Jim Down – Life in the Balance
2024-10-15 12:00 - 13:00 (Europe/London) | Dorset Museum, High West Street, Dorchester, DT1 1XA, United Kingdom
A Doctor’s Stories of Intensive Care

Dr Jim Down brings us to the very heart of the intensive care unit – the section of the hospital where the sickest patients are brought to be cared for until their condition improves. With honesty, humility and a streak of dark humour, Dr Down describes the quietly heroic work of doctors and nurses on the ICU, a place which sits at the cutting edge of medical technology and where a split-second decision can make the difference between life and death.

From headline-grabbing cases like that of Alexander Litvinenko, poisoned by Russian agents and admitted to Down’s ward, to the appalling aftermath of a train crash, and the mundane daily struggle to simply find enough beds, Jim Down provides a unique insight into life on The Unit, and the critical medicine doctors and nurses perform there.

Life in the Balance offers the first real glimpse of intensive care medicine, its immense challenges, deleterious effects on doctors’ mental health and enormous rewards. Its profundity will make you reconsider the fragility of life and reframe your understanding of what it means to care.

Dr Jim Down is a consultant in critical care and anaesthesia at University College London Hospitals. He chairs the ICU consultants’ group, the department of anaesthesia weekly scientific meetings, and the UCLH Trust guideline committee. During the Covid-19 pandemic he worked on UCLH’s busy ICU ward, and was interviewed by the BBC for a groundbreaking report depicting medics on the frontline. His account of that period, Life Support, was published in 2021.

Dr Jim Down will be in conversation with Dr Helen Thomas

Tickets £12.00/£6.00 (students)

Tim Spicer – A Suspicion of Spies
2024-10-15 14:00 - 15:00 | Dorset Museum, High West Street, Dorchester, DT1 1XA, United Kingdom
The compelling first biography of Wilfred ‘Biffy’ Dunderdale – a ruthless and effective spymaster whose career spanned the Russian Revolution to the Cold War and beyond. A Suspicion of Spies is filled with stories of adventure, bravery,and glamour, revealing the complicated intrigues of the world of British intelligence. A lifelong friend of Ian Fleming,Biffy is considered to be the blueprint for James Bond.

1916, Russia. A 16-year-old Wilfred ‘Biffy’ Dunderdale is working for his father, taking submarines from Vladivostok to St Petersburg for the Russian Imperial Navy. He takes a submarine out for sea trials along with a naval dockyard crew he’d never met before. Spotting a group of German ships, he gives the order to attack and sinks four of them. On returning to Kronstadt, breaking free from an anti-submarine net with just 30 minutes of oxygen left, he opens the hatch to find every gun in the port facing him and his crew. Fluent in Russian, he quickly defuses the situation. For this action he is awarded by Tsar Nicholas II the Order of St. Stanislav and the Order of St. Anne, imperial Russia’s highest knighthood for military valour and ‘bravery in battle’.

Biffy, born and raised in Odessa, soon learnt to operate at all levels of Odessan society. Clearly highly intelligent, by 16 he was studying Naval Architecture and Naval Engineering in St Petersburg-broadening his education further in the waterfront barsof both Odessa and St. Petersburg.

Aged 18,he was engaged by Naval Intelligence as an interpreter on account of his language skills,English, Russian, French, Polish and German. He would soon grow into a buccaneering member of the British Secret Intelligence Service in a career spanning forty years which Biffy described as ‘40 years of licensed thuggery.’ Biffy appears in over 60 books and websites and yet no one has ever written the story of his life. As Tim Spicer says,‘He was rather like a ghost one knew was there but the apparition never stood still long enough for a clear view.’ Biffy was a lifelong friend of Ian Fleming and many attribute his influence to the creation of Bond.The tales of action and intrigue found in this comprehensive biography could be taken straight fromthe pages of From Russia with Love, for which Biffy acted as consultant.

Lieutenant Colonel Tim Spicer OBE has led a life filled with action and adventure. During his twenty years in the British Army, he saw active service in NorthernIreland, the Falklands campaign, the Gulf War and the Balkans, as well as serving in the Far East, Cyprus and Germany. Key appointments have included Chief of Staff of an Armoured Brigade, Staff Officer at the Directorate of Special Forces and Commanding Officer of the 1st Battalion Scots Guards, among many others.Over the course of his illustrious military career, Spicer has developed extensive knowledge of intelligence, counter terrorism, complex relations and protective security. In 2001 he founded the private security company Aegis, which has counted the UK, US and Italian governments among its clients. He is the author of An Unorthodox Soldier: Peace and War and the Sandline Affair, a fast-moving account of his military life, including the events surrounding his time in Papua New Guinea when he was captured and held at gunpoint, as well as the notorious ‘Sandline Affair’ of 1996, and A Dangerous Enterprise that charts the history of the little-known, yet remarkable 15th Motor Gunboat Flotilla, commanded directly by the Secret Intelligence Service.

Tickets £12.00/£6.00 (students)

Sir Robin Niblett – The New Cold War
2024-10-15 16:00 - 17:00 | Dorset Museum, High West Street, Dorchester, DT1 1XA, United Kingdom
How the contest between the US and China will shape our century

An urgent and essential assessment of the global contest between the US and China, and how looking to history will help us to navigate it, from former Director of Chatham House

We have entered a new Cold War, even if most people choose not to admit it. The contest between America and China is global and unbridgeable, and it encompasses all major instruments of statecraft: diplomacy, technology, military power, intelligence, trade and investment. It has its tinder box: Taiwan. And both protagonists are working hard to draw allies and friends to their side from east and west, north and south.

We stand at its beginning. But this Cold War is nothing like the last, which defined the second half of the twentieth century. We need new ideas to navigate its risks and to avoid a globally devastating war.

In this short, urgent book, Robin Niblett argues that only by looking back can we heed the warnings and learn the necessary lessons to guide us through this new reality: he goes through the ten ways in which the new cold war is different, and offers five new rules for navigating it. How we manage this contest will determine not only whether there is still space for international cooperation to deal with our many global challenges, from the climate emergency to the technological revolution, but also who gets to dominate the twenty-first century and, quite simply, the course of all our futures.

Sir Robin Niblett is a leading expert on international relations. He is a distinguished fellow at Chatham House, after spending 15 years as its director and chief executive until 2022, and senior adviser at Hakluyt, the British strategic advisory firm. He is also engaged by the Asia Society Policy Institute and the Center for Strategic & International Studies (CSIS) in Washington DC, where he was Executive Vice President for ten years. He has served as chair of several World Economic Forum councils, and advises governments and private institutions. His writing has appeared in many publications and books, but this is his first solo book.

