Bourne Diary - November 2001

Saturday 3^rd November 2001

My years as a reporter have also made me fully aware of the dangers that fireworks can cause when in the wrong hands and never a year goes by without serious injury and even death because they have been carelessly handled and the same will certainly happen again this year and if that is what the public want, then so be it. But if magnanimity exists among those who disagree with this annual ritual, then we expect some measure of tolerance in return but that is not the case. Fireworks have been on sale in Bourne for several weeks with some retailers offering 20% discounts and as shopkeepers always seem to know their business and their markets, they are being sold to the affluent young who are not renowned for their patience and so the touch paper is soon lighted.

In the past few days, we have been disturbed most evenings by the sound of these bangers, rockets and squibs, and on one occasion the noise continued until after 11 p m when I reckoned that £20 or £30 of someone’s hard-earned money rocketed skywards for a few moments of dubious pleasure. By all means celebrate Guy Fawkes’ Day but please confine the pyrotechnics to Bonfire Night and make sure that the fireworks are handled safely and not let off indiscriminately in residential areas where they are likely to disturb the ill and the infirm and frighten old people living alone, not to mention the animals and birds that we keep as pets. Good neighbourliness may not be fashionable these days but it still has a lot going for it.

The new rubbish collection facility in the car park adjoining the Leisure Centre in Queen’s Road got off to a slow start on Saturday. There were plenty of staff on hand and, I suspect, observers from Lincolnshire Council monitoring the operation, but it was a quiet occasion and the freighters took away only a fraction of the usual garbage. By 11 a m, the place was deserted and the operators told me that that even at their busiest time earlier in the morning, the most they had was seven cars in line which is a marked contrast to the chaotic scenes that we have witnessed in the Rainbow car park for the past 16 years.

The reason was obvious: the new location has not been sufficiently widely advertised and although details were published in both of our main local newspapers and on this web site, there are many` who do not read them. Be assured that this period of calm will not last. The word will eventually get out and there will be long queues again within a month. There is, however, a little good to come out of this change of location because the new site is well organised with traffic cones used to good effect in establishing a one way system. We can only hope that the sanity which now prevails at the Saturday rubbish collections will continue once the world and his wife start turning up with their cars and vans full of refuse as they undoubtedly will.

Our new section on business and industry grows weekly and the latest addition tells the success story of Warners Midlands p l c, a printing firm that owns its existence to the enterprise of Lorenzo Warner who founded the company in 1927 with his sister Lily and brother Ernie by opening a newspaper shop in Abbey Road and the rest, as they say, is history. Today, the firm has expanded to a prestige site centred on the Old Maltings in West Street and employing 300 people, making it one of the most comprehensive printing plants in the United Kingdom. The remarkable story of Lorenzo Warner is added today to Bourne Focus.

St Peter’s Hospital was originally the Bourne workhouse, an institution that has earned its place in English history as the last resort for the poor and destitute, immortalised by Charles Dickens in his novel Oliver Twist that was written against the background of the Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834 which ended supplemental dole to the impoverished and forced husbands, wives and children into separate institutions in the name of utilitarian efficiency.

The welfare and relief of the poor had always posed a problem for society and by the early 19th century it was clear that the existing system needed drastic revision. The overseers of the poor in each parish were responsible for giving relief to deserving cases but the burden on the rates was becoming heavy and the relatively easy terms on which men without an adequate wage could get financial help from public funds was being regularly abused. The government therefore decided to impose a more rigid procedure and the new legislation decreed that able-bodied men who could find no work had no option but to enter the workhouse, taking their families with them.

This was the main principle of the act that also required parishes to be grouped together as unions with a workhouse for each. To supervise the workhouse and the local administration of the new law, a Board of Guardians was elected from the district and the government lost no time in establishing the system and here in Bourne, it became operative before the end of 1836.

