Bourne Diary - July 2002

Saturday 6^th July 2002

Work on translating the homily collection known as The Ormulum has been going on for several years and Professor Nils-Lennart Johannesson, a language historian from the Department of English at Stockholm University, is currently working on a new edition. He has been in Oxford for the past few months examining the document anew and last week, before returning to Sweden, he visited Bourne to see the church where Orm worshipped and expressed his confidence that this was indeed the place where the work was compiled.

The manuscript in the Bodleian is made up of large and irregularly shaped sheets of parchment, each roughly 23 inches high and 9 inches across, and gathered in eight numbered quires. It is only a fragment of the total work and contains homilies, or explications of gospel texts intended to be used for preaching, dealing with the life of Christ and particularly the lives and works of St Peter and St Paul, the saints to whom the Abbey Church is dedicated. “This would make sense only if Orm belonged to a monastery dedicated to these saints”, said Professor Johannesson. “The dialect in which they are written has long been recognised by experts as East Midland and the only Augustinian house in the East Midland areas with that dedication was the Abbey of Bourne.”

The manuscript has been well known to linguists and language historians ever since the 17th century but its source has never been established although Professor Malcolm Parkes, of Keble College, Oxford, argued convincingly for Bourne Abbey in 1983. Orm’s language provides a glimpse of the English vernacular of the time and before it was strongly influenced by the French. It is assumed that the manuscript remained at Bourne Abbey until the dissolution of the monasteries between 1536 and 1540. It subsequently came into the possession of Sir Thomas Aylesbury, a collector of manuscripts and rare books. He was a Royalist who died in exile at Breda in the Netherlands in 1657 but had managed to smuggle out his library when he left England after the execution of Charles I in 1649.

After Sir Thomas’s death, the manuscript was acquired from his library by the Dutch scholar Jan van Vliet who signed the flyleaf at Breda on 6th February 1659. He took a great interest in the text and started preparing a glossary for it but when he died, the manuscript came into the possession of the librarian Francis Junius and after his death in 1677, it became the property of the Bodleian Library in Oxford where it has been ever since and is now known as MS Junius 1.

Professor Johannesson said: “During my stay in Oxford this spring, I managed to identify nearly two dozen books that Orm must had had access to, by authors ranging from St Augustine in the 4th century and the Venerable Bede in the 7th century to near contemporaries such as Anselm of Laon and Honorius Augustodunensis. It may also be noted that Orm is the first known spelling reformer, devising a spelling system that provides valuable information about the pronunciation of his variety of English.”

But what of Orm’s comparison with Robert Manning? “His style is at best dignified”, said Professor Johannesson. “His main theme, an explanation of God’s purpose with mankind, is too serious to admit of entertaining or light-hearted writing. When he writes about sins, he refrains from illustrative anecdotes which makes his presentation somewhat abstract. Manning, by contrast, uses the illustrative anecdotes as his chief presentational device, which makes his text more immediately attractive to a modern reader.”

The association of the preacher Orm with the Abbey Church was totally unknown to church officials. The records held by them go back to 1562 and there is no mention of him in subsequent documentation or church guides. The churchwarden is Mr David Tabor, whose family has been associated with the church for more than 100 years. “This is the first I have heard of him”, he said. “But we are pleased to have him as part of our history especially if it attracts more visitors and stimulates more interest in our building in the future.”

A dissertation on the monk Orm by Professor Johannesson has been added to my CD-ROM A Portrait of Bourne that now contains 1,300 photographs and 350,000 words of text about the history and heritage of this town and its people. It is the largest archive of Bourne ever produced and for those who are interested, you may access an order form from the front page of this web site.

Our web site poll on June 21st-28th appears to have attracted the attention of homeowners living elsewhere in Britain who are dissatisfied with their surroundings. You may remember that our question was whether Bourne was the perfect place to live and the surprising result was that of the 83 people who voted, 66 (80%) said it was not while only 17 (20%) thought that it was. We spent a weekend in London around this time and I felt sure that if some of those who so disliked the quality of life in our town had done the same, they would soon come scuttling back to Bourne, only too pleased to have a home here.