Sir Robin Niblett will be in conversation with Jo Durrant

This event is kindly sponsored by Michael and Eve Bonham Cozens

Tickets £12.00/£6.00 (students)

Tracy Chevalier – The Glassmaker
2024-10-15 18:00 - 19:00 | The Dorford Centre, 2 Bridport Road, Dorchester, Dorset, DT1 1RR, United Kingdom
A vivid, inventive, spellbinding virtuoso portrait of a woman, a family and a city that are as everlasting as their glass by a master of her craft.

Venice, 1486. Across the lagoon lies Murano. Time flows differently here – like the glass the island’s maestros spend their lives learning to handle.

Women are not meant to work with glass, but Orsola Rosso flouts convention to save her family from ruin. She works in secret, knowing her creations must be perfect to be accepted by men. But perfection may take a lifetime.

Skipping like a stone through the centuries, we follow Orsola as she hones her craft through war and plague, tragedy and triumph, love and loss.

The beads she creates will adorn the necks of empresses and courtesans from Paris to Vienna – but will she ever earn the respect of those closest to her?

Tracy Chevalier is the author of 10 novels, including the international bestseller Girl with a Pearl Earring, which has sold over 5 million copies and been made into an Oscar-nominated film starring Scarlett Johansson and Colin Firth. American by birth, British by geography, she lives in London with her husband and son. Tracy is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, and has honorary doctorates from her alma maters Oberlin College and the University of East Anglia.

Tracy Chevalier will be in conversation with Lulu Taylor

This event is kindly sponsored by Blanchards Bailey

Tickets £12.00/£6.00 (students)

Christina Hart Davies and Vanessa Berridge – A Herbal Year and Garden Heaven
2024-10-16 10:30 - 11:30 | The Dorford Centre, 2 Bridport Road, Dorchester, Dorset, DT1 1RR, United Kingdom
Drawing on writers, storytellers and poets through the centuries, botanical illustrator Christina Hart-Davies examines the long history of herbal remedies, how plants have been used for healing and the beliefs that surround them, including simple recipes for use at home, in an enchanting, illustrated guide to the seasonal plants used as herbal remedies over the ages fully illustrated by the author.

This is a joint panel event with Vanessa Berridge, who will discuss her latest book that takes us on a unique tour of thirty of Britain’s most beautiful gardens, classic and modern. Packed with photographs, many specially commissioned, and evocative and entertaining text, telling the stories of the gardens and the people who created them. The gardens range from legendary romantic gardens like Sissinghurst and Great Dixter to dramatic locations like Bodnant and Overbecks. The book includes information on visiting all the gardens, and suggestions for the best times of year.

Christina Hart-Davies is a renowned botanical illustrator and writer. Her watercolours have featured in prestigious collections worldwide and have won many awards, including six RHS Gold Medals. She has illustrated many books and field guides most notably The Collins Wild Flower Guide, and is the author of A Wild PLant Year, The Greenwood Trees and The Whole Story.

Vanessa Berridge is an acclaimed garden writer. She launched The English Garden magazine in 1997, and her books include The Princess’s Garden: Royal Intrigue and the Untold Story of Kew, Great British Gardeners and Kiftsgate Court Gardens: Three Generations of Women Gardeners, which won the 2019 Garden Media Guild’s Garden Book of the Year.

Christina Hart-Davies and Vanessa Berridge will be in conversation with Paul Atterbury.

This event is kindly sponsored by Hall & Woodhouse.

Tickets £12.00/£6.00 (students)

Anne Somerset – Queen Victoria and her Prime Ministers
2024-10-16 12:00 - 13:00 | The Dorford Centre, 2 Bridport Road, Dorchester, Dorset, DT1 1RR, United Kingdom
Anne Somerset masterfully traces Victoria’s political evolution, from headstrong teenager to seasoned octogenarian. This book demonstrates her passionate involvement in state affairs, and casts fresh light on her relationships with her ten prime ministers.

Victoria herself acknowledged that when it came to ‘likes and dislikes’ of her prime ministers, ‘she had them very strongly’. She showed girlish adoration for her first Prime Minister, the worldly-wise Lord Melbourne, whose delightful conversation and kindly guidance enchanted her. Later in her reign, Benjamin Disraeli – who flattered her shamelessly, tirelessly praising her sagacity and judgement and filling her life with ‘poetry, romance and chivalry’ – became her favourite. While she developed a powerful bond with several of her Prime Ministers, in other cases the relationship fell little short of mutual detestation. Victoria’s keenest antipathy was reserved for Disraeli’s great rival, the Liberal William Gladstone. When he became prime minister for a fourth time at the age of 82, Victoria declared it ‘a bad joke’ that this ‘dangerous old fanatic’ should be ‘thrust down her throat’. Queen Victoria and Her Prime Ministers charts the bitter clashes and affectionate interactions Victoria had with her ten premiers in often hilarious detail. Drawing extensively on unpublished sources such as material from the Royal Archives and never-before-seen prime ministerial papers, it casts a fresh and highly illuminating perspective not just on Victoria, but on the exceptionally able politicians who served her in government.

Anne Somerset was born in 1955 and read History at King’s College, London. Her first book, ‘The ‘Ladies-in-Waiting: From the Tudors to the Present Day’, an acclaimed biography of Elizabeth I in 1991, then ‘Unnatural Murder: Poison in the Court of James I: The Overbury Murder’ in 1998 and ‘The Affair of the Poisons: Murder, Infanticide and Satanism at the Court of Louis XIV’. Her most recent work is Queen Anne: The Politics of Passion.

Tickets £12.00/£6.00 (students)

Scotty Mills – Never Give In
2024-10-16 14:00 - 15:00 | The Dorford Centre, 2 Bridport Road, Dorchester, Dorset, DT1 1RR, United Kingdom
Former Royal Marine, Major Scotty Mills, blends personal experiences from his remarkable life with inspirational advice and insights to provide his 12 Commando Rules for Life that could help anyone to do better and reach their targets.

A sudden downpour while Scotty Mills was walking down a street in South London sent him diving for cover into the nearest shop. It turned out to be a recruitment centre for the Royal Marines and, after a few minutes’ conversation while waiting for the rain to stop, Scotty was hooked and signed up to join the elite force. It changed his life and set him in a new direction that would end up with him leading the Marines on operations around the world, becoming an Olympic flag bearer in 2012 and dining at Buckingham Palace with the Queen and the royal family. Scotty shares his lessons of performance and resilience with the reader, inviting them into the secrets of elite culture. His compelling story is one that combines tragedy with remarkable insight about the power of human inspiration. Scotty has worked with many of our nation’s top sports teams, helping them to achieve their goals, and he shares his methods with his readers, to guide them to peak performance in all aspects of their life and career.Scotty Mills was born and raised in south London, joining the Royal Marines in his teens. He went on to become the highest-ranking commissioned black officer in Marines history. During his time in the Marines, he not only served numerous tours of duty overseas, but also worked with the England rugby World Cup-winning squad of 2003, the GB women’s Olympic hockey team and Gareth Southgate’s England football squad. His reputation as an inspirational leader and team builder led to him being described as Gareth’s secret weapon on television.