The town already possessed a workhouse that stood in North Street near the junction with Burghley Street which was then called Workhouse Road but this was too small to cater for the new legislation and so a new building was planned on a site at the end of St Peter's Road and it was built in 1836 at a cost of £7,000 with room for 300 paupers but was rarely full because the Board of Guardians, who met every Thursday to determine policy and approve admissions, enforced a strict regime in a bid to encourage the poor to seek employment rather than live in such grim and uncongenial surroundings. There were only 84 inmates in 1841 and 178 in 1851 when the census was taken. In 1881, the workhouse had a total of 123 officers and inmates and the guardians were meeting once a week to perform their duties.

The staff included a master and matron, usually a husband and wife team approved by the board, a medical officer, chaplain, schoolmaster, and schoolmistress to assist with the welfare of the inmates who were not generally treated with much sympathy. Productive work was not encouraged, rules were strict and the official policy of economy left no room for luxuries. An example of the conditions that prevailed can be found in the workhouse accounts which indicate that 5p per head per day was spent on the inmates and that included clothing. In addition to the poor, the workhouse also catered for vagrants passing through the district and who received lodging for perhaps one or two nights in return for some menial work such as chopping wood or sweeping floors. In addition, a great deal of outdoor relief was still provided to paupers in their homes without them being forced to enter the workhouse.

Nevertheless, the social disgrace of the system remained well into the 20th century and today it is remembered in folklore and literature as a place synonymous with hunger and poverty. Improvements in social conditions brought about its gradual decline and by 1905, there were only eight officials in charge of 87 inmates and the guardians were meeting only once a fortnight. Other charities sprang up, providing relief for the poor and in 1908, a Royal Commission tried to end the stigma of poverty with the establishment of a Public Assistance Authority and the creation of new social services in the years following the First World War meant that the days of institutional assistance were over.

St Peter’s Hospital however, is no more. It was an important monument to Victorian social order but was demolished during the summer and the site has been cleared to make way for extensions to Warners’ printing works.

It was David Blunkett, when secretary of State for Education, who coined the phrase “Education, education, education . . . .” meaning that this was the triple commitment of government to a state system that was failing to deliver on the basic learning skills that were known in my day as the three Rs – reading, writing and arithmetic. Too many people who have attended school in recent times lack a basic understanding of English grammar, particularly spelling, and some do not even count it as a necessary life skill and this is apparent through letters to newspapers and contributions to the various Internet forums.

Newspapers are particularly slipshod these days although many readers do not notice when the schoolboy howlers are confined to the small print of the village paragraphs. But last week, the Stamford Mercury, which regularly parades its reputation as Britain’s oldest newspaper, first published in 1695, must have caused its past distinguished editors to turn in their graves because the newspaper billboards throughout Bourne were covered with posters announcing Friday’s issue and containing a most blatant example of bad spelling and to make matters worse, the item they were publicising concerned Bourne Grammar School.

Perhaps the staff at the newspaper should pop round to the school for some extra-curricula work on their English.

Thought for the Week: Teenagers drop litter because they think it is not cool to use a bin, according to a survey of youngsters aged 13-18 by the Tidy Britain Group. – news item reported in the Sunday Telegraph, 21st October 2001.

Saturday 10^th November 2001

But he was also the man who sacrificed the family business to fund his passion. The firm of fellmongers and skin dealers was established by his great grandfather William Mays early in the 19th century and was greatly expanded by his father Thomas Mays, an early car enthusiast who managed to combine his interest in the internal combustion engine with a sense of business that ensured security for his company and provided employment for many people until he died in 1934. Raymond showed absolutely no interest in this enterprise and its decline is well documented while the BRM company that he founded existed hand to mouth in its final years and these events have been recounted in some detail by those who had first hand knowledge.

Raymond was gregarious, ebullient and charming, the perfect companion for an evening out because he was a boulevardier rather than a businessman, more at home in the dress circle at Drury Lane rather than the skin warehouses in Eastgate or the glue factory at the Slipe. He died in 1980 with debts of £150,000, his house heavily mortgaged and most of the valuable contents already sold. His ancestors who built up the business were pillars of the community, remembered with headstones in the cemetery and in the records of our town, but when Raymond died he was cremated and his ashes were not preserved and so he has no grave among them.

