Wiltshire in pictures: Steeds, scenery and sunrise
The memories of last weekend's dramatic summer solstice linger on, but life in Wiltshire keeps going.Racing returned to Salisbury this week, and a festival in Chalke is offering visitors the chance to travel back in time.Alongside these events, nature as - as ever - been putting on a show as the sunny days keep coming.
Time-travellers paradise: Chalke History Festival is on all this week, featuring more than 170 experts and numerous re-enactors. The first few days have school visits during the day.
Sublime solstice: While 25,000 went to Stonehenge for the summer solstice, a few thousand went to Avebury for the sunrise. However, the celebrations started very much in the dark and went past sunrise at the ancient site, where people gathered round with fire tricks and later on a sacred druid ceremony took place (below).
Job done: Local dignitaries, including local MP John Glen, could not resist recreating a certain well-known Beatles album cover when celebrating the £4.5 million revitalisation of Salisbury Railway Station forecourt.
Peaceful scenes: Stourhead near Warminster remains a popular place to visit - weather watcher Marciaspictures snapped this photo.
Wildflowers: Weather watcher CraigRich captured the ups and downs of a British summer near the village of West Dean.
Break in the clouds: Contributor Chully went out in the countryside near Calne to get this sunny moment.
Seeing stars in Trowbridge: The town's Civic Centre hosted more than 80 children and young people for the annual Star Awards – an event to honour the resilience, talent and triumphs of Wiltshire Council's children in care and care-experienced young people.
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Chalke Festival hosts jousting and historic re-enactments
While music fans are at Glastonbury Festival, history lovers are enjoying a very different Chalke History Festival in Broad Chalke, Wiltshire, is in full swing, demonstrating historic methods of jousting and hay 23-29 June, the festival is hosting talks about history from 175 experts, including the likes of Kevin McCloud, Al Murray, Michael Palin and Ian Hislop, alongside a programme of re-enactments from different time Holland, founder of festival, said: "I'm absolutely thrilled, we had lots of people here, the sun has been shining." Meanwhile, Dominic Sewell has been preparing for a jousting demonstration."Children are often captivated by knights and jousting and as there are no princesses or dragons here, we have to make do with fighting each other," Mr Sewell said. The horse armour is designed to protect horses from splinters or "anything else that might come their way," Mr Sewell said."As well as that we have a specialised helmet for jousting which is called a frog mouth helmet, it has a wide aperture where the eye slits are." Mr Holland built a traditional hay stack over the week and said he had "the time of his life" doing it."I'm very interested in the history of agriculture," he added.
BBC News
13 hours ago
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Wiltshire in pictures: Steeds, scenery and sunrise
The memories of last weekend's dramatic summer solstice linger on, but life in Wiltshire keeps returned to Salisbury this week, and a festival in Chalke is offering visitors the chance to travel back in these events, nature as - as ever - been putting on a show as the sunny days keep coming. Time-travellers paradise: Chalke History Festival is on all this week, featuring more than 170 experts and numerous re-enactors. The first few days have school visits during the day. Sublime solstice: While 25,000 went to Stonehenge for the summer solstice, a few thousand went to Avebury for the sunrise. However, the celebrations started very much in the dark and went past sunrise at the ancient site, where people gathered round with fire tricks and later on a sacred druid ceremony took place (below). Job done: Local dignitaries, including local MP John Glen, could not resist recreating a certain well-known Beatles album cover when celebrating the £4.5 million revitalisation of Salisbury Railway Station forecourt. Peaceful scenes: Stourhead near Warminster remains a popular place to visit - weather watcher Marciaspictures snapped this photo. Wildflowers: Weather watcher CraigRich captured the ups and downs of a British summer near the village of West Dean. Break in the clouds: Contributor Chully went out in the countryside near Calne to get this sunny moment. Seeing stars in Trowbridge: The town's Civic Centre hosted more than 80 children and young people for the annual Star Awards – an event to honour the resilience, talent and triumphs of Wiltshire Council's children in care and care-experienced young people.
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Jonathan Bryan obituary
Jonathan Bryan, who has died aged 19, following a short illness, was a poet, author and campaigner for the education of profoundly disabled children. Born with cerebral palsy, which severely restricted control of his limbs and the facial muscles necessary for speech, Jonathan confounded the limited expectations that so often accompanied the label of profound and multiple learning difficulties (PMLD). With the support of his family – his parents, Christopher Bryan, an Anglican vicar, and Chantal (nee Suffield Jones), and two younger sisters – as well as carers, communication partners and specialists, he learned to read, and then to write, using a spelling board and the movement of his eyes. By the age of nine he had, as he said, 'found his voice' and thereafter was able to join mainstream education, finishing in the sixth-form at Westonbirt school, not far from the family's home in Wiltshire. His first book, Eye Can Write, was published in 2018, when he was only 12, but revealed a mature capacity for empathy and love, and a lively and obviously mischievous personality. He recounted how at one point he spelled out 'm-y', at which point his helpers assumed the next character must be a space. However, leaving a pause for dramatic effect, he continued, 'r-i-a-d-s'. The book contains a number of his poems, including PMLD, a 23-line resigned expression of the low expectations many have of disabled people. But at the end is the invitation, 'Now read it again backwards'. When read in reverse, the lines become a fierce assertion of the human will to learn and to communicate, regardless of disability. This astonishing feat of composition was helped by Jonathan having a photographic memory. In 2018 he founded the charity Teach Us Too, to campaign for all children, of whatever level of physical ability, to be given a voice through learning to read and write. He continued to write poetry and publish works inspired by his strong Christian faith and hope, stoked by an experience, recounted in Eye Can Write, when, in a medically induced coma, he saw himself running through the fields of heaven in his promised renewed body. At the time of his death, he was in his first year of studying creative writing at Bath Spa University. He and I both attended Widcombe Baptist Church in the city. Jonathan received numerous awards, beginning with the Diana award, received from Princes William and Harry in 2017, involving an acceptance speech, delivered by his mother, to assembled dignitaries in the House of Lords. In 2022, he was named in the Disability Power 100. He is survived by his parents and his sisters, Susannah and Jemima.
