Bourne Diary - September 1999
by
Rex Needle
Saturday 4th September 1999
A grey squirrel took up residence in my garden this summer and this is a rare occurrence because it is the first I have seen in the vicinity during our sixteen years in this house. It stands on the very edge of the fen between Bourne and Dyke village, with few trees to give the cover that these animals prefer, and yet there it was scampering about between the flower pots and devouring the seeds from the bird table and at first I encouraged its presence by putting out more of its favourite food, peanuts and bread, in the hope that it would continue to give us pleasure through the summer months.
However, I later discovered that although squirrels make interesting wildlife neighbours, attracting them into the garden by feeding is not recommended because if you start feeding a squirrel each day, word soon gets around in the squirrel world that there is a new food source and within a week or two you have six or more squirrels coming into the garden to be fed and as they can eat a lot of nuts, it soon becomes very expensive to feed them all. They also tend to bury a few nuts for future use, usually in the middle of the lawn or, even worse, your neighbour's lawn, and this can cause some damage when they hide and then retrieve them. There is also a chance that they could get into the shed, the garage or even the house. In other words, these loveable little creatures can soon become a nuisance.
Grey squirrels (Sciurus caroliniensis) were introduced into England from North America by Victorian naturalists 130 years ago and since then they have become a pest with a population of 2.5 million in England, Wales and Central Scotland and have displaced the native red squirrels (Sciurus vulgaris) in many areas and they are now in danger of being wiped out within a decade. Research is currently underway at Sheffield University to develop a vaccine that will stop grey squirrels breeding and so redress the balance although the project is being opposed by conservationists as "a racial cleansing of nature."
Grey squirrels abound in the Bourne area but most are to be seen in Bourne Woods and adjoining streets, the Wellhead Gardens and the Abbey Lawns. Their preferred habitat is woodland and urban areas, especially near oaks, beeches and other nut trees, and they can often be seen foraging on the ground for nuts, seeds and berries, and although basically vegetarians, they sometimes raid birds nests for eggs and nestling birds. There have been few sightings on this side of town but perhaps they are moving their environment to follow the spread of residential development because gardens usually provide free meals. Certainly, our wild animals have always enjoyed co-existence with man and many of our birds would not have survived the intensification of agriculture were it not for the garden bird table. In fact, recent surveys by the British Trust for Ornithology have revealed a greater population of birds in many urban areas than in the countryside because of this continuous supply of food and it may well have saved some of the more threatened species from near extinction.
But squirrels must be treated with caution and we should remember that they are rodents with a prolific breeding rate, producing two litters of two to four young each year. Most are active during the daytime, a characteristic that makes their presence quite noticeable. They rely on their keen senses to detect danger when it is still some distance away and then make a quick escape. We may be happy with one, perhaps two in the garden, but would we welcome them into the home because if left to their own devices, that would be their next step?
You may think that you share your house with nothing more than a few flies in summer but you would be mistaken because nature's squatters are many and varied as the history of Barton's End, a secluded farmhouse in Kent, as traced by zoologist George Ordish, will testify. Three years after the house was completed in 1555 it had 1,092 tenants, only seven of them human. The others comprised a variety of creatures from wood-boring beetles, birds, bats, worms and insects. Mice moved in from the surrounding fields, rats and dormice visited occasionally for food, and the digging of a cellar in 1630 attracted toads as well as more insects and spiders. The thatched roof was replaced by tiles in 1660 to reduce the volume of life but by then wood lice, snails, centipedes, millipedes, slugs and greenfly were all thriving and there were more than 3,000 living creatures in the house.
Moths arrived to live off the family's furs and woollens, the carpets and upholstery, stuffed birds in glass cases, leather harnesses and book covers but many things had to be shared with the carpet beetles, leather beetles, cellar beetles, earwigs and pharaoh's ants. When books in the library became damp, bookworms, book lice and silverfish arrived to eat them while the kitchen swarmed with cockroaches and the larder with grain weevils, mealworms, flour worms, black beetles and steam flies. By 1860, the population of Barton's End had reached its peak: 119 species plus homo sapiens and the total population rose to 3,287 although this figure only referred to visible creatures and omitted the tens of thousands of mites to be found in any house.
