Bourne Diary - October 2002

Saturday 5th October 2002

Britain is still a nation of litterbugs, according to the latest survey by the Keep Britain Tidy campaign, and here in Bourne we appear to be no better. The results indicate that 25 million tonnes of rubbish are dropped in the streets and other public places every year, making the country look a mess and costing a fortune to clear up. 

Changes in the way we live seem to be exacerbating the problem because more packaged food is eaten in the street, more people chew gum and the majority have lost the philosophy of using a bin. Poor planning of cleaning and refuse collections are making the problem worse and street sweeping fails to collect all of the dust and soil in the gutters and so allows weeds to grow. 

But headway is being made in some places although it is doubtful if we will ever be as clean as Singapore for instance, where anyone who drops litter faces a £1,000 fine plus community service, or Dubai, where the streets are among the world's cleanest.

The Keep Britain Tidy survey was carried out at 11,000 sites across 54 boroughs in England and as Bourne is in the East Midlands, here is the assessment for that region:

Obstructions on pavements were causing problems and were rated poor. Councils here were good at cleaning toilets and removing fly posting, graffiti and leaves. The region looked after lamp-posts better than anyone else - getting them a satisfactory grade. They were also okay on cleaning the pavements outside public lavatories and removing weeds. But everything from clearing up litter to looking after bins was graded unsatisfactory.

Individual towns were not named in the survey but a simple check will show the problem here in Bourne. Fast food wrappers, cartons and tins are everywhere while pizza packets have become a favourite throwaway in recent months and a walk around the streets on a Sunday morning will reveal at least half a dozen that have been chucked away the night before. Dog fouling and broken glass are also a problem and weeds in the street are not unknown to us either. Take a look around the traffic lights and the paved area outside the Burghley Arms and the Town Hall and you will see a good example of this, as well as many other places in the town centre, especially along West Street.

If you want a more detailed appraisal of the way in which Britain is looking now, log on to the Keep Britain Tidy web site but be prepared to see some depressing pictures of our urban environment.

www.encams.org

Meanwhile, the yobs have been out and about in Bourne yet again, destroying whatever takes their fancy, usually street furniture that has been placed there at public expense for the benefit of the populace. The damage they do becomes evident the morning after, perpetrated as they wend their way home full of strong ale, fast food and a temporary bravado induced by intoxicating drink. Last weekend, one of the council rubbish bins in Queen's Road was reduced to a pile of mangled metal, a feat that must have taken some combined strength, and we the council tax payers will in the long run have to foot the bill for a replacement.

There has been more vandalism at the junction of Queen's Road with Harrington Street, a favourite spot for a sit down on the public bench as we walk into town that way most weeks, despite the litter that can always be found on this corner. But even this pleasure has now been denied us because the seat has been systematically wrecked, leaving only one section of wooden slats and the metal uprights but I suspect that their days are numbered too.

Vandalism in public places demeans the entire town for it is seen by visitors who judge us accordingly. There are those who will say that wilful damage occurs in all communities but that is not an acceptable excuse because many are striving to overcome it with some success. We too should try to improve our habits but merely accepting the status quo means no improvement to our environment which will sink further into the abyss of urban deprivation that can be found in our worst inner cities. Not only does our quality of life suffer but also our local economy because no one likes to shop in a town where such anti-social behaviour is so manifestly obvious.

Tucked away on an inside page of The Local two weeks ago (September 20th) was an interesting display advertisement announcing that Tesco are seeking an off-licence to sell alcohol from their new supermarket and filling station which opened in North Street in August. This will be a surprise to many people in Bourne who had thought that sales would be confined to petrol and food and that if an off-licence had been intended, it would have been included in the original plans.

There is still a great deal of opposition to the prospect of selling intoxicating drinks at a petrol outlet and it is a subject that concerns many councillors who may not have been so prompt with their vote for the new development had an off-licence been included. As it is, the permission necessary is no longer within their orbit but a decision by the magistrates and will be considered by the licensing justices for the petty sessional division to be held at Stamford on Wednesday (October 9th) and I would imagine that, barring any major objections, the result is a foregone conclusion.

Genealogy continues to be one of the most popular subjects for PC users as they strive to compile a family tree, a fascinating and enlightening hobby that invariably turns up unknown and often unexpected relatives. Our own Family History section on this web site continues to attract new names weekly and we now have almost 100 people from around the world who are seeking information from the Bourne area about ancestors who lived here in past times and relatives who still do.

One place that seems to have been the home of many who sought a new life in strange lands is Kirkby Underwood and for several years now I have been in touch with Cindy Marshall Kennedy of Devine in Texas, USA, who has traced a direct line back to this village, just off the A15 five miles north of Bourne. I remember her telling me of a charming incident some time ago when members of the Marshall clan in America gathered to celebrate Christmas and all raised their glasses to Kirkby Underwood.

