Bourne Diary - July 2006

by

Rex Needle

Saturday 1st July 2006

It has become apparent that the bid to move the market back on to the street is little more than a damp squib. The prime movers have failed to articulate their case with any conviction, relying instead on nostalgia and emotion, while the public consultation carried out by The Local newspaper has produced yawns throughout the town centre with petition forms lying untouched in shops and in the post office and the clear answer is that most people are perfectly happy with the way things are.

Gordon Cochran, chairman of the Chamber of Trade, is anxious to redress the balance and his spirited theory about kerbside stalls being in favour with the small trader and perhaps the town in general has been added to the web site. But the town is beginning to realise that the market is perfectly satisfactory where it is. Time will tell whether this drastic change will come to fruition but in the final analysis, it seems inevitable that bureaucratic judgement will prevail and, however rare it may be, in this case it is most likely to be one of common sense.

The answer lies in the past, as with common law where judgments are made on precedent, and the evidence on this basis does not support a market move which is by no means a new idea. Street markets have been held in Bourne for seven centuries but in years past the pace of town life was quiet and unhurried, a situation that changed dramatically with the invention of the internal combustion engine. Today, the motor car rules our lives and its presence in the streets is marked by white and yellow lines, double and single, traffic lights and various signs, and a pervading threat, even menace, that you are in the wrong wherever you park.

Stalls that require a slower and less regulated environment need to be sited well away from the hurly burly of traffic flows which is why they were taken off the streets in December 1999 and given their own unhindered space behind the town hall, a welcome decision by South Kesteven District Council after a most lengthy, costly and complicated legal procedure. It might have happened earlier had the old Bourne Urban District Council been more forceful in its endeavours because in 1965 there was an attempt to shift the market off the streets where it was causing problems to a site in St Peter’s Road behind the Bourne Institute, now the Pyramid Club.

The council’s estates committee considered buying the land for this purpose because of growing disquiet about the existing location in the town centre which was becoming increasingly dangerous from traffic flows but the move was thwarted by daunting legalities that will most certainly prevent the present proposal from materialising.

The devil was in the detail of the market charter, granted by Edward I in 1279, a legal document signed two years later in 1281 that is now held in the British Museum. Market rights subsequently passed to the Marquess of Exeter who sold them to BUDC and they were then acquired by SKDC under the local government reorganisation of 1974. They decree that stalls cannot be moved without prior permission from central government which in 1965 was the Ministry of Housing and Local Government and BUDC decided that this was too complex a bureaucratic path to follow and so the idea was shelved. Thirty-four years later, as problems with kerbside trading worsened, SKDC bit the bullet and a safer and more convenient environment for the market is the result. We should commend this courageous decision.

Moving the market back on to the street will involve a similar procedure and also require the approval of both the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and the Department of Transport, as well as permission from SKDC which controls the market rights and Lincolnshire County Council, the highways authority, which will need to sanction a closure order each Thursday the market is held in West Street.

But support for this idea is draining away and now the town council has agreed to put the issue on the back burner. The deputy mayor, Councillor Jayne Pauley, herself a market stallholder with her husband Bill, has admitted that the move may not be realistic after all because she is reported as saying: “It seems that for one reason or another it just will not be practical to move the market to West Street.” (Stamford Mercury, June 23rd).

Councillor Pauley has however come up with yet another idea, that of holding the market within the new town centre development when the £25 million scheme is completed. “The whole focus of the town will change”, she told the newspaper, “and it would be good all round if the market could be sited in the market square which has appeared in the plans. It would be excellent for business and would also enhance the shopping experience in the new town centre.”

Fortunately, those at the cutting edge of local government, the paid officials, have already sounded a clarion call of caution about moving the market. This is too much of a commotion over something that is little more than a pipe dream by the few rather than a serious proposal that will benefit the many. Moving the market is not a priority. It is not even a problem. There are many things in this town that need the attention of our councillors without sending them off on a wild goose chase and wasting time on pursuing such unviable propositions.

Weekly markets, like small shops, are under threat from supermarkets and councillors can hardly reverse the trend by approving new developments, as Bourne Town Council did last week when members voted for the Anglia Regional Co-operative Society’s new store on the industrial site at the corner of Cherryholt Road and South Road while at the same time supporting local shopkeepers in their attempts to stimulate business in the town centre. There seems to be no sense in it and traders in the town must wonder whose side they are on.

This contrariness affects most of us because we prefer to patronise the big stores but are reluctant to lose our small shops yet coexistence between the two is becoming increasingly difficult. Supermarkets are therefore here to stay because they are so convenient and as this has become the public preference then the local authorities should recognise this and adapt their policies accordingly, no matter how difficult a path that is to follow.

The answer is problematic but that it what we elect our councillors for and perhaps they can look at those areas of the country that have resisted the big shed developments where the community has benefited accordingly. Trail-blazing efforts in Suffolk, for instance, to protect small shops against the threat of superstores, will give hope to the rest of the country.

Lady Caroline Cranbrook has surveyed the food chain in East Suffolk for eight years and her report was published this week by the Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE). The research reveals that the number of local and regional food suppliers in the area has risen from 300 to 370 with a wider range of products being sold although the overall number of shops has stayed constant, bucking the national trend of decline.

In an earlier report by Lady Cranbrook in 1997, when Tesco wanted to open a new store near Saxmundham, a survey was carried out at 81 food shops in seven surrounding market towns and 19 villages to assess the possible impact and a total of 67 shops thought they would close if Tesco opened. Planning permission was refused and since then, although 14 shops including five post office stores closed, the same number have opened.

Lady Cranbrook, a staunch supporter of individual shops selling local produce, led a high profile delegation to Westminster on Monday where she told MPs that there is a stark choice facing the country which can either have more superstores or more local food, shops and jobs linking people with the places and landscapes where they live. She added: “It is particularly important that we should try and maintain the network at a time when people want to buy local food. The situation is urgent with 2,000 small shops nationally closing every year and unless there is some sort of intervention a tipping point will be reached. This is when there are not enough small shops to keep wholesalers in business.”

