some nine hundred and sixty pounds. When Old Bob heard this, he thereafter have the date, time and venue, and the content can be added later.
referred to it as “Thay tousand pound harmchairs”. He had worked on the estate
farm since leaving school some fifty three years previously. He had grown up
knowing cart horses, had worked with them for over forty eight years and could
not believe that tractor drivers did not have to walk behind their machines.
LOCAL CHOIR NEWS
How life has changed, especially in the past fifty years and believe me farming
has changed dramatically in this time. Science has taken it over, with chemistry
bringing it fertiliser, herbicides, insecticides to the arable side and all sorts of
medications, injections, disinfectants and cleaners on the animal side. Choral Services and Musical Events at St Peter’s Church,
Dorchester during January
Perhaps we have moved on too much with modern science,
leaving huge chasms in our farming fraternity. On the arable On Sunday 14 January at 10.30am, our monthly service of Choral Eucharist
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side I can think of two chemicals that in my time in features Victoria’s ‘Missa O magnum mysterium’, Cornelius’s ‘The three Kings’ and
agriculture, became when first manufactured an end to Berlioz’s ‘The Shepherd’s Farewell’. All are welcome to this free service and for
many problems but have today become grossly overused refreshments afterwards.
and have become monstrosities to the world in general. They
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are paraquat or Gramoxone and glyphosphate or to give it On Saturday 20 January between 12.30pm and 1.00pm, our lunchtime concert
its commercial name Roundup. Both these herbicides are will be given by clarinetist Natalie Burton, accompanied by pianist, Rob Taylor.
total weed killers with Gramoxone being able to kill Their programme includes works by Stanford, Saint-Saëns, Paul Reade and Weber.
practically any living green herbaceous plants in its above Do join us for this free event and enjoy a peaceful thirty minutes in the midst of a
ground state while Roundup goes one step further and can busy Saturday!
kill the above ground and the root systems below ground as Finally, our monthly service of Choral
well. When each of these products were introduced I would Evensong takes place on Saturday 27
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have had no reason not to have used them commercially but today I would January at 4.30pm. The music includes
have to think very seriously about their use because of the side effects created. Poulenc’s ‘Videntes stellam’, Stanford
Roundup for example is translocated from the leaves it contacts ,through the ‘Evening Canticles in C’, Chirstopher Moore
plant into its root system and into the micro organisms and fungi in the soil ‘Preces & Responses’ and the anthem ‘Lo!
structure and could remain so for some time causing it to be banned in some Star-led chiefs’ by William Crotch. All are very
countries. When first out, I had no hesitation in using it but today, I don’t know. . welcome to this free event and we hope you
Times are changing and perhaps in the farming world, too quickly. Perhaps will join us for a glass of wine afterwards.
farming should be moving towards an organic and past system for its future. You can keep up with events via our website:
Organic farming, without today’s chemicals might be our future. I will finish in w w w . d o r c h e s t e r a n g l i c a n . o r g . u k /
hopes that organic farming will bring us a brighter future. musicatstpeters or by following us on social
On this note I will say goodbye and wish all who read this. m e d i a : F a c e b o o k : h t t p s : / /
www.facebook.com/musicatstpetersdorch -
God’s Blessing and A Happy New Year, Ted Cox

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