Literary Connections
The Church and Old Farmhouse, Tolchurch featured in Hardy's Desperate Remedies. (Tolpuddle Church and Manor House)
Scanned image (2002) by Philip V. Allingham
Tolpuddle and Thomas Hardy
Tolpuddle is, of course, situated in the heart of Hardy’s Wessex surrounded by locations renamed in the Dorset backdrops to his novels. Such places as Weatherbury (Puddletown), Casterbridge (Dorchester), East Egdon (Affpuddle), Stickleford (Tincleton) are all nearby - to name but a few.
Tolpuddle was named Tolchurch in Hardy's fictional Wessex and featured in his first published novel, Desperate Remedies, published by William Tinsley in 1871.
In the novel, Tolchurch is "where Owen was supposed to have gone to superintend the restoration of the church. In Tolpuddle, a picturesque, old-world village standing on the river Pydel, there is an old church built of flints and stone belonging to the Early English and Perpendicular periods, and close to it is the farmhouse which served as the house in which Owen and Cytherea are supposed to have resided."
Brent Shore || Writer of Fiction
After more than thirty years as a teacher of Modern Languages, Brent Shore turned to creative writing once he decided to leave the classroom for good. Starting with a few short stories, his first extended piece was Bailing Out, a tale inspired by his new part-time job - driving a minibus of special needs children to their North Dorset school every day. His first full-length novel, Shillingstone Station, was self-published in 2015 and an expanded version of Bailing Out appeared a year later. Since then a run of titles has followed at a rate of almost one a year: two based in rural France (An English Impressionist and Inappropriate Behaviour) and a loose trilogy of historical novels set in Hyde, near Manchester, where he grew up: Blessèd are the Meek, Twenty-six Nil and Cheshire Cheese & Camembert cover one hundred years from Peterloo to the end of the Great War.
Each story is quite different. They cover a range of themes from trust and betrayal, deception and revenge, ambition and regret – often flavoured with a pinch of wry humour. His protagonists include the son of a secret agent, a self-important academic, the hostess of a French holiday cottage on the horns of a dilemma and a Chartist mill-worker convicted of rioting.
“I like to challenge myself with each new book,” says Brent. “So I have attempted to write a variety of genres: for example a spy thriller, a mystery, elements of romance, psychological drama, a ghost story, social history and so on. And in different styles, from various points of view.
“I would recommend self-publishing. It gives me editorial freedom and although it means I have to do all the marketing and promotion myself, up till now I have really enjoyed that side of it too.”
Brent and his family have lived in Tolpuddle since 1993. Three of his novels include a flavour of Dorset, yet each one of the seven so far has been written at his home in the village. Meanwhile there is plenty more information about him and his writing on his website: www.brentshore.co.uk