This event is kindly sponsored by Hall & Woodhouse.

Tickets £12.00/£6.00 (students)

Rachel de Thame – A Flower Garden for Pollinators
2024-10-16 16:00 - 17:00 | The Dorford Centre, 2 Bridport Road, Dorchester, Dorset, DT1 1RR, United Kingdom
With bees, butterflies and other pollinators threatened by climate change and habitat loss, it’s now more important than ever to support and nurture pollinators in your garden. In this practical and beautiful guide, expert horticulturalist and regular Gardener’s World presenter Rachel de Thame shows you how to create a garden that provides an abundant resource of plants rich in nectar and pollen.Arranged by season and illustrated with exquisite hand-painted watercolours and glorious photography, this book provides a captivating look at supporting nature. Whether you have a courtyard garden or a large country garden, A Flower Garden for Pollinators will tell you what to plant and when in order to attract and sustain a host of pollinators all year round.

Rachel de Thame is a horticulturalist, broadcaster, designer and writer. A familiar face on our screens since 1999, Rachel is perhaps best known for presenting on BBC’s flagship series Gardeners’ World andthe hugely popular series Countrywise for ITV1. Rachel’s passion for plants and gardens emerged in early childhood and is now the cornerstone of a varied career

Rachel de Thame will be in conversation with Mike McCarthy

This event is kindly sponsored by Summer Lodge Hotel

Tickets £12.00/£6.00 (students)

Alan Hollinghurst – Our Evenings
2024-10-16 18:00 - 19:00 | The Dorford Centre, 2 Bridport Road, Dorchester, Dorset, DT1 1RR, United Kingdom
Both dark and luminous, poignant and wickedly funny, Alan Hollinghurst’s new novel gives us a portrait of modern England through the lens of one man’s acutely observed and often unnerving experience. It is a story of race and class, theatre and sexuality, love and the cruel shock of violence, from the finest writer of our age.

Did I have a grievance? Most of us, without looking far, could find something that had harmed us, and oppressed us, and unfairly held us back. I tried not to dwell on it, thought it healthier not to, though I’d lived my short life so far in a chaos of privilege and prejudice.

Dave Win is thirteen years old when he first goes to stay with the Hadlows, the sponsors of his scholarship at a local boarding school where their son Giles is his contemporary. For Dave this weekend, with its games and challenges and surprising encounters, will open up heady new possibilities, even as it exposes him to Giles’s envy and violence. As Our Evenings unfolds over half a century, the two boys’ careers will diverge dramatically, Dave a gifted actor struggling with convention and discrimination, Giles an increasingly powerful and dangerous politician.

Our Evenings is Dave Win’s own account of his life as a schoolboy and student, his first love affairs, in London, and on the road with an experimental theatre company, and of a late-life affair, which transforms his sixties with a new sense of happiness and a perilous security; but it is also, very movingly, the story of his hard-working widowed mother, whose own life takes an unexpected new turn after her son leaves home.

Alan James Hollinghurst is an English novelist, poet, short story writer and translator. He won the 1989 Somerset Maugham Award, the 1994 James Tait Black Memorial Prize, and for his novel The Line of Beauty the 2004 Booker Prize. Hollinghurst is credited with having helped gay-themed fiction to break into the literary mainstream through his six novels since 1988.

Tickets £12.00/£6.00 (students)

Nusrit Mehtab – Off the Beat
2024-10-17 10:30 - 11:30 | The Dorford Centre, 2 Bridport Road, Dorchester, Dorset, DT1 1RR, United Kingdom
Over the course of her 30 year long career in the Metropolitan Police, Nusrit Mehtab was subjected to and witnessed a host of racist and sexist behaviour. This included fellow officers refusing to use her name, being sent out alone on nighttime foot patrols, witnessing male officers make lewd and derogatory comments about women leaving night clubs, seeing female officers being physically groped by male colleagues, and being instructed by a senior officer not to report a newly graffitied swastika on a wall inside the secure area of a London police station.

In Off the Beat she recounts what it was like for a Muslim woman of Pakistani heritage to work in the Met, and she proposes solutions to bring about real change and overcome the deep, cultural problems that continue to plague the force today.

When Nusrit Mehtab joined the Metropolitan Police in the late 80s, she entered an organisation that was rife with racism, misogyny and homophobia. She had grown up in East London not trusting the police and had never seen a police officer who looked like her – a woman with brown skin – but she wanted to change that from the inside. Nusrit stayed in the force for 30 years, battling both for herself and for other officers facing discrimination to get fair opportunities and be treated equally.

From the very beginning, Nusrit was marked as an outsider. Fellow officers refused to patrol with her and she was subject to frequent, demeaning ‘pranks’. As her career progressed, things didn’t get easier, instead her attempts to get promoted were met with hostility and ridicule. Her experience was not unique: it was also the experience of many of her black and Asian colleagues.

After spending 30 years on the frontline and having risen from PC to superintendent, Nusrit decided that she had no alternative but to resign from the Met, initiating an employment tribunal against them for racism and misogyny in the process.

Now a lecturer in policing law and criminology at the University of East London, she is involved in training the next generation of police officers. She is confident that it is possible to create a more inclusive police force that is safer for both officers and the public.

Nusrit Mehtab was born in Pakistan and came to the UK with her family as a baby. During her 30 year career in the Met she worked in some of the most challenging areas of policing, including Serious and Organised Crime, Counter Terrorism, Clubs and Vice. She was the first Muslim woman of Pakistani heritage to become an undercover officer in the UK.In January 2020, after a career spanning 30 years, Nusrit left the Met and instigated an employment tribunal against them. At that time, she was one of the highest-ranking Asian women in the force. Nusrit is now a lecturer in policing law and criminology at the University of East London. By teaching police recruits she now hopes she can change the force for the better from the outside.

Nusrit Mehtab will be in conversation with Jenny Devitt

Tickets £12.00/£6.00 (students)

James Holland – Cassino ’44
2024-10-17 12:00 - 13:00 | The Dorford Centre, 2 Bridport Road, Dorchester, Dorset, DT1 1RR, United Kingdom
It should have an easy victory. After triumph in Tunisia, the sweeping success of the Sicilian invasion, and with Italy finally knocked out of the war, the Allies were confident that they would be in Rome before Christmas 1943.

And yet it didn’t happen. Hitler ordered his forces to dig in, thus setting the stage for one of the grimmest and most attritional phases of the Second World War. Even though they were short of supplies and support, even in retreat, the German troops made the Allies fight for every bitter yard. By early 1944, they had created a formidable defensive position across the Italian peninsular: the Gustav Line, a barrier of bunkers, minefields, booby traps, dug-outs and strategic artillery positions. This, and the combination of dogged defence and utterly debilitating conditions, ground the Allied advance to a standstill some sixty miles south of Rome, at the foot of the hill on which stood the thousand-year-old abbey of Monte Cassino.