There are many in the town who felt that he had let Bourne down by his playboy lifestyle because he had squandered the entire fortune that had been amassed by the family on a personal whim and so brought about the collapse of the company that had provided secure employment for so many over the previous 100 years. The house that he had made his lifetime home was heavily mortgaged and was sold to help pay his debts while the CBE he was awarded by the Queen in 1978 for his services to motor racing was sold at Sotheby’s auction rooms in London in March 1994 for less than £400.

The new plaque is being designed by the Bourne Motor Racing Heritage Day Committee and will go on the outside wall of the Darby and Joan hall in South Street. He will also be remembered at the new Elsea Park housing development now underway to the south of the town where the south west relief road is to be named Raymond Mays Way. This is as it should be because his achievements in the field of motor racing are not in doubt. But we should not forget that our heroes often have feet of clay and that Raymond was a man whose role in life was miscast. Instead of carrying on the family business to bring jobs and prosperity to the town, he spent his life pursuing a dream, one that he realised and that brought him international fame. What would have been the outcome if, like his father, he could have combined his passion with a financial acumen that would have enabled the company to survive with all of its inherent benefits to the town? The plaque would then have been truly earned.

Three men were out shooting for most of Saturday morning over the sugar beet field in front of my first floor study window, a large expanse of countryside between the north eastern outskirts of Bourne and Dyke village. This is a favourite haunt of pheasants whose company I enjoy most days when the gunmen are not here and I get great delight in watching their whirring flight, alternating with gliding on down-turned wings, and I can distinctly hear the loud cries of the cock birds from out over the fen for that distinctive grating call of korr-kok is a sound once heard, never forgotten.

The gunmen in their camouflage jackets and green wellies have been out there every Saturday since the shooting season started on October 1 with spaniels rousting around the field to flush out the game and every half an hour they would trek in file to their parked cars to unload another brace of birds that had fallen foul of their guns. I think that George, our pet pheasant, must be among them because I have not seen him since. Regular readers of this column will know that George visits our garden often and has become so domesticated that he even brings his mate to feast on the tit bits we put out for the birds and frequently sampled seed from the bird table, a most unusual sight. (See Diary January 2000).

George has given us inestimable pleasure for the small effort we have made in keeping him well fed, even singing to us from the top of the shed whenever we had guests and were sitting out in the garden, but I must admit that his rasping call was not to everyone’s pleasure although, without exception, we all admired his magnificent copper brown plumage and iridescent blue-green head and red wattles.

I watched the shooters loading their prey into the boot and wondered if George was among them and thought what an odd lot is the human race. We share the planet with our animals and yet we cannot make up our minds whether to cherish them as pets and wildlife or pursue them as sport and eat them and opinion is divided on which is which wherever you may be.

The web site poll last week decided that BBC television was not worth the licence fee of £109 a year and as such a large majority of the voters felt this way then that must reflect the climate of the nation. My own opinion is that if I have a few hours of interesting or enjoyable viewing from these two channels each week then it must be a bargain when compared to what you are required to pay for other entertainments such as a football match, the theatre and cinema, when you would not get more than two or three visits for the same money.

The quality of a product is usually determined by what else is on offer and in this case it is ITV that we get for free, or as one voter pointed out, for the extra money we have to fork out for products and services in order that companies can make the advertisements that are shown between programmes. The need to sustain interest is therefore paramount and those who seek to increase viewing figures are becoming more unscrupulous in what they offer, a trend that has become fashionably known as dumbing-down, a method by which the channels can show dross under the guise of glossy entertainment whereas the content is an insult to anyone with an ounce of intelligence.