A few days after the results were announced, a lady from Middlesex posted a lengthy entry on the Forum advertising a house exchange. She gave full details of her end terrace, two-bedroomed property with all mod cons which sounds quite delightful. It is council-owned but subject to the right-to-buy condition and she is seeking to exchange it for a similar property in this area. I do not however allow advertisements on the Forum but it occurred to me that with 66 people out there who have expressed their dissatisfaction with Bourne, one might fit the bill and jump at the chance of moving to Middlesex. If you think you are the one, please send me an email and I will forward the details by return.

One of the prettiest and best kept railway stations in South Lincolnshire in past times was at Thurlby, three miles south of Bourne. It was built in 1860 as part of the Bourne to Essendine line and provided a service to the community for nigh on a century. The station was dismantled in the summer of 1951 when the line closed and all that remains is part of the platform that has been incorporated in the Lincolnshire County Council highways depot, a sad end for what was once an attractive place to begin or end a journey by rail.

To give you an idea of what the station was like in its heyday, this item about it appeared in the Stamford Mercury on Friday 18th October 1935 in the Gossip Grave and Gay column contributed weekly by a writer under the pseudonym of Strongbow:

Nothing pleases me more than to see a neatly-kept railway station. As a rule, I always think of a railway station as a bleak, draughty sort of affair, reminiscent of a seaport wharf. Most of them are dirty, dark, sooty and altogether objectionable places. But I have in mind an outstanding exception to the rule. I refer to Thurlby station. Here a pleasing colour scheme has been introduced to good effect. The station looks light and airy and, above all, clean. There are plenty of flowers, especially in the summer months. Window boxes are numerous and there are also boxes for flowers along the edge of the platform. The name of the station is plain to see on one bank, prettily executed in coloured pebbles. True, Thurlby is a small station with not a large number of engines passing through it to make things dirty but nevertheless, it is a credit to the village and its example might well be followed by other stations in the locality.

With the railways in Britain currently under attack from all quarters, not least the travelling public, there will be few stations in the country that would qualify for such high praise today.

My photographs have been appearing continually on this web site since it was launched almost five years ago and I have pictured most of the best views that our town has to offer although there are still many shots that I need to perfect as the years progress. The time has come to ask you if you wish to contribute. We are currently making some changes to the web site and one of our new features for the future therefore will be a Picture Gallery page that will show the best, together with a short item about who snapped them and a few thoughts on why they took those shots.

Please send me your contributions by email but they must be .jpeg attachments and no larger than 640 pixels wide and so those of you with digital cameras must beware of choosing the “full size” on the menu when you have selected your picture. Also, no .bmp format please because it is far too large and takes ages to download. If in doubt, email me and I will advise. There are those who do not have digital cameras or scanners and I will therefore be happy to receive their photographs by snailmail, glossy or matt prints, size 6 X 4 upwards, but no transparencies or slides, and if you want it returned, please enclose a stamped and addressed envelope.

The subject matter must be entirely local, from Bourne and the surrounding villages, all within a 10-mile radius, and the subject should be history, heritage or the environment, or merely a pretty view on a perfect day. The date it was taken and whether it is colour or black and white is immaterial provided it is a good picture but I do not want family photos or pets. The web site has plenty of pictures of our well known landmarks, the Red Hall, the Abbey Church, Baldock's Mill and the Wellhead Gardens but there is always the chance that you may come up with an unusual shot and so do not be deterred by these tried and tested locations.

I hope to use one of these photographs each week and they will remain on the web site in our new Picture Gallery. Remember that we are read in many countries and so your photograph has the chance of being seen by people around the world. It will also be included in the CD-ROM and the latest edition containing that week’s photograph will go to the person who submitted it.

Thought for the Week: “Is this part of the Kremlin?” – inquiry by a visitor to the House of Commons to a Parliamentary official, quoted by BBC Ceefax Sunday 30th June 2002.

Saturday 13^th July 2002

The town had the advantage of being on one of the main routes from Lincoln and York to London and a daily coach service passed through, 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 am 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 on the wall 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 which 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.

