Saturday 7^th June 2003

When Sainsburys opened their new supermarket in Exeter Street on Friday 13th August 1999 it was generally believed that it would be an unlucky day for the retail outlets in this town which could not support three large stores but the critics forgot that shopping is the new religion and that these are the temples at which we worship. Both Budgens and Rainbow continue to thrive and we also have the added competition from Tesco's in North Street which is always busy.

Business for Sainsburys has boomed beyond their wildest dreams and having already outgrown their present premises, the company is spending almost £5 million on enlarging the building by extending it around the car park in an attempt to get the most out of the least available space. 

More is the key word of the new extension which will provide bigger and improved facilities in order that more products may be sold and this will require more loading space for more lorries to bring in daily supplies of more produce. More staff, more car space, more departments such as a meat and fish counter and a new bakery with a specialised curry cabinet at the delicatessen counter. More checkouts, more lights, more shelves, more greenery outside, more banners, more bike space and of course, more customers. They will find it irresistible.

The other stores may not have felt the draught before, but after the grand opening of this new store in mid-October, the Sainsburys effect cannot possibly go unnoticed by them this time. This new supermarket will be the biggest retail development in the history of Bourne and there is also likely to be an impact on some of the smaller town centre businesses because a dry cleaners and a fast processing photo counter are included in the extension, both services well catered for elsewhere.

The company has an eye on an expanding market from the influx of residents moving to the many residential estates now under construction in and around the town which is in the process of doubling in size because of the new developments. Our local authorities may not have lifted a finger to improve public services such as schools, roads, medical facilities and the like, but when there is a chance to increase profits, private enterprise will lead the way.

What the local papers are saying: The mysterious cash shortage for schools which the government continually denies is likely to cost the county 55 teaching jobs by the end of August, according to the Lincolnshire Free Press. The political controversies that rage at national level, such as this over the current funding of our schools, always seem remote until the effects are felt in our own backyard. Bourne Abbey is the largest primary school in Lincolnshire with 665 pupils on the roll but head teacher Mark Gray told the newspaper (June 3rd) that they required an extra £67,000 this year and because of the shortage, the governors have been forced to make a teacher redundant and cut the hours of support teachers to make up the shortfall. The human tragedy of this situation comes in the redundancy which in this case is a teacher in a senior position, much loved by pupils and whose loss will be deeply felt by the school. It is unfortunate that in the absence of the necessary funding, the governors were not able to find an alternative method of saving the money required, especially at a time when the school is having a new AstroTurf sports pitch built at a cost of £62,000.

The launch of Beagle 2, the Mars exploration probe, on Monday, was of particular interest to a Bourne-based company, Lahoma Engineers Ltd. The firm, which is based in Manning Road, specialises in precision engineering, and they were chosen to make one of the components for the spacecraft that is due to land on the red planet on Christmas Day. The prestige order is given front page treatment by the Stamford Mercury with a colour photograph of the team responsible for completing the work (June 6th). John Sismey, who founded the company in 1973, is a former member of the Bourne-based BRM team, and he made no secret of his delight at winning such an order. "We are very proud to be associated with the project", he said. "Our staff watched the launch on television with great interest and fingers crossed and we were delighted when the whole thing went through smoothly on time and to the correct dimensions."

The controversy over the provision of public toilets in Bourne rumbles on while the town centre lavatories in South Street which were shut last October remain closed. The Local also tells us that South Kesteven District Council have no plans to re-open them or provide new ones in the foreseeable future (June 6th) despite evidence that visitors are being seriously inconvenienced and that the streets are being used instead. The decision to close the loos was taken suddenly and without any prior consultation with the town council by Councillor Peter Martin-Mayhew, cabinet member on SKDC with special responsibilities for this amenity, and yet he is now reported as saying that he will not be hurried or harried into making a quick decision for their re-opening without due investigation which many will construe as sheer arrogance and a complete disregard for the people of Bourne.

During the open forum held at a meeting of the town council on Tuesday, a member of the public, Mr Ted Kelby, told members: "About two weeks ago, four senior citizens came to visit the Wellhead Gardens. One of the ladies needed to go to the toilet and she became terribly distressed because there was nowhere to go. What could I say to the poor soul?" 

In a letter to the newspaper on May 9th, a reader, Mrs Sandra Brown, gave a graphic account of the situation that has developed. Through the window of a restaurant in North Street where she had gone with her daughter for a meal, she saw several men urinating in the entrance to an alleyway across the road, quite regardless that they were in full public view. Her letter went on: "While the council decides where to put the new public toilets, we have to put up with people relieving themselves in alleyways and doorways. Is this what Bourne is coming to, rivers of urine running down the pavements? I've found the gents; the only question now is where is the ladies?"

There is more disquiet from the Stamford Mercury, this time about maintenance work at the town cemetery which has apparently slipped to well below the standard which won it a national award in the Cemetery of the Year competition last September. There have been complaints from the public particularly that the grass cutting is behind schedule but town councillors do not wish to know this. Councillor Shirley Cliffe, chairman of the amenities committee responsible for the cemetery, and who was in Scarborough last year to collect the award, told the newspaper (June 6th): "I do feel that the public have been a little bit naughty with the way they have been carrying on. I wish people would understand that grass grows very quickly and it is a very big area. The staff are doing their best but they can't do everything." 

