Bourne Diary - March 2002

Saturday 2^nd March 2002

The Wakes, as the club is affectionately known, is therefore proposing to build a high fence that would exclude non-payers but at what price to the Abbey Lawn? The discussion continues although the outcome appears obvious. The installation of any fencing must be resisted at all costs because it will entail the partitioning of a public open space. An eight-foot high peep-proof fence such as that proposed for the football ground has a purely commercial motivation and would not only create an exclusion zone but also become an eyesore at a location that was intended to be one of peace and tranquillity to be enjoyed by all. In fact, the scheme has so little merit that I am surprised it has even been suggested.

This land has been in public use for recreational purposes for two centuries but seventy years ago it was the efforts of one man who secured it in perpetuity for the people of Bourne. Horace Stanton (1898-1977) was a local solicitor and clerk to Bourne United Charities who not only designed the Abbey Lawn but was also instrumental in acquiring the land between the years 1931-34. It was the high point of a long and distinguished career in public life in which he also established several other public facilities including the Wellhead Gardens as a town park. Stanton was so motivated by this particular project that when he died, his ashes were scattered over the Abbey Lawn.

Any method of enclosure will not only be unsightly but counter to the wishes of those who made this amenity available. Not only would this barrier slice the Abbey Lawn in two but once erected, it would only be a matter of time before the club started to enforce restrictions on public access to an area that was intended to be open to us all. The Trustees of Bourne United Charities, who administer the Abbey Lawn, will undoubtedly recognise this and their decision to refuse an application to erect fencing of any kind must be a foregone conclusion.

The football club plays in the United Counties League but officials have made the dubious claim that such fencing is now compulsory and that without it they may be downgraded to the less prestigious Peterborough League. This smacks of blackmail. If such a fence is necessary for the survival of the football club on this site, then this is perhaps the right time for them to consider moving elsewhere rather than deface a much loved and well used public amenity such as the Abbey Lawn.

The Local newspaper has been holding a poll by asking: Do you think that Bourne United Charities are supporting Bourne Town Football Club enough? But I do not think that this question accurately reflects the matter in hand. Without their support, the football club would have no ground at all and yet they are now trying to impose their own conditions on the tenancy to which any sensible landlord would object. A more pertinent question would be: Should Bourne Town Football Club be allowed to erect an 8ft-high fence across the Abbey Lawn? I have therefore decided to make this the subject of our own weekly poll that is now open on the front page of the web site. Please cast your vote on this important issue that will determine the future appearance of the Abbey Lawn. I will pass our results on to both Bourne United Charities and The Local.

The workhouse has earned its place in English social 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 first workhouse in Bourne 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 larger building was opened at the end of St Peter's Road in 1836 at a cost of £5,350 and designed by Bryan Browning, the architect responsible for the Town Hall and the House of Correction at Folkingham. It had 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, a great deal of outdoor relief was still provided to paupers in their homes without them being forced to enter the workhouse.

Apart from providing for the poor of the parish, the workhouse also catered for tramps passing through the district and who received lodging and a meal of bread and gruel for perhaps one or two nights in return for some menial work such as chopping wood or sweeping floors. Tramps were a familiar sight on the roads of Britain after the First World War, many of them wearing their campaign medals, and an indication of the numbers seeking help can be found in the reports of the Board of Guardians from that time. During a two-week period in April 1926 for instance, 323 vagrants had been given assistance with 40 seeking food and accommodation on one night alone. This stretched the resources of the workhouse to the limit and as a result of the high numbers, the board ruled that they could stay for only one night and must move on next morning.

The social disgrace of the workhouse 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.

In 1930, the workhouse was redesignated as Bourne Public Assistance Institution but was also known as Wellhead House, becoming a hospital for the mentally handicapped and the main building was improved for its new role. It eventually became St Peter's Hospital, the name best remembered from recent times, but was closed during the later 20th century and last year the building was pulled down and the site is now a car park for the printing firm Warners Midlands plc.

It is unimaginable to most of us that we might have a relative who suffered the indignities of a workhouse upbringing but that is the experience of Mike Darlington, aged 64, a retired bank manager, living in a small village near Crewe in Cheshire. His mother was sent to the Bourne workhouse in 1921 at the age of 10 together with her seven-year-old brother Sidney and their mother Rebecca. Mike has written of their experiences in a new item entitled The Workhouse Children that has been added to our feature Memories of Times Past and to read it is a most moving account of the way things were.

A peep into the past (1): Dr John Gilpin, Medical Officer of Health, reported to Bourne Urban District Council on Tuesday 11th August 1920:

Never since I have been your medical officer have I had to write such a serious report on the health of your district. Never in the 30 years I have practised here have I known such an extensive epidemic of measles and of whooping cough as is raging at present. Certainly more than half the unprotected children in the area are or have been affected during the past month. Up to the present time there have been four deaths from measles and one from whooping cough, all very young children, and I am afraid the list is not yet ended. These complaints are not now notifiable and although the annual death rate from them is greater than any notifiable infectious disease, no provision for isolating them exists at present. Every parent should regard it as their duty, during an epidemic, to watch their family most carefully for any sign of departure from health and to separate the patient as far as possible from the rest, and in particular to keep the baby, if there is one, well away from the suspected one.

The council decided to recommend to the Ministry of Health that measles and whooping cough be scheduled as notifiable diseases.

A peep into the past (2): On Bourne statute day, during the busiest part of the time, a pheasant was observed to enter the shop of Mr J W Nichols, general dealer, West Street, Bourne, while there were several customers in the shop, and walked through the shop into a room behind, where it was captured by Mr Nichols, who kept it in confinement for three or four days, during which time it laid two eggs. Mr Nichols has since returned it to one of the gamekeepers. – news item from the Stamford Mercury, Friday 30th May 1879.