The ostler’s bell has a particular significance for a lady who emailed me this week from Newport in Shropshire who is busy compiling her family tree. Mrs Rosemary Sampson tells me that her search for ancestors has led her to Bourne and she has found that one of them was Samuel Griffin who, according to the 1851 census, was living with his wife Ann and their family in North Street, and that he was employed as an ostler at the Angel Hotel. The word ostler as an occupation is rarely heard today. It is an old English word, referring since the 16th century to a stableman or groom, the person who looked after the horses, usually at an inn, and was later perpetuated in many public house signs although these have mainly been replaced in recent years.

The ostler’s bell can still be seen in the yard at the Angel Hotel, a reminder of those days when this hostelry was a welcome staging post for travellers on the road between London and Lincoln. Mrs Sampson has now discovered a direct link with the past for although her ancestor left no trace of his existence on this earth, the bell is still there for all to see and I wonder how many times Samuel was summoned to work by its clarion call.

Meanwhile, the controversy over whether the hostelry should be painted black and white or green and cream is still unresolved. You can judge for yourself which looks the best because both before and after painting schemes can now been seen in the Angel Hotel pages.

The family search is now one of the most popular features on the web site with 82 names currently listed. The latest is Pickworth that has been added this week by Mrs Evelyn McCorkell of Brisbane, Australia, where she has lived since emigrating from Britain in 1973. Her late mother’s maiden name was Pickworth and she is now compiling her family tree having found references in the papers that she left to an uncle who may have been deported to Australia and she is now trying to contact as many Pickworths as possible in the hope of establishing a connection.

Evelyn has already traced her ancestors back to the mid 17th century, namely Thomas and Audrey Pickworth who originated in this part of South Lincolnshire, and she is now wondering if the family name may have come from the village, nine miles north west of Bourne. It is an interesting theory and of course it was a known practice during the Middle Ages to take the name of the place where you lived as a surname. Pickworth does have ancient origins. The word derives from the Old English Pica and worth, meaning Pica’s enclosure, and is mentioned in the Domesday Book, the great survey of 1086 ordered by William the Conqueror to keep track of his land and properties for tax purposes, when it was referred to as Picheurde although by 1174 it had become Pikewurda and subsequently Pickworth.

Pickworth has been known as a surname since the 13th century, the first recorded persons to use it being Robert de Pickewrd (1212), Hugh de Pikewode (1275) and Richard de Pykewrth (1278), all of whom took the name from the Lincolnshire village. Even from these small beginnings, there must be thousands more with the name scattered around the globe. Evelyn has started her search by writing a letter detailing her family tree to every Pickworth in the Australian telephone book, ten at a time, to test the response. She is also spreading her net world wide in her search for members of the clan who may be her relatives and if you think you are one of them you can email her through the Families section.

The village of Dyke, two miles north of Bourne just off the main A15, also produced its share of interesting ancestors who are being researched by visitors to the web site from many countries. The information that comes in from these inquiries is often new to us here in Bourne as with the case of George Tory who is related to several people now living in the United States.

In the absence of electricity, candles were used for lighting in the home and all towns had small businesses that specialised in their production and sale. The leading tallow chandlers in Bourne during the 19th century were Edward Wherry and Sons with premises in North Street and Eastgate. Their senior tallow chandler was Mr George Tory who was born at Dyke in 1846 but his mother died and his father, Thomas Tory, re-married before emigrating to America in 1850, leaving his four-year-old son with relatives, and he never saw his father again. George married Mary Ann Allen of Frampton, near Boston, and they had eight children. He was employed by the firm for most of his working life, living first in New Street and then at No 7 Exeter Row, Back Lane West, which was off North Street. He died in 1914 at the age of 68.

If anyone out there has further information about George and his family I would be pleased to hear from them. There is a photograph of him, taken circa 1890, going about his job as a tallow maker, together with descriptions of many other fascinating trades and occupations from past times in Bourne, included in my CD-ROM A Portrait of Bourne that is now into its third edition.

