Bourne Diary - May 1999
by
Rex Needle
Saturday 1st May 1999
The cuckoo arrived on Tuesday although I had feared that it might not put in an appearance at all this year. But late in the afternoon, I heard that distinctive cry from its song post on a branch of one of the scattered trees out there over the fen towards Dyke village and I paused in my gardening tasks and stood listening to that magical sound of spring. When we moved to this house overlooking the flat landscape on the very edge of Bourne sixteen years ago, our favourite migratory bird sang early and late most days. In fact, there were several of them and their song delighted the neighbourhood morning and evening for many weeks because the call of the male cuckoo makes this one of the best-known though least seen of our summer visitors. The date was 22nd April 1983.
Cuckoo Day is traditionally April 14th or 15th when we can expect to hear it in these islands for the first time although there is not any hard and fast rule but we in Lincolnshire are rarely so blessed and it is usually a week or two afterwards, often even later, that their characteristic call comes to us from across the countryside to remind us that they have arrived after their marathon flight from Africa where they have wintered in warmer climes. No sound is more eagerly awaited than the loud, ringing, repeated song because it signals the arrival of spring and although many people have heard the cuckoo, few people have ever seen one. They are quite large birds, well over twelve inches long, and they have a bad reputation because they do not build nests for themselves but lay their eggs in those of other birds and leave them to hatch them out and bring up the young. But despite this wayward conduct, they remain one of the best loved of our summer visitors.
Three years ago we were driving home across the fen one May day when we heard the cuckoo and then had a rare sighting as it perched on an overhead power cable in a field alongside Mill Drove singing its heart out but this was an unusual occurrence that stopped every passing car and soon there were a dozen vehicles parked along the roadside verge, their windows wound down as the occupants sat enjoying the sound of this harbinger of warm and pleasant summer days ahead.
Since then, the cuckoo has become an even more elusive bird because its numbers are being seriously reduced and its song at this time of the year can no longer be guaranteed as an annual delight. It has to face the shootists on the Mediterranean islands, particularly Malta, in Spain and in France, as it wings its way north on its annual flight to England, but once here it will find that its habitats are being denuded year by year because the intensification of agriculture and the urban sprawl continues at an alarming rate. Their decline is yet another example of man's uncaring attitude to the world around him and that if we continue on this destructive path, poisoning and killing all that was here before us, then nature will have its revenge because of the imbalance we have caused in pursuit of profit, greed and so-called sport. We should therefore beware. Small changes may have very large eventual manifestations. Could the flap of a butterfly's wings in Brazil set off a tornado in Texas?
Thieves broke into the Post Office in West Street last month and left the premises in total disarray. This larceny does not rate very highly in the Richter scale of burglary but was thought to be of sufficient gravity by the management, Post Office Counters, to close the place down for a day and a half while auditors were called in to work out exactly what had been stolen.
The result of this thoughtless action was that many elderly people were unable to collect their pensions and other entitlements while those in the town who had other business to transact were turned away. What a total fiasco! The matter has rightly been addressed by Bourne Town Council whose members are demanding an emergency service for customers if it ever happens again. The closure caused untold distress to dozens of pensioners who rely on the money they collect from the Post Office each week for their very existence and anyone with experience of the old and the vulnerable will know that changes to their routines can be extremely disturbing.
Post Office Counters have been condemned out of their own mouths. Their spokesman said: "We deal with more money in one day than all the banks and building societies do in a week." Surely this should have indicated how important this service is to Bourne and that arrangements for a continuance of the daily business ought to have been given a high priority. This was only a small break-in yet it is treated as a major catastrophe and the entire town was inconvenienced. I am old enough to remember the Second World War when nightly air raids put many shops, factories and businesses out of action but staff rallied to keep them going and the sign "Business as usual" became a badge of pride as well as a statement of fact on many bomb damaged premises where they were prepared to defy any misfortune thrown at them. Customers came first, whatever the drawbacks. The lesson is therefore clear: if the management of Post Office Counters cannot organise a continual service for a vital amenity such as this, then they should make way for someone who can.