Thought for the Week: The truth is that the British are a race of pigs when it comes to throwing rubbish in the streets and elsewhere. Just imagine what it would be like if there was a McDonalds in the Burghley Centre. The responsibility here is with all of us. If we do not put our rubbish in the bin then how can we expect the kids to do so? It is not a new problem. Apparently after Christ catered for five thousand with loaves and fishes, they left twelve baskets of rubbish behind. – town councillor Guy Cudmore commenting on the current litter problems in Bourne in a contribution to the web site Forum, 17th February 2002.

Saturday 9^th March 2002

Their latest campaign launched at their supermarket in Bourne under the heading “Crazy Prices!” listed six items in a coloured leaflet on offer at drastically reduced prices from February 28th until March 13th. They were milk chocolate digestive biscuits (everybody’s favourite), prawn cocktail skips (whatever they may be), soup (tomato, chicken and mushroom), red salmon, salmon en croute and their own brand of thick bleach. After three visits in as many days, we got none of them, although to be fair, we could have had a bottle of bleach on Saturday night but who wants to do the washing at the weekend.

It has been our experience in other stores that bargain offers are piled high around the aisles until they have gone but at Budgens you may look in vain for these commodities that have rarely been available when we went in and when I questioned the assistant manager Robert Miller about this on Saturday afternoon, he of course gave us the answer that resonates around every supermarket when supplies have run out: “We are expecting some more in this evening.”

We were also dismayed to find that the shelf space allocated to these particular bargains was miniscule when compared with the size of the advertising campaign and several customers, mostly pensioners keeping a check on their pennies, were wandering around, leaflets in hand, looking for bargain offers that were not in stock. My advice to shoppers therefore is: when it comes to bargains, be careful at Budgens. You may go in looking for them but you will most certainly come out spending more than you intended on other items. Give them a miss and you will find yourself in pocket.

A contributor to the Bourne Forum says that she was so incensed by my remarks in the summary of the skateboarding poll posted last weekend that she would not be participating in any future discussions. There were a large number of comments that accompanied the voting on this issue and some of them were totally incomprehensible, mainly due to their feeble grasp of English, and I suggested that they might try to improve their knowledge of the language rather than spend their spare time pursuing a mindless activity such as skateboarding. But she found this “extremely insulting” and went on to paint a scenario of contributors who might have been disabled, suffering from learning difficulties “or any number of other problems” rather than accept the situation as it was: that many young people cannot write or speak English correctly and do nothing to improve it.

I have never been an advocate of political correctness, that evil disease which started in the United States in the last decade. PC, as it has become known, is a shorthand term for a set of liberal attitudes about education and society, and the terminology associated with them. To be politically correct is to be sensitive to unconscious racism, sexism and educationalism and many other isms, and to display environmental awareness. There are many examples of these euphemisms, such as “people of colour” instead of coloured people, “differently abled” instead of disabled, and so on into the darker anterooms of the semantic gymnasium. The enforcement of PC speech codes, such as that I detected in her message, had conquered 130 universities in the United States by 1991 but by then, had also started to attract derision.

Nevertheless, this form of thought-policing is still with us and has now become entrenched in some minds on this side of the Atlantic, thriving in Britain to such an extent that we must be careful about what we say on many subjects, particularly those pertaining to the individual. The under achiever, for instance, is given equal prominence with the successful. The criminal becomes the victim. Those who subscribe to the PC theory dislike any form of elitism or competition and this means an end to the grammar schools and yearly examinations. Sports days would also become suspect because if there are winners there must also be losers and that is unacceptable because all must be seen to be equal even though, as George Orwell so perceptively pointed out, when such a regime is instituted, some will still be found to be more equal than others. There are many other examples and most are anathema to those who see life as it is and not through the rose tinted glasses of political correctness. In a word, political correctness is a direct route to mediocrity because it dulls the spirit and dampens enterprise. Only through personal effort can we achieve our potential and to know that we have achieved this, we must have the yardstick of other people’s failures as our guide.

In this case, it is totally inappropriate to excuse those who contribute to the Forum if they are not properly equipped in language or thought to do so. You would be ill advised to venture out on to the road in a motor car unless you could drive and it would be foolhardy in the extreme to dive in at the deep end unless you could swim. Why then should we accept a contributor to the Forum or web site poll if they have a less than average understanding of the English language and few ideas to disseminate? The politically correct would insist on giving them an equal chance by some method of positive discrimination such as dumbing down that has become prevalent in the media, particularly television, but this is a totally unacceptable concept in an adult discussion.

The proposed boycott of our Forum will achieve nothing. I have never been an advocate of the critical approach typified by “Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells” because it is such a meaningless gesture. A boycott of the publication you have previously enjoyed merely because you are miffed by someone else’s opinion is a vain act of self-denial that is also totally ineffective and certainly so with this web site that does not stand or fall by anyone’s patronage. The letters columns of magazines that carry controversial items, such as Private Eye, are full of complaints from readers cancelling their subscriptions because they have read something about which they disagreed. It is in fact a form of intellectual arrogance to proscribe a publication in this way, especially one that you have enjoyed reading before, because it indicates that you are only prepared to read those that share your own prejudices.

Surely it is far better to remain on board and try to change things, or at least give them the benefit of your own ideas. The Bourne Forum is there for everyone with something valid to say. It is also regulated to ensure that we get reasonable standard of intelligent and courteous discussion on a variety of topics and it is mediated to avoid rude and offensive messages. It is not there for those who cannot string two words together or try to present opinions of mindless banality. There are plenty of other forums and chat rooms that cater for this but there is no space for them here.

