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Saturday 3rd July 2004
Discarded rubbish around the Wellhead Gardens is now
causing real problems as well as creating an eyesore that is bad for the
image of this town. The culprits are those who drop it because they demonstrate
a total disregard for the environment and a contempt for the community in which
they live. Nevertheless, as with the streets and other public places, it is up
to those who own and maintain them, to clear up the mess but this is not being
done.
Assorted debris, mainly empty bottles and fast food containers, that has been
thrown into the Bourne Eau, is being sucked into the mill race that runs
underneath Baldock’s Mill in South Street and last weekend this caused a major blockage
that stopped the newly-installed mill wheels from turning. There is a metal
grille to prevent obstructions from entering the mill race but someone,
presumably vandals, bent or moved the iron bars to allow larger objects
through and this created the latest difficulty.
The mass of detritus that piled up also included dead ducklings and other animal
and fish life with the result that it soon began to give off the most obnoxious
smell and the blockage could only be removed manually, a task that inevitably
fell on the volunteers from the Civic Society who maintain this Grade II listed
building as the town’s Heritage Centre.
The first reaction is to blame litter louts for the present situation but this
is not the first time that complaints have been raised about some areas of the
Wellhead Gardens that are not being kept in a sufficiently satisfactory state.
On a recent occasion, we talked to a couple from London who were visiting the
town. They found the flowering cherry trees alongside the main path an absolute
delight, providing a canopy of pink and white from one end to the other, while
around them the grass had been recently mown. But they were aghast at the poor
condition of the Wellhead beyond that, “grotty” being their immediate reaction
and then, as inveterate travellers, they compared it unfavourably to the public
gardens
in Eastern European countries where open spaces such as this are maintained with
tender loving care and they decided that even towns in Romania, for instance,
could show Bourne a thing or two about putting its park in order.
The poorly condition of St Peter’s Pool, one of Britain’s historic springs,
and the land on either side of the Bourne Eau, are a particular cause for
disquiet. The banks of this ancient pool are in a deplorable state while the
river which runs from it is blocked with rubbish such as mattress springs and
car parts and there is a mass of debris and rotting vegetation along much of its
course as far as Baldock’s Mill where the pathway alongside is overgrown, muddy
and uneven underfoot, a danger for the unwary after a shower of rain. The
concrete standing around the mill is often piled high with rubbish hauled from
the river while trees toppled by gales as far back as January 2001 have still
not been cleared away, creating eyesores in several places, and the edges of the
park remain a tangle of undergrowth and a trap for every scrap of litter wafted
in on the wind.
The topic is a familiar one in the Bourne Forum and last year, John Morfee, a
local man, wrote:
I have visited many similar places in Europe
and almost without exception they were cared for in a much better way by the
authorities and were fully utilised as amenities for the local population and
visitors alike. Unlike ours! If you follow the footpath up from the Heritage
Centre towards the pool, you will walk past along a badly kept path alongside
the river where the bank is completely overgrown and strewn with broken
branches. If you persevere, you eventually arrive into an open grassed area
between St Peter's Pool and the old watercress beds. The field side of this area
has collapsed trees and other dying vegetation and the river side is little
better. If the area were to be tidied up and the river cleared and the bank
shored up, it could be turned into a really nice picnic area. Unfortunately, I
don't think it is at all likely. The park is slowly decaying. Fallen trees are
left to lie where they fall for months or even years. If I were being cynical, I
would think that the trustees are deliberately running the park down so that
they have the excuse to sell it for house building in a few more years.
That was written on Saturday 27th December 2003 and nothing has
changed. But how do we explain this to visitors, such as the couple we talked to
from London, who expect to find an idyllic and attractive market town nestling
in the countryside away from the hustle and bustle of the metropolis? Who, they
asked, is in charge and is this the result of the pressures on local government
spending?
I therefore had to tell them that Bourne enjoys the Wellhead Gardens as a result
of the philanthropy of one of our distinguished civic leaders. He was Alderman Thomas Whyment Atkinson, farmer and landowner, county and district councillor,
magistrate and former High Sheriff of Lincolnshire, who died in 1954 at the age
of 80. Under the terms of his will, he made it possible for a large area of
meadowland known as the Wellhead Field to be developed as a public park, an
amenity administered by Bourne United Charities which is responsible for a
number of legacies made over the past 400 years for the benefit of the town.
Alderman Atkinson’s vision was of an open space for all to enjoy, which we now
have, but what would he say were he able to see the state of some areas of the
park today?
Bourne United Charities have sufficient funds, accrued from bequests left to
this town in the past for the benefit of the people, to keep the Wellhead
Gardens in a better state of repair than at present. The staff are making
valiant efforts to keep the place looking attractive and the results of their
work can clearly be seen but the overall situation is now a matter of capital expenditure rather than annual
maintenance costs to put the black spots in good order and avoid further
deterioration. Once that is done, the effect would be dramatic by
transforming those run down areas to a park worthy of the name.
The trustees now have a new chairman, Councillor John Kirkman, although this has not been made public because it is the current policy of BUC,
not always so in the past, to keep its deliberations private and not to make
statements to the press, and so his appointment has not appeared in our local
newspapers, but as he is a member of the town, district and county councils, we
assume that he has the good of Bourne at heart. It would therefore be a
commendable exercise for him, and indeed every trustee, to go and have a look
and decide for themselves if money under their control should be spent on
improving those areas that are causing concern or whether they should be left to
become even more run down in the future. That is the least they can do for the
people of Bourne and the memory of Alderman Atkinson for whose inheritance they
are responsible.
What the local newspapers are saying: A bypass for Bourne
is a perennial topic and this week it fills the front page of the Stamford
Mercury together with a photograph of a traffic congested South Street to
illustrate exactly how badly we need one (July 2nd). The subject was again
discussed by the town council on Tuesday when the mayor, Councillor Mrs Pet
Moisey, stressed the urgent need for such a road to relieve the increasing
burden of through vehicles but she was told by fellow members that this was a
most unlikely eventuality.
This has always been the case because the need for a bypass never goes away but it
rarely ever reaches the discussion stage at Lincolnshire County Council. On
those few occasions that it has, the project has been quietly forgotten after
the cost implications were known. The last time was in 1991 when the council
announced that work was due to start on a Bourne bypass in April 1994 with a
completion date of October 1995 but the scheme was shelved when the government
drastically pruned its road building programme and with the cost of new
carriageway now estimated at well over £1 million per mile, Bourne is a low
priority and likely to remain so for the foreseeable future.
