Bourne Diary - July 1999
by
Rex Needle
Saturday 3rd July 1999
The English cottage garden has long held a place of affection in our hearts. It rolls back the centuries, its borders packed with flower species hallowed by time and with scented shrubs such as rosemary and lavender flanking a path leading to a bower draped with old fashioned roses. Honeysuckle and perhaps a close-pruned pear tree hug the cottage walls and clematis clambers among the ancient plum and apple trees. Beyond the vegetable patch stands a hive for bees whose droning is the voice of summer.
This idyllic picture may not coincide exactly with the garden of Mr Dick Sellars but his is no less a small corner of England that can be called heaven because it is his creation and anyone who creates a garden has reserved for himself a small slice of paradise. When he moved to his cottage home at the village of Dyke in 1984, the land around it was derelict and after fifteen years of hard work, he has turned it into a showpiece admired by thousands. It was open to the public last weekend and will be again later in the year for Dick has learned that you do not need to own a stately home to allow the visitors in to admire your industry and ingenuity.
The attractive and well-stocked cottage garden owes its origins to the Dissolution of the Monasteries by Henry VIII in the early 16th century when the villagers' supplies of medicinal herbs grown within the cloisters came to an end. Village gardens then became not only larders for vegetables and fruit but also medicine chests and spice boxes. Herbs were needed to flavour meat to see them through the winter and dried aromatic plants such as lavender were mingled with rushes to cover the floors. Everything in the garden was useful as well as lovely and many of the plants associated with the old way of life remain favourites today. The motto of the cottage dwellers was: "Nothing wasted".
By the mid-20th century, the more traditional aspects of the cottage garden were translated by the new villagers, retired, commuting and week-ending, into masterpieces such as that which can be seen at Read's Cottage, Number 32, Main Street, Dyke. Dick, a retired market gardener, is now 79, but still spends every available minute in his beloved garden which is sheer delight and the care he lavishes on it is apparent. His home was originally a pair of cottages built around 1850 and since he bought them they have been transformed into a comfortable home surrounded by this astonishing garden. It is no more than 100 ft by 50 ft but it is full of shaded walks, shrubs, trees and flowers, and a surprise around every turn. When he started work on the neglected plot he dug down eighteen inches to turn the land and then used stone to make his features although he left the concrete paths which would have been too much trouble to take out. He therefore decorated these paths with various building materials to make them look attractive and then brought in hundreds of containers of all shapes and sizes which enable him ring the changes by moving individual plants from place to place to suit his mood and their needs. "Container growing is an art", he says. "You have got to understand every plant but the beauty is that you can rearrange the garden whenever you like."
Dick is a founder member of the South Lincolnshire Garden Society and vice-president of the Bourne Garden Club whose entries have become an annual event at the prestigious Chelsea Flower Show since 1988. His life is spent in his garden and with the help of his wife Margery he opens it up several times a year when visitors pay £1 each for the privilege of looking round and perhaps picking up a few tips and buying the odd plant while the proceeds go to charity. Anyone who has ever turned a sod or clipped a hedge will know that gardening is hard work, even though it may be a labour of love. But with Dick Sellars, this garden has become his hobby, his obsession, perhaps his master, but his creation is a beautiful one and a testament to the unique character of cottage gardens that lives on in England today. Go and see it if you can. Your visit will be well worthwhile.
Perhaps we are becoming too obsessed with the millennium. After all, it is only an arbitrary and man-made date and Lady Bountiful does not know what year it is. It is therefore of no surprise that two millennium projects for Bourne have been scrapped, as will many others in this country before we eventually ring in the year 2,000. Our expectations invariably exceed what is possible and we should not therefore be surprised when they turn out to be unattainable.
The first is the new community centre planned for the youth club site in Queen's Road where the existing premises are sixty years old. The scheme was most commendable, if merely a pipe dream, a large building with a main hall complete with drama facilities, a wine bar, coffee shop, two meeting rooms, an information technology department and a sound studio, a complex designed for the community but with the emphasis on youth and providing a wide range of resources for use well into the next century. And the cost? A mere £1.2 million and although money was expected from various sources, the local authorities and a grant from the National Lottery fund, local contributions that were vital if the project were to succeed were not forthcoming and so it has been abandoned. "The idea was brilliant but our hopes were dashed by lack lustre local support", explained the Millennium Committee chairman Councillor Don Fisher.