While on the subject of youth and education, I commend to you an item in the Bourne Forum on the subject of privacy, security, surveillance and identity cards that was contributed on March 1st by Ben Francis, a lad who is known to me and will go far. He is 16 years old. His essay has been well researched, written and presented, and I commend it to all of those young contributors who wish to find a space here for their opinions. This is the model to which you should aim. Some of our older contributors would also benefit by reading it too.

There were originally a total of 75 listed buildings in the parish of Bourne. Fifty-one of them were in the Conservation Area although two of these in North Street have been demolished. The other 24 were outside, in Eastgate, Cawthorpe and Dyke, but four of these have been pulled down. This week I finished photographing them all, an ambitious task that I undertook last year because as anyone who owns a camera will know, you cannot take pictures every day and so you must wait for the right moment to capture each shot when the light is right and it was with a sigh of relief when on Sunday morning, I clicked the shutter for the last time on this particular project and my illustrated account is now being prepared in readiness for the Jubilee Exhibition at the Heritage Centre in June.

A listed property is one that has been so scheduled by the local authority and endorsed at government level because it has sufficient historical interest and merit to be preserved and therefore it cannot be demolished or even altered without special dispensation. Most of the listed properties in Bourne are early 18th century and although not all are in a good state of repair, they are the best that the town has to offer and all 69 have now been committed to my CD-ROM A Portrait of Bourne that is now into a second edition. This archive contains more than 1,100 photographs and 330 essays and continues to grow by the week. The CD-ROM is in fact three times the size of the Bourne web site and contains a wealth of pictures from past times, particularly the 19th century, showing the way Bourne was before the arrival of the motor car that has ruined so many of our small towns. Copies have gone to most of our public institutions, including schools, libraries and the town council, who have been of great help, and if anyone would like a copy, an order form may be accessed on the front page.

This does not mean that the web site is being neglected. Far from it. We have grown so large that we are now one of the biggest of Britain’s community web sites on the Internet and have just successfully applied to our servers Which Online for additional web space that will take us up to 40MB and so our future is assured for another year. There is also an additional advantage in that my weekly Diary has chronicled events in this town since it first appeared on 28th November 1998 and therefore depicts the history of this town since that date. Every weekly entry is still on site and can be accessed on the Diary page and although there may be some out there who would prefer certain items to be buried, this narrative is now part of the history of Bourne.

It is quite surprising to discover that St Peter’s Hospital in Bourne was not a listed building even though it was erected in 1836 and designed by Bryan Browning, the architect responsible for the Town Hall and the House of Correction at Folkingham. Most towns with a building of such pedigree would have preserved it with an alternative use but instead it suffered an ignominious end last summer when it was pulled down without a word appearing in any of our local newspapers.

The only report of its demise appeared on this web site (Diary 3rd November 2001) and I also followed the progress of the demolition by taking photographs at intervals as this fine example of early 19th century institutional architecture disappeared from the scene and the site is now a company car park. It is a sad commentary on the decision-making process in our local affairs that such buildings must be protected by national government before they can be preserved and it would be better if our councillors could take these decisions at a local level without resorting to the bureaucrats in Whitehall where little is known of the local scene. My pictures and an updated story of St Peter’s is added today to Hospitals in Bourne.

Peeps into the past: WOMAN WHO MADE GRIMACES. - Some amusement was caused by an application made at Bourne Police Court on Thursday week for an ejectment order against William Ward, North Street. Mr Bell said that the application was made under the section of the Act relating to being guilty to conduct to the annoyance of occupiers of adjoining houses. Mrs Jane Allison, 36, West Street, the owner of the house, alleged that Mrs Ward had thrown water over here and Mr Ward had used very bad language towards her. William Allison, husband of the last witness, said they had got on well with the Wards until about a year ago. At times when he was in his garden, Mrs Ward had put her fingers to her nose to him. Mr Manning, a neighbour, also gave evidence, in the course of which he said he saw Mrs Ward throw half-a-brick which nearly hit him. Cross-examined, he agreed that it was a question of “six of one and half-a-dozen of the other”. Major Merry, for Mr and Mrs Ward, submitted that, as Mr Bell had not put in the terms of the tenancy, the application must fall through. The magistrates agreed with this and the application was refused. – news report from the Stamford Mercury, 3rd September 1920.

Thought for the Week: To stop the increase in street crime, why don’t we simply adopt the Canadian idea and phase out American TV programmes? The constant references to drive-by shootings, gang warfare and their outdated death penalty all reinforce the notion of unimportance of life. – A H of Chesterfield, Derbyshire, in a letter to Write On, BBC Teletext, 2nd March 2002.

Saturday 16^th March 2002

On the schedule of road crash injuries, we have escaped lightly and are grateful that we still have our lives, but the experience has given us cause to reassess our priorities. Our mobility is considerably impaired and we will be out of action for several weeks and are currently relying on our good neighbour Jo to keep us fed and watered. But every cloud has a silver lining because the only chair in which I can sit with any comfort happens to be that at my study desk and as sleeping in bed is impossible, I am now before the screen at all hours trying to improve our web site for although the body is functioning well below par, the mind is fully occupied at all times.