Cindy has now launched her own web site to celebrate the transatlantic connection and descendants from both the United Kingdom and the United States have contributed information. If your name is Marshall, or if it is somewhere in the family, then check it out because it is full of photographs, names and dates that may well ring a bell.

marshall.cartama.net

A new web site called Curious Fox has also been launched to help amateur genealogists researching family or local history and it is worth a look. It takes the form of an easy to use message board and a gazetteer containing 50,000 villages, towns and counties which can be checked against modern and old maps and names that are under scrutiny can be added and deleted at will. The project has only just begun and so it will take a few months to produce really good results but the way to ensure that it does work is to add you own entry. 

www.curiousfox.com

Here is an opportunity to leave your name for posterity. I reported earlier this year that the two water wheels at the 19th century Baldock's Mill which houses the town's Heritage Centre, are to be restored to full working order which will bring the building back to its original state when it was used for milling corn. The design work has been done by Jim Jones, husband of the Civic Society chairman Mrs Brenda Jones, and this week the first consignment of 58 steel parts arrived from an engineering plant at Corby in Northamptonshire where they have been specially made for the job to his specifications.

Jim will now start assembling the mill wheel, the first of which will be 10 feet in diameter by 35 inches wide, not as big as the original because this will be largely decorative, while the smaller wheel will copy the original size of 5 feet in diameter and 12 inches wide and this will eventually harness the water power in the mill race to generate electricity for heating and lighting the mill. It is hoped the job will be completed within the next few weeks and that the wheels will be turning by Christmas.

The wheel supports have sufficient space for names to be engraved on them and anyone who wishes to add theirs may do so in return for a £5 donation to the Heritage Centre but hurry because space is limited. If you want your name included, please send your cash or cheque to Mrs Brenda Jones, Chairman, the Civic Society, at 64 Stephenson Way, Bourne, PE10 9DD, or drop into the mill when it is open any Saturday or Sunday afternoon and leave it with whoever is on duty. What better way to perpetuate your presence on this earth than to have it turning permanently inside the mill and at the same time, help one of our town's good causes?

What the local papers are saying

The new waste recycling centre for Bourne is finally up and running after a wait of 26 years but a section of the access to the site in Pinfold Road is not up to standard and has a number of large potholes. The situation was described by the Stamford Mercury (September 27th) who voiced local fears that the surface was so dangerous that accidents were quite likely when unsuspecting drivers begin using the route in large numbers as the depot's operation gets underway. There is, of course, a simple solution. The waste centre is the responsibility of Lincolnshire County Council as are the roads in this town and so the answer is to fill in the potholes. There are only a few of them and it would be no more than an hour's work for a couple of men with a lorry load of tarmac but it could save someone from a nasty accident.

I searched in vain for news items from Bourne in the latest issue of the Lincolnshire Free Press (October 1st) but in all of their 56 pages I could find only one and that concerned the minibus appeal by the Butterfield Day Care Centre which I dealt with in some detail last week after it had appeared in other newspapers. Anyone therefore who bought this edition of the newspaper in the hope that it covered this town would be sadly disappointed. Oddly enough, it carried an extensive report about vandalism in Spalding, a story that could have been extended had their reporter made some inquiries around and about in Bourne.

The survey from the Keep Britain Tidy campaign that is mentioned above has echoes in this week's edition of the Herald & Post who devote their front page to the state of the public loos in South Street, Bourne (October 3rd). Spot checks have revealed serious vandalism and offensive graffiti and officers of South Kesteven District Council have ordered their closure until they are cleaned and repaired. The same story was dealt with by the Stamford Mercury (October 4th) but their headline claimed that the toilets had been closed because of the activities of paedophiles and they quoted councillor and cabinet member Peter Martin-Mayhew who had taken part in the checks, as saying: "The things I saw were absolute filth and included posters, pamphlets, names of schools and children. This is a wake up call for us as a council to decide whether we wish to continue funding public toilets which are degenerating into dens for homosexuals and paedophiles to operate."

Oh dear, this hardly sounds like Bourne but then this is the council speaking. But while we are on the subject, are not these loos in South Street on the agenda to be replaced with new public conveniences in the market place at a cost of £100,000 because they are so abysmally awful? This was last discussed by the council in February 2001 and since then, not a word.

The remarkable story of council employee Cyril "Ching" Clay was given front page treatment in The Local on the occasion of his retirement for the second time at the age of 79, never having missed a single day's work in 65 years (October 4th). Ching is a well known character in Bourne where he left school at 14 to work for the local council. His dedication to duty was recognised in 1980 when he was awarded the British Empire Medal in the Queen's Birthday Honours List and when he retired on his 65th birthday, he was presented with a gold watch by South Kesteven District Council to mark his 51 years of service. He then went on to work part time as a charge hand at the town's weekly market from where he has retired yet again, this time after 14 years, an occasion that was celebrated with a party for colleagues and friends at the Burghley Arms because this period was again devoid of absence through sickness.

