Bourne Diary - April 2002

Saturday 6^th April 2002

The Angel is one of our most important and best-loved buildings, dating from the 18th century and was originally known as the Nag's Head but the name was changed around 1800. It is probably the oldest surviving hotel for guests in the locality and was an important posting house during England’s coaching days. The town had the advantage of being on one of the main routes from London to Lincoln and York and a daily coach service passed through Bourne, often making an overnight stop and usually picking up passengers. There was also a mail coach and a wagon service for heavy goods and carriers also operated local services to surrounding towns. By 1857, an omnibus left the Angel Hotel every morning, except Sundays, at 8 a m to connect with the railway station at Tallington on the Great Northern line. The livery stables at the rear of the building were eventually incorporated into the main hotel and by 1900 it boasted fifteen bedrooms and a banqueting room that could accommodate 150 people.

The courtyard and outbuildings can still be seen together with an ostler's bell and there is a pattern of small gables across the coaching arch while outside on the main road, the town pump was strategically placed to provide for the needs of the coach horses that stopped here. Apart from its function as a hotel, the Angel was also registered as an Excise Office from 1808 onwards where makers of a wide range of goods were required to pay their necessary duties.

Such a pedigree deserves some consideration when alterations are being made but it would appear that no thought was given to its history when the decorators moved in and started throwing their green and cream over the front façade. The owners are now in trouble with the local authorities and are seeking a retrospective planning application for the re-painting although members of Bourne Town Council’s planning committee have strongly objected to any other colours except the traditional black and white.

Their course of action is clear: the proprietors should be ordered to restore the original colours and while they are about it, they might like to do something about the architectural aberration in Angel Walk. In the summer of 1985, the long-disused outbuildings and stables at the rear of the hotel were converted into a new shopping centre with seven retail units and although this refurbishment was welcomed and blended perfectly with the atmosphere of the old coaching inn, this cannot be said for the three glazed domes built into the roof to provide light for they look, as Prince Charles might have described them, like carbuncles on the face of an old friend and should be surgically removed. The time has come for the proprietors of the Angel Hotel to put their house in order.

The parish of Bourne has 69 listed buildings serving a variety of purposes, many of them commercial, but we should remember that the current owners are only temporary custodians and it is their duty to pass them on in a better state than they found them. Green and cream may look well in a children’s playground, a clinic or even a school, but these colours have no place on the front of an old coaching inn that stands at the gateway to a Lincolnshire market town and it is a staggering revelation that this was not understood by the licensees. The present appearance of the Angel therefore is a poor advertisement for the town and must be regarded with dismay by visitors arriving here for the first time.

The hotel as it is today is featured in the Photograph of the Week on the front page of this web site while its previous black and white livery can be seen in the Angel Hotel.

It would appear that the terrace of four Victorian houses at Nos 49-55 North Street has been saved for posterity after a vigorous campaign for conservation lead by this column (See Diary 19th May 2001 & January 2002 passim). As a result, Bourne Town Council is seeking permission from the Department of the Environment for them to be included in the Conservation Area designated in 1977 and this would give them a degree of protection from demolition.

But an alarm was raised last week by Councillor Don Fisher when a JCB arrived on site and it was thought that these properties were about to be pulled down surreptitiously but fears were soon allayed by the owners, the Lindum Construction Group, who gave an assurance that they were to be retained and restored as part of the overall residential development of 20 two and three storey houses that is planned for this land. This is a welcome volte face by the company which stated in December that they were “dark, damp and rat infested” and should therefore be pulled down. In view of the mounting interest over the future of these houses, the company’s opinion has now been radically adjusted. Group director George Whittaker tells us that the JCB was on site for another purpose and added: “Knocking down the houses was never a serious option. You can rest assured that they will be refurbished in keeping with surrounding buildings and will be a great improvement.”

It matters not how they arrived at this decision, whether through pragmatism or public pressure, because all who have the interests of this town at heart will welcome it and look forward to its implementation. There is no doubt that these four houses, which were built in 1890, still have a useful life ahead of them and it is worth mentioning that were they situated in one of the inner London boroughs where the chattering classes make their homes, they would be on the market at around £500,000 each, perhaps even more. This column would like to thank everyone who added their voice to the protest about them disappearing from the street scene, not least the town council which acted quickly and rightly to ensure their preservation and we must also now thank the developers for their change of heart in the face of such dedicated opposition.

