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Saturday 5th September 2009
Winning the Victor Bosley Shield - see "Almost ninety years
ago . . . "
The pace of house building for Bourne in recent years has
overstretched the provision of medical facilities in a town which once had four
hospitals and now has none. The two clinics are always busy and waiting time for
an appointment to see the doctor can often be up to two weeks and so any scheme
to improve what we have is to be welcomed.
The Local reports that the Galletly Practice is planning a major £400,000
extension to its premises in North Road with the provision of more consulting
rooms, an extra waiting room and a training suite, thus enabling them treat
another 7,000 patients (September 4th) and prepare others for the task in the
future. There are already 9,400 people on the register and 33 full and part time
staff are employed there, including six general practitioners, but four more
doctors would be taken on to help deal with the additional consultations
together with nurses and other workers.
Dr Colin Burr, a senior partner at the practice, told the newspaper that the
expansion would allow the practice to grow and so accommodate the extra patients
from the Elsea Park estate and other housing developments in the area as new
homes are built and occupied. “It will help us meet the needs of a growing
population by offering an enhanced service and help us train new doctors which
the country desperately needs”, he said.
Bourne will welcome the announcement because the current house building
programme which seems to increase every month has fuelled misgivings about the
available medical services which at the moment are overstretched. However, we
are tempted to ask where this will leave the other major medical development
currently planned for a site on the Southfields Business Park in South Road,
first mooted three years ago and still no nearer fruition. It will be remembered
that the original scheme submitted in August 2006 by the Leeds-based company One
Medical included a centre offering a wide range of services from general
practitioner appointments and dentistry to home care for the elderly and
mentally ill which would help meet the shortfall in hospital services for the
town following the closure of Bourne Hospital in 1998 and create 200 new jobs
(Stamford Mercury, 4th August 2006).
In the event, the company submitted two planning applications, one a detailed
scheme for a care home and sheltered accommodation and another seeking outline
permission for the medical centre which suggested that it was ready to proceed
with the first but not quite ready for the second which is exactly what
happened. The flats were completed in October 2008 and in June 2009, the company
was given the go-ahead for work to start on another 88-bedroom old people’s home
at a cost of £4.5 million but there is still no indication when the medical
centre is likely to be built.
We should also remember that a doctor’s surgery was promised for Elsea Park
across the road, a medical facility as part of the planning gain package agreed
with the developers in November 1999 in return for permission to build the 2,000
house estate. A new south west relief road that was also agreed was opened after
much delay and aggravation but the new primary school which was also included
has been shelved and although plans were finally approved this week for the
promised multi-purpose community hall and shops, permission was also granted for
43 sheltered apartments for retired people, an additional development that has
suddenly appeared out of the blue and one which reflects the current
preoccupation of building for the old who can afford it rather than the young
who cannot.
The announcement from the Galletly Practice obviously ends any further
speculation about a clinic for Elsea Park but we now need a statement from South
Kesteven District Council telling us if the proposed new medical centre planned
for the Southfield Business Park is ever likely to materialise or whether that
too will be shelved.
Perhaps there are now too many of us in the country today to be treated
as in the past, or it may be that preventive medicine, the “well man/woman”
method I think they call it, is choking the system so that the really ill have
to take their turn along with those just waiting to check their blood pressure. The main problem is that most family doctors now
work a five-day week, even though ill health does not keep office hours, whereas
in times past, before the arrival of the National Health Service in 1948 and for
some time after, the family doctor was always on call and, right or wrong, that
is what was expected whereas today you may be taken ill in the evenings or
weekends at your peril, a circumstance that is of particular worry to the old
and infirm.
In an out of hours emergency, the patient is unlikely to find comfort from the
bedside manner of a familiar face so common in past times because those who
espoused the hands on treatment fictionalised by the excellent Dr Finlay of
television fame, and followed in this town by the founders of the Galletly
practice, are long dead and the lifeline out of hours are now the ambulance and
paramedics although the care they provide in emergencies is not being
questioned.