I was however disappointed that the two best anecdotes about Ching were not included in the coverage by The Local. During his entire working life, he has never had a day off work although he narrowly missed breaking his record for such loyal service a few days before his first retirement in 1988. He was involved in a road accident while travelling as a passenger in a council van and was taken to hospital where he had seven stitches in his face but rather than miss a day's work, he refused to stay in overnight and reported for duty as usual next morning. Also, his subterranean knowledge of Bourne is phenomenal and at his first retirement party it was suggested that Ching should become a private consultant to the council and when he asked why, he was told: "You are the only person who knows where all the drains are in Bourne."

Message from our Guest Book: Thank you for a very informative site. My son had to find five unusual facts about Bourne for his homework. This was the first site we visited and the very best. - Sue Cooper, Bourne, Lincolnshire.

Thought for the Week: If you want farce, look no further than the town council of Pompeii. - Marcus Tullius Cicero (106-43 BC), Roman orator, statesman and man of letters.

Saturday 12^th October 2002

It was with a distinct feeling of déjà vu that I read in The Local of the latest problems in North Street at the junction with Meadowgate where traffic flows at peak periods have reached "horrendous" levels (October 4th) at a time when children are trying to cross on their way to and from lessons at the Robert Manning Technology College. Pupils apart, this has been an extremely hazardous spot for many years and as yet, nothing has been done to change the situation for the better because the so called improvements that have been made merely increase vehicle flows and put the pedestrians even more at risk.

Bourne Urban District Council, the local authority that administered our affairs for 75 years until the local government reorganisation of 1974, met on Tuesday 9th October 1969 to consider the same problem at this junction after complaints by parents that the lives of their children were being imperilled by the increasing number of cars and lorries using North Street which is of course the main A15 road between Peterborough and Lincoln. The council agreed that kerbs and footpaths needed to be rebuilt and safety signs erected to safeguard pedestrians and cyclists but nothing was done.

Since then, the number of cars on the road has increased dramatically and yet planning permission was given for Sainsburys' supermarket in Exeter Street in 1999, a development that would obviously increase traffic flows via St Gilbert's Road, but the local authorities decided that, despite widespread public protest, a pair of mini roundabouts at this point would cope sufficiently well. They obviously do not.

The Esso filling station was allowed to open on this corner in 1994 and this summer it was replaced by the Tesco supermarket, both developments that by their very nature will generate more vehicles and so the amount of traffic now massing here at busy periods has created a nightmare from the situation that prompted those first complaints from parents over thirty years ago.

The growing danger at this junction reflects little credit on those responsible for administering our highways. When The Local sought a reaction from Councillor John Kirkman, who sits on all three local authorities, the town, district and county councils, he is reported as saying that he had asked for a survey to be carried out by Lincolnshire County Council's highways department. But he added: "There is a formula which the county work to in order to determine whether or not a full pedestrian crossing is needed. Officers carry out a full day survey and then focus on the four busiest hours in that day. The number of pedestrians is timsed (sic) by the number of vehicles squared. To warrant a full pedestrian crossing, you need around 100 pedestrians and 1,000 vehicles for each of the four peak hours. I think we will fall short of the number of pedestrians needed. At peak times, on the way to and from school, we would meet the figures but in the other two hours measured we will fall quite short."

In simple language, no pedestrian crossing and apart from perhaps a refuge in the middle of the road, a half-hearted attempt to tackle a serious issue, nothing will be done. The answer to this problem in which pedestrians, many of them children, cannot cross the road without endangering their lives, is a simple one without resorting to official gobbledegook: build a pedestrian crossing to protect them. 

But it would seem that we are back to the unsolved situation of 1969 when the first signs of the problem began to appear and as then, it is doubtful if anything of substance will be achieved. When the next fatality occurs at this junction, for there has already been one in recent years, our local authorities ought to be reminded of the long history behind this dangerous intersection.

Here is a question to which we all know the answer. How is it that a town with an expanding population like Bourne can make do with fewer public toilets? Yes, you are right, we cannot. It is not so long ago that there were four loos available to anyone wanting to spend a penny in this town, two at the bus station, the traditional toilet block and the French-style metal cubicle, of which there was another in the market square, and the ill-fated toilet block in South Street. The two Dr Who style kiosks have long gone because they did not meet with public favour and now that the town is about to double in size because of an unprecedented rise in house building, South Kesteven District Council decides to close the South Street block and blames it on vandalism and other lurid practices that are alleged to go on there. It is as though they are trying to frighten us into a decision that has already been made.

But vandalism has always been with us and if this is to be a yardstick for future decisions, then many more public amenities will close down. The answer is that if there is vandalism in a public place, then the council has a duty to repair it. If there is graffiti, it is up to them to clean up the mess. Councillors however seem to take the easy way out by telling us that the provision of public lavatories is a discretionary service which means that they are not duty bound to provide them and that may be so. But what other services can they also phase out just because they hit a difficult patch? It is up to our councillors to solve these problems and provide services that the people want and need otherwise Bourne will soon have a reputation as the town where the only place you can relieve yourself is in the shrubbery.