The crisis over dental care is featured by The Local, a
subject that has been causing concern for the past few months but their front
page report suggests that the situation will get worse for National Health
Service patients and treatment more expensive (July 2nd). “The cost of seeing a
NHS dentist, if you can find one, may rise significantly”, it says. “If the
government adopts plans put forward by the Department of Health this week, the
cost of a filling, for example, would rise from £17.50 to £40, although the
total cost of any treatment would be capped at £120.” The report also says that
as Bourne’s two dental surgeries are in the process of opting out of the NHS
framework “due to the red tape involved and the lack of financial return”, it
will be a sorry outlook for anyone wanting treatment on the NHS unless already
registered with a dentist who is prepared to keep them on his list while switching
over to private care.
This issue has been well aired by the Stamford Mercury in
recent months, as has the possibility of a ban on smoking in public places which
occupies many column inches on Page 3. One of the slogans recently adopted by
The Local and printed
this week at the top of Page 5, is "Always first with the news" but these reports are
hardly good examples of such exclusivity and nor is the coverage of the shortage
of fire fighters at Billingborough (Page 7) and the forthcoming visit of the
Lord's Taverners celebrity cricket team (Page 5), both of which were featured in
the Mercury last week. The pity is that there is a wealth of interesting
material out there waiting to be investigated by enterprising journalists but it
goes unreported and one such story dropped right into the lap of The Local
this week. A letter from the chairman of the Civic Society, Mrs Brenda Jones,
appears in the correspondence columns complaining about vandals wrecking a metal
grille on the Bourne Eau and its subsequent effects on Baldock's Mill, an
incident that I mention above, yet this was not followed up in the editorial
columns where it would have provoked far more interest than old news items recycled.
The search is on for the best kept allotments in Bourne and judging is about to
begin in the town council’s annual competition to find the top plots.
Allotments have been with us since the 19th century and were originally
introduced as an inducement to keep agricultural workers in the countryside and
to stop the drift of much needed labour from the land to the towns and the
Parish Councils Act of 1894 provided this stimulus and during the first four
years of its working, almost 15,000 acres were allocated to 32,000 tenants.
Various legislation to perpetuate the tradition has followed and allotments
thrived during the 20th century, particularly during the Dig for Victory days of
the Second World War when every available space in Britain was used to grow food
for an island population beleaguered by war and although today they are often
regarded as an anachronism, they remain popular and even coveted when outside
development threatens.
The earliest allotments in Bourne were provided by benevolent landowners,
notably the Earl of Exeter (Lord of the Manor of Bourne), William Pochin
(Lord of the Manor of Bourne Abbots), Lord Aveland and Lord Willoughby, but
today, they are largely the province of Bourne Town Council which opened its
present allotments on 13th May 1982 on land in South Fen Road purchased from
Lincolnshire County Council, although a smaller area of 13 plots, owned by
Bourne United Charities, can be found at the corner of Meadow Drove and Spalding
Road.
The town council’s allotments cover a total area of just over 4½ acres divided
into 86 various sized plots, all occupied, and vacancies are rare for very long.
Every allotment holder signs an agreement at the beginning of their tenancy and
pays a small amount of annual rent during January. Approval is also given for
tenants to erect a small shed not larger than 4 ft x 6 ft for the safe keeping
of tools and gardening equipment. A contractor is regularly maintaining the car
parking area and roadways and there is also a water supply but it is turned off
during the winter months.
There has always been a keen and friendly rivalry between plot holders and
the town council launched its Best Kept Allotment Competition during 2002 when
various local companies donated prizes to the total value of £100, and this
competition has become an annual event. At that time, it was thought that the
competition was the first of its kind in Bourne but I have since discovered that
others were held in earlier times, notably during the Great War of 1914-18 to
inspire growers produce more food and thus help the war effort. Homeowners were
also offered prizes for the way in which they had tended their back gardens to
make them more productive. The competition was organised by Bourne Urban
District Council and a report from the Stamford Mercury of Friday 20th July 1917
gives a flavour of the event and an indication of the large number of allotments
then being rented:
It will be remembered that members of the urban council offered varying sums in
the spring of the year to be devoted as prize money for the gardeners of
allotments under the jurisdiction of the council. The matter was left in the
hands of the Allotments Committee to arrange for the judging and this has now
been completed and the following is a complete list of the prize winners who met
Councillor William Castledine, the committee chairman, on Wednesday evening and
received their prize money:
DYKE allotments: 1 John Laxton, junior, 2 Ben Laxton, junior, 3 George
Sommerfield.
VICAR'S allotments: 1 J W Thorpe, 2 William Adams, 3 & 4 John Chambers.
PICKWORTH'S allotments: 1 Tom Pick, 2 W M Bradshaw, 3 J W Tipler.
BETTINSON allotments: 1 Mrs Haynes.
TONGUE END allotments: 1 J Turner, 2 F Laud.
GARDENS: 1 G H Chambers, 2 T Bannister, 3 J Cartledge, 4 T Ayliff, 5 J T Rowe,
highly commended G A Thistleton.
More than twenty allotment holders have entered this year’s competition and on
Monday, judges Chris Neal and John Wass, both experienced gardeners, will be
inspecting them all to check on neatness, the variety of crops grown, the layout
and appearance and the frequency of weeds. The winners will be announced soon
afterwards and they will receive their prizes at a ceremony in the Town Hall on
Wednesday 1st September.
Thought for the week: To get the best results you must talk to your vegetables.
- Charles, Prince of Wales, quoted by The Observer in Sayings of the Week,
28th September 1986.
Saturday 10th July 2004
The sale of fast food in Bourne has been causing some
concern among our town councillors because of the state of the streets in the
early mornings after late night customers have been eating their suppers from
the town’s various takeways. Abbey Road is a particular black spot and
Councillor Jane Kingman-Pauley told colleagues at a meeting last week that she
had received a large number of complaints about the rubbish being dropped there,
including unwanted food such as beef burgers and chips as well as plastic
containers and other wrappings that were so numerous it was difficult to find a
clear space on the pavement to walk by without treading on it.
The detritus from late night revelry has always been a problem and anyone
walking the streets in the early morning on a Saturday and Sunday will know
exactly what to expect. A litter picker employed by South Kesteven District
Council has worked wonders and the town centre streets invariably look spick and
span by 8 am but that does not excuse the indiscriminate dropping of rubbish by
the more irresponsible members of our community the night before.
The general opinion among the town councillors is that the problem can be solved
by regulating or restricting the opening hours of the various fast food outlets
but that is not the answer because the culprits will drop their plastic trays or
paper packets whatever the time of day or night. The real cause is the large
number of them that we have in Bourne and add to them the cafes and restaurants,
hotels and public houses, shops and stores that also sell ready to eat snacks,
and the town seems to have turned into one vast food and drink dispensary.
