Bourne Diary - August 1999
by
Rex Needle
Saturday 7th August 1999
There has been much criticism in recent months about the eyesores that are appearing around our town, mostly created by empty shop premises that have been left to deteriorate. The protests have become quite strident in the past two years yet nothing has been done by South Kesteven District Council which buries its head in the sand and refuses to use the wide powers it has under the planning and safety regulations to ensure that the premises are put in reasonable order.
The situation is sure to worsen with the news that more businesses are to close down and their premises are likely to join the lengthening list of vacant buildings, boarded up and prey to vandals, graffiti and fly posting. Most of these shops are in North Street, the main thoroughfare through our town, which is already looking decidedly dejected by the utterly deplorable appearance of two particular shop premises. The frontage of one has been covered with multicoloured patterns in an attempt to hide its dismal and disagreeable appearance while the other is daubed with huge Chinese characters, a most incongruous sight in a small market town nestling in the English countryside.
Our councillors are doing little more than raise their hands in horror at this defacement of the street scene but they should remember that images of our town are now being regularly seen abroad and after publishing a picture of these disgraceful buildings on the Internet I have even received a message from a language expert in the Far East translating the Chinese writing currently adorning the front of the old Pizza & Burger House. My correspondent, who lives in Tokyo, specialises in Japanese but tells me that the characters are the same in Chinese and mean: "Top class Chinese meal. Chinese foreign style sell". This writing has been allowed to remain on this frontage for more than two years and it is making our town a laughing stock around the world.
There has also been some adverse comment from the other side of the Atlantic and I have received a most indignant message from Donald Cooper who lives in a small town called Dundas at the very western tip of Lake Ontario in Canada. "I can understand the concern of Bourne residents about these empty shops", he writes, "because urban blight is everywhere, even here in Canada. But it is mostly confined to the larger cities. What a pity to see this occurring in dear, lovely little Bourne. If any of your city fathers are reading this, shame on them! I have no right to voice my opinion really but I do like putting in my two cents worth and I join the residents who are obviously very concerned with the inactivity of the authorities in handling this matter. Please clean up your wonderful little town."
What a sad commentary on the conduct of our local affairs that criticism like this should come from abroad. Tourism is part of the lifeblood of the Lincolnshire economy and these are the very people we should be trying to attract into our town and yet we offer visitors a main street that looks like downtown Dallas or Detroit.
There is a suggestion that Bourne may soon have a town centre manager but if this idea ever comes to fruition, the appointed person will still be a servant of the district council and so we will be no better off than before with an additional salary and benefits to finance. We badly need a mayor with executive powers, similar to the Continental system and soon to be adopted in London. Until that day comes, when we have someone in charge of our town who can cut through red tape at a stroke, we are stuck with South Kesteven District Council and their lethargy over this matter is quite reprehensible.
Among the most familiar of all summer flowers are the large white daises adorning meadows and waste ground and mile after mile of roadside and railway embankment. The ox-eye daisy (Leucanthemum vulgare) has a long unbranched stem making it a favourite ingredient in a bunch of wild flowers of times past before picking such blooms was outlawed. It is related to the larger Shasta Daisy, originally from the Pyrenees and widely cultivated in gardens. This perennial thrives in grassy places around the countryside from June to August and has large yellow-centred white daisy-like heads that can be smaller in exposed places. It has various medicinal uses and the ancients dedicated this flower to Artemis, the goddess of women, because it was considered to be useful in women's complaints. Country people also used to take a decoction of the fresh plant in their ale as a cure for jaundice.
The Bourne Web Site has won yet another award, our fourth since it was launched last year and we are particularly proud of this latest honour because it proves that the Internet and its associated activities are not entirely the province of the young. We have been named as Web site of the Month for August 1999 by The Oldie magazine, a distinguished publication aimed at the more mature reader, usually defined as being fifty or over.