The battle for that rock was one of the most brutal of the entire war, would last more than four long winter months and cost the lives of over 75,000 soldiers and civilians. The abbey and the landscape around it were decimated, leaving the large local population homeless and their centuries-old community annihilated. Following a rich cast of characters and with access to new information from all sides of the battle, both military and civilian, James Holland has written the definitive account of one of the most pivotal battles of the war and created a thrilling reconstruction of what it was really like to be at the centre of the maelstrom of war.James Holland is an internationally acclaimed and award-winning historian, writer, and broadcaster. The author of a number of best-selling histories including most recently Brothers In Arms and Normandy ’44, he is also the author of nine works of fiction and a dozen Ladybird Experts. He is the co-founder of the annual Chalke Valley History Festival which is now in its twelfth year, and he has presented – and written – many television programmes and series for the BBC, Channel 4, National Geographic and the History and Discovery channels. With Al Murray, he has a successful Second World War podcast, We Have Ways of Making You Talk, which also has its own festival, and is a research fellow at St Andrew’s University and a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society.

This event is kindly sponsored by H K Law

Victoria Hislop – The Figurine
2024-10-17 14:00 - 15:00 | The Dorford Centre, 2 Bridport Road, Dorchester, Dorset, DT1 1RR, United Kingdom
In her irresistible new novel, Sunday Times No 1 bestselling author Victoria Hislop shines a light on the questionable acquisition of cultural treasures and the price people – and countries – will pay to cling on to them.

Of all the ancient art that captures the imagination, none is more appealing than the Cycladic figurine. An air of mystery swirls around these statuettes from the Bronze Age and they are highly sought after by collectors – and looters – alike.

When Helena inherits her grandparents’ apartment in Athens, she is overwhelmed with memories of the summers she spent there as a child, when Greece was under a brutal military dictatorship. Her remote, cruel grandfather was one of the regime’s generals and as she sifts through the dusty rooms, Helena discovers an array of valuable objects and antiquities. How did her grandfather amass such a trove? What human price was paid for them?

Helena’s desire to find answers about her heritage dovetails with a growing curiosity for archaeology, ignited by a summer spent with volunteers on a dig on an Aegean island. Their finds fuel her determination to protect the precious fragments recovered from the baked earth – and to understand the origins of her grandfather’s collection.

Helena’s attempt to make amends for some of her grandfather’s actions sees her wrestle with the meaning of ‘home’, both in relation to looted objects of antiquity … and herself.

Best-known for her evocative and thoroughly researched historical novels, set against the backdrop of southern Europe – particularly Greece – Victoria Hislop is one of the UK’s bestselling novelists. She worked as a journalist and in publishing before writing her first novel, The Island, inspired by her love of Greece. Widely considered a modern classic, the novel – which follows four generations of a family on the leper colony island of Spinalonga, off the coast of Crete – was an instant hit with Waterstones booksellers and became an international bestseller. Since then she has continued to dominate bestseller lists, with books including The Return, The Thread, The Sunrise and Carte Postales from Greece and Those Who Are Loved.

Victoria Hislop will be in conversation with Lulu Taylor

This event is kindly sponsored by Dorchester Town Council

This event is kindly sponsored by Dorchester BID

Tickets £12.00/£6.00 (students)

The Oldie Event – Giles Wood and Mary Killen – Country Life – in conversation with Harry Mount
2024-10-17 16:00 - 17:00 | The Dorford Centre, 2 Bridport Road, Dorchester, Dorset, DT1 1RR, United Kingdom
Former townies Giles and Mary swapped city life for rural Wiltshire over thirty years ago, and they’ve each embraced it in their own very different ways.Mary has happily traded sophisticated London salons for monthly lectures at the Farmers’ Club, competitive school quizzes, church interactions and local Auction House sales. While Giles has immersed himself in the catastrophic consequences of conventional farming, his organic no-dig veg-patch, the increasingly disproportionate response by local landlords to harmless trespassers and the strange death of the village house martins.For recent city escapees and indigenous country folk alike, Giles and Mary sift through the unhelpful dreamy myths and offer a practical reality, with robust back and forth on every aspect of life in rural outposts, including but not limited to planning wars, class wars, dog thefts, tree-felling fights, misunderstandings between incomers and natives and the role of the Heron Appreciation Society.The much-loved Wiltshire couple share their combined, hard-earned lessons, so we can learn the secret skills of grumbling and bumbling our way towards a new contented country life.

Giles Wood Giles Wood is an accomplished artist, and is also a published writer, with columns in The Telegraph and The Oldie. In the podcast space, he can be heard on Giles and Mary’s Oldie Newsround with Harry Mount.

Mary Killen is a busy journalist, with a weekly column in The Spectator, and regular contributions in many other national publications. She has been appearing on Channel 4’s hit show Gogglebox since 2015 with her husband Giles, sitting together in their cottage in Wiltshire. This is Mary’s seventh book.

Giles and Mary will be in conversation with Harry Mount, editor of The Oldie Magazine.

Tickets £12.00/£6.00 (students)

Kate Humble – Where the Hearth Is
2024-10-17 18:00 - 19:00 | The Dorford Centre, 2 Bridport Road, Dorchester, Dorset, DT1 1RR, United Kingdom
Kate Humble has a knack for sharing her own journey towards a more pleasing and purposeful life in a way that inspires readers, enables them to reassess their own lives and helps them achieve their personal goals. Having encouraged readers to reconnect with nature in Thinking on My Feet and simplify their lifestyles in A Year of Living Simply, she turns now to reimagining whatever we consider ‘home’ – examining her own experiences and expectations, ideals and memories, and considering the views of others living uniquely, extraordinarily, happily. She’s gaining insights from some unexpected quarters – including the animal kingdom.

As our time spent in office buildings and other traditional workplaces shrinks forevermore, feeling happy, healthy, productive and content in our homes (be they castles or caravans, flat-shares or farms, fixed or temporary, inner city/out of town/beyond) is more important to get right than ever before. Where the Hearth Is will resonate with all those seeking to make the most of their lives during the many hours we all spend at home – whether it’s a case of tiny adjustments while staying put, moving out, living differently or dreaming of building something new.

Kate will also discuss her latest cookbook Home Made: Recipes From the Countryside – a wonderful collection that features over 60 simple, sustainable recipes from Kate’s own kitchen table, making delicious, fuss-free meals accessible to everyone. Along with a wide range of recipes, Kate also offers inspiring stories from 20 individuals who play a role in bringing food to our tables, from basket-weavers and apron-makers to blacksmiths and woodworkers; potters and glassblowers to fishermen and cheese-makers;farmers and chocolatiers to distillers and salters. Foodies of all skill levels will find something to love, with delicious options for every course and occasion:

Kate Humble is an English television presenter and narrator, mainly working for the BBC, specialising in wildlife and science programmes. Humble served as president of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds from 2009 until 2013. She is an ambassador for the UK walking charity Living Streets.

