Bourne Diary - January 2001
by
Rex NeedleThe first snow of the winter brought the predictable chaos to Britain with airports closed, railways halted and chaos on icy roads made even more hazardous by madcap drivers who endangered not only themselves but also other people.
Saturday 6th January 2001 Here in Bourne, most people stayed at home and, of course, there was the usual flood of complaints that roads had not been treated and certainly there is much evidence that they were not. But this would not appear to be the case if you accepted statements from Lincolnshire Country Council at their face value. Highways officials claimed to have sent our 26 gritting vehicles to treat roads around the county and were "keeping the situation under constant review", an official euphemism I fear, for doing absolutely nothing. These phantom vehicles made no appearance in the Bourne area where rubbish collections were curtailed because the refuse freighters were unsafe on the roads and the A6121, a vital link between Bourne and Stamford that includes an accident black spot known as Toft Hill, remained untreated and extremely dangerous for three days, a situation only alleviated by the thaw that eventually ensued.
The excuses for inaction by those who run our public services in times of extreme seasonal or weather conditions appear to be mined from a deep vein of black humour. The "wrong type of snow" has entered the record books along with "leaves on the line" as the most witless excuses for halting the trains and now we have "unactivated salt" as the cause of treacherous road conditions for far longer than they should have been because it has not been churned in by passing traffic. It would be laughable were it not so tragic.
The real reason is that county councils are spending less on treating roads during inclement weather than in previous years in an attempt to curb spending. We are back to the old problem of money for although these authorities spend several millions each year, £550 million in the case of Lincolnshire County Council, the first claim on this is from the staff for their salaries, pensions and holiday entitlements, and then public services can have what it left over.
But what about this latest cold snap? These were not exactly Arctic conditions, even though the phrase was bandied about by the more hysterical sections of the press. There was a mere two to three inches of snow here in South Lincolnshire, no more, and yet Britain is reported around the world as being in the grip of another Ice Age. While the country battled with this fluttering of snow, I heard from a correspondent in Ontario that seven feet had already fallen this winter while in Moscow it had been snowing for ten days with flakes as big as cocktail umbrellas but in both Canada and Russia, life continued as normal. Snow ploughs and gritting lorries worked round the clock in sub-zero temperatures to keep the roads open in conditions that would send Britain into hibernation until spring and yet the public transport systems in both countries continued to operate and everyone went to work as normal.
Severe conditions such as this occur here only once every four years and there is only one consolation from the latest cold spell. Not once did I hear that ridiculous and politically correct phrase global warming.
The Mayor of Bourne, Councillor John Kirkman, has taken advantage of this web site in an attempt to explain the town council's position over the fiasco of our Christmas lights that has resulted in so much controversy and criticism of the authority in recent weeks. I outlined the case against them in my Diary last week and the following day he kindly emailed me an informative statement that I immediately posted in the Bourne Forum for the benefit of the many people who have expressed concern about this issue, one of the most frequently addressed topics since the web site began.
Councillor Kirkman has explained in great detail the thinking behind the town council's decision to increase the rates next year to pay for a more colourful and elaborate set of street illuminations but, by either accident or design, he did not address the specific and very pertinent question that is at the heart of this issue and that was how much of the cost will be met by the Bourne Chamber of Trade and Commerce, whose very members, the shopkeepers, will benefit most from this display which is designed to attract more people into the town centre and therefore buy their goods.
Now that Councillor Kirkman has taken the lead in this matter, perhaps Mr Mike Holden, the chamber's chairman who also has Internet access, will follow suit and answer this question where the mayor has failed. We await his reply with equal interest.
One of the less attractive parts of Bourne is added this week to the web site. It would be easy to ignore such places but it is my policy to present the locality as it is, warts and all, for how would I explain such omissions to visitors who come here from foreign parts to see our town and find that it was not entirely the idyllic place that I have painted in pictures and prose?
The western end of Wherry's Lane has been a disgrace for many years. For some reason, it has been allowed to deteriorate into a dirty and forbidding alleyway even though it is used daily by hundreds of pedestrians and by many people leaving their vehicles in the car park behind the Post Office and walking into the town centre. Why this short stretch of lane should have become so unkempt and run down is not exactly clear but certainly the owners of the surrounding properties do little to enhance its appearance and most of our council services that are responsible for street cleaning and the collection of litter appear to pass this spot by. The town end of Wherry's Lane, leading directly into North Street, struggles to retain is respectability and the properties in this section are well kept, busy and very much a part of Bourne's commercial life, but the far end appears to have become a place that time forgot.
