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Saturday 6th October 2007
A skateboard park
for Bourne has taken a step nearer reality with a decision by the town council
to contribute £10,000 towards the project, a sum that represents one tenth of
its entire annual budget, and it is likely to be built by next summer on the
playing field in Recreation Road. The site is owned by South Kesteven District
Council which has agreed in principle to the idea which will cost an estimated
£130,000 but grant aid will still be required before work can begin.
The recreation ground is in the middle of a densely populated area, with houses
on all sides, in Harrington Street, Recreation Road, Alexandra Terraces and
Ancaster Road, but there is no indication as to whether these residents have
been consulted. Councillor Mrs Pet Moisey (Bourne East) lives in Recreation Road
and she appears to be a lone voice from the immediate locality in giving it the
thumbs up. “The skateboard park would be for the young people of the town and
really benefit the community”, she told the Stamford Mercury (September
28th). Her colleague, Councillor Alistair Prentice (Bourne West), a member of
the Dimension Park committee who lives some distance away in Willoughby Road,
was equally enthusiastic. “It will make a real difference by helping deal with
anti-social behaviour”, he said, “and should go some way towards eliminating
problems in the town centre.”
This is probably an optimistic forecast because experience at Stamford shows
quite the opposite. The town’s skateboard park was also built in the recreation
ground but attracted an unruly element and was closed down last month because of
serious damage by vandals which rendered it no longer fit for use and repair
work is proving to be quite costly. This raises the question as to whether a
field set aside for the sole purpose of young children to play within a
residential area a century ago is a suitable place for such a venture today and
serious consideration should be given before a final decision is taken.
A major factor must be the nuisance value because there is evidence that
skateboarding near domestic premises can be an annoyance as residents of
Hereward Street have found to their cost whenever youngsters have taken over
Budgens car park to pursue their sport late into the night. Those responsible
for the proposed Dimension Park may think they are fulfilling a community need
but they must remember that this is a minority sport which is being located in
an area surrounded by houses with the help of public money and so the interests
of those who live in the vicinity must be observed.
The recreation ground was opened to celebrate the coronation of King
George V in 1904 when leisure pursuits by young people were quite different to
what they are today, less boisterous and far less noisy. The official opening
was held on the day of the coronation, Friday 30th June 1911, and it must have
been a grand occasion because the Stamford Mercury later reported:
In the afternoon at 2 o'clock, all the
children of the town met in the Market Place, formed in procession and headed by
the Band, members of the Council etc paraded to the new Recreation Ground which
was formally opened by Alderman W R Wherry. The other members of the Council
taking part were Messrs G H Mays, William Nowell, J B Shilcock and T B Measures,
the latter being Chairman of the Recreation Ground Committee. There were 1,100
people present.
It is a large open space with play facilities suitable for younger children
because the houses in the area were all owned by the council and most had large
families. Trees were planted along the western boundary of the ground but many
of these died soon afterwards and were replanted by Bourne Urban District
Council. The ground has been well used since for travelling fairs, bonfires on
Guy Fawkes’ Night, football matches for the younger boys and girls at weekends
and it is also a favourite spot for pet owners to exercise their dogs.
But there is a history of serious vandalism in recent years, notably to a block
of public toilets alongside Recreation Road which were demolished by South
Kesteven District Council because they had become so badly damaged and to the
temporary buildings used for twenty years by youngsters from Bourne Town Juniors
Football Club who played there, replaced in 1999 by a new and sturdier sports
pavilion at a cost of £70,000.
The amenities of past times were roundabouts, swings, slides, seesaws and a wave
machine, but we will have to wait and see whether this urban recreation ground
is also a suitable venue for a modern facility such as a skateboard park and
whether it will suffer the same fate as that at Stamford.
A by pass is badly needed for the main A15 trunk road which brings such a
heavy traffic flow through the town centre at Bourne, a situation recognised 100
years ago even before the motor vehicle became such a nuisance, yet successive
councils have done little to provide one.
Sections of this road, particularly to the south, have become extremely
dangerous but there are no immediate plans to build an alternative route and the
main reason today is a lack of money. The council tax may increase year after
year but the bulk is not being spent on public services but on filling the black
hole of salaries and pension entitlements to local government staffs. There have
been occasions in the past when an A15 by pass began to seem a reality but each
time the prospect receded in the distance and even though Bourne is currently
17th down the Lincolnshire list of priorities for a relief road, at the current
state of play it is unlikely to come to fruition during the lifetime of anyone
reading this.
