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February 2021 February 2021

Eric Rolls has lived in the village since 1941, and has seen a huge amount of LETTER FROM THE DEAN OF SALISBURY
changes in that time. Eric has been a parish councillor since 1972, beginning
under the chairmanship of Martin Debenham. It was a working village then, he
reflects. Now it is very much a retirement area. The youngsters have gone. There
According to ancient tradition (!) the probationer
is nowhere affordable for them to live, he adds. Eric well remembers the opening choristers of the Cathedral celebrate Shrove
of the Social Club on February 18, 1957. It was first opened in the Granary Tuesday by cooking pancakes in the Deanery
adjacent to the hall, now the village shop. kitchen. Boys, girls, and staff members crowd
around as lemons are squeezed, sugar is scattered,
The late George Poore went around on his bicycle and collected a shilling (5p) off
200 people willing to support the venture. Eric had been holding the sum of £22 and pancakes are flipped. Some are caught and
since the closure of the old Football Club five years before, and this was added to some are not: the presence of two Deanery
it. Thus the Social Club was opened with the sum of £42. Seating from old buses tortoises in the corner of the room is always a
was donated by nearby Bere Regis Coach Company. Ivan Cox built the bar, and significant distraction. Above the din I try to explain
the committee did the rest of the work. how once upon a time this was the day when all
the household’s butter and eggs were used up in
Fred Barret, James Barrett’s son, whose family has been delivering the Echo to the readiness for the Lenten fast.
community for 32 years also well remembers those days. There was a different
atmosphere in the village then, Fred says. The social club was started because Pancakes eaten, we
there was no pub in the village, and people thought it was marvellous that they troop out into the back garden for a more solemn
could walk down the road and have a pint. There were very few cars in the but no less fascinating ritual. The stacks of palm
village. The club was full up with villagers, 50 or 80people used to get there in the crosses collected from the congregation in
previous weeks are thrown into a fire, and the
evenings.There were fruit machines, table skittles and card games.
probs are told about the ashing that will take place
The late Bill Stockley played the accordion. Fred organised the whist drives. All in the Cathedral the following day. Appetite and
the bar staff were volunteers in those days. Ernie Bowell was the club’s treasurer curiosity satisfied, the children return to school.
for many years. Over the years since it was first established, the social club has
raised around £45,000 for various charities. Currently the parish of Affpuddle and None of that will happen this year. Shrove Tuesday
Turners puddle is just the second parish in and Ash Wednesday fall within the earliest dates
Purbeck to produce a Parish Plan, and the envisaged for the ending of our current lockdown,
and it seems inconceivable that we will be able to
first to include a Design Statement to assist
the management of change. With input observe Lent – or, for that matter, Holy Week and
from well over half the parish, and the co- Easter – in anything like the manner to which we
were once accustomed. Like the butter and the
ordinating work of eight residents under the eggs, like the probationers’ pancakes, our routines, our traditions, our habits are
chairmanship of Campbell de Burgh, it
represents around 700 hours of volunteer being devoured by a pandemic which seems to go on and on.
effort over a period of 18 months. The plan And, we might ask, when all these have been devoured, what is left? The answer
is shortly to be published, and its steering is: the ash. The gritty, resilient, irreducible residue that clings to the bottom of the
group believes it to be truly representative barbeque when the palm crosses have been burnt and the flames have died
of the thoughts of the majority of the parish. down. It’s this gritty, resilient, irreducible residue that we daub on our foreheads on
The village shop and post office too is a Ash Wednesday. Ash is what remains when everything else has been taken away.
tribute to the community-spirited residents. It makes you think. Ash which cannot be destroyed; ash which endures. This year
A few years ago, this was under the threat of all years, could there be any more potent symbol of God’s gritty, resilient,
of closure, and is now staffed by volunteers irreducible love for us?
to maintain this valuable village facility.
Dean Nicholas

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