Bourne Diary - April 2000
by
Rex NeedleFarms in South Lincolnshire are among more than 30 sites in Britain selected for the field trials of genetically modified crops such as oil seed rape, sugar beet and maize but the area has also been chosen for a less well known trial because this spring, a rare poppy containing substances that are beneficial to a recurring social disability has begun to make its appearance in the landscape near Bourne although the trials are being conducted in some secrecy. Saturday 1st April 2000
The government's reluctance to publicise this project has been prompted by media coverage of GM crops as the so called "Frankenstein foods" but although the poppies will be grown under controlled conditions, there is no suggestion that the seeds have been subjected to any scientific tampering.
A forthcoming White Paper on science and innovation has stressed the need for more research into foreign plants as a source of medicinal properties, in particular the cure for this malady which is becoming increasingly common as a result of our changing social conditions but is now costing business, commerce and industry so many lost working hours. It has been diagnosed as an acute depressive state known as Impendere habitus and discussed by doctors in a recent issue of the British Medical Journal in which they listed the patients' symptoms as a dry mouth and lack of appetite, lassitude and an inability to walk or even leave their bed, a lack of eye focus and mental concentration. The high incidence of cases occurs mainly at weekends and doctors have identified the cause of the disability after studying a number of case histories. In each instance, patients had indulged in prolonged excesses which resulted in an advanced state of lethargy and a reluctance to accept responsibility for personal actions including reporting for work at the commencement of the new week on Monday mornings.
The scale of the problem was originally identified by one of the government think tanks when it reported that an estimated one million working days are being lost each year by this condition and although it affects mainly men, it is prevalent in both sexes and in all sections of society, both blue and white collar workers, and especially among the executive or yuppie classes, and the conduct of business, commerce and industry is being seriously impaired as a result.
The Environment Minister Mr Michael Meacher has since deemed it sufficiently significant to sanction the trials into the development of a new drug that is produced from a rare species of poppy, hitherto only found in the higher reaches of the Andes mountain range in South America. Scientists on a research expedition in 1997 found that tribes in this region approached the start of the new week with confidence, optimism and even eagerness. There is a growing awareness in the western world that there is still much to learn from primitive tribes and after studying the diet of these people, the team discovered that it contained poppy seeds grown in the vicinity and so samples were brought back to Britain for further research and clinical trials.
The poppy or Papaver is a genus of annual plants with a white milky juice and showy flowers which are usually red in colour and one species, Papava somniferum, is better known as the opium poppy, the drug being derived from its unripe capsules, and so its soothing qualities are well documented. The species of poppy found in the Andes has been named Papava locari after the distinguished Belgian scientist Armand Locari, visiting professor of plant genetics at the University of Milton Keynes, who led the research expedition.
Such research into the healing properties of plants and trees started with the discovery of aspirin, or acetylsalicylic acid, in the bark and leaves of the willow tree and was subsequently developed in the early 20th century since when it has become the world's most frequently used pain relieving drug. It is now believed that many more such substances are to be found in similar circumstances and as all well known species in Europe have now been thoroughly tested, the search has been extended to the flora of lesser known parts of the world such as the rain forests of tropical countries and pharmaceutical companies and their advisers are making frequent expeditions in pursuance of new discoveries.
South Lincolnshire has provided a suitable soil and climatic conditions and a trial crop was grown last year on a twenty-acre site at an undisclosed location between Rippingale and Kirkby Underwood. This experiment was so successful that a joint project between the Department of Health and the Ministry of Agriculture has been sanctioned by the government to grow the poppy in this country in large quantities and up to 200 acres will be devoted to the new poppies this year at farmland sites in the same locality. Once the seeds are harvested, they will be transported to one of the country's leading pharmaceutical companies for processing and will then be available in capsule form for distribution to the public although in the early stages, because of the limited supply until even more acreage can be devoted to the crop, they will only be available on private prescription and those who suffer from the more advanced and acute stages of the illness will be given priority.
The Department of Health is already optimistic about the results. A spokeswoman said that the clinical tests carried out at several locations where clusters of the illness had been identified, notably in London, Manchester and Glasgow, had shown that the new drug was beneficial when taken in controlled conditions. "The entire project has exciting possibilities", she said. "We anticipate a general release of the new drug within five years by which time it could even be on sale at the point of contagion such as public houses and night clubs. It will mean a new and completely different Monday morning for many thousands of people throughout the country."