It is worth remembering that it was at this time last year that the cemetery was receiving visits from the competition judges and it was their favourable assessment that brought this prestigious award to Bourne, proof that there was a time when the cemetery was properly maintained no matter what the season of the year. Unfortunately, there have been staff changes since then and the cemetery has lost the man responsible for this high standard of work without a finger being raised to keep him by any of those councillors who purport to run it. As many of the 5,000 gravestones here contain a biblical quotation, perhaps another might be appropriate in this case. In the words of St Paul: "Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap."

It is worth reading the newspapers from past years to discover just how much change there has been in our society in a comparatively short space of time. Few people today for instance, are so poor that they have holes in their shoes while petty theft is widespread and goes unpunished and beggars plague the streets in many towns without fear of recrimination. Less than a hundred years ago, none of this would have been tolerated and such conduct would have been punished with the full force of the law. 

An everyday case that illustrates this point came before the magistrates at the weekly police court in Bourne on Thursday 2nd April 1914 when John William Beck, of no fixed address, was charged with theft and begging. The court was told that he had been released from Lincoln Prison on March 27th when he took a train to Sleaford and then on to Bourne. When the train reached Essendine, the guard on duty found that the leather window strap from the carriage in which he had been travelling was missing and reported it to his superiors. Later that day, Beck was arrested while begging for money in the streets of Bourne and when the police searched him, they found the strap in his pocket, his explanation being that he had taken it with the intention of using the leather to repair his boots which had holes in them.

Today this case would never have come to court. Beck would have left prison with decent clothes, money in his pocket and in the care of various rehabilitation organisations that would have ensured his welfare until he got back on his feet. But there was no such safety net in those days and Beck got little sympathy from the magistrates. They sent him back to prison for 14 days for begging and two months for theft.

Those who have fond memories of being treated well at Bourne Hospital should make their farewells now. The demolition gangs moved in this week and have started ripping down the buildings. I shall try to photograph this official vandalism for posterity and await the arrival of the new homeowners who will be living on the residential estate that will be built on this site. When they purchase, will the estate agents tell them that Bourne no longer has a hospital and in cases of serious illness or accident, they must depend on emergency treatment at Stamford or Peterborough?

From the archives: At the time of my first visit to Bourne Isolation Hospital [then situated in Manor Lane], one of the wards was tenanted by a woman and two children, one of whom was suffering from scarlatina. As it had been impossible to isolate effectively the child and mother in their own home, the mother had been induced to bring her children into the hospital where she was entirely alone and had to attend to the infected and the non-infected child herself. It had been arranged that food should be provided for them by the Inspector of Nuisances, and also water for drinking since, as I have elsewhere pointed out, there is no supply of wholesome water on the hospital premises. At my visit, the mother complained that she had not been supplied with water but had been obliged to use for drinking purposes the foul water from a shallow dip well adjoining the hospital. I pointed out to the Inspector of Nuisances that very grave responsibility would be incurred should illness of one of these persons be referred to the use of this water. - from the official report of visiting medical inspectors into sanitary and hygiene conditions in Bourne, October 1907.

Thought for the Week: We have ways of making you shop - headline from an article on supermarkets, The Times Magazine, Sunday 31st May 2003.

Saturday 14^th June 2003

One of our town's neglected beauty spots is the Bourne Eau behind Eastgate, just below the confluence of the river and the Car Dyke. A walk along the bank in the early morning or late evening is a sheer delight but the scene would be idyllic if the waterway and banks were properly maintained.

On a visit this week, we found the river choked with algae and weeds and large amounts of rubbish floating on the surface, including plastic drinks bottles, fast food cartons, and other detritus from our throw away society, making this an unsightly reminder of our untidy habits. A little more attention to this spot would turn it into a most attractive walk that would soon become as popular as the Wellhead Gardens.

The problem is not a new one because 30 years ago, the area had become so neglected that local residents were clamouring for it to be cleaned and tidied. A report from the Stamford Mercury of Friday 5th June 1970 revealed just how bad it was after interviews with home owners who had lived in the vicinity for decades. "This could be a real beauty spot", said Ron Ayliff who was born in Eastgate and had lived there for 47 years. "But when the water is down, the river bed is an eyesore. It is covered with debris, sediment and sludge. We have approached several councillors about this but nothing has been done." Another resident of 35 years, Charlie Johnson, said: "One of my biggest growls is about the filth in the river. When the wind blows east, all the rubbish accumulates here and something should be done to stop it."

Home owners were also concerned about the weeds along the south bank which were head-high in some places, making the footpath impassable, but this is now cut occasionally although it is by no means tidy whereas regular maintenance could turn it into a paradise for walkers. 