In 1927, Dr John Alistair Galletly (1899-1993), who had been studying in London,
took over from his father, also called John, who had built No 40 North Road,
home of the present practice, and thus began a lifelong love of Bourne and its
people, swapping the routine of hospital work in the metropolis for a daily
round of births and deaths, fractures and bruises, extracting teeth and tonsils,
dealing with diseases and infections and even mixing his own medicines. At one
time, he delivered more than 50 babies a year, attended road accidents,
performed operations on the kitchen table, attended the Butterfield Hospital for
consultations and saw patients at his surgery twice a day yet was always on call
and still found time for an active public life with many organisations including
Bourne Urban District Council of which he became chairman.
His night calls were many, often a hazardous expedition epitomised by his own
description of walking or cycling to outlying villages across the isolated fen
in bad weather to attend emergencies, sometimes even losing his way in the dark,
as remembered in his memoirs which I have recently edited:
A worse night venture was to a farm on the
other side of the Weir Dyke. There was no road across the fields to Twenty so
one walked along the bank, crossed over the sluice gates that controlled the
Bourne Eau, then gingerly across the Weir Dyke and, approaching the crew yard,
you hugged the wall until you saw the welcome light of an oil lamp in the
window. But always there was the kindness of one's patients, despite their hard
living conditions, with no water laid on, no indoor toilets. You always got a
cup of tea after attending a confinement and despite the conditions in which
they lived, it was always served on a clean tablecloth with a slice of cake or a
piece of pie.
It would be unrealistic to expect the hours that Dr
Galletly worked to be emulated today but even he would have criticised the
sweeping changes in general practice that have resulted in doctors working fewer
hours for more pay because people’s fears in time of illness remain unchanged.
Today’s system may be much better and far more efficient than in the past but that does
not mean to say that it cannot be improved, especially when the number of
patients now seeking treatment is a grave cause for alarm.
Two recent planning applications which have come before Bourne Town
Council have illustrated the ineffectiveness of the democratic process because
both have been passed without comment, an unacceptable situation but one forced
upon them by the current rules and regulations that have now become quite
untenable. In each case, a member of the town council was involved in the
application and so other members were forced to declare an interest, thus
negating the town council’s much vaunted powers of having an input in the
planning process which is entirely the province of South Kesteven District
Council.
The rights and wrongs of the two applications are not the issue here, one by
market stallholders Bill and Jane Pauley to turn the double garage adjoining
their home in Hereward Street into a fruit and vegetable shop, and the other by
the owners of the Qu’Appelle residential care home in West Street to build a new
complex on land in Harrington Street currently occupied by garage workshops.
Jane Pauley is a town councillor as is Sandra Wilson, manager of the care home,
and so none of their colleagues were allowed to make any comment on either
application when they came before their planning committee earlier this year,
either for themselves or for those people they represent. The same restrictions
apply to those five councillors who are also members of South Kesteven District
Council and so there are no opinions about either, whether for or against, from
the people of this town through their elected representatives.
It takes only a moment’s consideration to realise that this is quite
unacceptable, and most councillors understand this. But we should question what
has happened to allow us reach such an impasse over what should be a full and
fair debate over changes to our street scene. If these circumstances dictate
that these matters cannot be discussed in committee, then there may be other
issues, perhaps far more important, likely to be similarly passed without an
input from our town council and if its members accept the situation, then
perhaps we have reached the stage where this level of local government
administration has been rendered unfit for purpose and should be dismantled.
Almost ninety years ago, a football team known as Bourne Juniors won a
trophy called the Victor Bosley Shield. The match was played at the Abbey lawn
on 1st September 1921 and although their opponents are not known, a list of the
team has survived. They were, pictured above, back row (from the left) - W
Hinson, G Everett, J H Moody, F Rosier, A Dibben, J Sones, T Colman, P Sensicle,
N Hinson; centre row - F Hinson, A Cropley, J Luesby, A Hemment, R Cropley;
front row - T Dewey, C Smith and C Twell.
