Bourne in Bloom

MONTHS OF HARD WORK have once again given Bourne the chance of a top award in the region’s prestigious competition to keep our towns and villages looking clean and smart.

The industrious efforts of the Bourne in Bloom committee headed by Ivan Fuller, the town centre co-ordinator, and Nelly Jacobs, clerk to Bourne Town Council, and its many volunteers, are a tangible sign of the enthusiasm to make the town an attractive place not only for those who live here but also for visitors.

The event is known as the East Midlands in Bloom competition, a community based project designed to encourage cleaner, smarter and more attractive town centres in the region. There are several sections and Bourne falls into Category B Towns, those with a population of between 6,000 and 12,000, based on the last electoral register. We have already been honoured three times in recent years with silver awards in 2006, our first entry for thirty years, and again in 2007, followed by a silver gilt in 2008, and there are high hopes that a coveted gold may eventually come our way.

The judges toured the town this week looking out for floral displays, attractive and colourful gardens and parks and so it is important for everyone to give special attention to those places under their control whether it is merely the lawn and herbaceous borders or a public open space. An indication of what is needed was given by one of the judges, Doug Stacey, when he spoke to the town council about the event earlier this year: “The competition originated in France and has been running for 45 years”, he said. “It leads to cleaner communities and encourages people to work together and take pride in their town.”

Awards for keeping the town clean and smart are not new and as well as these three recent successes, Bourne has received recognition for cleanliness long before the current competition caught up with us but these past honours tend to be forgotten as have the plaques that were awarded then.

In 1965, Bourne was judged to be the best kept small town in Kesteven (until the 1974 boundary changes, Lincolnshire was divided into three counties and we were in Kesteven) and the following February, Bourne Urban District Council which then ran our affairs, was presented with a metal plaque and trophy from the Council for the Preservation of Rural England for winning this competition in which 101 villages and towns took part.

An additional prize was a tree of their own choice and the council selected a flowering cherry that was planted by the chairman, Councillor John Grummitt, during a civic ceremony near the entrance to the Abbey Lawn where it still stands and the small plaque nearby amid a mass of undergrowth reminds us of this success and of those days when Bourne was a town of which we could be justly proud.

The winning plaque was presented during a meeting of Bourne Urban District Council on Tuesday 14th December 1965 by Mrs Philip Welby-Everard, representing the executive committee of the Council for the Preservation of Rural England, and who was also one of the competition judges. She congratulated the town on its success and said that it was not necessarily beauty for which they were looking. "The vital factor is tidiness and at least one place in our area loses every year because insufficient attention is paid to this", she said. "The competition is important because it makes people take a pride in their towns and it is directed at young people as much as anyone."

An award was won for a second time in 1978 when a similar trophy and metal plaque were presented by the CPRE and by this time, Bourne had its own town council and the commemorative tree planting was carried out in the War Memorial gardens by the mayor, Councillor John Smith, with the mayoress, his wife Judy, in attendance.

The current style of competition carries with it a greater involvement of the people and the chance to make our town centre streets attractive throughout the summer months, not just for the judges but also for the many visitors who arrive here with Bourne either as a destination or merely passing through. The work carried out is the perfect example of how a small market town should look at this time of the year and we should remember that if people like what they see then they will come again.

This year, floral displays in the town centre and along South Street are particularly attractive with a new feature being added to the patch of lawn between the Bourne Eau and the Darby and Joan Hall which until now has been occupied only by a public seat. The centrepiece is a 14 ft. Enterprise sailing dinghy that has been presented by Tony Everitt who is the quartermaster of the 1st Bourne Scout Group and teaches the lads sailing at the Whitewater Reservoir near Stamford. “The boat is about fifty years old and made of wood and so it is rather past its prime for our purposes”, he explained, “but it is perfect in its new role in a floral display.”

Tony, aged 65, who has been associated with the scout movement for almost half a century, arranged for the craft to be delivered to its new site and organised the soil while Year 7 pupils from the gardening club at the Robert Manning College brought along plants they had grown themselves. Other volunteers from the Bourne in Bloom committee were there to lend a hand while the future maintenance and watering will be undertaken by the Learning Disability Group. This project has not only added a colourful feature to the street scene but has also demonstrated the value of volunteers and groups working together for the good of the community which will also have long term effects because the boat is to remain in situ for the future and will be replanted with seasonal flowers throughout the year.

The result will be announced in September but with three silver awards, the committee is not complacent and there are high hopes that a coveted gold may eventually come our way, perhaps even this year.