Then we come to the Millennium Wood, a misguided attempt by the Woodland Trust to establish a new area of woodland in an inaccessible area on the eastern edge of a town that already has 400 acres of ancient forest at its disposal. The £100,000 plan was to plant a naturalised woodland of around 11,000 trees, one for each person in the town, along a strip of fenland on the banked sides of the Bourne Eau and accessed by car from Milking Nook Drove as part of their "Woods on your Doorstep" project and although large grants had been promised by various organisations to help foot the bill, £12,000 was needed to be raised locally and contributors would be involved in the design, planting and naming of the new wood. But only £4,000 has been promised locally and there have also been legal problems over the purchase of the 25-acre site and so that scheme too has now been dropped.
The community centre and the new woodland were doomed to failure from the start. Both projects were well intentioned but neither has been given adequate thought. We should not have progress on a whim, however worthy it may seem at the time. Enthusiasm is insufficient fuel for projects of this magnitude. Unless there is enough interest and more importantly, solid financial support and preliminary research for such undertakings, they will founder. There was an old saying that love makes the world go round but today our globe revolves on frequent dollops of hard cash. Money has become the great leveller.
Saturday 10th July 1999
There is no apparent sign of a full and frank public consultation over the new road system now under construction in and around Bourne town centre. It is being built to cope with increased traffic flows that will be created when Sainsbury's supermarket opens in Exeter Street next month but some of our local councillors are disturbed to discover that even the district and parish councils may not have been fully consulted about the final plans.
Councillor Don Fisher, who was the town mayor last year, claims that pedestrian refuges being installed in North Road outside the Esso petrol filling station are late additions to the original scheme and could cause serious safety hazards. "I am greatly concerned about the potential traffic congestion they will create and I have asked the county council to cease work immediately", he said. They have not done so.
His is but one voice among many in Bourne protesting about the way these road alterations are being handled and a group of 140 residents has called on our Member of Parliament Mr Quentin Davies to intervene and investigate the issue which is causing more dissent in the town than any similar development of recent years.
We must therefore ask ourselves whether our local authorities, Lincolnshire County Council as the highways authority in particular, still adhere to the democratic process and proceed only on those decisions taken by the appropriate executive committees or the full council and if not, there may be a case to answer before the Local Government Ombudsman whose job it is to monitor faults and failures by those councils which operate against the public interest.
Meanwhile, the road works continue, creating the most dangerous traffic conditions around the area, particularly in Harrington Street where cars are being allowed to park on both sides of the road within a few feet of the busy junction with North Street which is crammed with contractors' vehicles, heavy plant and equipment and temporary traffic lights, so causing long queues of vehicles, especially at busy periods. Whatever the outcome of the current controversy over this scheme, Lincolnshire County Council must shoulder the blame for the traffic chaos they have created in its execution for it would seem that haste rather than caution has been their watchword and we await the result with much trepidation.
Poppies are my favourite wild flower and at this time of the year I scour the countryside just to look at them for their presence paints the countryside a brilliant hue. They are so fragile and so colourful and yet our farmers regard them as a deadly enemy. Their scarlet petals against a background of green corn is one of the most striking and memorable sights the countryside has to offer at this time of the year. They have all but vanished from the wheat field although they still cling to the field's edge where they have been missed by the selective herbicide sprays and we see them on the roadside verges and on waste ground and surprisingly they still appear in crops of oil seed and linseed.
Poppies have long been the scourge of farmers growing cereals and they are kept under control annually by the liberal use of agro-chemicals but poppy seeds are difficult to destroy and they lie dormant for decades and germinate when conditions are more favourable. They have become a common sight where the earth has been disturbed and they proliferated after the digging of trenches in the fields of Flanders during the First World War which is why the poppy has become a symbol of the conflict and worn on the anniversary of the armistice every November in remembrance of those who died. We now see them where the soil has been turned alongside new road and river developments and on building sites where they bring a glorious splash of colour to a dull and drab location although their life span there is invariably a short one.