The shield, which was competed for annually by youth teams from the area aged
under 16, has recently been donated to the Heritage Centre and we are trying to
trace something of its origins but all that is known are the names of the
winners for the 1920-21 season. Can anyone shed further light on this
competition and, more importantly, who was Victor Bosley?
From the archives: In the year 1301, King Edward I called a Parliament at
Lincoln which was held in the Chapter House of the Cathedral. This Parliament
was attended by about 300 members and their attendants. So, in order to feed
them, food had to be collected from other parts of the county. They sent to
Bourne for meat and in the accounts of the Parliament, it is shown that they
paid "Walter de Auclound two shillings and eight pence for carrying two carcases
of beef and 10 carcases of mutton from Bourne to Lincoln, a distance of over 30
miles". Sitting in Parliament, even in those days, must have been dry work for
it appears from the accounts that this body of 300 men drank 3,121 gallons of
beer in three days. Fortunately for the Chancellor of the Exchequer, beer was
cheap at that time, only costing one penny per gallon. - from Bourne and
People associated with Bourne by J T Swift (1925).
Thought for the week: Beer is living proof that God loves us and wants us
to be happy. - Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790), one of the Founding Fathers of
the United States and a noted polymath, author and printer, satirist, political
theorist, politician, scientist, inventor, civic activist, statesman and
diplomat.
Saturday 12th September 2009
Memories of past glory - see "A relic from our days . . . "
Bourne has collected
another silver gilt award in the
town category of the East Midlands in Bloom competition which was announced
during a ceremony at Cleethorpes on Wednesday. This was a commendable effort
although missing gold was disappointing for the valiant team of volunteers
headed by Mrs Nelly Jacobs, clerk to the town council, who put in so much work.
The good news was that the town also collected two other prizes, a judges’
honours for the sensitive management of Bourne Wood and another for the least
littered environment.
The East Midlands in Bloom competition is a community based project designed to
encourage cleaner, smarter and more attractive town centres in the region. There
are several sections in the competition and Bourne fell into Category B Towns,
those with a population of between 6,000 and 12,000, based on the last electoral
register and we have made four creditable outings in this competition with two
silver awards in 2006 and 2007 followed by silver gilt awards in 2008 and now
2009.
The judges arrive unannounced and tour the town looking out for floral displays,
attractive and colourful gardens and parks and so it is important for everyone
to give special attention to those places under their control whether it is
merely the lawn and herbaceous borders or a public open space. An indication of
what is needed was given by one of the judges, Doug Stacey, when he spoke to the
town council earlier this year. “The competition originated in France and has
been running for 45 years”, he said. “It leads to cleaner communities and
encourages people to work together and take pride in their town.”
The competition carries with it an involvement of the people and the chance to
make our town centre streets attractive throughout the summer months, not just
for the judges but also for the many visitors who arrive here with Bourne either
as a destination or merely passing through. The work carried out this year along
South Street where flowers are still in bloom is the perfect example of how a
small market town should look at this time of the year and we should remember
that if people like what they see then they will come again.
Advice for the future from the judges at the award ceremony on Wednesday is to
include larger floral displays and the organising committee is hoping that
sponsors will come forward to finance additional planting. “We are still a long
way from the gold but we keep improving and hope to do better next year”, said
Nelly afterwards. “The litter award is particularly encouraging and we hope that
it serves as a reminder to everyone to keep our town tidy 365 days of the year.”
A relic from our days as the best well kept town has been preserved for
posterity after languishing unseen in a patch of undergrowth on the edge of the
Abbey Lawn for the past forty years. The oval metal plaque was presented in 1965
after Bourne was judged to be the best kept small town in Kesteven (until the
boundary changes of 1974, Lincolnshire was divided into three counties and we
were in Kesteven) and the following February, it was handed over to Bourne Urban
District Council which then ran our affairs, together with a trophy from the
Council for the Preservation of Rural England for winning this competition.