The new drug has tentatively been called Villus, the next index word in the international register of new drugs after Viagra, and its development is being closely monitored by the Department of the Environment and the minister is to present a full report on this year's poppy crop and subsequent laboratory tests of the seeds to the House of Commons on 1st April 2001.
One of my regular email correspondents has sent me some photographs of the wild flowers that are blooming in the countryside near her home in Israel and they are startlingly beautiful and colourful and a delightful reminder of spring in other countries. Saturday 8th April 2000
Colour in such abundance is now quite rare in the English countryside because so many species have been killed off by the constant use of agro-chemicals and other intensive farming practices in pursuance of higher yields. Only those as old as myself who can remember the way things were can know from experience the extent of the damage that has been done and when I see photographs like this I am reminded once more of what we have lost. Wild flowers can be seen all around us but there are fewer species and they are less prolific although in some protected areas we do get some wonderful displays but the abundance of our spring flowers is by no means what it was.
Some controls have been imposed in an attempt to check the devastation to our rural landscape but it is all too late and the farming lobby has too strong a hold on government to prevent the use of chemicals completely and return the land entirely to organic crops. It would be my dream to cycle out into the English countryside and see it as it was in my boyhood. The legacy of preservation for our flora and fauna is not a good one while the situation worsens with the passing years and those who come afterwards will curse us for it.
The vandalism of our countryside by the farming industry is well documented but there are still those who are prepared to destroy what is left. I wrote two weeks ago (Diary, March 25th) about an attempt by Labour members of South Kesteven District Council to reduce the amount of rubbish collected weekly from household premises, a move which was quite sensibly rejected, and I warned that if such ridiculous restrictions were imposed then fly-tipping would become endemic. There is now evidence that Lincolnshire County Council is cutting back on the freighter rubbish vehicles that visit various locations on Saturday mornings for the disposal of the excess waste that the weekly contractors refuse to handle.
The fortnightly skip has already been withdrawn from Deeping St James and now there are problems at Market Deeping where the two freighters that did arrive on a recent Saturday morning were both full soon after 10 a m and no replacements were available. One only has to take a look at the amount of rubbish that passes through the Rainbow car park at Bourne on a Saturday morning to realise what is at stake if this service were also restricted or curtailed. The county council which is responsible for these particular collections has just put up our council tax by almost 6% which is three times the rate of inflation and in view of this alarming increase we have a right to expect that our services are maintained and even improved.
The suspension or restriction of rubbish collections will increase the amount of household and garden waste that can already be found defacing many places in our countryside and within the last few days I have seen many such instances including an old deep freezer cabinet, a sink and other discarded kitchen fittings dumped on the edge of woodland near Essendine. A far greater eyesore can be found in a copse on the road between Manthorpe and Wilsthorpe, a green triangular shaped island of trees and undergrowth amid prairie acres devoted to cereal crops, and it looked so attractive that I stopped and walked in to find the floor carpeted with bluebell plants that would soon be flowering and with the smell of garlic underfoot, I realised that there would also be ramsons here in profusion while patches of wild violets and narcissi were already blooming and all around was the damp smell of a spring woodland that was bursting into life.
There was no gate at the entrance and deep ruts lined with tyre marks indicated that many vehicles had been this way and as I walked deeper into the woodland I realised that they had been used to bring in loads of rubbish which had been dumped here, garden waste, rubble, a huge pile of branches that had been lopped from someone's leylandi hedges. The debris was scattered on either side of the track for some distance and it soon became obvious that this had become a regular call for those who illegally dump rubbish, usually at night. I cannot understand the mentality of those people who treat our countryside in this way for this little gem of a wood which has already been despoiled, is in danger of being totally ruined by these wanton acts.
But all is not lost. There are many who want to see our countryside survive and I was reminded of such dedication a few days ago as I was driving home on the road between Edenham and Morton. This route includes a one mile stretch of country road with wide grass verges on either side which are known as the Hanthorpe verges, a protected environment because they are rich in wild flowers including early purple orchids, cowslips, primroses and even false oxlips.
