Bourne Diary - February 2001
by
Rex NeedleOur council tax is about to go up yet again and as with last year it will be well above the rate of inflation despite government assurances that it is under control and even below 2.5%. How this figure is arrived at defeats me because most things that affect the average householder, such as home insurance, water rates, car tax, petrol and a multitude of other goods and services, rise annually at double that figure. Saturday 3rd February 2001
The Social Education Centre here in Bourne is a case in point. It was designed and built specifically for adults with learning difficulties and opened in January 1988 at a cost of £¾ million. This was a joint project between South Lincolnshire District Health Authority and Lincolnshire County Council and was judged to be sufficiently important for our M P Mr Quentin Davies to perform the opening ceremony. But the building was a mistake from the outset, sited in the wrong place on the edge of an industrial estate at the corner of Pinfold Road and the busy main A151, badly designed and needing major alterations within a short time of its opening, Since then it has been under-used and for the past four months has been closed and boarded up and is now in the process of being sold for general industrial use, storage and distribution.
Our own local councillors are naturally disappointed that such a well-meaning project should fail so soon but the best they can muster about seeing £750,000 of public money go down the drain in just thirteen years is that the whole affair is, in the words of former mayor Mrs Marjorie Clark, "a terrible shame". That must be the understatement of the year because a more accurate description would be a financial travesty and an example of the very worst that we expect from local government. Where are the councillors who voted for this scheme at the time? Are they still in office participating in the policy making process? Where are the officers who were responsible for this terrible waste of public money? Are they still at their desks making more decisions? As Private Eye would say, I think we should be told.
But it is my experience that councillors and officials go to ground when an explanation of such mismanagement is needed yet they all queue up in their chains of office and smart suits whenever there is reason for celebration and the press and television cameras are around. Those responsible should stand up and be counted. Instead, they will all nod wisely as another batch of inflated council tax demands are sent out for their latest round of profligacy. After all, why should they worry? It is not their money they are spending. It is ours.
We visited the nature reserve at Baston Fen this week, a protected area of the South Lincolnshire fens which covers 90 acres of washlands to the south of Bourne and is administered by the Lincolnshire Trust for Nature Conservation.
The washlands were originally created in the mid-17th century to take floodwater from the River Glen in times of high flows. Dispersing it on the washes reduced the risk of bank bursts and associated wide scale flooding of adjoining farmland. These days, high flows are diverted into the Greatford Cut and thence into the River Welland near Market Deeping.
Adjacent to the washlands and alongside the rivers are borrow pits excavated over the centuries to provide soil for maintenance of the banks. These pits were last used in the 1950s. A programme of work now ensures that sections of these pits, and the reserve's dyke system, are systematically cleaned out over a ten-year period in order to retain a variety of aquatic habitats. The ponds, pools and meres are cleaned out over a much longer period. The overall management, including a high water table in summer, is designed to provide typical fenland habitats for a wide variety of birds, plants and animals, many of them now scarce in the region.
The reserve was purchased in 1967 with a grant from the World Wildlife Fund and the Society for the Promotion of Nature Reserves, now The Wildlife Trusts. In 1968, Baston Fen was scheduled as a Site of Special Scientific Interest for its botanical and ornithological interests and since then, the reserve has proved to be equally important for a wide range of invertebrates, including moths, bugs, beetles and molluscs. The three grass washes are subjected to a variety of grazing and haymaking regimes to create a varied flora and in winter are flooded from early December to early March to attract wildfowl.
Thirty acres of the reserve have another use in winter when the area is specially flooded in anticipation of severe overnight frosts that will create the ideal venue for a dedicated band of enthusiasts who are only able to pursue their sport when the weather is cold enough.
Fenland ice-skating is one of the most unusual sporting pursuits in the land because the weather needs to be suitably cold and five nights of sub-zero temperatures are usually reckoned to be sufficient to provide ideal conditions. Until that winter day dawns, the long bladed skates known as fenland runners that are needed for such high speeds, hang optimistically in sheds and outhouses waiting for the next big freeze. When it comes, the thickness of the ice is all important because there have been misjudgements in past years when spectators and competitors have fallen through and so an official ice tester of suitable weight is sent out to jump up and down on the surface and if the ice holds, then skating goes ahead.