This experience has taught me many things. Firstly, that the National Health Service is not in the terminal decline that we have been led to believe. It has become a political whipping boy for both sides, government and trade unions, while the media gloats, but when tested, as it was by us on March 4th, it passed with flying colours. There is room for improvement in the Accident and Emergency Department at Peterborough District Hospital, but this applies to all aspects of our life. Things could always be better, even in a perfect world. I cannot fault the care, compassion and treatment we were given by nurses, porters, doctors and surgeons, who were already busy with a constant flow of patients suffering from sudden illness or injury that went on around us as we lay incapacitated. Despite the urgency of every case, there was a quiet and unhurried efficiency that kept alarm at bay and at all times, we felt that we were in good and safe hands.

It would, of course, be better if Bourne could again have its own hospital. This is the perfect solution to first line health care in this town. But it will not happen. The gestation period for a new hospital is five to ten years and the country could not afford it while our government continues to fritter our money away on other things such as foreign adventures that are none of our concern. The optimism for the reinstatement of this facility that we hear from our councillors therefore has a hollow ring for they know it will not materialise and it would be better if they told us the truth and be done with it. The possibility of opening up the old hospital site in South Road is not so much a window of opportunity as mere window dressing for the benefit of those who seek information about the health facilities that we have, particularly those contemplating buying one of the houses now under construction on the Elsea Park estate, and anyone investing well over £100,000 in a new home has a right to know what they can expect.

If taken seriously ill or injured in a road accident, they will go to either Stamford, 13 miles away, or Peterborough, 17 miles distant, and for this we must depend on our ambulance service. Fortunately, there have been no known plans at present to phase out the ambulance station that is currently based at the old Bourne Hospital site in South Road. But this land is up for sale and as planning permission has been granted for light industry, the site could be bought at any time and we would then lose the ambulance station. This must not be allowed to happen because it is our last lifeline with the outside world of first line health care. The current location enables casualties to be picked up quickly rather than having to wait for an ambulance to turn out from Stamford of even Peterborough and lost minutes in an emergency could mean the difference between life and death.

We have been touched by the many get well messages we have received, in the Forum, by email, through the post and even dropped through the front door letterbox, and we thank all of those who have wished us well. I am particularly grateful to Harold Joyce, a Bourne ambulanceman for 32 years, and his young assistant, who took us from roadside to hospital bed without once making a fuss, talking to us quietly to calm our fears, giving us confidence that all was not as bad as is seemed, and, at times, even making us laugh. “I always read your column in the Bourne Local”, said Harold as he quietly went about his duties, “but I never thought we would meet like this.”

I would also like to thank the lady who was driving the car behind us when the accident occurred. We do not know her name but it was her initiative that renewed my sometimes flagging faith in the human race. She stopped to give aid, using her mobile phone to call the emergency services and then to contact a doctor who gave her instructions over the airwaves as to my condition and then she even covered me with her own coat. She had a natural authority and from my dazed condition at the roadside, I could hear her maintaining a firm and steady control over the situation until the emergency services arrived and then equally firmly telling the police exactly what had happened. Her conduct throughout was of the highest order of the Good Samaritan and once we are fit enough to do so, it will be our duty to find out who she is and tell her so.

Suddenly, those short reports about road accidents that we see in our local newspapers week after week, come to life. You know in a flash exactly what it was like for the victims and such occurrences will take on a new meaning when we read about them in the future.

The web site continues without interruption. Fortunately, I have enough material in hand to keep it going for a few weeks but we hope to be out and about again in time to see the bluebells in bloom at Dole Wood.

There was no shortage of volunteers in my army days more than half a century ago because they were always quickly chosen by the sergeant major: “You, you and you!” It was the military way of doing things. A different discipline is needed today to find anyone who is prepared to do unpaid work for the public good and in an age dominated by the ME culture, it is becoming an increasingly rare commodity.

Voluntary work is the mainstay of any community and without it, society itself would founder. The government provides only the basic structures for living and the rest is up to us and so the person of altruistic motives who offers his services for purely humanitarian and charitable causes enhances not only his own self-esteem but also the organisation with which he becomes associated. The work of the volunteer therefore is the difference between a basic and a sophisticated society, making life more pleasant and amenable for those around him.

Many of the country’s community projects are run by volunteers, men and women who selflessly give their time and often money running clubs and organisations, helping the sick, the elderly and disabled, or merely popping in next door in time of need, all tasks motivated by a love of our fellow man and carried out without thought of reward. Their work is particularly valuable in those activities involving our young people, the scouts and the guides, the youth clubs and junior soccer teams, the parent-teacher committees and a host of others that have become interwoven into the fabric of our lives. We take them for granted but without them, society would founder.

There are many fine examples in Bourne of such voluntary help without which some of the organisations we take for granted would not survive. When they have an open day perhaps, or some event that brings them to the public attention, we nod agreeably that our town should have such an institution and then we forget it for the rest of the year and do not give a single thought about how it is run or those that keep it going.

The best example we have in Bourne of this selfless work is the Outdoor Swimming Pool that will open again this summer due to the efforts of one woman, Mrs Lesley Patrick, whose campaign 12 years ago inspired an entire contingent of dedicated workers who run the project to this day. A contributor to the Bourne Forum last week forecast what would happen when there are no more volunteers. “The greatest threat is that the outdoor pool relies upon the superb effort and hard work of a few dedicated people”, wrote Guy Cudmore. “There will surely come a day when these people will no longer be able to continue their activities and then, unless replacements of the necessary calibre have been found to continue the struggle to keep the pool open, it will die. And that would be a tragedy for the town.”

We hope that this will never happen. But there are times when the number of volunteers coming forward for such schemes is in danger of drying up and so putting the future of many in doubt. The Heritage Centre is another of the town’s assets that would close were it not for the efforts of a handful of people and yet this is the only place that contains evidence of our historic past with displays that grow weekly. The museum housed there, including the Memorial Room dedicated to the life and work of Raymond Mays, the pioneer racing driver, can open only for a couple of hours on Saturday and Sunday afternoons because there are insufficient volunteers to keep it open longer yet this is often the first port of call for people who visit Bourne.

