HAVING been a medical and scientific desk editor in the publishing industry Bob Pearson found his latest venture a bit of light relief.

He’s taken time out of his busy retirement to write a book on his adopted home town of Beaminster called Bygone Beaminster From the Mists of Time to Modern Memories.

It’s been a labour of love and not one that could be repeated, he says.

He said: “The main reason for doing this was to capture the memories of the generation between the two World Wars, when Beaminster was truly rural.

“I managed it just in time, as most of the contributors have now passed away.

“Thus about half the book is a folk-history of the town.

“I suddenly realised during the project that the book would be unique because it is now impossible to interview that generation without the help of a medium.”

At one time Mr Pearson, who is also known as an award-winning table tennis coach, an author of books on animals and birds and editor of the Beaminster Society magazine where many of the interviews first appeared.

He added: “After a gap of about ten years, I thought it was time for a wider and completely different readership.

“The magazine became popular but only reached about 300 or some members of the Beaminster Society.”

The book is written in parts - the first is about the history of Beaminster, including some of its more famous sons and daughters, the second about a selection of the industrial skills and trades that flourished from the 18th century to modern times and part three is about the contributions made by Beaminster residents at home and abroad during World War II.

The last section are the recollections written by inhabitants, either born and bred or who moved to the town as children, who give firsthand accounts of the recent past.

Mr Pearson added: “In this book the reader is privileged to enter the minds and memories of the hard working rural people of this beautiful town during the last century, the likes of whom will never be seen again nor their soft and pleasing Dorset burr heard in the local shops and pubs.”

So if your taste is for history you might like to know about the brothers who settled in New England in the 1600s and who were caught up in the Salem witch trials or the bishop Thomas Spratt, known as a poet and fellow of the Royal Society who navigated public life under numerous regimes in the late 1600s.

There’s also the famous explorer Samuel Hearne and the bard of Beaminster William Swatridge.

Stories of industries that flourished in the town include clockmaking, cheesemaking. a milk factory, Abbot Brown’s known locally as the plastics factory (there’s a great story about a father stopping the workers’ coach and demanding his false teeth back from his son).

And how many people know that Douglas Gibbs and his wife made Ashenden smocks, worn by and young Lady Diana Spencer and contestants on the Bruce Forsyth’s Generation Game.

Then there are the stories about guerilla warfare in the woods, land army girls, school and farming life, firefighting, and the Mapperton coffin.

The book is for sale, priced £11.99 at Cilla and Camilla in Bridport and Beaminster or direct from Mr Pearson on 01308 862231