A telephone relay system has been established to notify those who wish to participate and the following day the competitors from all parts of the country gather on the ice for the races to begin over a triangular course where the various outdoor speed skating championship titles for Lincolnshire, for Fenland and even for Britain are decided.
The sport dates back to the Middle Ages and the earliest skaters were almost certainly Flemish using skates carved from wood or the shin bones of sheep strapped tightly to their boots. Skating took place whenever the frost was severe enough to prevent the land from being worked but provided the ideal conditions on waterways and meres. Farm workers would skate along the rivers and drains from pub to pub, often racing each other, and so what was once a pastime soon became a working man's sport with prizes of much needed food put up by the farmers such as a sack of potatoes or even a leg of ham.
The speeds that could be achieved when miles of waterway were suddenly opened up in this way were quite phenomenal and there are records of a 15-mile race from Wisbech to Whittlesey in Cambridgeshire in 1763 with a winning time of 46 minutes. But the hey day of this winter pursuit was during the 19th century after 15-inch steel blades were introduced and the popularity of the sport led to the formation of the National Skating Association in 1827. It has developed and prospered ever since and its existence becomes manifest whenever the temperatures dip to below freezing point for a prolonged period for this is one of the only sports in the land in which participants pray for a long, hard winter.
A new feature has been added to the Bourne web site in which everyone has the chance to recall the years that have gone by and perhaps discover whether they really were the good old days. I have called it "Memories of Times Past" and it will be part of the Bourne Focus section.
Since the web site was launched, I have received many messages from Britain and abroad telling me of places, people and incidents connected with our town that are still remembered, either with affection or sometimes even awe, and these tales are too good to be allowed to slip away for ever and not be preserved for those who come after us and wish to read about the way it was.
The idea was inspired by a particularly nostalgic piece on fishing in the Bourne Eau and elsewhere in the area by Peter Sharpe and by memories of visits to the old public library in West Street by Barry Sheppard. Both items are now included in the new feature and I welcome further contributions in the same vein. Short pieces of up to 1,000 words will be considered, and photographs will be a bonus, although I reserve the right to edit whatever is submitted. These reminiscences will form part of the illustrated social archive for Bourne that is now reaching a formidable size and will provide a valuable insight for our descendants into the life and times of this town.
Thought for the Week: While driving through Bourne town centre on Monday morning, I became trapped in a traffic jam and then as I drove down South Street, I was almost run down by a huge articulated lorry that ought not be on such narrow roads originally built for the horse and cart. Later, while sitting in the reference room at the public library, I read this from the files of the Bourne Local newspaper: "Engineers could soon begin design work on Bourne's planned £3.4 million eastern by-pass after the county council's transportation and planning committee gave the go ahead for the scheme." The date was 1st March 1990. We are still waiting.
Most old soldiers have affectionate memories of the Salvation Army because their refreshment wagons had the habit of turning up in the most inaccessible of places where they were going about their business to serve char and wads to hungry squaddies while the permanent centres they set up in the vicinity of many military camps were havens of warmth and welcome for those living in the austere regime of a barrack block. Saturday 10th February 2001
There was such a place that I remember at Catterick Camp in Yorkshire when I was undergoing my basic tank training in the late 1940s and where I first learned to love Beethoven and Bach because musical appreciation evenings were held there every Wednesday accompanied by the cup that cheers and perhaps an Eccles cake or two. We knew them as the Sally Ann, a perpetual presence that was like the dependence of an old friend, comforting and always welcoming.
Later, as a young reporter with the local newspaper in Peterborough, I spent some time with the Salvationists writing an article about the King Street Citadel, and my enduring memory is that I never saw a face without a smile. A decade later, as a BBC radio interviewer, I met a young uniformed girl selling their official newspaper the War Cry one Saturday evening in the public bar of the Eastgate public house in Padholme Road, Peterborough. She had become so popular with the weekend regulars that all of her copies of the newspaper disappeared in a flash but she was not allowed to leave without singing The Old Rugged Cross that was delivered in total silence from her appreciative audience. We talked for ten minutes on tape and she sang again for the recording that was used the following Monday morning on the now famous Radio 4 Today programme. It was then used in both the Pick of the Week and on the World Service and indeed our interview was repeated the following month in the War Cry itself which is where it all started.