The Oldie was launched in 1992 by Richard Ingrams, who for 23 years was the editor of Private Eye magazine. Increasingly alarmed that the "yoof" obsessed media was sidelining good writers and journalists simply because of their age, Richard Ingrams founded the magazine as a haven for good sense and quality writing. He promised no dumbing down, no spin-doctoring and no genetically modified fish genes and Lord Deedes, himself an oldie, has said of it: "The Oldie is for everyone experiencing a sense of cultural isolation". It does not intend to be left behind in the current hi-tech revolution and has recently opened Oldie Online, which is the Internet site of the magazine and regularly highlights web sites created by silver surfers. Take a look on www.theoldie.co.uk.
Sainsbury's have announced the opening date of their much heralded new supermarket in Exeter Street and they have thrown superstition to the wind. The first customers will start flowing through the checkouts on Friday 13th August. In view of the controversy there has been about this development, I wonder if the company is not misguided about their choice of date. There are many people out there who tread warily on Friday the Thirteenth and I once knew a man who was so convinced that some serious mishap would befall him that he always stayed in bed for the entire day rather than risk an event of calamitous proportions. Were his fears to be multiplied throughout the shopping population of Bourne, it would be a most inauspicious start for this new retail outlet.
Saturday 14th August 1999
The lush green of the corn crops around Bourne has given way to a deep, golden yellow as the fields of wheat and barley have ripened and are now ready for reaping. The winter varieties have already been cut and on hot, sunny days the distant hum of the combines can be heard from the countryside as farmers toil to bring in the rest of their harvest and early signs indicate that because weather conditions have been so good this year, grain yields will be high.
For those who are old enough, harvest time brings with it memories of a less hurried pace when horses rather than horse power were a familiar sight in the fields with stooks of sheaves waiting for the threshing machine to arrive and although the combine harvester was not common in England until 1945, all is now mechanised in the cause of output and profit and the harvest is brought home in hours rather than the days and sometimes weeks of past times. Modern machines have given rise to a new type of farmer who has to be a technician as well as a man of the soil and although he no longer works from dawn to dusk, during harvest time at least he often works round the clock using the combine's powerful headlights to keep ahead of any change in the weather.
Bourne lies on the edge of the Lincolnshire corn belt and for those who like to drive out and enjoy our rural landscape, there are huge swathes that have that look and smell of high summer from years past and one only has to stop and sit for a moment at the cornfield's edge to conjure up scenes from "Cider with Rosie", the evocation of this period remembered by the author Laurie Lee, because harvest time may be the peak of modern agricultural production but it is also at the very heart of our English countryside, the fruition of a year's labour and an indication that the land is giving up its generous bounty.
Lincolnshire is the country's largest producer of cereals with almost 500,000 acres devoted to wheat which produce 11.5 per cent of the national total. This output is therefore an integral part of our local economy and many jobs, farm businesses and a great deal of investment, depend on it. The sound of the harvest in summer may give us flights of fancy about past generations who worked the land but the mechanisation and speed that we now see in the fields is an indication that agriculture has become an industry based on intensive farming practices and much of the romance that we once associated with it has gone forever and lives on only in the minds of those who once saw it as it was.
Every ancient farm building with four sound walls, and often without, is now being snapped up for conversion into a modern home. Even the most dilapidated barns and outbuildings in the most isolated of locations are being put on the market by enterprising farmers and although these properties are being preserved in this way, the final result usually bears little resemblance to the original.
Eady's Barn, two miles from Deeping St James, was built in 1832 and is now derelict. It stands isolated and alone in the corner of a cornfield a hundred yards from the main Spalding road. Unsightly buildings with corrugated iron roofs have been added over the years to house farm carts and machinery that now stand disused and rusting while the site is overgrown with nettles and weeds. The asking price is £65,000 for the barn alone or £150,000 with twenty acres of surrounding land and it is likely to be sold within weeks. But the new owner has a mammoth task on his hands and is likely to need as much again to turn it into the three-bedroom luxury home for which planning permission has been given.