From the archives - perils of the street market: Messrs Lawson and Son, glass and china dealers of Boston, sued Henry Schmetzer, a butcher, of West Street, at Bourne County Court for £1 17s. 3d., being damage to crockery by defendant’s sheep. The facts, which were not disputed, were that plaintiff was driving some sheep to his premises and when near the market pitch in West Street, Bourne, occupied by the plaintiffs, the animals jumped in amongst the crockery and did damage to the amount claimed. Defendant contended that the goods were displayed on the highway and that there was no protection provided by the plaintiff. His Honour, giving judgment for the plaintiff, for the amount claimed, said that the goods were lawfully on the highway. – news report from the Stamford Mercury, Friday 26th March 1926.

What the local newspapers are saying: Both of our main weeklies are full of ands, ifs and buts in their main stories with little real consequence as a result but then that is so often the stuff of parish pump reporting. The town may get buses every hour, reports The Local on a possible benefit from a £350,000 cash injection by Lincolnshire County Council to improve community transport in Bourne (June 30th) although nothing is likely to happen much before 2009. Bourne Grammar School could be accepting busloads of Stamford’s most gifted children, says the Stamford Mercury, but not for another two years and only then if the scheme to phase out 350 scholarships at Stamford Endowed Schools is agreed by the county education committee (June 30th).

Then we have the prospect of an east-west by-pass for Bourne within five years, according to The Local which reports that South Kesteven District Council has issued a document suggesting using land to the east of Cherryholt Road for industrial expansion and, if approved, the developers would almost certainly have to provide a link through to the Spalding Road (June 30th). “This is the first realistic move towards providing a bypass in the near future,” says the report. “The road would meet up with the relief road which opened last year between West Road and the Elsea Park roundabout to form an east-west bypass.” This would certainly be an asset to the town but as Councillor John Kirkman told the newspaper, this is merely a consultation procedure to determine how land should be used in the future. He added: “I estimate that the new link road could be built in as little as five to ten years.”

Similarly, the Stamford Mercury tells us that there are new concerns over the future of the bus station in Bourne after seeing the same document from SKDC identifying the site as being within an area for major housing or commercial development “at some time in the future” (June 30th) yet most of us are still full of the old concerns that have not yet been resolved. Nevertheless, there is suitable outrage as town councillor Mrs Pet Moisey told the newspaper: “The bus station is a vital transport link for everyone in Bourne and should not be messed with at all.”

Both of these stories are a reiteration of past hopes and fears, referring to a consultation document issued by South Kesteven District Council known as the Local Development Framework (LDF) which is valid until 2021 and to put them in context we need to read the explanation from council planning official Mark Harrison who told The Local: “The framework is important because the sites being identified are those that might be developed in years to come. We need as many views as possible, whether in favour or against. Local people might have better suggestions to make.”

You can decide for yourself by reading the consultation document at the council’s offices in the Town Hall, the SKDC web site or the public library.

The start of the Battle of the Somme is being remembered today, one of the bloodiest conflicts of the Great War ninety years ago when the British lost more than 19,000 men on the first day alone. By the end of the campaign in November there were over 420,000 British and Commonwealth casualties. The population of this country at that time was 46 million and so the number of men serving in the forces meant that few families did not have a relative at the front. Among them was Private Martin Barnes, an infantryman, of Willoughby Road, Bourne, who had enlisted with the Sherwood Foresters. He was wounded and was sent to recover at a hospital in France from where he wrote home on Friday 8th December 1916 to his old headmaster, Mr Joseph Davies, at the primary school in Abbey Road, about the quiet courage of his comrades:

Every man who has been engaged on the Somme front has earned a name for himself that ought never to be forgotten. We were engaged in the fighting at Trones Wood and to lose that wood was one of our greatest setbacks for it changed hands no fewer than four times before the 21st Division took it. We were their reserves. It took six hours and a half to drive the Germans out. The Northamptons and West Kents at last succeeded in driving them out but not until those battalions had lost nearly all their men. We relieved them. I am proud to say we even took the enemy trenches in front of us. But the roll call proved how heavily we had paid for it. Sir Douglas Haig [Commander-in-Chief of the British Expeditionary Force 1915-18] congratulated us on our gallant stand against the big odds and their heavy fire.

Private Barnes came home. Many of his comrades did not.

Thought for the week: Lest we forget - lest we forget!
- Rudyard Kipling, British writer and poet (1865-1936), from his poem Recessional.

Saturday 8th July 2006

The current malaise afflicting local government is that we have too much of it and the manifold branches have little idea what the others are doing yet we are still footing the bill for this inefficiency and confusion.

A perfect example from this modern Tower of Babel emerged last week when Lincolnshire County Council announced a community transport initiative that would provide hourly bus services around the town, so reducing car journeys and therefore making a contribution towards saving the environment which is the buzz motivation at the moment, irrespective of whether the grandiose proposals will ever materialise. At the same time, South Kesteven District Council published its development plans for the area over the next fifteen years and these included the possible closure of the bus station in North Street which officers have repeatedly claimed is underused. It is impossible not to relate one proposal with the other and we are tempted to ask whether the two authorities involved have actually consulted with each other on these issues, although we may assume that they have not.

Much of that which now emanates from the county offices in Lincoln and the council offices in Grantham is so much hot air, pumped into the public domain under the pretext of consultation and people participation yet many consider it little more than job justification by a highly paid staff of officials and approved by councillors who have become ciphers to their endeavours, unwilling or perhaps even unable to question ineffectual policy whenever it appears on the agenda.

The council tax has soared on average by 91% in the past ten years while services are being drastically pruned and assets sold off as salaries rise and staffing levels increase. Every area of expenditure is closely scrutinised by the budgetary wizards toiling away in back rooms for even more spending economies and soon our councils will resemble those in the old Soviet Union that became a bureaucracy of Orwellian proportions, existing for their own sakes to secure employment rather than the provision of services for the public good.