But I spotted someone who seemed to be acting quite suspiciously. He was dressed in cycle riding kit with a baseball cap on his head and a mountain bike lay nearby and he was walking up and down and putting things into a large black plastic bag. I slowed down to take a closer look and it appeared that he was collecting something and in view of past experience I wondered if he was stealing plants. I thought about this as I drove on and when I reached the village, I turned round and went back but as I pulled up beside him I recognised the chap as Terry Barnatt who lives at Hanthorpe and is one of the leading lights in local conservation and therefore one the last people in our area to be plundering the countryside.
Terry was in fact collecting rubbish from the verges, a job he does regularly to keep them attractive, because he is the official warden for this site, appointed by the Lincolnshire Wildlife Trust of which he is also a council member. It is deplorable that rubbish should be deposited in such an isolated part of the countryside because those who stop are nature lovers and would not therefore drop anything and so all of the debris that he did find had been thrown from the windows of passing vehicles, newspapers, fast food cartons, sweet wrappers and plastic bottles. This is yet again an example of the anti-social habits of those who are quite prepared to ruin the appearance of our countryside rather than take their garbage home.
The dropping of litter, whether carelessly or deliberately, is not only a social crime because it impinges on the freedoms of those who do care for our environment, but also a breach of the law. The Litter Act of 1983 which was designed to protect our public places has proved to be unenforceable and so prosecutions are rare while the Refuse Disposal (Amenity) Act of 1978 which makes it illegal for any item to be abandoned in the open air appears to be equally inoperable. Laws are of little use unless they are enforced and it will take a spell of authoritarian government to stop the activities of litter louts similar to that in Singapore where it is even an offence to chew gum in a public place in case it is spat out on to the pavement. But the city is clean and relatively litter free and so perhaps here in Britain, a small erosion of our liberties would be a price worth paying for an end to our unsightly streets and the indiscriminate dumping of waste in our green and pleasant land.
If you go down to the woods today there is a magnificent sight to behold because the wood anemones that are blooming there are at their most prolific for many years. On our last visit a few days ago we found them carpeting many parts of the forest floor, wave upon wave of fragile white flowers nodding their heads in a gentle breeze that occasionally ruffled the surface of the undergrowth. These early spring flowers were growing in great profusion, certainly the most we have seen since we started going to Bourne Woods seventeen years ago, and again we decided that the mild winter was the cause and so we expect an equally beautiful sight when the bluebells make their appearance in Dole Wood this weekend. Saturday 15th April 2000
The wood anemone (Anemone nemorosa), also known as crowfoot and windflower, is a many petalled bloom of white, tinged and veined with purple, the main leaves of the plant rising from the ground only after flowering is completed. The flowers open wide in bright sunshine and then close as night falls, so ensuring that the dew will not settle and cause damage and there is a similar reaction when rain threatens during the daytime.
This flower is also the subject of much folklore. Firstly, it is bitter to the tongue and poisonous and it was known by the Egyptians as an emblem of sickness, perhaps because of the flush of colour on the backs of the white sepals, while the Chinese call it the flower of death and in some European countries it is still regarded by the peasants as a flower of ill omen. The Romans plucked the first anemones as a charm against fever and the practice has survived in some remote districts where it is picked with the words: "I gather this against all diseases" and then tied around the patient's neck. Greek legends say that Anemos, the Wind, sends the anemones in the early spring days as a herald of his coming and that they only open when the wind blows, hence their alternative name of windflower.
But perhaps the most interesting piece of information that I have gleaned about the wood anemone since our visit to Bourne Woods is that one British naturalist claims that it flowers at the same time as the return of the swallow, yet here in South Lincolnshire I have yet to see a swallow this year, while another expert who was recording the days on which it came into bloom, found that the wood anemone never blossomed earlier than March 16 and never later than April 22, observations that were made each spring for a period of thirty years.
I find this very curious because my own record, made over the past two decades, reveal that the wood anemones have been out in Bourne Woods most years as early as March 14 while Matthew Arnold, in his poem Thyrsis, first published in 1866, tells of "woods with anemonies in flower till May". I do not subscribe to the theory of global warming changing our seasons but I do believe that the seasons fluctuate slightly, year by year, decade by decade, and so produce these different growth patterns that serve to remind us just how unpredictable Mother Nature can be.