Kate Humble will be in conversation with Steve Harris.

This event is kindly sponsored by Grassby & Sons Ltd

Tickets £12.00/£6.00 (students)

Adam Nicolson – How to Be
2024-10-18 11:00 - 12:00 | The Dorford Centre, 2 Bridport Road, Dorchester, Dorset, DT1 1RR, United Kingdom
What is the nature of things? Must I think my own way through the world? What is justice? How can I be me? How should we treat each other?

Prize-winning and bestselling writer Adam Nicolson travels through the transforming world of ancient Greece and asks what light its thinkers can throw on our deepest preconceptions. Sparkling with maps, photographs and artwork, How to Be is a journey into the origins of Western thought.

Hugely formative ideas emerged: fluidity of mind, the search for coherence, a need for the just city, a recognition of the mutability of things, a belief in the reality of the ideal — all became the Greeks’ legacy to the world.

Before the Greeks, the idea of the world was dominated by god-kings their priests and imagined metaphysical monsters. Then, 2,500 years ago, in a succession of small eastern Mediterranean harbour-cities, that way of thinking began to change. Men (and some women) decided to cast off mental subservience and apply their own worrying and thinking minds to the conundrums of life.

These great innovators shaped the beginnings of philosophy. Homer explored how we might navigate our way through the world. Heraclitus in Ephesus was the first to consider the interrelatedness of things. Xenophanes of Colophon was the first champion of civility. In Lesbos, the Aegean island of Sappho and Alcaeus, the early lyric poets asked themselves ‘How can I be true to myself?’ In Samos, Pythagoras imagined an everlasting soul and took his ideas to Italy where they flowered again in surprising and radical forms.

Adam Nicolson is the author of many books on history, travel and the environment. He is winner of the Somerset Maugham Award and the British Topography Prize and lives at Sissinghust Castle in Kent.

Adam Nicolson will be in conversation with Danny Danziger.

This event is kindly sponsored by Hall & Woodhouse.

Tickets £12.00/£6.00 (students)

Polly Toynbee and David Walker – The Only Way is Up
2024-10-18 13:00 - 14:00 | The Dorford Centre, 2 Bridport Road, Dorchester, Dorset, DT1 1RR, United Kingdom
Political change is coming. But the new Westminster government’s inheritance looks grim. We’re all in it together, the Tories used to say. But they look set to bequeath sharp social divisions, vastly increased inequality, a stagnant economy and unfulfilled commitments on climate change – and all this at a time of unprecedented international tension.

The Only Way is Up gives us a ready reckoner on how to repair the damage and set the UK on the path to sustainable growth. Combining the latest data with expert analysis across health, children’s services, the economy, environment, policing and defence, Polly Toynbee and David Walker tell the story of what went wrong during the Tories’ wild ride and what must now be remedied.

Polly Toynbee is a journalist, author and broadcaster. A Guardian columnist and broadcaster, she was formerly the BBC’s social affairs editor. She has written for the Observer, the Independent and Radio Times and been an editor at the Washington Monthly. She has won numerous awards including a National Press Award and the Orwell Prize for Journalism.

David Walker is contributing editor of Public, the Guardian’s website for senior managers of public services. David has commented on public policy and management since stepping down last year as managing director, communications and public reporting at the Audit Commission. David is a member of council at the Economic and Social Research Council, where he chairs the methods and infrastructure committee. He is a trustee of the Franco-British Council and of Longview. He is a visiting professor at City University, London. With Polly Toynbee he is author of The Verdict, did Labour change Britain?

This event is kindly sponsored by Porter Dodson

Tickets £12.00/£6.00 (students)

Tom Heap – Land Smart
2024-10-18 15:00 - 16:00 | The Dorford Centre, 2 Bridport Road, Dorchester, Dorset, DT1 1RR, United Kingdom
We need land for so many of humanity’s growing needs, such as food, renewable energy, carbon storage and housing. Traditionally, we’ve stolen it from nature, but this has led to a mounting toll of extinction and pollution that is now punishing us. So, as there’s no land left to take, how do we get more from the same, or preferably less.

In Land Smart, Tom Heap, a presenter on BBC TV’s Countryfile, Radio 4’s new Rare Earth series and the anchor of The Climate Show on Sky News, tours the British countryside meeting the farmers, scientists, conservationists and even warehouse managers who are solving the most pressing challenges facing our countryside and the world.

If we use land cleverly it can give both humanity and nature the space to thrive on just the one planet. If not, we’re in trouble.

Tom Heap is a regular presenter on BBC1’s Countryfile, specializing in the more investigative films, and has made many BBC Panorama documentaries on food, energy and the environment. Tom is also the presenter of Radio 4’s new Rare Earth series and was the anchor of The Climate Show on Sky News. He was the creator and presenter of BBC Radio’s flagship climate change podcast ‘39 Ways to Save the Planet’.

Tom Heap will be in conversation with Mike McCarthy

Tickets £12.00/£6.00 (students)

Clare Balding – Isle of Dogs
2024-10-18 17:00 - 18:00 | The Dorford Centre, 2 Bridport Road, Dorchester, Dorset, DT1 1RR, United Kingdom
Every dog must have his day.Dogs are never just pets. Not for the British. We love them as members of the family. They work with us, sleep with us, eat with us, help us live our daily lives and come on holiday with us. Some parents will freely admit to enjoying the company of their dogs more than their children while many couples would choose the dog over their partner. So what is it that makes our bond so special?In this fascinating adventure across Britain, Clare Balding explores the many roles dogs fulfil and the history of how they became such an intrinsic part of our lives. She talks to people whose everyday survival depends on their dog, those whose experience of life has been transformed by them and what dogs have meant to her.From the mysteries of extinct breeds to the ancient dogs still thriving today, she journeys from Battersea to the Orkney Islands via Buckingham Palace to tell a moving and humorous tale of loyalty and partnership. Isle of Dogs is an unmissable read for anyone whose life has been transformed by a faithful hound.

Clare Balding is an award-winning writer and broadcaster who has been at the forefront of sports presentation since 1998. She has been a key anchor at seven Olympic and six Paralympic Games as well as multiple Commonwealth Games and Winter Olympics. She was awarded a special BAFTA in 2012 for her work at the London Olympics and Paralympics. In 2023, she took over as the lead BBC TV presenter at Wimbledon. She was a key commentator on the BBC’s television coverage of King Charles III’s Coronation in 2023 and for the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee coverage in 2022. She has presented the television coverage of Crufts for nearly two decades and Lost Dogs Live on Channel 5, which helps reunite missing dogs with their owners. During most of her childhood she thought she was a dog and has tried to live with the mentality of a Labrador puppy: be pleased to see everyone and treat every new task as an exciting adventure. Her first book, My Animals and Other Family, was published in 2012 and won the National Book Award for biography of the year. In 2013, she was awarded an OBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List and in 2023 received a CBE for services to sport and charity in the Queen’s final Honours List.

