The tricky matter of a south coast county's flag

Dorset is home to the steep, cobbled Gold Hill, made famous by an iconic 1970s Hovis bread commercial, poet and novelist Thomas Hardy, the Jurassic Coast and a 180ft (55m) hill figure depicting a nude male.

Nearly 20 years ago, the county's unique blend of local geography, Anglo-Saxon history, military heritage and religious tradition was recognised with its own flag.

But agreeing its design was no simple matter.

Graham Bartram, chief vexillologist of the Flag Institute, found himself in the midst of a frantic period for the county's flag, as BBC Radio Solent discovered.

"All I did was say, 'I think we need to legitimise the process and actually get a flag approved'," he said.

"I was invited to be a member of the panel that shortlisted the designs for the public vote.

"We went from having very few counties, such as Cornwall, having a flag to every English county having a flag in a fairly short period of time. In terms of how fast flags move, that was a grand prix."

Town crier Chris Brown was flying his own flag at the time, endeavouring to get the county council on board with a design by Stephen Coombes and David White, named after St Wite, the patron saint of Dorset.

It consists of a white cross with a red border on a golden background.

"I got 10 businesses in Wimborne to stump up £50 each so we were able to order the very first flags and distributed to those businesses," said Brown.

"That really got the ball rolling and then I got a call from the chairman of the Dorset County Council to come in and talk about this flag - it was sort of like a summons."

But it was not felt acceptable to simply foist a design upon Dorset, so, four designs were submitted to the council and put forward to a public vote.

Alongside the ultimate winner were designs comprising a golden circle on a horizontally split green and blue background, three horizontal stripes of green, gold and blue, and one featuring a yellow cross, bordered in black on a green background.

"They all have the sort of similar 'let's use green and yellow and, oh, blue for the sea'," said Brown, adding: "And if you look at the designs, you'll see that they actually subtly point out that Dorset is on the south coast because the sea's at the bottom."

But even a passing knowledge of Dorset suggests there is one landmark the county is globally recognised for.

"The elephant in the room was that we got several entries with pretty much the same design on them and it was a green flag with a white figure on it - the Cerne Abbas Giant," said Bartram.

"We then sat back and thought, 'wait a minute, if we include this in the shortlist we know what the British public are like, they're rascals, some group of students somewhere will set up a bot that will automatically vote for this design'.

"Then we thought, 'right, if this gets chosen as the flag of Dorset, what are the chances that the tea shops of Weymouth will actually be willing to fly this flag?'.

"We thought, 'maybe not'."

The giant was ultimately denied his chance to represent the only county in the South West without a flag at the time and the submission championed by Brown won more than half of the 3,868 votes cast.

"It's great," said Brown. "I love seeing it while it's flying and I love seeing different people using it in their publicity for Dorset.

"I was quite sure the provenance of our flag was correct in terms of the vexillology and that we could explain why these colours were there and what they symbolised and I thought we were going to win anyway."

Bartram added: "I think we were right in our psychological analysis of the British [public] but also I think it [a Cerne Abbas Giant flag] would have continued to embarrass quite a large proportion of the population."