The common poppy (Papavar rhoeas) is an annual with four overlapping petals and nodding buds and can be seen in flower from June until August. They were once thought to cause thunderstorms but they were also used to treat headaches and although slightly poisonous with a peculiar and heavy odour, the red poppy does not, as is popularly thought, contain the narcotic of the opium poppy (Papaver somniferum). When the petals have withered and fallen, tiny holes open up just below the flat top of the cup-shaped poppy head and when the breeze blows and shakes the poppy head, seeds are sprinkled out like pepper from a pepper pot and they land on the soil ready to germinate another year. The petals can be collected to make a syrup and in some parts of Europe the poppy is cultivated for the sake of its seeds which are used in cakes and for the production of an oil which is used as a substitute for olive oil. Attempts have also been made to utilise the brilliant red of the petals as a dye but experiments have failed to capture the colour for such use.
The fields were full of poppies during the thirties and forties and perhaps these potent images of childhood are one of the reasons why I pursue them today, seeking them out for a nostalgic glimpse to remind me of the countryside of yesteryear when wild flowers were everywhere and if you missed seeing one species one year, you could be sure they would be back the next. Not so today when most of our flora is under threat but the poppy retreats stubbornly. My affection for this flower defies reason, but then so do many of the memories that we cling to as the years pass, and this must be why I risked mishap in pursuit of my quarry while driving on a back road at Newstead near Stamford a few days ago when I spotted a sea of poppies sharing a field with oil seed and I had to stop and take a photograph.
It meant climbing to the top of a 25ft high grain silo to get the vest view but the farmer who owned the land gave his permission, even though he was rather bemused that this old codger should want to take a picture of a weed that was colonising his crop although he did grudgingly admit that they were very colourful indeed. It was a precarious ascent because the ladder construction changed at roof level from the ordinary step variety to one with grooves but there was a short side rail to compensate and when I reached the top the farmer stood aside on the small platform to give me room to take my pictures. The descent was much more difficult but I took my time and reached the ground to find my wife greatly relieved that I had made it down safely but remonstrating with me for making the climb in the first place. It was worth it but that is enough poppies for this year.
Saturday 17th July 1999
The Bourne web site was launched last year as an alternative to the armchair because I have been busy all my life and I refuse to allow old age put an end to my industry and enthusiasm but the results continue to surprise me. Messages of thanks arrive daily for putting our town on the Internet and although this happened less than a year ago, in that time we have acquired readers from around the world and many of them have become Friends of Bourne, anxious to keep in touch with the district and the people who live here.
Last week, I called in at Bourne Abbey and was surprised to discover that our web site has now become an educational tool for our children because we found a large wall illustration on display, the work of pupils and staff at the Westfield County Primary School in Bourne to celebrate the forthcoming millennium. Many old buildings were featured in the panoramic study that stretched along one side of the north aisle, about three feet high and several feet long, and each of the buildings was accompanied by a panel of text detailing its history. The wording of several of these descriptions looked familiar and then my wife spotted a notice at the side saying that the entire work had been based on pictures of Bourne downloaded from the Internet and I suddenly realised that it was our web site that had been the inspiration for the montage.
Joanne Thurkle, the teacher responsible for co-ordinating the Abbey Church display, tells me that she tried to keep the subject closely related to topics covered in the current school curriculum and so she chose the theme of Bourne over the last millennium as all of the junior department had studied the history of the town in the past year. My pictures were then downloaded from the Bourne web site by the school's IT co-ordinator Nigel Morrison, sketched out on paper with the help of two colleagues and then painted by a team of children aged from seven to ten. They included the Abbey Church, the Red Hall, the old railway station, Baldock's Mill and other familiar landmarks from our town and the result was put on public display in Bourne Abbey for two weeks.
The custom of using a continuous illustration such as this to tell a story of a time or place in history is an ancient one and one of the best known examples is the Bayeux Tapestry, the linen hanging made between 1067 and 1070 that gives a vivid pictorial record of the invasion of England by William I, otherwise known as William the Conqueror, in 1066, containing seventy-two separate scenes with descriptive wording in Latin and can be seen today in the museum at Bayeux in Normandy, France. There have been many imitations since and in recent years the idea of perpetuating history by similar artistic means has gathered momentum, with contributions from many groups and organisations throughout the country using their own localities as the subject and although this particular example may be a humble one, our children at the Westfield School are following an honoured and popular tradition and I am glad to have been of some help.
I never cease to be amazed at the variety of people who visit the Bourne web site and the interest it generates overseas. The bulk of our visitors come from the United Kingdom with the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand a close second and as these countries are English speaking with a high percentage of computer owners who are on the Internet, it is inevitable that they will dominate the figures. But there is another large following in the most unusual places, including Malaysia and Israel, Brazil, the Caribbean, Saudi Arabia and Norway, and we have now established a readership in Japan from where several people log on frequently and at least one man follows the events in our town as recorded in the Bourne Diary with increasing interest.