This event is kindly sponsored by Domvs

Tickets £20 – includes a copy of the book.

Pam Ayres – Doggedly Onwards: The Collected Poems
2024-10-18 19:00 - 20:00 | The Dorford Centre, 2 Bridport Road, Dorchester, Dorset, DT1 1RR, United Kingdom
Pam Ayres has spent a lifetime providing hilarious and profound insights into the delights and tribulations of everyday life. As a young woman in the seminal decade of 1960’s Great Britain, she doggedly pursued a career as a performer and writer, stepping far outside what was expected of her. In doing so she created a life for herself of which she could only have dreamed, travelling the world and bringing roars of laughter wherever she went.

Now, Pam has gathered her career’s work of poetry, spanning six decades, into this beautifully illustrated collection. In doing so, she reflects on her writing and traces the course of her life from the young woman juggling various boyfriends, to the wife adrift amid the joy and terror of new motherhood, to her current position of astounded, adoring granny.

Included are the cavalcade of much-loved dogs, her lifelong fascination with wildlife, the travel, mistakes, regrets, the heartbreak of leaving the family home, and the sober business of ageing. Meanwhile, she continues to explore new avenues, such as writing lyrics for musical theatre. This collection is not just a testament to Pam’s remarkable legacy, but is a celebration of the human spirit, capturing the tears, laughter, joy, and wisdom from a remarkable woman whose work has provoked laughter and tears in people around the world.

This event is kindly sponsored by Hall & Woodhouse

Tickets £12.00/£6.00 (students)

Chris Atkins – Time After Time
2024-10-19 10:30 - 11:30 | The Dorford Centre, 2 Bridport Road, Dorchester, Dorset, DT1 1RR, United Kingdom
A funny, touching, challenging and campaigning book about our prisons’ crisis by the Sunday Times bestselling author of A Bit of a Stretch.

British prisoners have to endure the most inhumane and barbaric conditions imaginable, so why do so many of them keep going back?

80% of criminals who receive cautions or convictions are reoffenders.46% of ex-prisoners are re-convicted within a year of leaving prison.Reoffending costs the taxpayer £18 billion per year.

The numbers are staggering. But the reasons behind them will shock you. Former inmate and documentary maker Chris Atkins has spent the last six years tracking the fortunes of a dozen repeat offenders to understand why the state fails to keep them out of trouble.

Featuring funny, wild and poignant stories, Time After Time exploits Chris’s unprecedented access to the criminal underworld to understand why the system actually makes reoffending all but inevitable for ex-prisoners.

‘Eloquent, witty, engaging and enraged … the most important book you’ll read this year.’ Sathnam Sanghera

‘Chris Atkins brings a unique perspective, an unflinching eye and a dark sense of humour to hidden stories from the underbelly of the British justice system. Time after Time is entertaining, unsettling, illuminating and important.’ Rafael Behr

Chris Atkins is a BAFTA-nominated filmmaker. His documentaries Taking Liberties and Starsuckers were critically acclaimed and made front-page news. He has also worked extensively with Dispatches for Channel 4 and BBC Panorama. Following his release from prison, he is now back in North London, filming documentaries and writing.

This event is kindly sponsored by John and Jennie Paterson

Tickets £12.00/£6.00 (students)

Mick Conefrey – Fallen
2024-10-19 12:00 - 13:00 | The Dorford Centre, 2 Bridport Road, Dorchester, Dorset, DT1 1RR, United Kingdom
On 6 June 1924, George Mallory donned an oxygen set and set off for the summit of Everest with his young partner Andrew Irvine. Two days later they were glimpsed through clouds heading upwards, but after that, they were never seen again. Whether they died on the way up or on the way down no one knows.In the years following his disappearance, Mallory was elevated into an all-British hero. Dubbed by his friends the ‘Galahad’ of Everest, he was lionised in the press as the greatest mountaineer of his generation who had died while taking on the ultimate challenge. Handsome, charismatic and daring, he was a skilled public speaker, an athletic and technically gifted climber, a committed Socialist and a supremely attractive figure to both men and women.

His friends ranged from the gay artists and writers of the Bloomsbury group to the best mountaineers of his era. But that was only one side to him. Mallory was also a risk taker who according to his friend and biographer David Pye, could never get behind the wheel of a car without overtaking the vehicle in front, a climber who pushed himself and those around him to the limits, a chaotic technophobe who was forever losing equipment or mishandling it, the man who led his porters to their deaths in 1922 and his young partner to his uncertain end in 1924.

So who was the real Mallory and what were the forces that made him and ultimately destroyed him? Why did the man who denounced oxygen sets as ‘damnable heresy’ in 1922 perish on an oxygen-powered summit attempt two years later? And above all, what made him go back to Everest for the third time?

Based on diaries, letters, memoirs and thousands of contemporary documents, Fallen is both a forensic account of Mallory’s last expedition to Everest in 1924 and an attempt to get under his skin and separate the man from the myth.

Mick Conefrey is an award winning writer and documentary maker. He made the landmark BBC series Mountain Men and Icemen and The Race for Everest to mark the 60th anniversary of the first ascent. His previous books include Everest 1953, the winner of a LeggiMontagna award, and The Ghosts of K2 which won a US National Outdoor Book award in 2017.

Tickets £12.00/£6.00 (students)

Tom Baldwin – Keir Starmer, The Biography
2024-10-19 13:30 - 14:30 | The Dorford Centre, 2 Bridport Road, Dorchester, Dorset, DT1 1RR, United Kingdom
This authoritative biography by Tom Baldwin provides answers by drawing deeply on many hours of interviews with the Labour leader himself, as well as unprecedented access to members of his family, his oldest friends and closest colleagues.

Together, they tell an unexpectedly intimate story filled with feelings of grief and love that has driven him on more than any rigid ideology or loyalty to a particular faction.

The book tracks Starmer’s emergence from a troubled small town background and rebellious youth, through a storied legal career as a human rights barrister and the country’s chief prosecutor, to becoming an MP relatively late in life.

Baldwin provides a vivid and compelling account of how this untypical politician then rose to be leader of his party in succession to Jeremy Corbyn, then transformed it with a ruthless rapidity that has enraged opponents from the left just as much as it has bewildered those on the right.

Above all, this is a book that should be read by anyone who wants to understand how someone who has too often been underestimated or dismissed as dull, now intends to change Britain.