The futility of suggestion, however, does not deter everyone and one of our town
councillors has grasped the nettle and is valiantly tackling those who run
Lincolnshire County Council, the highways authority, and putting the case to
them directly. Councillor Helen Powell, who has represented Bourne West since
last May, has put forward an excellent suggestion that the new road could run
from the A15 north of Bourne, skirting Dyke village and along Meadow Drove,
across the Spalding Road and on to Cherryholt Lane, with roundabouts at the
various intersections to ensure a smooth flow of vehicles. It would form part of
a larger road scheme linking the A15 to Market Deeping and the A151 to Spalding
in the east.
The simple, no nonsense proposal would cause little inconvenience during
building work and would solve our traffic problems at a stroke and we therefore
wonder why council planners have not suggested it before. The stumbling block
is, of course, money and as the new road has been costed at around £10 million
it seems to be so much pie in the sky. But Councillor Powell is undeterred,
despite her solution having a whiff of unattainable idealism about it. Even
after her meeting with the county council bigwigs, she is still full of optimism
and has also come up with a suggestion to solve the cash shortage. “Everyone
liked the idea and wholeheartedly wished they could implement the plans”, she
said. “Knowing there were no funds available I asked if it were possible for
them to donate instead a small parcel of their land, say 20 acres, adjacent to
Meadow Drove which could be either given to a developer in exchange for the
relief road or sold and the funds raised used to pay for it and perhaps other
projects the town needs.”
The new road would bring nothing but benefit to the town and Mrs Powell says
that she has even spoken to some developers about the idea and they are ready to
become involved. “The town centre could then be given back to shoppers”, she
said, “made safe, accommodating and a pleasure to use by all the potential new
customers Bourne needs and making it second to none. The trade in the shops
would double or even triple in a very short space of time. I genuinely believe
that we want this relief road so that the town can breathe again.”
The best solutions are always the simplest and usually the most obvious and
Councillor Powell’s scheme is ambitious but long overdue. She has put her case
forcefully and has been listened to by those who matter. If all councillors were
similarly inspired, the money could most probably be found, even through the
transaction she suggests. Let us hope that this new initiative does not founder
on the rocks of apathy and inactivity because without hope there can be no
progress and without motivation there will be stagnation and Bourne’s main road
problem will remain in the dire state that it has been for the past century.
What the local newspapers are saying: Hard on the heels of my item last
month about the decline of our postal service comes a front page report from the
Stamford Mercury that village post offices at Rippingale, Folkingham and
Castle Bytham have been earmarked for closure as part of a nationwide cull of
2,500 branches by 2009 (October 5th). They will be replaced by what is grandly
called “an outreach service” which is the official euphemism for a second place
replacement, either a mobile van calling periodically, a part-time service from
the pub or a telephone ordering facility, none of which can possibly fulfil
the work commitment currently carried out behind the counter.
At the same time, delivery and collection of mail has been suspended for the
next few days because of a strike by postal workers and as a result many large
companies are switching their business to email and private couriers. All that
is needed now is for eBay, the Internet auction web site that has been
increasingly supplementing post office income since it began ten years ago, to
make alternative arrangements for its customers and that would deal a body blow
that could be terminal. The Royal Mail was once the envy of the world but what a
sorry state it is now in.
Meanwhile, the police in Lincolnshire are demanding more money and The Local
reports that unless the government comes up with another £7 million a year then
council tax bills will need to be increased by at least another £100 a year to
help them out, otherwise six police stations in the county will close and 364
jobs will go to balance the books (October 5th). The newspaper’s headline over
this story says “Taxpayers face bill to keep police on beat” which will cut no
ice with readers who have been clamouring for the sight of more bobbies in the
streets for many years past. The problem today is that we live in a society of
perceived affluence yet all of our public authorities plead poverty, and, worse
still, few of them appear to have the confidence of the people by doing the job
for which they were intended. Pleas for extra cash therefore are unlikely to win
the support of those who have to provide it.
Shop watch: The disparity of prices between the supermarkets is quite
staggering especially with branded goods when the product comes from the same
source. This week, we noted that a box of 12 x 150 ml tins of Canada Dry ginger
ale was priced at £2.99 at Sainsburys in Bourne but £2.19 at Morrisons in
Stamford, a difference of 80p or 27%. Sainsburys goes to great pains to display
comparisons in an attempt to demonstrate that its prices are lower than
competitors but always with Tesco’s which is not a difficult task because their
Bourne outlet in North Street is notorious for its high prices. These futile
comparisons, and the exorbitant price of Canada Dry, among other commodities,
are the reasons why so many Bourne shoppers can be seen each day in Morrisons.
Thought for the week: To sit in the shade on a fine day, and look upon
verdure is the most perfect refreshment. - Jane Austen, one of the most
influential, honoured and widely read novelists in English literature
(1775-1817).