An anonymous contributor to the Bourne Forum last week left nothing but a rude remark and refused to sign his name or give his email address. He objected to a perfectly reasoned argument about the retention of the Bourne Grammar School. Perhaps he should have been a pupil there and then he would have learned sufficient proficiency in the English language to express himself with greater clarity and acquired the necessary moral fibre to identify himself in combative discussion. There is no place on this platform for the yobs of cyberspace. I regarded this entry as graffiti, as alien here as the scrawlings on a lavatory wall, and I deleted it accordingly. The Forum is designed for intelligent people with ideas who are prepared to be identified. Faceless morons are unwelcome so please stay away.
Saturday 8th May 1999
As a young journalist I was warned by a wise old editor to beware of anyone blowing their own trumpet for the tune they were playing so loudly was invariably intended to hide some terrible truth. Another aphorism that has always been in my mind is that those in office should take particular care of what they say in public because their words will come back to haunt them if they are wrong and so it has proved with South Kesteven District Council.
Shortly before Christmas, every home in Bourne received the council's newspaper through their letter box, SKDC News, an eight-page colour publication produced at our expense, to tell us how wonderful this local authority is and what an efficient service it is providing because the banner headline proclaimed:
SKDC "Among the Best" in the country - official
Nowhere in this newspaper was a word of criticism about the council, its officers or its elected representatives, and I immediately detected the hand of the public relations advisor at work, not for the benefit of you and I who provide the money for this enterprise, but for those who reap its rewards through high salaries, holiday and pension entitlements, generous expenses and job security, or by membership of that exclusive little club that becoming a councillor bestows. This newspaper is the perfect example of back scratching at executive level.
We now learn that South Kesteven District Council is among the worst performing of the local authorities in England and a league table of its efforts on our behalf between 1997 and 1998 puts it in the nether regions at number 220 out of 260 district councils in the county.
These results come from a survey originated by the Audit Commission, the government's watchdog over the conduct of local authorities. The commission is an independent body established under the Local Government Finance Act of 1982 and its primary objectives are to improve economy, efficiency and effectiveness in local government directly through the audit process and also through value for money studies. The intention is to produce a snapshot of how well local councils are performing across the whole range of their services as part of the Citizen's Charter initiative, an attempt to make the public services more accountable to those they serve, and that means you and me, and the rationale is to enable councils to identify what they are doing wrong in order that they can put in right.
The information is thoroughly checked to ensure its accuracy but despite that, the council's Chief Executive Mr Chris Farmer has attacked the latest results as being "totally meaningless", but then he would say that, wouldn't he. But he also told the Stamford Mercury newspaper: "We are striving to improve our performance and will continue to do so." Well if that is so, then the headline in the last issue of his newspaper was to say the least, rather exaggerated.
This latest assessment of the council's performance comes at an opportune moment because we have been going to the polls in Bourne this week to elect new representatives but two of those councillors I spoke to on the hustings trail and anxiously trying to retain their seats knew nothing of this survey which puts their authority in such a poor light. That is a very strange admission when it is their voice in the council chamber that is responsible for all of the decisions made.
I therefore have a spot of advice for South Kesteven District Council. Scrap this newspaper. We now see it for what it is: worthless propaganda. I would imagine that most of the thousands of copies printed and distributed end up in the bin or at the bottom of the bird cage without even being read along with all of the other junk mail that regularly assails our letter boxes. Spend the money it cost, our money, on those things that will be of real benefit to the public you are there to serve and not on public relations fripperies designed solely to enhance the image of those in office. We want our councillors and council staff to distinguish themselves by deed and not by desire.
Twinning has burgeoned since the ending of the Second World War and has been the catalyst for the peoples of many nations to befriend others around the world and to become familiar with their way of life, their customs and their heritage. The object of this international arrangement has been to enable two towns in different countries, usually similar in some way, such as size or industrial make-up, to become formally associated by engaging in reciprocal cultural visits to ensure that their ties become closer as the years progress. Bourne came late to this arrangement and it was only ten years ago that links were established with Doudeville in France, more of a large village than a town, and situated about thirty miles inland from Dieppe in Normandy.