The Salvation Army is an evangelical Christian movement and therefore takes its beliefs out to the people on the streets and the present commanding officer at Bourne, Lieutenant David Kinsey, has become a familiar figure selling the War Cry outside Woolworth's in North Street, Bourne, on Thursday mornings which is market day. Such zeal and enthusiasm, like the girl I met in a Peterborough public house half a century ago, may not convert a disbeliever like myself, but it does command my enduring admiration for their work in the community.
A short history of the Salvation Army presence here in Bourne is added today to the Bourne Town section of the web site and David Kinsey asks me to say that all who wish to join them will be most welcome.
The controversy over who should pay for the Christmas lights rumbles on in the Bourne Forum but the consensus is that the shopkeepers should chip in. Let us make it quite clear what the issue is: we do not wish to see our Christmas lights go out but at the same time we object that the people are being forced to pay for them. The most disturbing aspect of this affair is that the Bourne Chamber of Trade and Commerce asked its members some months back whether they would contribute and the answer was no. We, the home owners, have been given no such choice and are being ordered to pay or face the consequences, even though many old people are living on fixed incomes where every penny counts.
When I pointed this out in a letter to the local newspaper last month, greengrocer Nigel Dodds of the Burghley Fruiters and Florists replied that I should curtail my Internet activities. "I know the cost of being online and you [Mr Needle] could save a fortune if you gave up this non-necessity", he said. This would mean abandoning the Bourne web site, even though it has around 500 visitors a week (87 last Monday alone), probably as many customers as he gets through the door of his shop in that time although I charge them nothing and they certainly get more satisfaction from it than they would from half a pound of sprouts.
This would appear to reflect the attitude of the traders: we do not care who pays as long as it is not us. One contributor to the Bourne Forum has suggested that the traders get no benefit from the lights but I find this a argument either totally disingenuous or a trifle naive. If this were true, why do they flock to participate in the annual late night spending spree in the run up to Christmas?
The town council is on a hiding to nothing over this issue and in the words of the Mayor, Councillor John Kirkman, in another context: "We will be damned if we do and damned if we don't." But that is the very reason why we elect our councillors, to tackle difficult problems such as this and not to take the easy option by running to the council tax payers every time they get into a jam. What other options have they explored? If, as councillors suggest, everyone will be quite willing to help pay for the lights, why not make it a voluntary contribution? This would be the most democratic course of action and one that would decide once and for all not only whether we would have Christmas lights but whether we deserve them. Is there not a sponsor out there who might finance this annual extravaganza or perhaps a private benefactor because there is certainly a lot of money lying idle in the bank accounts of people who have made a very good living out of our town and countryside?
I have carried out my own straw poll among neighbours and friends and not one will pay this extra tax willingly while the shopkeepers refuse to contribute. They regard it as a moral issue and some have even vowed to do their Christmas shopping outside Bourne unless they do.
It is also very strange that the Bourne Chamber of Trade and Commerce has stayed silent on this matter even though I invited them to make a statement on January 6th. The shopkeepers of Bourne tell us continually that they are hard up and cannot afford to contribute towards the Christmas lights that bring them in so much additional trade over the festive season. As a final word on this issue for the moment, I will repeat a recent conversation with a local trader whose business it quite modest but who I will not name to spare their blushes. They started off by listing all of the overheads they had to bear, such as electricity, rent, staff wages, VAT, repairs and renewals, and of course the dreaded £3,000 a year in business rates. Then, with a knowing wink and a smile, they said: "But it's not a bad little earner for all that."