The latest such offering is a totally incomprehensible quiz programme called Shafted (Carlton Central 8.30pm Monday). The presenter is a man called Robert Kilroy-Silk who I understand was once a respected Labour M P, if that is not an oxymoron, but appears here as an Anne Robinson look-alike dressed in dark, bizarre clothes as a smarmy quiz show host provoking cocky contestants to bet money on unknown questions and at the same time getting rid of fellow players for their own benefit. Shafted, in fact. Geddit?!! as Private Eye would say and any sexual connotation is obviously intended.

We were warned long ago that wall to wall television would bring with it all of the worst traits of the American market and so it has proved because this programme combines the basest instincts of human nature, greed and malice as well as pure, unalloyed stupidity, and presents them as entertainment. The entire charade is both ostentatious and vulgar and the presumed spontaneity almost certainly well rehearsed. There have been many previous examples of the extreme bad taste to which our television channels have sunk and this programme appears to have hit rock bottom . . . but don’t bet on it. There may well be more in the future that plumb even lower depths.

None of our old buildings compare in age with those of the great civilisations such as Egypt and China where some are 5,000 or more years old. You will look hard in Britain to find anything that predates our Norman churches of 1,000 years ago and most of what we see in our old towns and villages was not there before the 18th and 19th centuries. Nevertheless, this is our heritage and we should protect what we have.

Imagine then the mentality of those who damaged one of our oldest monuments, the ancient lockup at Deeping St James, a unique stone structure that dates back to the time when regular markets were held in the village, probably during the reign of Edward III in the 14th century. This was originally the market cross, the focal point where crowds would gather to gossip and buy their poultry and produce, their butter and cheese, hence the more familiar name of the butter cross. In 1819, it was converted into a lockup because there was sufficient space within the base to secure felons for short periods, one of the many tiny houses of correction that began to appear throughout the country in the early 19th century. It is no longer used for such purposes and has become a much loved landmark, refurbished two years ago at a cost of £20,000 and enjoying the status of a Grade I listed building which means that it cannot be altered without government permission, unless of course, it is by vandals at dead of night.

Young hooligans, most probably fuelled by cans of strong lager, have destroyed the door and defaced the walls with graffiti and it needed specialists to repair the damage at a cost of £400. A small bill, some might say, but vandalism is the sign of a sick mind no matter what the extent of the damage. The lockup is a symbol of Deeping’s history and is mentioned in most guide books and therefore an attack on that is an attack on the reputation of this village. It is also a sign of the poor regard the culprits have for the place where they live and that is a sorry prospect for the future.

The police do not have a particularly high profile in Bourne these days because we rarely see their uniformed presence on the streets unless that are trying to catch speeding motorists with their radar guns in West Street. It was not always so and within the last 50 years, the minor infringements of the law such as cycling the streets at night without lights or failing to stop your bike at a T-junction, are no longer regarded as a crime whereas in 1939 when I was reprimanded by the Chief Constable for such an offence, I felt so ashamed that I prayed for the ground to open up and swallow me whole and so I avoided any further such infringements.

The police force as we know it today did not come into being until the mid-19th century and since then, it has kept pace with the times, increasing in numbers and efficiency with the passing of each decade. The first police station for Bourne was opened in North Street in 1861 with just 16 officers and is today part of the Lincolnshire county force that employs almost 2,000 people and has an annual budget of over £72 million. I have been researching the story of the police here in Bourne that is added to the web site today.

Thought for the Week: When God wants to punish a nation, he makes them invade Afghanistan. – an old Afghan saying.

We are taking a short break and this column will not be appearing next week. The web site poll and the forum will continue to operate and so there will still be an opportunity for you to air your views. Please keep logging on.

Saturday 24^th November 2001

But how will the committee decide to mark the occasion? They are hoping to stimulate interest from local organisations, businesses and schools and no doubt there will be the usual parade, carnival and a fireworks display as well as the inevitable dance at the Corn Exchange, provided the necessary money can be raised to fund the activities. Committee member Mrs Betty James is optimistic that this can be turned into a major event for the town. “The world is experiencing so much heartache at the moment”, she said. “For a few months, let us concentrate on planning a joyous occasion which all ages can enjoy and remember. The committee has faith in the people of Bourne in that they will work together to produce and support a wonderful programme that the town will remember in the years to come.”