I wrote last week about the discarded kitchen fittings that had been dumped in the countryside near Bourne and there has been some disbelief that such wanton acts could happen in this quiet corner of rural England and so I went back to take a photograph. Fly tipping of this nature is euphemistically known as farm gate disposal and those responsible think they have a right to leave their garbage wherever they will, even though someone else will have to clear up the mess. The culprits responsible for dumping these items on the edge of this woodland near Essendine have obviously just moved into a new house because they even left the estate agency sign that had been advertising the property. If any of the neighbours recognise these items and saw them being carted away, then you now know where the owners left them.
The Wake House project in Bourne is finally coming to fruition and the first parts of the building have been opened for public use and an official opening for this admirable project is planned for September. This Grade II listed building on the west side of North Street has had a chequered history since it was built in the early 19th century on the site of the old Waggon and Horses public house which was pulled down to make way for it. It was originally the home and offices of the solicitor William Worth whose son Charles was born here on 13th October 1825 and went on to win fame and fortune in Paris as the founder of haute couture and the man who dressed European royalty and the world's rich and famous.
In recent years it has been used as the local offices of South Kesteven District Council but stood empty from 1996 when their departments moved to alternative premises in the town and a voluntary organisation, the Bourne Arts and Community Trust, was subsequently given a three-year lease of the premises to turn it into an arts, crafts and community centre. Their ambitious plans are now being realised.
Last week saw the opening of a new computer suite at Wake House which will provide PC training and Internet access and enable individuals learn computer skills at their own pace in a small and friendly setting. The project is a partnership between the trust and Stamford College which has already set up a similar centre at Stamford town library. A dance studio has already been established on the first floor where four small rooms have been knocked into one to provide the necessary space and many other activities are planned as the rest of the building is brought into use.
There is still much to be done both inside and out and builders have not yet finished work on the frontage but provided the dedicated band of volunteers who are working on this new community amenity continue with their current zeal and enthusiasm, then this will be an undoubted success.
This should have been the time to change the name of Wake House to Worth House, or better still Charles Worth House, a name that has a real connection with the property and with Bourne. After all, Worth was born here while the town's association with Hereward the Wake is extremely tenuous and it is quite likely that he did not even exist. However, there has been no such initiative from the organising committee and so the opportunity has been lost.
There is little doubt that the work of Charles Worth is not fully appreciated here in Bourne. He was honoured in France with the Legion of Honour, the country's highest award, and the President of France attended his funeral in 1895 while a collection of his creations is on permanent display at the City of New York Museum in the United States yet the only acknowledgement of his reputation in his home town is a small plaque on the front of Wake House that few people notice. It is a lasting pity that those who run our town's affairs do not think this man worthy of a greater memorial and to help redress the balance, I have researched his life and times and my article on the tremendous impact he had on world fashion can be found in Bourne Focus.
England's woodland recedes at an alarming rate despite the protections imposed by successive governments. The oak, which is the best known and most important of our native trees, once covered large areas of Britain from Perthshire southwards and has had a considerable influence on the commercial and imperial development of this country for its timber was vital to ship building in the formative years of our sea power. Saturday 22nd April 2000
The greatest loss was caused by Queen Elizabeth I who ordered the felling of ancient oaks by the thousand to produce the materials needed to build the ships for her fleet which defeated the armada sent by Philip II of Spain in 1588 and since then the process of robbing our countryside of its natural growth has continued through the centuries by successive landowners to increase their farmland. The last extensive planting occurred during the Napoleonic wars but this stimulus to afforestation ceased during the middle of the 19th century although there has been a major revival in recent years from such organisations as the Woodland Trust which seeks to acquire woodland sites for care and protection in perpetuity, especially those which are under threat from development pressure or unsympathetic management, and to replace those woods that have disappeared from the landscape and as a result they have planted two million trees since their foundation in 1972.