Around ninety people belong to the Bourne Twinning Association which is currently preparing to celebrate its tenth twinning anniversary with a trip across the English Channel for a long weekend at the end of this month. More than half of them will be going and they will be bearing gifts for their hosts to celebrate the occasion, a glass paperweight for each French family and for the civic collection at Doudeville, a magnificent rose bowl, all engraved by the Hanthorpe artist and glass engraver Terry Barnatt. The rose bowl is exceptionally beautiful and the engraved scenes include the Red Hall, the Abbey Church, Baldock's Mill and local wildlife including a deer and a pheasant, all in exquisite detail that must have taken Terry many hours of painstaking work. The highlight of the anniversary weekend will be a visit to see Claude Monet's garden at Giverny in Normandy, where the French impressionist painter who died in 1926 spent his last years as a recluse.
These activities are all the more commendable when you realise that the association is entirely independent and receives no public money and is responsible for its own fund raising with events throughout the year that not only come up with the required cash but also keep the members keen and enthusiastic about their Gallic friends. The English are reputed to have a reluctance to learn foreign languages and I wondered whether this might present a social obstacle during such visits but the association's secretary Betty James tells me that it is not a problem. "Far more of we English have a go at French than the other way around", she explained.
Vive l'entente cordial!Saturday 15th May 1999
The new supermarket being built in Exeter Street has now reached roof level and if work continues on schedule, the first customers are expected through the checkouts by mid-August. This project by Sainsbury's is the biggest town centre development since the Burghley Centre opened on the old cattle market site ten years ago and apart from drastically changing the street scene, it will also have a profound effect on the shopping habits of local people.
Two large supermarkets, Budgens and Rainbow, already serve the town, and both are sure to suffer a severe decline in trade. There is only so much money from a community that can be spent on groceries and although we will see sharp competition for custom from Sainsbury's in the opening weeks, it seems inevitable that one of the others will go to the wall and although I need not go into details, it is obvious which one that will be.
There will be another effect on the town and that is in the field of employment. Sainsbury's reckon that up to 150 new full and part-time jobs will be created at their 15,000 sq ft store and a recruitment office has been opened in West Street to fill the positions on offer, including shop floor trading staff, kiosk assistants, cash office and wages clerks. Staff already working at other retail outlets in Bourne, including Budgens and Rainbow, are among those eyeing the prospect of moving with a pay rise and will no doubt get preference because of their experience although the vacancies they create when leaving their old jobs will be the employment opportunities for others.
The new Sainsbury's then is having a major effect on Bourne in many ways but the most serious has not yet been addressed and that is the increased traffic flows in and around Exeter Street which has already become a bottleneck since the opening of the new Herward Medical Centre. Cars parked on the narrow roads around this area regularly cause an obstruction and the access to West Street from Exeter Street has become a nightmare at busy periods with vehicles queuing up for long periods at the town centre traffic lights.
Have not our councils learned the lesson from the totally inadequate access to Budgens supermarket where traffic problems are becoming so intense that we now have a real possibility of gridlock at peak times such as Thursday market days and Saturday mornings when Meadowgate becomes jammed with vehicles leaving and departing? Pedestrians are at risk on the pavements and motorists face the continual danger of collision as they try to negotiate a narrow road originally intended for the horse and cart yet the same mistake is now being perpetrated in Exeter Street.
This traffic problem should have been foreseen by the local authorities long before Sainsbury's were allowed to proceed. We may be getting a wider choice in food and drink, and perhaps even lower prices from increased competition between the retailers, but shoppers will pay for these advantages through frustrating delays on roads jammed with cars each time they come into Bourne town centre. This will happen by the autumn and so when drivers sit fuming at the wheel as these queues lengthen, they should ask themselves why these issues were not addressed when plans for the supermarket were first submitted.