Saturday 13th October 2007
One of the major
attractions at the Heritage Centre in South Street, the Charles Worth gallery,
was honoured by the Lincolnshire Renaissance Awards during a presentation
ceremony at Lincoln last week when it was named as the best new exhibition in
the county. The awards, which were inaugurated in 2007, aim to recognise
excellence in museums and heritage centres across the county.
The gallery was opened in April last year to commemorate the life of Charles
Worth (1825-95), son of a local solicitor from Wake House, North Street, who
left home as a boy and eventually went to Paris where he became a leading
fashion designer and founder of haute couture. The display was the idea of Mrs
Brenda Jones, chairman of the Civic Society, who has laboured hard with her
husband Jim and a team of dedicated ladies to bring the gallery to fruition and
the award acknowledges their efforts on behalf of this town.
Lincolnshire museum development officer and co-ordinator of the awards, Hannah
Gould, said that they had been overwhelmed by the excellence of the entries and
delighted that such centres were thriving in Lincolnshire to provide the best
experience for their visitors. She added: "These awards are a wonderful
opportunity to celebrate the quality and ingenuity of the hard work, creativity
and dedication of their staffs and volunteers. It is amazing to see the great
things that these sites achieve with limited resources."
What the local newspapers are saying: There is continuing evidence that
some of our local councillors could learn more about the town they represent and
the latest example of this comes from a meeting of the town council’s highways
committee on Tuesday which discussed a proposal to name streets after HMS Beryl
and its commanding officer who saw action during the Second World War of
1939-45. The Local reports that the suggestion was not favourably
received because the ship’s name might contravene existing guidelines for street
naming and Councillor Alistair Prentice (Bourne West) said: “It is difficult to
use Beryl as a street name as it is a Christian name and the district council’s
policy is that they don’t use first names.” (October 12th).
This is not strictly correct. HMS Beryl was an auxiliary
minesweeper which was adopted by Bourne during an official naval ceremony on the
Abbey Lawn in 1942 and subsequently took part in the long and bitter siege of
Malta where its captain, Lieutenant Commander Harry Sellwood, was awarded the
Distinguished Service Cross. It was, however, one of the Gem class of warships
named after precious stones and not after a girl’s name, the others including
Agate, Amethyst, Jade, Jasper, and Ruby, and this town raised £54,168 (£1.5
million at today's values) towards buying and converting it from a fishing
trawler to an auxiliary minesweeper. The patriotic effort shown by the people of
Bourne therefore merits the inclusion of Beryl as one of our street names when
the opportunity arises.
The naming of streets is one of the few powers left to the town council yet
members often take decisions without knowing the facts and in this case,
perhaps Councillor Prentice would like to invest in a copy of A Portrait of
Bourne, the definitive history of this town, which contains a detailed history
of HMS Beryl and after reading it, perhaps he might change his mind and support
this admirable suggestion. Fortunately, other councillors did not share his
misgivings and both Beryl and Sellwood are likely to be included in our street
names before long.
More councils around the country are announcing fines for infringements
of their rules on rubbish collections and this is now widely regarded as yet
another way of extracting money from the public. This is not only an unfair
system but also an immoral one because our local authorities are not legal
regulators and so it is not their job to impose punishments for wrongdoing but
the officially constituted courts which are empowered by government decree.
To delegate powers of judgement to other authorities which are untrained in the
legal niceties required, and because of the largely subservient nature of the
general public, opens the system to possible abuse and leaves the individual
little form of redress. Councils have no business dabbling in disciplines of
this nature, usually through ridiculous regulations that often defy common sense
and which invariably work against the public interest while the current
obsession for recycling rubbish has brought a fresh flood of them, many derisory
and most totally unnecessary.
Under the present system, an elderly widow living alone may be penalised for
mistakenly putting an eggshell into her silver wheelie bin when it should have
gone into the black one and even if she realised her mistake, the receptacles
are so large and unwieldy that she would be unable to retrieve it and once the
wagon of retribution started to roll it would take some effort to stop it.
Elsewhere, leaving an extra bagful of landfill waste for collection now invites
a penalty in some areas while putting out the bins a day too soon will be
punished in most districts. There are other, similarly ridiculous, stupid, even
grotesque, rules that must be observed around the country that command headlines
whenever they are enforced, making our local authorities a laughing stock each
time they are publicised.
If councils are to be allowed to administer punishments for these piddling
offences, if offences they be, then perhaps they should go the whole hog and
make their own staff, and even elected councillors, toe the line with the threat
of financial impositions whenever they transgress. The number of instances of
money and effort negligently wasted on lost causes, for instance, would summon
up quite heavy fines were the punishment to fit the crime but then councils are
their own regulators and so most cases go unchallenged or are lost in the
verbiage of futile explanation.
