THE first time I ever saw the Blackmore Vale Magazine was in 1984. It was like nothing I’d ever seen before. It was a month out of date, discarded among a pile of other periodicals in the corner of a spare bedroom in a house near Sturminster Newton.
The pangs of love at first sight were so strong that I adopted it and gave it all the attention it deserved and had obviously lacked up to that moment of serendipitous discovery.
Nothing can ever have been made more perfect for me: loads of small ads, bits of important news, lots of bits of not-so-important news, plenty of photos, nuggets of advice, masses of information and all of it contained in a neat, compact format capable of being read in bed.
And that is exactly what I did with that first copy. I took it to bed with me. Geoff and I, plus small children, were staying with friends at the time on our first visit to Dorset from our then-home in a dull and disappointing part of the Home Counties.
Dear, wonderful, beautiful Dorset cast a spell on me, and it wasn’t just because of how blissfully it contrasted with the scrubbed-up part of middle England we’d driven down from. I strongly suspect that a large part of that spell was due to the discovery of the BVM. This was to be no holiday romance, either.
I was captivated by the BVM. Reading it from cover to cover that first time (and it didn’t take long then because it was but a shadow of its present chunky girth) made me wish we had something exactly like it up our way.
Of course, I should have realised. There is nothing like the BVM – never has been, never could be.
Later, once we’d moved here – thanks to Fate, opportunity, sheer good fortune, call it what you will – I was pleased beyond measure to be reunited with my old friend. I instantly pressed it into service by buying furniture (Habitat sofa £30, Ikea table £45), a reconditioned Aga (£450 – those were the days), a car (too embarrassed to admit what it was, but within a year I’d re-advertised it – and sold it) and a ghetto blaster for the kitchen (£20). And that was just the first week. I didn’t look back after that, and nor did any of the family, in fact, Geoff included.
We’ve visited gardens, been to plays and concerts, frolicked at fetes and bettered ourselves on courses, all thanks to information gleaned from the dear old BVM.
Both children have appeared from time to time in its pages, as I suspect most local good girls and boys have done at some stage of their school lives. Nowadays, when the kids bring their grown-up bodies home from London for any length of time, they both bury their heads in the BVM, my son studying the Motoring section and my daughter, because she’s like her mother, absorbed by just about everything.
Since I’ve taken up residence inside its pages each week these past four-and-a-half years I have found the BVM to be a perfect roof over my head – a des res with solid foundations and a very sunny aspect.
I can’t imagine what the next 1,500 issues will bring but we can only hope for one thing, and that’s that our BVM won’t change. I’ll sing it if you’ll join in with me: We love you just the way you are!
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