I have good news to report in that the public-funded newspaper I reviled last week is no more. South Kesteven District Council News will not appear again to offend the susceptibilities of those who like to hear the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, at least not in its present form. I have this assurance from the council's new public relations department run by Fiona and Debbie. They tell me, at least Fiona does, that the newspaper no longer fits the modern image of the council and is therefore being ditched.
The future of this publication is under review and ideas are currently being tossed around for a new and more vital product that will appeal to the public. This is likely to materialise on our doormats in the early summer after weeks of agonising by Fiona and Debbie who, in PR speak, will be hoisting their various ideas up the flagpole and then unfurling them before those who really make the decisions in our name, the elected councillors. We wait therefore, with mounting anticipation, but there is no need for the girls to be shy. They must be on to a winner because nothing could be worse than the last one.
I wondered how many copies of the old SKDC News were printed in its final days and so I telephoned the council and asked Fiona. She had no idea but promised to find out and call me back. Oh, faithless one, how many times have I heard that in the past fifty years of my career in journalism and of course no call came. Perhaps Fiona and Debbie were too busy talking on their mobile phones or reading the latest column of Lucy Cavendish in The Sunday Telegraph. I therefore do not have this information to which we are entitled. If Fiona remembers to call with the details, I will let you know.
The pungent smell of garlic meets visitors as they enter Dole Wood, near Bourne, each spring. Large clumps of ramsons (Allium ursinum) abound and there are so many near the shaded entrance to the wood that they carpet the floor with white. Ramsons advertises itself by this overpowering smell of garlic, hence its common name of wild garlic, and there has been speculation that long ago it was used as well as, or in place of, onions for the table although cooking diminishes the smell. Country folk also say that bread made from wheat cut from the damp edges of fields very often had a not unpleasant taste of onions because the reaper had scythed up a fair proportion of ramsons and never bothered to clean them out. With their long shiny leaves and clusters of white star-like flowers, ramsons make a pleasant backdrop to the bluebells for which Dole Wood is famous.
Saturday 22nd May 1999
The outdoor swimming pool that has been a favourite leisure facility in Bourne for the past eighty years opened for the 1999 season at the weekend and its continuing success is a perfect example of how the will of the people can triumph over our faceless and often unthinking bureaucracy. In this case, it is also a testament to the endeavours of one local person, Mrs Lesley Patrick.
The pool is one of the few traditional outdoor swimming pools remaining in the United Kingdom. It dates back to 1138 and was originally a carp pond to provide fish for the monks at Bourne Abbey and was converted into public swimming baths by keen local swimmers after the Great War of 1914-18. Bourne United Charities took over the pool in 1932 and paid for its modernisation. During 1971, the town's Round Table organisation raised sufficient funds to finance a heating system and shortly afterwards, South Kesteven District Council took over the running of the pool as part of its leisure and community activities programme, a move that eventually proved to be most unwise.
In 1989, the new leisure centre with its own indoor heated swimming pool was opened by the council alongside the Robert Manning School and in their wisdom they decreed that the outdoor pool was redundant and should close because it would create too much competition for their own facility. It was at this point that Mrs Patrick took up the cudgel on behalf of the people of Bourne who were reluctant to lose their outdoor pool. A public meeting at the Corn Exchange attracted over 200 people. This was followed by a protest march through the town and a petition with 4,000 signatures of support and as a result a trust was formed with the objective of keeping and maintaining the pool for the benefit of the townspeople.
Since 1990, the Outdoor Pool Preservation Trust has been run by volunteers to ensure that the pool has not only survived but its facilities enhanced and now include a toddler pool, sand pit and play house. There are indoor and outdoor changing rooms with lockers and toilets, extended lawns with seating and picnic tables, attractive gardens with hanging baskets, a refreshment area, sweet and snack shop and barbecues for hire. All of this is available in a most pleasant part of the town, surrounded by the Abbey Lawn and mature trees, an old garden wall and a magnificent view of Bourne Abbey. Qualified lifeguards are on duty at all times while first aid and life saving equipment are kept continuously at the poolside.