In an ideal democracy, people would remonstrate en masse that enough is enough and initiate suitable reprisals against what is being done in their name but it takes courage to join the awkward squad and so membership is small and new recruits sparse and it is left to a valiant few to take up the cudgels against a system that is becoming grossly unfair with each year that passes. The result is that those who do protest in the only way they know how against the conduct of our local authorities by withholding their council tax soon find themselves punished severely, like 69-year-old pensioner Josephine Rooney. She stopped her payments to Derby City Council as a sign of disapproval of the authority’s refusal to clean up the street outside her home which has become a haven for drug dealers and was taken to court and jailed, so joining a growing list of oldies who have an acute awareness of social injustice and were prepared to challenge their local authorities for what they see as gross incompetence but found themselves behind bars for their actions.

How many more old folk must be put away before our councils realise that they have lost the confidence of the people they represent? Unfortunately, they now have the last word with the bailiffs standing by to collect unpaid council tax or face the consequences and so the individual has been rendered virtually powerless while elected councillors, our only link with these authorities, appear to have been emasculated and as there is little sign that the situation is likely to change in the foreseeable future, we must pay up and shut up.

What the local newspapers are saying: A series of measures to curb vandalism at the Abbey Lawn were suggested at a crisis meeting called at the Corn Exchange in Bourne on Monday evening with closed circuit television high on the list of priorities. The Local reports that South Kesteven District Council has offered to supply cameras at a cost of £17,000 and will monitor them for £2,000 a year while the police promised that their CCTV van would visit the site intermittently (July 7th).

There was also a suggestion that the ground should be out of bounds to children during the day after the chairman, Terry Bates, told the meeting: “School lunchtimes are a nightmare. One boy finished up in hospital after a recent fight.” The police also condemned the action of some youngsters. “Two teenagers were caught trying to damage the football ground at 4 am one Saturday”, said Constable Steve Smith. “Do we know where our children are at that time of the morning? Do we make enough checks when our child says they are staying at a friend’s house?” But Adrian Smith of the Len Pick Trust said that the problem was one of collective responsibility. “We are being reactive by saying that the problem lies with children”, he said, “when it lies with every one of us.”

There was also encouraging support from head teachers at local schools, the town council, Bourne United Charities which owns the ground, residents and members of the various sports clubs which use it together with several organisations who all gave support to the various suggestions which will be investigated by a working party to increase security. These include the use of dogs to patrol the site, the erection of fences to protect club premises, a dusk to dawn curfew, new bylaws and the introduction of an alcohol free zone.

All of these suggestions will now be considered by the working party but the crunch will come over the costs because most of the ideas mooted will involve spending money and it will be interesting to see which of those organisations that support strict measures to curb vandalism at the Abbey Lawn will contribute to their implementation.

Six water mills are mentioned in the Bourne entry of the Domesday Book of 1086 but only one survives and that is Baldock’s Mill at No 21 South Street. It has had many previous names because mills are traditionally known by the most recent occupant and as the Baldock family were the last to live there, Baldock’s Mill is the name that survives to this day.

The present mill dates back to 1800 but stopped working around 1924 when the last water wheel collapsed and was not repaired. The building is now Grade II listed and owned by Bourne United Charities but has been leased to the Civic Society since 1981 for use as a Heritage Centre.

Frederick Baldock took over in 1905 but was more occupied with his timber and carpentry business than milling, having served his apprenticeship at Keal Cotes, near Spilsby, and after moving to Bourne he worked primarily in this trade. His workshop was on the land attached to the mill that now forms part of the Wellhead Gardens. The business was prosperous,  specialising in crates for packaging, gates and fences, but the  workshop was demolished to make way for the Darby and Joan Hall when it was built in 1959.

He ran the business until retiring in 1930 when his son John, always known as Jack, took over and so he was the last tenant of the mill and he died in the summer of 1960, aged 66, although his family stayed on until 1968. The family of Frederick Baldock (1863-1938) and his wife Annie (née Hipkin 1869-1938) therefore occupied the mill for more than sixty years.

There was also a Baldock's Mill in the United States although no connection between the two has yet been established. In 1741, a convict called Richard Baldock was sentenced to be deported from England to the colonies for seven years after being found guilty of stealing a cow but he married after his release and his son, also called Richard, built Baldock's Mill in Amherst County, Virginia. This mill continued in business until 1940 when it was sold and although the building has been destroyed on two occasions, once by flood and then by fire, it has since been rebuilt and is now known as Brightwell's Mill.

The substantial fortune left to this town by the late Len Pick (1909-2004) is already beginning to benefit many organisations and we are grateful for his philanthropy. But we should not forget that money has to be earned and although amassing it in any quantity eludes most of us, those that do must have qualities we do not possess.

Len was not a highly educated man, preferring hard work to schooling, but the lessons he learned in life came from experience that soon earned him a reputation as an astute businessman although much of this awareness came from his father.

Thomas Pick was a farmer and potato merchant, always on the lookout for additional land either to buy or to rent for either way it could be turned into a profit and the idea of branching out into a very successful coal delivery business came while trying to solve a difficult situation as his son related in an interview in February 1999 with the late Martin Frisby-Boor, chairman of the Bourne Family History Society. A transcript was retained with his papers when he died in 2005 and are now in the custody of the Civic Society at the Heritage Centre:

Whenever we had land we grew corn on it for a start and when threshing time came we needed coal for the old steam engine to work the machines but one day our delivery did not arrive and Dad went to old Ted Parker in Abbey Road and said: “Can you let me have a ton of coal for threshing. I’ve been let down with a load.” Old Ted said: “You get the beggar where you’ve bin getting’ it.” So Dad thought: “Well, it’s about time you had a bit of competition.”

So he went to see Mr Stennett at the railway station and said: “Harry, I want some advice. Who sends the most coal to this area?”

Harry said a firm from Chesterfield and Dad said: “Give me their address and I’ll write to them.”

They wrote back and said that a Mr Jackson was their representative who attended Spalding market every Tuesday in the vicinity of the White Hart Hotel, informed Dad of the times he would be there and described the man and what he wore in his lapel by way of identification. Dad went back to Harry at the station and said: “Here you are, here’s ten bob. You get down there for nowt, get yourself a pint or two and order me a truck of coal.”