Central heating, synthetic fabrics, vacuum cleaners and pesticides are now used to keep nature at bay but even the most well-scrubbed home will have several hundred inhabitants, most of them largely invisible. Spiders, flies, woodlice and dust mites can be found in the cleanest of houses while mice and bed bugs will thrive if allowed to gain a foothold. Birds will nest in crevices, roof eaves and even disused chimneys, a favourite haven for squirrels that can also knock the tiles off the roof and open the house to further damp, damage and more uninvited guests.
The garden though is open territory and most of us are happy to have the squirrel provided it keeps its distance but how long before a wild animal becomes a pest? The answer that most people would give is when it invades their property in large numbers and makes us aware of its presence by becoming troublesome, as at Barton's End. That is the time when we set traps, lay poisoned bait or call in the pest control experts to exterminate them. The general opinion is that although we all like to see these small creatures that share our neighbourhood, they must be kept in their place and not be allowed to disturb our comfort or peace of mind. We like flowers in our gardens but uproot weeds that thrive naturally. We love the warm, sunny weather provided it does not turn into a heat wave and we welcome the rain to water our lawns and herbaceous borders as long it does not stay too long and cause a flood. We all confess to a love of nature yet we are only prepared to accept it on our terms.
We are taking a short holiday and although the web site continues, this will be my last contribution in this space for a week or so.
Saturday 18th September 1999
The local newspapers have finally taken up the issue that I have been arguing for months: that the town centre in Bourne is beginning to look very untidy with shop after shop closing down, their premises boarded up and allowed to deteriorate, so creating a blight in streets that were once busy and prosperous. I urged our councillors last year to take action to prevent this urban decay but they have done nothing and so the atrophy continues while our elected representatives draw their allowances, pat each other on the back and convince themselves that they are doing a good job for the community.
Most of our businesses are doing well and some indeed are thriving but the Stamford Mercury newspaper reported last week that twelve commercial premises were closed and seeking new tenants. These revelations are nothing new to this Diary that has highlighted the problem time after time but their front-page story and pictures proclaiming that "Boarded-up Bourne" had made parts of the town centre a disgrace should be a cause for concern. High rents and the uniform business rate is not conducive to profit making for some small undertakings and so properties will change hands, but why are these vacated premise allowed to give the appearance that they are totally derelict and unworthy of future occupation?
South Kesteven District Council has sufficient powers under existing planning regulations to force owners to keep their premises tidy and in good order. The authority is quick enough to clamp down on anyone who alters the appearance of their property by adding an advertising sign, a neon light, a porch or a garage, without official sanction, and yet they refuse to take action when frontages become so dilapidated that they are offensive to the eye and a deterrent to the visitor. This is the stage that we have reached in Bourne and a strong head of steam is building up against our councillors for their inactivity in finding a suitable remedy.
Only one has spoken out, Councillor Derek Hedges, who has demanded that the district or parish councils provide sufficient funds to improve the worst of these buildings and give our town a more pleasing appearance. His colleagues, however, seem less enthusiastic to take action and continually reply: "There is nothing we can do." Why then are they in office? Are they saying that the position of councillor is an ineffective one or are they inferring that it is the salaried but unelected officials of the councils who run our affairs? If the latter explanation is the case, then our councillors are not fulfilling their roles in the community.
It has been my experience of local government over almost half a century that it is mostly good men who aspire to office, wanting to put the world to rights, and yet when they achieve their goal, when they are elected by people who believe in their honesty and integrity, they become seduced by the trappings of office and power. The lofty ideals that lead them on the path to public service are soon forgotten and, whether through political motivation, vested interests or personal whim, they quickly settle for the status quo and so things go on pretty much as before. We do not live in an ideal world and therefore, whether it be at a local or national level, we get the government we deserve.