The entire aspect of the river at this point is in need of attention and a programme of care and conservation would be rewarding because this is one of the oldest districts of Bourne and one that played an integral part in our history. The 18th century Anchor Inn, for instance, is a reminder that the river was navigable at this point because this ancient hostelry once stood on Eastgate quayside and was frequented by boatmen plying their trade on the Bourne Eau. Barges would have turned around here in the 19th century after bringing in coal supplies for the town and there was a portion of the riverside known as the coal yard or coal wharf on the north bank, just below the Fen Bridge. 

Other goods were also moved by boat from this location and by 1816, the Eau was carrying vessels with cargoes of up to 10 tons with wool and tanning leather being the chief articles of trade. But navigation on the river began to decline in the face of competition from improved rail and road transport and a directory of 1857 indicated the sporadic nature of the trade with the announcement: "Conveyance by water to Nottingham and Spalding, Thomas Knott's boats, from Eastgate occasionally." 

But the Bourne Eau was still enjoyed by townspeople and on Wednesday 9th June 1897, for instance, trips along the river in decorated gondolas were one of the attractions at a grand bazaar and concert held at the Bourne Institute in West Street, now the Pyramid Club, to celebrate Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee. There is no chance of that happening today. The river is so choked by weeds that it rarely sees even a rowing boat and its present unkempt appearance makes it undervalued as an amenity when it could be one of the most popular places to be on a summer's day as it was a hundred years ago.

Most of our local newspapers carry several pages each week of jobs on offer in their employment sections and it is difficult to believe how anyone can be so much in need of work that they will do anything to earn a few pounds. Even if such an extreme situation did present itself, there is always the state to fall back on and so no one would be allowed to starve. 

It is therefore difficult to understand a situation in which a man would take any work to feed his family, yet that was the case in Britain in the years following the Great War of 1914-18 when thousands returned to civilian life to find the country in the throes of a depression and employment at a premium. 

My own father was born in September 1900 and therefore narrowly missed enlistment in the army, but was nevertheless among those who had difficulty in finding work during the early 1920s and he often recalled those times when he had to report daily to receive a few shillings in government handouts but you got nothing for nothing in those days and he was required to dig holes for telegraph poles to earn it.

Many who were not so lucky took to the roads and the number of tramps increased dramatically during these years, as can be seen from the records of the Bourne Union or workhouse which provided a meal and a bed for the night in return for some menial tasks although the men were always turned out on to the street next morning when they simply headed for the next parish where they received similar hospitality. Begging was also much in evidence on street corners and old soldiers, many of them crippled and wearing their campaign medals, could be seen selling matches and bootlaces in an attempt to raise a few pence. 

Many of these old soldiers found themselves before the courts, such as Thomas Hyde, of no fixed abode, who was summoned at Bourne magistrates on Thursday 2nd October 1924 for stealing 4lbs. of cooked meat from his employer, Mr William Stubley, a cottage farmer of North Fen. Police told the bench that the prisoner had fought in the South African and Sudanese campaigns and the late war but had a bad record for theft and he was sent to prison with hard labour for a month.

Local councils were constantly urged to find work for the boys returning from the trenches of France and as a result many local projects were completed by this cheap form of labour, financed in part by central government. During my recent researches in the newspaper archives, I discovered that the road between Corby Glen and Carlby was improved in this way at a cost of £3,000, which is more than £100,000 in today's money, with the Ministry of Transport contributing 50 per cent and a further 25% of the £1,200 needed for tar spraying. Announcing the start of work on this scheme, a spokesman for Bourne Rural District Council, said: "We have received numerous applications from unemployed men in the district and this scheme will help relieve the situation."

Ironically, it took another conflict, the Second World War of 1939-45, to bring about the welfare state and the affluent society which has more or less continued to this day but in these years of full employment and generous state benefits, it is worth reflecting on those times and remembering the way it was.

I was forced to leap for safety into the doorway of the Burghley Arms one morning this week when a lad on a mountain bike came racing down the pavement and almost knocked me down. Cycling on the sidewalk is of course illegal but in the absence of any policeman on the streets in Bourne, the law is not enforced and so youngsters ride where they will, no matter what the risk to others who may be about.

The popular attitude to this frequent infringement is one of reluctant acceptance, perhaps because it is thought that a machine propelled only by pedal power rather than an engine can do little harm but that is not the case. A hundred years ago, a prominent lady from this town died in tragic circumstances from injuries sustained by a runaway cyclist and although this is not a frequent occurrence, it is worth remembering that it can happen.

Mrs Emily Wherry, aged 51, wife of Alderman William Wherry (1841-1915) was on holiday with two of her daughters at Hunstanton, the North Norfolk seaside resort, when the accident occurred. They were crossing the road on the way back to their apartments on the evening of 9th September 1897 when she was knocked down and killed by a lady cyclist who lost control of her machine while riding down a steep hill towards the railway station. The rider was thrown off by the collision and the bicycle landed on top of Mrs Wherry who sustained fatal injuries as a result.

