The Secret Dorset Podcast lets you in on the hidden treasures of Dorset that the locals have been keeping to themselves. In this series of podcasts we’ll be sharing information on the best pubs, beach walks and places to visit and talking to those in the know about Dorset’s rich heritage and it’s thriving present day arts scene.
In the second edition of the Secret Dorset Podcast we meet town crier of Dorchester and Hardy enthusiast Alistair Chisholm to find out about another side of Thomas Hardy.
While most of us know Hardy as the author of novels such as Tess of the D’Urbervilles and Far from the Madding Crowd, he thought of himself first and foremost as a poet. Alistair tells us more and reads a selection of Hardy’s poems.
Loved the sea gulls, loved the steps, loved the music and rivitted by the poems. How bleak and full-hearted. What a great interviewee, a lovely textured voice and his real passion for Dorset and empathy for Hardy coming thru…. Mair – more, more! You get people to talk and this follows on from ur piece on the ponds that holds attention and zooms mesmerizingly between the significant detail and big big big themes of life and death, landscape and longing, regret and engagement….
Great stuff, Mair. You’ve got a delightfully beguiling radio presence as a narrator, which gently takes us by the hand and leads us through the story. One of my favourite poems in the EngLit canon is Hardy’s The Convergence of The Twain, about the Titanic. And, as you know, my grandfather did his taxes! Always said he was a grumpy old bugger. S