A selection of items by Danny Howell.
Thursday 19th March 2026
Today, while out walking on the Southern Range Road (Battlesbury Spur) I met Huw Jessop with Simon. They have known each other since their schooldays in Cardiff. I took their photograph in the sunshine.
Simon (left) and Huw.
A few moments later, Huw’s wife Sarah and Simon’s wife came along, and I took their photograph as well.
Sarah (left) and Simon’s wife.
Thursday 19th March 2026
The third book in my Mortal Visible series of books featuring photographs of Warminster taken by myself is now available. The title is Exercise Care When Emerging. Published by Bedeguar Books. ISBN 978-1-872818-62-7. The book is hardback, measures 218mm x 218mm approx., and has 100 pages plus illustrated endpapers. It features 116 colour photographs of people, places and things in Warminster, taken between 2013 and 2025. Photographs have succinct captions and there is an index. Supplied brand new and shrink-wrapped.
The price is £20 per book. Free delivery locally (Warminster and surrounding villages). If you live further away I can post (postage and packing will be extra). The book will not be available in shops. Limited edition. Only available while stocks last – first come, first served. If you would like to purchase a copy or copies, please let me know – DM me on my Facebook page or email me dannyhowellnet@gmail.com Remember to include your home address or where you want your book(s) delivered to. Thank you.
Thursday 19th March 2026
It’s been glorious, weatherwise, in Warminster today. Someone has remarked this photo of mine, taken in the Lake Pleasure Grounds (Town Park) this afternoon, would make a teaser of a jigsaw?
Friday 13th March 2026
Hearts Of Fire is a film (musical drama) starring Bob Dylan, playing the part of a faded rock star called Billy Parker. The film also stars Rupert Everett.
IMDb describes the storyline as “A reclusive musician, once a huge rock star, takes a young female protegee. While on a tour she meets a younger, more popular rocker and switches her loyalties.”
Hearts Of Fire was announced in August 1986. The film was released in the UK on 9th October 1987 but only shown in cinemas for two weeks. It was later released on video cassette. The film was panned by the critics. Dylan never seemed too interested in it and later distanced himself from it.
Wikipedia states that the concert scenes in the film were shot at the Copps Coliseum in Hamilton, Ontario; Colston Hall in Bristol; and Camden, North London.
But people have told me some of the minor concert scenes were shot at the Athenaeum in Warminster, the Ath being privately booked for filming. And that students from Warminster School were among those invited to be the audience.
Can anyone confirm this? Were you working at the Ath at the time? Were you a student at Warminster School and in the audience? Is there any reference in the Athenaeum Archives?
Thursday 12th March 2026
While out on an afternoon stroll with a friend the other day, we stumbled across an iron object hidden among the ivy beneath our feet in Primrose Wood (see photo above). It is about 15 inches across and resembles a lid. Whatever it was meant for or part of, someone went to the trouble of adding a decoration of leaves and berries to the ironwork. Has anyone ever seen one of these before? Does anyone know what it was used for?
Tuesday 24th February 2026
I paid £3 for a book that is at least 125 years old, at the British Red Cross charity shop, Three Horseshoes Walk, Warminster, this morning.
Titled Our Own Country, Descriptive, Historical, Pictorial, it is one of a six-volume set of books published by Cassell, Petter, Galpin & Co., during the 1880s and 1890s. The writers of the illustrated articles in these books are not credited.
The volume I have acquired begins with an article about Salisbury Plain and Stonehenge. The first sentence of this article reads: “It is not unfitting that a book in which it is proposed to describe the most interesting and important sites of Great Britain should, in its opening pages, deal with Salisbury Plain.”
Here is an extract from the article, referring to the landscape of Salisbury Plain:
A century ago there was little touch of cultivation about Salisbury Plain. Sheep in the summer, and flock of bustards in the winter, were, in Drayton’s words, the “burgesses of the heath;” and a journey across it, even in fine weather, was not undertaken without some risk of losing the way.*
This condition of things has entirely changed. Good and broadly-marked roads traverse the plain in all directions, whilst corn-fields and tilled land have greatly encroached on it, stealing upwards from the surrounding valleys. But the general outline of Salisbury Plain is still sufficiently marked. It is the southern division of the two great divisions of the chalk in Wiltshire.