There is also a bonus for the buyer because the barn is reputed to be haunted by the ghost of a white lady who roams around at dead of night. Legend has it that during the 19th century, a local man hanged himself from the rafters of the barn over the love of a woman but after his body was discovered it was revealed that she did indeed love him and after her death she was damned to walk the earth until eternity, searching for the spirit of her lost love.
The barn's present owner, farmer Gerald Chappell, has never seen the white lady but remembers his grandmother saying that she would not go past the building at night as a child in the 1890's and even today local people give it a wide berth after dark. There have also been many newspaper stories about the haunting, witchcraft and other sinister happenings in the vicinity that are being retold now that the barn is to change hands. There is nothing like a ghost to stimulate interest in a property that is up for sale.
The controversial new roundabout systems that have been built in North Street and West Street to cope with traffic flows from the new Sainsbury's supermarket are now complete and in operation and the store opened for business yesterday. It will take some weeks to assess the effect that all of these developments will have on our town and it is to be hoped that those who take the decisions for these changes have got it right. Only time will tell.
There has certainly been an unprecedented amount of criticism to the new system that is costing the town over 100 kerbside parking places and increased waiting restrictions in several town centre streets but all objections were overruled by councillors when this unpopular scheme was approved by the planning and regulation sub-committee of Lincolnshire County Council at its meeting last month. The public opposition included letters of objection from five residents and a local businessman and a petition containing almost 200 signatures with complaints ranging from the loss of on-street parking to the possibility of increased traffic congestion.
This issue has been simmering in Bourne for many months and several councillors have expressed their concern over the way in which the new road systems have been implemented without their knowledge. Yet we are told that no adverse comments were received from either Bourne Town Council or South Kesteven District Council. I find this distinctly odd and I think it even more curious that when the committee gave its stamp of approval to the scheme, the work was practically complete. How does Lincolnshire County Council reconcile this with its legal obligation for a full and frank public consultation on such matters?
Saturday 21st August 1999
The pioneer of British motor racing, Raymond Mays, is being honoured by Bourne next weekend to celebrate the anniversary of his birth here 100 years ago. The main streets will be closed on Sunday 29th August to allow more than thirty historic racing cars to drive through as a celebration of his life that brought prestige to our small town and took this country to the forefront of international competition on the track.
Mays was the son of a local businessman and motoring enthusiast, Thomas William Mays, a wool merchant and fertiliser manufacturer, whose interest was in hill climbs and speed events. The family residence was an imposing Regency house in Eastgate and a plaque on the front wall reminds us that he was born here in 1899 and that this was his lifetime home. Twenty years later he owned his first car, a speed model Hillman which was traded in for a Bugatti Brescia called Cordon Rouge, after the famous brand of champagne, and a second Bugatti followed, this time called Cordon Bleu, after the brandy. The two Bugattis proved quite formidable during the 1924 racing season, sweeping the board in the big hill climb events and creating new records. More tuned-up production cars followed until Mays established English Racing Automobiles at Bourne in workshops built on the orchard adjoining Eastgate House.
Motor racing was halted during the Second World War from 1939 to 1945 but by then Mays was pondering on the possibility of an all-British racing car to break the foreign domination of Grand Prix motor racing and so British Racing Motors, or B R M as it came to be known, was formed and financial backing came from leading companies in the field, particularly Rubery Owen and Co Ltd and Joseph Lucas Ltd. The first B R M was unveiled and demonstrated to the motoring world at Folkingham airfield on 15th December 1949 when the car was hailed as a world beater, although success was slow in coming.
There were many failures and some successes. New engines and cars were designed and developed at the B R M factory in Spalding Road and in 1962, the B R M became the first all-British car to win the world championship and the company's Number One driver Graham Hill, father of the present day Damon, became world champion at the same time. This accolade from world motor racing was marked by a civic reception organised by the old Bourne Urban District Council at the Town Hall and I was among the guests as a B B C television reporter to interview Graham Hill after he had been presented with a silver salver for his achievement and I can tell you that he was a most modest and unassuming man. Mays himself was to be honoured with a C B E for his services to motor racing.