A head count of all volunteers in the town at the moment would reveal that they are predominantly older rather than younger, many of them retired, but few youngsters, especially teenagers, are among their ranks. I am not apportioning blame for this, merely pointing out the way it is. The Forum receives many contributions from young people saying that they are bored and that there is nothing to do in Bourne. An evening or two, and perhaps the odd weekend, of voluntary work with one of our many projects would provide them with the challenge they were looking for if only they were prepared to give it a try. They only have to go along and ask and they would be welcomed with open arms.

I have received an email from Chris Casboult, a 20-year-old student whose home is in Bourne. He is in his last year studying human geography at Nottingham Trent University and the web site provided the information he needed in identifying local businesses while completing his dissertation. “I just wanted to write to say thanks”, says Chris. “The web site has been helpful to me because it gave me a starting point in my research and an overview of the industries in Bourne.”

But he tells me that the web site also helped him in another way. “One of my hobbies is playing the guitar and singing which I do both in Nottingham and Bourne”, he said. “I went to Westfield Primary and Robert Manning Schools and my family live in Cheriton Park. I really enjoy folk and blues music and was looking at your web site when I came across the section on famous people who have lived in Bourne or in the surrounding area. I decided after reading the item on Nancy Rutter to write a song that I have since performed in concert. Here are the lyrics and again, thanks very much.”

Ballad of Nancy Rutter
by Chris Casboult

If you’re travelling to Bourne, a legend you will hear
A myth about a woman, so gentle and so dear
To all these hearts, that live here
The myth of Nancy Rutter

It was in the 19th century not that different from today
When power, wealth and greed were the evils of the day
An unsatisfied farmer led his servant girl astray
And she became pregnant with his child

Nancy went to the doctor but he didn’t want to know
She went to the church, but they said girl you’ve lost your soul
Your trying to destroy a family, the greatest sin of all
Get out of here, your not welcome

In Bourne woods is where Nancy made her home
She felt protected, safe and far from harm
And while the towns people told their stories in the bars
Nancy gave birth to a child

She survived on the foods that the forest could provide
In any kind of weather, rain or shine
And even in the winter, when the cold it did arrive
A cold that could freeze the oceans

While in the end, the child it did not survive
How could it in the conditions of the wild?
And while the rich folks on Mill Drove smiled
Eat and slept near the fire

Now Nancy’s strength is that she never gave in
She learnt how to survive in the conditions she was in
She learned that the forest could be kind and loving
And she began to discover its gifts

She developed medicines and remedies she found
From herbs and flowers, laying on the ground
That could cure a cold or could bring good looks
To her fellow towns people

She began to trade those potions for food to survive
To people in the town, and people from far and wide
Who learnt about her potions in the mistily night
From gossip and rumours in the bars

Now time has a habit of running away
Far too fast for people to mend their ways
And for poor Nancy a fate worse than jail
She died without love

If you’re travelling to Bourne, a legend you will hear
A myth about a woman, so gentle and so dear
And she still walks those haunting woods, sometimes
The myth of Nancy Rutter

Thought for the Week: Six weeks to Budget Day and already we are being softened up for higher taxes. No Chancellor has ever raised more money, more quickly, than this one. He took over when tax revenues were running at £286 billion a year. For the year that ends in April, he has budgeted for revenues of £398 billion. After that, his estimates carry on upwards, rising in four years’ time to £473 billion - all of it, directly or indirectly, out of our pockets and some of it out of our pensions, which he raided as soon as he came in. Nothing will persuade him that we might know better than he does how to spend our money, and now he wants more of it. – financial correspondent Christopher Fildes writing in The Spectator, 2nd March 2002.

Saturday 23^rd March 2002

This is a drastic decision and one that will affect travellers seeking overnight accommodation in this area but there is another issue at stake here. Does the YHA have the legal right to sell this hostel?

The Thurlby hostel is based at a substantial private property known as Capstones, built in the High Street during the 19th century and was bequeathed to the association in the will of Mr Harry Garwood Sneath, a prominent farmer and businessman, who died in February 1979 and whose family had lived there since 1862. He also left £4,000 that helped towards the cost of converting the house for its new role, work that was carried out by local building contractors although the decorating, equipping and fitting out was appropriately completed by youngsters employed under the government's Youth Opportunities Programme.

Capstones opened in 1981 and can accommodate 26 overnight visitors in three dormitories and there is a kitchen for them to cook their meals, a comfortable common room, a small shop, a drying room, shower and other facilities and spacious grounds. The YHA runs a network of 230 hostels across England and Wales which cater for all ages, not just young people, and the Thurlby hostel is used every year by 2,500 people for overnight stays, many of them from overseas, yet the association claims that this does not constitute a high popularity rating with travellers and is therefore one of ten hostels that has been chosen for closure.

Around £2 million was saved last year by temporarily closing hostels and not employing staff at the height of the foot and mouth epidemic but that was insufficient to meet their losses and now more drastic measures are needed. Chief Executive Roger Clarke says: “Youth hostels are our only assets. We have no other resources to meet the losses caused by last year’s closure of the countryside due to the foot and mouth crisis. We now want to put this behind us and get on with our work.”