The cobbler ought to stick to his last, no more so in the dispensation of
justice. That is the job of the judiciary and our councils should confine their
activities to delivering worthwhile public services of which we can be justly
proud rather than invite hoots of derision as well as hostility for straying
into those areas where they are plainly trespassing.
I am finally making a stand against the mass of waste paper that is
pushed through the letter box each week under the guise of advertising by taking
steps to discourage its delivery. Earlier this year I wrote about the futility
of distributing Yellow Pages which must gobble up large quantities of paper yet
few actually consult and last month I suggested that the bulk of this unwanted
and unsolicited material went straight into the silver bin. The list grows
longer each month and already includes several local publications and free
newspapers, all with additional leaflets or fliers inside, the whole
representing a lot of paper for which I had no use.
This material is similarly disposed of unread in many homes and in this age of
recycling, the time has come for the householder to have the right to opt out of
receiving it and if we want it then we will ask while the publishers, which
include some of our local councils, should observe the environmental code and
not waste paper.
I have therefore posted a notice on the front door immediately above the letter
box telling those who deliver this stuff that it is not wanted here and that
also includes sales catalogues, all of which have been given the status of
unwanted callers. The junk mail is being similarly addressed and I advise anyone
else who is exasperated by this modern phenomenon to follow suit and register
with the post office for all further deliveries to cease.
If you wish to avoid these unwanted piles of leaflets, unaddressed promotional
items and advertising fliers, then drop a line to Door to Door Opt Outs at Royal
Mail Door to Door, Kingsmead House, Oxpens Road, Oxford OX1 1RX, telephone them
at 08457 950950 or email as I have done to optout@royalmail.co.uk
The Royal Mail will make it difficult for you to cancel, writing back to warn,
even blackmail, that it may result in the loss of important communications from
government, local councils and elsewhere, but these automated replies have been
condemned as rubbish by the independent consumer organisation Postwatch and
their advice is to persist with your application, fill out the form as directed
and stop the unwanted deluge of bumph that piles up regularly on the doormat.
One of the lesser known organisations to have its origins in Bourne is
the Pike Anglers Club of Great Britain which celebrates its 30th birthday this
month. It was formed with a founding membership of 16 at a meeting in the town
on 1st October 1977 and now has more than 1,200 full and associate members.
The pike (Esox lucius) is the largest freshwater fish native to this
country, growing to an average length of 16-40 inches and a weight of 30 lb. or
more. A 53 lb. specimen was caught at Lough Conn in Ireland in 1920 and another
weighing 47 lb. 11 oz. was taken from Loch Lomond in 1945 while giant pike have
been reported from various waters in Scotland weighing up to 72 lb. They are
predators and are quite fierce looking with elongated heads and bodies and
pointed duck-bill shaped snouts with numerous slender teeth curved backwards to
prevent prey from escaping.
The Pike Anglers' Club was formed as a direct result of changing attitudes
towards pike which were regarded by fishery owners and some anglers as vermin,
to be killed and removed at all costs. Since it was formed, the club has tried
to change this perception and the fish are now widely regarded as a positive
element in the natural balance of nature. As a result, pike fishing has become
one of the most specialised branches of coarse fishing and its followers, as
with carp anglers, go to great pains to counteract criticism of cruelty from the
anti-angling lobby by publicising their methods of handling, unhooking and the
safe return to the water of the fish once caught.
The PAC insists that it works continually for the benefit of all pike and pike
anglers, seeking only to further the opportunities for pike fishing, whilst
preserving all that pike fishing is all about. “We strive to protect pike from
persecution by those who do not understand, or choose to ignore, the facts about
the important role the pike plays in the balance of nature”, said a club
spokesman. “We also work to promote pike conservation through safe practice by
anglers.”
Message from abroad (to me and my wife): Thanks to you for working
together to produce this marvellous web site. I have made the solid connection
with Bourne when I found my great grandfather as a nine-year-old son with his
widowed mother and ten-year old sister on the 1861 census for Eastgate. Since
then I've obtained certificates of birth and marriage and also burial records.
Bourne was nothing more than a word on the document until I found your web site
with its wonderful information and maps. Thank you, too, for including my family
names information on the Family History pages. Several people on the
Lincolnshire mailing list urged me to visit your site and I am so glad they did.
The web site has a wonderful reputation. It is now on my favourites list. -
email on Saturday 6th October 2007 from Charlotte Kibbie of Kent, Washington
State, USA, who reminds us that this is in the beautiful Pacific, north-west
between Seattle and Mount Rainier.
Thought for the week: Lincolnshire has one of the worst performing police
forces in England and Wales, according to Home Office ratings just published.