He works as a translator in Tokyo but confesses that his work is often tedious and so for light relief he logs on to the Bourne site for a glimpse of the old country. Although he has no connection with the town, his mother was born in Boston and he knows the fens well and he once cycled through Bourne and stopped for a coffee at the Burghley Arms. There his knowledge of our town ended until he found our web site two months ago and, to relieve the boredom of a difficult and stressful occupation, he now logs on several times a day and, in his own words, "steps for a few minutes into the Lincolnshire countryside to take a breath of fresh air."
He goes on: "First I enjoyed the photographs in batches of three or four every few hours. Then I started reading the explanations. Then the links and the tributes and finally, the Diary and I am now genuinely interested in things like the outdoor swimming pool and the parking problems, and am even interested in the perceived inactivity of South Kesteven District Council and the conduct of some of its councillors."
But our expatriate friend appears to be a little homesick. "Thank you for keeping me sane with the Bourne web site", he says. "I have a hunch that it may be a pioneer of some kind. I keep wishing that there was one for my home neighbourhood, the Chiltern Hills, and then wondering why I don't come back and start one myself. One final comment though: your site has the distinction of containing a most moving element, the Union Jack that flutters on the opening page. I am not very patriotic but the flapping flag very cleverly gives movement to the photographs, but I am sure you intended that all along. Keep it up. More photos please!"
I get many emails from around the world about the web site and I know that there is a great deal of appreciation out there for it but this message was different because it did not arrive through cyberspace. Our friend felt sufficiently strongly to put his thoughts down on paper and send it through the post. Yes, it came by snailmail from the other side of the world. Now there is praise indeed.
One of the most colourful and prolific shrubs of the urban street scene is rosea or tree mallow (Lavatera olbia) which can reach heights of seven feet. This is a sub-shrub, that is one where the soft top dies back annually, and many gardeners regard them as no better than weeds, but during the summer months they produce large and attractive, shallow, trumpet-like flowers, pink in colour. They present a most attractive sight and one of the best displays in the locality this year has been planted alongside the path in Tennyson Drive, the main road into the new housing development now under construction on a greenbelt site off the main A15 road south of Bourne. It is to be hoped that this is not just window dressing to attract potential home buyers and when the developers move out, the flowers and shrubs they have planted with such care to enhance the area will not be left to become overgrown and unsightly.
Saturday 24th July 1999
These are known as the lazy days of summer but there is much going on in and around our little town. The roadsides around Bourne are full of makeshift signs announcing fetes, feasts and festivals, gala days and fun evenings, because this is the season of village revels that have their origins in the mists of time in our English countryside.
People do remarkable things under the guise of merrymaking. They roll cheeses, kick bottles, run around in sacks, pelt Aunt Sallies and do various things with eggs and there is always the beer tent to ensure that they generally make fools of themselves. But there is a serious sociological background to the public gatherings of high summer.
Our ancestors had only the hedges around the fields as their horizons and in those fields they ploughed and hoed and harvested and with no artificial illumination in their homes other than expensive candles and rush lights, they went to bed at sunset and rose at dawn which coincided with their working day. The pattern of village life has always been closely linked to the perennial rounds of ploughing and sowing, new crops, first fruits and harvest, and these weeks of hard work were punctuated by periods of relaxation, during which the traditional festivals, fairs and holidays were held. High summer gave them longer days and therefore additional hours to enjoy themselves just before the back breaking work of the harvest and so the tradition of the village feast during these months grew up when for a few hours they could forget their endless toil and socialise with their neighbours.
Most of these ancient customs survive today as a means of fund-raising for various charities and good causes and they continue despite our notoriously inclement weather and the assurance that the event will go on "in barn if wet" has become an ominous reminder that storm clouds may gather on the day although enjoyment is never dampened by the rain.
Meanwhile, more recent customs invade our senses and as the green corn ripens and turns a golden yellow, we hear the smack of leather on willow from the Abbey Lawn where cricket is a regular weekend occurrence and the smell of barbecued food drifts down the street to remind us that the outdoor life is the preferred one while the sun shines. It has always puzzled me why millions of us head for foreign climes at great expense during July and August when these are the very months that we can usually enjoy good weather here at home in our own back gardens without the hassle of crowded airports, uncomfortable accommodation and poor food at overrated tourist destinations. Travel is the perception of being somewhere else and it is a seductive illusion but as those of us who have abandoned such peregrinations years ago have discovered, the grass is not always greener in those faraway places than it is here at home.
