We ventured another coach tour, despite the mixed pleasures of the last one--this time led by Stephen Mottram, 
a tall, ambling, crook-tooth man with a sharp sense of humor and willingness to gossip while purportedly debunking the rumors about long-dead literary personalities. I must say first off that Peter O’Toole looks exactly like Lawrence, it is amazing, except that Lawrence was short (and I don‘t know if O‘Toole was).
Stephen had written a long and interesting handout for the tour, so for me there was more background than on some of the trips. We rode to Moreton,
Moreford in Hardy’s Wessex, and walked up to St. Nicholas Church. Here is John near an ivied cedar tree in the graveyard. 
The inside of the church was blown out by a WWII German bomb, and the new etched windows, all in a theme of light, are very interesting. My favorites were the Galaxy Window and this, The Days of Darkness. 
Notice the smoking candles.
The St. Nicholas pastor refused a Lawrence memorial in his graveyard, so he is buried in a cemetery a short walk away.
Here is the cemetery cat asleep in the bracken--
bowls of food and water are set out behind the headstone--somehow it seems like Lawrence asked for that tradition to be initiated, but it hardly seems possible he had such foresight, as he died in a motorcycle accident. I must have heard wrong. But he did threaten suicide occasionally, once memorably to the Prime Minister, if he were to be denied reinlistment in the RAF (he was allowed in). We saw Bovington Camp, still full of uniformed soldiers, and Clouds Hill, Lawrence’s cottage, and made a dramatic stop in the middle of the narrow tree-shaded lane where he (non-fatally) clipped the two boys on bicycles and flew to his own death.
Near Moreton (and running through Dorchester) is the River Frome.
Signs near the ford warn not to go upstream or downstream, as nesting swans will attack if disturbed. Boys were playing on a little island in the center of the stream. 
They are probably used to coach-loads of old people going by--a television crew was setting up a shooting at St. Nicholas when we arrived, and we chased them from the Lawrence gravesite too. They waited for quite a long time, giving us grumbly looks, but the Hardy Society is like a star in its course, and will not be moved from its appointed rounds.
Last on our tour was a visit to Egdon Heath,
partially-imaginary setting to Return of the Native. I wondered to my tour-mates what is the difference between a heath and a moor, as there seems to be one but no one is quite sure what it is. A heath is sandy and flat in the lowlands, while a moor is boggy and upland, seems to be the consensus. Heather grows on both. 
The little heath ponies are called “tree croppers” in Hardy’s writing, I think.
a tall, ambling, crook-tooth man with a sharp sense of humor and willingness to gossip while purportedly debunking the rumors about long-dead literary personalities. I must say first off that Peter O’Toole looks exactly like Lawrence, it is amazing, except that Lawrence was short (and I don‘t know if O‘Toole was).Stephen had written a long and interesting handout for the tour, so for me there was more background than on some of the trips. We rode to Moreton,
Moreford in Hardy’s Wessex, and walked up to St. Nicholas Church. Here is John near an ivied cedar tree in the graveyard. The inside of the church was blown out by a WWII German bomb, and the new etched windows, all in a theme of light, are very interesting. My favorites were the Galaxy Window and this, The Days of Darkness. Notice the smoking candles.The St. Nicholas pastor refused a Lawrence memorial in his graveyard, so he is buried in a cemetery a short walk away.
Here is the cemetery cat asleep in the bracken--bowls of food and water are set out behind the headstone--somehow it seems like Lawrence asked for that tradition to be initiated, but it hardly seems possible he had such foresight, as he died in a motorcycle accident. I must have heard wrong. But he did threaten suicide occasionally, once memorably to the Prime Minister, if he were to be denied reinlistment in the RAF (he was allowed in). We saw Bovington Camp, still full of uniformed soldiers, and Clouds Hill, Lawrence’s cottage, and made a dramatic stop in the middle of the narrow tree-shaded lane where he (non-fatally) clipped the two boys on bicycles and flew to his own death.Near Moreton (and running through Dorchester) is the River Frome.
Signs near the ford warn not to go upstream or downstream, as nesting swans will attack if disturbed. Boys were playing on a little island in the center of the stream. They are probably used to coach-loads of old people going by--a television crew was setting up a shooting at St. Nicholas when we arrived, and we chased them from the Lawrence gravesite too. They waited for quite a long time, giving us grumbly looks, but the Hardy Society is like a star in its course, and will not be moved from its appointed rounds.Last on our tour was a visit to Egdon Heath,
partially-imaginary setting to Return of the Native. I wondered to my tour-mates what is the difference between a heath and a moor, as there seems to be one but no one is quite sure what it is. A heath is sandy and flat in the lowlands, while a moor is boggy and upland, seems to be the consensus. Heather grows on both. The little heath ponies are called “tree croppers” in Hardy’s writing, I think.
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