Those who value our heritage must be continually vigilant because the vandals are always at the door, ready to knock down what we have left of the past. It is worth remembering that the Red Hall, the jewel in our heritage crown, may well have suffered this fate on two occasions. When the new railway line between Bourne and Saxby was built between 1891 and 1893, the original scheme proposed the demolition of the Red Hall to make way for new sidings to take freight traffic. The suggestion caused some outcry and a petition was duly raised by the townspeople and presented to the railway company in 1892 in an attempt to save the historic building from demolition. The petition was handwritten and signed by 75 of Bourne's leading citizens, headed by the Vicar, the Rev Hugh Mansfield, his churchwardens and parochial church councillors, and by tradesmen and shopkeepers as well as several private citizens of wealth and importance. It was headed "A memorial from the inhabitants of Bourne and neighbourhood to the directors of the Great Northern and Midland Railway Companies" and stated:

We the undersigned beg respectfully to approach you on the subject of the Old Hall at Bourne now used as the railway station, in danger of being pulled down to make way for the extension of the railway from Saxby. The Old Hall is a red brick Elizabethan mansion with gabled roof and stone mullioned windows, once the residence of the Digby family, standing in park-like grounds and forms one of the many interesting historical features of Bourne. The walls are thick and strong and the roof weather tight.

It has formed the subject of academy pictures and is still admired, measured and sketched by students, the fine oak staircase inside and the venerable yew tree 300 years old being objects of peculiar interest. It has attracted the attention of the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings who write with us in asking you to allow it to remain untouched that it may serve a useful purpose to your company and still exercise its quiet influence as an antidote to the restless spirit of its surroundings.

We can ill afford to lose such picturesque and historical relics of these past and your memorialists therefore pray that it may still be presented to them.

Feelings were so strong that the railway company relented and the Red Hall was preserved only to face further uncertainty when the line closed almost a century later. At that time, the early 17th century building was used as the stationmaster's house and ticket office but when this closed, there was again the threat of demolition but it was saved yet again by the will of the people, notably by the efforts of the late Councillor Jack Burchnell and the Bourne United Charities who acquired the freehold in 1962 and remain the owners to this day. The hall was in a dilapidated condition when they took over but with the aid of local funds and grants, it was carefully and sympathetically restored to its former elegance and the building re-opened in December 1972. Since then, the main rooms have been used as offices and as a meeting place for local groups and conservation organisations.

These are matters we should ponder on when contemplating the future of those old buildings we have left. The Civic Society, formed appropriately after a public meeting at the Red Hall in 1977, is devoted to this aim but they need new members to ensure that their voice is heard in those discussions that decide the fate of this town’s future. Membership of the society has not increased in recent years and the situation was highlighted by the president Baroness Willoughby de Eresby at the annual general meeting last month when she urged officials to recruit more to their ranks and to support the Heritage Centre at Baldock’s Mill that has given the town a central focus on its past history.

She added: "The Civic Society is an important organisation in Bourne and given the rate of growth for the town, it is important that new members should come forward. More attention must be paid to long-term development and improvement and the society and its members should resolve to get their voice heard. It will make all the difference. We should aim to increase membership to at least 100 during the Queen's Golden Jubilee year".

This is a commendable cause and I have added the history of the Civic Society to the web site today. For those who wish to join, there is also a membership application form that can be accessed from the Notice Board and I commend all of you out there who wish to protect this town to think about joining and add your voice and vote to this worthwhile cause.

We continue to improve in health and mobility after our road accident a month ago and our recovery has been spurred on by the touching messages we have received from at home and around the world. This one however has a particular place in our affection because it demonstrates that the work we have been trying to do is not wasted:

Congratulations on what I consider to be one of the finest, if not the finest, community web sites in the world. I hope you recover from your injuries quickly and I trust your wife will do so as well. Keep up the great work. - Roger Los, Seattle, Washington, USA.

Thought for the Week: What next Mr Spielberg . . . Bunfight at the O K Corral? - headline over an article describing the politically correct makeover for the film ET in which guns have been airbrushed out in favour of walkie-talkies and the word “terrorist” replaced by “hippie” in deference to the events on September 11th last, The Times, Saturday 30th March 2002.

Saturday 13^th April 2002

The choosing of a young girl as queen or princess is an old English tradition for public events and one that has survived the bathing beauty contests of the 20th century that are now less popular. The judges on this occasion will be looking for character and personality as well as physical attraction and once chosen at the crowning ceremony on May 31st, the lucky winner will face a round of activities as the centre of attention, the highlight being on Carnival Day, Monday 3rd June, when she will ride at the head of the grand procession through the town accompanied by her two attendants and wearing a sash and a tiara that is being specially made by London craftsmen.