The web site poll has been running for more than a year and has dealt with many controversial issues. Whether it has influenced public opinion is debatable but time and again it has prompted headlines in the local newspapers and so we have made an impact. The highest turnout was on 14th September 200l when we asked whether car parking charges should be introduced in Bourne and an astounding 435 people voted with 97% of them against. The results were sent to South Kesteven District Council and were included in the committee and council debate on the subject and it was eventually decided that pay parking would not be coming to Bourne for the time being.

Other subjects that attracted a high poll were whether cannabis should be legalised in Britain (363 votes but 80% said no), the next choice of Tory leader (272 votes and 53% chose Kenneth Clarke), should British troops be sent to Afghanistan? (255 votes and 88% said they should not), should fox hunting be banned? (301 votes and 90% said it should) and should Bourne Town Football Club be allowed to erect an 8ft.-high fence across the Abbey Lawn? (384 votes and 51% said yes). We also voted on whether the BBC TV licence fee was worth the money (no), does Christmas come too early? (yes), should police adopt a policy of zero tolerance? (yes), is football a waste of time? (yes), should Britain join the European single currency? (yes) and should the Queen stand down to make way for Prince Charles? (yes).

The subject matter of our questions has been wide-ranging and the answers enlightening and all of the questions and a record of the way you voted can be found in poll results. But I think that the poll has run its course for the time being and with the summer holidays on the way and diversions other than the keyboard beckoning, the feature is being discontinued from this weekend. We may bring it back from time to time when a particular issue raises its head but until then, we move on to other things.

Our new feature Picture Gallery has got off to an auspicious start with a beautiful shot of swans and their cygnets on the Bourne Eau from David and Marilyn Read of Tennyson Drive, Bourne. The photograph was taken last December in Church Walk where the river runs between South Street and the Abbey Church, one of the most secluded spots in Bourne and redolent of the town’s historic past. Marilyn tells me: “We were just passing by and thought it summed up the idyllic surroundings” and anyone who frequents this place will know exactly what she means.

This photograph wins a copy of my CD-ROM A Portrait of Bourne and I hope it will inspire others to contribute a view of the town or the surrounding villages which will then find a permanent place on the web site. Remember that we are read in many countries around the world and so your photograph will have an international audience. Either send it by email with a .jpeg attachment or better still, pop it in the post to my address which can be found on the Picture Gallery page.

Peeps into the past: SINGULAR CASE OF ENTOMBMENT AND ENDURANCE: A little pet dog belonging to Mr Bland of Obthorpe, near Bourne, was missing from home for a fortnight. No tidings could be heard of it from any source, when at the end of that time, Mr Creasey of Obthorpe, who with his son was searching for lost sheep, on passing a hollow willow tree, heard faint whines, and on going nearer, felt sure a live animal was inside. A small hole at the base of the tree was with a knife made large enough for a man’s hand, and after a great quantity of decayed wood had been removed, the living skeleton of little Trinket was drawn out and kindly carried home, where, after slaking its apparently intolerable thirst with water, it was given at intervals, small quantities of new milk. Its usual playfulness has now returned upon recovery. It is supposed it chased a rabbit and entered the hole at the bottom of the tree, and scratching inside filled up the place of egress, hence the 14 days’ imprisonment without food or water. – from the Stamford Mercury, Friday 27th June 1877.

Thought for the Week: I have just seen my 13-year-old’s school timetable for today. Period 1: music, Period 2: free, Periods 3 and 4: football. Dinner. Periods 5 and 6: economics, i e walking round town with a clipboard checking shopping preferences, Period 7 and 8: local country park for canoeing/abseiling. Now we know why kids today are useless at maths and science. – J W, Greater Manchester, writing to the BBC letters feature “Dear Ceefax”, 9th July 2002.

Saturday 20^th July 2002

The importance of this discovery cannot be underestimated because it means that Orm, a mediaeval scribe who flourished here circa 1170-80, was working at the abbey a century earlier than the Augustinian canon we know and celebrate, the poet and chronicler Robert Manning (1264-1338), and that future histories and guides of the church will need to be re-written to embrace his presence. Yet for some unexplained reason, neither newspaper thought this worth reporting even though both were presented with a detailed report from this web site, compiled with the assistance of the linguistics expert Professor Nils-Lennart Johannesson from the Department of English at Stockholm University, who has been in Oxford this year researching the documents and who visited Bourne a few weeks ago to see where the author lived, worked and worshipped.