Mrs Patrick is still chairman of the trust but her endeavours on behalf of the outdoor pool spurred her on to greater civic duty and despite having six children to bring up, she became a town councillor and served as Mayor of Bourne from 1994-95 but the pool is still close to her heart and every year she hopes for fine weather to ensure that her pet project continues on its successful path.
The pool is just under the official Olympic length of 50 metres and is heated to a pleasant 27-30 degrees C during its opening period from mid-May to early September. Volunteers have been working tirelessly for the past few weeks to redecorate the changing rooms and pump room and to clean out the pool that has been filled with 250,000 gallons of water. But even as the swimmers arrive, the trust is not idle and an application is in the pipeline for a grant from National Lottery funds for a major £100,000 refit. A covenant scheme is also in operation to help with the upkeep of facilities and to ensure that the pool is preserved as an amenity for the town in the future. It is hoped that the lottery money will be forthcoming to celebrate the millennium and will be spent on relining the pool, installing underwater lighting, new surfacing for the pool surrounds, better access for the disabled, a new ticket office and first aid room and upgraded changing rooms. But the traditional look of the pool that has been part of its charm over past decades will remain. Lesley Patrick says: "We do not want to spoil the special atmosphere of the pool but it is important that we keep up with the times to ensure that it remains one of the town's most treasured summer amenities."
May is the month when Mother Nature paints the hedgerows white with blossom and we can see it in profusion and sample its bitter sweet smell wherever we go. It is at its most prolific in the thickets and hedgerows that line the fields and meadows between Bourne and Stamford and along the route of old railway lines where the hawthorn trees have been left unattended since the services closed down. We see these hawthorn trees in such profusion because they were often planted as windbreaks and boundary hedges and they can reach a height of thirty feet and live to a great age and in addition to this utilitarian purpose, they provide us with this magnificent display of delicate white blossom every spring. Indeed, the word haw is also an old word for hedge, hence the association.
I remember when I was a boy that my mother would never allow May blossom into the house if ever we took a sprig home because there is so much superstition attached to it. The hawthorn is steeped in folklore and tradition and many country folk believe that the flowers still bear the smell of the Great Plague of London. Certainly, the hawthorn was once regarded as sacred, probably from a belief that it furnished the crown of thorns for Christ at the crucifixion and the device of a hawthorn bush was chosen by Henry VII, the first Tudor monarch, because a small crown from the helmet of Richard III was discovered hanging on a hawthorn tree after he had been defeated at the Battle of Bosworth Field in 1485, hence the saying: "Cleve to thy crown though it hangs on a bush."
Another piece of folklore from my childhood was that you should never smell the scent of the blossom because it would induce you to wet the bed and of course the hawthorn has a long tradition of medicinal uses, not least as a diuretic which may explain my mother's aversion to this most wonderful of flowers that many pass by unnoticed.
My advice at this time is to ignore all of these superstitions and enjoy the beautiful sight of May blossom cascading down the hedgerows as you walk out these spring days because its presence is but fleeting and will too soon be consigned to the memory for another year.
Saturday 29th May 1999
The ancient lockup at Deeping St James has been given a much-needed refurbishment over the past three years at a cost of almost £20,000. The money, which has come from South Kesteven District Council, local charities and various grants, is well spent because it will not only ensure the survival of this historic curiosity but also attract more visitors to the village that already has a goodly share of heritage sites.
The lockup, situated on the corner of Eastgate and Church Street, was originally the market cross, built of Barnack rag, a local limestone quarried from the small village near Stamford where the Romans obtained their supplies and which also provided stone for a succession of churches in the vicinity including Peterborough Cathedral. It was erected when Deeping St James held regular markets, probably during the reign of Edward III in the 14th century when such structures were introduced in the middle of most market places in England from where visiting monks could preach to the gathered crowd and to provide a constant reminder to all who did business there that God was present and overseeing all of their transactions. This was a focal point where crowds would gather and so it also became a popular place for the sale of poultry and produce, butter and cheese, hence the more familiar name of the butter cross.
