Good morning, Mendips! This week brings the Dairy Show to Shepton Mallet, an album party for Ozric Tentacles in Glastonbury, and a Black History Month exhibition with a Somerset story at its heart. We also have the little-known tale of how a police station helped jam the Luftwaffe.
🗓️ What Shall We Do This Week? — our Monday-to-weekend picks
📰 Hot News - Mendips Style — Bishop heads to the Lords · Street Minis at risk · Buckley the dog CEO · Pilton field for sale
🔠 Uxbridge English Dictionary — today's entry
✈️ The Night Shift That Jammed the Luftwaffe — Glastonbury's wartime secret
📅 What's On This Week — across the Mendips
🌡️ Weather — Wells BA5 forecast
What Shall We Do This Week?
A week for the curious. There's a Black History Month exhibition with a surprising Somerset story at its heart, medieval medicine, forensic clay-work and a Glastonbury album party. With rain forecast for Friday, plenty of it is indoors.
Start gently on Monday morning with the daytime Trio Paradis café concert at St Thomas' Church in Wells. It's pay-what-you-feel live music, ideal for anyone with a free morning and a love of a good tune.
Trio Paradis -
Also opening today is Roots, Routes and Resilience at Shoemakers Museum in Street. This Black History Month exhibition marks 90 years since Emperor Haile Selassie arrived in Britain in exile. He lived at Fairfield House in Bath from 1936 to 1940, campaigning against Benito Mussolini, and visitors can add their own fabric, messages or drawings to a Community Cloak.
On Tuesday, head to Wedmore for the Wells Cathedral School Soloist Showcase. Six soloists from the school's specialist music department take the stage, at a school whose Upper Sixth musicians prepare for conservatoire auditions across the UK. It's a chance to hear tomorrow's professionals up close.
Wednesday is the day for farming fans, when The Dairy Show fills the Bath & West Showground near Shepton Mallet with cattle judging, trade stands and industry forums. It bills itself as the UK's largest dairy show, under-15s go free and parking costs nothing, so it's an easy day out with curious kids.
Thursday suits the hands-on. At the museum, forensic anthropologist Sherlock Bone leads Sherlock Bones, a day-long workshop for just 30 people. You learn how skull measurements and anatomical landmarks are turned into a face, building 2D and 3D clay reconstructions. It's one for budding detectives and science fans.
That evening, the history-minded can head to Glastonbury Abbey for Monks, Maladies and Medieval Medicine. Dr Mark Hutchinson explores how people managed health and hygiene in the Middle Ages, from sanitation to herbal remedies. There are only 40 places, so book ahead.
If you'd rather have a play, Westbury Footlights stage Dylan Thomas's Under Milk Wood in Westbury-sub-Mendip on Friday and Saturday, with a cast of 17 sharing 69 parts. Gardeners should look to Leigh-on-Mendip, where a free Kitchen Garden Open Day offers a working kitchen garden, heritage seeds and homemade cake.
Whatever your taste, get out there and get involved this week. The Mendips are at their best when we turn up. Times, venues and the full day-by-day list are all in the What's On This Week section below.
Glasto sold out yesterday morning - in just 42 minutes. Reports don’t confirm how many tickets that was, but if it was last year’s capacity of over 200,000, that’s around 80 tickets a second @ £408 each - and the line-up hasn’t even been announced yet! Not bad for a gig on a Pilton farm :-)
Whilst the festival is an International phenomenon, I’m sure it impacts thousands of local lives in so many ways. I’d love to hear your local Glastonbury stories. The Eavis family have achieved something astonishing since the days of the £1 tickets and free milk from the farm herd. How about you?
Maybe you've stewarded, volunteered, worked on a stall or put up fences. Maybe you sorted the bins, let rooms, ran the Monday-morning café or simply lived with the traffic. Did your gran go in 1970? Did you once sneak in over the fence (we won't tell)? Or have you never been at all, despite living ten minutes away? Just hit reply and tell us. We'll share the best in a future issue.
I was sad to hear that Dame Esther Rantzen died this weekend, aged 86. I met her briefly in 1982, when I was filmed singing one of my comedy songs for That's Life! – a nerve-racking thought when the show drew around 18 million viewers.