There will be many local girls hoping for such a chance but what will it be like if they win? One person who should know is Christine Greaves (née Hurst) who, at the age of 19, was chosen as the Silver Jubilee Queen for Bourne when the country celebrated the Queen’s 25th anniversary as monarch on Tuesday 7th June 1977.

Christine now lives in the United Arab Emirates but maintains a keen interest in Bourne which she still regards as home, and has been keeping in touch through this web site, especially during this golden jubilee year. She is the daughter of Derek and Margaret Hurst, the former matron of Digby Court residential home, and has been living in the Middle East for the past two and a half years.

The family moved to Bourne in 1975 and Christine’s first job was with South Kesteven District Council at Wake House. From there, she moved to Pedigree Master Foods at Melton Mowbray in Leicestershire where she remained for 21 years although for much of the time she lived in Grosvenor Avenue, Bourne, and commuted to work every day. Then six years ago, she flew out to celebrate New Year with her boy friend Andy in Dubai and after several more similar holiday trips, decided to go there for good and took a one-way ticket from Heathrow on 22nd December 1999.

“I left my home, family, friends and a job I loved”, says Christine. “It was a big wrench for me and even now, the parting still brings tears to my eyes when I remember my mum at the airport waving me goodbye. But the good side is that my parents now have a one month holiday in the sun every year which they both look forward to.”

Christine soon found employment with her previous firm’s sister company based in Dubai, Master Foods Middle East FZE (they manufacture Galaxy chocolate), and is now their external affairs manager and office project manager. “For me, this was quite an achievement”, said Christine, “because it is company policy to only employ people from the region. There are only four Brits who work here on a permanent basis. Our region covers an area from Morocco through to India and so I do quite a bit of travelling but it’s fun. I am very, very happy and can honestly say that I have no regrets except that I do miss my garden and my family and friends and some really very special neighbours, although I still keep in touch with them.

“We live in a villa not far from the sea at a place called Jumiera. We have no children or pets but would love to have a dog as I do miss my little Tina who I left behind with mum and dad but unfortunately, working such long hours, it would not be fair to have one.”

Christine has been remembering her time during the royal celebrations of 1977 and her contribution The Silver Jubilee Queen is added today to our Bourne Focus feature Memories of Times Past. Also, if anyone wants to know how Bourne will be celebrating the Golden Jubilee this year, then you will find the full programme that has been added to the Notice Board and will be updated as and when changes are made.

There must be many people out there with poetry in their soul. They may not be able to compose a sonnet worthy of Wordsworth or Shakespeare but those capable of writing a few verses might like to sing the praises of their favourite building in Bourne and win a cash prize in the process. The Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings is inviting poems from the public dedicated to the architectural love of your life. It could be your childhood sweetheart, a holiday romance, lifelong companion or the love-that-dare-not-speak-its-name. What is that I hear? An ode to Baldock’s Mill perhaps? Or a ballad of the Red Hall? An anthem to the Abbey Church? The Wake House eclogue or even a few elegiac couplets on the old Grammar School? Rhyming scribblers of Bourne, this is your chance!

The SPAB was founded by William Morris in 1877 to counteract the highly destructive “restoration” of mediaeval buildings being practised by many Victorian architects. Morris was joined by a group of eminent artists, writers, politicians, churchmen and others, who were deeply concerned that the architecture of a bygone age would be swept away or changed beyond recognition by the effects of the industrial revolution. Today it has become the largest, oldest and most technically expert national pressure group fighting to save old buildings from decay, demolition and damage. The society advises, educates, campaigns and offers help when it is wanted and informed resistance when they are alarmed. They also encourage excellence in new design to enrich and complement the historic environment. Thousands of historic buildings throughout Britain survive today which would have been lost, mutilated or badly repaired without their intervention and the poetry competition has been launched this spring to celebrate their 125th anniversary.

Why a poetry competition? Well, since its formation, the SPAB has been a repository of technical knowledge regarding the appropriate methods of conserving our ancient buildings. In this anniversary year, they are remembering that all their campaigning, educating, lobbying, advising and conserving is motivated by one thing - LOVE! The society was inspired by John Ruskin and William Morris, who saw buildings as works of art and craftsmanship that should be treated with the same care and consideration as any painting or sculpture and so our beloved buildings are to be immortalised in verse by you, the public.

