A REMARKABLE DOCUMENT describing life in Bourne a hundred years ago has been uncovered by the family of a former church minister. It was written by his daughter before she died and presents an evocative picture of the town and its people and particularly of life during the early years of the 20th century.

In the summer of 1890, the Rev Thomas Hughes Parker arrived in Bourne to become minister of the Congregational Church in Eastgate [now the United Reformed Church] at a stipend of £110 a year and moved with his wife, Emma Hester Parker, into a house provided by the church at No 2 Springfield Villas, North Road. Five years later, Mrs Parker gave birth to a daughter, also Emma Hester, but sadly died three weeks later, most probably from puerperal fever, a condition known at the time as childbed fever. She was 29.

It was a traumatic time for the family and Mrs Parker was buried in the town cemetery on 4th July 1895 where a headstone marks her grave. Baby Emma, who became known to the family as Emmie, was cared for by her father’s sister, referred to as Auntie Maggie, until he was married for a second time to Miss Ethel Green Branston who was one of his congregation and a member of a well known Bourne family but the relationship with her stepmother was not good although it improved in later years. The family moved to other houses provided by the church until 1908 when Mr Parker was offered the pastorate of the New Chapel at Horwich, near Bolton, Lancashire, and the family moved north.

After schooling, Emma went Homerton College, Cambridge, for teacher training before marrying John Taylor, who worked in the weaving trade, and they had six children, four girls and two boys. Emma returned to Bourne several times, once on a day trip while on a seaside holiday to Hunstanton, Norfolk, after her father’s funeral in 1946, and again when she was invited to open a bazaar at the Congregational Church in Eastgate, a gesture in memory of her father’s time there.

In 1974, then aged 78, she decided to write down her memories of Bourne for the benefit of her children and she died at Bolton two years later, aged 80. The 60-page manuscript, neatly hand written on A4 lined paper, has been in the possession of family members ever since but unknown to some of them and earlier this year, her son Ken Taylor, then aged 89, was given a copy to read for the first time. He realised that it would be of interest to the people of Bourne and, through several intermediaries, it was passed to me. I have spent some time researching and editing the manuscript and my archive of old photographs has been particularly valuable in illustrating the Bourne that Emma knew and writes about with such love and affection.

An old photograph of the Congregational Church in Eastgate, for instance, also shows some of the familiar places mentioned, Queen’s Bridge, Hinson’s bread and sweet shop and Notley’s Mill, and perhaps one of the little girls wearing a pinafore and standing on the bank in the foreground of the picture may well be Emma because this picture was taken around 1905.

Photographs from the family album show Emma and her father in later life. Mr Parker remained as minister at Horwich for 15 years, retiring in March 1923 to West Bridgford, Nottinghamshire, where he died on 20th August 1946, aged 82, although Ethel survived him by 13 years and died on 10th February 1959, aged 83. They are buried beside each other in a double grave at the town cemetery in South Road, Bourne. Emma remained at Horwich where she died on 8th March 1976 and is buried in the graveyard adjoining New Chapel which contains a memorial plaque recording her life.

Her early years in Bourne between 1895 and 1908 are recorded in meticulous and loving detail and tell of its people and the places she knew, the houses where they lived in North Road, Eastgate and Coggles Causeway, the activities at the church where they worshipped and attendance at the Stamford House School in West Road where a fellow pupil was Raymond Mays who was to become an international racing driver and designer and founder of the BRM. Emma also tells of the joy of growing up and the dawn of adolescence, the trauma of childhood illnesses, a broken arm treated at the Butterfield Hospital, of having her tonsils removed in an operation at home on the dining room table performed by Dr John Galletly, senior, of school concerts, children’s games, magic lantern shows and firework displays with friends at the Red Hall, learning to play the piano and of gathering primroses and picnics in Bourne Wood.

There are also memories of a Bourne long gone when the streets were traffic free and the only activity on a Sunday morning was the sight of the great and the good walking to church while the afternoons for children were spent at Sunday School which was attended by hundreds of boys and girls. Emma also writes with some emotion about her father’s second marriage and her new mother, Ethel Branston, often feeling unloved, rejected and unwanted, but eventually reconciled with her stepmother who became devoted to her father in their later years.

I have printed out the finished memoirs in book form and a copy has been lodged in the reference section of the public library in South Street if anyone wishes to read it, providing a detailed and colourful account of life in Bourne a century ago.