The cyclist was Miss Gertrude Howlett, an assistant schoolmistress of Snettisham, who was out cycling with two male friends, and she escaped with a few scratches and bruises and an inquest subsequently exonerated her from all blame when the jury returned a verdict of accidental death. Mrs Wherry's body was brought back to Bourne the following week for the funeral at the Baptist Chapel in West Street and she was buried in the town cemetery.

This may have been a rare accident and one that may never be repeated but it does highlight the dangers that cycles travelling at speed present to the public, whether on the road or on the pavement. In those days, and until recent years, anyone caught riding a bike on the pavement would certainly end up before the magistrates but the perception of such behaviour is far less serious than it was and as law enforcement in these cases is now practically unknown, the practice of using the pavement as a racetrack will continue, much to the consternation of old people who are not as fast on their feet as they were.

There must be many out there who wonder what Bourne will look like in the future. Certainly, we read most weeks of grandiose plans for our town that sound quite wonderful but the devil is usually in the detail and what is proposed is invariably light years away. In fact, the administration of our local affairs has grown so much in the past 50 years that most decisions are lost in a bureaucratic fog of regulations, paperwork and meetings and some of the best ideas founder in the slough of officialdom.

But as far as Bourne is concerned, there may be hope, and I put it no stronger than that, by the formation in February 2000 of the Town Centre Management Partnership to shape the future development of the town centre. Its members come from both the public and private sectors including the Chamber of Trade, retailers, employers, the police, voluntary and leisure organisations, the Civic Society and from the local councils. The objectives were clearly stated by the newly appointed chairman who was full of enthusiasm for the project. Mr Norman Stroud, director of a local cleaning company, said: "We want to look at Bourne in a new light, encourage tourism, more facilities and shoppers and to keep trade in the town. We also want to make more people aware of our heritage and to make the economy of the town more vibrant."

What is the progress so far and what can we expect in the future? Ivan Fuller, who was appointed Town Centre Co-ordinator in May last year, is under no illusions about the difficulties involved in the task ahead and he has outlined the aims and aspirations of the partnership in an article that has been added to the web site today.

What the local papers are saying: The strange tale of the vanishing village signs is reported by the Stamford Mercury which reports that several have been taken and the police are baffled by their disappearance (June 13th). In the past three months, signs have been taken from Dyke, Thurlby, Twenty, Toft, Careby and Wilsthorpe, but investigations have failed to trace the culprits or discover why they were taken. One theory is that they may have been stolen for their scrap value because the signs that cost around £100 each are made of high quality aluminium which is always in demand from metal dealers. The thefts are worrying for the villages concerned because these roadside signs are often the only indication that they exist, an important feature for out of the way places, as Tom Murphy, chairman of Thurlby Parish Council explains: "It is a real nuisance especially for strangers intending to visit a small village or hamlet but can't find it."

This is the time of year that villages and hamlets throughout Britain begin to hold their summer fairs,  feasts and fetes and organisers who have been toiling for months to provide suitable attractions, pray for fine weather. There are few communities around the Bourne area without the inevitable notice at the roadside announcing their particular event, often with the proviso "In barn if wet" but for once, that is unlikely to happen this weekend because the met men have forecast that the weather will be hot and sunny. A list of the many village functions can be found in the excellent feature "What's on listings" carried by The Local (June 13th) and detailing something for everyone's taste from open gardens and strawberry teas to galas and fun runs. The biggest of these events will be the Bourne Festival on Friday, Saturday and Sunday and coverage of this is given front page treatment by the newspaper which predicts: "It will be a scorcher and the weather won't be bad either!" 

Thought for the Week: Of the 62 deaths in Bourne during 1969, 32 were from cardio-vascular diseases, with coronary diseases accounting for eight and strokes seven. The prevention of degenerative diseases associated with age can be very much aided by balancing work with relaxation. People in sedentary occupations should take regular exercise. A period of quietude is a good antidote to the pressures of this busy world. It is also desirable not to linger too long over the fleshpots, nor look too long at the wine when it is red. - from the annual report of the Medical Officer of Health, Dr H Ellis-Smith, July 1970.

Saturday 21^st June 2003

The drug habit is seen nowadays as an outcome of the permissive society but the problem has always been with us although in past times it took other forms. Today, heroin, cocaine, ecstasy and cannabis figure largely among the substances banned by law and horror stories surface almost daily to illustrate the destructive effects they have on the body and mind.

The definition of a drug when applied to narcotics is any chemical substance taken for the effect it produces and in times past, the term usually applied to opium and the more exotic hashish. As with their modern equivalents, they were dangerous in the wrong hands and successive governments have tried to legislate to control their use. Drug addiction was not a major problem half a century ago, with fewer than 400 known addicts in the United Kingdom in 1950, but the picture has changed drastically since then and today there are 150,000, so presenting a persistent difficulty that the Home Office and other official bodies are unable to solve but try to contain through regulation.

