Prince Charles tells a story that when he was learning to fly at RAF Cranwell in 1971, he often used to explore the highways and byways of Lincolnshire and one of the churches he hoped to see was at Pickworth but when he arrived he found it locked. I went there myself this week and had the same experience and I thought what a sad commentary it is on society today that so many of our churches must remain firmly closed to visitors.The church is usually the oldest building in the locality; it was built to last and was the only building on which generations of villagers lavished time and money and was for centuries the centre of village life, scene of baptisms, marriages and funerals, of harvest festivals, Easter celebrations and Christmas carols and in times past, the nave was frequently used as a communal village hall where people would gather to watch miracle or pastoral plays or participate in "church ales", revelries on Holy Days or holidays when no one worked and attendance at mass was obligatory.
But there has been a marked change in the importance of the church in the community during the 20th century and as the number of worshippers has declined, so has the importance of the building and church funds are now insufficient for their upkeep and the maintenance of the fabric is totally dependent on charity or some form of giving. But despite this decline in their status, they are now a target for vandals and thieves and so visitors invariably find our churches locked, especially those in remote locations such as that at Kirkby Underwood where the church of St Mary and All Saints stands on the very edge of the village and is reached only by a long path between tall hedgerows and it is this isolation that has made it a vulnerable target for intruders in recent years. The church has been repeatedly entered and burgled, intruders have been found camping in the porch and on one occasion a fire was started.
A wire mesh door has therefore been installed in the porch, as it has at Pickworth, and it is secured by a huge padlock and the only way visitors can enjoy this humble and unpretentious church is to make an appointment with the church warden who will unlock the door and accompany you on your visit. The many who enjoy the delights of our English countryside must suffer from the delinquency of the few.
It was such a situation that I had to explain this week to a lady from Melbourne, Australia, who is planning to visit the church in the spring. Her reasons for coming are to check on her ancestors who were connected with the village from 1700 to 1869 and held a number of appointments including church warden, dyke reeve, overseer of the poor and parish constable. Friends from London made the journey last year with the intention of taking photographs of the interior to send on but were unable to gain access because it was locked and so I explained to her the sorry state of affairs that exists about the security of our fine buildings such as the church at Kirkby Underwood.
There must be something in the air at Kirkby Underwood that makes it a very special place because I have had so many messages from around the world from people who have a real affection for this village. A most coincidental connection has also come to light as a result of these exchanges for I have discovered that two correspondents living on opposite sides of the globe have actually lived in the same house, No 6 Callans Lane.
Guy Meacham moved in with his parents in 1974. His father worked for the Forestry Commission in North Wales and when he was transferred to Kirkby Underwood they took over the house which was owned by the commission. They stayed there for a year until moving to Rippingale where they bought their own home. Guy, who subsequently attended Bourne Grammar School, now lives in the United States with his wife Jeanie and their two children and they run the Rippingale Nursery, a small wholesale nursery at Portland, Oregon, devoted to unusual hardy ornamental trees, shrubs and climbing vines.
Meanwhile, I received another message from John and Moira Ismay who live 3,000 feet up in the Blue Mountains near Lithgow in New South Wales, Australia. They told me that they had lived at Kirkby Underwood for ten years and that their younger son was born there. "We had our happiest times there", they wrote and added that their home was at No 6 Callans Lane, a house that was brand new when they moved there from Newcastle-on-Tyne.
The odds on such an eventuality must be extremely long, as they say in racing circles, but as I have found from forty years of journalism, the truth is so very often stranger than fiction.
My reservations about the planting a new 25-acre community wood on fenland to the east of the town to celebrate the millennium (23rd January 1999) have been echoed by the Bourne Area Group of the Lincolnshire Trust for Nature Conservation. Their chairman Dr David Sheppard says in his latest newsletter that he is disappointed about the £100,000 project and although it would be nice to have more trees, they should be planted adjacent to existing woodlands where plants and animals could thrive and not on abandoned arable land. "The idea of a community wood is familiar to the people of Bourne", he writes. "We already have one. It is called Bourne Woods. The proposed siting of the new wood is not even easily accessible to local people so it will not be a community wood in any real sense at all. There are better ways of spending £100,000 with even more benefit for wildlife and local people." Let us therefore hope that the Woodland Trust which is behind the scheme exercises some prudence before proceeding and considers carefully these expert observations rather than commit themselves to a new wood that could well become a petrified forest.
Saturday 13th February 1999
The wheels of officialdom grind exceedingly slow in this part of South Lincolnshire where even the simplest of problems seem to take aeons to debate and decide and there is no topic more likely to while away the hours of the committee in session than the future of our buildings. Indecision appears to be the common factor among our councillors and while they ponder on such matters behind closed doors, the buildings whose future lies in their hands start on the downward path to decay and dereliction.