This is not of course merely a matter of economics. It is one of integrity, goodwill and, most importantly, philanthropy. Mr Garwood Sneath was quite clear in his intentions as to how the house should be used yet barely twenty years after his dream of establishing a permanent overnight stay for travellers in his village was realised, it is being treated as a piece of real estate that can be bargained off in times of financial necessity. And what will the money be used for? To pay staff wages, car allowances, office rental or to secure pensions and holiday entitlements? The benefactor will be turning in his grave while others who are contemplating leaving the YHA legacies of money and property will quite rightly think again.

I asked Roger Clarke for his views on these questions and he replied to me yesterday explaining the decision:

My understanding is that the bequest did not contain any covenant restricting YHA's future use of the property. We are re-checking the legal documents in this respect. At a more general level, YHA property, unlike that of the National Trust, is not 'inalienable'. Hostels open and close to meet changing visitor expectations. It would clearly be wrong to fossilise the YHA network in the pattern of the 1930s or 1950s.

In relation to Thurlby, we very much regret having to withdraw from the village. But visitor numbers are low. Nationally, we suffered severe losses as a result of foot and mouth disease and have no reserves to make good the loss, or to subsidise less viable operations.

In relation to our moral responsibility to the local man who made the original bequest, I would simply say that many thousands of people, over twenty years, have derived enjoyment from staying at YHA Thurlby as a result of his generosity. The board's decision will enable a greater number of people to continue to benefit from that generosity in the future at other YHA locations. Other youth hostels will be strengthened by the reinvestment that we will be able to make following the Thurlby and other sales. I imagine that this will be of no immediate comfort to you in Thurlby, but I am sure you will appreciate the wider picture.

It is therefore apparent that the fate of this much loved hostel is sealed although I understand that relatives of the late Mr Garwood Sneath are trying to trace a copy of his will which they think contains a clause protecting the property against such exploitation but if this fails, the sale will most certainly go ahead and the YHA will benefit to the tune of around £300,000.

If the YHA considers that the Thurlby hostel is no longer financially viable, then those who run its affairs should adhere to the spirit of the original bequest and hand back the building to the village where there are sure to be sufficient willing hands to take it over and run it themselves, either for its original intended purpose or for some other voluntary project dedicated to community use. No amount of legal posturing will give the association the moral right to sell off Capstones which was donated by its owner as a gesture of public goodwill and who would deplore it being used as a mere realisable asset on a balance sheet following a disastrous business year.

This is a cautionary tale for anyone now contemplating leaving property, or even money, to the YHA, and they are sure to reconsider any such intentions.

Most graffiti is badly spelled. The defacement of public and private property is invariably the work of the impoverished mind on which the benefits of the English language have fallen like rain on a barren field. There are exceptions, such as the Poems on the Underground that have been elevated to an art form because of their ingenuity and literary merit, but then this is the case that proves the point because the authors were all students of the language and the word came first and the vandalism second.

A discussion on whether good English matters has been underway in the Bourne Forum for several days and this week I used the subject for the question in our web site poll by asking: Should we strive to write and speak better English? I had expected a 100% response in the affirmative but I was astounded to find that several voters actually said no! The government is concerned that many young people are leaving school without the rudiments of reading and writing and there are many examples of this in contributions to the web site but there is also a dangerous school of thought out there that actually supports the under-achievers and tries to give them equality with the successful, a totally alien concept and one that advocates educational laxity among young people as an acceptable norm.

The situation was particularly well defined by one of our contributors Richard Rawnsley whose message is reproduced here in full and if you have any thoughts on this very important issue, then please go to the Bourne Forum.

The way we write reflects our personality. It would be unthinkable for most of us, especially women, to go out in the mornings without looking our best. We like to present an attractive face to the world. Similarly, if we are giving someone a present, we make an effort to ensure that it is gift-wrapped rather than sending it off in a dirty old paper bag. Our writing is like that. If we have something valid to say then it must be done in an acceptable fashion. Presentation is everything. Spelling mistakes and grammatical errors show a careless disregard for the language that has been handed down to us and they also detract from any argument that is being put forward.

Parents have a major responsibility in this but how can they pass on their skills if they are similarly impaired? We must therefore look to our schools but they are preoccupied with meeting government targets and measuring performance levels rather than imparting the basic skills of the three Rs and as a result, our children learn to read and write English far slower than other European youngsters do their own languages. Being able to spell and recognise words is more important than a mere acceptance of the rudiments of English grammar. If children cannot do it by the time they leave school, they will be seriously hampered when they encounter official forms, public notices and other facets of the bureaucratic state and will soon be left behind in the race to succeed and may even drop out of the battle for survival.

Those adults who have such a lackadaisical attitude towards English grammar are doing our youth a disservice and I sincerely hope that none of them are employed in any capacity in which they influence young people.

One of the most popular contributors to the Bourne Forum in recent months has been Guy Cudmore whose intelligent dissertations have stimulated many discussions that have taken our knowledge forward on a number of topics. Many visitors to the web site do not read the Forum and so I have invited Guy to contribute a regular weekly column under his own name that can be accessed from the front page and the first of these appears today.

Guy is 52 and has been resident in Bourne for almost a decade after a chequered career in other parts of the country. He is a Gloucestershire man, having been born and brought up at Thornbury, near Bristol, and studied for a degree in politics and economics at Portsmouth Polytechnic before moving to London to take a post-graduate course in 1972. He has done a variety of jobs, working from the Cabinet Office when it had responsibility for the Central Statistical Office and later for The Sun newspaper before its move to Wapping. Guy was made redundant when he was forty and after a spell of unemployment turned to driving which he has been doing ever since.