And that’s how we got started in the coal business and I went into it in 1926 when I was only 16 years old.

The wheelie bin debate: What should I do if the wheelie bin is full? - Simply display the words Bin Laden Here in your window. This will ensure that you are visited promptly. What about those who live in a block of flats? They will be issued with airline-style chutes enabling them have the bin at the kerbside within 18 seconds. - extract from “Ten questions about your wheelie bin” published in the latest edition of the village newsletter at Aslackby, near Bourne.

Message from abroad: Dear Mr. Needle and staff: We think you have created a wonderful Bourne web site. The historical narrations together with the excellent photography are most delightful to read and view. You have made the site so interesting as you have brought the historical together with the present day. You bring focus to conscientiousness in plans for Bourne's future together with a respect and value for contributions of the previous generations' toil and accomplishments. Commendable in today’s fast paced and often too hasty world! A daughter, son-in-law and two grandsons make Bourne their home town. - email from Barbara and Ivan George, Salem, South Carolina, USA, Monday 26th June 2006.

Thought for the week: What is a rebel? A man who says no.
- Albert Camus, French existentialist novelist, essayist and dramatist (1913-60).

Saturday 15th July 2006

Firemen were called to Bourne Cricket Club’s pavilion at the Abbey Lawn early on Monday morning but despite their efforts, damage running into thousands of pounds was caused to the bar, lounge, kitchen and changing rooms. There were early suspicions of arson and that vandals who have been plaguing the sports ground for some time may have struck again but an investigation revealed that the outbreak was caused by an electrical fault. Nevertheless, this is a set back for the club at the height of the season and on the eve of the 40th anniversary of the pavilion’s official opening.

The alarm was raised at 3.45 am by a local resident and three fire crews were soon on the scene but although the building is still intact, they were unable to save the interior. It is now boarded up and a portable building has been erected nearby for use as changing rooms by players for future fixtures until the damage is repaired. All days games have been cancelled because of difficulties with catering but competition and school matches at weekends will continue.

Coincidentally, the new pavilion was built as a result of another fire that wrecked the old building in the summer of 1965, thus causing a tremendous upheaval for Bourne Cricket Club which has been using the Abbey Lawn since it was formed in March 1882 when the land was rented from a local farmer for matches and practice at an annual payment of £5 a year.

The pavilion and changing rooms built in the early years hardly kept pace with the club’s expansion and in 1965 modernisation plans were afoot but fate took a hand and speeded up the project. In the early hours of Saturday 17th July, Mr George Mooney from Middleton, near Manchester, was driving through Bourne with his family on his way to the east coast for their summer holidays. The route took him down Abbey Road and as he passed the cricket ground he saw smoke coming from the pavilion. He stopped and raised the alarm but by the time the brigade arrived the wooden building was enveloped in flames and nothing could be done to save it or the contents.

At the height of the blaze, the brigade, under the command of Sub Officer Jack Mears, used two powerful water jets but there was a constant danger from the intense heat generated by the fire and many of the asbestos tiles were being blown some distance with great force, several ending up against the wall of the outdoor swimming pool 160 yards away.

The building was burned down to the brick foundation walls except for a small section of the kitchen area which was sheathed in metal. All of the catering equipment, four new dining tables, crockery for 40 people, three complete sets of cricket gear, two dozen tubular chairs, several deck chairs and 18 new balls (themselves worth £50), were lost while outside, a semi-circular area extending to more than 20 yards at the front of the pavilion was scorched by the heat. Also lost in the blaze were the club’s records of score books, match reports and old photographs.

The cause remains unknown but vandalism was not suspected. The building was left secure after a Hodgkinson Cup semi-final on Friday night between Great Ponton and Billinghay but the weekend games with Oakham II and Egerton Park were cancelled owing to the loss of the club’s equipment.

Reg Sones, the club’s vice-chairman, surveyed the devastation. “We feel that part of Bourne has gone”, he said. “While the amenities were not up to the best standards for our players, the old pavilion was one of the best in the district and has seen many famous players in its time. There were plans to upgrade the facilities but these will now have to be scrapped and we will start again from scratch and put up a new pavilion.”

The club soon realised that the losses were not entirely covered by their insurance and within weeks, a Pavilion Appeal Fund was launched to help cover the cost of rebuilding. A sub-committee was appointed to prepare the scheme for a new pavilion built of cedar wood with a shingle roof, containing a members frontage with kitchen quarters, dressing rooms and ablutions and costing around £5,000. The design was chosen after a similar structure had been inspected and approved at Stratford-upon-Avon which, it was decided, would blend equally well with the Abbey Lawn ground.

The club urged all speed for the project to cater for the growing number of people who enjoyed their weekends watching cricket and taking tea on the ground and also to retain an important series of arranged fixtures, including the Minor Counties match which was due to take place there that summer.

A letter asking for financial support was circulated throughout the town and a separate appeal was made to the club’s playing members which produced a favourable response. Applications were also made for grant aid to various organisations and local authorities but the club was deeply aware that it must retain the public’s loyalty. “It is difficult to design a pattern of development without a strong basis of local support”, said the letter. “Even without this loss, had we not had the patronage of many kind people we should probably have put up the shutters long ago. This situation is no novelty for cricket has always relied on patronage to maintain a place in the community and the club will be most grateful to receive any assistance you may be able to give on this somewhat special occasion.”

Despite being deprived of the building in mid-season, the club continued to honour its later fixtures and a marquee was erected on the Abbey Lawn as a changing room while various premises in the vicinity were utilised for the serving of teas. Plans for the new pavilion were soon drawn up during the summer months and on November 8th, a tender in the sum of £4,428.37 was accepted from Messrs Barnsdale & Sons of Donington, near Spalding, for completion within four months. Progress was on schedule and the new pavilion was opened on 3rd August 1966 by the Earl of Ancaster, the club president, all within a year of the fire, a remarkable achievement. The money had been found through a grant from the Department of Education of Science (£1,555), an insurance claim on the old premises (£1,400) with fund raising and donations from various sources making up the balance.