Drug taking was particularly prevalent in this part of the South Lincolnshire fens during the 19th century and began largely as a remedial means to combat the ague, a malarial fever that is now unknown. The cause of the infection was a parasite associated with the mosquito which was attracted by the sun's effects on decomposing vegetation that had been alternately covered and uncovered by water, conditions prevalent in the fens which were intersected by large dykes and containing water that was stagnant all summer. These conditions became widespread after the fens were enclosed and drained owing to the exsicction or drying out of the soil which hitherto had been covered with water and a greater surface being subsequently exposed by being ploughed and broken up. This decaying organic matter slowly disappeared with the process of cultivation and with it the insects that had caused the ague.

The effects of the ague have been graphically described by William Henry Wheeler in A History of the Fens of South Lincolnshire (1868) although he mistakenly thought that the cause of the infection was the miasmatic exhalations of poisonous germs floating in the air from the rotting vegetation rather than the insects that it attracted, as later medical research established.

The persons suffering from ague were attacked intermittently with severe shiverings which shook the whole body and even the chair or bed on which the sufferer was resting, accompanied by intense pain in the limbs. At one time, they were burning hot and at another, equally cold, and fever and thirst ensued. The fits came at varying intervals, the disease being distinguished as tertian or quotidian, the latter being the most prevalent form.

Quinine is the usual treatment for malaria but this was not in general use at that time and so the remedy was invariably opium but unfortunately its use became a habit that was seldom abandoned. The drug was obtained from the juice of the white poppy (Papaver somniferum) that was known in very remote times and the Greeks and Romans collected it. The practice of opium eating and using it as a medicine probably arose in Persia and was then introduced by the Arabians into India and from thence it came to Europe where it was know as a hypnotic and sedative and frequently administered to relieve pain and calm excitement. For its astringent properties, it was also used to treat diarrhoea and dysentery and, on account of its expectorant, diaphoretic, sedative and antispasmodic properties, in certain forms of cough.

The opium poppy was first cultivated in this country for the extraction of the drug by Mr John Ball of Williton, Somerset, in 1794 and later widely grown in the fens, the yield being from 20,000 to 30,000 large heads to the acre, and these produced a thick, tenacious paste, a dram representing a piece about the size of a small walnut and the quantity taken at one time about the size of a pea. William Wheeler reported its use as follows:

The effect on the taker is not that which has been described by persons who have formed their opinions from exaggerated reports of isolated cases. Its effect, both on the taker and on those about him, is far less deleterious than excessive beer or dram drinking. The man or woman who takes opium is never riotous or disorderly and gives no trouble to the police as an effect of its use. It tends however to make the taker silent and morose. The amount of work done is not less, nor is the life shorter than of those who do not take it, many of the confirmed opium takers living to 80 and 90 years of age. It is not pretended to defend its use but it would seem that when the habit has once been contracted, the system requires its stimulating effect to be kept up to its normal working capacity.

In the 19th century, when it was freely available, the quantity which a confirmed opium taker would consume was very large, averaging as much as a dram a day, and a labouring man and his wife would spend from 1s. to 1s. 6d a week in obtaining it. At this time, it was said that more opium was being sold by chemists in the fenland towns of Lincolnshire, Cambridgeshire and Norfolk, as a stimulant used by the labouring classes, than in all the rest of England put together.

The smaller heads from the poppy crop were crushed for the production of laudanum, a solution or tincture of the drug containing equal parts of alcohol and distilled water. The result was a brown coloured liquid with the characteristic smell of opium and contained about 1 per cent morphine and was sold legally as a narcotic and pain killer. Laudanum was available in the 19th century from pharmacists on demand in most of Europe and the United States. It was often administered as a soporific for gastric troubles although its use in the case of young infants, once popular, was eventually recognised as dangerous and replaced by morphine.

The use of both opium and laudanum continued until the early years of the 20th century and abuse was common. On 1st July 1897, for instance, the body of James Lee, aged 40, a shepherd, was found in a field near Bourne and identified by his brother Mr Thomas Lee of Westby, Grantham. He told an inquest at the New Inn [now a private house in the Spalding Road] that deceased had worked for him as a shepherd but had left for another job on June 26th, in good health and spirits although he was known to have occasionally taken laudanum. 

Ann Palmer, landlady of the New Inn, said that deceased had called on the day before his death and asked if he could have a bed as he was on the road and wanted to lie down for a few hours. He looked excited but she did not think he was under the influence of drink. At 5.30 that evening, George Henry Osgothorpe, aged 11, found him sitting by the hedge side in a field along the Fen Road, asleep and snoring loudly. The boy fetched help but by then, the man was dead, lying on the ground with his feet in the hedge and his head in the field. 

Police Constable Berry said that in the right breast pocket, he found a bottle labelled "Laudanum". The dead man also had a small amount of cash about his person and letters relating to his job as a shepherd. Dr John Gilpin, who carried out a post mortem, said that the stomach contained no food, only a few ounces of fluid which, upon analysis, was found to contain a quantity of a preparation of opium and in his opinion, death was caused by opium poisoning. The inquest jury returned a verdict that death had resulted from an accidental overdose of laudanum.