Accordingly, I have carried out a survey this week of those establishments in
Bourne that sell food and I was astounded that there should be so many for a
population of around 15,000. There are for instance, 26 outlets in the town as
well as five supermarkets offering sandwiches and ten hotels and public houses.
Two more are in the offing, a takeway in South Road and a café and bar in North
Street, and it might be a worthwhile exercise for those who are responsible for
approving planning permission for similar ventures in the future to take a look
at the outlets that already exist and consider whether we have perhaps reached
saturation level because all cannot possibly survive.
What the local newspapers are saying:
An optimistic report on the
changing face of Bourne was carried by The Citizen this week (Tuesday 6th
July), a publication that does not normally devote much space to this town,
preferring instead to fill its columns with paid advertising rather than
editorial, and repeated with even more zest in its sister publication, the
Stamford Mercury, on Friday (July 9th) under the heading “Posh Bourne”.
Reporter Christian March eulogised about what he called “the new café bar
culture that is helping breathe new life into the town centre”, a euphemism for
the increasing number of fast food and takeaway outlets opening up. But when we
walked through Bourne at 5.45 pm on Tuesday evening, the majority of them were
closed which demonstrates that a café bar culture requires more than the sale of
a few baps at lunchtime as a visit to any European town or village will
vouchsafe.
The article also included an interview with Ivan Fuller, the Town Centre
Co-ordinator, who said that the quality and provision of shops is increasing
because of new businesses moving in. While all additional retailers are welcome,
we should remember that when a new one opens an old one has closed and therefore
we are doing little more commercially than maintaining the status quo. Bourne
can only eat so much yet new food outlets are replacing those small businesses
that are so valuable for a market town, providing specialist services such as
sewing and needlework, insurance, clothing, the supply of gardening requisites,
furniture and other household items, all of which have had an accepted place in
our town centre outlets because they obviate the need to go elsewhere and it is
only when they have gone that we miss them. The unique appearance of an English
market town, so much cherished in the past, is fast disappearing and if garish
plastic shop fronts and signs continue to proliferate, Bourne is likely to be no
different in the future than many of our inner city suburbs.
Mr Fuller also said that “it is very encouraging to see the lack of unoccupied
shop units” in the town which means that he may not have been down North Street
recently and noticed a row of empty, boarded up premises, or walked along Abbey
Road where four shops, three of them unoccupied, are being advertised to let.
Bourne is the place where we have all chosen to live and we want to see it
flourish and become more prosperous but merely wishing will not make it so and
nor will Pollyanna articles such as this.
Traffic problems in Bourne continue to fill column inches and this week The
Local has been compiling its own statistics to support the need for a new
road system to relieve congestion around the town centre (July 9th), in
particular the opening of the southern relief road on which work has been
halted. Their figures indicate that 43 per cent of the vehicles coming into
Bourne along West Street turn south towards Peterborough and 36 per cent passing
in the opposite direction turn into West Street. “This implies that the relief
road would bring a reduction of at least one third of town centre traffic,
welcome news for Bourne’s beleaguered streets”, says the report.
While applauding the newspaper’s enterprise in producing these statistics, I
imagine that the result of their survey is already well known to our local
authorities which is why it beggars belief that the new road stands half
finished, gated and closed, while the lawyers argue the toss about who will pay
the bill and how. Councillor John Kirkman, a member of both Lincolnshire County
Council and South Kesteven District Council, is quoted by The Local as
saying: “I anticipate seeing the road completed by May 2005” but as the
Stamford Mercury remarked when it covered this story last week, after
reporting that it was originally due to open in 2002, then 2003: “Haven’t we
heard that before?”
Violent crime in Bourne increased by more than 50 per cent in the first half of
this year, according to the front page story in the Stamford Mercury
(July 9th). From January to June, there were 69 assaults compared with 45 during
the same period last year and there was also a 23 per cent increase in house
burglaries and a 16 per cent rise in vandalism. The figures were revealed at a
local forum held by the Lincolnshire Police Authority in Bourne on Thursday but
statistics can never convey the real horror experienced by the victims involved
in such crimes and it is this fear that prompts us to make continual demands for
a greater police presence in the town. In the words of Councillor Shirley Cliffe:
“We never see anyone on the streets and this is what the people want, to see
police officers on the beat.”
But all the police can offer is sympathy. The Mercury reports Divisional
Commander, Superintendent Dick Foley, as saying: “We would like more police
officers on the beat but they are a very expensive resource and we do not have
the numbers to deploy more of them in that way.” Surely this is what policemen
are for and if they are not on the beat then what are they doing and what is our
money being spent on?
The public lavatories in South Street have been nominated for an award by
the British Toilet Association, the organisation that presents an annual “Loo of
the Year” award to recognise the efforts and achievements of toilet providers
around the country. It is to be hoped that South Kesteven District Council will
not try to claim any part of this honour, if indeed it does come to fruition,
because it was their ill-advised action in October 2002 that closed them down
for eighteen months on the pretext that they were being vandalised and had
become a meeting place for paedophiles, homosexuals and sex perverts, although
only the flimsiest of evidence for this was produced.
The lavatories were reopened in April after a lick of paint and a spot of
maintenance costing £4,400 and are now the responsibility of the town council
and Bourne resident Barbara Spiller, a marketing advisor to one of the award
sponsors, considers that they merit national recognition. “Most local
authorities choose to solve the problem of public toilet abuse and vandalism by
closing them”, she says, “but this doesn’t help the many people who need toilets
when they are away from home, parents with young children, the elderly and those
with special needs. It is to the town council’s credit that it has recognised
the needs of the community and I felt it should be recognised in return.”
This is all very commendable but last weekend, Bourne was not the best place to
be if you were suddenly in need as I discovered on Sunday when we were
approached by an elderly couple in the town centre who found the South Street
toilets closed and I explained that they were only open Monday to Saturday. We
therefore took them to the bus station but arrived to discover that the public
lavatories there were also closed and had in fact been locked and barred for
several weeks. A distraught mother and her toddler son were also outside
deploring this loss of amenity and we were unable to help any of them solve
their immediate problem.
The town council has now decided that the South Street lavatories will open on
Sundays but that is little comfort for the visitors we encountered because they
could hardly be told to come back next week.