My moment was brief, but it gave me a close-up view of a consummate broadcaster: warm on screen, meticulous off it. Her greater legacy is Childline, which has supported more than six million children since 1986, and The Silver Line for lonely older people. If you'd like to honour her, Childline now trains volunteers to answer children's messages from home – no need to live near one of its bases.
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🙏 Wells Bishop To Take His Seat In The House Of Lords
The Bishop of Bath and Wells, Michael Beasley, will be introduced to the House of Lords on 27 October. He joins the 26 Church of England bishops who sit as Lords Spiritual. He expects to spend about a day a week at Westminster while carrying on his diocesan duties, and says he wants to bring his health and international development expertise and represent Somerset's interests.
⚽ Street Minis Faces Closure Unless New Coaches Step Forward
Street Football Club says its Saturday football sessions for young children will end on 10 October unless new coaches come forward. Coaches Alex and Ted are stepping down after two years. No experience or qualifications are needed, and the club will provide coaching certificates, safeguarding training and DBS checks.
🚌 Shepton Mallet Calls For Later Buses And A Direct Bristol Link
Shepton Mallet Town Council wants evening bus services, a direct service to Bristol and more frequent Sunday connections to Street. Its “Shepton Mallet on the Move” report argues that transport gaps limit access to jobs, education, healthcare and leisure. The proposals aim to influence spending priorities for 2027/28, and the council points out that Wells enjoys far better connections.
🌾 Pilton Field Near The Glastonbury Festival Site Goes On The Market
A 1.65-acre grazing field at Whitstone Hill on the northern edge of Pilton is for sale, with offers invited in excess of £740,000. The land is marketed for residential development and has no planning permission yet, though the sale includes a positive pre-application response from Somerset Council. Pilton is best known as the home of the Glastonbury Festival.
English Lessons from the
Uxbridge English Dictionary
G
Gangster
A criminal pasty.
Gastronome
A flatulent dwarf.
Gastronomy
The study of Michelin stars.
Genealogy
What makes Aladdin sneeze?
Goatee
The one before goat F.
Gracias
The perils of picnicking without a blanket.
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The Night Shift That Jammed the Luftwaffe
Glastonbury has a long history of mysterious signals, and most of the stories are best taken with a pinch of salt. This one is properly documented, and it begins at the town's police station in August 1940.
That summer the RAF made an unsettling discovery. German bombers weren't just finding British cities by moonlight and luck. They were following invisible radio beams. The system was called Knickebein, or “crooked leg”. One narrow beam was sent out from France and a second from the Low Countries, and where the two crossed was the target. A bomber crew listened in their headphones, flew along the first beam, and released the bombs when they picked up the second. It was accurate to within about a square mile, which was precise enough for bombing a city at night.
The RAF's code name for the beams was “Headache”, and with a straight face it called the cure “Aspirin”. The plan was to drown the German signals in radio noise. The trouble was that Britain didn't have any purpose-built jammers yet.
So the RAF improvised. Hospitals of the time had diathermy machines, which used high-frequency current for treatments and surgery and happened to give off radio signals at roughly the right frequency. Retuned, one of them could fill a pilot's headphones with enough noise to bury the beam.
One of the very first Aspirin stations opened on 10 August 1940, at Glastonbury Police Station. An old hospital diathermy machine was installed, and the police were told what to do. When the call came through from 80 Wing, the RAF's secret beam-fighting unit, someone at the station switched it on.
It's a lovely picture: a country police station keeping the town's peace by day and, when the telephone rang, quietly tangling up Hitler's navigation by night. Glastonbury wasn't alone, as police stations at Newton Abbot in Devon and Wimborne Minster in Dorset did the same job.
Better jammers soon replaced the improvised machines, including one on high ground at Shipham, which covered the Bristol Channel from the top of Mendip. Glastonbury's station was stood down on 20 January 1941, after just over five months of its unlikely war.
Nobody can say how many bombers it sent off course, but it showed the sort of make-do ingenuity that helped win the battle of the beams.
Over to you: Did anyone in your family serve with Glastonbury police during the war, or work at the Shipham site? Hit reply and tell us. Any family stories, and photographs of the old station would be wonderful.