Indeed, the Herald & Post was the only local newspaper that gave it space. Most people get their copy of this publication free through their letter boxes and one would have thought that those newspapers we pay for would have a far more extensive coverage of events concerning this town but that is increasingly not the case. Both The Local and the Stamford Mercury carry more advertising than news and as this is their main source of revenue, then paid space takes precedence. Both newspapers appear to woo readers through their editorial columns, as though embracing them as part of their business, but this is merely window dressing because the publishers see them as nothing more than statistics that enable them push up the cost of each square inch of column space as the print run increases while the editorial content is continually pushed aside with advertising frequently masquerading as news.

The revelation about Orm the Preacher is not the only important story that has failed to see the light of day in these newspapers in recent weeks. Many subjects have been aired on the Bourne Forum, the web site discussion platform that reflects the real concerns of the people who live in this town, and yet they rarely appear in the columns of our newspapers although they purport to reflect public opinion. These topics have included the quality of shopping in the town, the building of the new Esso/Tesco development in North Street, Elsea Park, hooliganism and recurring vandalism, although the Stamford Mercury did give this matter some coverage after being alerted by one of our Canadian readers, Ms Laurette Laverne from Revelstoke in British Columbia, and they were so surprised to receive an email from North America that they announced it on their front page.

An editor’s job is not always an easy one, especially if he has limited experience, but even then he should be able to spot an important story after reading the first paragraph or he should vacate the chair for someone who can. Orm the Preacher is now part of Bourne’s history and will eventually be included in all future reference books and guides, along with Hereward the Wake, William Cecil and Robert Manning, yet neither The Local nor the Stamford Mercury felt it worthwhile devoting even a few lines to him, even though they were given the story free of charge in the hope that they would inform a wider local audience than this web site can command.

As a local historian, I find a great deal of material about our town in the newspapers from the past, excellent publications that are rich in detail of the lives and times that are reflected in their pages, but I fear that if this trend continues, future researchers examining our current local newspapers in the hope of digging into a fertile valley abundant with social history, will instead find themselves picking their way across an arid plain where the only growth is advertising.

The corn harvest approaches in the Bourne area and has no doubt begun in other parts of Lincolnshire, signalled by the arrival of swarms of tiny black insects known as thrips, an annual occurrence that makes sitting outside on the patio or in the garden impossible and so we flee indoors to escape them. These minute specks of life, barely a couple of millimetres long, are invasive and intrusive for they alight on the body and continue to irritate until brushed off, only to be replaced by others that have been lurking in the folds of the clothes or in the hair and so their arrival is particularly distressing for the ladies. You may try to repel an invasion by closing all doors and windows, a reluctant move on a hot day, but those that are already inside will continue to cause annoyance until their short life span is over.

There are 168 species of thrips in the British Isles and all have feather-like wings which are almost invisible against their dark bodies and their function is merely to enable the insects take off and once airborne, they are at the mercy of the air currents and so they will be wafted in whichever direction the wind happens to be blowing. They feed on plant sap or even on insects smaller themselves, a most difficult thing to imagine.

Our invaders are grain thrips (Limonthrips cerealium) that can be found in crops of wheat and barley and they also favour sultry weather which has given rise to their other common name, thunderflies, which is why they arrived this week after rising from their breeding grounds in the corn fields where they were disturbed by the combines. They were then carried several miles into our back gardens by a prevailing breeze and will continue their unwelcome visitations until all is safely gathered in. Their numbers vary each year according to the weather conditions and this summer their presence has been average and so we must be thankful for that because I remember that one day some years ago, cloud upon black cloud of these insects flew in around midday and sent the entire town of Bourne scurrying for cover. The memory is a painful one because we had just left home on a cycle ride wearing light summer garments and as these insects are attracted to whites, creams and yellows, we were forced to pedal back the 500 yards we had come, our skin and clothing covered with a black coating of thrips that had settled and were only removed by a long spell under a cold shower.