We must not forget either that there was also a plan in the pipeline to replace the South Street lavatories with a new toilet block in the market place at a cost of £100,000 but it appears that this scheme is being quietly forgotten. What then, we should ask, will happen to the South Street building? It stands in a prime location in the heart of the town's shopping area and Ms Robbie Britton, a lady with some experience of local government, may have the answer in her letter to the Stamford Mercury (October 11th), something which I suggested in this column as long ago as 17th February 2001: "Perhaps they are planning to sell off the site for some private development," she writes.

There are sufficient senior members of the council with email access who could answer this for us, including the leader Councillor Linda Neal and cabinet member, Councillor John Smith. I think we should be told.

What the local papers are saying

One of the drawbacks on the present system of local government is revealed in a report by the Lincolnshire Free Press on the appointment of Councillor Ian Croft as the new £24,000-a-year chairman of Lincolnshire County Council (October 8th). Councillor Croft was re-elected in June 2001 to represent the interests of people living in the Bourne Castle ward, which is just about half the town, but has now been given the top job in mid-term after the resignation of Councillor Jim Speechley who quit amid a storm of controversy about his actions. It is an honour for Bourne to have one of its own councillors in such a prestigious post for he has much to do to restore the authority's image and credibility after the recent events. But he tells us: "I would say to the constituents of South Lincolnshire: do not expect me to show any favouritism to any particular area. As leader, I have a responsibility to the whole of the county." 

In which case, who will do that work representing his constituents that Councillor Croft would have done had he not be selected as chairman? He either represents the Bourne Castle Ward or he does not. Certainly, those who elected him expect special treatment which is why they marked their ballot papers in his favour last year in preference to the other two candidates. Too many local councillors are ready to accept the job at the hustings but once they begin to stride the corridors of power, the politician in them takes over and they soon forget the reason why they are there which is to represent the people who gave their support and to do the best for them that they can, whatever plum jobs may happen to fall into their laps.

We are reminded of the popularity of the Internet by the Herald & Post which carries several stories about web sites covering the Bourne area (October 10th), particularly those administered by the local authorities. South Kesteven District Council, for instance, has just posted its first message on the four community sites under its jurisdiction, inviting people to respond to key initiatives affecting them. I am not sure who writes these questions but if this is to become a permanent feature, then a little more thought is required because Councillor Linda Neal, the member for Bourne West and leader of the council, is quoted as saying: "I would like people to log on and let me know what they think about these issues. For instance, is there anything they would be happy to pay additional council tax for? Or, if the council needed extra money to provide a service or enhance an existing one, should it be found by cutting something out?" This sounds like the voice of someone who is totally out of touch with the people because these issues have been aired extensively on the Bourne web site since we began in 1998 and if our councillors do not know the answer to both of these questions by now, then they never will.

Another less official web site is also mentioned by the Herald & Post, this time one that calls itself "The alternative unauthorised web site for South Kesteven District Council" which has been called bogus, fake and many other angry names. The newspaper carried an interview with the chap who runs it but he preferred to remain anonymous, which is a pity because people should have the courage of their convictions. The council has been getting rather hot under the collar about this web site and having taken a close look, I can see the reason why because the writer obviously knows his onions. My advice to him is to keep up the good work because any light that can be shed on the workings of the bureaucratic mind is welcome but I would prefer the author to reveal himself, unless perhaps he works at the council offices in which case his employers have cause to be worried with a whistle-blower in their midst. No one takes anonymous writers seriously and as there is nothing here that he should be ashamed of, I urge him to put his name on the front page.

Bourne is to get a rural minibus service which will bring shoppers into the town from surrounding villages, according to a front page report in The Local (October 11th) and it should be up and running in time for Christmas. This is one of those commendable community amenities that should help reduce traffic on the roads and ease our car parking problems on Tuesdays, and on Thursday and Saturday market days, although it will cost £30,000 a year which is being subsidised by South Kesteven District Council and the Countryside Agency. The scheme will run for a twelve-month trial period and so the old phrase of "use it or lose it" has never had a more resonant ring for people who live in rural areas but prefer the convenience of town centre shopping.

Both The Local and the Stamford Mercury carried articles voicing concern about the closure of the public toilets (October 11th) which I referred to above and yet neither looked back through their cuttings to find the real relevance to this story which is the undecided proposal to replace the South Street loos with a new block in the market place. This appears to be at the heart of the present problems and perhaps they will both get their reporters to nose out more information on this subject for next week. After all, if buses are bringing in even more shoppers to the town on three days a week, they will all need somewhere convenient to go at certain times.

Councillors persisted with the calumny that it is the people who decide their future when the decision not to turn Dyke and Cawthorpe into a conservation area was discussed during the town council's open forum this week. The Local reported (October 11th) that the council had taken its decision after a public referendum which revealed an indifferent attitude towards conservation and so the scheme was shelved. If this is the way that council business is to be conducted in the future, by vox populi, then the lavatories in South Street should be opened immediately through weight of public opinion which is evident from the columns of both newspapers.

