ROBERT Young is not as well known as his contemporary William Barnes - but literary fame has finally come to the Sturminster Newton tailor 100 years after his death.

Born in 1811, Robert lived most of his life in the market town in north Dorset. He was born well before the coming of the railway, and lived long enough to see the invention of powered flight.

An admirer of Barnes, his senior by 10 years and a friend of Thomas Hardy, who rented one of Young's houses in Sturminster Newton when he was starting out as a novelist, Robert wrote dialect poems, published under the pen-name of Rabin Hill', which were popular in his day.

But, at 97, he also decided to write in an exercise book his recollections of his early life, which have been retrieved from oblivion by William Barnes's biographer, Dr Alan Chedzoy of Weymouth.

Robert Young's Early Years, a new publication edited and introduced by Alan Chedzoy, has now been published by Dorset Record Society and is the first in a proposed new Occasional Papers series, published by the Dorset Natural History and Archaeological Society.

"He sat down and wrote his recollections and within three months of doing that, he died," said Alan. "He wrote them in about 1907, but he was obviously remembering things that go back to the 1820s. Therefore he provided a first hand account of life in a Dorset town from memory, and that's very unusual."

It is hoped that the exercise book, which was previously displayed in a glass case in the literary gallery at the Dorset County Museum, will be on show when Alan gives a talk on Early Years at the museum on Tuesday, September 30, at 7pm.

Of his transcription of the 45-page manuscript notebook, Alan said: "He was highly intelligent and very observant but he had no formal schooling. He did not really write in sentences and it was not divided into paragraphs and written partly in dialect. I had to see where the sentences began and ended and put them into paragraphs and alter some of the wording - the slight alterations I've put in Italics."

He added: "The writing is remarkably vigorous and it's full of wonderful pieces of life from the time. Some of them are funny and some of them are very harsh."

Can he give any examples? "Well, there was one occasion on which he witnessed a man being publicly flogged," he said. "He also witnessed at prize fight -bare-fist fighting - where the butcher's son was beaten almost to death."

"He hated cruelty," said Alan, "and he hated the fact that the calves were taken to the market usually at Poole - of course they were driven. But Sturminster Newton at that time was a violent and dirty place.

"There was a cider-making place and when they pressed the apples, they would throw the pomace out in a heap. There were pigs charging through the town and they loved the cider apple peelings and would become quite drunk."

Another story that Alan particularly likes featured a man called Billy Sweet who had a pet toad called Mariah.

"He was very fond of Mariah," said Alan. "He liked to go to the pub every night but he did not like to leave her.

"So he would put her in his pocket and take her to the pub and after two or three pints he would take her out of his pocket and put her on the table and sit there with the other men in the pub admiring her beautiful eyes'."

Despite the grime and brutality he witnessed, Robert Young believed that life for people was slowly getting better.

"He was a lovely man," said Alan, "sweet-natured, humane, kindly, cheerful and optimistic. One person who spoke to me about it was Andrew Motion - he said of the book, It's a lovely, lovely thing'."

n Robert Young's Early Years costs £4, plus £1 for UK postage, from Dorset Record Society, Dorset County Museum, High West Street, Dorchester, DT1 1XA. Call 01305 262735 or email secretary@dorsetcountymuseum.org A reception and talk by Alan Chedzoy will be held today at 7pm in Dorset County Museum.