By 1965, B R M had 100 employees in Bourne and this was another victorious year when B R M cars gained either a first or second prize in every Grand Prix race that was held. But after that, their cars had mixed fortunes until the Mexican driver Pedro Rodriguez scored a comeback victory in the 1970 Belgium Grand Prix at Spa. There were further successes but advancement was dogged by mechanical failures and soon after Mays died in 1980, Rubery Owen decided to sell the B R M collection of racing cars and the sale created international interest when it took place during the Motor Show at Earl's Court, London, in October 1981.The B R M site in Spalding Road was sold for commercial development to Delaine Buses and the new workshops, erected in 1960 on the site of the old town gas works and where the B R M cars were prepared for racing, is now an auction salesroom.
The Raymond Mays Room that celebrates his life has been established at Baldock's Mill, the Heritage Centre in Bourne. It contains an exhibition in his honour and remembers all of those who were involved with him in the production of the racing cars that brought prestige to Britain and international motor sport. This is a particularly noteworthy enterprise because it has been funded and executed entirely by volunteers anxious to preserve the name of someone who brought fame to our town and it will be officially opened next weekend by our M P Mr Quentin Davies, the member for Grantham and Stamford.
Graham Hill was killed when the plane he was piloting crashed near London in 1975 but his name lives on in Bourne in Graham Hill Way, a small industrial estate off Cherryholt Road, where motor racing is alive and well. Pilbeam Racing Designs, which grew from the staff leaving B R M when it closed, is well established there in a £300,000 factory opened in 1997 by Graham's widow Bette.
Motor racing has been much maligned in recent times because the engines on four wheels that now speed around the track bear little resemblance to the motor cars of past times. There is also much criticism of its dependence on tobacco advertising and of sponsorship by petrol, tyre and battery companies. Raymond Mays and his cars were from a different age but it was his enthusiasm and expertise that gave the sport a new impetus in the years following the Second World War.
Sainsbury's opened their new supermarket in Exeter Street last week with a flurry of publicity including a jazz band and a coloured barrage balloon that floated above the store announcing that it was now in business. But no amount of razzmatazz could hide the fact that there were traffic problems with long queues of vehicles trying to get into a car park that seemed to be too small to accommodate them. Parking places were at a premium and there were frayed tempers and one or two shunts but it was soon evident from the crush of customers that even after the occasional visitors have satisfied their curiosity, this new supermarket will be a popular one and a regular call for many shoppers from Bourne and the surrounding district.
There is no doubt that the new building has enhanced our street scene at this point, well designed and constructed in red brick, and any additional retail outlet is welcome because it increases competition and reduces prices which is of benefit to the housewife. The cars it will attract are the only problem. The new mini roundabout systems, recently installed amid much public controversy to cope with the increased traffic flows, appear to be working well but it will need several weeks of shopping at Sainsbury's before a final assessment can be made.
There have been many requests for space on the Bourne web site for items about clubs and events of a current nature that are not compatible with my intended content of history and heritage. I have been reluctant to refuse a mention for so many worthy causes and I am therefore adding a new feature called Notice Board which will enable these items to be displayed in the future.
This facility is for the benefit of those who wish to make an announcement about organisations or occurrences in and around Bourne, or even to leave a message for a friend or for some other eventuality. It is not intended for sales advertising so please do not ask me to include your second hand car or old washing machine unless it is for a charitable cause.
To post a notice, please email it to me with as much detail as possible and it will be included from the following Saturday. The only stipulation is that you establish the authenticity of the announcement by also including your name and email address. Send your announcements to me at rex@which.net.