The opening of the new pavilion forty years ago this summer was a milestone in the history of the club that has gone from strength to strength ever since although the latest disaster will be a major set back and one that will take several months to put right.

What the local newspapers are saying: Vandalism at the Abbey Lawn continues to occupy the headlines in all of our local newspapers and Hedley Stroud, chairman of Bourne Cricket Club, who was interviewed by the Stamford Mercury in connection with the pavilion fire, revealed that they had already spent £10,000 on remedial work following various attacks in which damage was caused to the premises (July 14th). “In the past we have had our windows smashed, the roof damaged and our aerials destroyed and the situation is getting worse”, he said. “Perhaps closed circuit television or a safety fence would be effective but either way something needs to be done quickly.”

Security at the Abbey Lawn is the responsibility of the owners, Bourne United Charities, but the trustees have remained silent on this issue although one of them, Councillor Shirley Cliffe, has spoken on the subject in her capacity as a member of the town council. The Lincolnshire Free Press reports that she told a meeting of the finance and general purposes committee on Tuesday of last week that an offer from South Kesteven District Council to install CCTV cameras at a cost of £17,000 with a £2,000 annual charge had been rejected and she was disappointed as a result (July 11th). “I thought that this was a good price”, she added. “That would have covered the entire Abbey Lawn and gone a good way towards overcoming the problem.”

In fact, CCTV appears to be the perfect solution for a problem that has persisted at the Abbey Lawn in Bourne for many years, much to the detriment of the sports clubs which use it that have experienced similar difficulties to that outlined by Mr Stroud. Perhaps Councillor Cliffe can use her influence in the board room at the Red Hall when BUC trustees next meet to seek an agreement on this offer from SKDC, a decision that would receive much public acclaim. It would also demonstrate that the money they administer is being used as it was intended, for the benefit of this town, and as the organisation has sufficient funds at its disposal to meet the costs involved, it only needs a show of hands by the fifteen trustees to demonstrate that they care not only about their property assets but also those who are allowed to use them.

The wheelie bin debate: We were in London over the weekend and were surprised to see wheelie bins everywhere. They have become part of the street scene but what an unsightly mess they have created. Come September, this is what we can expect in Bourne.

The capital is full of terraced houses with no rear access and so wheelie bins are left on the pavement, in tiny front gardens, side porches, in small groups at the kerbside and any other available space, thus creating widespread municipal disarray. Residents claim that they are a necessary evil because the previous system using black plastic bags was unacceptable as they were regularly ripped open by urban foxes seeking discarded food and scattering the contents in the process.

Rubbish and its disposal is a particular problem in London which has a population of eight million people and wheelie bins and other similar receptacles, often much larger in size, are the current solution and one that is unlikely to be changed in the foreseeable future. The decision has been taken for Bourne and the project is now so well advanced as to be irreversible.

Wheelie bins therefore, as with telegraph poles, satellite television dishes, electricity cables and other unsightly wires, are being added to our street clutter and we will have to learn to live with them.

Home owners face draconian measures from their local authority if they do not co-operate with the use of their wheelie bins, according to events in the West Country this week. In Exeter, 46,000 homes have been issued with one grey for disposable rubbish and one green for recyclables such as cans, plastic, cardboard and paper, collected on alternate weeks. On Monday, Donna Challice, aged 31, a mother of three, became the first person in England to be prosecuted for putting non-recyclable waste into the green wheelie bin at her home in Hazel Road, Exeter, on six occasions between November 2005 and February 2006, contrary to the Environmental Protection Act. Fortunately, sanity ruled and she was cleared of all charges by magistrates at Cullompton.

But the council was unrepentant and immediately issued a statement warning that it would not tolerate the wilful “contamination” of green recycling bins. “Although we are disappointed with the outcome, we are pleased that this case has raised the profile of recycling and highlighted the importance of doing so”, said Pete Edwards, Lead Councillor for Environment and Leisure. “We will not stop encouraging people to recycle and will continue to take action. It takes only one person to contaminate their green bin and we have to discard a whole lorry load of recyclables. We cannot let the thoughtless minority spoil it for the selfless majority.”

Last week, I highlighted the plight of those who felt so strongly about the inefficiencies of their local authority that they were prepared to go to jail for withholding their council tax in protest. Now home owners risk a court appearance for putting the wrong rubbish in their wheelie bins, a system of refuse collection that has been forced upon us without the benefit of universal approval and has indeed been the subject of much derision. It is the task of our councils to provide public services but calling upon the law is now becoming an accepted method of enforcing unpopular policies and we should view this development with some disquiet. Councils are supposedly run by our elected representatives but many will regard this as a gross misuse of the powers they have been entrusted with on behalf of the people.

Thought for the week (1): I have always looked upon cricket as organised loafing. - William Temple, Archbishop of Canterbury (1881-1944), in a speech to parents when headmaster of Repton School.

Thought for the week (2): I tend to believe that cricket is the greatest thing that God ever created on earth, certainly greater than sex, although sex isn't too bad either.
- Harold Pinter, English dramatist (1930- ), quoted by The Observer newspaper on 5th October 1980.

Saturday 22nd July 2006

Discoveries of unexploded bombs from the Second World War of 1939-45 are becoming fewer than in the past although in the years immediately following the conflict they turned up with alarming regularity. The majority were small incendiaries, or fire bombs, but many were huge German aerial bombs, often up to 1,000 lb. each, that had buried themselves so deeply in the ground that they were never discovered and busy civil defence teams working at full stretch at the time merely filled in the craters without making a thorough search.

As a result, they were often unearthed during subsequent building operations when the site was being developed with the usual precautions ensuing, the area being cordoned off until the bomb was made safe and then hauled away for a controlled explosion. It is thought that there are still some below the surface around the inner cities which took the brunt of the blitz that have not yet been discovered but are probably in a sufficiently safe place not to incur public concern.

Explosives and ammunition used by our defence forces have been another problem because when the Home Guard was stood down in 1945 small caches that had been hidden were forgotten and although these would be less lethal than the high explosive monsters dropped by the Luftwaffe, the danger from them is no less real.