The track record of our councillors in maintaining and enhancing the appearance of our town is not a good one. Ten years ago they sanctioned the demolition of historic properties on the east side of North Street in Bourne, notably a chemist's shop that included an original Victorian shop front, to make way for the Burghley Centre and although this modest shopping emporium has become an asset to the town, it is totally beyond comprehension why our councillors allowed it to be built mainly of yellow brick when it is apparent to all with eyes to see that this is predominantly a red brick town, with many buildings finished in the very materials that were manufactured locally and are now part of the heritage of Bourne.
Empty buildings are still causing concern in the town centre where some have been boarded up for several years, a perpetual eyesore for all who pass by and a monument to the inactivity of our councillors who are reluctant to use the enforcement powers they have under the current planning legislation to tidy up their appearance. Now two more buildings have joined the list, the Anglia Pharmacy building in North Street and further along, the shop premises formerly used by John Smith the Grocer, and unless these are occupied quickly and brought back into use, the defacement of our town by neglect will continue.
Buildings must be lived in or used to ensure that they do not become a blot on the street scene and a blight to the area because once they are boarded up, they tend to become a target for vandals and graffiti artists, intruders and even arsonists, and so continuity of occupation is an essential part of town planning. It is therefore a cause for some bewilderment that Wake House , which also occupies an important site in North Street, has been allowed to stand empty for over two years while South Kesteven District Council which owns it decides its future. Now after months of deliberation, the council has agreed to hand over the lease of this early 19th century building to volunteers who want to turn it into a community, arts and cultural centre.
What an admirable future this will be for the house where one of the town's famous sons was born but why should matters of such importance take so long to conclude? Two years of life for this building have been wasted because of the procrastination of those in power at South Kesteven District Council and how much longer will it be before the volunteers, who are champing at the bit to get started on this project, are allowed into the property? The council says that details of the lease and hand-over still have to be sorted out and that is legal-speak for more obfuscation, dawdling and dilly-dallying by the pen and paper pushers at the council offices in Grantham and so on behalf of those in Bourne who want to see this project succeed and an important old building brought back to life, I commend to the council the immortal words of the Duke of Edinburgh: I think it is about time they pulled their fingers out!
We should face up to the main problem that besets local affairs: we have too much government. Parish, district and county councils all have a say in our daily lives and although each has its own responsibilities, these overlap and so tasks and jobs are duplicated to the disadvantage of the electorate and many councillors have a seat on two, sometimes all three of the authorities. With the dawn of a new millennium it is time to take stock of this bureaucratic muddle and to weed out those aspects of officialdom that have become both unnecessary and expensive. We do not need three local councils. At least one should go, possibly two, and the saving in public spending would be immense.
The time has also come for this country to adopt the Continental system of an elected mayor with executive powers who is able and willing to slice through this mass of bureaucratic red tape and get things done. Our present system of electing the mayor is based on Buggins' turn, the practice of handing over the post of first citizen by rotation to the longest serving or most favoured member of the council rather than on merit, but our mayors appear to spend their entire time attending coffee mornings, lunches or dinners with this organisation or that, glad-handing the guests with the silver chain of office around their necks, sipping sherries and eating continuous meals, yet totally oblivious to the problems that surround them. Do they give a thought while wading their way through yet another plateful of roast beef and two veg about the mass of traffic piling up in the streets because of bad planning decisions, dog dirt on the pavements and in the parks, litter and graffiti in public places, the inexorable rise of local taxes, the absence of policemen on the beat, or the indifference of officialdom which is always ready to send you somewhere else because they cannot or will not help? Do these matters cross their minds when it comes to the cheese and the coffee or are they more preoccupied with the Camembert and Kenco?
It will be many years before we have an elected and salaried mayor to safeguard our interests in Bourne but the first step is being taken in the City of London where this office will soon be filled by public ballot and then it will only be a matter of time before others cities and towns follow suit. This radical change in our local government should signal to all of those currently in office that the old ways are about to go and it is now an opportune moment for a change of style and for them to start devoting more time on those matters that are of everyday concern to the people of this town instead of spending their official week on a continual round of three course meals with speeches to follow. Such a radical change would have ensured that Wake House did not stand empty and deteriorating for more than two years while councillors made up their minds about its future. The people want action not bread and circuses.