Opium is now remembered as the stuff of drama and literature, an association connected with the romantic poets and writers of the Victorian era, Lord Byron, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Lewis Carroll and others, who some claim used it to stimulate their creative powers. One author in particular, Thomas De Quincey, is largely remembered today for his autobiographical work Confessions of an English Opium Eater (1822) which gives an account of his early life, describing the growth and effects of his habit of taking opium. But it is worth remembering that this was a drug taken by thousands of working class people and ruined many lives as a result, and it only fell into disuse because it was replaced by other more dangerous substances that threaten the stability of our society today.

By all accounts, the Bourne Festival last weekend was a scorching success. The weather was perfect, the music superb and the beer tent drunk dry by Saturday night, although I am reliably informed that fresh supplies were rushed in to cope with demand. There was however one talking point among many people and that was the state of St Peter's Pool that has been the centre of this community since the earliest times.

Visitors strolling around the Wellhead Field, especially those coming here for the first time, were quite shocked to see it choked with algae and littered with debris, turning what should have been the centre of attraction for this big event into an unpleasant mess.

We visit the pool two or three times a week and its appearance has become more unsightly as the months go by. Apart from the weeds and rubbish floating on the surface, the banks are overgrown with nettles and sections of protective wire fencing lean over in a chaotic clutter. The origins of this pool are lost in the mists of time but there is little doubt that it has been the scene of pagan rites and religious festivals over the centuries because its perpetual source of water has been revered since man first trod the earth and yet this generation has allowed it to become an eyesore. Old photographs taken during the early years of the last century show a beautiful place, tidy and well kept and the perfect spot for a Sunday afternoon stroll, but its appearance today reeks of neglect.

Who then, is to blame? The gardens are owned and maintained by Bourne United Charities and the water supply regulated by Anglian Water. One or both of these organisations should ensure that this spot is given the maintenance it deserves rather than let it deteriorate into something resembling a farm pond rather than a well of antiquity. The water authority is a remote administration operating from a distance in the next county and so, as the great and the good of this town sit on the board of the charity trustees, then perhaps they can make the first move to remedy this situation before St Peter's Pool deteriorates even further. 

What the local papers are saying: Although there has been a total silence from the management over their plans to relocate Bourne Post Office, The Local has discovered what appears to be proof of their intentions to move it from the purpose-built building in West Street to space behind a liquor store further down the road. The newspaper reveals (June 20th) that plans have been submitted for an internal refit of the shop in connection with a licensing application and these include space for five counters and a parcel hatch at the rear of the store. The plans went before the town council's highways and planning committee on Tuesday and although there has still been no official announcement from the Post Office management, this was taken as evidence that a move is now inevitable and councillors were suitably outraged. The mood was summed up by Councillor Shirley Cliffe who said: "It is a crafty way of getting in by the back door." Whatever the outcome, the Post Office will emerge from this unfortunate saga with little credit and it is not difficult to understand why their business is currently in the doldrums.

The demolition of Bourne Hospital occupies many column inches in our main local newspapers this week (June 20th) with extensive picture coverage in both. The Local sees it as "the end of an era", as indeed it is, with illustrations of the equipment that had been left on site following the closure in 1998, including a valuable X-ray machine, wheelchairs and bathroom fittings. The Stamford Mercury has similar coverage under the headline "Hopes turn to dust as hospital site is bulldozed", a reference to the fact that there will be no replacement for this primary care medical facility in Bourne. The feelings of the town are summed up by leading local councillor John Smith, who was Mayor of Bourne in 1996 when a protest group went to Westminster to present an 8,000-signature petition in a bid to save the hospital: "I am saddened to see it disappear. We did absolutely everything we could to save it." His remarks also reveal how little power our elected councillors have in the face of a determined government bureaucracy.

A new feature has been added to the web site today in an attempt to increase our knowledge of the town. I suppose that it could be described as a potted history, with popular extracts that give a flavour of the place without having to read through long accounts of people, places and events. I have based the items included so far on questions I have been asked about Bourne and the entries are brief replies, although students of the subject will require further reading and so I suggest that they obtain a copy of the CD-ROM A Portrait of Bourne. New entries will appear on the front page of the web site each week and then transferred to this page and so it will grow with time. Anyone out there with a question about Bourne and its history should send it to me by email and I will try to provide an answer.

The Bourne web site continues to be read around the world and an email has arrived giving details of the latest location to be added to our list of visitor countries: "Logging in to your fine website from Sequim, Washington State, USA. This is a small town on the Strait of Juan de Fuca across from Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, in the far Pacific, north west of the United States. We have relatives in Kirkby Underwood. - Miriam Dittman." If your town, city, state or country is not on the list, please let us know and it will be included.

Thought for the Week: Words are, of course, the most powerful drug used by mankind. - Rudyard Kipling, Indian-born British writer and poet (1865-1936), in a speech on 14th February 1923.

Saturday 28^th June 2003

Railway buffs will know that next Thursday is a special day in the history of steam locomotion because 65 years ago, the Mallard set up a new world record by travelling at more than two miles a minute, a speed that has remained unbroken ever since.