An example of the threat they posed and the havoc they could cause in the community occurred at Baston, near Bourne, forty years ago. A gang of boys out searching for firewood on Saturday afternoon, 23rd January 1965, entered a disused pigsty and found four wooden boxes of Molotov cocktail grenades which had sufficient power to blow up the entire village. The boys ran home and told their parents who alerted the police and soon a bomb disposal squad from the Royal Army Ordnance Corps depot at the Northern Command Ammunition Inspectorate in York was on its way to the village.

A Molotov cocktail bomb is an improvised device consisting of a bottle filled usually with petrol or some other explosive material which is ignited and thrown as a grenade. They were widely used by resistance groups during World War II who named them after the Soviet foreign minister, Mr Molotov, and the Home Guard was encouraged to make them for use in the event of an invasion.

A close inspection of this hoard by the experts revealed that there were 92 grenades in all, two of them consisting of phosphorous, benzine and rubber, packed into bottles with crown tops but the contents of some had begun to deteriorate and the chemical evaporate and had they not been discovered, the result could have been devastating for the village as residents were soon to discover.

There was some alarm at the size and state of the hoard, particularly those bombs that had started to dry out to the point where they could explode and so these were placed in buckets of water and, together with the remaining 90, moved to a safe spot although during the operation, several soldiers sustained phosphorous burns. The following Wednesday, the deadly cache was split up into small consignments for transportation and each taken separately to the disused airfield at Folkingham to be detonated. The soldiers, all of them well experienced in bomb disposal, said afterwards that it was one of the most frightening explosions they had witnessed for many years. “It created a huge fireball in the sky”, said one, “and despite a strong wind, a pall of smoke hung over the spot for at least fifteen minutes afterwards.”

The pigsty where the bombs were found, 24 in each box together with a number of explosive charges, was at the rear of No 3 Church Street, a disused stone cottage owned by Mr John Thurlby of Hall Farm, Baston. During the war it had been used as a Home Guard post and as a store for explosives but the contents had been overlooked in the excitement of VE-Day and its aftermath and as the building was never again in use, they lay there forgotten but growing more unstable and dangerous with the passing of the years.

A policeman who witnessed the disposal operation, told the Stamford Mercury afterwards (Friday 29th January 1965): “Had the resulting explosion occurred in Baston, the whole village would easily have been destroyed, either by the blast or by the fire and intense heat caused by the phosphorous. The grenades had been made out of ginger beer bottles and had children tried to open one, thinking it contained pop, I dread to think what would have happened.”

What the local newspapers are saying: Speculation about the future of the £27 million rebuilding of the town centre which has been circulating in recent months was fuelled by a meeting of the Local Forum organised by South Kesteven District Council at the Corn Exchange on Wednesday when the developers, Henry Davidson Developments, failed to turn up. The Stamford Mercury reports that worried shopkeepers reacted angrily, claiming that the uncertainty generated in recent months was hitting trade and causing a business blight (July 21st). “We all wanted to hear something positive tonight but instead we hear nothing”, said Mike Dunn, proprietor of Bourne Bookworld in North Street. “We do not even know why the developers did not turn up.”

Town centre manager Ivan Fuller could not give the meeting a reason why they were absent and it was left to reporter James Westgate to seek out the company the following day for an explanation which does not auger well for the future of the scheme because he was told by associate director, Harvey Lay, that no one was sent to the meeting because they were still in discussion with the council and would have had nothing to add. He went on: “The application which had been expected for October this year is now looking very doubtful. It will be for full planning permission when it is submitted but I cannot say at this stage when it will now be forthcoming.”

The developers, Stamford Homes, have resubmitted their application to build 121 new houses on the old railway station site in South Street, currently owned by Wherry and Sons Limited, but as with the first application which was rejected in April, it is facing strong opposition from all quarters. The Local reports (July 21st) that Bourne Town Council rejected the scheme out of hand during its meeting on Tuesday when the mood of members was summed up by Councillor Trevor Holmes who said: “We could just about tick every objection on the list and still have more.”

Ironically, this situation could have been avoided if members of the old Bourne Urban District Council had possessed more foresight because it had the opportunity to buy this site for its own purposes, specifically to build a new public library, forty years ago. The issue was discussed by the council’s finance committee in February 1965 when the railway installations were being dismantled after the closure of the line. Officers opened negotiations with British Rail and the District Valuer for a possible purchase but the idea came to nought and the land was eventually bought by Wherry and Sons Limited. We therefore wonder how many golden opportunities are slipping through the fingers of those councillors who sit on our local authorities today.

The new 1½ mile south west relief road has had a big impact on traffic congestion in the town centre, according to the Stamford Mercury which gives details of a traffic count carried out by Lincolnshire County Council (July 21st). The results show that 3,000 vehicles were diverted during a 12-hour period and, as the survey reports, that is 3,000 fewer through the town centre, thus justifying the building of the new £4 million carriageway which opened in October 2005.

The debate over whether Bourne once had a castle similar to that conjured up by the public imagination now appears to rest with how the word is defined. The existence of a substantial building or refuge on the site of the Wellhead Gardens is beyond dispute but whether it was a castellated and battlemented fortification such as Neuschwanstein of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang fame or those we see in Disneyland remains a matter of conjecture and new evidence reveals that it may have been merely a façade built to satisfy the vanity of the owner.

An examination of mediaeval records carried out by Kenneth Jacob suggests that primary documentary sources are the only verification for the existence of such a structure whereas until now we have depended on unreliable secondary sources, mainly those of John Moore (1809), William Marrat (1816), Edward Trollope (1861) and John Swift (1925), all of whom leaned heavily on each other without really adding anything of note. Then there is the mysterious Peak whose 16th century manuscript is quoted by all yet we cannot identify him or where this document can be found. Transcripts of all of these accounts can be found on the CD-ROM A Portrait of Bourne and are frequently quoted by those who support the castle theory but they are repetitive and lean heavily upon each other and actually add little to the debate.