The reputation of T W Mays here in Bourne has been somewhat overshadowed by the celebrity of his son Raymond, the motor racing pioneer, but his work for the town should not be forgotten. He took over and expanded the family business of fellmongers and skin dealers that provided employment for many people for more than 100 years and therefore adding to the economy of the town, but the commercial momentum was not sustained after his death. The business empire that had been so assiduously built up and the money accrued was spent by Raymond pursuing his dream of building the perfect motor racing car and although he brought international fame on the track to Britain, he died in debt while the fortune amassed by his ancestors during their lifetime had been spent. The life and times of Thomas William Mays (1856-1934) has been added today to the Bourne Focus.
The Bourne web site has a new look and it is for the better. The design will provide you with more screen space and make navigation speedier and simpler. We tried earlier this year to improve on its appearance but were not quite successful and there were howls of disapproval from around the globe but this time our Webmaster, my son Dr Justin Needle, has done us proud to universal acclaim.
This web site is very much a family concern, non-partisan and unfettered by commercial advertising, and long may it continue so. There are outside pressures for us to support this or support that but we intend to remain vigorously independent and to provide a platform for anyone with a grievance to air or a plaudit to pass on. I remember an old advertising slogan from my boyhood, written by the local butcher and always shown on the screen before performances at our neighbourhood fleapit cinema and I commend it to you: "If we please you, tell others. If not, tell us."
The family history section continues to thrive and I receive regular messages from around the world of contacts being made by those who are trying to trace their ancestors and have had some success through this web site. One of the oldest entries is for the Scotney family but the email address for the person who provided the information is no longer valid and has therefore been deleted. This is a shame because someone offering a wealth of detail about the name has been trying to make contact but without success. This feature can only succeed if those who contribute keep their information up to date, particularly their email addresses, and unless they do they are likely to miss out on a golden opportunity to further their family quest, as has happened in this instance. If the originator is still on the Internet and wishes to upgrade this entry, then I will happily reinstate it once I get a new email address.
Thought for the Week: I purchased two small books this week about the development of Bourne's local railways from the mid-19th century onwards and they are full of colour and anecdote about the busy train services that were available daily between town and village. The death knell for these local services was sounded in 1963 when a controversial report by the chairman of the British Railways Board, Richard Beeching, advocated concentrating resources on inter-city passenger traffic and freight at the cost of closing many rural and branch lines. This was not merely a misjudgement. It was a crime against society and has contributed in no small part to the traffic congestion on our roads today.
The tea shop is a much loved institution in this country, especially in small towns and large villages, and they are featured in many of the old films that we still see on television from the middle years of the past century but are now part of an England long gone. A pot of tea and an assortment of cakes is the perfect accompaniment to an hour of gossip on a weekday morning by housewives out shopping or as a rendezvous for its own sake and these havens of peace survived even through the austere years of the Second World War when rationing meant that the only fare on offer were rock cakes and currant buns with very little fruit. Saturday 17th February 2001
This tradition however survives in Bourne at Polly's tea shop where the sight through a misted window of many women's elegant hats bent low over the cups and saucers with the accompaniment of incessant chatter is an indication that this form of social encounter is as popular as ever.
Polly's was the brainchild of Betty James, best remembered as a gossip columnist for our local weekly newspaper for many years, and she has provided us with a glimpse of the excitement and the stress of opening this business in North Street twenty years ago. Her piece entitled Polly's Tea Shop is added today to our new feature called Memories of Times Past that is already attracting interest from many people at home and abroad and who regard our town with affection.
A second contribution comes from Dennis Staff who lives in Ottawa, Ontario, the Canadian capital, and who has written an evocative account of his time as an evacuee in Bourne in 1940. Dennis was sent here to escape the bombing of Hull on the north east coast and he had the good fortune to be billeted with a good and kind couple, Mrs Emily Grummitt and her husband Ernest, at their council house home in Burghley Street where he was given the room used by their only son Maurice who was away serving with the Royal Navy. I tracked down Maurice, now aged 77 and living in Cecil Close, Bourne, and he remembered Dennis with affection from the times he came home on leave.
