Page 54 - BR-March-2018

March 2018 March 2018

OBITUARIES

loved the points the cartoons were making, but it took him to explain
the drawings to me.
I want to share one art related moment with you: In one of those rare moments
when both my brother Mark and I were in Bere Regis together, there was a lock-
 7oz Bulgar wheat in at the Drax. This was in those repressive times when the pubs shut in the
afternoon. Actually, this might also be a good moment to mention his passion
 1 teaspoon salt for pubs.
 12oz boiling water
He’d recently taken up oils, after a lifetime of water colours, woodcuts and
Wash the Bulgar wheat, etchings.
drain, add salt. Pour on
boiling water and leave to Anyway, an afternoon session took place. At one point, struck by inspiration, he
stand until all water is walked down the road to get his paints. He set up an easel across the road and
absorbed. painted the Drax, and it was an extraordinarily good painting. I watched him
do it, occasionally getting him another pint – inspiration needs its fuel - and then

holding the beer for him. In less than an hour he’d painted his best oil painting
Dressing until then.
 2oz olive oil At which point he packed up his stuff, took the painting inside and sold it to the
 2 tabs of chopped landlord for £100. Which we then drank.
mint As for engineering, in which he made a career: he used to say: “I’ve had a
 I onion finely chopped or/and 1-2 garlic cloves crushed
career which I have loved”. For many years he was a, if not the, driving force
 2oz lemon juice between the success of Hamworthy Engineering. Having met some of the
 6 tabs chopped parsley people he worked with abroad, and generally being aware of the respect he
was held in, we were not all surprised to find a yellowing cutting from an old
Mix all ingredients together and pour over the wheat. Leave covered in Dorset Echo, on the big orders he had brought in from Eastern Europe. He
the fridge overnight and let all the flavours blend. made a lot of friends through his work all over the world, and it was a great
privilege to meet some of them, whose tales sometimes completed his own, of
Choose seasonal salad vegetables. E.g. Tomatoes cut small; radish finely what they’d got up to in Russia and Poland, when these countries were
sliced, cooked green beans or in the winter chopped celery, nuts, apples
communist, and trading with them very hard indeed. He opened up these
and raisins etc.
markets for Hamworthy.
Mix the wheat mixture and salad vegetables together and serve on a
bed of small iceberg lettuce leaves or any other green leaf salad. In He had a lot of friends in Bere Regis, where he finally settled, even if he didn’t –
quite – finish renovating the house he bought 38 years
winter you could try finely chopped white cabbage for a change.
ago. There were too many over the years to mention
by name, and you know who you are, but one curious
coincidence meant a lot to him. In John Tozer he met
This is a very versatile salad and easily adapted for winter vegetables. A someone who’d known Mark’s father in his, John’s,
mixture of celery, nuts and dried fruit would work very well. childhood. My father had never known his father,
Fendall, who’d left before he was born and started a
Recipe taken from Guernsey WI cook book dated 1991
second family. In his twenties, my father discovered he
had another 5 siblings, Elizabeth, Francis, Christopher,
Dominic and Paul, and it is a measure of the man that

54 23