There are three categories in the competition: seven to 11 years; 12 to 17 years; and 18 years plus, and £3,000 worth of prizes. The closing date is May 17th and if you want to find out more, visit the SPAB web site that can be accessed through Bourne Links.

Dr John Gilpin was a respected family doctor in Bourne during the early years of the 20th century and I have written before about his exploits because he was one of the first in the town to own a motor car (see Diary 1st September 2001). Indeed, he became a familiar figure driving through the streets in his French made Gregoire with his practice nurse sitting in the passenger seat and of course he used his car when making house calls on his patients in the locality, much to the delight of inquisitive small boys who always flocked round the vehicle whenever he arrived and subjected it to the closest scrutiny while he was inside.

I came across one such incident reported in the local newspapers recently which described an air disaster during the First World War when Dr Gilpin was called out on one of his more unusual emergency calls, an airship crash at Thurlby, two miles south of Bourne. The British airship came down in the village street at Garwood's Corner shortly before noon on 15th November 1916. This was a short distance from the village school where an entry was recorded in the daily log describing the incident: "Afternoon meeting abandoned owing to sailing ship disaster near school. The bell was rung for afternoon school but pupils were dismissed immediately as there was a possible danger from escaping gas and fuel."

The airship narrowly missed overhead telegraph wires as it circled over the houses before eventually coming down between the public hall and the house next to the school. Lines from the airship wrapped around a chimney, dislodging several bricks which dropped into the cockpit and injured one of the air crew on the head. Mr John Pulford, who had been painting a house nearby, was also the village first aid man and he rushed to render assistance but decided that more expert help was needed and so Dr Gilpin was summoned from Bourne and he arrived in due course in his motor car.

He faced a difficult situation and had to push his way between the airship's balloon bag and the brick wall of the house to reach the injured man who was then moved into No 13 Station Road, home of the village schoolteacher Mrs Naomi Scragg, until he could be taken to hospital. There was still the risk of an explosion from escaping gas and someone threw a bucket of water over the fire as they carried the pilot into Mrs Scragg's house as a safety precaution.

Two lorries eventually arrived from RAF Cranwell to remove the airship but by this time, news of the disaster had spread around the countryside and many people walked from Bourne and Baston to take a look and to retrieve pieces of the wreckage for souvenirs such as lengths of copper piping, wire, cables, connections and sections of fabric. The airmen were so impressed with the hospitality offered to them by the village that one of them presented Mrs Scragg's daughter Beatty with a teddy bear that became a treasured mascot for many years afterwards.

Thought for the Week: I knew a Queen Mother once. She had no equerries or women of the bedchamber but she brought up six kids in the 1950s and had to work scrubbing floors and cleaning toilets. She died aged 63. Her and the hundreds of thousands like her are the real Queen Mothers of this country. – letter from P D of Harehills, Leeds, to the Write On feature in ITV Teletext, Wednesday 10th April 2002.

Saturday 20^th April 2002

Why the facility has not been opened before is hard to believe because this town has been in need of one for more than a quarter of a century, during which time the community has been generating waste at an alarming rate, the volume emanating from homes and gardens increasing annually. Yet it is only in recent months that it has occurred to those who run our affairs that we have a problem, highlighted mainly by this column that has regularly pointed out the inadequacies of the existing system and the reluctance of our councils to do anything about it.

Those who live in Bourne know what has been going on because they have been inconvenienced year after year. But our readership is worldwide and for those of you who live in Japan and Dubai, Singapore, Canada, Australia or the United States (among others), where such matters are carried out in a far more organised fashion, and I know because you have told me so, I will give a résumé of what has been happening in this Lincolnshire market town over the disposal of our excess garbage because the simplest of operations has been turned into an administrative tour de force on how not to do things.

Lincolnshire County Council, which is responsible for these matters, appears to think that this is a fairly new problem but that is not so. It became apparent in 1976 that a waste recycling centre was needed for Bourne (population then 6,500) and on May 22nd that year, the local authorities agreed to site a skip in the council depot at Lound, two miles south west of the town, for Saturday morning collections between 9 a m and noon and the promise was that if enough people used it, then it would become a regular service. The need was soon identified and by September 1986, the town (population then 8,500) had a fortnightly collection from the old cattle market site which is now Budgens’ car park but this was proving to be both inadequate and unsuitable. There were complaints about the high volume of traffic being generated and that the dumped refuse was causing a health hazard and so the facility was switched to the larger out-of-town Rainbow supermarket car park where a weekly Saturday morning collection was introduced to cope with the mounting volume of garbage. This, of course, also turned out to be a totally unsuitable location yet the facility remained there for fifteen years during which time the public, men, women and children, were forced to endure the humiliating weekly experience of queuing to jettison each individual load that had to be carried up to the back of the refuse carts by hand, a most demeaning experience.