Assessments rated 43 forces excellent, good, fair or poor in seven different
categories, tackling crime, resources and efficiency, serious crime and public
protection, protecting vulnerable people, satisfaction and fairness,
implementation of neighbourhood policing and local priorities. Lincolnshire was
among the bottom six with just seven points out of a maximum of 21.
- news
report from BBC Online, Tuesday 9th October 2007.
Saturday 20th October 2007
A repeated television programme from over 40 years ago
screened this week by BBC Four brought a nostalgic glimpse of health care in
past years when doctors were closely involved with hand-on treatment and the
cottage hospital an integral part of the community, ruled with a rod of iron by
a formidable matron. The black and white episode from the successful series Dr
Finlay’s Casebook made such an impression at the time that we actually
remembered it being first broadcast but never once imagined the dramatic changes
that lay ahead in the relationship between doctor and patient.
Dr Finlay was the creation of the Scottish novelist and dramatist A J Cronin
(1896-1981) and his characterisation in the long running television series
screened from 1962-71 has become the epitome of the family doctor’s bedside
manner of past generations now superseded by general practitioners tapping
keyboards and pushing pills rather than being out there in the community healing
the sick.
The interaction between family doctor, specialist and public health officer, was
exactly and excellently portrayed, as I know from experience, but the main
factor of this episode was the role played by the cottage hospital which was
then an essential amenity in any small community like Tannochbrae, the fictional
town in Scotland where Cronin based his stories from the late 1920s. I imagine
that it was the same size as Bourne which also had two doctors’ practices and a
cottage hospital, the Butterfield in North Road, now used as a day care centre
for the elderly, but in years past run for daily health care in exactly the same
way as depicted in the television series.
Throughout my researches into Bourne‘s history over the past ten years, I have
come across innumerable references to the work of this hospital which was run by
the doctors themselves with consultants coming here to see patients rather than
the sick being required to travel long distances to keep appointments which is
the system in force today. But what is more important is that the people felt
secure in the knowledge that whatever malaise or misfortune overtook them, the
hospital was there to provide a safety net in those extreme circumstances and
they would also remain in the care of their own doctor.
The large red brick house in North Road was bequeathed to the town in 1909 by
the late Joseph Butterfield on condition that it should be used for the relief
of suffering and the trustees decided that its best use would be as a cottage
hospital and so the Butterfield was born, opening the following year and it soon
became a valued medical amenity, surviving several attempts to close it in later
years. But financial restraints and restructuring of NHS resources finally
brought about its closure in 1983 despite valiant attempts to keep it open by
councillors and the public.
Its passing heralded the beginning of a new phase in the National Health Service
in which access to hospital treatment has become more remote and even
inaccessible and contact with your own doctor impossible in the evenings and at
weekends. Preventive medicine has never been better, especially that dispensed
by the clinics, but many of the older generation feel that the approach to acute
care has become impersonal, often uncaring, and those who do remember can be
forgiven for wanting the return of cottage hospitals such as the Butterfield.
What the local newspapers are saying: One of the biggest public protests
in the area of recent years took place at Rippingale, near Bourne, on Wednesday
to demonstrate the strength of feeling against the proposed closure of the
village post office. It was a remarkable event, colourfully described by the
Stamford Mercury whose representative estimated that more than 100 people
took part (October 19th). “They rode ponies, strolled with dogs and prams and
steered motorised wheelchairs“, said the report. “From babes in arms to sturdy
pensioners they trekked to the post office at Morton, their nearest branch if
Rippingale closes. They were accompanied by a police escort as they braved the
busy A15 and the walk took 75 minutes and most arrived elated in the hope that
they might, just might have helped to achieve the impossible.”
The previous Saturday, the area’s M P, Quentin Davies, was in the village
meeting 200 people to test public reaction together with the new Tory
parliamentary candidate, Nick Boles, while the leader of Lincolnshire County
Council, Martin Hill, has sent a protest letter to the Department for Business,
Enterprise and Regulatory Reform and to the Post Office itself and a petition to
Downing Street is fast gathering more names with almost 1,000 at the last count.
The opposition to closure is therefore formidable but the odds are against them.
The Post Office is no longer the caring public service of past years, intent
solely on delivering the mail on time, but a business with a balance sheet and one
that is losing money through the suspect practices of its workers and so cuts
must and will be made. There was a time when the public’s voice would be heard
but those days are long gone and the future of Rippingale post office, and
indeed those others in the area that are also on the closure list, is by no
means assured.
Rubbish in the streets is finally affecting business in the town and according
to The Local could in the long run even cost local jobs (October 19th).