This tremendous feat was achieved on a stretch of track near the railway station at Little Bytham on the B1176 four miles south west of Bourne. The station closed in 1969 but the village maintains its reputation and is a popular haunt of railway enthusiasts, nestling around a grand Victorian viaduct that carries the main east coast line over the road between London and Scotland. 

Even the local public house, a 16th century hostelry once known as the Green Man, changed its name in 1978 to The Mallard because of the growing interest in railways and the steam engine record and although it closed in 2002 and is now a private residence, it has been called Mallard House as a reminder of the famous event. The stone house stands in the shadow of the viaduct that is still in use but inter-city express trains rather than steam engines now flash past at regular intervals. 

It was on this stretch of track between Grantham in Lincolnshire and Peterborough that the record was broken. On Sunday 3rd July 1938, the London and North Eastern Railway 4-6-2 engine No 4468 Mallard, a streamlined Gresley A4 Pacific, hauling seven coaches weighing 240 tons, achieved the highest speed ever ratified for a steam locomotive of 126 mph over a distance of 440 yards. On the footplate were two Doncaster men, Driver Joseph Duddington at the controls and Fireman Thomas Bray feeding the boiler with coal.

The coaches included a dynamometer car packed with instruments in which engineers were able to follow the exact speed and to notice any defects in the track and with them was the engine's designer, Sir Nigel Gresley (1876-1941). The Mallard may have been a special train because it carried only engineers and staff but in reality it was no different to the others that sped daily through Little Bytham station.

The record at that time was held by the Coronation Scot owned by the London Midland and Scottish Railway which, on its inaugural run the previous year, on 29th June 1937, reached a speed of 114 mph. Prior to that, it was another LNER train which held the record, the Silver Jubilee, a familiar sight on this line, and which, when pulled by the Silver Fox locomotive, reached 113 mph on 27th August 1936.

The Mallard had been built at the LNER workshops in Doncaster in 1938 as part of the railway company's programme of attracting more rail customers by offering both speed and comfort but this had to be demonstrated to the public and a record breaking run was therefore important to their marketing policy. On Sunday 3rd July that year, the Mallard left Doncaster at 5 am and steamed south and after a short stop late in the afternoon, the train was started a little north of Grantham and began travelling south towards Peterborough. 

No prior announcement was made that a record attempt was imminent, either to the public or to railway staff, although signalmen along the track were told that the train might pass through a little before schedule at high speed. Many workers therefore assumed that this was to be a special run with the railway company attempting to regain the blue riband of the permanent way and were on high alert when the moment came.

The stretch of track between Grantham and Peterborough was chosen for the record attempt because high speeds had been attained there before. From Stoke tunnel, south of Great Ponton station, there is a steady falling gradient and the line slopes all the way to Little Bytham and after passing through the tunnel, the train is able to gather speed which reaches its peak near Little Bytham, so making the next stretch to Essendine the fastest between London and Scotland.

The Mallard arrived at Grantham station and passed through at a modest 24 mph. In the next two miles, it accelerated to 59¾ mph, then 69 mph with Fireman Bray shovelling furiously to keep the fire burning at its maximum to supply all the steam needed as the engine thundered southwards. The train swept past the mile posts at the side of the track at an ever increasing pace, recording speeds of 87½ mph, 96½, 104, 107, 111½, 116, 119 mph and then, at the ensuing half mile posts, 120¾ mph, 122½, 123, 124¼ and finally 126 mph, by which time the 6ft. 8in. driving wheels were doing more than 500 revolutions a minute. 

The train was clocked passing Little Bytham station at 4.36 pm and reaching Essendine, a little under three miles away, at 4.37 pm. It had maintained a speed of over 120 mph for more than five miles and had clocked 126 mph over a distance of 440 yards and so the record was secure. Signalman Walter Humphreys, who was on duty at the Little Bytham signal box, said next day: "We have a special sequence on the inter-signal box to herald the approach of a flier, four beats on the electric bell, a pause and then four more beats. Moreover, when the Mallard came through, we cleared twice the length of line of other rolling stock that we would have done for any other ordinary express. These trains normally pass by without any apparent effort at around 90 mph but when the Mallard came in sight, it was obviously all out with smoke belching from its funnel and going like the devil. A record breaker if ever I saw one."

The Mallard had steamed into railway history by travelling faster than the then current holder, the Coronation Scot, and all other steam locomotives in the world whose high speed performances are on record, and it has never been exceeded since. But it was not without cost because the engine was damaged by the severe exertions to which it had been subjected. The big end at the front of the three-cylinder engine failed during the run and the locomotive was forced to pull into the railway engineering workshops at Peterborough for repairs. Nevertheless, the record was in the bag and remains so to this day. The newsreel and press cameras were waiting for the Mallard at King's Cross but she never arrived and therefore no film exists and the only pictures of the great day are amateur photographs taken on box Brownie cameras by the train crew and railway staff.