This will be the most important political book of the year’ MATTHEW D’ANCONA, EVENING STANDARD

‘The first serious and consistently readable biography of Starmer…It is a wonder that he has said so much to Baldwin’ PATRICK MAGUIRE, THE TIMES

‘Required reading for anyone who has an interest in who governs Britain’ ALASTAIR CAMPBELL

‘Highly readable… Baldwin has peeled back more layers than anyone else’ ROBERT SHRIMSLEY, FINANCIAL TIMES

‘Tom Baldwin’s portrait is of a tough, conscientious, and kindly man with the right values’ ANDREW MARR, NEW STATESMAN

‘A highly informative, illuminating and insightful biography… the most complete portrait we have yet been offered’ OBSERVER

Tom Baldwin is a journalist and writer who has worked for The Times and The Sunday Telegraph. He was a senior political adviser to Ed Miliband and the Labour Party’s director of communications and strategy.

Tom Baldwin will be in conversation with Danny Danziger.

Tickets £12.00/£6.00 (students)

Michael Mansfield – The Power in the People
2024-10-19 15:30 - 16:30 | The Dorford Centre, 2 Bridport Road, Dorchester, Dorset, DT1 1RR, United Kingdom
The internationally renowned human rights barrister shows us how the powerto change the world is in the hands of people, not the people in power.‘I want this book to inspire people, give them a blueprint for fighting their own battles, and challenge the status quo. To see that together, we are always stronger. To understand that those who stand in the way of change cannot do so forever.’ Michael Mansfield, KC

Barrister Michael Mansfield, KC , has spent his career fighting injustice, persecution and corruption. And be it the Birmingham Six, Bloody Sunday, Stephen Lawrence, the Marchioness, Hillsborough or Grenfell, he has come to learn one thing – that people power is unstoppable. Time and again he has witnessed governments, police forces, legal institutions and the establishment, try to block change and maintain the status quo in order to protect their interests. But almost every time he has seen that passion, perseverance, collectivity and courage create a powerful momentum which is increasingly difficult to stop.

In this short but powerful book, the veteran barrister draws upon his 50 years of fighting for justice and revisits his most important cases and clients, proving without doubt that when people get together they can make lasting and positive change. The power is in the people – not the people in power.

Michael Mansfield KC is an English barrister and head of chambers at Nexus Chambers. He was recently described as “The king of human rights work” by The Legal 500 and as a leading Silk in civil liberties and human rights.

Tickets £12.00/£6.00 (students)

Jonathan Dimbleby – Endgame 1944: How Stalin Won The War
2024-10-19 17:30 - 18:30 | The Dorford Centre, 2 Bridport Road, Dorchester, Dorset, DT1 1RR, United Kingdom
June 1944. Operation Bagration: the greatest defeat ever suffered by the German Armed Forces. More than two million Red Army soldiers, facing 500,000 German adversaries, finally avenged their defeat in Operation Barbarossa three years earlier. In the ensuing three weeks, Hitler’s Army Group Centre lost 28 of its 32 divisions.While the same month saw the Allies triumph on the beaches of Normandy, it was in fact the events on the Eastern Front in 1944 that were the knockout blow in the Second World War. Despite the myths that remain today, it was this brutal struggle from the Baltic to the Black Sea that saw the Wehrmacht crucially defeated.Drawing on previously untranslated German and Russian sources – many from ‘ordinary’ soldiers – bestselling historian Jonathan Dimbleby describes and analyses with authority and panache this momentous year in the East. He illuminates the bloody battles that raged along the 2000 kilometres-long front, while also explaining the unusual roles played by deception, the partisans, and the war within a war in Ukraine.Dimbleby’s gripping, masterly narrative sets the drama of the relationships between the “big three” of Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin against the history being created on the battlefield, and shows how his victories in 1944 enabled the Soviet leader to dictate the terms of the post-war settlement and lay the foundations for the Cold War.

Jonathan Dimbleby is the author of The Battle of the Atlantic and Destiny in the Desert: The Road to El Alamein, which was shortlisted for the Hessell-Tiltman Prize and was followed by his BBC2 programme Churchill’s Desert War. His other books include, Russia: A Journey to the Heart of a Land and Its People, Richard Dimbleby: A Biography, The Palestinians, The Prince of Wales: A Biography and The Last Governor: Chris Patten and the Handover of Hong Kong.

Jonathan Dimbleby will be in conversation with Allan Mallinson.

Tickets £12.00/£6.00 (students)

Mike Brearley – Turning Over the Pebbles
2024-10-19 19:30 - 20:30 | The Dorford Centre, 2 Bridport Road, Dorchester, Dorset, DT1 1RR, United Kingdom
Mike Brearley reviews his life with all its attendant emotions, tensions and moves, in what he calls ‘memoir of the mind’. This is book of his second thoughts and reassessments, allowing him to understand more fully things that were obscure to him earlier. After all, he says, ‘captaining ourselves, like captaining a team, requires a willingness to allow thoughts and feelings their space’.Deeply thoughtful, erudite and elegantly framed, this book seamlessly blends all aspects of Brearley’s life into a single integrated narrative. With wide-ranging meditations on sport, philosophy, literature, religion, leadership, psychoanalysis, music and more, Brearley delves into his private passions and candidly examines the various shifts, conflicts and triumphs of his extraordinary life and career, both on and off the field.

Mike Brearley was educated at Cambridge, where he read classics and moral sciences, and captained the university. He played for Middlesex County Cricket Club intermittently from 1961 to 1970, and regularly from 1971, captaining the side until his retirement in 1982. He first played for England in 1976 and captained the side from 1977 to 1980, winning seventeen test matches and losing only four. He was recalled to the captaincy in 1981 for the Ashes home series, leading England to one of their most famous victories. From 1981, he trained and continues to work as a psychoanalyst, and is a lecturer both on leadership and on psychoanalysis. He is the author of the bestselling The Art of Captaincy, On Form, On Cricket, Spirit of Cricket and has written on cricket and the psychology of sport for the Sunday Times, Observer, The Times and Prospect.

Mike Brearley will be in conversation with Paul Atterbury.

Tickets £12/£6 (Students)

The DLF Local Writers’ Forum – hosted by Don Nordberg
2025-10-16 14:00 - 16:00 | Shire Hall Museum Cafe, High West Street, Dorchester, DT1 1UY, United Kingdom
A gathering where writers with a local connection or subject can present their published work (fiction or non fiction) to other writers and anyone interested in writing. The event will be hosted by Don Nordberg. This is a great way to meet fellow authors and others with an interest in writing. Authors will be allocated a time slot and have an opportunity to sign and sell books.

Don Nordberg is a literary magpie, a journalist-turned-consultant-turned-academic, and the author of two books on corporate governance, with manuscripts of two novels edging towards publication. He’s published poems in small journals and research papers in prominent ones. He reads philosophy, political theory, and potboilers, too. A Chicago native, he’s lived in Britain, Germany, Switzerland, and the US while working for Reuters, and held professorial roles in management at Bournemouth University and in financial journalism at City University of London. He now writes two Substack publications: How to govern [not like that], and DonNordberg (is/on) writing, and he convenes the Dorset local group of the Society of Authors.

Please get in touch via contact@dorchesterliteraryfestival.com if you would like to present your book at this event.