South Kesteven District Council has finally handed over the keys of Wake House and volunteers plan to convert the building into an arts, crafts and community centre for the town. If enthusiasm were a currency, the project would not be in doubt but dreams must be paid for in hard cash and I fear that this may be the stumbling block for an ambitious scheme to give this historic building a new lease of life.
Wake House, on the west side of North Street, dates back to the early 19th century. It was the birthplace of Charles Frederick Worth, son of a local solicitor, who founded the famous Paris fashion house and a plaque on the front tells us that he was born here on 13th October 1825. In recent years, the premises have been used as the local offices of South Kesteven District but since their staff vacated the building in 1996, it has been standing empty and conservationists have been fighting to preserve it for the community.
The battle for occupation of this Grade II listed building has taken the Bourne Arts and Community Trust two and a half years and during that time the property has been deteriorating as unoccupied premises do and now the roof is leaking, floorboards must be replaced, the gulleys, drainpipes and guttering need attention and there are sure to be problems with the plumbing, heating and electrical wiring that will bring that dreaded intake of breath from the contractors who are called in to appraise the necessary work.
The trust has now been given a three-year lease at a peppercorn rent of £5 a year with an option to buy the building when the lease expires. It faces a formidable task to get this project off the ground but I see that its members include many of our prominent citizens whose activities in other spheres have already been of great benefit to the town and if anyone can make this scheme succeed then it will be them.
Money is already flowing in and fund-raising events are being arranged while practical help is being sought from plumbers, plasterers, painters and decorators, carpenters, roofers and electricians. "The Wake House campaign", says the Bourne Local newspaper, "is undoubtedly the biggest and most exciting community project in the town for many years. The building presents a massive opportunity for the establishment of a top quality arts and community centre, something for which residents have been crying out for many years."
I do not wish to be a Jeremiah in the face of much undoubted fervour to give the community a new amenity but I hope that this early zeal and eagerness to get things done does not founder on the rocks of insolvency. The district council is offering no lifeline, local authority grants have yet to be agreed and funds from the National Lottery are by no means assured. No estimate has been given as to the cost of the work required and there is no source of income apart from fund-raising, an already over-stretched wellspring, and that which the public will give through donations, always an unknown quantity and one which dwindles annually in the face of rising taxation and domestic costs.
Solicitor John Megson, a trust member, is in no doubt about the difficulties. He told an open meeting called to discuss the project earlier this year: "There has been some scepticism but those involved from the start are prepared to give it a go. Maybe it will not work but we will be able to say that we gave it our best shot."
This venture will be a true test of the community spirit in Bourne and we should remember that if it does succeed it will be due mainly to a small band of dedicated and hard working citizens whose aim was to secure a tremendous asset for the town in the future and preserve a small part of its history in the process.
A pair of black swans, indigenous to Australia and Tasmania, have made their home at St Peter's Pool in the Well Head Gardens at Bourne, just a few steps from the town centre. The black swan is a handsome bird with dark, curly feathers, a bright red bill and white wing feathers that show only in flight. It appears on the armorial standard of Western Australia where the Dutch discovered it in 1697. They took it to Batavia and thence to Europe where the existence of a black swan was regarded with amazement. Like the mute swan, it has been successfully domesticated and raised in captivity and this pair were a gift from the Wildfowl Trust and a shelter has been made on the side of the pool to help them breed. They are a welcome sight in a favourite spot this summer and are attracting much interest.
Saturday 31st July 1999
The curfew tolls the knell of parting day,
The lowing herd wind slowly o'er the lea,
The ploughman homeward plods his weary way,
And leaves the world to darkness and to me.Gray's "Elegy" is one of the most evocative poems of the English countryside ever written and it is a constant delight to read his lines and conjure up the picture of the churchyard at Stoke Poges in Buckinghamshire that gave him his inspiration and where he now lies buried. The success of this poem, "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard", published in 1751, made Thomas Gray the foremost poet of his day and it has been in continuous print ever since.