This is a heart-warming story because Dennis has only recently discovered the Internet through which he found the Bourne web site and he was most anxious for us to know that he appreciated the welcome he received here and the great start in life that the people of this town gave to a frightened eight-year-old boy. Dennis later emigrated to Canada and went on to achieve great things, as you will discover when you read An Evacuee from Hull.
A few weeks ago I published a photograph of Hudson's Mill at Baston, once a sign of fenland prosperity as its four sails powered by the wind turned the millstones and ground the corn from nearby farms. The mill was built in 1806 and continued its useful life for 120 years but now stands neglected but not forgotten at Mill House Farm just off the A15 road, five miles south of Bourne.
My photograph has brought back memories for Joe Brudenell whose family have farmed in the South Fen around Baston since 1874 and who bought the mill in 1916. It is now a Grade II listed building and its presence on the web site has prompted the family to think about its restoration. Joe, now aged 78, has retired from the business which is now run by his son Michael, although he still appears at harvest time to drive a combine. But he is anxious to see the mill survive. "It would be a great loss to see it disappear", he said wistfully. "Perhaps the Millennium Fund might help us out. We must see what can be done."
Joe has a photograph of the mill during its heyday, taken about 1903 but the stone tower is now virtually a shell and all four sails have gone.
Village histories continue to appear but the latest for Morton and Hanthorpe* commands my admiration because it is literally the product of a cottage industry yet holds its own among those grand publications that have emanated in recent months from Castle Bytham, Witham-on-the-Hill and Baston.
Brian Lawrance, aged 57, a retired farm worker, hardly knew what a computer was at this time last year yet he has used it to produce his book of local history which is packed with names and dates, pictures and anecdote, that rightly deserves its place among the social archives for the Bourne locality. It is a simple work of 60 pages, ring bound in A4 format with photographs from the past on every page showing scenes from village life as far back as 1900 with detailed explanations and historical information.
Each copy is printed and bound at Brian's stone cottage in Hanthorpe and as he can only produce four copies a day due to the limitations of his equipment, it is therefore all the more remarkable to know that it has been well received in the community and 200 copies have been distributed so far. Spurred on by the reception for this modest publication, Brian is now planning his second book that will take the community forward into the 21st century and we await its publication with some eagerness.
The Bourne web site is now part of the official archives for Lincolnshire. A copy of the entire web site on CD-ROM as at the end of January 2001 has been deposited with the collection of records that form the history of this county but our reputation had gone before us. Librarian Mrs Claire Mitchell says: "I had heard of the project and it is lovely to see the end result. I am sure future readers at Lincolnshire Archives will make good use of all your efforts."
The CD-ROM will be updated every three months to ensure that future social historians will have a glimpse of life as it was in Bourne.
Thought for the Week: The controversial new public lavatories planned for Bourne at a cost in excess of £100,000 could still be built elsewhere in the town but I wonder what will happen then to the present building in South Street. Perhaps a new use for the site has already been decided by South Kesteven District Council to be revealed in six months' time when our mayor and town council will again protest that they were the last to know.
* Morton & Hanthorpe - A Picture History Through the Years, costs £10 and can be obtained from Brian Lawrance of 29 Edenham Road, Hanthorpe, Bourne, Lincolnshire PE10 0RB, United Kingdom. Email: brian@blawrance.fsnet.co.uk
One of the more unusual aspects of society today is that it is awash with money and as a result, it no longer commands the respect that it once did. The various government agencies at national and local level are forever ready to distribute handouts to those who claim to be hard up, whether they come from this country or not, and so it is comparatively easy to go through life without working and yet live quite comfortably at the expense of others. Saturday 24th February 2001
The reason for this is that those who do work, or have been prudent while they were in employment and made provisions for their retirement, are required to pay exorbitant taxes to enable those who do not and the latest figures reveal that in one way or another, the government claims 52% of the national income for its own spending and this figure is rising annually. Such a statistic is reflected down through the lower echelons of government where the motto appears to be spend rather than save because there will always be more money available from the milch cow from whence it came.