Pinfold Road has long been a target for litter louts and night time drinkers who
have been leaving the area in a total mess which must be cleared up next morning
rather than give a bad impression to visitors. Two companies have been
particularly badly affected and senior management has even been out with brushes
to sweep up the debris. Two factors are blamed for the current situation which
affects other areas of the town in varying degrees, firstly that parents are not
aware what their teenage children are up to at night and secondly police
inactivity. “I feel embarrassed because we have representatives from companies
like Rolls Royce and Vickers visiting”, said John Sismey who runs Lahoma
Engineering. “I have to apologise for the mess.” John Wand, head of nearby
Roadphone, is equally disturbed, especially after finding the remains of a
makeshift camp fire, food and drink packaging and even a rug. “It happens every
night”, he said. “We have found evidence of drugs being used and all sorts of
things are left behind. We are now thinking of moving out of Lincolnshire and
that would affect 20 jobs.”
If you were asked in which field people with names such as Andy, Ed, Des,
Jacqui and Debby worked, you would most probably suggest pop music or perhaps
children’s television when in fact they are all, in this case, leading figures
in central government.
Andy Burnham is Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Ed Balls is Secretary of State
for Children, Schools and Families, Des Browne is Secretary of State for
Defence, Jacqui Smith is Home Secretary and Debby Reynolds is the Director
General for Animal Health and Welfare and Chief Veterinary Officer. The names of
our leaders of yesteryear, such as William and Winston, Benjamin, Clement and
Herbert, may not have disappeared completely but they have been totally
overshadowed in the new climate of instant familiarity where the diminutive is
considered to be less staid, informal and more user friendly, and therefore
bestows on the owner an image of openness and approachability which may not
always be justified.
Coupled with this we have a new collection of first names, often culled from the
movies and television, whose origins can be traced to hit films and weekly soaps
and all of recent popularity, hence Tyler and Kyle, Jamie and Jake, Paige and
Tia, Chloe and Courtney. Attractive as they are, it is difficult to imagine
hearing these names within the Palace of Westminster where the destiny of this
nation is decided although it is only a matter of time before they do arrive.
The new approach to relationships between politicians and public probably began
with Harold Wilson who smoked a pipe during interviews and whenever he appeared
on television because it gave him an avuncular and reassuring image although it
is rumoured that he rarely used it in private. Fast forward thirty years and
when the new prime minister was elected in 1997 he chose to be known as Tony
rather than Anthony Blair and also let it be known that from then on, everyone
in his circle would be on first name terms. The familiarity we have today
appears to date from this period when politicians talk down their ancestry from
the landed gentry to working class whereas a century before anyone in public
life did everything they could to claim a connection with a title and a country
seat and demanded respect from whoever they met.
Those brought up in an age where every senior figure in their life, be it
schoolmaster, magistrate or member of parliament, was always referred to as Mr,
find it hard to take anything seriously when uttered by the Bobs, Daves, Jims,
Tims and Toms because nicknames do not command the same respect as the formality
of past times but as the hare of popularity is running and has become
unstoppable, it may not be long before we have a Kev in Number Ten.
On Saturday morning, we joined one of the biggest gatherings of oldies
this year for our annual vaccination against influenza at the Hereward Group
Practice clinic in Exeter Street and despite the large number in attendance, it
was a swift and simple process and it was also free.
Flu jabs are one of the benefits of the National Health Service, especially for
our senior citizens who are at risk if they contract this highly infectious
disease that occurs mainly during the winter months and unlike the common cold,
its onset is usually sudden and tends to lay one low, with symptoms such as
fever, chills, headache, aching muscles and a general feeling of malaise, often
with a cough or sore throat into the bargain. The four-hour walk-in session at
the clinic attracted 650 men and women, all senior citizens, who were given jabs
between 9 am and 1 pm by a team of four nurses working non-stop, which is a fine
example of dedicated duty.
There is, however, a resistance to this valuable safeguard by those who prefer
to believe in medical myths rather than trusted professional advice. Some old
people are quite determined not to go on the grounds that the injection is
likely to result in a bad dose of infection to help build up resistance to the
flu virus and may make you ill but this is well known urban folklore with no
basis in fact and anyone of 65 and over should be vaccinated or risk the
consequences. If in doubt, have a chat with your doctor but his advice will
almost certainly be to have the jab unless you are prone to certain allergies or
are pregnant, a most unlikely eventuality if you are an old age pensioner.
The injection protects against flu for a year but the annual jab may soon be a
thing of the past. Scientists are already working on a one-off vaccine whose
effects will be permanent and once again we anticipate that eventually this will
be another of the benefits of our much maligned National Health Service.
Thought for the week: Look to your health; and if you have it, praise God
and value it next to conscience; for health is the second blessing that we
mortals are capable of, a blessing money can't buy. - Izaak Walton, English
writer and author of The Compleat Angler (1593-1683).