Kenneth Jacob has consulted many early records which specifically refer to a castle in Bourne but we are left with the doubt as to what sort of a building it was. Yet he states quite categorically that “A castle is just that”, suggesting the grand edifice of current conjecture. But is it?

The word comes from the Middle English castel, from the Old English and from Norman French, both from Latin castellum, diminutive of castrum and the dictionary definition is as follows:

1 A large fortified building or group of buildings with thick walls, usually dominating the surrounding country; 2 A fortified stronghold converted to residential use; 3 A large ornate building similar to or resembling a fortified stronghold; 4 A place of privacy, security, or refuge.

As the word castle appears to be so important in the current context, I asked David Roffe, the distinguished historian and honorary research fellow at Sheffield University, who has previously contributed to this web site, for his opinion. He has worked widely in archaeological units, including the 1985 dig alongside the Abbey Church prior to the building of the new vicarage, and his research interests include the Danelaw and landscape history but his main area of study has been the Domesday text.

He tells me that there has been a great change in castle studies in the last ten years and some experts now see the military aspect of fortification as just one of a number of functions and not always the most important. In the 12th century, for instance, its primary role was as a stage set for the lordship, demonstrating to the world that the lord has arrived while moated manor houses performed a similar function lower down the social scale. David Roffe agrees that there was a castle in Bourne because there are many mediaeval references to it but it should not be implied that it was necessarily seriously defensible. The important thing was that it could be seen.

We therefore seem to have reached the stage where further discussion is pointless and any new evidence will lie below ground. The so called geo-physical survey of the Wellhead Gardens by two lads with their electronic box of tricks that began in March has, according to the Stamford Mercury (July 14th), been called off for the time being but even when and if they resume, it is difficult to believe that that they can solve the mystery by shooting volts from a battery into the soil.

Anyone familiar with the records will know that there has never been any serious excavation of the site yet this is the only way that we will discover the truth, or at least some of it, but in the current climate of indifference by Bourne United Charities which administers the Wellhead Gardens, I fear that it will not be giving up its secrets just yet.

Thought for the week: The worth of a state in the long run is the worth of the individuals composing it. - John Stuart Mill, British philosopher and social reformer (1806-73).

Saturday 29th July 2006

An important reference to the role of Bourne Castle has been revealed in a little known directory from the 18th century that has just come my way. It not only casts doubt on the current theory that the building was a castellated fortification designed for the protection of the town but also suggests that the waterway around it may not have been a moat as is widely believed.

The entry comes from the Universal British Directory for 1793-1798, forerunner of the widely quoted White’s and Kelly’s directories that were published periodically throughout the 19th and 20th centuries. The relevant section deals with the founding of the Abbey Church and then adds:

Very few vestiges of the castle are left; some footsteps are now the only remains; and these are formed out of some of the old stones laid across a dry part of the moat; which is yet very fresh, as are the entrenchments round it. We do not find, in the annals of Britain, that this castle was ever made serviceable in any of the internal wars of the kingdom; though Bourn was doubtless, anciently, the residence of men of prowess and valour.

This is particularly significant on two counts. Firstly, these directory entries were invariably written by someone with a first hand knowledge of the locality, its history and topography, usually the local schoolmaster, and secondly, it is ignored by all other accounts of the castle quoted today, notably those written by John Moore (1809), William Marrat (1816), Edward Trollope (1861) and John Swift (1925), although the authors would most certainly have known of it but no doubt excluded it because it did not fit in with their theory, an indefensible habit of some historians.

Not only does this description coincide with modern thinking on the castles of the period, that they were often built for show rather than defence, but it also casts doubt on the existence of a moat which leads to further speculation about the mounds that surround the site in the Wellhead Gardens. A close inspection will reveal that they follow the line of the Bourne Eau which stems from St Peter’s Pool and the more recently cut waterway to the west which encircles the gardens before joining the main river in South Street. The waterway once powered three mills, although the Domesday Book of 1086 lists six during earlier times, and a strong flow would be needed to keep the wheels turning to grind corn at each one.

This could only be achieved by a smooth running river, the bed unhindered by obstruction, and so constant clearance of silt and debris would be required and as the work progressed each year, perhaps even more frequently, with no easy method of disposing of the spoil, manual labour and horse drawn wagons being the only method available, it would be piled up on the banks. The second section of river was cut specifically to power the West Street Mill, demolished in 1910, and the remains of what could be spoil heaps can clearly be seen along the south side of its length. Furthermore, if this maintenance were carried out at regular intervals then the waterway and the adjacent spoil piles would indeed have the “very fresh” appearance to which the entry refers.

The importance of this flow for the operation of the mills is illustrated by the history of Notley’s Mill in Victoria Place, demolished in 1973, which records that on those occasions of poor flow, the miller would send a messenger to Baldock’s Mill in South Street asking him to raise the regulating lock and allow more water to pass through in order that his grinding could continue. The situation could not be sustained and as a result, electricity was used to power the machinery after the river dried up in 1942.

This latest debate over Bourne Castle is a welcome addition to our knowledge and it is hoped that those who still adhere to the theory that it was a battlemented fortification of Windsor and Warwick proportions will take the new intelligence on board and pause to reconsider what is, perhaps, little more than folklore.

It has become apparent that South Kesteven District Council is desperate to get rid of its council housing stock at all costs. A perfectly acceptable system of providing accommodation for the less well off that has operated satisfactorily for the past 100 years is about to be jettisoned and the authority is pulling out all of the stops to ensure that the transfer to a housing association goes through.

A travelling road show arrived in Bourne on Thursday and set up stall in the market place, “a really big and expensive outfit“, as one observer reported, with colourful information leaflets being distributed and officials on hand singing the praises of the new system but underlying it all is a sinister threat that if tenants do not vote for a transfer then they will be left with a sub-standard property with few of the benefits that we have come to expect from the council in the past.

SKDC has 6,300 houses and flats, 535 of them in Bourne, but is proposing to sell them off at below market prices to the newly created South Lincolnshire Homes which would then take over the responsibility of bringing them up to the government’s Decent Homes Standard. The fact that these properties need such attention is an indication of the way in which the authority has been dragging its feet and now it proposes to divest itself of all responsibility by selling out. The final decision will rest with tenants who will be balloted on the issue but the transaction is already weighted in the council’s favour because it has indicated that all abstentions will be counted as a vote for transferring to the association.