Thought for the week: A lady called Laurette Lavine visited this web site last week from Revelstoke in British Columbia, Canada, and then left a message in the Guest Book saying: "Bourne is a place that I know I would love to visit." What a heartening start for the New Year!
The Internet is fast becoming a powerful tool in the hands of the people and officialdom is slowly but surely beginning to realise that it is the communications medium of the future. The message to government at all levels is therefore: ignore it at your peril. Saturday 13th January 2001
Last week, the Mayor of Bourne, Councillor John Kirkman, at my invitation, used his email system to send me a long and detailed answer about the current fiasco over the Christmas lights in the town and within hours, his reply was posted on the Bourne Forum for all to read. It would have been better had he posted the statement on the Forum himself, as I had suggested, but then he would have been required to leave his email address for all to see and even use and perhaps he was reluctant to do that.
However, the fact that the mayor has begun using the Internet to speak to those people he represents is a welcome innovation and augers well for the future and we hope that such a system of immediate communication will become a habit because we have for too long been kept in the dark about local authority affairs, dependent entirely on official statements from the councils concerned and inadequate reporting by the local press, a recipe for alarmist hearsay, speculation and rumour. South Kesteven District Council is now taking the initiative in this matter and although there was originally some discussion over the supply of computers to elected members as a step towards electronic communications, it was ultimately resolved to conduct a pilot study among those who were PC literate and already have Internet access.
The council tells me that the study so far has extended to the emailing of weekly planning lists and some committee agendas to a group of 14 volunteer elected members and this is helping iron out problems involving compatibility and the transmission of data. The council is also in the process of updating its contact list of councillors on their official web site at www.skdc.com to include email addresses and this will enable us to contact our councillors direct. One of Bourne's own representatives on this authority, Councillor Linda Neal, the member for Bourne West, has been the first to offer her email details and has confirmed that her electronic post-box is already keeping her busy.
These developments are to be applauded for they herald the start of a new era in the contact between the electorate and those we put in office, one that is both intimate and personal, two important factors absent from our dealings with a faceless bureaucracy in the past. The email makes the message a more direct form of communication with someone in office and, unless it is returned rejected because the email has been deliberately blocked or the address changed, there is the added bonus that you know it has been received and read by the person you are addressing.
The burden of office carries many responsibilities but none so important as that of keeping in touch with the people and of always being both willing and prepared to answer their questions. Those councillors who fail to keep up with the times will find their popularity, and indeed their importance, diminished by their omission.
The Sun newspaper has a justified claim to fame over its pithy and pungent headlines because many have entered the language and one came to mind this week when I learned that Bourne is at last to get a permanent household waste re-cycling centre, hopefully before the end of this year. "It was us wot did it!" the Sun would have said even if they had only the remotest connection with the achievement in question and so it has been here in Bourne.
Local councillor Ian Croft, who is chairman of Lincolnshire County Council's highways and planning committee, tells us: "I am glad I have successfully persuaded my colleagues of the need for such a facility" while The Local, our weekly newspaper, says that the decision follows the tremendous support for the campaign they mounted for the establishment of such a tip. The Mayor of Bourne, Councillor John Kirkman, who was the original prophet of doom predicting the loss of this amenity, also chips in with his two-pennyworth saying: "The county council has taken notice of the lobbying for a site. It is not down to a particular body but a combination of efforts from a number of people, including The Local."
Well, I do not intend to be left out if the credit for this new facility is being grabbed from all quarters and the evidence can be found on this web site. The problem was first highlighted in the Diary as far back as December 1998 and there have been twelve more mentions about the rubbish problems in our town since. The campaign for a permanent waste centre only got into gear last year after the mayor warned that we were in danger of losing the freighter amenity site we had in the Rainbow car park completely because a handful of people were flouting the rules. For those who would like to know exactly what our councillors thought about the issue then, it might be worth re-reading my Diary entry for Saturday 2nd September 2000.