Message from home: I'd just like to say that I feel your Bourne site is very perceptive and thoughtful. I know you have a number of critics but as far as I am concerned, keep up your accurate and incisive style. - Barry Sheppard, Oxfordshire, England.

Thought for the Week: The most fluent talkers or most plausible reasoners are not always the justest thinkers. - British essayist William Hazlitt (1778-1830). 

Saturday 19th October 2002

Public notices were posted in Burghley Street this week announcing that a pedestrian crossing is to be built in the vicinity of the car park behind the Post Office. This will be of interest to all of those parents who live in the eastern side of the town and have complained that their children are in danger from passing traffic while walking to and from their lessons at the Robert Manning Technology College because they must cross North Street where there is no similar facility.

When this issue was raised by The Local newspaper earlier this month (October 4th), not much hope was held out by our local councillors of ever getting one. In fact, Councillor John Kirkman, one of the Bourne members of Lincolnshire County Council which is responsible for these matters, was reported as saying that he had asked for a survey to be carried out by the highways department but he added: "There is a formula which the county work to in order to determine whether or not a full pedestrian crossing is needed. Officers carry out a full day survey and then focus on the four busiest hours in that day. The number of pedestrians is timsed (sic) by the number of vehicles squared. To warrant a full pedestrian crossing, you need around 100 pedestrians and 1,000 vehicles for each of the four peak hours. I think we will fall short of the number of pedestrians needed. At peak times, on the way to and from school, we would meet the figures but in the other two hours measured we will fall quite short."

It is therefore pertinent to ask whether such a survey was carried out in Burghley Street and if the stated criteria were met before a decision was given to build a crossing. Those who are familiar with Bourne will know that Burghley Street is a back street with no great pedestrian usage and carrying only a fraction of the vehicles you will find on North Street which is part of the A15 trunk road between Peterborough and Lincoln. Burghley Street would not then produce the required figures to qualify for a crossing and so it is obviously getting preferential treatment. 

The reason for the decision to build one here appears to be a planning link up with the Sainsburys' supermarket which was opened in 1999 when a similar pedestrian crossing was erected in Exeter Street. A second crossing in Burghley Street will give shoppers unrestricted access to the store from the town centre and the Burghley Street car park, unimpeded by traffic flows. The county council is therefore giving precedence to the safety of shoppers buying their groceries from Sainsburys over children going to and from school for their education and this cannot be right, no matter what excuses they come up with.

Protests over the controversial decision by South Kesteven District Council to close the public lavatories in South Street rumble on and there is a lot of concern among our old people who need such a facility close at hand when away from home. This may be a laughable situation for the younger generation but one that occupies the minds of those whose bodily functions are not what they were and can even mean the difference between going out and staying at home.

The South Street loos were the nearest to the market place behind the town hall where most of the customers at the Thursday market are senior citizens who look forward to the opportunity of buying their fruit and produce at bargain prices as well as treating it as a social occasion to meet with old friends and talk about their health and the state of the world. 

Not everyone can afford to pop into the Angel Hotel or the Burghley Arms for a drink to justify using their toilets and the trek down to the bus station is out of the question when you are caught short and so the council ought seriously consider the effect that the closure of the South Street loos might well have on the market trade. It is no coincidence that this was the very location for the new town centre lavatories that were proposed last year at a cost of £100,000 although no mention has been made of this development in the latest turn of events. 

A contributor to the Bourne Forum, George Williams, who is 84, suggests that Bourne is going the same way as Sleaford and will soon be a market town without a public lavatory in sight. If this is so, then the district council is not doing its job for although the provision of lavatories may be purely discretionary, their role is to provide and maintain services that the public want and not to close them down when the going gets tough. It is quite outrageous for councillors to be elected and then pursue an agenda that is totally unacceptable to the very people who put them in office.

The closure of these lavatories is given many inches of column space in both of our main local newspapers this week with The Local devoting almost a page to what it has called "The Great Toilet Debate". There are photographs with interviews and quotes from many people who are concerned with the removal of this facility which the paper says "has created outrage among residents and local councillors alike." The Stamford Mercury also gives space on its Letters Page to an apology from Councillor Peter Martin-Mayhew, a cabinet member of South Kesteven District Council, who made the original press statement about closing the lavatories, blaming vandalism and the activities of homosexuals and paedophiles as the reason behind the decision (See Diary for October 5th). It would seem that he has upset some people because he writes: "Can I emphasise that the gay community as a whole is not the problem group? I apologise if this is how my comments have been understood." 

Perhaps this is a perfect time to remind those in office to watch their words when making public statements because there is always someone out there who is likely to be offended if you overstep the mark. However, it would seem that Councillor Martin-Mayhew still has much to learn about public relations because he is also quoted elsewhere in the Stamford Mercury as saying: "People come to Bourne to eat, drink or go shopping. There are toilets in some of the supermarkets, pubs and cafes in the town and almost all businesses will have a toilet. We have to accept there are dozens of other places to go to the loo." This would indicate that the council is phasing out a much-needed public service and expecting traders to fill the vacuum. Oh dear! I fear that the councillor is in for yet another round of flak, this time from the Bourne Chamber of Trade and Commerce.