The last royal Golden Jubilee was on Tuesday 21st June 1887 when Britain celebrated Queen Victoria’s 50 years of reign. It was a magnificent occasion with a thanksgiving service in Westminster Abbey attended by more than 50 royal highnesses and hundreds of lesser potentates and afterwards 30,000 children gathered in Hyde Park where they were given buns and milk and Jubilee mugs. Similar events were repeated in towns and villages throughout the kingdom and after weeks of parades, presentations and parties, Her Majesty wrote in her diary: “Never, never can I forget this brilliant year, so full of marvellous kindness, loyalty and devotion of so many millions.” It also marked the emergence of the Queen from the seclusion she had sought after the death of her beloved husband Prince Albert 26 years before and once again she took her place among the people.

Perhaps the way in which Bourne celebrated then might help the committee decide how to proceed next year. Here is an account of that day from the pages of the Stamford Mercury that reported the events from around Lincolnshire, Bourn not having becoming Bourne until 1893:

The important historic event of the Queen’s Jubilee has been celebrated in Bourne in a manner befitting the occasion. Throughout the day the bells pealed merrily. The entire town had assumed a holiday appearance. Banners, festoons, decorations of every kind, manifested on every hand, the evident desire to honour Her Majesty’s jubilee. Many of the decorations were particularly noticeable for their elegance of design and artistic finish. At half-past ten a procession was formed in the Market Place, headed by the band, and consisting of the Bourne (H Company) Volunteers, the Fire Brigade, the freemasons and the various friendly societies. Under a guard of honour, all passed into the Abbey church, when the appointed form of thanksgiving was read, and a brief and impressive address given by the Rev H M Mansfield, Vicar.

The procession, on leaving church, reformed, and perambulated a few streets, halting near the Corn Exchange, when the men, to the number of about one thousand, dined. During the afternoon the women and children, to the number of probably 2,000, partook of a substantial tea. The entire arrangements reflected great credit on the committee. At half-past two, the Sunday school children assembled in the Market Place and sang the national anthem. They then paraded the principal streets of the town, under the care of their managers and teachers. After tea, the children adjourned to the Abbey Lawn where every variety of amusement had been provided. The Volunteers under the command of Lieutenant Bott, performed the bayonet exercise and fired three rounds of feu de joiè in capital style.

A number of fog signals had been placed along the railway line and their successive detonations as the Sleaford train passed over them produced a marked effect. The band played selections of dance music during the evening and the sports events for young and old included the 100 yards and 220 yards flat races, sack race, three-legged race, hop, stride and jump, pole jump and high jump, and the tug of war, for which the Sports Committee offered prizes to the value of £15.

Throughout, the day was characterised by “Queen’s weather”. It would be impossible to have had a more thoroughly enjoyable day in every respect. The various committees deserve great praise for the excellent manner in which the arrangements were carried out. Bourn jubilee rejoicings will certainly be long memorable as a most pleasant holiday for all classes. The frequent peals of bells contributed to heighten the festal aspect of the day.

While Remembrance Day is still fresh in our minds, I think it appropriate to recall the Arnhem connection with Bourne for this is something that we should not forget. For ten months during the Second World War, the town played host to more than 500 men of the Parachute Regiment before they took part in the now famous action to secure a bridgehead over the Rhine in Holland. Between November 1943 and the eve of the battle in September 1944, they were billeted in and around Bourne, at the Bull (now the Burghley Arms), the Angel and the Nag’s Head, in halls and private homes and in the old car workshops in Spalding Road where a cookhouse and latrines were added to the premises.

