Bourne Diary - May 2000
by
Rex Needle
Saturday 6th May 2000
When I was a boy, I picked cowslips in the countryside at this time of the year and returned home with large bunches as a present for my mother and she would put them in a jam jar on the window sill as a reminder that spring had arrived in the world out there beyond the kitchen sink. In those days before the Second World War, cowslips grew all around us in April and May and few sights were more welcome after a bleak winter than a roadside verge or old pasture covered with these soft yellow flowers.
The cowslip (Primula veris) is a member of the primrose family, pale or deep yellow in colour, orange at the throat, with nodding flower heads on long stalks, and favours lime-rich soils. Unfortunately, it can no longer be seen in such profusion and the main cause is intensive farming practices. Increased cultivation of fields right up to the wood side edge and the widespread use of agro-chemicals have destroyed many habitats and those plants that remain are often dug up by the roots for replanting in town gardens. The cowslip is therefore greatly reduced in its distribution and to find a clump of these delightful flowers in South Lincolnshire today is a rare occurrence.
They can however be seen in greater abundance in some parts of England, particularly in the west country where May Day is celebrated by the Hobby Horse ceremony at Padstow in Cornwall. The town is cleared of traffic and near the centre the houses are decked out with sycamore boughs and flags while the local people who follow the two horses are dressed in white with spring flowers, mostly cowslips, pinned to their shirts or hats.
The origin of the name cowslip is obscure but it has been suggested that it is a corruption of cow's leek, leek being derived from the Anglo-Saxon word leac meaning a plant. Other versions suggest that the name is a polite form of cowslop or cowpat, referring to its occurrence in scattered clumps in cattle grazing meadows.
Old herbals refer to it as Herb Peter and Key Flower, the pendant flowers suggesting a bunch of keys, the emblem of St Peter, the idea having descended from old pagan times for in Norse mythology the flower was dedicated to Freya, the key virgin, and was thought to unlock the door to her treasure palace. In Northern Europe, the idea of dedication to the goddess was transferred with the change of religion and it became dedicated to the Virgin Mary, so we find it called Our Lady's Keys, Key of Heaven and Key Flower.
The blossom of the cowslip has a very distinctive and fresh fragrance and somewhat narcotic juices and therefore there are many medicinal applications, particularly as a sedative and cure for insomnia while ointments made from it were claimed to remove spots and wrinkles from the body, but more popularly, its use for a fermented liquor called cowslip wine is well known. This is a formidable concoction with a great and deserved reputation and is still drunk in country areas where the cowslip can be found. The law that forbids the picking of wild flowers has somewhat restricted its production although cowslips grown under cultivated conditions are quite adequate and a bottle or two of this very potent brew can often be found at the local church fete or Women's Institute bazaar.
The sight of a cowslips growing in the countryside reminds me of those past times when the world moved at a much slower pace. We saw them in abundance and accepted this wonderful sight as part of the changing seasons and were confident that they would be back next year and the year after that. But we reckoned without the advance of science that may have increased agricultural production but has diminished our landscape and so to see a cowslip this springtime in this part of England, you will need to drive for many miles before you spot one.
Those pictured here are flowering among the tombstones in the churchyard at Barnack, near Stamford, which we visited on a sunny morning last week and were surprised to find so many in one spot. The English churchyard has been called God's little acre, a place where the forefathers of the parish sleep and nature still thrives without fear of contamination.
The personal diaries written by ordinary people are by far the greatest social documents of our age because they tell of daily experiences, of hopes and fears, of ambitions achieved and loves won and lost, and so what we read is life as it was, unfettered by academic considerations.
One such journal has recently come my way and it has been a delight to read, hand-written in a small notebook bound in black oilcloth purchased for a few pence from the local shop and the pages filled with the minutiae of life in a Lincolnshire parsonage because the author was Dorothy Houghton, then aged 27, daughter of a former rector of St Andrew's Church at Pickworth, a small village in the less frequented countryside of the stone belt nine miles north west of Bourne.