The supermarket management became increasingly unhappy with this arrangement as the years went by and frequently indicated their intention to end the facility because rubbish was being dumped before and after the refuse trucks arrived and some drivers were causing a danger in their cars and vans. Then in the summer of 2000, they announced their intention to end the facility once and for all. This should have been sufficient warning for the county council to start looking around for a more suitable and permanent place but they did absolutely nothing and the supermarket subsequently served notice to end the dumping on their premises on 26th May 2001.

It is worth pointing out that at this time, the volume of rubbish being generated on a Saturday morning was the highest of any other similar civic amenity site in Lincolnshire. Bourne (population now 12,500) therefore faced the prospect of fly tipping on a grand scale because some anti-social home owners with waste to dispose of will dump it anywhere rather than leave it on their own premises and the countryside is an obvious target, in the woods, alongside drains and dykes, at farm gates and on roadside verges. The supermarket management was persuaded to rethink its decision because the town had no other location and under pressure from Lincolnshire County Council, they agreed to a reprieve until October 20th when the authority promised that a permanent waste management site would be up and running.

But of course, it was not and the county council acted only at the last moment and within a day or so of the Rainbow facility ending, they announced a stopgap solution that it had been switched to the car park adjoining the Leisure Centre in Queen’s Road, slap bang in the middle of a residential area and just a short step from our biggest school and the town centre. The permanent waste recycling centre we had been promised just never materialised although an attempt was made to buy a three acre site in South Fen, the perfect place for this purpose, but the county council were too slow with their negotiations and the land was snapped up by someone else while they dithered over a decision on the price.

Alan Freeman, head of planning and conservation for the county council told me at the time: “New options are being evaluated and it is planned to provide Bourne with a permanent facility before the end of the financial year” – which to those who are not familiar with this time scale, is April 5th.

That date too has passed although one of these options has now been taken up and a site off Pinfold Road has been identified as the new location where the civic amenity waste depot will be administered by Bullimores Sand and Gravel Ltd although there will be yet another delay of six to eight weeks before it is up and running at full stretch due to “legal technicalities”, which should be completed when Lincolnshire County Council meets on June 17th.

There would be an excuse for such a sorry tale if it were an isolated case but it is my experience that this is a typical example of our local government at work, a bureaucratic machine whose wheels grind exceedingly slowly and usually very inefficiently. Yet Lincolnshire County Council employs 12,000 people, the largest employer in the county, and has a spending budget of £502 million on delivering services this year alone. The provision of a permanent waste recycling centre for Bourne is therefore very small beer in their scheme of things but a very important one for our community. But I suppose that we must be grateful, even after waiting more than 25 years and now that the project is almost complete, perhaps this will give the county council more time to think about another important project for the town, a much-needed bypass. After all, that was first mooted in 1926.

One final word on this issue: just in case our councillors and officials are thinking of putting on their smart suits for an official opening of this waste facility, then don’t. You have done nothing to be proud of that merits such a celebration.

The Outdoor Swimming Pool, one of the best-loved leisure attractions in Bourne, is preparing for it annual summer opening next month. Improvement work continues each year and new boilers have now been installed to keep the water at a pleasant 72°F while volunteers are busy ensuring that the surroundings are spick and span in readiness fore the first visitors. More people however are needed to help and the committee is appealing for volunteers to assist with the ongoing maintenance work such as gardening and painting.