Monday, 5 October
Trio Paradis Café Concert: From Dawn to Dusk — 11am, St Thomas' Church, Wells. Daytime live music, pay what you feel. More info
RAFA-MSB Informal Fun Games Day — 11am, Bell Inn, Evercreech. More info
Fun Singing For Wellbeing and Joy — The Black Thistle, High Street, Shepton Mallet. Helena Eden's fortnightly Monday sessions cover folk, blues, rock, gospel and pop, all taught by ear. £5 for first-time visitors. More info
Street's Sustainability Network — 6pm–7pm, management suite, Clarks Village, Street. Free monthly meeting open to residents. Contact Nina on 07564 289334.
Tuesday, 6 October
Wells Cathedral School Soloist Showcase — 7:30pm, St Mary's Church, Wedmore. Six soloists from the school's specialist music department. Adults £12, under-16s £6. Booking
Tom McRae – Live At The Tree House — 7pm, Cheese & Grain, Frome. Booking
Somerset Follies (talk by Jonathan Holt) — 7:30pm, Chilcompton Village Hall. Bygone Days local history talk. £5. More info
Wednesday, 7 October
The Dairy Show — from 8:30am, Bath & West Showground, Shepton Mallet. Cattle judging, trade stands and forums. Adults £22 advance or £26 on the gate, students £15, under-15s free, free parking. Booking
In Conversation with Ras Benji — 11am–12:15pm, Shoemakers Museum, Street. A talk on the exhibition and the history of Fairfield House. Check the museum for ticket details. Booking
Fun Dance Class — 5:30pm, Chewton Mendip Village Hall. £10 drop-in. More info
Tantalising Tulips Talk — 7pm, West Pennard Village Hall. West Pennard Gardening Club welcomes horticulturist Bella Given on planting and caring for tulips. £5.
Armed Forces Outreach Service — Mind, 57c High Street, Shepton Mallet. Outreach sessions offering support to forces families. More info
Thursday, 8 October
Sherlock Bones — 10am–4pm, Shoemakers Museum, Street. Hands-on forensic facial reconstruction workshop with forensic anthropologist Sherlock Bone. 30 places, £30 per person. Booking
Walk Towards Your Own Horizon — 2:30pm, Glastonbury Town Hall. Glastonbury Women's Friendship Group hosts Ursula Franklin on “Mission Penguin”, her project to photograph every penguin species. Call 01458 446643. More info
Monks, Maladies, and Medieval Medicine: Health and Hygiene at the Abbey — 7pm (doors 6:30pm), Abbey House, Glastonbury Abbey. Talk by Dr Mark Hutchinson. £6, 40 places. Booking
Friday, 9 October
Ozric Tentacles 'Harmonic Mind' Album Release Party — 7pm, The Assembly Rooms, Glastonbury. An Ozric Tentacles electronic set plus Temple of Ra. £22.22. Booking
Mendip Swing — 7:30pm, Bishop Sutton Village Hall. Ticketed via Valley Arts. Booking
Under Milk Wood — 7:30pm, Westbury-sub-Mendip Village Hall. Westbury Footlights perform the Dylan Thomas “Play for Voices”. Also Saturday 10 October. £10 from the village shop. More info
One Night in Nashville — 7pm, Cheese & Grain, Frome. Booking
Country & Western Evening — doors 6pm, music 7pm, The Victoria Club, Street. Free entry, dancing, and burgers and chips from McKiven's Kitchen. More info
Free Kitchen Garden Open Day — 10am–4pm, Asterion & Co., The Old Vicarage, Leigh-on-Mendip. Free, no booking. Garden tours and talks, heritage seeds, plants and refreshments. No on-site parking. More info
🎬 This Week at Wells Film Centre
Digger [15] — Mon–Thu 3pm and 7:30pm
Verity [15] — Mon–Thu 3pm and 7:30pm
Sense And Sensibility [U] — Mon 7pm, Tue 3pm, Wed 7pm, Thu 3pm
Pressure [12A] — Mon 3pm, Tue 7pm, Wed 3pm, Thu 7pm
Listings run to Thursday 8 October; Friday's screenings are published later in the week.
🌡️ Wells BA5 Weather — Week of 5 October
A cloudy, dry start to the week with possible morning fog on Monday and highs near 19°C. Patchy rain arrives on Tuesday, then Wednesday and Thursday turn fresher and breezy with sunny spells and the odd shower. Heavy rain is forecast for Friday, so keep a brolly handy for those evening plans.
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