But in 1819, the Deeping market cross was converted for use as the village round house or lock up because there was sufficient space within the base for its new use. The work was carried out by a local craftsman Tailby Johnson at a cost of nine shillings, which is 45p in today's decimal currency. The interior is five feet square and contains three stone alcoves for seats that were fitted with manacles and chains to secure felons who were ordered to be incarcerated there.
The Deeping lockup was one of many tiny houses of correction that began to appear throughout the country in the late 18th century, near to the church, on the village green or close to ale houses. They were purpose built single-cell prisons where drunks, vagrants and other petty offenders were locked up overnight before appearing before the magistrates next morning. They were sometimes known as guard houses or round houses but whatever their shape, they were all "blind" houses because they had no windows, only grilles high in the walls or set in the doors for ventilation as here at Deeping.
There were also many local names for them, often derogatory, including the blind house or cooler, terms that persist today in connection with over indulgence in alcohol. Blind drunk, for instance, was a description for any suitable candidate for the blind house and hotheads liable to cause trouble faced the prospect of a spell in the lockup where they could cool down and tales are still told in many villages that have a lockup of temporary inmates being supplied with liquor and pipes of tobacco by relatives. The responsibility for these tiny, temporary prisons was that of the parish constable whose duty it was to hold offenders overnight and until they were built, he was often obliged to take them into his own home for safe keeping, which often created a most awkward domestic situation.
The renovation scheme just completed required approval from the Department of the Environment because the lockup is a listed structure. It was badly needed, not least the removal of an unsightly electric lamp that defaced the top of the monument for so many years. The stonework has been cleaned and re-pointed, cobbled setts laid around it and floodlighting installed to provide illumination at night, a seat has been installed a and line of black metal bollards to protect the lockup from passing vehicles. Villagers have confessed that in the past, when visitors came to stay, they were ashamed to take them to see the lockup because of its dejected appearance. They now have reason to be proud of this monument that has been refurbished with such sympathy and care that it should last for another six hundred years.
One of the delights of living in the countryside is the privilege of hearing the dawn chorus. It is not a sound that appeals to everyone and we have had visitors who have asked us quite seriously how we can live with "the noise of those darned birds". But at this time of the year I feel happy to be alive when I awake at first light soon after 4 a m and hear the beginnings of this daily song to a new day from a variety of birds perched on their song posts around the house and trilling their hearts out at the pure joy of living.
In the sixteen years we have lived here in Bourne, on the very edge of the fen, the dawn chorus has become less voluble, fainter but still regular although with fewer participants and the difference is quite noticeable. We are now told that new research has identified a sharp decline in Britain's songbird population over the past 25 years, mostly due to changing farming methods. Figures published by the British Trust for Ornithology and analysed by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, reveal that the numbers of songbirds have fallen by around thirty million during that time and although losses have been noted across the countryside, the reduction has been the worst on farmland since the advent of intensive agricultural methods such as increased pesticide use, the removal of hedgerows, the switching of crops to varieties with less spillage of potential food for birds, and the faster ploughing of stubble.
Skylarks have been badly hit. Blackbirds too are down and the numbers of lapwings have almost halved. The corn bunting, song thrushes, yellowhammers, linnets, starlings, bullfinches and even our even popular house sparrows are reduced in population. The sounds of spring are becoming harder to hear in our countryside because of intensive farming and the only way forward is a reform of our agricultural policy and to give encouragement to our landowners to make their business friendly for wildlife otherwise our descendants will not thank us for the legacy of destruction we have left them.
A new feature has been added to the web site this week that will enable you send a virtual postcard to a friend anywhere in the world over the Internet. There is a choice of eight photographs taken in and around Bourne and I have endeavoured to make them as varied as possible to reflect the very essence of this small market town You may wish to see other views and I welcome your suggestions. In the meantime, enjoy this facility that was the idea and industry of my son Justin and it has been a joy to photograph the various scenes.
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