From the archives: An inquest at the Nag's Head Inn before Mr William Edwards,
coroner, on Monday 3rd September, on the body of Mr John Morris, aged 46, a
wheelwright, of West Street, Bourne, was told that he was in his usual health on
Saturday evening and at the Windmill Inn in North Street [now demolished],
partook of some glasses of spirits after which, at about half past 10, he went
to the Nag's Head where he drank more liquors, and at 11 o'clock, he fell out of
his chair. Mr Octavius Munton, surgeon, who was sent for, promptly attended and
attempted to bleed deceased but life was extinct. Verdict: apoplexy which it
appeared from the medical testimony, the unfortunate man was liable to from any
exciting cause. - news report from the Stamford Mercury, Friday 7th September
1855.
Thought for the week: We live in the land of the paper cup personality.
Celebrity not only comes easily but also departs with astonishing and painful
alacrity. – Sandy Toksvig, writing in The Times, Saturday 3rd July 2004.
Saturday 17th July 2004
Manor Lane is one of the oldest streets in Bourne and has
a history dating back 300 years, perhaps even further. Modest homes have always
been part of the street scene, as they are today, although most of the cottages
of yesteryear have given way to modernised flats and many of the present tenants
have cars.
But those who live there are becoming increasingly isolated from the community
because their homes are next to a commercial undertaking that grows year by year
and has now become so big that it threatens to envelop the entire area.
Warners Midlands plc had modest beginnings as a newspaper shop at No 13 West Street,
taken over by the late Lorenzo Warner in 1926, but his business acumen was such
that the enterprise flourished and his printing works behind the premises became
so successful that in 1973-74, it moved to the old Maltings further along the
street where the family firm he founded has established a reputation for its
high quality colour printing. Many of Britain's leading magazines are produced
there and they employ more than 300 people.
The result has been a regular programme of expansion and the Maltings site has
grown much bigger, taking in the former St Peter’s Hospital, built in 1836 and a
fine example of Victorian institutionalised architecture, yet demolished in 2001
without a single voice raised against it, while the pending development on the
east side has already involved the felling of several ancient trees, threatening
the prospect from the Wellhead Gardens which is within the town’s Conservation
Area designated in July 1977. Yet there have been no objections to this either
from the town council or Bourne United Charities that administer the park.
It is little wonder that the tenants of Manor Lane feel threatened by this
commercial giant and they have complained about the noise and vibration caused
by big lorries entering and leaving the company’s premises and the upshot is
that the firm is now seeking to ban all parking by the introduction of double
yellow lines on both sides. In other words, they wish to exclude the cars of
home owners in order to give their own vehicles free passage, a decision that
will, in effect, turn a public road into an official access to the company’s
premises.
In a letter to Lincolnshire County Council, the highways authority, the firm’s
commercial manager, Mick Ewles, explained why they were seeking the new
restrictions. “Firstly, and most importantly, is the safety of the public,
whether they are on foot, cycling or driving”, he wrote. “Large commercial
vehicles making deliveries are having to mount the pavement outside the Manor
Lane flats in order to get down the road. Then they have difficulty driving down
the lane to our goods entrance. This is mainly due to the narrowness of the
lane, compounded by the parked cars, making this an accident waiting to happen.”
All of this was known to the company when plans were announced for their new £6
million press hall and bindery in 2002 when there were misgivings from many
people living in the area, particularly St Peter’s Road which is also near to
the site, but their protests about concentrated industrial activity in such
close proximity to their homes also fell on deaf ears at our local authorities.
Now we have a narrow lane, once intended only for horses and carts, being used
by heavy lorries that are even unsuitable for the town centre streets but that
is not good enough. They want it all to themselves.
One thing is certain. Those who live in the flats will get no sympathy from
their local councillors because they have agreed to support the company’s
application. When it came before members of the town council’s highways and
planning committee for their comments last week, Councillor Mrs Shirley Cliffe
said: “We have been trying to get cars off that road for a long time. I support
double yellow lines on both sides of Manor Lane”, a remark that suggests she may
be quite out of touch with the electorate she purports to represent who find the
contagious spread of restrictive double yellow lines anathema.
The tenants of the flats then are on their own because town councillors have
come down on the side of big business. But they may have one consolation for
when the decision has been made, as it most surely will on behalf of the
company, Warners say that it could offer them parking opposite their plant where
plans are in the pipeline to develop wasteland into extra spaces at the
company’s official car parking site. Whether this will materialise and on what
terms, we will have to wait and see.
This is a problem that ought to have been addressed by our local planners in the
past and instead of allowing a commercial company to expand on the very edge of
the conservation area, they should have advised a relocation to an out of town
site long ago. The old Maltings has been part of this town since the early 19th
century and a previous owner, Mr J C Allen, managing director of Boston Tractors
Ltd, a firm of agricultural machinery specialists, was personally responsible
for the sympathetic restoration of the building to its present magnificence in
the street scene as a reminder of the town of yesteryear. Warners have been in
occupation since 1976 and many think that their expanding commercial operations
on this site have now become so vast that this would have been the appropriate
time to move to a less sensitive location rather than spread their buildings
even further into the town.
Such a decision might also include an admirable contribution to the cultural
life of Bourne because the old Maltings would make an excellent civic and
community centre were the company feeling sufficiently philanthropic to give it
to the people as a gift once it was vacated as part of their re-organisation.
These are pipe dreams and as long as our local councillors continue to support
their every whim, even when they seek to influence changes in the road parking
regulations, then it would seem inevitable that we will have to learn to live
with Warners in whatever they choose to do in the future. The people once again
find themselves completely helpless while the councillors they put in office
give their support instead to the powerful interests of big business.
What the local newspapers are saying: The great bypass debate which was
started by the Stamford Mercury two weeks ago continues in The Local
with a page of vox populi opinions on the recent call by the Mayor of
Bourne, Councillor Mrs Pet Moisey, for a north to south relief road to ease
traffic congestion in the town centre. Although there is little likelihood of it
materialising, the mayor rightly suggests that we should continue to campaign
for a bypass and keep the issue before those responsible, namely Lincolnshire
County Council.
The need for a bypass can be easily assessed on most days of the week by taking
a look at the mass of vehicles queuing up in the town centre where they are
causing serious environmental and road safety problems but there are some who
are prepared to put up with it and expect the rest of us to do the same. They
are the shopkeepers and Hazel Duffy, chairman of the Bourne Chamber of Trade and
Commerce, told the newspaper: “A bypass would kill a great deal of trade in
Bourne. The fact is that people driving through town and waiting at traffic
lights do notice the shops, which encourages them to park and shop. Cutting the
volume of traffic through town would have a direct and detrimental effect on our
businesses. We should not support action that is bad news for Bourne’s economy.”