Tickets £6.00 (free for writers presenting their work)

Tim Spector – Ferment – The life changing power of microbes
2025-10-18 10:30 - 11:30 | The Dorford Centre, 2 Bridport Road, Dorchester, Dorset, DT1 1RR, United Kingdom
Tim Spector is on a mission to bring fermenting into our lives and kitchens. Drawing on the latest science and his own experiments, Ferment is an accessible introduction to the life-changing benefits of fermentation – for beginners and enthusiasts alike.

Fermenting is one of the most ancient, nutritious and cheap techniques for preparing and preserving food and drink. With little more than time, patience and basic equipment, the humblest of ingredients can be transformed into nutritious foods with an astonishing range of benefits for our gut health, immunity and daily mood. Including practical tips and some of his favourite recipes, Ferment cuts through myths and misunderstanding to help us navigate the fascinating world of ferments and shows how they can help improve our health, our meal times and our planet.Tim Spector is Professor of Epidemiology at King’s College London. He is the bestselling author of The Diet Myth, Spoon-Fed, Food for Life and The Food for Life Cookbook, and scientific co-founder of ZOE, the nutrition science company. With a focus on cutting-edge science and honoured with an OBE for his work in fighting Covid-19, Tim stands at the forefront of his field. The original pioneer of microbiome research, he is among the top 100 most cited scientists in the world.

Tim Spector will be in conversation with Jenny Devitt.

Please note there is an overlap between this event and the preceding one, so you will not be able to attend both.

Tickets £14.00 (£10.00 Students)

Quentin Letts – Nunc
2025-10-18 11:00 - 12:00 | The Brownsword Hall, Pummery Square, Poundbury, Dorchester, Dorset, DT1 3GW, United Kingdom
Sunday Times bestselling author Quentin Letts pens a new novel: a modern twist on one of the greatest (yet underlooked) narratives in Christianity: The ‘Nunc Dimittis’, based on ten verses in St Luke’s Gospel. This is the story of Simeon, a man who was told he would not die before he saw the Messiah. He waited at the Temple in Jerusalem until he saw the infant Jesus.

But who was Simeon? Why did he wait? And how did the month-old Jesus escape King Herod’s infamous massacre of the infants?

Nunc! transports you to the Jerusalem of Herod the Great, where Simeon’s old army friend Reuben runs a tea stall selling heavenly honey cakes and fig bread in Deuteronomy Square. When Bildad the beekeeper’s hive goes missing, grocer’s boy Benjamin, owner of a mule and cart that might be a getaway vehicle, is a suspect. The drawlingly subversive Zillah, whose political salon lends her influence, and Simeon’s long-suffering landlady Noor intervene, enduring a power-mad Roman centurion, Lucilius, and the snivelling authoritarian Kedar, the city’s clerk of works. Quentin Letts brings first-century Jerusalem to life and helps an ailing 21st-century Englishman come to terms with his future.

QUENTIN LETTS is political sketch writer for the Daily Mail. A regular broadcaster on radio and television, he was formerly New York correspondent for The Times, gossip columnist for the Daily Telegraph, theatre critic for the Sunday Times and parliamentary sketch writer for The Times. He is the author of the Sunday Times bestseller 50 People Who Buggered Up Britain. His hobbies are gossip, hymn-singing and cricket. He lives in rural Herefordshire.

Quentin Letts will be in conversation with Lulu Taylor.

Tickets £12.00 (£8.00 Students)

Please note that there is an overlap between this event and the following one and you will not be able to attend both.

Dr Julie Smith – Open When
2025-10-18 12:30 - 13:30 | The Dorford Centre, 2 Bridport Road, Dorchester, Dorset, DT1 1RR, United Kingdom
Million-copy bestselling psychologist Dr Julie Smith is back with the book for when being human starts to get complicated. When you feel overwhelmed, pressure to perform, are grieving, are making big decisions, when you get it wrong as a parent, when you want to win the argument, when you’re overthinking everything, when you want to fit in, and more.

Each chapter begins with a letter from Dr Julie to the reader offering comfort and perspective and follows with her trademark simple and straightforward advice to help you see clearly how best to respond and act.

Dr Julie Smith is the nation’s favourite psychologist. An author, online educator and Clinical Psychologist, Julie has a combined following of almost nine million. She shot to fame with viral videos on social media, and her drive to create accessible, good quality mental health resources, that were rooted in her decade of experience as a Clinical Psychologist led to her writing Why Has Nobody Told Me This Before? A publishing phenomenon, the book spent over 100 weeks in the UK Sunday Times bestseller charts with 23 of those at #1.

Tickets £14.00 (£10.00 Students)

Max Hastings – Sword
2025-10-18 14:30 - 15:30 | The Dorford Centre, 2 Bridport Road, Dorchester, Dorset, DT1 1RR, United Kingdom
On 6 June 1944, when the Allied armies landed on D-Day, the Second World War had already lasted almost five years. Yet many of the British and American troops who invaded Normandy were virgin soldiers, never before committed to battle. They quit summer England to face, within hours, a storm of machine-gun and mortar fire. They witnessed scenes, above all of sudden death, such as no exercise had prepared them for.

In Sword, veteran chronicler of war Max Hastings explores with extraordinary vividness the actions of the Commando brigade, Montgomery’s 3rd Infantry and 6th Airborne divisions on and around a single British beach. He describes their frustrations, hopes, loves and fears through the apparently interminable years training and preparing in England, then their triumphs and tragedies on the beach and beyond. Here are the airborne assaults on the Caen Canal bridge and Merville Battery, the battles on the shoreline and against the German strongpoints inland, narrated and explained with all the insights that Hastings’ decades of study, veterans’ interviews and new archive research enable him to deploy.

The book offers a searching analysis of why British troops did not reach Caen on 6 June, as Montgomery had promised Churchill that they would – and the story of the brigadier who was sacked for that failure. There is also a host of personal portraits of key figures from commando leader Lord Lovat, famously brave but supremely arrogant, to tank colonel Jim Eadie, whose tanks of the Staffordshire Yeomanry repulsed a panzer division in the last hours of 6 June, and some of the humbler participants to whom extraordinary things happened. This is D-Day as you have never read the story told before.

Max Hastings is the author of more than thirty books, many of them about 20th Century wars, including All Hell Let Loose, Catastrophe, Vietnam and Abyss. In his early years as a correspondent, he reported on eleven conflicts including Vietnam, the 1973 Yom Kippur and 1982 Falklands wars for the BBC and various newspapers. A former editor-in-chief of The Daily Telegraph, he has won many awards both for his journalism and books, including Journalist of the Year, Reporter of the Year, Editor of the Year, together with a Somerset Maugham Prize and two RUSI Westminster Medals. He contributes to The Times, reviews books for the Sunday Times and writes a column for Bloomberg Inc.

Tickets £14.00 (£10.00 Students)
