Bourne Diary - July 2000
by
Rex Needle
Saturday 1st July 2000 Early one Sunday morning last month, I was woken about 4 a m by the dull and repetitive bass beat of pop music, that terrible noise you often hear from passing cars driven by young lads with the radio or C D player on at full volume. I find it moronic and annoying and primary evidence of an arrested development but it is fast becoming part of our culture although I did not expect it to invade my sleeping hours in a secluded area of Bourne. I thought perhaps that one of the neighbours was having a party, a most unlikely eventuality at that hour in Stephenson Way, and unable to resume my slumbers, I went outside in an attempt to trace the source.As I thought, no one in the vicinity was merry making at that time on a Sunday morning but I could hear this dreadful noise winging its way over the rooftops from the direction of Bourne Wood a mile away and I discovered later that this beautiful stretch of woodland was indeed the source and that an all-night party or rave was underway. Further sleep was impossible and I wondered how people living near the woods were coping with such deafening and raucous music that had been going on since 11 p m the night before.
They were of course outraged because these unofficial dance parties are becoming a regular occurrence in the woods. One resident said that the thunderous beat left them feeling that they had a hangover while another described it as a form of slow torture and of course many telephoned the police to complain. But nothing was done to stop it and the noise continued unabated until 8.30 a m on Sunday morning and so much of Bourne was kept awake by these unauthorised revels on which is basically private property.
Bourne Wood covers more than 400 acres and is owned and administered by the Forestry Commission that is well aware of the problem. This organisation has the power to prevent access to anyone and to stop illegal activities that may damage the environment or deter walkers who have the privilege of free access. They have a steel barrier at the main entrance that can be locked at weekends but if intruders bypass this route then they are committing an offence but forestry officials are reluctant to act without police support.
Where then, were the police this weekend? A spokesman for the Lincolnshire county force said: "We are not aware of any illegal raves taking place in Bourne Woods or of any complaints about the noise." Well, they would say that wouldn't they. Our police station in Bourne is closed at night and at weekends and we have not seen a bobby on the beat for years and yet my annual council tax demand that arrived in April expects me to pay them £86.49 this year towards their upkeep, an increase of 5.5% over last year, and so this is more cash for even less policing.
But what do we get for our money? The priorities for policing during the current year are outlined by the Chief Constable Richard Childs and the chairman of the police authority Michael Kennedy in a circular to all homeowners and one clause clearly states that these include "reducing anti-social behaviour". Surely the sound of pop music thundering out throughout the night when a town is trying to sleep comes under the heading of anti-social behaviour.
The police then will not help and I would be interested to hear the opinion of the Mayor of Bourne, Councillor John Kirkman. He is not only one of the 17 members of the Lincolnshire Police Authority but he also lives in Stephenson Way and therefore must have heard this diabolical sound reverberating around our estate and keeping his townspeople awake for most of the night.
He is also an elected member of South Kesteven District Council but there is little hope of assistance from this quarter for although the authority has the legal powers to curb environmental nuisances such a noise they are rarely enforced, again because of inaction by officials and a reluctance to initiate legal proceedings because of the high costs involved. A perfect example of this was outlined in this column last year following repeated complaints about auditory bird scarers repeatedly breaching the Codes of Practice drawn up by the National Farmers Union and endorsed by the council. Nothing was done. The council will not then be offering any help in this instance in spite of the fact that its entire £42 million budget comes from taxes paid by people such as you and me.
We cannot therefore depend on any of the public bodies involved, the police, the Forestry Commission or the local council, to help in this matter. Officialdom turns a blind eye, or perhaps in this instance, a deaf ear. This is a case of grin and bear it. Insert the earplugs, bury your head under the sheets, and pray that this awful noise will soon go away. It will not be abated by authorised intervention. We are on our own. Those that we pay to serve us are no longer available.
Like Topsy, our bureaucracies grow and eat up the money we contribute yet the services they are supposed to provide decline as the years go by. If this progression continues, these organisations will soon become fiefdoms in their own right, using the money they get for the sole purpose of supporting the staff they employ, paying them their high salaries, generous holiday entitlements and pensions, yet not actually providing any of the services for which their creation was originally intended. They are fast becoming purely job providers and we are financing them.