In other words, let the cars and vans, coaches and caravans, articulated
lorries, trailers, trucks and tankers come in their thousands. Never mind that
these streets were originally intended for the horse and cart. Let them shake
our town centre buildings to their foundations, rip up our road surfaces, block
the carriageway, endanger the lives of pedestrians as they try to cross and
belch noxious fumes at passers-by as they wait at the traffic lights where
mothers struggle with pushchairs inches from the giant wheels of a juggernaut or
the foul exhaust of a garbage freighter. We must put up with all of this noise,
dirt, damage and pollution as long as we can keep the tills in the shops
jingling to the tune of perpetual profit. It is not so long ago that shops in
Bourne displayed notices seeking support for their campaign against pay parking
in the town, a cause that had some merit, but I doubt if similar requests to ban
a bypass would find much favour with their customers.
An interesting story is also carried by The Local about the A15 southern
relief road on which work has been halted and now stands half-finished, gated
and closed while lawyers argue about who will pay the bill and how (July 16th).
The original idea was that this would be part of the planning gain from Allison
Homes, builders of the 2,000-home Elsea Park estate on 300 acres of farmland,
but the original concept of the contractors footing the bill in its entirety has
already been altered and the project is now the subject of a ten-year £700,000
loan from South Kesteven District Council, the terms of which are still being
negotiated.
The report in The Local suggests that agreement has now been reached and
that work will resume within the next two months but adds: “Lincolnshire County
Council will now assume responsibility for completing the school, leaving the
way open for developers to finish the road.” If this means financial
responsibility, as we assume, then this is a statement of major significance and
it is surprising that if it is true, the newspaper did not develop it further
and give it the front page treatment it deserves.
Councillor John Smith (Bourne West), the South Kesteven District Council cabinet
member responsible for economic development, has given assurances that the
school together with a community hall, sports pitches and the relief road, were
the subject of a Section 106 agreement (S106), the legal contract that
formalises what will be provided by the developer for the new community (Bourne
Forum 14th February 2002) and it is up to his council to ensure that they do
eventually materialise. In some parts of the country, these agreements have been
drawn up in a sloppy fashion and have proved difficult to enforce and so perhaps
Councillor Smith will tell us what is happening and whether Bourne will get the
facilities agreed by the developers when planning permission was granted in
1999.
Bourne’s most treasured leisure amenity has been named as one of the top fifty
swimming pools in the country. The Stamford Mercury reports that the pool was
ranked 22nd of the best swimming pools in the United Kingdom by The Independent
and the fifth best lido (July 16th). The list was compiled by a panel of
experts, including Olympic gold medallist Duncan Goodhew MBE, who praised the
setting and excellent facilities. “Swimmers at this heated, almost Olympic-sized
lido float in historic surroundings”, said the newspaper. “It is a pretty
location surrounded by lawns and trees with a great view of the Abbey Church.”
Another accolade for the town goes to the Willoughby School that has been named
as the best in the region by the Stamford Mercury in its Super Schools
Competition, the results of which are announced this week (July 16th). Over the
past term, the newspaper has featured dozens of tributes from children who
wanted to record their gratitude for the dedication shown by those who run their
schools and, based purely on their nominations, three were chosen to share a
£2,000 prize, donated by sponsors. The Willougby School, which opened in 1980
and caters for students with learning difficulties, won the overall title and
will receive £1,000 that will go towards a new IT suite. Head teacher Adam
Booker was naturally jubilant. “This award reflects the hard work and effort of
all schools across the area, not just our own and it also acknowledges the
support we get from individuals and groups”, he said.
An annual bounty of fruit and nuts can be found in Bourne Wood and is collected
each year by those in the know, ranging from rose hips and blackberries to sloes
and crab apples. In past times, before the arrival of the supermarket culture,
there was a race to pick them when they were ready because food from the shops
was expensive and so additional nutrition from the countryside for the price of
a little physical effort was welcome for families on low incomes.
This week, we found the hazel nuts forming and the crop looks good for those who
know where to find them because they are not easy to see and it takes a trained
eye to spot them while anyone who thinks they might collect a basketful, perhaps
to keep for the Christmas festivities, will have to be quick because once they
are ready to pick, they disappear literally overnight, such is their popularity.
Hazel (Corylus avellana) is widely distributed in Europe and can be found in
woods, thickets and hedgerows, growing to around 30 feet although often
shorter and usually a broad bush, sometimes with a short trunk. The bark is a
smooth and shiny grey-brown and the female flowers begin as small brown buds
with protruding crimson stigmas, developing into clusters of one to four nuts,
each partly enclosed in a toothed green husk, and changing from whitish green in
mid-summer to pale pink brown and finally brown by the autumn when they are
ready for picking.
October is the best month, a time of wayside nibbling and sampling, because
hazel nuts are then at their prime and if you wish to have a go but find that
someone has been there first, try searching inside the foliage where the nuts
may have been sheltered from sight, from the wind or from squirrels who pick and
store them as their winter food. It will be a simpler task to go to Sainsburys
or Rainbow and buy a packet but paying for them at the checkout will not give
you the same pleasure as seeking them out in the wild and of course, they will
taste that much better.
Thought for the week: The trustees of Bourne United Charities have lately been
very secretive, unnecessarily so in my opinion, and I believe that a more open
approach would raise their standing in the eyes of the community.
- town
councillor Guy Cudmore, writing in the Bourne Forum, Sunday 11th July 2004.
Saturday 24th July 2004
There has been a buzz of speculation in the town about
changes at Bourne Grammar School in recent weeks following newspaper reports on
June 25th that its highly respected head teacher, Dr Stuart Miles, “was absent
at the moment and will be for the foreseeable future” although no other details
were released.
This has been a particularly disturbing situation because the school is one of
the flagship centres of education in South Lincolnshire and a lack of
information about what is happening at the helm leads to whispers and idle talk.
The governors ought to have been more open with the public rather than issuing
such an inadequate and enigmatic statement and ideally, our local newspapers
might have pursued the story and informed their readers of what is going on but
that did not happen either. Instead, we have had to wait for a letter to parents
from the governors that was sent out this week explaining that Dr Miles, who was
off for five months last year after suffering serious head injuries in a car
crash, was resigning with effect from August 31st on health grounds.
He has actually been away from his office since mid-June yet it took the
governors more than a month to come up with this explanation and the delay has
resulted in a wave of tittle-tattle that has done little for the reputation of
the school or the morale of the parents, pupils and staff. They have followed
the usual practice of many public organisations by covering up, saying nothing,
keeping things quiet, all the ingredients for a cauldron of speculation that
reached boiling point as the summer term ended.