We look forward to the harvest because the idyllic picture of reaping golden corn in late summer is one of the delights of living in the countryside. But all of our enjoyments seem to have a downside and in this case it is the thunderflies. Fortunately, they rarely survive after late afternoon and so we are still able to return outside and enjoy the cool of the evening with a sustaining glass of something special without their harassment.

The tower of the village church of St John the Baptist at Morton, three miles north of Bourne, is a prominent landmark in the fenland countryside, its tall pinnacles and hideous gargoyles rising from the heart of the cross-shaped church while the wide western porch faces the main street. The door is handsome with tracery and studded with nails and the interior is impressive, a grand vista of arches and pillars from the early 14th century, while beyond is the vaulted tower with arches into the nave, chancel and transepts.

For five centuries, the tower has stood as a monument to Christianity in this part of Lincolnshire and now it is illuminated at night and can be seen from several miles away, a beacon of faith in a flat and sometimes featureless landscape. The very location of this church at the far end of the village where the main street divides has been an invitation to photographers over the years and until recently these pictures have in the main been taken in daylight but now that the ancient building is floodlit after dark, there is a fresh dimension for those with a camera seeking a new shot. Colin Darvill, who lives in the village, was out at dusk last month shortly after a heavy shower of rain and captured a fine photograph that is added today to our Picture Gallery.

There are now two photographs in this feature and I hope they will inspire others to contribute a view of the town or the surrounding villages which will then find a permanent place on the web site. Remember that we are read in many countries around the world and so your photograph will have an international audience. Either send it by email with a .jpeg attachment or better still, pop it in the post to my address which can be found on the Picture Gallery page.

Peeps from the past: KILLED BY CAR - ELDERLY WOMAN'S TRAGIC DEATH AT DEEPING: The custom of taking a newspaper every night to a friend who lived on the opposite side of the street resulted in the death of Miss Elizabeth Gillson, aged 74, of Church Street, Market Deeping, when she was knocked down by a motor car. At an inquest conducted by the District Coroner (Major C W Bell of Bourne), who sat with a jury, Frederick William Drury, motor engineer of Brigg and the driver of the car, stated that he had passed a horse and van, after sounding his hooter four times, when he saw deceased cross the road. She was only two yards away and the car lights were full on, but the women seemed to walk into the car and although he stopped within six yards, he could not avoid hitting her. His speed was about 15 mph. A passenger in the car, Richard Mundy of Brigg, corroborated this evidence, and Harry Bowes, of Deeping St James, the driver of the van, agreed as to the speed of the car. Dr W E Stanton said the most serious of the woman's injuries was a fractured skull. The jury returned a verdict of "accidental death" and exonerated the driver of the car from blame. – report from the Stamford Mercury, Friday 21st October 1927.

Thought for the Week: My wife recently witnessed a car crash so the police have sent her a pile of forms. After asking who-what-when-where, the questionnaire bizarrely announces that, “as part of our undertaking to the Victims’ Charter”, the police would value a non-victim’s opinion on whether those responsible should be prosecuted, given a warning, or let off. Please tick one of the options, the one which you feel is most appropriate. – Mick Hume writing in The Times, Saturday 13th July 2002.

Saturday 27^th July 2002

One six is 6, Two sixes are 12
Three sixes are 18, Four sixes are 24
Five sixes are 30, Six sixes are 36
Seven sixes are 42, Eight sixes are 48
Nine sixes are 54, Ten sixes are 60
Eleven sixes are 66, Twelve sixes are 72

After that, we were taught how to add, subtract and divide in our heads without resort to paper and pencil and when the annual examinations came round we were called out one by one to the teacher’s desk at the front of the class and given a series of questions to test this ability and marked accordingly. Mental arithmetic was as much a part of scholastic study as reading, writing, geography and history.