Other organisations are similarly busy because it has been realised that we have lost too much already and only a concerted effort can replace even a fraction of what has gone. Every tree is valuable and should only be felled if it is diseased or dangerous and so when development is necessary, an alternative means must be found if the scheme presented involves the loss of any more trees.
We need only to look at the prairie acres of the Lincolnshire corn belt where trees are a rarity to realise what has been lost and in view of our knowledge of past mistakes, it would be reasonable to assume that we had learned our lesson. But this is not the case.
Hedgerows continue to be grubbed out in pursuit of higher production and therefore greater profit and trees only survive on a whim unless they are part of a Site of Special Scientific Interest for example or some other designated area. It is not generally known that all trees are a protected species and that they cannot be cut down without the permission of the local authority, a regulation that applies particularly to conservation areas and could even apply to those leylandii that have been causing such a nuisance in many urban areas.
It is then with some dismay that I find a road improvement scheme underway on the A6121 between Bourne and Stamford where a slice of old woodland has been felled to make way for a new stretch of carriageway which will iron out a sharp bend. This copse on the outskirts of Essendine village is not actually in Lincolnshire because it is part of a strip of land from the adjoining authority and therefore comes under the jurisdiction of Leicestershire County Council.
Nevertheless, its members are as responsible as any others for the safeguarding of our countryside and it is a travesty that these trees should be sacrificed for a short stretch of road that could have been routed around them. This action is particularly distressing in that the woodland was destroyed at the height of the nesting season and so whichever birds had chosen this spot to build their nests and lay their eggs, then they will have lost both to the bulldozer and the chainsaw.
What a pity it is that worthy organisations such as the Woodland Trust are doing such valiant work in replacing what we have lost while irresponsible local authorities are doing yet more damage to our environment.
We ought to be perfectly satisfied that our government at both national and local level is sufficiently concerned with the future of our countryside and that they will protect the trees we have left at all costs, but the Essendine development sows apprehension and anxiety for what may happen next in other parts of our locality. Felled trees cannot be put back up again but it is to be hoped that our councillors will hearken to this case of official vandalism when other developments involving the possible loss of woodland come before them for approval in the future.
The ancient customs of our country are still alive and well although not all are celebrated with an overwhelming enthusiasm. On Monday evening, we gathered beside the Queen's Bridge, at the end of Eastgate in Bourne, to witness the observance of a tradition that started in the mid-18th century when William Clay, a gentleman of the town, bequeathed land to provide an annual rental that would pay for white bread to be distributed among the poor. The bizarre conditions laid down for the letting of this land stipulate that the grazing rights for the coming year are auctioned while two boy run a 200-yard road race and that the highest bidder as the race ends holds the pasture land for the coming year.
In past times, the white bread was distributed to the people of Eastgate from the back of a cart but there is no longer a need for such sustenance and the people who live here prefer their sliced loaves from the Budgens or Rainbow supermarkets and so the money goes to local charities. Also, the boys who ran the race were rewarded with a shilling apiece for their exertions, the equivalent of 5p in our present decimal currency, but there are few takers today and the small crowd that assembled for this year's auction could produce only one lad prepared for any athletic activity and so a girl was recruited to make up the numbers. Perhaps it was the weather, because it was extremely cold, or that television held other delights for the town's lads, but in my boyhood, when having pocket money was almost unknown, I would have run ten miles and back again in a snowstorm for the reward of a shilling and then queued up for the chance to do it again the next year. Were they really the good old days?
Driving home from Peterborough at dusk the other evening, I was reminded of poor Nanny Rut. I was passing Elsea Wood, a small area of woodland to the south of Bourne, just off the main A15 trunk road. Bluebells grow here in the spring, a sure sign of an ancient woodland, while thousands of birds nest in the trees and its hidden places are full of small mammals. Fallow deer can also be seen hereabouts, often making their way across the countryside from Auster Wood and Pillow Wood to the north east along tracks they have trod for centuries past. Saturday 29th April 2000
It is an idyllic place but is reputed to be haunted by the ghost of Nanny Rut, a mysterious female hermit whose fate was determined by the social mores of 19th century England.