But secrecy leaks like a sieve, even in the best kept households, because there
is always someone involved ready with a knowing wink, a word in your ear, or a
“don’t tell anyone I told you”, and so how they hoped to keep this matter under
wraps is beyond belief when the school has 1,000 pupils and more than 200 staff,
all of them with parents, relatives and friends anxious for any snippet of
information, correct or otherwise. The sum total of those immediately involved
therefore must be around 4,000 and attempting to keep the lid on something that
is a daily talking point among so many is an impossible task yet the governors
blithely continued with their policy of concealment, creating a climate of
disquiet into the bargain.
Dr Miles became head teacher in January 1998 and since his arrival, BGS has been
consistently ranked among the top performing schools in the country’s national
league tables. An Ofsted report earlier this year praised him for his clear
vision and leadership and the school’s high quality of education and pupil
achievement. If the governors knew that he was leaving the school, then it was
their duty to give the reasons why and not procrastinate because their delay
exacerbated a climate of gossip and hearsay.
Schools in Bourne have already undergone two major upheavals in recent years
that are now thankfully behind us. The Robert Manning Technology College parted
company with its head teacher Michael Kee in January 2001 after 17 years and
then suffered a financial crisis in which there was a £362,614 deficit, only
recouped by a four-year rescue plan and a threat to staffing levels, followed by
the resignation of Michael Warner as chairman of the governors. Then last
summer, parents of pupils at the Abbey Primary School protested when a senior
and much-loved teacher was declared redundant to offset a budget shortfall of
£65,000 and in November, head teacher Mark Gray announced his departure to begin
a new career in New Zealand. In each case the governors tried to keep the
information and their deliberations secret although much of it leaked out
piecemeal without any official statements from them and as a result the town was
awash with gossip and much of what circulated on both occasions still grinds in
the rumour mills.
These are dramatic events for a small community and it is unfortunate that three
of our schools should be involved in such short a time. But in each case, there
is a lesson to be learned by school governors. They must recognise the fact that
their appointment is not only an honour but also a duty. They must serve the
school they represent and keep parents and public informed of their decisions
with far more immediacy than in the past and not treat them as children by
denying them simple explanations of what is going on. The moment they shroud
themselves with the cloak of confidentiality, a seductive alternative to the
public path, they have lost sight of the very reason for them being nominated
for office in the first place.
In the meantime, we wish further success to Bourne Grammar School and in
remembering the valuable contribution made by Dr Miles, hope that he finds
happiness and satisfaction in the future.
The fiasco over the south west relief road, currently gated and closed on
the outskirts of Bourne, can be appreciated to the full by driving along its
length. The opportunity came this week when I found the metal barrier open and
so I went through and clocked 0.4 miles of completed carriageway, signed and
white-lined ready for use, before coming to a roundabout that signalled the end
of the first phase because it goes no further.
The road is part of the planning gain from the Elsea Park estate development but
work was halted in the autumn of 2002 and has still not been resumed as the
lawyers at South Kesteven District Council iron out the details of a massive
loan to the developers, Allison Homes, in order that it can proceed. It is now
July 2004 and so what have they been talking about all this time? The project
involves two councils, SKDC and Lincolnshire County Council, the highways
authority, and between them they have 135 elected councillors and a total staff
of almost 13,000 whose salaries eat up a large slice of their annual budgets and
will be responsible for another big increase in our council tax next April.
Both councils have value for money assessments on all aspects of their work and
perhaps this is the time to apply them to this project. Meanwhile, traffic flows
through the town, which this road was intended to relieve, increase and a
two-hour count by The Local newspaper on Thursday market day last week
showed 571 vehicles coming in from the south and 616 from the west. If the
relief road had been built according to the original plan, a large percentage of
this traffic would be using it and that would be of particular benefit,
especially as we have now been told that a north-south bypass is unlikely to
become a reality in our lifetime.
What the local newspapers are saying:
A report carried by
The Local on July 16th
that agreement had been reached between South Kesteven District Council and
Allison Homes to enable work recommence on the south west relief road started a
hare running because it also said that Lincolnshire County Council would now
assume responsibility for the primary school at Elsea Park which was also part
of the planning gain, the inference being that it would be paid for by the
public rather than the private purse which is not what we were told when
planning permission was granted in 1999.
However, Councillor John Kirkman (Bourne East), vice-chairman of SKDC, has since
told me that the county council will not be funding this school and that the
investment will be coming from the developer as part of the Section 106
agreement, the legal contract that formalises what they will provide for the new
community, and it will be up to this council to ensure that these benefits do
eventually materialise. A similar assurance has also been posted on the Bourne
Forum by Councillor John Smith (Bourne West), the council’s cabinet member
responsible for economic development, and so the moral is clear, that you should
not believe everything you read in the newspapers.
The Stamford Mercury devotes its front page to the departure of Bourne
Grammar School’s head teacher (July 23rd) and the report quotes Martin
Fisher, chairman of the governors, as saying: “Dr Miles has decided that he
should leave at this time to avoid the risk that the deterioration in his
health, which has occurred since his road accident in February last year, might
prevent him from carrying out his duties to the high standards he has always set
himself. The governors have accepted his resignation with regret and they wish
him all the best for the future.” Peter Cookson, currently deputy head teacher
at BGS, will become acting head teacher from September 1st.
That much discussed A15 bypass may not be the panacea for Bourne’s traffic
problems, according to a letter in The Local from town councillor Guy Cudmore
(July 23rd). “Part of the answer to congestion has to be to discourage people
from using cars within the town”, he says. “In other towns, retail developments
have provided bus links between their shops and the town centre. A fleet of
small buses could shift kids first thing, be available for journeys around town
for shopping during the day and take people home in the early evening.”
Councillor Cudmore is always a man to study these matters in depth and his solutions are invariable
glaringly obvious which makes it almost certain that they will never happen.
Another town councillor has an equally sensible solution to the problem of
litter in the streets of Bourne caused by the many fast food outlets that
appears in the letters column of the Stamford Mercury (July 23rd). “A few weeks
ago”, writes Councillor Jane Kingman Pauley, chairman of the highways and
planning committee, “a takeaway had to close early due to an incident and guess
what, no rubbish on the street next morning. I run a business in Bourne and at
the end of our day I sweep and clear all our rubbish away. I feel it is our
responsibility to keep Bourne clean and tidy and I know of many shops who do the
same. If takeaways did the same at the end of their trading day, midnight, we
would all see a cleaner Bourne.” This is an excellent suggestion that perhaps
might be extended to private homes throughout the town, as in some countries on
the Continent, and if this were to happen then our streets might well become the
cleanest in Britain.