There was a time when our history was remembered only by word of mouth, passed down from father to son, from generation to generation, and although this was rarely completely accurate, it did give a glimpse of the way things were for those who came after. Writing followed and then sound recording and film and so we have built up a solid archive of irrefutable experience that mirrors our existence as the years pass. The oral tradition however still has its place in the annals of human experience and although instant recall is never totally reliable, those who do speak of days gone by do so with a passion and honesty that must be believed.
Trissie Carlton was one of those people who remembered the past in vivid detail and one of her pleasures was to speak of the way things were during a life that spanned the entire 20th century. Her daughter Anne recognised this wealth of experience as a valuable contribution to the history of Bourne and had the foresight to record her mother's memories on video shortly before she died. The life and times of Trissie Carlton (1907-1999) has been added to the CD-ROM "A Portrait of Bourne".
Some visitors to the web site may find that the changes they have requested in the various features over the past few days have not been made. If so, would they please email me again with the details and they will be included next week. This omission is entirely the fault of Fujitsu Siemens Computers Limited who have supplied my new P C after I was enticed by their wondrous advertising in The Sunday Telegraph. The information that you sent me has disappeared into cyberspace and I have been forced to keep the web site going with my old Compaq Presario P C that is now used by my wife. The Myrica P700 was claimed to be state of the art but has turned out to be a pain in the neck and the horror story I have to tell about this company and its product will ring a bell with all owners of computers who are concerned about the cavalier manner in which the manufacturers treat their customers. Do not miss this cautionary tale but in the meantime think twice before ordering Fujitsu.
The ancient lychgate that forms such a picturesque feature of some English churchyards takes its name from lich or corpse so that lychgate is literally the corpse gate. The term is applied to any roofed structure, opening or stile, by which a cortege might gain access to a churchyard. Under the shelter of its roof, the coffin was rested by the bearers while the opening sentences of the burial service were read or sung by the clergy who then preceded the procession. Saturday 8th July 2000
There were many covered churchyard gateways in the Middle Ages and it was a requirement of the 1549 Prayer Book that the priest should "meet the corpse at the church style" and this encouraged the provision of shelters for that purpose. Sometimes the cortege had to wait for the arrival of the parson and such a break was a welcome relief for bearers who had often been forced to carry the corpse for many miles along rutted tracks from outlying hamlets and farmsteads. Before the 18th century, it was usually the shrouded corpse that was set down on the corpse table in the lychgate, or sometimes on an adjacent wall, because coffins were only available for the more affluent members of society. As roads improved, many parishes acquired a bier to transport the body to the graveside and so the need for the corpse tables declined.
Only about one hundred of the old lychgates survive but modern examples are numerous and one has just been added to St Stephen's Church at Careby, a building that dates back to Norman times and enjoys a picturesque setting on the edge of this tiny village in meadows watered by the infant River Glen five miles south west of Bourne.
The project was initiated to mark the millennium and the date 2000 has been carved into the front but an application for funding from the national lottery was turned down and so villagers rallied round to finance the job themselves. The opening of the lychgate therefore coincided with a three-day flower festival last weekend to help raise some of the money while the land on which it stands was a gift to the parish. The stone and oak beams used in its construction were all found locally and even the ironwork strap hinges on the doors were crafted by a blacksmith who lives in the vicinity. It is a most worthy addition to this beautiful country church and is so sturdily built that it should stand the test of time well into the next millennium.
The computer problems I mentioned last week have been solved but it is no thanks to the makers. There is one major drawback in buying a computer: once it is delivered and paid for you are on your own. The manufacturers and suppliers no longer want to know you and the much-publicised after-sales support telephone lines they offer are no more than a rip off at exorbitant rates. If you bought a car or a cooker that turned out to be faulty, this would not happen because you could go back to the garage or shop for redress but those who make and sell P C s operate from impregnable fortresses whose postal, fax and email addresses are well kept secrets. We are wooed into buying their products by fancy advertising in the national press and glossy magazines offering the satisfaction of a first class customer support but once they have your money you are of no interest to them and their promises turn to dust.