I related an incident shortly before Christmas in which I saw a boy throw a penny piece down a drain because he thought it worthless and there are many of his elders who regard the £1 coin in a similar light. There was even some merriment in certain quarters when I pointed out in this column recently that old people on fixed incomes would object to paying the town council levy of £1 to help finance the Christmas lights here in Bourne. There were cries of "Scrooge" and suggestions that I wanted to see our streets plunged into darkness over the festive season simply for the sake of a few pennies when of course all I had suggested was that the shopkeepers who benefit most from these seasonal illuminations should also contribute which indeed they have refused to do. They deal in hard currency every day and so for them, the £1 coin is not a derisory sum because they realise that to have enough of them is the way to wealth, something that has not occurred to us who are not in trade.
The credit card has much to do with this new attitude towards money because it enables us pay bills and buy things without the guilt of actually parting with our cash. Sixty years ago, when wages were paid weekly in notes and coins and bank accounts were unheard of for most people, my mother always carried her housekeeping around in a purse and she knew at any given moment how much there was in it, down to the last halfpenny, while my father was similarly familiar with the small change he kept in his waistcoat pocket. It was an extremely rare event in those days to find a dropped coin in the street whereas today they are regularly scooped up with the rubbish by our road sweepers.
Paper money was greeted with great hostility when the first £5 notes were issued in 1795 and I can remember being given one as late as 1950 when you were required to sign your name on the back before offering it for payment. There was also a wariness about the acceptance of personal cheques when they started to become popular but all of these innovations pall in the face of the electronic banking system that we have today and much of our responsibility towards our finances has been eroded by the ownership of a sliver of plastic that gives us the comforting and often false reassurance that we always have money to spend. You may not have the ready cash to board a bus or hail a taxi but you can shop until you drop in the High Street, splash out on new clothes, a lavish meal in a restaurant, indulgent presents or even a holiday in some exotic spot without regard to the cost for this new facility allows you to live now and pay later and you will never have to go through the anguish of seeing the cash actually changing hands.
The fact that our personal finances are distant electronic transactions is one of the reasons why our currency has become so devalued. The sum of £1 no longer matters to some people and if that is the case with £1, then it must also be so with £10 or even £50. Certainly, the regard we once had for money no longer exists. There will then be few complaints when council tax bills drop through our letter boxes in a few weeks' time and which, I might add, unlike most services we use, will be payable in advance with severe consequences for those who default. This tax will be going up by almost 6%, which is nearly three times the current rate of inflation, and will mean substantial increases for all home owners here in the Bourne area well in excess of that seemingly derisory £1. This is taxation by stealth and those who impose it have teams of experts beavering away in the back rooms of Whitehall to identify new areas from where they can extract even more.
It is our indifference to money that enables those in power to tax us to the hilt, or as Denis Healey, the former Labour Chancellor (1974-79), once put it, to squeeze us until the pips squeak. What, you may ask, do a few more pounds matter? After all, it is not real money, it is electronic money, and we all have plenty of that.
Yet another evacuee from Hull has been remembering happy times in the Bourne area during World War Two, the second this month. Dennis Staff, who now lives in Canada, was eight years old when he came to live in Burghley Street in 1940 and his contribution was added last week to our new feature Memories of Times Past. David Wynne arrived from the north east in the same year but was two years his junior and he was billeted with a family in Baston but both agree that their time here was a pleasant and contented one. David now lives in Peterborough but is still a frequent visitor to the village where he made many friends and he recalls the nostalgic years of his boyhood in Village Games that is added today to the Bourne Focus.
This headline appeared in last Friday's Bourne edition of the Stamford Mercury over a report about the latest moves by South Kesteven District Council to find a suitable location for the new public lavatories that are planned for the town at a cost of £100,000.
Gazing into a crystal ball brings inspiration to some but I wonder if such a bizarre procedure as this will enable the experts appointed by the council to find the solution they seek.
Thought for the Week: Over £24,000 was spent by Lincolnshire County Council on improvements and repairs to the Social Education Centre in Pinfold Road, Bourne, shortly before it was abandoned and closed down last October. Last week, the authority revealed that it be asking council tax payers for another 5.9% to balance their budget during the coming financial year, an increase that is almost three times the rate of inflation.
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