An additional prize was a tree of their own choice and the council selected a
flowering cherry that was planted near the entrance to the Abbey Lawn during a
civic ceremony where it still stands although the plaque was soon lost to sight
amid a mass of undergrowth and so most people did not even realise that it
existed. But it has now been rescued, restored and given a place
of prominence as part of the current refurbishment of the garden area behind the
wall alongside Abbey Road as a reminder of our past glory. An award was won for
a second time in 1978 when a similar trophy and metal plaque were presented by
the CPRE and by this time, Bourne had its own town council and the commemorative
tree planting was carried out in the War Memorial gardens by the mayor,
Councillor John Smith, with the mayoress, his wife Judy, in attendance.
Two other plaques removed during the fencing project and refurbishment of the
main gates have also been cleaned and returned to their original positions on
the central pillars. They were placed there soon after Bourne United Charities
acquired the land almost eighty years ago and converted it for permanent
recreational use for the town and containing suitable inscriptions referring to
the purchase of the ground in the years 1931-34 by the trustees of Bourne United
Charities in order to preserve them as an open space for ever and to mark the
work of levelling and laying out the grounds by trainees from the Ministry of
Labour Instructional Centre, Bourne.
This area of the Abbey Lawn has been restored during the summer months by
volunteers from the Bourne Green Gym project who have acquitted themselves well
although the memorial garden of shrubs, a seat and paved area which was
previously located here, built in 1983 by schoolchildren to remember solicitor
Horace Stanton (1897-1977), has disappeared in the process despite his long
clerkship of Bourne United Charities who administer the Abbey Lawn which he was
also instrumental in purchasing and converting for public use. We are therefore
tempted to reflect on how many similar projects being completed today with such
worthy intentions will survive the years and who among those now making their
mark in public life will similarly sink into oblivion.
Another amenity which appears to have disappeared from public use is the
Red Hall as a community centre and museum. This was its agreed role when the
building was acquired by Bourne United Charities in 1962 and restored at a cost
of £½ million (at today’s values), money which came through grants from the
Pilgrim Trust at Boston, the Department of the Environment, Kesteven County
Council, Bourne Urban District Council and South Kesteven District Council, the
balance coming from the people of Bourne through voluntary donations and various
fund raising schemes.
The objective throughout was to restore the building for community use, summed
up on 10th November 1970 when the Lincolnshire Free Press reported: “When
the Red Hall is completed, the trustees hope that they will be able to place the
house at the disposal of the general public as an art or recreational centre
open to anyone wishing to take advantage of the facilities it will provide.”
The scheme was finally finished two years later and the hall reopened on
Saturday 2nd December 1972 as a community centre, as was envisaged. It remains
in use today, almost solely as offices of Bourne United Charities, but the
public events which marked its new lease of life are a thing of the past and
although some local organisations do meet there, the trustees do not now open
the building to the public and few people have ever been inside, even on the
Open Days organised annually by English Heritage which fall this weekend on
Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday.
The early 19th century Baldock’s Mill is opening to the public on all four days,
enabling visitors see the results of the extensive voluntary work carried out
over the past 30 years to turn it into a Heritage Centre of which this town can
be proud but the early 17th century Red Hall, our most famous secular building
and the finest Elizabethan mansion in South Lincolnshire that was saved by
public money, will remain closed and it would be helpful if the present trustees
could explain why.
What the local newspapers are saying: The restrictions on smoking in
public places made it inevitable that those who like a puff would be driven on
to the streets and the sight of workers from shops and offices and customers
from public houses and takeaways sneaking outside to indulge the habit is quite
pathetic while the resulting litter outside these establishments was entirely
predictable.
There is nothing worse than those who do not indulge preaching to those who do
but in this instance the consequences are there for all to see and have now been
brought to the attention of Bourne Town Council with a series of complaints
about the number of cigarette ends causing a new problem of litter.