It was sent to me by David Hutchinson of Newcastle upon Tyne who found it in a job lot of books which he bought at auction twenty years ago with the inscription "Miss D Houghton, Pickworth Rectory, Folkingham" inside the front cover. He searched the Internet for a mention of Pickworth and located the village on the Bourne web site and emailed me for help. He then posted me the diary to read and this sent me in search of Miss Houghton, her family and friends, and what I discovered is included in The Pickworth Diary that has today been included in Bourne Focus.
The diary describes rural life in England in the early years of this century with vivid descriptions of air raids during the First World War and the effects of the conflict here in Lincolnshire. In letters home, the author's sister tells of a submarine bombardment of the children's hospital at Margate where she was working and her brother describes the misery of life on the Western Front while closer to home there is a Zeppelin raid over Pickworth, tales of food rationing and escaped German prisoners terrorising the countryside. While all of this mayhem was going on, the author lived a life of gentility at the rectory, cycling through quiet country lanes, polishing the church brasses, taking tea with friends in the neighbourhood, reading and doing good works.
This was the age before radio and television, when the art of conversation was still a valued attribute and there are delightful word pictures of jolly gatherings in the garden, on the veranda or by the fireside, laughing and chatting. The sincerity of the author shines through every entry but most of all we realise that this was a time when people cared about each other, when happiness and peace of mind were greater possessions than a successful job and money in the bank, a time that has long been replaced by a selfishness and greed that threatens to envelop our entire way of life. This diary is a delightful piece of nostalgia and a reminder of how things were before the arrival of our media dominated consumer society.
The cuckoo has arrived in the countryside around Bourne. Our good friend Jo, who lives next door, tells us that she heard it on Sunday 23rd April, nine days after Cuckoo Day, but we were not so lucky and did not hear this distinctive cry floating across the fen until a week later, but it was nonetheless a welcome sign that spring is well and truly here. The sound of the cuckoo is one of my favourite things for it acts as a marker in life and each time it returns to our locality it reminds me that another year has passed and, on a more sombre note, that those which are left are numbered. See also Diary for 1 May 1999.
The old stone church is one of the first things the visitor sees when he passes through an English village but there are other places of worship that are also worthy of note, namely the chapels. They do not share such a rich history as their illustrious neighbours but are nonetheless an important reflection of the religious life in a rural community in years past. Saturday 13th May 2000
A strong tradition of nonconformist worship grew up in Lincolnshire during the 19th century and as a result many new chapels were built. Dissenters from the established church increased during this period as they sought spiritual fulfilment elsewhere and it was the Methodists and Baptists who claimed the majority of them in their congregations despite the plain but abundant spiritual fare, usually with no musical instruments, no choir and sometimes no hymn books. But they did have a message of hope, one addressed more to the individual than to the congregation.
The chapels of that time thrived in country areas and had a strong influence on the lives of farm workers, preaching clean living and abstinence, and many union activists from the agricultural trade union movement became chapel officers and often speakers, using rhetorical devices and figures of speech from the pulpit to good effect during services. Sundays were an occasion for such gatherings with little ceremony but long sermons that marked the religious temperament and outlook of early noncomformity.
The evangelical zeal and commanding oratory of John Wesley (1703-1791), the founder of Methodism, converted many to Christianity and wooed even more away from the established church. When he and his followers found the pulpits of the Church of England closed to them, he took the gospel to the people and for fifty years rode about the country on horseback, preaching daily and largely in the open air, and his sermons became the doctrinal standard of the Wesleyan Methodist Church. He visited Bourne in 1782 to speak in the market place and soon the religious climate in Lincolnshire became ripe for change. Those committed to the new mode of worship gathered at improvised meeting places, in private houses and rented rooms, but soon new chapels began to spring up as non-conformism took its place alongside the established church.
One of the most interesting in the Bourne area is at Deeping St James. In 1838, the vicar, the Rev Frederick Tryon, decided rather late in the day that he could not accept the Church of England's ancient teaching regarding infant baptism and he took drastic action by ordering building materials for the construction of a new chapel. As the building went up in Bridge Street on a site overlooking the River Welland, his parishioners thought at first that a new vicarage was intended but eventually discovered that it was a Particular Baptist foundation and it was opened the following year. On 18th December 1840, a local newspaper reported a mass baptism by total immersion of Baptist members in the River Welland that excited tremendous interest in the neighbourhood.