This is one of the few traditional outdoor swimming pools or lidos remaining in Britain, dating back to 1138 when it was a carp pond to provide fish for the monks at Bourne Abbey but was converted into public swimming baths by keen local swimmers during the Great War of 1914-18 and its progress has been one of improvement and enhancement ever since. Thousands of children have learned to swim here and I have received a charming email of such an experience from Barry Sheppard who was born in the town 1958 and has recently discovered the history of the pool on this web site. Barry, who was educated at the Abbey Road Primary and then Bourne Grammar School, left the area at the age of 20 when his career took him to pastures new and he now works for the Environment Agency in the Home Counties and is responsible for waste and water enforcement and legislation along the River Thames but memories of those days at the pool more than thirty years ago stay with him:

I well remember our trips to the outdoor pool. I attended the primary school in Abbey Road and can still remember waving to steam trains going across the embankment that used to divide us from the 'swamp', as we called it, on the other side where we had loads of expeditions going after frogs although we were often scared off by swans. In the mid and late 1960s, we used to go once a week to the outdoor pool to learn to swim, an excellent initiative for schoolchildren but sometimes the temperature of the pool was a bit beyond the pale. The figures for that day were always chalked up on a small blackboard by the entrance to the pool and so you knew as soon as you arrived whether it was going to be a pleasant swimming lesson or not. The teachers, needless to say, used to wrap up warm and stay on the side of the pool offering encouragement and instruction instead of going in themselves, a far cry from now, when, as I take my offspring for their lessons, I'm expected to get in as well although to be fair, the pools are somewhat warmer these days.

Those of us who had not learned to swim had to wear a hideous one-piece costume that had polystyrene floats stuck down the side to keep us buoyant. As we completed each width, under the supervision of Mr Palmer or Miss Gorton from the primary school, one float was removed. I had one triumphant morning when I went into the pool wearing one of the dreaded costumes and swam six widths causing all my floats to be removed one by one and Mr Palmer declaring that I was now officially a swimmer. I can well remember two of my closest friends, Keith Abraham and Tony Wilson, shouting encouragement as I neared the final stretch. Happy days.

The superintendent of the pool was a chap called Johnny Kettle, perhaps a relative to the Kettles in Recreation Road, who always seemed to be wearing white trousers. He was very tanned, no doubt as a result of all that outdoor work, and he chatted with everyone. When I first went there, the pool surround was entirely of grass. There was no paved area as your photo on the web site shows, and as a result the pool was often very muddy, especially late in the day, as bathers used to bring dirt and grass into the water. It became quite hazardous swimming and the water tasted awful. This was in the days before chlorination, and bits of grass got into your mouth. Ugh!

I well remember the fountain in your picture. The water in it was always freezing cold. Rumour had it that it came directly from a borehole and thence to the pool system, but I don't think that was the case. Whatever the truth was, it was freezing cold and could take your breath away if you stood underneath it, which many of us did for a dare. It was reckoned to be a sign of manhood if you could stay there for more than a minute with all of your mates counting off the seconds at the top of their voices to make sure you didn’t cheat.

There are lots of other tricks we used to get up to, like swimming lengthwise from one end of the pool to the other while at the same time keeping an eye on the church tower which can be seen in your photo. Then there was the day they got it all wrong with the new chlorine system and everyone started complaining and then the time when all the new tiles fell off inside the pool because workmen had used the wrong adhesive. But it was all part of the experience and what fun we had because whatever happened, we always carried on swimming.

Puzzle Picture – Solution to No 3: The bronze memorial plaque of King George VI that I showed last week is one of those features in the town that many people see but few people notice. It can be found in the doorway of the Darby and Joan Hall off South Street, built in 1959 at a cost of £6,500 and opened the following July by the Earl of Ancaster. The plaque was erected as a reminder that £1,000 of the money came from the King George VI Memorial Fund that was launched on his death in 1952 and the proceeds devoted to various good causes such as this throughout Britain. The history of the Darby and Joan Hall and how it came to be built is added to the Community section of the web site today and it includes a photograph of the plaque in situ. First successful entry out of the hat came from Charles Neaverson of Peterborough who receives a copy of my new CD-ROM A Portrait of Bourne. This is now into its second edition, containing almost 1,200 photographs and 300,000 words of text, and those who wish to order a copy will find details on the front page of the web site.

Thought for the Week: “I find it difficult to see the point of security-marking property when police could not track down a bus emblazoned with the word Delaine” – bus company chairman Ian Delaine-Smith after a five-day, 300-mile police chase across six counties from Lincolnshire to Sussex, to find a 55-seater blue and cream Volvo single-decker worth £50,000 that was stolen from their depot in Bourne last week. It was finally found abandoned in a field at Steyning, near Brighton.