Saturday 28th August 1999
Our home here in Bourne is on the very edge of the fen and I use the back upstairs bedroom as a study where I spend much of my time. My desk is positioned so that I can see out of the large window which overlooks meadow and farmland to the distant horizon and out there somewhere are the salt marshes of South Lincolnshire and beyond that the North Sea. My daily panoramic view of the countryside takes in several fields edged with trees, a tributary of the old Car Dyke dating back to Roman times, several churches, a few cottages and a windmill in Dyke village, but most rewarding of all, I am a constant observer of the farming year in its entirety.
I sit here most days writing something, watching the plough and the harrow in the autumn, preparing to plant new crops of wheat and barley, sugar beet and oilseed rape, and then comes the frost and the snow which turn the landscape into a winter wonderland overnight, followed by the delights of spring when the green shoots push through the earth and as the weeks pass they grow taller and soon those mellow mid-summer days are here and the combines are cutting a swathe through the golden corn and when the harvest is in, the year begins again. And so the changing seasons act as a marker for our life span and constantly remind us that the years are passing and we must enjoy each day to the full.
In recent days, the hum of the combines has filled the air around Bourne as farmers bring in their main corn crop, working late by powerful headlights before being overtaken by the weather. One of the fields out there that I have watched throughout the year is owned by Dyke farmer William Ash and when he heard that I wanted to photograph the wheat being cut, he invited me on to his land for a grandstand view.
The harvest has been running a few days late because of the recent wet weather. Not a minute of fine weather must be wasted and so once the combines start up at mid-morning, they continue operating until late into the evening and often until 10 p m with powerful headlights showing the way. These machines are mighty and costly pieces of equipment, 450 horse power and a price tag of £165,000, but with a blade sweep of 22 feet, they devour the crop at the rate of five acres an hour, a phenomenal achievement compared to the methods of past times when the pattern of the harvest was dictated by the need to preserve the grain in the ear until threshing time and so harvesting was reckoned in weeks instead of hours.
The modern, self-propelled combine harvester incorporates a threshing drum to separate the grain from the chaff and so cuts and threshes in one operation, throwing the chaff out at the rear and making periodic stops to offload its yield into a waiting trailer, hauled into a convenient position by tractor. I was invited for a spell in the operator's cab by Andrew Seymour who was at the controls and he pointed out the latest developments in technology, a computer panel to control the machine's operations and radio phone communications to keep in touch with his tractor driver and even the farmer back at base.
Sitting up at the front in an elevated position like a pilot in a helicopter provided a commanding view of the crop about to be cut, safe from the dust and debris thrown up by the powerful engine, and as the wheat stalks were scooped into the machine like a continuous carpet, I remembered the farm workers of past times, cutting the corn with a sickle, binding it into sheaves, manhandling the sheaves into stooks and then threshing by hand using a flail, all back breaking work which kept them occupied for several weeks.
The combine is farm mechanisation at its most efficient but these modern practices have changed our countryside customs. Harvest was once the climax of the year, an occasion when half the village was recruited and rewarded with a supper at the farmer's expense, but it has now become a job for two men, a combine, a tractor and a trailer and within hours the land will again be under the plough. One farming year has ended and another is about to begin.
This is the time to change the name of Wake House. It should be called Worth House or better still, Charles Worth House. Work is going ahead at full steam on refurbishing this 19th century Grade II listed building for community use and here is the perfect opportunity for it to be given a name that has a real connection with the town. After all, Worth was born there on 13th October 1825 while the association with Hereward the Wake is extremely tenuous and it is not even known whether he really existed or if his exploits were a figment of Charles Kingsley's vivid imagination. Furthermore, few people who live in Bourne have even heard of him. I asked a local woman who has lived here for all of her 56 years about our Hereward and she was not even familiar with the name or that Wake House was named after him. But Charles Worth? Oh yes! He was the famous Paris fashion designer who took European society by storm, whose creations were worn by royalty. Now is the time to change the name otherwise this most splendid of projects will end up being called the Bourne Arts Centre or be given some equally dull and uninspiring title by a committee.
Return to Monthly entries