Saturday 27th October 2007
The controversial pay-as-you-throw charges that have
caused such an outcry in Bourne appear to be a dead issue following a Downing
Street ruling this week that an announcement by the Department for Environment,
Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) giving the go-ahead should be delayed, the
considered opinion being that it would lead to a huge increase in fly-tipping
and backyard burning.
Readers of this web site will have heard that and more before from the erudite
contributors to the Bourne Forum who have long been forecasting environmental doom
and gloom if home owners are charged to dispose of their rubbish and the many
and varied criticisms of such a policy contained so much wisdom and common sense
that it is difficult to believe that it has taken this long for Whitehall to
decide that it is a non-starter.
Certainly South Kesteven District Council which is responsible for our rubbish
collections has ignored the complaints about the fitting of micro-chips in the
lids of their wheelie bins and for several months has been issuing glowing
reports on the progress and public acceptance of the new system like Pollyanna
on speed when in fact the reverse has been true and there has been real anxiety
about what would happen if charging became a reality. Now, if the government
delay over this issue is permanently shelved, the council may have
made another misjudgement, as it did when it ran up a £1 million bill last year
trying to promote the sale of its council housing stock only to shelve the idea when
73% of the 6,300 tenants voted against the scheme.
But who made the decision to install the micro-chips in our bins? SKDC was not
directed by government to do it because the scheme was voluntary while most
councillors denied all knowledge and surely paid officers have no authority to
initiate policy of this magnitude. In other words, blame will be hard to
apportion although it must ultimately rest with the cabinet which meets in
private and whose decisions remain largely secret. Yet the Conservative Shadow
local government spokesman, Eric Pickles, has pointed out something that most
thinking people knew, that pay-as-you-throw was doomed from the very beginning.
“All of those councils that put chips into their bins must now be wondering why
they had to waste all that money,” he said.
The cost has not been made known but it must run into thousands of pounds to fit
them into each of the black and silver wheelie bins issued to all 55,000
households. Even with a low estimate of £5 per bin this would mean a bill of £½
million, money that would have been much better spent on improving the new
refuse collection system which still needs to be fine tuned before it has
reached an efficient and acceptable level.
The green wheelies, for instance, offered at £10 each for the disposal of garden
waste, have still not been issued to 5,000 home owners who have been led to
believe that their non-appearance has been due to a shortage that cannot be
alleviated much before the end of the year because the system is working to
capacity. However, we are reliably informed that the green bins are being
deliberately withheld because the council cannot afford either the men or the
additional £50,000 refuse truck to empty them. The money spent on the abortive
micro-chips would certainly have avoided that regrettable situation.
We are reluctant to say “We told you so” but the warnings were given to SKDC
often enough, not least by Mr Brynley Heaven who fought a valiant campaign
against the installation of the chips and incurred the wrath of the council by
removing them, so much so that their dustmen were ordered to boycott his village
home at Aslackby, near Bourne. Undeterred, he made arrangements to dispose of
his own rubbish while continually repeating his complaints, constructive
criticism which has pervaded the media in all of its forms ever since, becoming
a clarion call against uncaring officialdom in the process, and although not
everyone dares to be a Daniel, he took on the challenge and has been proven
right. Whether or not pay-as-your-throw does go ahead, SKDC should do the decent thing and restore his refuse collections
immediately.
What the local newspapers are saying: The progress of the Abbey Church
Restoration Appeal is given front page coverage by the Stamford Mercury
which reports that after ten months it has now reached £46,000, less than half
of what is needed and so there is still a long way to go (October 26th). This is
a great effort but not quite good enough for a town of this size which has only
one Grade I listed building that has been the centre of worship for almost 1,000
years.
It does, however, highlight the many demands there are upon us for money, not
least from charities which use every possible means to extract donations by
letter, telephone and in the street where the ubiquitous collecting tin is
forever being rattled in our faces. Giving in this manner is a very public
gesture but it should be remembered that not everyone can afford to especially
at current expectations where inflation dictates that a pound coin or even a
note is expected whereas a penny or two was the norm in past years. Even the
regular giving through monthly payments has risen and few charities now accept a
credit card payment of less than £15, all of which is far beyond the means of
many old people struggling to make ends meet on a meagre state pension.
Undeterred by the state of the economy, the fund raisers at the Abbey Church are
determined to reach their £100,000 target by the year’s end and although the
more humble of us will no doubt be doing our bit, perhaps those public
organisations and institutions with far deeper pockets might consider this a
most worthy cause not only for our heritage but also for the future of this
town.
I am not sure how many clocks we have around the house but there are at
least a dozen and all need to be altered this weekend when they have to be put
back for an hour to mark the end of British Summer Time (BST). This is a major
change in our daily lives and a controversial one that has been argued about
ever since it was introduced almost a hundred years ago, during the Great War of
1914-18, with the intention of saving coal and providing more light hours for
farm and factory production.