The Bourne web site touches only briefly on the bad points of this town and the 500 photographs and 250,000 words of text to be found here mainly sing its praises. For those then who find my occasional words of criticism anathema, I suggest that you take a look at Ugly Walsall, a web site devoted to that West Midlands industrial town ten miles north of Birmingham in an area that was once known as the Black Country that has won itself a reputation as the ugliest place in the world.
This is entirely due to a web site launched in 1998 by a local man George Roper and the case he puts is so forceful that the writer Theodore Dalrymple has likened this town to "Ceaucescu's Romania with fast food outlets". He adds: "There is nowhere in the world where it is possible to travel such long distances without seeing anything grateful to the eye." George Roper makes no apologies. "This is it, the site that reveals the worst of Walsall's sights", trumpets his opening page. "I know, it's a dirty job, but hey, somebody has to do it". The web site then goes on to itemise all that is bad about Walsall in both words and pictures that show how the local authorities and private owners have allowed buildings to run down, how public money is being wasted on foolish and frivolous schemes, how litter despoils the streets, public services are totally inadequate and how the environment is slowly deteriorating.
It is a shocking tale of urban decline and the author states: "The culprits responsible for these scenes may never be known or even brought to justice. What this site does do however, is point out that certain people do not care about their surroundings. If you are a resident, then complain to your council, your M P and if necessary your neighbour."
The Walsall web site is a salutary lesson of what can happen through inefficiency, neglect and total indifference, and we must be forever on our guard that it does not happen here. It is also a warning for those responsible because they will be surely be found out.
Thought for the Week: I wrote two weeks ago (30th December 2000) about being accosted and verbally abused while walking down the street near my home with my wife early one evening shortly before Christmas. This has surprised one of my correspondents in the Middle East although she lives in a country riven by tension and violence and even the threat of war. "I was astonished that such a thing could happen in quiet and polite Lincolnshire", she writes. "I walk every day, all alone in the wilderness, and nobody disturbs me, and Israel is certainly neither quiet nor polite."
We looked out over a fen covered with thick frost this week as temperatures plunged below freezing point for several days. Wild life finds it difficult to survive in conditions that bring cruel ice and iron-hard ground and I am therefore especially vigilant in putting out food for the birds and also a tray of water because the bird bath from which they usually drink was frozen over. Most small birds must eat continually to survive and so they are liable to drop dead unless they find regular sustenance and it is during such cold spells that so many fail in their unremitting efforts to stay alive. Saturday 20th January 2001
One of my most vivid memories is of a severe winter in 1976 when the thermometer during the day was reading -18 degrees F and I looked outside and saw a robin perched on the branch of an apple tree and suddenly it tumbled to the ground, frozen without warning by the severe cold.
From my study window this week I spotted a collared dove in the garden next door that had succumbed to the extreme cold, lying on its side on the lawn while a predatory seagull pecked at its flesh to ensure its own survival. I have witnessed sparrowhawks and kestrels taking live animals and birds for food but this was the first time that I had seen this species eating carrion. We have seagulls in the Bourne area because the sea is not too far distant and their flocks can even be seen on the playing fields and surrounding rooftops in the town. The pattern of bird habitats changes as the years progress and what was an unusual sighting yesterday becomes commonplace today.
It is extreme weather conditions such as this that remind us how fortunate we are to live in a civilised and ordered society where instead of the hunting and gathering of past times, the daily struggle for life is for most of us, merely a trip to the supermarket. The journalist Paul Johnson, writing recently in The Spectator about the onset of this current spell of hard weather, observed that it was not so many centuries ago that life was a daily struggle for nine-tenths of the human race, when old men and women and small children died in the night of cold and hunger, as small birds do now in the wintertime. "I often give silent thanks", he said, " to those unknown, unknowable forebears who, over countless generations, freed us from the iron grip of subsistence living. They are the real heroes of humanity, if truth be told. The rest was comparatively easy"
The Bourne web site has many readers down under, some of them ex-patriates or descendants of emigrants from centuries past, while others log on just because they become interested in the place. Ben Roberts, aged 28, comes into the latter category because he has never been here but after a few hours looking at what we had to offer, he liked what he saw and will soon be on his way. He is swapping jobs with John Wilcockson, aged 33, who has been the Forester at Bourne Woods since 1996, but is to spend a year among the Blue Gum plantations near Albany, on the southernmost tip of Western Australia, where Ben now works as Operations Forester.