He is married to Rosie and has two children and two step-children and they moved first to Peterborough in 1991 and then to Bourne in 1993. He has been interested in politics and current affairs since he started reading newspapers at the age of four and is an inveterate writer of letters that have been published in the Daily Mirror, Guardian, Times and The Sun as well as our local newspapers. He was elected to the town council in 2000 and has not ruled out the possibility of standing for Parliament at some time in the future.

This new feature As I see it . . . will concentrate on public affairs in Bourne and around and this week, Guy makes the case for additional primary schools in the town as a matter of urgency. He welcomes your emails.

Peeps into the past: FATAL CASE OF SLEEPING SICKNESS: - A case of sleeping sickness terminated fatally on Monday evening when Mrs Chambers, wife of Mr J H Chambers of South Fen, Bourne, succumbed to an attack which lasted 35 days. Deceased, who was a strong and healthy woman, was taken suddenly ill and at the outset of her illness, her condition was extremely critical. Her condition, however, improved, and strong hopes were entertained that she would ultimately recover. Her partial regaining of consciousness was only of short duration and during the period of her illness there have been several times when she has partially recovered but not sufficiently long to enable her to take nourishment. Much sympathy is felt for the widower and his family, the youngest of whom is about 11 years of age. - news report from the Stamford Mercury, Friday 19th August 1921.

Thought for the Week: The death of Diana [Princess of Wales, in 1997] and the immediate aftermath was, as we know, an extraordinary period in our lives. It certainly taught me something about the nature of modern Britain that seemed to me to be rather unattractive, if not frightening. As I watched with some horror the crowds and flowers building up in front of Buckingham Palace, the sheer nastiness of the red-top tabloids, the hysteria as the funeral cortège drove away from Westminster Abbey through the north London suburbs, I wondered what had become of the Britain of my birth. Who were these people throwing flowers at the hearse? What emptiness in their own lives led them into this absurdity? Would the driver, blinded by petals on his windscreen, crash? It wasn’t just the death of Diana, it seemed to be the demise of the private Britain and the apogee of mass exhibitionism. – Michael Vestey writing in The Spectator, 9th March 2002.

Saturday 30^th March 2002

Yet the demand that has just landed on my doormat requires me to pay the local authorities that are responsible for these matters the sum of £830.24 for the coming year for the privilege of owning my modest home on the edge of the fen, and that is £70 more than last year, an increase of almost 10%. This money is intended for the provision and upkeep of our public services at local level.

As in previous years, the council tax bill was accompanied by flashy leaflets telling us why we must pay more, all littered with high minded phrases about “best value” and “the challenges we face”, “performance targets” and “the planning of our budget” but in simple terms, the milch cow is again having to produce more than it should and while those in work can demand a wage increase, those on fixed incomes and particularly the old age pensioners, will again have to tighten their belts and those small luxuries that last year made life that little more cheery must be foregone.

While we provide the money on demand, the monoliths that are local authorities have become fiefdoms of secure employment, job machines that provide incremented salaries, holiday and pension entitlements, for an increasing number of personnel that is given priority over the services they were meant to provide, while the allowances for our elected councillors increase annually and some of those in preferred positions are now paid as much as many full time executives in the business world.

The councils are prepared to tell us how much their spending budgets on public services will be, £502 million for 2002-03 in the case of Lincolnshire County Council, up by £15.7 million on last year, and £49.8 million for South Kesteven District Council, which is an increase of £2.3 million, but they are less enthusiastic in revealing how many they employ, the size of their wages bill or the amount spent on junketing, entertainment and hospitality. This expenditure is buried away in the accounts and it would need a financial expert to excavate the details and were the spending comparison to be made between subsistence for staff and councillors and public services actually provided then we would all be aghast.

They say that the extra money is needed for this and for that but by the time the next council tax bill comes around, there will be little evidence that it has been spent on either. The only tangible benefits in the Bourne area in recent months appear to be the resurfacing of a stretch of the A6121 through Toft village, a notorious accident black spot, and the announcement that after 15 years of protest, we are to get a waste recycling centre for the town in May, both issues that have finally been addressed by the local authorities after their inactivity was continually criticised in this column. Perhaps we should be grateful for small mercies.

Meanwhile, the government has the audacity to tell us that inflation is under control at 2½%, one of the biggest of the many lies that emanate from the Blair propaganda machine in Whitehall for no matter what the government statistics indicate, those of us who have to pay the bills know differently and a 10% hike in council tax is only one such example. Nothing ever goes down in price, rarely remains constant and invariably goes up next time we come to pay for it, whether it be goods or services.

Those in government at all levels appear to forget one thing. The public is prepared to pay taxes, perhaps not always willingly, but pay we will provided the money is being spent in a tangible way, even though we sometimes have the distinct feeling of being squeezed like a lemon until the pips squeak. But come April 2003, it is doubtful if we will see the benefits of that extra 10% we are having to fork out for local services this year. Little will have changed and that is why we are so dissatisfied.

We look forward to the arrival of the cuckoo each year as a harbinger of spring. It is a sign that we are through another winter and that bright days are returning fast.

Cuckoo Day is traditionally April 14th or 15th when we can expect to hear that familiar sound in these islands for the first time although there is not any hard and fast rule but we in Lincolnshire are rarely so blessed and it is usually a week or two afterwards, often even later, that their characteristic call comes to us from across the countryside to remind us that they have arrived after their marathon flight from Africa where they have wintered in warmer climes.

No sound is more eagerly awaited than this loud, ringing, repeated song because it signals the start of the new season and although many people have heard the cuckoo, few people have ever seen one. They are quite large birds, well over twelve inches long, and they have a bad reputation because they do not build nests for themselves but lay their eggs in those of other, mostly smaller, birds and leave them to hatch them out and bring up their young. But despite this wayward conduct, they remain one of the best loved of our summer visitors.