Recycling has been one of the more welcome innovations by South Kesteven
District Council in recent years and the signs are that it is becoming a
success. The collection system at the moment is clumsy and cumbersome for it
entails homeowners storing big green and blue boxes for the various commodities
in the side passage or somewhere else convenient and when they are full they
overflow. But the basic idea must be a good one because it has cut the volume of
our weekly rubbish generated from our home by more than 30 per cent and the
knowledge that our cardboard, glass and other materials are being processed is
very satisfying.
This week, householders are taking part in a survey to determine whether the
glass bottle and jar scheme is working by completing a questionnaire to
determine how it can be improved. This particular project began last November
with the issue of blue plastic boxes as part of the £250,000 recycling scheme
launched by South Kesteven District Council. There are also green boxes for cans
and tins, plastic, paper and cardboard, but both systems operate in the same
way.
The questionnaire suggests bigger boxes for storage and although that would be
helpful, it is not the complete answer but a more frequent service is. The lorry
at present only comes round once every four weeks by which time most of the
boxes are full and so the first thing is to make this a fortnightly collection
and perhaps eventually weekly. The information provided is clear and easy to
read and a spot check on boxes left out for collection by my neighbours suggests
that most are participating and so this would seem to be the only major change
that needs to be made to ensure that recycling becomes one of the success
stories in our waste collection services because it also involves public
participation in a matter of serious environmental concern.
Thought for the week: Three may keep a secret if two of them are dead.
–
Benjamin Franklin, American scientist and statesman (1706-90) who, as a diplomat
in Paris, negotiated peace with Britain in 1783.
Saturday 31st July 2004
The most important story of the year for Bourne is
exclusively reported on the front page of the Stamford Mercury revealing
that wealthy local landowner and businessman Len Pick, who died in January at
the age of 94, has left the bulk of his £4 million estate for the benefit of the
town (July 30th). The newspaper says that he set up a trust fund during his
lifetime and this will be known as the Len Pick Charitable Trust, to be used for
the general benefit of the inhabitants of Bourne.
Mr Pick was educated at Bourne Grammar School but left at the age of 14 to join
the family coal business and eventually became manager. He also took over his
father’s firm of potato merchants and became a successful farmer and landowner,
but always remained passionate about the town where he was born, taking an
active interest in many areas of public life and becoming the leading supporter
of the Bourne Town Football Club whose fortunes he followed all his life. The
trustees will use their discretion in awarding grants for local organisations
and groups but several have already been singled out for special recognition
including the Abbey Church, the Outdoor Swimming Pool, the Darby and Joan Club
and the Butterfield Day Care Centre. The report says: “In setting up the trust,
Mr Pick had expressed the wish that the town where he earned his living for so
many years should benefit and it was only right that he should repay this debt
in a tangible manner.”
This is a particularly heart-warming story and one that will give encouragement
to the many organisations in Bourne that depend on voluntary help and are often
in need of financial aid. Too many charities are content to sit on their assets,
preferring to watch them grow rather than use what they have for the benefit of
the community. The trustees will have difficult decisions in their deliberations
in the future and it is to be hoped that they will keep in mind the wishes of
their benefactor when considering requests for help.
What the local newspapers are also saying: Bourne is becoming “a ghost
town”, according to The Local which devotes its front page to the future
of a boarded up shop in North Street that is likely to be turned into yet
another food outlet (July 30th). Shopkeepers and customers have spoken out
against the change of use and 300 signatures have been collected on a petition
submitted to South Kesteven District Council that will make the final decision.
The climate of opinion was summed up by Deborah Taylor-Martin who manages the
Greetings shop in the Burghley Centre. “There are not enough retail businesses
opening in Bourne”, she said. “We have plenty of eating places yet all of the
new shops seem to be food and drink orientated.”
A solution to Bourne’s shortage of car parking spaces has been suggested by
Robert Kitchener, secretary of the Civic Society, although it will not find
favour with many. He suggests in a letter to The Local that meadowland
adjoining The Croft, a large house in North Road currently the subject of a
planning application for new homes, should be used for free long-stay parking
instead (July 30th). “Bourne town centre must not become a massive car parking
arena”, he writes. “Traffic is a major concern in the town and the subject must
be addressed sooner rather than later, in a responsible manner.” Certainly, the
provision of car parking spaces must keep pace with demand but it is difficult
to reconcile the use of this land in a residential area for this purpose
especially as one of the main objections to it being developed as a new housing
estate is the traffic congestion it would cause on the main A15 that runs close
by which would be minimal compared to that generated by a free car park.
A discussion is underway in the Bourne Forum about the validity of street
markets and memories of the old days in Bourne when they appeared to be far more
popular than they are now. One contributor, Stan Watson, was particularly
mournful because he wrote: “Was there ever a better example of the complacency
of our local councils that no effort has gone into restoring the market to its
former glory? There used to be 70 or 80 stalls with traders from all over the
Midlands, selling fabrics, slippers, records, second hand books, clothing etc.
Now we are lucky if there is anyone other than Bill Pauley. And what does the
council do about it?”
Firstly, the council has little to do with it because the market is one of the
earliest forms of supply and demand and even the simplest bureaucratic
persuasion cannot create either if it does not exist. The local authority merely
provides the facilities. Secondly, there were never 70 stalls on Bourne market,
not now, recently or in the past. On Thursday market days twenty years ago, when
we moved to Bourne, you were lucky to get two dozen stalls along the pavements
in West Street and North Street and even if more traders did turn up, an unheard
of occurrence, there would not have been sufficient kerb space to accommodate
them and my archive of photographs showing the market over the past 150 years
supports this.
Certainly, the present market, now held on the purpose built site behind the
town hall, lacks the verve and vitality of the street market, and there are
fewer stalls than in years past but that is a sign of our changing times. The
supermarkets have taken their custom and universal mobility has given the public
a wider choice of when and where to shop.
Yes, we do love the street markets and they will survive but they must adapt to
our needs and this is being done in the larger undertakings such as the Borough
Market in London and the specialist markets elsewhere that still attract large
crowds. Their success is in offering quality food and other items at acceptable
prices and they are therefore catering for our longing to get a good deal for a
wide variety of products, a combination that can no longer be offered by half a
dozen stalls at the kerbside, even on the traditional sites in our small market
towns.
The success of car boot sales is proof that the people love to congregate and
shop for a bargain but as far as food, drink and the traditional market wares
are concerned, they can do that at Rainbow or Sainsburys and they can do it in
comfort and park easily into the bargain. Bourne market is struggling to survive
but, as Stan Watson suggests, its future seems to depend entirely on the
attendance of an old established fruit and vegetable stall that will not always
be with us and it would be a dismal prospect if we were witnessing the beginning
of the end of a much loved institution in Bourne.