When all the fuss of the record-breaking run was over, the Mallard went back to work as part of the LNER fleet of locomotives on day-to-day operations. Then came the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939 and all the glory faded away and the locomotive was reduced to hauling goods trains around the country until 1945. After that, it was back to pulling trains on the east coast main line between London and Scotland on a daily basis although only for a short while. The LNER was swallowed up in 1948 by the formation of the nationalised British Railways [known as British Rail from 1965], dedicated to a policy of diesel and electric trains that heralded the end of the days of steam.

But a champion like the Mallard was not to be forgotten so easily and it was allowed to retire gracefully after clocking 1,426,000 miles during its lifetime before finally being withdrawn from service in 1963. In 1975, it was moved from London to the newly formed National Railway Museum at York where it can be seen today, one of the main exhibits among a unique collection of relics from our railway past, resplendent in its original blue livery and a reminder of those exciting days of steam.

The unsightly state of St Peter's Pool and the Bourne Eau continues to provoke discussion and they remain an eyesore when both should be maintained in a perfect state of preservation worthy of their historic status.

St Peter's Pool itself has always been an attraction, especially for walkers on Sundays and holidays, and photographs from past times indicate the way it was and could be now, were regular maintenance work carried out to remove the algae and rubbish from the water and tidy up the banks by cutting down the nettles and other weeds and reinstating the wire fencing that has collapsed in many places into a tangled mess. 

One elderly contributor to the Bourne Forum tells us that this was a favourite courting place during the last century and in 1940, he proposed to his wife while sitting on the bank before he went off to war. She accepted, perhaps overcome by the beauty of her surroundings as well as the ardour of her suitor, but I would not recommend any young beau to choose this place for such an assignation today because the river which flows from it is just as bad in many places.

 What the local papers are saying: A new system for refuse collections starts in Bourne next week and according to the Herald & Post, home owners face a fresh set of rules and regulations (June 26th). Letters have been sent to all householders warning that collection days have been changed but the main instruction from South Kesteven District Council is that on those days, bags must be put out at the edge of the property, i e the kerbside or at the front gate, and not left by sheds and back doors for collection. The other major change is that homes have been issued with a year's supply of 52 plastic bags, a drastic reduction on the previous arrangement when they were replaced on a one-to-one basis with up to five bags per property but from now on, home owners will have to buy their own above the official allocation. The council warns that the new scheme will take time to work and as their spokesman Ian Yates, head of business management, explains: "The changes are intended to provide a better and more efficient service but we need the public to be patient until the service gets underway." 

Pupils at two schools in Bourne are to be checked for possession of drugs by police sniffer dogs, according to the Stamford Mercury. Spot checks will be carried out at the Robert Manning Technology College and Bourne Grammar School whose head teachers revealed this week that both had experienced problems among pupils possessing cannabis and some had been excluded as a result (June 27th). Police Sergeant Steve Gallant of Bourne said: "The situation is that Bourne has a drugs problem, as in every other town in the United Kingdom. It would be very naïve of parents with young children to assume that because it is a rural community, drugs are not a problem." During the searches, pupils will be lined up while one dog sniffs them for drugs and another checks their lockers. Geoff Greatwood, head teacher at the Robert Manning, is obviously aware that this is a controversial development in the crack down on drugs for he is reported as saying: "I hope parents will take this in the spirit in which it is intended and for the vast majority, it will have no effect whatsoever."

The scheme has already been criticised by town councillor Guy Cudmore who has voiced the concern of many parents in an interview with the The Local. He has advised his two sons, aged 13 and 15, that they should not take part in any such searches and should walk out of school if police sniffer dogs are used to search pupils or the premises (June 27th). Councillor Cudmore told the newspaper: "This scheme is way over the top and I suggest that blood tests on suspected users would be a more logical option. Schools should know who the culprits are if they are doing their job properly. To have dogs sniffing round 900 pupils is far too heavy handed."

Rarely a week goes by without one of our main streets being brought to a standstill by illegally parked vehicles yet according to The Local, the police claim that this is not a problem (June 27th). Bourne Town Council has asked for a traffic warden to be on duty at least one day a week, as he is at Stamford and Market Deeping, but Inspector Mick Howells replied that Bourne does not have the same level of traffic infringements and therefore does not qualify for the same frequency of checks because it is relatively quiet. This reply has not satisfied our town councillors. Inspector Howells is of course, based in Stamford, and perhaps he would find it an enlightening experience to spend some time in the town centre at Bourne, preferably on a Thursday market day when he will see enough cases of illegal car parking to keep two, perhaps even three, traffic wardens fully occupied.

Strange but true: While ringing one of the bells at the Abbey Church in Bourne on Monday evening, Mr John Howe, a hairdresser, of Church Street [now Abbey Road], met with a serious accident. He was taken up by the bell rope and fell down from a great height. His right leg was broken just above the ankle. Dr John Gilpin was speedily in attendance and skilfully attended the injury, which is of a severe nature. - news report from the Stamford Mercury, Friday 22nd February 1895.

Thought for the Week: For 40 years I have been married to one of the greatest women the world has ever produced. All I could produce, small as it may be, was love and loyalty. - Sir Denis Thatcher who died on Thursday at the age of 88.

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