When we moved to this house overlooking the flat fenland landscape on the very edge of Bourne almost 20 years ago, our favourite migratory bird sang early and late most days. In fact, there were several of them and their song delighted the neighbourhood morning and evening for many weeks because the call of the male cuckoo makes this one of the best-known though least seen of our summer visitors. The date was 22nd April 1983.

Since then, the fen out there beyond my study window has become noticeably quieter each spring because the evocative sound of the cuckoo’s annual call has become a much rarer occurrence. Its numbers are being seriously reduced and its song at this time of the year can no longer be guaranteed as an annual delight. It has to face the shootists on the Mediterranean islands, particularly Malta, in Spain and in France, as it wings its way north on its annual flight to England, but once here it will find that its habitats are being denuded year by year because the intensification of agriculture and the urban sprawl continues at an alarming rate. Their decline is yet another example of man’s uncaring attitude to the world around him and that if we continue on this destructive path, poisoning and killing all that was here before us, then nature will have its revenge because of the imbalance we have created in pursuit of profit, greed and so-called sport.

Another reason for its decline has been identified by the Woodland Trust who say that ancient woodland is becoming increasingly fragmented and isolated and much less friendly to many birds. Cuckoos particularly may be facing a reduction in host nests, a loss of suitable habitat and an unpredictable food supply. Conservationists say that during the past 25 years, cuckoo numbers have fallen by 20% in farmland areas and in woodland by 60%. This dramatic fall in its fortunes has been chronicled in a survey by the British Trust for Ornithology and this year they want to make a detailed check on their numbers by asking people across the country to listen for the cuckoo call and to report sightings, or more likely hearings, and to note its absence from its usual haunts.

Anyone who looks forward to the sound of the cuckoo each year might like to help in this survey and if so, you can obtain more information from the trust’s web site which is a must for all bird lovers: www.bto.org.

Halcyon days of boyhood in Bourne Wood more than sixty years ago have been remembered by one of our regular contributors to the Bourne Forum. Dennis Staff, a retired naval officer from Ottawa in Canada, was evacuated to Bourne during the Second World War (1939-45) to escape the bombing of his home town in Hull and he was sent to live with Ernest and Emily Grummitt at their home in No 42 Burghley Street, a time that he remembers with great fondness and affection.

Suggestions that new development might one day encroach on this beautiful area of Bourne have brought an angry reaction from several contributors under the heading: “Leave the woods alone!” and Dennis is particularly incensed about anything that would destroy one of the favourite places of his childhood:

My memories of Bourne Wood are of peaceful and leisurely strolls by courting lovers, of boy scouts camping and the annual bramble gathering, returning home with baskets of luscious berries along with blackened tongue and fingers. Ah! They tasted so good with the apples in Mrs Grummitt’s dumplings. We returned from our walks with bunches of bluebells, primroses, snowdrops and crocuses. We listened to the cuckoo and imitated its call. We observed the squirrels, stoats and rabbits and caught a glimpse of an occasional fox. I used to have my secret sites where I would go at the crack of dawn to collect edible mushrooms when the morning dew would make my welly-boots glisten as if French polished.

We cut the early shoots pushing out of the ground in early spring, the “fiddle-heads” as they were called, and they made delightful greens when cooked and I love them to this day. We picked up the pine cones when they fell, tied them on a string and hung them over the lintel or under the eaves to predict rain. Conkers were gathered and strung to challenge your classmates. Beech nuts and acorns were collected while all the time we were learning about the shapes of the different leaves and collecting them in a book, pressed between the pages.

These wonderful days left no time for vandalising football and cricket clubs. There were some great ditches along the footpaths to and through the woods where different varieties of newts could be caught with the hand and kept in a jam jar. I could go on with my memories of the woods, of roller-skating down Stamford Hill which was the fad in those days. I still have scars on my knees and thighs from the falls and I once ended up in the cottage [Butterfield] hospital. Do not destroy our memories. Please leave the woods alone.

We have received many goodwill messages following our involvement in a road accident on March 4th in which our car was wrecked but we escaped with our lives and our thanks go to all of those who have taken the trouble to write, send emails and get well cards and have even offered practical help. Both my wife Elke and myself have been touched that so many should take the trouble to offer comfort and we can say that yes, it has helped for although we are comparative newcomers to Bourne, having been here for barely twenty years, we now have that feeling of belonging.

Progress is slow and our physical mobility is still impaired but I have a new car and we are back on the road and have even been on a short excursion to Bourne Wood, our favourite place, although our usual paths deep into the forest were denied us because walking is still difficult. Nevertheless, we were able to see that the wood anemones are in bloom and soon some of the secret glades will be carpeted with these delicate white flowers and we hope to see them before they fade for another year. Our most grateful thanks to everyone who has thought of us and I can tell you all that Elke and I consider ourselves old troupers and will survive.

Thought for the Week: Everything claimed by everyone connected with the beautification of the body for this life, or of the soul for the next, should be treated with violent suspicion. It is, for instance, easily established that the entire skincare industry consists of little more than the perfuming, tinting, packaging and marketing of two of our planet's most plentiful natural resources: calcium carbonate and mineral oil. Ninety-eight per cent by weight of the contents of a chemist’s shelves is basically pulverised rock and Vaseline, its value, unadorned, being about one tenth of 1 per cent of the shelf-price of the packaged products. If Johnson & Johnson had a mission statement, it should be “Poncifying Chalk Powder and Adding Value to Petroleum Jelly”. – Matthew Parris, writing in The Spectator, Saturday 16th March 2002.

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