Such a scenario is unimaginable in our primary schools today where the distinction between these basic subjects has been blurred out of all recognition but the inescapable fact is that without this type of systematic memorising of our numbers, children are poorly equipped when they go out into the world to earn a living. Learning these tables by rote enabled us in later life to do simple, often complicated, sums in our minds without the need to resort to a notebook or calculator, but this ability today can only be found in older people who were subjected to this strict regime of tuition in simple mathematics before our schools were subjected to such radical changes in teaching techniques.

I was reminded of my tables last week while waiting to be served at one of the stalls on Bourne market where a young girl assistant was struggling to add up the few small purchases of a customer and was using a notebook and pencil to do it. I had watched the transaction and even before she packed the last of his fruit and vegetables into a bag, could have told her that his bill was £3.60 because my mind automatically clocked up each purchase as it was made. When it came to my turn, she had a similar difficulty in calculating that I needed £2.70 change from a £5 note to pay for my purchases and she breathed a sigh of relief when I told her the amount, happily discarding the notebook and accepting my figure on trust.

Mental arithmetic is not only the sign of a nimble mind but is also a protection against being short-changed, a frequent occurrence these days, and unless you are on your guard during every shopping trip, then you may be paying out far more than you should. This is less of a hazard at those stores and shops using electronic tills but there are sufficient retail outlets around that do not and although I am not suggesting that the owners resort to such dishonest practices, I know from experience that some staff do. An alert mind, practiced in the art of adding up and prepared to count your change, can save you money and for this reason alone, it is a pity that mental arithmetic was adjudged by modern educationalists to be an unsuitable subject for the school curriculum because once mastered, it will serve you well for the rest of your life.

A thunderstorm of some severity hit parts of Bourne on Saturday afternoon and the outskirts of the town to the north where I live was particularly badly affected. I looked out of my study window to see a sheet of rain advancing across the countryside, as though a tap had suddenly been turned on, accompanied by thunderclaps and lightning flashes and as the rain turned to hail, my garden and those of my neighbours were covered in white as the hailstones settled to a depth of two or three inches.

When we experience weather of such extreme magnitude it is not difficult to imagine the terror of our ancestors who had little or no understanding of meteorology when faced with similar catastrophic conditions. Even today, these primaeval fears persist because many hide away from the sound of thunder, under the table or in a cupboard, while others cover mirrors as a precaution against lightning strikes even though a perfectly rational explanation of these sudden climatic changes can be found in most home encyclopaedias.

I have been recording unusual weather conditions in the Bourne area for some time, checking on old records and newspaper archives, and have found evidence of not only storms and floods but also earthquakes that occurred here in 1750 and again in 1782. My latest discovery was of a violent storm over Rippingale, five miles north of Bourne, on 28th and 29th of April 1913, which was described by the Stamford Mercury as follows:

Shortly before 6 o'clock on Monday evening, a tremendous rainstorm burst over the village and during its progress the wind blew with hurricane force, indeed, for a width of about 50 yards, something in the nature of a tornado swept across the district. Trees were uprooted in several places and one which fell, all but dismantled a house. Roofs of farm buildings in the occupation of Mr Richard Miller and Mr Worsdale were considerably damaged - portions being completely stripped - and two haystacks belonging to Mr George Jessop were blown over. This was followed on Tuesday night by a thunderstorm of remarkable violence. Heavy rain and hail fell during the progress of the storm and just over half-an-inch of rain was registered.

A feature on earthquake, fire and flood in the area can be found on the CD-ROM A Portrait of Bourne that is now available and an order form may be found on the front page.

The oak is our most majestic tree, solid, dependable, and steeped in mystery and mythology. Here in the Bourne area, we have one of the oldest and biggest in the country, the Bowthorpe Oak, just off the A6121 near Manthorpe, three miles south west of the town, which has earned a place in the Guinness Book of Records for having the largest girth of any living British oak with a circumference that measures almost 40 feet. It is reputed to be well over 1,000 years old and was therefore growing at the time of William the Conqueror (1066-1087) but chains now bind it to prevent it from splitting under the weight of its heavy boughs.