The report noted that the Reverend Tryon had seceded from the Church of England and had become a dissenter and Miss Florence Day, in her book History of the Deepings, records that he was a remarkable man in many respects who not only started his own school but also stuck to his little church, his active connection only ceasing on his death in 1903 when in his 90th year although long after that, his daughter could be seen going about her business around the Deepings on her tricycle. The chapel has recently been sold and tastefully converted for use as a private house but a stone tablet over the main door bearing the opening date 1839 and the Latin motto Cave Adullam or Beware of Flattery has been retained.
There are many other fine examples of non-comformist buildings in the villages around Bourne. Although some have since been demolished to make way for new developments, many survive as places of worship while others have been converted for use as private homes and as these buildings are invariably listed as being of architectural interest, the outward appearance usually remains little changed as a reminder of the part that religion played in the lives of our forbears.
There was total chaos again at the Rainbow car park in Bourne on Saturday when the mobile skips gathered for the weekly refuse collection. The theory behind this operation is a good one: that a skip arrives on time and a shuttle service ensures that there is always a vehicle on site ready to receive the rubbish, but the procedure is rarely completed that smoothly.
On Saturday, the system collapsed yet again when a relief skip was late in arriving and crowds of householders with their cars and vans filled with domestic and garden waste built up and many became so impatient that they merely threw their loads to the ground and drove off. Meanwhile, others were still arriving and the car park became jammed and cars queued up on the road outside waiting to get in. A mountain of rubbish had built up by the time the next refuse lorry eventually arrived but instead of waiting for the crush to clear, the workmen on duty started loading up the dumped rubbish and jostled for position with householders trying to dispose of theirs. At one point, thirty or more people thronged around the back of the vehicle carrying cumbersome loads of waste items made of wood, glass and plastic, tree branches, old bits of furniture, defunct television sets, bedding and even a kitchen sink, all jockeying for position with the workmen, some armed with shovels, while an oil spill from a discarded and leaking can made the ground underfoot extremely hazardous. It was sheer luck that no one was hurt.
This disposal site is a much-needed facility for Bourne for where else would this rubbish go if not here? But its organisation has become so haphazard and sloppy that it is now a dangerous undertaking to dump rubbish, especially for an old person, and on Saturday I saw several pensioners standing on the edge of the crush and not daring to compete for a place at the yawning mouth of the refuse vehicle. Many parents had also brought children with them to help in carting their refuse from car to truck and we know from experience that youngsters have less regard for their personal safety than adults.
Lincolnshire County Council, who are responsible for the administration of this facility, should not only monitor the efficiency of the operation but also impose more adequate supervision because the melee that inevitably ensues when things go wrong will surely one day end in disaster or even tragedy.
I have criticised our local councillors many times for their apparent disregard of public opinion but it is becoming increasingly clear that most of the people they represent have little interest in what they do. Only a few have raised their voices over the proposed Elsea Park residential development in which 2,000 new homes will be built over the next few years on a 300-acre farmland site to the south of the town and will constitute the biggest change to the face of Bourne in recent times. Saturday 20th May 2000
There has been a deafening silence over this project in the past few months and our local newspapers rarely mention it and so it recedes in the public perception of what is happening hereabouts. This lack of discussion on an issue of such importance creates an atmosphere of public indifference in which there is a reluctance to oppose change and to accept the status quo. In some neighbourhoods, such circumstances would throw up a leader, someone of moral courage and physical energy who would rally support against the scheme, form a protest group, organise public meetings, involve our MP, write letters the Prime Minister and, best of all, inspire those who would otherwise be content to sit back and accept everything our councils throw at us. But this is not the place or the time otherwise he or she would have surfaced by now and so instead we get silence.
It is then not surprising to learn that only one member of the public turned up at Bourne's annual parish meeting earlier this month, the one occasion in the year when residents can face their elected representatives and quiz them about their conduct and the activities of the town council. What a sad commentary this is on the democracy we enjoy because the message to our councillors is quite clear: do as you please.