We went to Bourne Woods a few days back for one of our regular walks only to find a notice in red letters stuck up at the entrance announcing that they were closed that day because shooting was in progress. Visitors at the entrance who had also been disappointed by the closure asked us: "Who is doing the shooting and at what?" Saturday 20th February 1999
The last time I complained to the Forestry Commission about shooting in these woods I was told that culls of fallow deer were carried out on two or three days each year because the population in the area is so high that they killed off the young trees in new plantations. Bourne Woods, like many others in Britain, have survived for thousands of years without culling so why start now? If deer do cause damage, then that damage will be done whether the herds number a hundred or a mere fifty. No, the answer is that these deer are shot for profit because their carcasses are handed over to a game dealer who sells them for venison.
Those who cull will insist that their marksmen do it humanely but we can be sure of nothing in this world and certainly not when trying to hit a moving animal with a rifle shot. I have often seen pools of blood on woodland trails left by a large animal and this indicates that they have merely been wounded and on another occasion, a young stag broke cover and dashed across the path in front of me with one of its antlers dangling broken and loose. It was terrified and disorientated and it seemed obvious that the animal had either been hit by one of the gunmen or frightened by the noise of the firing.
The Forestry Commission has made no mention of organised shoots, which I have witnessed on several occasions when the quarry is rabbit and pheasant. We have even seen these gunmen in the woods on a Saturday afternoon when walkers were in the vicinity, a most frightening experience.
We once ignored these warning notices and watched a shooting party at work in Bourne Woods in mid-week. Two dozen or more men armed with shotguns arrived in lorries and then fanned out in line before moving forward in order to give maximum cover to the woodland ahead and therefore anything living in that area had little chance of escaping their attention. Most of these men were farmers or connected with the agricultural industry, which has already been responsible for so much devastation in our green and pleasant land.
Why does the Forestry Commission allow this shooting to continue? Pet owners are asked to keep dogs on a lead when walking in the woods and horse riding is banned yet gunmen are regularly allowed in to destroy wild animals. This is sheer hypocrisy.
Coincidentally, I have just been reading a leaflet issued by the Forestry Commission which has owned the woods since 1926 and is always ready to parade its green credentials. "Fallow deer are abundant in the wood and if lucky you may catch a glimpse of their shy cousin the muntjac", it said. "Be on the lookout for other dwellers of these woodlands such as foxes, squirrels, owls, snakes and woodpeckers. Not so common are the white letter hairstreak and white admiral butterflies, hazel dormouse, nightingale and badger that also live there."
It should also have said: beware of shooters because they regularly roam these woods killing off our wildlife. Do these gunmen not know of the changes that have been wrought on the English countryside in the last fifty years? Are they unaware of the flora and fauna that is now under threat? Have they not heard the siren calls of alarm that creatures such as the brown hare and the common partridge that were once so abundant are fast disappearing?
The leaflet also carries a warning to visitors asking them to remember the forest code by protecting trees, plants and wildlife. Leave things as you find them, take nothing away, it says. How does the Forestry Commission reconcile these guidelines to the public with a day's closure to enable gunmen hunt our wild animals? The Forestry Commission should practice what it preaches and leave these animals in peace. Hunting is a barbaric practice and totally unnecessary and allowing it in the woodlands it controls is tantamount to pulling the trigger on anything that moves.
I notified the Forestry Commission on Monday that because of the increasing public concern over the threat to wildlife in these woods, I intended writing on the subject and I asked them for a statement to explain their shooting policy but although almost a week has elapsed, they have not replied.
There is one feature of the woods that I find quite useful and appealing each time we walk there and that is the rustic seats that have been erected at various places along the woodland paths. Many carry small brass plates because they have been financed by the relatives of people who have died, people who had a deep affection for these woods, and these plates record their dedication.
The seat pictured above has been erected at the foot of the hill below the main entrance in memory of Tom Leneghan (1933-1996) and there are others at various vantage points around the woods. I imagine that they have been made by the foresters from local timber and they are simply but tastefully constructed, blending well with their surroundings and providing a place of rest for old codgers such as myself who need to stop for a breather when tackling some of the longer routes up to the lakes and beyond. There is one to the memory of my old friend John Robert Kettle (1930-1991) on top of the rise overlooking the lakes and another that I find quite touching alongside one of the main paths because it commemorates a familiar figure and his constant companion whom we often passed on our regular outings. It says: "Remembering Ted Armstrong and his dog Snoopy who walked daily in these woods he loved (1916-1990)."
These seats are an excellent amenity, providing an occasional place of rest for walkers as well as a memorial to those who cherished this woodland and although mindless yobs have defaced them with their graffiti and crude carvings, they are sturdy enough to survive such vandalism and they continually remind us that these woods give pleasure in perpetuity and any attempt to destroy their appeal must be resisted at all costs.