The 12-months exchange has been arranged to give both experience of different forest environments in other parts of the world and when the swap was first mooted, John hoped to send some pictures of Bourne Woods by email to give Ben a taste of what to expect. But, he explained: "My scanner was not working and then my digital camera went on the blink. I therefore suggested that he take a look at the Bourne web site which gives extensive coverage of both Bourne Woods and the Clipsham Yew Tree Avenue and their histories and he was hooked." John suggested that during his stay in England, he might like to visit Scotland and Wales and even Europe, but Ben replied: "Oh no, after seeing the web site we will probably spend the whole year exploring the Bourne area."
The exchange will be a cultural shock for both men, mainly because of the size and type of woodland in which they will work. John's responsibilities are part of the 21,000 acres of Forestry Commission land within the Northamptonshire district that includes Bourne, Kirkby Underwood, Pickworth, Clipsham, Twyford, Careby and Braceborough. Last year he was responsible for the planting of 87 acres, a total of 67,500 new trees, mainly oak and ash with a life cycle of 150-plus years. Ben's forests in Western Australia are mainly eucalyptus trees with a seven-year life cycle and last year he was responsible for the planting of 21,250 acres of new trees, a total of 25 million.
But despite the disparity in size of the two locations where they will work, the learning curve will be much the same for both men and apart from the benefits they will reap for their future careers in caring for some of the world's woodlands, the job exchange will also give them the chance to experience different lifestyles and forge new friendships and we wish them well in their endeavours.
Meanwhile, Bourne Woods continue to delight visitors and to provide a magnet for all who love the English countryside. But it is also worth remembering that there are other areas of woodland in the vicinity administered by the Forestry Commission, all much smaller but equally attractive, and here is the latest map of their locations.
The Car Dyke is one of those features of the South Lincolnshire landscape that most people have heard of and even seen but few know much about its origins. I have therefore spent several months researching the history of this remarkable waterway that was built by the Romans, probably early in the second century A D with the most likely purpose of moving men, materials and provisions by barge from East Anglia to supply their armies in the north. It has since become an integral part of the agricultural drainage system in this part of the country but remains an important feature of the ancient landscape and one of this area's major Romano-British monuments, possibly the second longest construction from this period after Hadrian's Wall. My illustrated essay on the Car Dyke has been added this week to the Bourne Focus.
Thought for the Week: During the current cold spell, I have not once heard the phrase global warming on the radio or television. It was also noted with some interest that new international research has found that recent global warming claims have been based on false data and that the rate of temperature increases have been exaggerated by unreliable figures. Perhaps we can now put that dreadful phrase to rest once and for all.
Lord Beaverbook, the irascible owner of the Daily Express, was in the habit of telephoning his London newspaper late at night from wherever he was in the world to ask "Who's in charge of the clattering train?" for he feared that without proper supervision by his editors, the monster that he nurtured would leave the rails and plunge into oblivion. Our local government is in such danger for it lurches along with little sense of direction and no one seems to be at the controls. Saturday 27th January 2001
We see the effects of this disorder here in Bourne where the simple task of building a block of public lavatories has revealed the conflict and discord not only between the various councils but also among the councillors themselves and for sheer comic absurdity, the plot rivals Clochemerle, Gabriel Chevallier's hilarious tale about the construction of a new public urinal in the market place of a French village which subsequently erupts in turmoil with scandals, rivalries and gossip that have been festering below the surface for years past.
The fact that the town needs new lavatories is not in question. The existing block in South Street, pictured above, was built by the former Bourne Urban District Council during the last century and because of continued neglect, it has become a forbidding building, dark, dirty and vandalised and, as we discovered during a visit this week, without even running water in some of the more important facilities. It is also a most fearsome place to visit after dark. My wife was forced to go there early one evening last year but confessed on coming out that she had quite expected to encounter a Norman Bates lurking inside and waiting to pounce on unsuspecting ladies when they were at their most vulnerable.
South Kesteven District Council, the local authority responsible for such matters, therefore decided that the answer was a new 36-foot toilet block to be built at the entrance to the market square behind the town hall. That was six months ago but the only problem is that they did not tell Bourne Town Council who had been quietly carrying out a survey among the people of Bourne which showed that the majority want new toilets on the South Street site and not on the market place. The market traders do not welcome them there either because they will reduce the space available for stalls and could even deter shoppers. But what really made town councillors angry was that such a decision about public toilets in their own town had been taken behind their backs and without their knowledge by a council at Grantham twenty miles away.