Councillor John Kirkman, chairman of the town council's finance committee, was suitably abashed. He said: "It is a poor indication of the public attitude, mainly towards the work councillors and councils do, to have only one member of the public here to interrogate us for a budget that is well over £80,000."
The town council is at the bottom of our three-tier system of local government and has little power but it does have a voice with the district and county councils above it and as those decisions that affect our lives are taken at those levels, then the annual parish meeting is the platform for anyone with a grievance against what is being decided in their name. If decisions with which we disagree are taken during the coming twelve months by our local councillors, then we only have ourselves to blame.
A close scrutiny of our villages is a rewarding occupation for the curious and although most of the old buildings have been altered and restored beyond recognition, it is possible for the inquiring mind to trace their origins.
I had heard of the old school at Thurlby and that the building had survived but my inquiries as to its location drew a blank, even at the village Post Office and stores, usually the fount of all knowledge in a small community, and so I spent some time asking and asking again until I found it, now a private residence and looking far more residential than institutional. It was built with the yellow bricks much favoured by the mid-Victorians although the original blue roof slates that they also used for such buildings have recently been replaced by tiles.
The earliest record of a school at Thurlby is 1585 but a church school was built in 1853 and attended by eighty pupils. The heating conditions were poor and as a result of the Education Act of 1870, a new school was built, controlled by a school board of local parishioners. It was called the Board School and it opened in 1878, although a stone tablet on the side of the property records that it was erected during the previous year in 1877.
In these days when the law now rules it illegal to smack our own children, we can learn a lesson from the conditions that existed here. The standard of punishment for bad behaviour was severe and varied according to the offence and usually consisted of several strokes of the cane by heavy handed schoolteachers exasperated by the wayward conduct of their pupils who would rather have been out in the fields and the fresh air than confined to their slates to learn the three R's. Discipline was strictly enforced in this manner from the opening of the school until World War I when less rigorous methods were introduced.
Schools today provide facilities and freedoms undreamed of by those generations of children who attended this school at Thurlby and so the building is not only part of the village's heritage but also a reminder of the changing conditions in the classroom over the years.
The Bourne web site attracts visitors from many strange and exotic places and I am continually surprised by the locations we embrace. Most of those who log on come from the English speaking parts of the world such as the United States, including Alaska and Hawaii. Others live in Canada, Australia and New Zealand, but we also have surfers from many other countries such as China and Japan, Malaysia, Russia, South Africa, Germany, Denmark, Norway, Lapland, France, Egypt and Brazil. My web site monitoring service now tells me that we have a regular visitor from Thailand and this intrigues me. Many of those who log on are known to me but not this particular person. Perhaps he or she would send me an email and we could become acquainted. I would be most interested to know why a small market town in Lincolnshire should interest someone in that part of the world. My Inbox is always ready to receive such messages.
Of all our wild flowers, the orchid is the most fragile and elusive and untold species have been lost in past decades to intensive agriculture and plant thieves. Indeed, they have become so rare except in protected places that few people have ever seen one growing in its natural habitat in this country. The orchid family (Orchidaceae) is a very large one with over 20,000 species and it is famed for the beauty and intricacy of its flowers and many tropical species are cultivated commercially. Saturday 27th May 2000
The elaborate shapes and colours, combined with its scent and nectar, make the orchid particularly attractive to pollinating insects but they are often so specialised that only one kind of insect can pollinate them. Also, most orchids flower only sporadically and should never be picked but their appeal is such that those who see them cannot resist plucking them from their grassy environment and taking them home, an act that is both illegal and utterly selfish because it deprives those who later pass this way of the delight of seeing the most beautiful of our native flowers.
The frequently found varieties in England are the fragrant orchid, the bee orchid, the lady orchid, the common spotted orchid and the early purple orchid and it was the latter variety that we stumbled across last weekend while walking the Yew Tree Avenue at Clipsham, near Bourne. This unusual feature of the South Lincolnshire landscape is managed for the benefit of the public by the Forestry Commission and is therefore safe from the herbicides and pesticides that regularly waft across our land and we found several small patches of them growing between the yew trees and we trod carefully to avoid causing any damage.