The makeshift buildings used for changing rooms by our football mad youngsters on the playing fields in Recreation Road have been one of the eyesores of this town for many years. They resemble at best the temporary structures that appear on building sites for the duration of a new development and at worst the accommodation provided at one of the prisoner of war camps that were sited in this area during the Second World War. Certainly, these shacks have no place in a modern society that is trying to educate its children in the sporting life and it is with some relief that we hear of their imminent removal. A new sports pavilion is to be built on the site at a cost of £70,000 and it will provide the best of facilities for 200 boys and girls aged from nine to fifteen from the eleven teams of Bourne Town Juniors Football Club, with four changing rooms, toilets and showers. If all goes to plan, building will start in April and these magnificent new facilities will be ready for use when the next soccer season opens in the autumn. Saturday 27th February 1999
What a far cry from my boyhood sixty years ago when our playing area was any available piece of waste ground and changing for a kick-about was unnecessary because the only clothes we had were those we stood up in. Goalposts were a couple of jackets and pullovers dumped at an appropriate interval, the toilet was behind the nearest hedge and hot baths were unknown at home let alone showers on the edge of the pitch. We would have given ten years of pocket money for a proper pitch to play on, a sporting strip and a place to change and wash off the sweat from a spell of hard tackling.
The new sports pavilion is a joint project between the town and district councils and Bourne Town Juniors and the adults involved with the club are a dedicated crowd and are busy fund-raising for the £10,000 they have promised towards the final bill. It is to be hoped that the young people on whom they have pinned their faith will not let them down.
In recent years we have watched the defilement and eventual destruction of the changing rooms on the far playing field behind the Robert Manning School. We walk this way regularly and last year saw the results of these buildings being vandalised, at first defaced and then ripped apart until the remnants of this facility were scattered around the field and in the hedgerow alongside the old railway track, a stark testimony to the scant regard that some young people have for community property because these facilities were there for the benefit of pupils at play but all that is left are foundation marks in the ground to remind us that not all of our youth is deserving of such benefits.
It is strange that high wire fences should now guard the perimeter edge of the school premises because it is difficult to determine which side the vandals are on, the outside or the inside.
It is with some relief that the planning application submitted to South Kesteven District Council for a new petrol filling station on the site of North's Garden Centre in Burghley Street has been thrown out because it would be hard to find a more unsuitable place for such a development in Bourne. The streets in the vicinity are narrow and hardly suitable for two-way traffic and then there is the close proximity of the new Hereward Practice medical centre on the opposite corner with Sainsbury's new supermarket going up across the road. The scheme was roundly condemned by planning officials who pointed out that increased traffic flows at this point would cause serious congestion and that the fumes and noise generated would have an unacceptable impact on local residents, thirty-seven of whom had signed a petition of protest against the scheme. Fortunately councillors sitting on the planning committee took the right and obvious decision and rejected the application by nineteen votes to one although had common sense prevailed completely, then the vote against would have been unanimous.
Bourne councillors have endorsed the view that this land should be used for housing and that is plain for all to see. Here at last is a chance for our elected representatives to distinguish themselves for this is the perfect site for one and two bedroom flats and maisonettes for singles and young couples, people who want to live within easy reach of the town centre, the shops and other facilities. It is to the eternal shame of those landlords who own properties in the main streets of our town that the first and second floors of their premises are empty although this valuable space could be refurbished and used for living accommodation to revitalise our town centre. It becomes a lifeless place after the shops have closed but there are sufficient rooms standing vacant on those upper floors to provide small flats and bed sitters for young people and give it a new lease of life. There seems little likelihood of this happening and so here is a chance for our councillors to ensure that only housing of this type is built on the North's Garden Centre site.
The units could be built to a high standard but still within the financial reach of the single person making their first house purchase and as the district council has already given assistance to young couples buying starter homes in Bourne, there is no reason why a similar scheme should not be introduced for bachelor youngsters wanting to live here.
Since the proliferation of the car, we have lost sight of town centre living although its delights are still to be seen in the sunnier places on the holiday itinerary, in Spain and Portugal, in Italy and France, in Crete, Cyprus and Malta, where the streets of any town on a cool evening are a magnet for young people to promenade and show off their best clothes, to meet and to chat and to flirt and to sip drinks at kerbside cafes. Such scenes in Bourne may be some way off but an influx of permanent town centre residents would be a start and then perhaps this new found popularity with our urban environment might persuade our councillors to press for pedestrianised precincts in our town, particularly along North Street, a popular amenity as was demonstrated during the late night shopping celebrations in December.
The picture I have painted is already becoming a fact in parts of London and Manchester and other big cities and if our councillors have the foresight and the courage to grasp the nettle, Bourne could become a vibrant small town and an example to others of similar size and status, a place where young people would want to live and to work and be proud to do so.
Return to Monthly entries