I write this from experience because I have recently upgraded to a new P C and a very accomplished machine it is. But this euphoria stems from April when I bought my computer from Fujitsu Siemens Computers Ltd. The Myrica P700 is all bells and whistles and, I thought, state of the art, but it soon turned out to be a pain in the neck. I started to get a few blips and needed to reformat my hard disc and reinstall the original software but the scant documentation available specified that as well as the Windows 98 disc, I would also have to use their own Utilities and Drivers C D, which would not load according to their instructions.
There are two telephone lines to their headquarters in Lovelace Road, Bracknell, Berkshire, available for assistance, the warranty department for which you are charged national call rates and the U K Help Desk that costs 50p a minute. I called both numbers endlessly but without satisfaction, listening to chunks of canned Bach and Vivaldi as I waited to be heard. I spent almost £50 on calls and talked to a stream of whiz kids but got absolutely nowhere. They gave me advice and talked me through some very daunting procedures but still my very expensive equipment sat on my desk blinking at me and pleading to be put right, usually crashing after one of these lengthy and costly sessions in which I was frequently given incorrect information.
Their approach was always the same: that you are a fool and know nothing about computers and whatever you think is wrong with the machine is your fault and can easily be put right if you press the keys we tell you to. They blamed my stupidity, they blamed the software and they blamed my Internet Service Provider. They blamed everyone and everything except themselves. The question is: what were Darren and Mike, Neil and Matthew, and all of the others who manned these customer support lines doing on those days when I was trying to get some satisfaction? Were they similarly teasing other callers at 50p a minute without actually solving their problems? Do the higher echelons of management know of the cavalier fashion in which their customers are being treated or is this a ploy to increase income? A £50 telephone bill without getting anything in return is tantamount to obtaining money by false pretences.
I even emailed the company president, Mr David Teague, having found out his email address, telling him of my dilemma and suggesting that his customer support line facility should be re-designated the U K Helpless Desk that would more accurately reflect its activities, but he did not reply. Eventually a friend who is well versed in these matters came to my rescue and after a lengthy session on the telephone, at cheap evening rates I might add, he has succeeded in doing what the mighty Fujitsu Siemens company with all of their advertised expertise failed to do and I appear to be back to normal. But I imagine that most of you out there have a similar horror story to tell and it really is about time that the computer companies got their act together.
This one instance highlights the power base that they have established for themselves because they operate as no other manufacturers do by keeping the customer at bay after their products have been sold. There is no redress except through lengthy and expensive telephone calls and the experience is rather like being trapped in a revolving door. They are able to maintain this situation and duck their responsibilities because of the complexities of the P C and if anything goes wrong it can immediately be blamed first on the inexperience of the operator and then the inadequacy of the software and it is well nigh impossible to get an engineer out for on-site repairs.
Fortunately, the P C does have one advantage and that is access to the Internet and so people like myself can voice their objections to the way they are being treated and let potential customers know what they can expect if they buy from particular companies. This does not solve the immediate practical problems but it does ease the pain somewhat.
The street scene in Bourne is looking much more attractive of late. Some vacant properties have been occupied and new tenants promised for others that have standing empty for so long that they have become eyesores and resemble the worst of those boarded up facades that we see in the inner cities. But it is a lesson to us all that the most remarkable success is in North Street where Wake House, once a crumbling 19th century mansion in danger of becoming derelict, has been transformed into an attractive property that enhances our main street and at the same time is providing a wide variety of community facilities and it has been done mainly by voluntary effort. Saturday 15th July 2000
Wake House was built 200 years ago on the site of the old Waggon and Horses public house by local solicitor William Worth. His son Charles was born here on 13th October 1825 and he left home to seek his fortune while still a lad and after spell as an apprentice in London, moved to France where he founded his famous fashion house. The property has been used in recent years as the local offices of South Kesteven District Council but then stood empty and starting to decay until a handful of civic minded volunteers came along and realised its possibilities and after much lobbying, the Bourne Arts and Community Trust was given a three-year lease of the premises and work has been going on ever since.