The early purple orchid (Orchis mascula) flowers in the spring and can be found in moist woods and grassland and so it was appropriate that we found these examples growing on the bank of a narrow drainage ditch although they are also often found among bluebells in ancient woodland. These are delicate lilac-coloured flowers, rising on long stalks from a pair of strap-shaped fleshy leaves, black-blotched on their dark green surface. It is these leaf spots that can cause confusion with the common spotted orchid but this species mainly flowers in June.
The flowers of the early purple orchid are most attractive but they do have the unlovely smell of tomcats. There is another feature of this unusual flower that engages the attention because the twin tubers resemble testicles and so this orchid was used as an aphrodisiac whilst the name orchid actually comes from the Greek for testicle.
The tuberous roots of most of the orchids native to this country are full of a highly nutritious, starch-like substance called bassorin. Witches used it in their magical draughts to promote true love while in countries such as Turkey and Persia it has been extracted and imported for the making of a wholesome drink known as saloop or salep and before coffee became so popular, it was sold from stalls in the streets of London and was held in high regard as a herbal medicine. Charles Lamb, the essayist (1775-1834), refers to "a Salopian shop" in Fleet Street and says that to many tastes it has "a delicacy beyond the China luxury" and adds that a basin of it at three half-pence, accompanied by a slice of bread and butter at a half-penny, was an ideal breakfast for a chimney sweep.
The early purple orchids in Northamptonshire are known as cuckoos because they come into flower about the time the first cuckoo calls while in Dorset they have the name Granfer Giggles and the wild hyacinth which often flowers by its side has the name of Granny Giggles.
There is a fascinating archive of folklore and herbal use that has built up over the centuries when our wild orchids flowered in abundance each spring. We now look in vain for these delightful flowers every year and as the variety of flora and fauna that we once knew in our countryside continues to recede, it is quite likely that in the very near future, the only contact we can have with them will be from books and photographs.
A few miles to the north west of Bourne is a little explored area of South Lincolnshire with winding and inviting tree-lined lanes that criss-cross the landscape and a sparse population. Amid the isolation in this less frequented countryside is Haceby, once a tiny farming community but now even tinier, a decayed and deserted village with only one family living here while the rest of the stone properties stand neglected and falling into disrepair.
The hamlet has an equally tiny church with a solid 13th century tower, Norman at its base and a plain Norman chancel arch with a rood by the late Wilfred Bond and where a 17th century royal arms has recently been uncovered and restored and an eight-sided mediaeval font. In the simple Early English chancel there is a 17th century east window and a tablet to John Lucas-Calcraft who baptised all of the babies that arrived in the village for 55 years during the last century. There is also evidence that a priest here in the 14th century, one John Peny, was set upon and assaulted by several intruders during a service because they disagreed with his teachings.
The name Haceby, or Hazebi, is mentioned in the Domesday Book of 1086 and is thought to have derived from the Old Norse for Hadd's farmstead or village. Other recorded spellings are Hatsebi (1115), Hascebi (1161) and Hacebi (1172). The Romans had a small settlement here and there are signs of this occupation because many remains from this period have been unearthed in the vicinity and the site of a large Roman villa, probably of the courtyard type, was discovered in an orchard just a mile from the church, partly in this parish and partly in that of Newton nearby. A 19th century investigation revealed six rooms including a bath house at one corner of the site while some of the rooms had tessallated pavements but the remains are now covered and overgrown with weeds.
The church is dedicated to both St Margaret and St Barbara and shares the neglected air of what is left here, standing on the edge of a farmyard and the view blocked from the southern aspect by agricultural machinery. The churchyard and approaches are overgrown and the gate is difficult to find but then this is a little-used church, now purely dependent on charity, and only sees a congregation once a year, usually for a harvest festival.
A notice in the porch informs us:
This church is maintained by the Redundant Churches Fund with monies provided by Parliament, by the Church of England and by the gifts of the public. Although no longer required for worship, it remains consecrated ground to the service of God. Please respect it accordingly.
The only regular visitors here are the partridge and pheasant that flock around in abundance. It is indeed a sad sight. In an age in which Christianity and religious belief is in decline, how long before our other churches suffer a similar fate?
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