Saturday 27^th April 2002

It began with a suggestion that the establishment of a tattoo parlour and pawnbroker’s shop in West Street was part of a down market trend for Bourne and as these establishments were better suited to the more boisterous and rowdy seaports of the world, the opening of a brothel might well follow. This led to a number of messages on the general dumbing down of society and someone threw a large pebble into the pool by suggesting that the reading habits of council house tenants was confined to the national red tops such as The Sun and The Star newspapers that pump out a daily diet of celebrity sex and other vulgarities. The television viewing habits in our council houses, said another correspondent, were there for all to see because most of the Sky satellite dishes in Bourne were to be found on council houses and so we could assume that the occupants existed on a selection of soccer, soaps and sumo wrestling.

There has since been a lively exchange on the merits of living in a council house and whether such domicile is an indication not only of education and intelligence but also of social standing and many who have had experience of this type of accommodation have defended it fiercely, arguing, although not in these exact words, that tenants of local authority housing in Harrington Street and Alexandra Terrace are just as worthy as those who have bought their own properties in Beech Avenue and Stephenson Way.

All of this is food for thought but among the most provocative messages was this from a lady who claims to have found this web site by accident and wrote:

I don’t think I would ever want to live in Bourne because I would be too frightened to have a satellite dish as I would be considered to exist on a diet of soaps etc. I would love to know what the self-styled upmarket residents watch. Or perhaps they prefer not to have a television at all and sit smugly around their piano on a winter’s evening, either singing the St Matthew Passion or possibly playing Scrabble but with only Latin words allowed.

This would appear to be a school of thought that relies upon an acceptance of your own mores for their own sake, without considering the standards of anyone else, and might well fall into that extreme category which has become known as inverted snobbery, because the writer has obvious social advantages yet is afraid that the neighbours might think her addicted to working class television programmes. Perhaps it does not occur to her that people who are at one with themselves do their own thing, whether wall to wall television, Bach or the intricacies of language and semantics, and to hell with anyone else, because therein lies the true test of snobbery.

Bourne seems to me to be a most congenial place to live, where everyone talks to everyone else without much regard for their wealth, education or status in the community, all of which I find understated if at all. But are these courtesies nothing more than a veneer and in reality the town is a seething mass of social discontent? Certainly there are those who strive to better themselves but we should not confuse ambition with social climbing and keeping up with the Jones’. I have therefore decided to put the matter to the test and our next question on the web site poll is:

Is snobbery evident in Bourne?

Tell us if you think it is, or is not. Voting will end next Friday evening at 6 p m and your comments will be most welcome.

The delights of that excellent BBC Television programme Dad’s Army are based on the exploits of the Home Guard, the part time soldiers recruited during the Second World War with the intention of repelling the invasion that never came. Nevertheless, they were ready if needed and of course the antics of Captain Mainwaring, Sergeant Wilson and Corporal Jones have now passed into history as an example of the way it was. The Home Guard was also active in Bourne from 1940-1944 but there was also a similar organisation in the town during the Great War, almost a quarter of a century before.

The outbreak of the war in 1914 brought a fresh impetus for military training and the Bourne Volunteer Training Corps was formed at a public meeting held at the Corn Exchange on Monday 11th January 1915. This was the forerunner of the Home Guard. Lord Kesteven presided with members of the local councils and other civic dignitaries on the platform. Volunteer Corps were being formed all over Britain at that time under the auspices of a Central Association who sent a representative, Mr Douglas Knocker, to address the meeting and to outline the aims and requirements of the new organisation. He told the audience:

All those below and above the military age are eligible to become members but those of enlisting age for the regular army are not eligible unless there is a good and sufficient reason for their not joining the regular forces. Special constables are eligible unless the Chief Constable of the county objects although I consider it an advantage to the special constables to have the training that they would get by becoming members of the corps. There is no government grant towards the cost of equipment and each member of the corps will have to provide his own rifle, or have it provided for him through the association. Badges will be provided and in case of invasion, each member will be supplied with an armlet attached to the coat.

The mood of the meeting was overwhelmingly patriotic and one senior citizen, Alderman A W Dean, who proposed a vote of thanks to the speaker, said: "Nothing will give me greater pleasure than to purchase a rifle and become a member of the corps" although there is no record of him having carried out his promise. Lord Kesteven also offered the corps two rifles and in the early days, equipment was indeed short but soon most of the men were armed and in khaki and operating as an efficient military unit. Regular training sessions were held and in May 1915, the corps took over the miniature rifle range that had been established by the Bourne Rifle Club in the basement of the West Street Institute [now the Pyramid Club] for firing practice. The unit remained in existence until the war’s end but not a single shot was fired in anger.