The building is now open as an arts, crafts and community centre and is being used daily although there is still much to be done. But Wake House is already a tribute to those few people who had sufficient enthusiasm and energy to knock repeatedly on the door of bureaucracy and who refused to go away until they were heard. Their project is well established and it is to be hoped that our local authorities will recognise what has been done not only for the establishment of new community facilities which they failed to provide but also to prevent one of our historic buildings from wasting away.
A drive through the English countryside at this time of the year gives us a glimpse of what is happening in the villages and hamlets of this green and pleasant land because every few miles we see a roadside sign or poster advertising the multifarious activities in pursuit of pleasure. These are known as the lazy days of summer but there is much going on in and around our little town and these makeshift signs announce fetes, feasts and festivals, gala days and fun evenings, because this is the season of village revels that have their origins in the mists of time.
People do remarkable things under the guise of merrymaking. They roll cheeses, kick bottles, run around in sacks, pelt Aunt Sallies and do various things with eggs and there is always the beer tent to ensure that they generally make fools of themselves. But there is a serious sociological background to the public gatherings of high summer.
Our ancestors had only the hedges around the fields as their horizons and in those fields they ploughed and hoed and harvested and with no artificial illumination in their homes other than expensive candles and rush lights, they went to bed at sunset and rose at dawn which coincided with their working day. The pattern of village life has always been closely linked to the perennial rounds of ploughing and sowing, new crops, first fruits and harvest, and these weeks of hard work were punctuated by periods of relaxation, during which the traditional festivals, fairs and holidays were held. High summer gave them longer days and therefore additional hours to enjoy themselves just before the back breaking work of the harvest and so the tradition of the village feast during these months grew up when for a few hours they could forget their endless toil and socialise with their neighbours.
Most of these ancient customs survive today as a means of fund-raising for various charities and good causes and they continue despite our notoriously inclement weather and the assurance that the event will go on "in barn if wet" has become an ominous reminder that storm clouds may gather on the day although enjoyment is never dampened by the rain.
Meanwhile, more recent customs invade our senses and as the green corn ripens and turns a golden yellow, we hear the smack of leather on willow from the Abbey Lawn where cricket is a regular weekend occurrence and the smell of barbecued food drifts down the street to remind us that the outdoor life is the preferred one while the sun shines. It has always puzzled me why millions of us head for foreign climes at great expense during July and August when these are the very months that we can usually enjoy good weather here at home in our own back gardens without the hassle of crowded airports, uncomfortable accommodation and poor food at overrated tourist destinations. Travel is the perception of being somewhere else and it is a seductive illusion that we pursue, rather like a mirage in the desert, but as those of us who have abandoned such peregrinations years ago have discovered, the grass is seldom greener in those faraway places than it is here at home.
We are having a short break next week and so this column will not be appearing for a fortnight.
We are currently being urged to support our local traders by doing our shopping in Bourne and this is a most commendable objective to ensure that our traditional shops survive. But such an initiative ought to be two-way because the traders themselves have an obligation to ensure that the services they offer, the goods they sell and the prices they charge, make it worthwhile for us to "Buy in Bourne" as the current campaign has suggested. Saturday 29th July 2000
The four-week scheme to encourage more people to shop in the town has been launched by the Bourne Chamber of Trade and Commerce in conjunction with a number of our leading shops but I see that there are several on the list that could do much better if they want to keep our custom and stop us from chasing off elsewhere, to Stamford, Spalding and Grantham, Peterborough and even Lincoln and Nottingham.
There are many examples of their shortcomings and the cavalier way in which they treat the public. It was with some dismay that I went into one of the shops on the list a few days ago and asked for a particular item. This one specialises in a specific line of goods but their stock on display was obviously inadequate because I could not see the well-known brand that I wanted on the shelves. The lady assistant checked her wholesale catalogue and said that this item was indeed available from their suppliers but they would not be getting it for me. "We have to buy ten to sell you one", she said and so I drove into Peterborough where I found the item I wanted piled high in a similar shop and I bought what I needed and will most probably go there again in the future.