The northern division forms what is known as the Marlborough Downs, and its escarpments are far bolder than those of Salisbury Plain, from which it is divided by the Vale of Pewsey, which extends across the centre of the county, and is scooped out of the upper-greensand.
The southern chalk district extends from Salisbury in a line bearing north-east, by Amesbury and Sidbury to Easton Hill, where there is a wide view of the Pewsey valley, with the opposite heights of Marlborough, scarred by the Wansdyke. Thence the chalk ranges westward, with a little inclination to the south, as far as Westbury and Warminster; and so returns, in a line bearing south-east, by Heytesbury to Salisbury. All along this border the bolder heights are marked by intrenchments – Battlesbury, Scratchbury, Chisenbury – which overlook the richer country, and served as watch-towers for the ancient people of the plain.
In shape, this plain is an irregular triangle, whilst the length of each side may be roughly estimated at about twenty miles. Of its general character we shall better judge in passing over it toward Stonehenge. The chalk mass of the plain is pierced by the Bourne brook, by the Wily [Wylye], the Nadder, and the southern Avon, all of which meet in the neighbourhood of Salisbury. These river-valleys, in their quiet beauty, their hamlets nestled among trees, their venerable mansions, their broad meadows, through which the stream flows onward between tufts of purple loose-strife and great masses of sword-flag, contrast pleasantly with the open heights of the downs.
It is held, however, that the influence of the chalk is felt throughout Southern Wiltshire, and that the sharp division of the county is between the chalk district generally and that north of the Marlborough Downs, where the land for the most part lies on Oxford clay. Wiltshire is thus divided between “chalk” and “cheese” – for the northern district is a great dairy ground.
*Thus Mr. Pepys and his party, journeying from Salisbury toward Somersetshire, lost their way on the plain, and were obliged to spend the night in a strange town [Chitterne].
Friday 20th February 2026
They’ve been repeating the television series Upstairs Downstairs on television. The series was made in the 1970s and portrays the lives of the Bellamy family and their servants.
One of the episodes I saw recently was The Beastly Hun (Series 4, Episode 3). Written by Jeremy Paul, it is set in May 1915, and in London there is much anti-German feeling and talk of spies.
Edward Barnes, the footman, has enlisted and is away serving in the army.
In one scene, his wife Daisy (played by Jacqueline Tong) goes to a local bakery to buy bread from Albert Schoenfeld (played by Gertan Klauber).
As Daisy goes to leave the shop, Mr. Schoenfeld asks her: “How is Edward getting on?” Daisy, having reached the door of the shop, replies: “Oh, alright. I get nice cheerful letters.” Mr. Schoenfield says: “From the Front, eh?” Daisy answers: “No, Codford St. Mary, his camp on Salisbury Plain.” Mr. Schoenfeld remarks: “Tell him to stay there.” Daisy responds: “I will. Bye!”
Saturday 10th January 2026
I chatted with a lady, in her eighties, at the bus shelter on the northern side of the Market Place, Warminster, this morning. She told me she lives on her own. I asked how she kept herself busy. She said she didn’t watch much television, especially in the evenings, as it was “a load of tripe.” She said she kept her mind active by doing crosswords, cryptic ones, although she said she doesn’t always complete them. She said she also writes philosophical things but not for anyone else to read. She said she writes them as a release and then later she burns them.
Friday 2nd January 2026
I saw a big flock (or should that be a deceit) of lapwings at Bishopstrow Farm late afternoon today. I loved watching them in their erratic bouts of flight over Bridge Park, Dairy Field and the Gully Field, turning and tumbling, their white parts glinting in the winter sunshine. A wonderful sight.
Tuesday 26th November 2025
As I walked from Bishopstrow to Boreham during the early part of this afternoon I saw a white egret flying over the course of the River Wylye at Hounds Mead.
Later that afternoon when I called in at Bishopstrow Mill to see Paul and Julia Gibson, Julia told me how that morning she had been for coffee with Hannah Anderson at Waterways, Watery Lane, Bishopstrow, and on the water by Waterways were an egret (probably the same one), two herons and two swans.