One would imagine that this is perhaps the oldest oak in the world but that is not so. There are many others of greater longevity in other parts of England and in Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland and even the United States. You may check on these trees through a web site called Oaks of the World that has been launched by Christophe Parot, aged 43, an agronomist who lives at Loir-et-Cher in France. He is concerned about the future of this planet and is trying to increase public awareness of the problems we face because of our disappearing forests and vegetation and he has asked for permission to include my photograph and a description of the Bowthorpe Oak in his oak data bank.

This is the world’s largest online photographic collection of oak trees and many others of great size and age and if you do decide to visit the site, remember to access the Bowthorpe Oak through the local village name of Manthorpe. The web site address is www.oaksoftheworld.com.

It is doubtful if villagers at Thurlby realise that the great Sir Malcolm Sargent, darling of the Proms that got underway at the Royal Albert Hall in London last week, once played their church organ. The well-known conductor was educated at Stamford School where he soon showed his aptitude for music but he did not make his conducting debut until 1921 after he had begun his career as a church organist, being awarded his diploma from the Royal College of Organists at the age of 16.

In November 1913, a new stop, the oboe, was added to the organ at St Firmin’s Church and this was deemed to be sufficiently important to invite a celebrated organist to give a recital and the person they chose was Mr H Malcolm Sargent, FRCO, of Stamford, then only 18 years old but already assistant organist at Peterborough Cathedral. The Stamford Mercury reported: “He was ably assisted by Miss Gladys Pettifor, daughter of the vicar, and Major C W Bell of Bourne. This was a unique event, so far as this parish is concerned, and it is not too much to say that the excellent programme provided a musical treat which was greatly appreciated by the large congregation present. Mr Sargent’s playing showed a thorough masterly grip over the instrument and was truly brilliant, marked as it was, with great precision and technique. The vocalists both acquitted themselves remarkably well and their efforts were greatly appreciated. A collection in aid of church expenses was liberally responded to.”

Sargent subsequently went on to a distinguished career as a conductor, achieving world-wide fame and popularity for his appearances at the Henry Wood Promenade Concerts where, because of his unfailing panache, he became affectionately known among the promenaders as “Flash Harry”, a reference to his first name of Harold and the fact that he always dressed immaculately and usually wore a carnation in his buttonhole, red during the day and white in the evenings. He also won himself a reputation as an ambassador for English music through his insistence when conducting international orchestras of playing the works of English composers such as Vaughan Williams, Gustav Holst and William Walton. He was knighted for his services to music in 1947 and when he died in London in 1967, he was buried in the town cemetery at Stamford and a commemorative plaque was erected in St John’s Church where he had learned to play the organ. I wonder how many of those in the congregation for that evening recital at Thurlby almost a century ago realised that the young man sitting at the console was destined for such greatness.

Two of our features on the web site need your help if they are to be successful. The Picture Gallery that was launched earlier this month is the place where your own photographs can be displayed and I am hoping that many will contribute a view of the town or surrounding villages which will then find a permanent place on the web site. Remember that we are read in many countries around the world and so your photograph will have an international audience. Either send it as a .jpeg attachment to an email or pop it in the post to my address that can be found on the Picture Gallery page.

I am also seeking contributions for our feature Memories of Times Past. This began in February 2001 and thirteen people have so far sent in nostalgic essays about their experiences in years gone by that are valuable insights into the way we were and all can be found on the web site. There is plenty of room for more and this week, John Stennett of Ancaster Road, Bourne, has been remembering working at the water cress beds as a young man half a century ago. Water cress was once big business in Bourne and John spent part of his early working life growing and harvesting this salad crop that was exported to markets around the country, a thriving industry that has long since gone.

Please read through these excellent articles and perhaps they will prompt you to start writing your own. All are also included on my CD-ROM A Portrait of Bourne and so your words will be preserved for posterity.

Thought for the Week: Wishing to make lemonade, I placed ten lemons in front of a holiday student cashier in the greengrocers. Prideful of her newly installed electric till, she rang up the lemons individually at 10p each. I was charged 90p. – David Meredith of Aberystwyth, Dyfed, Wales, in a letter to The Times, Saturday 20th July 2002.

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