But why should a councillor from outside the town be telling us here in Bourne where we should go to spend a penny? He reports that in pursuance of this particular issue, he actually stood outside the toilets in South Street to find out if they were being used and that in a two-hour period, only one woman went in although he does not identify the exact time when this observation of the lavatorial habits of the Bourne population took place. This is hardly a reliable survey on which to base such an important decision. In fact, it sounds to me like loitering with intent - intent to close down our loos, irrespective of how many people were going in and out.

If Councillor Martin-Mayhew is as important as he seems to think he is, then he has the power to give us back our lavatories and establish some sort of credibility for the office he holds instead of making one unhelpful statement after another. He would be well advised to observe the advice of the Labour politician Denis Healey on the first law of holes: "When you're in one, stop digging!"

What the local papers are also saying

By sheer coincidence, both The Local and the Stamford Mercury have this week produced (October 18th) the best local newspapers I have read for a long time. Both are well designed with a lot of news content and are a delight to read. I also note that The Local has gone up to 32 pages and as this is devoted almost entirely to news from Bourne and the immediate area, it would appear that they have the edge on their rival.

The front page was devoted to a report that the police are clamping down on under-age drinking in Bourne because of problems in the Burghley Centre and adjoining car parks where youngsters have been partying late at night, abusing passers-by and leaving the place littered with broken glass. The police have promised to tackle the problem after complaints from townspeople and we await the results with anticipation because this has been a trouble spot for many months and is a continuing blight on this town. 

Our local newspapers are the only place where you will find details of the town's hatches, matches and despatches, better known as births, marriages and deaths, and as they are published week after week, they are likely to become dreary and so editors are always trying to find new ways of making them more appealing. I mentioned recently that both newspapers have made their obituaries more readable and this week I noticed a new look weddings page in The Local, a most attractive format laid out like a wedding album with pictures of the happy couples in full colour that is always a bonus. The Mercury uses a similar presentation and I would imagine that this will persuade many who are about to tie the knot to seek a place in these pages as a record of their big day.

The new supermarket and petrol filling station in North Street should either speed up service or change its name. It is run by Tesco but by no stretch of the imagination could it be described as Express. I called in three times last week and on two occasions, the only till open was the so-called Fast Track check out which was trying to cope with a queue of customers that stretched down the store while on the third visit, two tills were open with a similar crowd waiting to pay but one of the ladies serving suddenly disappeared into a back room and never returned. Until now, the worst store in Bourne for customer service has been Budgens but that dubious distinction is now likely to go to our newest retail outlet. If you have an experience of this, please tell it to the Bourne Forum.

Ever since this web site began in 1998, I seem to have written more about Kirkby Underwood than any other village in the Bourne area. It is an attractive place, one of the undiscovered delights for anyone who does not know this locality and it is well worth a visit. Three years ago, I was in touch with two people living on opposite sides of the globe who remembered this village with great affection and in particular, the house where they had both lived at different times: No 6 Callans Lane.

Guy Meacham moved in with his parents in 1974. His father worked for the Forestry Commission in North Wales and when he was transferred to Kirkby Underwood they took over the house which was owned by the commission. They stayed there for a year until moving to Rippingale where they bought their own home. Guy, who subsequently attended Bourne Grammar School, now lives in the United States with his wife Jeanie and their two children and they run the Rippingale Nursery, a small wholesale nursery at Portland, Oregon, devoted to unusual hardy ornamental trees, shrubs and climbing vines. 

Meanwhile, I had received another message from John and Moira Ismay who live 3,000 feet up in the Blue Mountains near Lithgow in New South Wales, Australia. They told me that they had lived at Kirkby Underwood for ten years and that their younger son was born there. "We had our happiest times there", they wrote and added that their home was at No 6 Callans Lane, a house that was brand new when they moved there from Newcastle-on-Tyne. 

Now there is a sequel to this tale because I have received yet another email about this house from Nigel Woodburn who wrote:

Having idly tapped "6 Callans Lane" into the search engine on my computer, I was surprised that it registered a hit. Having clicked on the link I found myself looking through Bourne Diary for 6th February 1999. I was even more surprised when I saw the photo of our house, 6 Callans Lane. My wife and I have been here for a number of years. What an interesting story that coincidence makes. It's good to find out something of those who have lived in the house before. It gives it some history. I'm writing this in there now. I'm sure you won't mind, but I am using the photo as computer screen wallpaper.

The odds on such an eventuality must be extremely long, as they say in racing circles, but as I have found from half a century of journalism, the truth is so very often stranger than fiction. 

Message from abroad: I must congratulate you and yours for creating such a beautiful web site that puts Bourne and the area in a very positive light and captures the fine details of the town that one may miss after having lived there for a while. The web site is also a great idea for keeping people in touch as well as being a very useful and informative source for both locals and non-locals. Good job! May your endeavours in discovering the treasures of the fens be fruitful. - Imad Ahmed (former Bourne Grammar School pupil 1996-2001), University of California, Berkeley, United States.