Our list of Friends has its first newly weds, Tim and Karen Court, and we wish them well. Tim left Bourne for the United States at the end of last month and married his American girl friend Karen on September 4th. They are to live at Saline in Michigan and Tim, who used to work as maintenance engineer at the Swedeponic herb centre in Spalding Road, is pursing a new career in the aviation industry.
Young people today face immense difficulties in employment and personal relationships because not only is job security a thing of the past but the institution of marriage is now called into question and is often not referred to in schools in case it stigmatises those children from one-parent families, usually where the father is missing and most often where the legality of a union is non-existent.
It is widely believed that the single parent family is a product of the late 20th century but such family circumstances are by no means recent and researches into my family tree reveal that my great-great-great-grandmother Mary Needle, who was born at Culworth in Northamptonshire in 1786, fell into this category. She had two children out of wedlock and had she been married, then my name would have been something other than Needle. Her first child was James Needle, my great-great-grandfather, born on the 8th June 1817. He was blind yet worked as a farm labourer and managed to support a wife and family, marrying Harriett Jackson at the nearby village of Helmdon in 1842, and they had four children. His sister Hannah Needle was born on 10th August 1821 and she died unmarried at the age of thirty. Their mother, Mary Needle, died penniless on 18th April 1852 in the union workhouse at Brackley in Northamptonshire, at the age of 66.
I regard this genealogy as the social fabric of our past and I can imagine how Mary was ostracised by her village for her circumstances and then, with no one to fend for her in old age, forced to seek support from the parish. Although much has changed in the years since Mary passed on, we have learned little about our relationships and how to ensure that they might endure. We frequently hear of couples who have been married well past their golden and even diamond weddings advising tolerance on both sides as the recipe for the perfect partnership but such virtues do not enter the minds of those teenagers experimenting with sex for the first time and ending up with an unwanted pregnancy, a situation that robs them of a career and full life and condemns them to a future with the welfariat.
Lasting marriages are generally considered to be old fashioned and confined to the older generation but in spite of the widespread acceptance of casual and unofficial relationships, those not tied by the legalities of a civil or religious ceremony, they are the basis of our society. Couplings of this nature are mutually agreed to provide partners for life, to create a stable domestic environment and provide role models for the children and to ensure their welfare, and although some relationships are destined to break down irrevocably, more than half succeed and still provide the cornerstone of our society and a close look at most communities will reveal that marriage is alive and well. Without this bulwark, we would have an anarchistic social order and because the breadwinner is absent, abandoned wives and children become increasingly dependent on government handouts. Morals and morale decline and life becomes a desperate struggle to survive and often crime becomes an easy option. Marriage therefore brings with it dignity and a purpose in life and although I realise that I will be accused of being a fuddy duddy and one who clings to old-fashioned values, they are nevertheless true.
When my great-great-great-grandmother Mary Needle died in the workhouse 150 years ago, she must have thought that life might be better in the future. She was partly right because the workhouses have long been closed down and poverty no longer exists in the form she knew it. But whether the human soul has profited from her experience is another matter.
Saturday 25th September 1999
Although defined by Dr Johnson as "a mean habitat", the word cottage now evokes an idyllic rural abode, preferably thatched and covered in honeysuckle or clematis with roses round the door. The reality is that the people who lived in these houses, from mediaeval times to the early 20th century, often led deprived lives and these cottages which were the centre of their cooking, sleeping and working, their birth, their marriage and death, were often nothing more than miserable hovels.
Victorian genre paintings did much to perpetuate the image of rural peace and tranquillity inspired by these country cottages, with happy children playing in the street and grandfather sitting by the back door contentedly puffing his pipe, but often these chubby-cheeked children and contented geriatrics portrayed in oils were relatives of the artists, transported to the countryside for the day to be perpetuated on canvas because such appealing human beings were not readily available. Reality in the countryside was somewhat different with a hungry and undernourished population, a most uncomfortable existence of earthen floors, a ladder into the roof space for sleeping, vermin, no running water and draughts through every crack and crevice.