A silver medal presented to the Bourne artist R A Gardner almost 100
years ago has been handed over for permanent display at the Heritage Centre in
Baldock's Mill, South Street. It was awarded to Mr Gardner for his landscape in
oils, showing the effects of the Great Flood of 1910 which devastated 1,500
acres of Bourne South Fen, after it had been entered in the Art and Industrial
Exhibition at the Corn Exchange in June 1911, the biggest event of its kind ever
held in the town which attracted 1,400 entries from around the country. The
picture was sold by raffle to raise money for exhibition funds and was won by Mr
J E Nixon and although a great deal of the artist's work remains to this day,
the subsequent fate of this painting and its whereabouts is now unknown.
The medal, however, survived. When Mr Gardner died in 1926, it was left to his
niece, Mrs Ernestine Dunbar, who had it framed before presenting it to Bourne
Urban District Council in his memory but it was thrown out with the rubbish when
the authority vacated its offices at Wake House after being disbanded in 1974.
Councillor Fisher rescued it from the waste tip and has now decided that it
should go to the Heritage Centre for safekeeping and he handed it over on
Wednesday to Mrs Brenda Jones, chairman of the Civic Society which runs the
Heritage Centre.
Robert Arthur Gardner (1850-1926) was manager of the Stamford, Spalding and
Boston Banking Company Ltd in North Street [now Barclays Bank] and chairman of
the Bourne bench of magistrates. He was also chairman of the Bourne Institute in
West Street [now the Pyramid Club], a trustee of Bourne United Charities and a
committee member of the Butterfield Hospital. He was also a keen cricketer and
member of the town XI but is best remembered for his reputation as a talented
painter. Several of his works were hung in the Royal Academy and he was
subsequently appointed an associate member. When he retired in 1912, he spent a
great deal of time at his home at Cawthorpe Hall painting scenes from the
surrounding countryside and the European countries he visited, frequently
donating his pictures for prizes to Bourne charities and other organisations and
as a result, many remain in private hands and several hang in the Red Hall.
In 1926, he took one of his usual holidays in the South of France where he
became ill and died at Nice on 2nd March 1926, aged 76. His body was brought
home and after a service at the Abbey Church, he was buried in Bourne cemetery
where his memorial can still be seen. Such was the esteem in which he was held
in the town that the blinds of all private residences were drawn during the
funeral and all business premises closed. His wife Sarah died 17 years later and
there were no children.
To coincide with the presentation, I have written a short illustrated biography
of R A Gardner and copies have been deposited with the Heritage Centre and the
reference section at Bourne public library.
One of the most frequent and popular of our wild flowers is the
honeysuckle (Lonicera periclymenum) that proliferates in Bourne Wood,
clinging to tree trunks and sometimes climbing to a height of twenty feet and
more.
It flowers between June and October, producing compact, creamy, trumpet-shaped
heads, often flushed with red or purple, and its heavy sweet scent makes it a
popular transplant for gardens although it can soon run out of control unless
severely pruned back. It is equally conspicuous in autumn with its clusters of
crimson berries. Night flying moths are attracted by the scent, which is
strongest at dusk, and pollinate the flowers as they seek nectar.
The Latin name Lonicera was given to the plant by Carolus Linnæus
(1707-78), the Swedish botanist who devised the classification of plants and
animals that is still in use today, in honour of Adam Lonicer, a physician and
naturalist, born at Marburg, Germany, in 1528, who wrote, among other works, the
Naturalis Historiæ Opus Novum which contains a great deal of curious
information about plants.
There are 300 varieties of honeysuckle and many have medicinal properties, most
famously as an aphrodisiac, and are still regarded by the Arabs as an excellent
restorative while the roots, if eaten, are reputed to be good for the liver, to
ease cramps and convulsions while our own common English wild honeysuckle has
expectorant and laxative properties and the flowers, in the form of a syrup,
have been used to treat diseases of the respiratory organs, asthma and
headaches.
The Greek physician Pedanios Dioscorides (fl. 1st century AD), who compiled the
first pharmacopoeia cataloguing drugs and their preparation, wrote:
The ripe seed gathered and dried in the
shadow and drunk for four days together, doth waste and consume away the
hardness of the spleen and removeth wearisomeness, helpeth the shortness and
difficulty of breathing, cureth the hicket [hiccough] etc. A syrup made of the
flowers is good to be drunk against diseases of the lungs and spleen.
But perhaps the best summary of the honeysuckle’s curative
powers comes from the English physician and botanist Nicholas Culpeper (1616-54)
whose herbal remedies for the treatment of disease were used throughout the
world. He wrote:
Honeysuckles are cleansing, consuming and
digesting, and therefore no way fit for inflammations. Take a leaf and chew it
in your mouth and you will quickly find it likelier to cause a sore mouth and
throat than cure it. If it be not good for this, what is it good for? It is good
for something, for God and nature made nothing in vain. It is fitting a conserve
made of the flowers should be kept in every gentlewoman’s house; I know no
better cure for the asthma than this, besides it takes away the evil of the
spleen; provokes urine, procures speedy delivery of women in travail, relieves
cramps, convulsions and palsies, and whatsoever griefs come of cold or
obstructed perspiration; if you make use of it as an ointment, it will clear the
skin of morphew [a leprous or scurfy eruption], freckles, and sun-burnings, or
whatever else discolours it, and the maids will love it. Authors say, the
flowers are of more effect than the leaves, and that is true: but they say the
seeds are the least effectual of all. But there is a vital spirit in every seed
to beget its like; there is a greater heat in the seed than any other part of
the plant; and the heat is the mother of action.
Herbal remedies are less popular today although still an
important treatment for some people. The flowers are still with us in the
countryside and for the next few weeks, the honeysuckle in Bourne Wood will be
at its best. Go and take a look before it fades for another year.
Message from abroad: I have just spent six weeks in South Lincolnshire
visiting relatives and we went through Bourne on two occasions on the way to
Stamford. I took particular note of the new housing on the site of the old fever
hospital that you have featured on the web site and, needless to say, it is
unrecognisable. The woods still stand though in all their glory. The traffic was
not too bad the day we went through town. Your pictures today are very, very
clear and show the chaos the construction must be causing. Thanks for keeping us
up to date on all the current events. - email from Winnie Nowak, Anchorage,
Alaska, USA, Sunday 25th July 2004.
Thought for the week: What a hideous and monstrous thing war is and what
a miserable, antiquated and senseless method it is of settling difficulties.
– letter home from Private Victor Davies, son of Bourne schoolmaster Joseph
Davies, while serving as a stretcher-bearer at Gallipoli during the Great War,
19th August 1915.
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