Her real name was Nancy Rutter who was employed as a servant girl and who lived and worked at a farmhouse in Northorpe village but as was so often the case with girls in her position, the farmer who employed her had his way with her and she became pregnant. Such an occurrence was a familiar one in Victorian England where the public attitude of the middle classes towards sex was prudish yet beneath the surface a wholly different culture existed. To have a baby out of wedlock was considered disgraceful and could lead to many different penalties imposed by the Poor Law authorities and the saddest figures of all were servant girls who endured long working hours and had little opportunity for social life. They also had to cope with sexual pressures from male employers and to refuse an advance could result in dismissal while to accept them might end with an unwanted pregnancy and again the loss of their job.
For such girls, pregnancy inevitably led to social disgrace and ostracism and so it was with Nancy. When her condition became known, she was shunned by villagers and took refuge in Elsea Wood where she lived until the baby was born. The child died young but Nanny, as Nancy became known, was still avoided by family and friends and remained in the wood, living there as a hermit for the rest of her life.
She became the subject of myth and legend during her lifetime and was forced to live on what she could find around her, the roots, seeds and fruits of her woodland landscape, and she quickly came to know the ways of the countryside, producing various remedies from herbs and plants which she traded for food with the villagers. Her knowledge and treatment of illness spread throughout the locality and soon inquisitive people were travelling from far distances for advice about their ailments and to buy her potions.
Men in the village, gossiping and speculating about her in the local inn, shortened her name to Rut which referred to the mating season of the fallow deer that frequented the wood and so the name Nanny Rut became part of the folklore of this area and her wild and unkempt appearance earned her a reputation as a witch.
She died alone, spurned and unloved by villagers and even those she had helped with her medications. Her reputation as a strange and wayward outcast of society persists to this day because many people remember being scolded by parents for being naughty and were told to stop misbehaving with the warning: "If you are not good, Nanny Rut will get you".
True or false, this is a cautionary tale and one that demonstrates changing social attitudes. Today, instead of being an object of scorn and superstition, Nancy Rutter and her baby would have been cared for by the local authorities, given cash benefits and a council flat, and would have found many soul mates in our permissive society that would have enabled her live a perfectly ordinary life. She could happily have shopped at Woolworth's and Sainsbury's with her baby without an eyebrow being raised.
Elsea Wood where she lived is now under threat. It stands on the very edge of a proposed new housing development that is likely to destroy its character. This and the adjoining Math Wood are both Sites of Special Scientific Interest and were once part of the large forest which covered this landscape and although its isolation and restricted access has left the woodland largely unfrequented in recent years except by nature lovers, this protection will disappear once 2,000 new homes are built on its very fringes.
Perhaps the ghost of Nanny Rut will come back to haunt those developers who propose this desecration and the councillors who have approved it.
I am receiving so many inquiries about the amenities and services available in and around Bourne that a new facility has been added to the web site that will enable anyone to summon up the information they require at the click of a mouse. This new feature is the work of Scoot, one of Britain's biggest and best business directories. It appears on the opening page of the web site and is quite simple to operate. Merely type in a one or two word description of the information required and you will be presented with a comprehensive list of what is available in the town and the immediate area.
If for instance you have a burst pipe or a leaking tap, then simply enter the word "plumber" and a list of those operating locally will appear together with their addresses and telephone numbers. Bookshops, supermarkets, schools, hotels, accountants, solicitors, carpenters, decorators . . . all are here and, of course estate agents and this is one of the reasons why the new feature has been added. Carole Sawkins, of Ascot in Berkshire, is one of two people seeking information about the Bourne area and she left a message in the guest book saying: "I was born at the R A F Hospital at Nocton Hall and my husband and I are thinking of relocating to Lincolnshire. Your web site has given an invaluable insight into Bourne and the villages in the surrounding areas which has saved us an immense amount of time that we would otherwise have spent in finding out this information from public libraries, driving around the area and so on. I don't suppose you could add estate agents that deal in property in the area to the web site?"
Secondly, Paul Conway from Stockport in Cheshire is also contemplating a move to the area with his wife and two young daughters and he wanted to know about schools, toddler groups, brownie packs, gymnasiums and swimming clubs and other amenities of interest to a couple with a young family.
Well Carole and Paul, here is exactly what you wanted and a lot more information besides including a cinema guide and a people finder. Happy hunting!
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