Changing trends and particularly social forces have brought a drastic change to the countryside cottage since those days and they have been tarted up, modernised, altered beyond recognition, and given fancy names that belong more to the realms of fantasy than to the real world of rural squalor and poverty of past years. The present owners are invariably comfortably off, even affluent, and most have no inkling of the suffering and the poverty that went on within the walls of their now fashionable home in its previous existence.
These thoughts came to me after seeing a row of derelict farm cottages by the roadside at Toft, a hamlet three miles south west of Bourne, tiny, cramped spaces that generations of families who looked to the land for their survival called home. They have been standing empty for several years and have become extremely dilapidated during that time while the extensive cottage gardens at the rear are completely overgrown although signs of their original dedicated cultivation show in summer when colourful flowers such as foxglove and hollyhock push their way skywards while a variety of herbs and vegetables are suffocated by a mass of untended vegetation.
Few cottages in such an advanced state of decay survive in this area today and this reminder of the hard life our farm labourers endured in past years will also soon be gone because an official planning notice from the district council has been pinned to one of the doors announcing that they are to be partly demolished, altered and extended which in official parlance means modernised and little of the original building will remain when the work is done. This property is suddenly a lucrative asset and will become a home for the new country dweller and to complete the picture of rural bliss, it will no doubt be given a new name, the Wayside Cottage, perhaps, or Toft End, or even, in consideration of the small and crumbling storehouse that was added at a later date, the Old Granary, and so another country myth is born. When it comes to property, many of our old country traditions are not so much inherited as invented.
The immediacy and sheer convenience of the Internet was brought home to me earlier this month when I received an email from Canada. I collected my messages on this particular Saturday evening at around 6 p m and among them was one from Mark Bates who lives in Brampton, near Toronto, Ontario. Mark is already known to me because he is a regular visitor to the Bourne web site. He has lived in Canada since his family emigrated from Lincolnshire in 1948 and although his parents have since died, he keeps in touch with his mother's sister, Barbara Cook and her husband Brian, who live in Hanthorpe Road, Morton, near Bourne. He had already emailed me in August asking if I could suggest a suitable place for him to stay because he was flying over to London and then driving up to surprise his aunt and uncle on their 25th wedding anniversary and so I sent him a couple of suggestions for weekend accommodation and left it at that.
But Mark had to call off his trip at the last moment and so instead of a surprise visit, decided on a surprise message and emailed me asking if I would deliver it to the Corn Exchange in Bourne where Aunt Barbara and Uncle Brian were holding their anniversary party. This is the first time since the web site has been launched that I have been asked to act as messenger boy but I printed out the email immediately and then got into my car and drove down to the Corn Exchange where I found Brian helping prepare the buffet for his guests who were about to arrive and handed over the message saying: "Your favourite nephew sends his congratulations on your 25th anniversary and wishes you both all the best in the coming years and looks forward to your 50th."
It would be an understatement to say that Brian was surprised and I had great difficulty in explaining that the message had been flashed across the Atlantic only minutes before but both he and Barbara were quite mystified at the way in which it reached them. But I have since received another email on the subject, this time from Mark's other aunt and uncle Pamela and Allan Lighton who live at Dronfield in Derbyshire and who were also at the party, thanking me on behalf of Barbara and Brian for delivering the message. There is no doubt that the email system is making the world a more accessible neighbourhood.
A television camera crew from the BBC has been in town this week filming some of the interesting buildings and places for a feature about Bourne that is to be screened next week. This will only be a short regional item but much of the detail has come from this web site and I was also pleased to provide advice and background for the producer Ian Kelly because it demonstrates that we are being noticed. For those in the area who want to see the item, it is being shown in the Signpost series during the East Midlands Today programme on BBC1 at 6.30pm on Tuesday 28th September.
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