Tenants are now being told in no uncertain terms that if they do not agree to the transfer, then the upgrading of their properties to a higher standard cannot be guaranteed and other environmental benefits, such as a safer, cleaner neighbourhood and the introduction of an anti-social behaviour team, all of which are among the much trumpeted aims of this council, will not materialise. This has been construed in some quarters as a form of blackmail and has drawn comparisons with Bath and North East Somerset Council’s knock down sale of its housing stock to a housing trust which led to the District Auditor ruling that “inappropriate and unlawful actions on several fronts” had taken place, in particular the distribution of biased and scaremongering publicity material to tenants ahead of the transfer vote.

Worried home owners at the Thursday market were obviously concerned when they put questions to council officials manning the roadshow and one suggested that the transfer is in fact a done deal. Unfortunately he may be right because the council has a powerful ally and that is public apathy.

What the local newspapers are saying: The sorry state of St Peter’s Pool is highlighted by a photo feature in the Stamford Mercury which claims that even the black swans that have been in residence since 1999 have deserted their favourite nesting place (July 28th). Several visitors are highly critical of the rubbish that has been allowed to pile up and one of them, Diane Astley, aged 27, of Holloway Avenue, Bourne, echoed the opinion of many when she told the newspaper: “The pool is in an appalling state.”

The responsibility lies with Bourne United Charities which administers the Wellhead Gardens on behalf of the town and, as on previous occasions, there appears to be no acceptance of responsibility because one of the trustees, Councillor Shirley Cliffe, is quoted as saying: “We have looked at ways of cleaning up the rubbish but have been told by experts that it cannot be done because the pool bed is on top of the spring and it would be lethal if anyone, be it an expert or a member of the public, attempted to cross it.”

This is an unconvincing argument and we wonder if this statement was issued with the authority of Bourne United Charities because it does make the organisation sound rather ridiculous. We can land a man on the moon, send rockets to Mars, build a railway across the highest, inhospitable terrain on earth, erect bridges over the most difficult waterways and cut a canal through the middle of the Americas yet we are unable to clean up St Peter’s Pool.

This problem appears year after year and the trustees, who are guardians of this ancient site, continue to sit on their hands. The time has come for them to grasp the nettle, to understand that the people, in whose interests they work in the distribution of charitable funds, are very angry about the continued parlous state of this beauty spot and are now demanding that something be done as a matter of priority to ensure that it is turned into an attractive and welcoming place for those who currently visit and is maintained in a decent state for those who come after.

Those who keep a close eye on their gardens will know that butterflies are becoming a rarity. There was a time when the trees and bushes would be full of a wide variety of species but their numbers have slowly declined and their appearance is far less frequent.

They can be seen, sometimes in large numbers, if you have a buddleia bush or if the weather is favourable but overall, the ubiquitous presence of yesteryear when they were all around in large quantities is now merely a memory. The more popular species such as the large or cabbage white, red admiral, small tortoiseshell, painted lady, comma and peacock are often in evidence but you will watch in vain for the holly blue, orange tip, clouded yellow, swallowtail and purple hairstreak, all of which were common in my boyhood.

Their gradual disappearance has now been acknowledged by Butterfly Conservation which revealed this week that three-quarters of our species has been lost over the past 30 years with only 56 now remaining in Britain, the others having fallen victim to diminishing habitats. Urban sprawl, modern farming techniques, the loss of woodland, meadows and moors where they breed and a lack of woodland management have all played their part. Hertfordshire has lost the most species, a total of 17, with Bedfordshire, Suffolk and Lincolnshire 15 each.

The survey involved 10,000 volunteers in the United Kingdom and the results have been published to coincide with the first Save our Butterflies Week which is now underway. Richard Fox of Butterfly Conservation has warned that the countryside will look very different to future generations. "Unless we actually do something about the destruction of wildlife habitats in Britain, many species, including some butterflies, will become rarer or extinct and we will have failed to preserve our native wildlife heritage for future generations of people to enjoy," he said. "Changing habitat and global warming will all lead to fewer species and many of the special, rare ones will go."

The threat to wildlife from chemical sprays is not disputed although the government refuses to recognise whether the public are also at risk. Anyone who lives close to farming operations will know the familiar smells of herbicides and pesticides when the sprayers come round yet implementation of compulsory five-metre no-spray zones in fields near to houses has been rejected.

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) has been considering for some months whether to introduce tighter spray controls following a controversial report by the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution which concluded that it was “plausible” that pesticide exposure could lead to chronic ill health in bystanders and so the restrictions should be introduced as a precaution and that farmers should be forced to notify residents before spraying.

The recommendation however has been thrown out after ministers decided that it would be wrong to burden farmers with more red tape. Junior DEFRA minister, Jeff Rooker, came out with this piece of bureaucratic nonsense by way of explanation: “I firmly believe that the concerns of residents are best addressed at the local level through dialogue between residents and farmers to identify and understand the issues and develop mutually agreeable solutions. I also believe that this can be achieved most rapidly through a voluntary approach that allows for innovative and flexible solutions.”

The houses on the north eastern side of Stephenson Way, Bourne, look out on to open farmland where spraying is a regular occurrence and there have been problems in the past as the older residents will attest. The fields and therefore the crops come right up to the back garden boundaries and no area is missed when spraying is carried out, usually three or four times a year and in each case the operator always wears a protective mask.

To suggest that residents liaise with farmers is a non-starter as has been found with the use of audio bird scarers although in this case some are sympathetic and will respond if approached in a responsible manner. But using deadly chemical sprays within a few feet of houses occupied by old people and children cannot be justified as the Royal Commission has made clear and there are sufficient cases on record to prove that they are harmful to wildlife, to garden plants and to people if they happen to be in the way.

Thought for the week: In the United States there is more space where nobody is than where anybody is. That is what makes America what it is. - Gertrude Stein, American writer (1874-1946).

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