Few people can read this poem without a feeling of overwhelming longing for the world as it was and although this may be a mistaken emotion, the nostalgia evoked by Gray can still be found in our country churchyards, quiet and secluded places that time has passed by. They are usually neglected and overgrown, the tombstones covered in lichen, often leaning and sometimes crumbling, but bearing the names of those who went before, made their mark and passed on into oblivion, remembered only by a few letters sculpted in stone that fade with the years. The church graveyard is a constant reminder of the feeble grasp we all have on life and the fleeting impression we make while we are here.
There are few well-kept churchyards in England today. Grass and weeds run riot in most of them and volunteers wage a constant war against nature to keep them tidy but they fight a losing battle. The churchyard at Bourne Abbey, once the pride of this small corner of Lincolnshire, is a particularly sorry sight and the shame is that this church is a focal point for visitors anxious to pursue their knowledge of Robert Manning, the Augustinian canon who lived here during the 12th century and whose work as a translator laid the foundations for the English language.
The churchyards in the surrounding villages are no better, Dunsby, Kirkby Underwood, Swayfield, Braceborough, Castle Bytham, although attempts have been made to tend a few such as Careby, Baston, Thurlby, Folkingham and Greatford, but overall the picture is not a good one. What do tourists who come here from abroad think about our heritage when they see such ancient and magnificent buildings surrounded by graveyards where our glorious past should be celebrated but are left instead to decay and become little more than waste ground?
The popularity of our country churches is not in doubt for although few may attend services, one only has to inspect the Visitors' Book to see that there is a constant flow of people dropping in, often on the off chance but more frequently by design, to inspect the place where their ancestors worshipped, married, were baptised or buried, and to take away with them a memory of that occasion.
The Church of England has long since abandoned the continual maintenance of our churches. Most are repaired only with money raised locally while central funds are spent elsewhere, on pomp and ceremony, on lavish vestments, high salaries and pensions for senior clergy and ill-advised investments on the Stock Exchange and other forays into the world of Mammon. But we must remember that the Church of England cannot justify its ownership of our churches. Most were there before it was founded by default in the 16th century and the people are the real owners of these fine buildings. It should then be the people's money that is used to perpetuate them and the profits from the National Lottery are an obvious source of funds. Modest grants to each would provide sufficient income annually to keep them in repair and give order to these neglected graveyards and once again the church might become the focal point of the community, the first call for visitors who could sit and enjoy the sunshine of a summer evening, just as Thomas Gray did 250 years ago, and remember those who came before.
Beneath those rugged elms, that yew-tree's shade,
Where heaves the turf in many a mouldering heap,
Each in his narrow cell for ever laid,
The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep.We owe it to them to keep their last resting place in good order.
The Bourne Music Festival earlier this month was not exactly an astounding success. The planning was good for a first venture of this sort but the attendance was disappointing. It was originally intended to be a four-day extravaganza of music and song, pop and ceilidh I might add, rather than the Prokofiev and Chopin preferred by those who think that a music festival should only be devoted to the classics. Events such as this do not have a good press because of the noise they generate and so after the neighbours complained about the rumpus they were likely to expect from the rugby club ground in Milking Nook Drove, the event was scaled down to just two days and this left little time to promote the event. There was also rain on the Saturday evening but then as every organiser of a summer function such as this will testify, our Clerk of the Weather is only rarely co-operative.
Patrons may have been in short supply but there was enthusiasm aplenty from the performers. All but one of the bands came from the local area and two of them consisted of lads under nineteen years old. My pop concert observer tells me that Ben Francis in particular deserves a special mention, performing on stage in public for the first time and presenting much of his own material, singing to the accompaniment of his guitar for more than forty minutes, including an encore. I should add that Ben is not yet fourteen.
The press reviews about the event were not ecstatic and one teenager found his way into print in the local newspaper with a letter saying that the festival was a disaster and could not be taken seriously by the youth of Bourne. Well, everything has to start somewhere. The organisers have learned from their mistakes and have every intention of continuing. Planning is therefore already underway for the second festival next year although this time it will not coincide with other events such as Rippingale Feast, the Thurlby 10 kilometre run, the Stamford and Peterborough Festivals and of course the Wimbledon tennis finals.
Mike Holden, one of the organisers, tells me that they are already on the lookout for suitable bands to take part. They are also hoping for a better site with improved facilities because this event will become Bourne Music Festival 2000 to celebrate the millennium. From small acorns, mighty oak trees grow.
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