Unbelievable but true (1): I had thought that my detailed appraisal in this column last week of the sorry saga of establishing a new waste recycling centre for Bourne was to be the last word on the subject but that is not so. I was one of the many people from the town who drove there over the weekend on the promise that it would be open only to find it well and truly closed on the orders of Lincolnshire County Council. An announcement in The Local newspaper on Friday made it quite clear that this new facility would be open from 8 a m until 4 p m on Saturdays and Sundays on a temporary basis pending full time operation for seven days a week later this year, but it appears that the county council stopped the centre from opening late on Friday after encountering more “technical difficulties”, a phrase that is becoming synonymous with total inefficiency.

It is doubtful if it will open next weekend either and the full time operation that we have been promised for June is also unlikely. I quote from an inside source, from someone whose identity must be withheld because tempers over this issue are becoming a little frayed: “The centre may be able to open in August or perhaps September, that is provided the county council do not come up with any more cock-ups.”

A reminder for all of those who are still waiting for this facility: Lincolnshire County Council employs 12,000 people and has a spending budget on delivering services this year of £502 million.

Unbelievable but true (2): An Englishman’s home may be his castle but the road outside is a public highway and a dangerous one if it has double yellow lines. But this failed to deter one chap on Sunday morning who gaily parked his car across them in Burghley Street and proceeded to wash the vehicle with the aid of a sponge and a bucket of suds, much to the annoyance of passing drivers. This was in one of the town’s narrowest and most dangerous thoroughfares and many people, including myself, were forced to slow down and sometimes wait to allow oncoming traffic to pass and to avoid the obstruction that he was causing.

A reminder for those people who expect to see a bobby or two enforcing the law and preventing such anti-social behaviour out there on the street: Lincolnshire Police employs 1,875 people, 1,242 of them police officers, and their budget during the coming year will be £81.4 million.

The act of remembering where you were and what you were doing on a particular date in history has become a preoccupation since the assassination of the American President John F Kennedy while on a state visit to Dallas, Texas, in November 1963. It has been a test of memory for many other momentous dates since then and we are now being asked for our reminiscences of another important day: the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II on 2nd June 1953. On that day of solemn pomp and pageantry, princes, peers, prime ministers and commoners, heard the young Elizabeth take the Coronation Oath in Westminster Abbey in a clear and light voice, binding her to the service of her people in Britain and in the Commonwealth, in the first Coronation ever to be seen by millions of people all over the world because of television.

The Coronation was the start of a day of rejoicing throughout Britain but where were you and what were you doing on that day? The Bourne branch of the Lincolnshire Family History Society is appealing to all Brunnians, whether still living in the town or elsewhere, but particularly abroad, to share their memories of Coronation Day which will be featured in an exhibition entitled “Where are they now?” that is planned for later in the year. The society is particularly interested in hearing from those who took part in any of the celebration events in Bourne. Were you in a parade, a prize-winner in one of the events or merely a spectator? If you have a memory to share, please email me and I will pass it on to the society.

Our annual delight at this time of the year is a visit to Dole Wood, a small area of ancient woodland near Bourne. This is a fragment of what was once the great primeval forest of Brunswald and consists mainly of oak trees and hazel coppice although there are also a lot of ash, field maple, wych elm and wild service, but in April we go to see the bluebells. Regular readers of this column will know our affection for this place and after our road accident last month we thought we might not see it again. But we have survived and have been to enjoy this year’s glorious display and the pictures I took a few days ago have been added to the section on Dole Wood that has been specially upgraded today to give you a glimpse of this joyous spring scene.

This small wood is one of 106 nature reserves throughout the county managed by the Lincolnshire Wildlife Trust of which we are members. The organisation was founded in 1948, the third of the wildlife trusts to be formed that now cover the whole of the United Kingdom, and their work is invaluable in ensuring that our countryside is preserved for future generations.

Dole Wood is a hidden gem, well off the beaten track, but you have the chance to see it this weekend because the trust is holding an open day on Sunday 28th April from 10.30 a m until 4.30 p m. You will find it approximately 2½ miles south of Bourne near to the village of Thurlby and cars may be parked on the roadside along Obthorpe Lane which runs south from the village and roughly parallel to and west of the main A15 road between Peterborough and Lincoln. If you have time to spare on Sunday, I commend a visit that you will remember for many years to come.

Thought for the Week: The football hooligan has completely replaced the gentleman as the archetypical Englishman. – Theodore Dalrymple writing in The Spectator, 6th April 2002.

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