This week, I added the 1,500th photograph to the CD-ROM A Portrait of Bourne which tells the story of this town and the people who lived here from the earliest times to the present day. The scope of the archive continues to expand and all other accounts that were published in years past have long been overtaken. My researches continue because new subjects are being revealed each week but even as it stands, the current work would fill several coffee table books. It is well worth the investment and if you are interested in this town, you can access an order form from the front page.

Thought for the Week - from The Spectator, 12th October 2002

The town council discussed the pending closure of the Job Centre in Bourne and warned that this would create great hardship for the town's unemployed. "We must therefore vigorously oppose it", said Councillor John Kirkman. "There is a long list of closures in Bourne. The Butterfield Hospital is being considered for closure and maybe Wake House will be next". So reported the Stamford Mercury on 7th January 1983 and I am reminded of this doom laden predicition in this week's Letters column of The Local (October 25th) when correspondent Tony Brooks added to the ongoing discussion about the closure of the South Street toilets. "At a time when the population is increasing, Bourne has lost its hospitals, police and now public toilets. What will be next?" 

Well, the Job Centre did close and the premises are now a private house. The Butterfield Hospital also shut but this has since reopened in a new and valuable role as a day care centre for the elderly while Wake House was also saved and is now used for a variety of community activities including the teaching of computer skills. But both of these facilities survived through the will of the people and not through the efforts of our local authorities which seem to consider closure as a form of progress. The outdoor swimming pool also comes into this category and is perhaps the best example in Bourne of what can be achieved by determined people who refuse to be defeated by the bureaucratic machine.

The utmost vigilance is needed to protect our amenities as well as our heritage because the vandals are always at the door, ready to knock down what we have left of the past, and it is worth remembering that the Red Hall, the jewel in our architectural crown, may well have suffered this fate on two occasions, in 1891 and again in 1962 (See Diary 6th April 2002).

We should be thankful for the facilities we have in Bourne because they can easily be removed unless we are ever watchful and I have now discovered that the Corn Exchange may well have disappeared 30 years ago. This building has served the town since it was built in 1870 and has been the centre of social and cultural activity ever since but were it not for the watchfulness of those councillors who had the good of the people at heart, this community building might well have been lost to the town.

A move to close the Corn Exchange was made at a meeting of Bourne Urban District Council on Tuesday 12th February 1969 when Councillor Lorenzo Warner, founder of Warners Midlands plc, proposed that the building should be sold for use as a supermarket and the proceeds used to finance a new town drainage scheme following severe flooding the previous year. He said that the issue should be settled with a referendum to decide whether electors wanted a well-drained town or continue to subsidise social and cultural activities. "In all businesses, the right thing to do is to cut out all unprofitable waste and the Corn Exchange has been a very big charge on the rates for the last decade", he said. "In the years 1952 and 1967, a loss of £7,999 is shown. Has the Corn Exchange outlived its usefulness?"

Councillor Warner said that school halls should be used as public meeting places out of school hours to encourage the social and cultural life of the town and added: "The use of the Corn Exchange has to meet intense competition and I cannot see how the town can afford the luxury in these days of high rates. More benefit would accrue from providing a well drained town than continuing to meet the very heavy losses from retaining the Corn Exchange."

The suggestion proved to be one of the most unpopular ever discussed by the council and received overwhelming and even hostile opposition from other members who pointed out that the Corn Exchange was providing a valuable service for a town with a population of 5,500 and that the costs involved were reasonable in return for the benefits that resulted and in the previous five months, the building had been let 112 times. "I think that Councillor Warner has his priorities wrong", said Councillor G H Astley but Councillor J H Wright was even more forthright: "This is a preposterous idea", he said. "Nowhere have I seen such a wild suggestion. It would deprive the town of one of the few recreational facilities this council provides."

A motion that the Corn Exchange should not be sold was carried, with only Councillor Warner dissenting. The acrimony generated by his proposal did not however last because he was eventually elected chairman of the council for the year 1970-71.

The story of how the Corn Exchange came to be built by a group of dedicated townspeople can be found on the CD-ROM A Portrait of Bourne together with a profile of Lorenzo Warner who, despite this aberration, did much for the prosperity of this town.

What the local papers are also saying

It is not so many weeks ago that our councillors were trumpeting from the roof tops that they had secured an early completion date for Bourne's much-needed south west relief road which is being built as part of the Elsea Park housing development and we all looked forward to a reduction in the traffic flows through the town by the end of the year. But beware of Greeks bearing gifts. The Stamford Mercury reported that although the first 700 metres of the road west of the roundabout on the A15 has already been built (October 18th), it will now be late next year before the job is finished.