Meanwhile, the prices charged by some shops are quite absurd and in one case I spotted a notice in a window offering an item for £33 that I could buy for £3 less in Peterborough or Stamford and £7 less by mail order. There are many other examples. Fresh fruit and produce particularly is also quite costly at some of the supermarkets and strawberries and raspberries at this time of the year are a good example because they are usually being sold at double the price they can be bought on the Thursday market. In fact, my wife, who has been checking her shopping over the past few weeks, tells me that it would cost her £20-£30 extra on her weekly budget were she to buy everything in Bourne at the prices currently being charged. Instead, we go elsewhere for many of our requirements.
There is also the question of opening hours and several shops on the chamber's list continue to follow the antiquated system of half-day closing and shut their doors on Wednesday afternoons. If half of the shops in the town are closed at this time then what use is it going to shop in Bourne?
The chamber's campaign to increase the town's shopping capacity consists of a number of competitions with prizes, a mini fun day and a car treasure hunt, and although all of these attractions might increase awareness about our small shops, it is doubtful if any of them will bring in a single additional shopper. These are little more than gimmicks and the hundreds of printed plastic carrier bags with the "Buy in Bourne" logo that are also being provided can do little to solve the current problem but if the owners took a closer look at the stock on offer, prices charged and hours opened, then this would work wonders for the local economy and might even help secure their future.
A few weeks ago, an anonymous contributor left a message on the Bourne Forum saying simply "Bourne sucks!" which I am advised is a derogatory American vernacular phrase suggesting that the image of the town I present in words and pictures on my web site may not be totally justified. I have since been haunted by a recurring nightmare in which a party of overseas visitors to the web site arrive in town by coach on a sightseeing tour, attracted by what they have seen and read on the Internet. Unfortunately, they are not impressed and they find it a seedy little place with crumbling buildings, dilapidated shop fronts and scruffy people thronging the streets. All efforts to contact me for an explanation fail because we have fled to the coast to avoid them and so my effigy is ceremoniously burned in the market place before they depart for Scunthorpe, Milton Keynes and Wigan, in search of the really interesting places that this country has to offer.
After waking in a cold sweat several times in the early hours, I received an email from Canada to say that one of our visitors really was coming to see us. Jerry Pepper, aged 46, is a maintenance engineer, and he lives with his wife and teenage son at Chatham, Ontario. He has been in touch several times because he is researching his ancestors who originated in these parts but he had never before visited England. Now, because of a college sports visit to Manchester and Edinburgh with his son, Jerry had the chance to see the area for the first time and with one day free during the trip, he had hired a car and was driving down to see for himself and so we invited him for Sunday lunch on the patio.
He brought cine and still cameras and a notebook to record his visit and I have never met a man so enthusiastic about England and particularly Lincolnshire and although his stay was short, it was sufficient for him to make a judgement and I asked him to email me his opinion when he returned home. "The countryside was lush and green", he replied. "I loved every minute of it and it has fed my desire to see even more of Lincolnshire. Everything is as you said it was on the web site and I am keeping the English pounds left over from my visit because I shall be coming back." I have breathed a sigh of relief and have been sleeping much more soundly since Jerry's visit.
It is therefore with some pride that I mention yet another award for the Bourne web site, the most prestigious of those we have won so far. We have received the Golden Web Award for 2000-2001, an accolade presented by the International Association of Web Masters and Designers in recognition of our creativity, integrity and excellence and we are honoured to add their logo to our opening page. All of what you read and see here is from my own efforts as writer, researcher and photographer but that would count for nought were it not for my son Dr Justin Needle who as Webmaster is responsible for the design and maintenance of this web site that is updated weekly. The backroom boys are usually the unsung heroes of any successful enterprise because the limelight falls only on those with a public profile and I gladly and gratefully acknowledge the major contribution he has made to our success and long may it continue.
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