Now here we may be forgiven for asking the obvious. The Mayor of Bourne, Councillor John Kirkman, is a member of South Kesteven District Council. Why did he not tell his fellow members on the town council of this proposed development? He regularly regales us in his weekly mayoral column in the local newspaper with tales of the mountains of paperwork that arrive daily on his doorstep from the corridors of power in Grantham. Was there no mention in the minutes or the weekly planning lists of a new toilet block for Bourne costing more than £100,000, a decision we now discover was taken last July?
Councillor Linda Neal also owes an explanation to those who elected her to the town council. She is a member of the district council and chairman of their customer services committee who eventually revealed last week that the market site had already been chosen and her remarks clearly indicated that her loyalties were with the district rather than the town council and, even overriding that, with the Conservative cabal that dictates district council policy.
Who indeed is in charge of the clattering train? This sad and sorry episode reveals a major drawback in our system of local government. The three tiers of parish, district and county councils are at least one too many to be workable and it is quite untenable that councillors belong to two of these authorities while some even belong to all three. They cannot run with the fox and hunt with the hounds. Sanity however has re-surfaced for a while at least. Councillors at Grantham have voted unanimously to send the plan for our new lavatories back to committee for reconsideration.
This unnecessary delay has confirmed what many have suspected for some time: that it is the parish council, which in Bourne is known as the town council, that should go. It has only limited powers with responsibilities for little more than the cemetery and the allotments, both of which could easily be handled by a small, local office administered by the district council, while the function of mayor has become an anachronism with our first citizen doing little more than press flesh, stir plum puddings and open garden fetes, a Toytown role that is totally ineffectual and apparently not even considered sufficiently important to be consulted over the location of new loos. We expect Mr Growser from that much-loved BBC children's radio programme of sixty and more years ago to appear on the scene at any moment, berating His Worship outside the South Street toilet block and shouting: "Disgraceful! It ought not to be allowed" while Larry the Lamb and his friend Denis the Dachshund look on with mounting disbelief and not a little enjoyment until Ernest the Policeman arrives to break up the disturbance.
There have been too many issues of late that have demonstrated the inadequacy of the town council in running local affairs and the writing is now on the wall for this lower tier of local government to be declared redundant and disbanded although it will need a decision by national government for such a revolutionary change in the status quo. Certainly, the money saved on running costs would more than pay for a whole galaxy of Christmas lights for an entire month over the festive season that might even put the illuminations along London's Regent Street to shame.
The high winds of recent weeks have removed some familiar landmarks from the Wellhead Gardens here in Bourne. Two willow trees that have been standing for half a century were rent asunder by a southerly gale and thirteen others were badly damaged.
One of the trees beside St Peter's Pool, pictured above, is a particular loss because it was the largest to be seen on the skyline by visitors entering the park from South Street and was planted soon after the Second World War. It is now being systematically sawn into logs by park staff and given away as firewood although willow spits when burned and is therefore more suitable for wood burning stoves rather than open fires. The second tree stood on the banks of the Bourne Eau near to its source and was equally ancient but the damage it sustained demonstrated the strength of the gale because its massive trunk was split down the middle and its main branches toppled.
The loss of favourite trees from a familiar landscape is a poignant reminder of the forces of nature which, at their most extreme, can do just as much damage as man unchecked. We must therefore be forever vigilant about what we have left and think twice before we even trample a blade of grass.
The Bourne Forum has become a very lively debating chamber for those who know and care about our town. In the past few weeks, much of what I have written here today about our local affairs has been exceeded in both passion and invective. But there is always that still small voice of calm and for those who like to think about the way things were, then I commend an item contributed this week by Peter Sharpe under the heading of Fishing in Bourne that has been added as a feature in the Bourne Focus. It will be the cause of some nostalgia for many who practised their fishing skills with a length of twine and a bent pin as well as those more serious and sophisticated disciples of the 17th century angler Isaak Walton who pursued their sport with an eye on the silver trophy.
Thought for the Week: If the old lavatories in South Street had been maintained and modernised over the years instead of being allowed to deteriorate into the black hole they are now, would the district council need to be spending £100,000 on replacing them at the present time?
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