Allison Homes, the estate developers, have been in negotiation with South Kesteven District Council and Lincolnshire County Council, over the project which will be paid for by them provided they get advance funding but as usual, the bureaucrats are calling the tune and what should have been a simple decision now becomes a series of major negotiations. It is projects such as this that highlight the inefficiency of our government system at both national and local level because too many people are involved in the decision-making process that is summed up in a statement from Brian Thompson, the divisional highways manager for the county council: "Our legal team is still assessing the funding proposal."

This is typical of the problems that beset our local authorities which have too many staff, largely overpaid, and too few ideas. When they are presented with a solution to an ongoing problem such as this, they make a meal of it to justify their very existence and chaos ensues.

It could be, however, that this obfuscation is merely a ploy to delay the advance funding because the county council has no money until the next financial year. That is certainly the case with the ongoing saga of the South Street public lavatories. The subject continues to generate column inches but none of the newspapers has yet established why they have closed, although it is generally agreed that the activities of vandals, homosexuals and paedophiles cited by Peter Martin-Mayhew, cabinet member of South Kesteven District Council, was merely a red herring to scare us all in order that the loos could be shut without too much bother. I have now discovered that the council wants to close the lavatories because they cannot afford to maintain them, let alone replace them, and so this propaganda was devised as a smoke screen to hide the real reason.

Another reduction in services is also on the way if you read the small print because The Local has revealed the council's intention to resume "in house" refuse collections and street cleaning which have been in the hands of private contractors for the past few years (October 18th). This will operate from June 2003 when households will be given a yearly quota of 104 bin liners for their domestic waste, an average of two per week, although under the existing regulations we are entitled to five. This means that the amount of refuse that can officially be collected from your home will be cut by more than half.

South Kesteven District Council has a £50 million budget and currently employs 614 people. The authority does not reveal its total wages bill or how much is paid out in pensions and other entitlements and benefits but all are index-linked and rise annually while our services are being reduced as the years go by. Very soon, this and other councils, as with the police force, will exist entirely for their own sakes as providers of feather-bedded jobs for people who do nothing except draw their monthly salaries and go on holiday while the council tax increases annually to foot the bill. This may seem an exaggeration but as each decision to cut services to the public emerges, it is yet another step on the road to this scenario becoming reality.

The closed circuit television system that was installed in Bourne in October 1998 at a cost of £126,000 has not had a good reception, mainly because it does not appear to be doing the job that was intended and that is to catch criminals. The cameras are sited at various vantage points as part of the town centre surveillance system but scenes of crime have either been out of shot or the cameras were not running at the time and in any case, no one on duty in the control room at Grantham can possibly monitor them all at the same time and so CCTV does not appear to be as efficient as was first envisaged. It is therefore heartening to hear of a success story related by The Local on its front page (October 25th) that Councillor Shirley Cliffe, who runs a shop in West Street, was faced with a threatening situation after two teenage youths came in. The visit had been monitored by the CCTV control room and two youths were later arrested on suspicion of drug related offences. Mrs Cliffe and her husband Ray, also a town councillor, have been running the shop for 47 years during which time there have been 22 incidents but this is the first time there have been any apprehensions, thanks to the closed circuit television cameras.

The item I reported last week about teenage youths drinking in and around the Burghley Centre at nights and at weekends was followed up by the Stamford Mercury with an excellent full page report which discussed a ban on alcohol in public places, a curfew for offenders and identity cards to provide proof of age when buying drinks. This report by Christian March covered the entire debate and included interviews with the police, councillors, property owners in the vicinity and, most particularly the public themselves. The consensus was that a problem does exist and that something must be done about it because there is evidence that the old and the vulnerable who venture this way after dark are likely to be abused and that the reputation of the entire area is likely to suffer if it continues.

For those who are in any doubt about the situation that exists here, the Mercury quoted Ken McCormack who runs Bourne Photographic in the Burghley Centre: "The problem is drunken loutish behaviour. You come in on a Saturday morning to find pizza boxes and fish and chip wrappers thrown everywhere. Broken glass is the biggest problem and the lack of respect for other people's property. I think that having an increased presence would work in the short term but I don't know whether they would have the resources to keep it going."

The Burghley Centre is the most modern part of our town centre, opened as recently as 1989, and yet this is allowed to happen. Here we have the views of a respected Bourne shopkeeper who voices the majority opinion and we would all hope that something will be done but I cannot help but think that we are whistling in the wind.

Message from abroad: I had to add some air to my tyres the other day and did it myself with an air pump I bought many years ago. It brought to mind of the days when I could drive into a service station, sit in my car while attendants cleaned the windshield, checked the tyre pressure and dip stick for correct oil level. Now I drive up to the pump, stand there like an idiot until a clerk turns on the switch, before I can begin filling my tank. In some parts of town where crime is rampant, one must go inside and pay before they let you use the pump. Too many people fill up and drive away without paying. - John Hughes, Fort Worth, Texas, USA. 

Thought for the Week: We live in Britain, where, bereft of political ideals, we now seem prepared to do anything to please a deeply reactionary American president and are tottering towards an ill-conceived and potentially destructive war. - Sir John Mortimer, dramatist, novelist and barrister, writing in The Spectator, 12th October 2002.

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