When the soldiers flew off to Arnhem on Sunday 17th September 1944, the people of Bourne thronged the streets to watch wave after wave of transport planes flying low overhead on their way to the Continent and one of them remarked afterwards: “Suddenly, our guests had gone. The town was empty.” Of the 545 soldiers stationed in Bourne, 459 were killed, wounded, captured or reported missing.

Dennis Staff, one of our contributors to the Forum, had been evacuated to Bourne at this time to escape the bombing of Hull and was billeted with Ernest and Lilian Grummitt at No 42 Burghley Street. Although still a boy, he had already been touched by the horrors of war in his home town but on November 11th this year, although now living in Canada, he remembered those days with some affection and contributed these memories to the Bourne Forum:

As a lad in Bourne, I recall the many young fellows who were not that much older than me who belonged to the Airborne Regiment and were billeted around the town and lots of times we saw them mustering for parades as we went to and from school. Some of them, especially the 17 and 18 year olds, used to play soccer and cricket with us down those lanes and up against Wherry’s Mill which made a perfect pitch because there was never any traffic, mainly because petrol was rationed and everybody used bicycles. The soldiers treated us all like the kid brothers they had left at home with their mothers. Many of them were eventually parachuted into Arnhem and many of them never returned home to England. They made the supreme sacrifice.

I have researched that period of the town’s history and my item on the Arnhem connection is added today to Bourne Focus.

My brother has been on his annual visit from his home in the New Forest, having driven up from Hampshire in around four hours. He comes every year to see those members of his family who still live hereabouts and he always spends a day with us after what has become a gruelling journey on the road. He takes a route through Oxfordshire and Northamptonshire rather than face the impossible journey through London and in recent years the ordeal has become ever more daunting. He now suggests that this trip may be his last by car because, at the age of 74, he can no longer face the traffic that increases in volume and danger.

We have long since given up driving long distances, having once recently been forced off the road near Nottingham and almost into a ditch by a young lorry driver who was enraged because I was not travelling at his speed, and after tailgating me for twenty miles and pushing my stress levels to within a ace of a heart attack, he sailed gaily by at the illegal speed of almost 80 m p h with one hand on the wheel and the other clutching his copy of the Sun, with total disregard for the trauma he had caused to an old age pensioner.

Our long journeys are now undertaken by coach or by train but neither facility is conducive to good humour and well being and so we intend to spend more time within the confines of our own locality in the future. The volume of traffic that my brother spoke of is becoming equally evident here in Bourne and those of my neighbours who regularly commute to their places of work speak of the hassle they encounter in the mornings in trying to reach the main roads while even a trip into town before 9 a m is a slow and often chaotic process.

One of my recurring dreams is of a country that has been brought to a standstill by the motor car, the very machine that should have made life easier and more pleasurable but instead has jammed the roads and turned our daily round into a constant battle against the traffic and an unending search to find somewhere to park. My dream was in fact a nightmare but one that may soon come true. The motor car proliferates and production continues without government giving a fig for whether our roads can cope and soon we will all wake up one morning to find that Britain has been gridlocked, if not at dawn, then most certainly soon after breakfast.

I am grateful to Lincolnshire County Council for they have at last heeded my warning that one of the roads we still travel is in a lamentable state and in dire need of surface maintenance. This column pointed out earlier in the year (Diary 21st April and 9th June 2001) that the A6121 through the village of Toft, three miles south west of Bourne, was riddled with pot holes that were a danger to passing motorists, a situation that was particularly perilous because this stretch is acknowledged as an accident black spot with large warning signs urging drivers to take care because of a steep hill and a sharp bend.

The county highways authority said that the road surface was worse than it actually looked but I challenged this and although no work was planned until 2002-03 because of a lack of funds, I can report that remedial work has now been completed over the past few days. The pot holes have been filled in and some of the uneven patches covered over with tarmac and although it is a little better than it was, only a complete re-surfacing will make it totally safe.

Thought for the Week: “Most ratepayers do not want left or right wing councils to run their public services. They want drains, buses and trains that work.” – A N Wilson, writing in the Sunday Telegraph, 18th November 2001.

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