The Local reports that letters are now being sent to every establishment
asking street smokers to use the bins provided instead of turning our pavements
into ash trays and the mayor, Councillor Trevor Holmes, has urged South Kesteven
District Council to use its powers to punish the culprits as they do any other
litterbug. “Those who drop cigarette ends should be fined”, he told the
newspaper (September 4th). “People must treat the town centre as if it were
their own home or garden but it is down to the publican to make sure that the
path outside his premises is as clean and tidy as possible when closing for the
night.”
Litterbugs, including smokers dropping fag ends, face a fine of £75 and so the
warning is timely but enforcement is unlikely. South Kesteven District Council
which has responsibilities in this matter, claims that “our rangers roam the
district and will be in the Bourne area up to two or three times a week”.
Unfortunately, like the police, they are unlikely to be outside late at night
when the pubs and takeaways are at their busiest.
My wife took me out to lunch on Wednesday to celebrate my 79th birthday
and we talked about passing friends, all the more poignant because many of those
we knew have gone and others likely to soon. An old acquaintance, the prolific
writer Keith Waterhouse, who I worked with during my days on the Daily Mirror in
the late 1950s, has just joined the great majority and as he listed his
recreation in Who’s Who as lunch it was appropriate that we should discuss him
over table.
He was the supreme trencherman who celebrated the midday meal in style, usually
beginning with drinks at one of the Fleet Street watering holes such as El Vinos
or the Red Lion before taking a taxi up west to a booked table somewhere in
restaurant land and after hearty eating accompanied by fine wines, would often
adjourn to one of the private clubs which catered for those living on expenses,
usually the Colony Room, although work which came later was always done
efficiently without ever missing a deadline and invariably without complaint
from the back bench.
More mundane domestic affairs have dominated the week with the arrival of the
plumber to change the taps in the bathroom, sadly corroding through age, and he
proudly showed us the new shiny chromium replacements to seek our approval with
the promise that they were guaranteed for six years which, I suggested, were
quite satisfactory because they would most certainly see me out. This remark
which caused some hilarity reminded me of an incident concerning my mother, a
redoubtable lady who, when she was 85 years old, bought a new easy chair from a
furnishing store and the salesman, anxious to please his customer, asked whether
she wanted to pay on the instalment plan, an exchange which she never tired of
relating during her last few years.
The object of this contemplation on longevity is that once you reach the
biblical three score years and ten there is never any certainty that you will
see another summer and that each day is therefore precious and should be
enjoyed, despite the daily round of peace and quiet being disrupted by necessary
maintenance and other household diversions. In her final months, my mother also
confided that each morning when she woke, she opened her eyes slowly to make
sure that she had survived to see another day and in these uncertain times when
the ruffian lurks forever on the stair that must surely be a thankful experience
for us all whatever our age.
Thought for the week: Old age is like everything else. To make a success
of it, you've got to start young. - Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919),
naturalist, explorer, hunter, author, and soldier and the youngest person ever
to become president of the United States at the age of 42.
Saturday 19th September 2009
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Motor racing history - see "The
memorial room . . . " |
The work of the Red Cross in Bourne is best remembered
from the Great War when the organisation was responsible for establishing and
running a military hospital in the town which cared for almost 950 wounded
soldiers from the front between 1914-18. As a result of their work many of the
staff were awarded Red Cross medals which were presented by the Countess of
Ancaster at a special ceremony in 1922.
The Red Cross is a humanitarian organisation that helps people in crisis,
whoever and wherever they are, and is mainly run by volunteers. It began in
1863, inspired by a Swiss businessman, Henry Dunant, who was shocked by the
suffering of thousands of men on both sides who were left to die due to lack of
care after the Battle of Solferino in 1859, the last major conflict in world
history where all of the involved armies of 200,000 men were under the personal
control of their monarchs. He proposed the creation of national relief societies
made up of volunteers, trained in peacetime to provide neutral and impartial
help to relieve suffering in times of war and from these early beginnings grew
the Red Cross organisation we know today.