My computer and television box change automatically, controlled over the
Internet or from a satellite somewhere up in the sky, but all of the others need to
be altered manually, a simple task for those old fashioned clocks with hands but
a fiddly operation when changing digital displays such as that in the car or on
the oven and micro-wave and one that always brings out the worst of my bad
language.
Changing the clocks has never been popular even when the system was first
introduced. Clocks throughout Britain were put forward by one hour at 2 am on
Sunday 21st May 1916 to launch daylight saving time, as it was officially known.
Britain was then involved in the Great War of 1914-18 and the government told
MPs that hundreds of thousands of tons of coal would be saved by the change in
an attempt to help the war effort. The prospect of lighter evenings was widely
welcomed, with the clocks being put back again in October, although not everyone
was happy with the new arrangement as the Stamford Mercury reported on
Friday 26th May 1916:
Farmers in the Bourne district are not
putting the new “Summer Time” Bill into operation but are retaining the former
times for commencing and leaving off work. In all other business concerns, the
new times have been worked with general advantage. Various comments had been
made as to the proposed change, there being some who declined to alter their
clocks and looked upon the proposal with suspicion that it meant another hour’s
work a day with no corresponding recompense.
The question is whether it is still necessary and whether the
time has come to adjust our clocks to remain static all year round. The evidence
is that remaining on BST would reduce the use of gas and
electricity, cut road deaths and injuries and save the National Health Service
millions which are currently spent on treating injuries associated with daytime
darkness. Past attempts to impose regularity however have not been successful
and M Ps voted against it in 1971 while farmers in Scotland have always been
opposed to change because northern areas would be left in darkness until around
9 am each day. In fact, the emotive factors that have swayed the argument
against have always been its possible effect on road accidents, disruption to
dairy farmers and construction, delivery and postal workers, and so the status
quo remains.
Some people persist in leaving their clocks at Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) all
year round, no matter what the rest of the country is doing, but following a
different drummer today is not popular and those who do are usually regarded as
eccentric. As with queuing, the majority put up and shut up.
It may be a hard concept to grasp, but the world economy is having a
direct effect on crime levels in Bourne, notably through the theft of metal.
Lead on church roofs has always been vulnerable as many parishes know to their
cost because thieves find that stripping it off under cover of darkness is an
easy way to make money. Surprisingly, the number of thefts of this nature are
governed by international metal prices and as they are currently reaching record
levels more is being stolen and the targets have widened to any building that
might have such materials in its construction.
Shops in Bourne are an unlikely target but premises in Crown Walk and the
Angel Precinct were stripped of their lead during night time raids earlier this
month and the sheer weight of the stolen material means that a lorry must have
been used to cart it away. Lincolnshire police admitted that the rising price of
precious metals worldwide, particularly the demand from India and China, had
been responsible for an increase in such thefts although this was the first time
that such a large number of properties had been affected locally.
The situation is far worse over the county border in Cambridgeshire where the
lead has been lifted off churches, schools and even doctors’ surgeries while
hundreds of homes have been left without a telephone service after copper wires
were stolen. Over 100 incidents have been logged in the past two months and the
picture is a similar one elsewhere in the country. Apart from roofing lead,
copper is one of the biggest attractions and scrap is now worth £4,000 a tonne,
twice as much as two years ago with the result that metal thefts in some
counties have more than doubled this year. Other sought after metals by the
unscrupulous include aluminium, stainless steel and iron drain covers which have
been stolen in large quantities from various locations.
Scrap metal must be disposed of somewhere and it would therefore seem to be a
simple procedure to make periodic checks on dealers to identify any materials
that may be suspect. Britain is the fifth biggest exporter of scrap metal in the
world but the industry insists that it is doing everything it can to prevent
stolen metals from passing through its sites although there are yards operating
outside the regulatory system.
Commercial premises that lose their lead are invariably covered by insurance and
even churches are similarly protected although theft from these ancient
buildings always carries with it the added stigma of desecration. Despite this,
there have been 1,400 claims from churches alone costing £5 million and in many
cases there has been additional damage by weather to the unprotected fabric and
fittings. But nothing is sacred and two of the worst cases must surely be the
theft of copper from the roof of the primary school at Upwood, near Huntingdon,
last week, leaving three classrooms unusable and a £30,000 repair bill while a
bronze statue of former Olympic champion Steve Ovett disappeared from its site
in Brighton.
The old saying that nothing is safe unless it is chained down never seems to
have been truer than it is today.
Thought for the week: One way to make sure crime doesn't pay would be to
let the government run it. - Ronald Reagan, actor turned politician who
served two terms as the 40th president of the United States (1911-2004).
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