The International Committee of the Red Cross was later established in Geneva and
the founding charter was drawn up in 1863 and after many developments became the
British Red Cross in 1905 and was granted its first Royal Charter in 1908 by HM
King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra, who became its president. A huge number of
skilled volunteers were required and a permanent structure of local branches was
adopted and extended the presence of the British Red Cross to communities around
the country. A Voluntary Aid Scheme was introduced in 1909 and ensured that
Voluntary Aid Detachments (VADs) were formed in every county in England whose
members would provide aid to the territorial medical forces in times of war.
After the Great War, the British Red Cross was able to embark on a programme of
peacetime activities at home and abroad and that presence is still prevalent in
Bourne today, albeit one of low profile, and although most recognise their
charity shop in North Street, the headquarters of the Bourne branch is less
prominent, operating from premises tucked away behind the Butterfield Centre in
Harrington Street. The work they do remains varied and extensive and perhaps
they are best known lending items of medical equipment, such as wheelchairs, bed
rests and commodes, to people on a short term basis but a campaign has now been
launched to raise £21,000 to finance a fully equipped first aid vehicle for use
at public events.
Until now, the organisation has been using a caravan or marquee but the vehicle,
which will be twice the size of an ambulance and fitted with a hydraulic lift,
will enable them treat someone inside. Fund raising is already underway with a
series of events such as bag packing at the Rainbow supermarket, a raffle,
coffee mornings and a charity auction, and it is hoped to reach the target by
the spring and then raise further funds to finance additional equipment
including a trolley cot, defibrillator, oxygen and other first aid necessities.
Centre organiser Trevor Hollinshead, aged 59, said that the new vehicle would
make the work of the Bourne branch much easier and when not in use it would be
fully employed at other Red Cross centres in Lincolnshire. “Local organisations
have already responded to our appeal and we feel confidence that the target will
be reached”, he said.
What the local newspapers are saying: The proposed redevelopment of
Bourne town centre appears to be a dead duck as far as the public are concerned,
no matter what propaganda is peddled by South Kesteven District Council. A
letter in the correspondence columns of The Local from Tim Bladon of
Wendover Close, Rippingale (September 11th) takes the authority to task for
presiding over a project destined to become “a white elephant” and the lack of
information forthcoming, either from council officials or elected
representatives who he suggests have been “muzzled” and asks why this has been
allowed to happen.
This view has popular currency as anyone who knows anything about this town will
attest and Mr Bladon goes further by suggesting that the futility of the scheme
is even acknowledged in private at council headquarters in Grantham because he
writes: “The determination to proceed with this costly project now seems to be a
case of saving face despite recent criticism from the Audit Commission that the
prospects are uncertain and that the council has failed to undertake proper
public consultation.”
Other issues are raised by this letter, the future of free car parking in Bourne
and the prospect of further amenities for the town among them, but the final
assessment is that the £27 million redevelopment should be shelved until the
people, those who pay the council tax, decide whether it is a good idea after
all. This letter sums up the vox populi over this project and cries out
for a reply from SKDC or one of those six Bourne councillors who represent us on
that authority but I fear that we may be whistling in the wind.
There is already much discussion about this letter, not least from the Bourne
Forum which we know from experience is read regularly by councillors, at least
by those who have an Internet connection which does not include them all. On
Sunday, Brynley Heaven, a contributor from Aslackby, near Bourne, a parish
councillor and someone with wide experience of local government elsewhere in the
country, wrote this perceptive message:
There is a good letter from Rippingale in
The Local on the proposed Bourne Town Centre this week. Scunthorpe's plan -
£26 million, by the way - is a multi-leisure centre. Useful. Bourne's plan, as
far as anyone knows, is for shopping. It needs scaling back, as dead Budgens
shows there will not be that much unmet demand. At present there isn't any.
Waitrose have rejected us. We'd like a Primark of course, but there are no names
saying they want in. The point made by the man from Rippingale is that local
reps are not free to speak. They have to be "all singing from the same hymn
sheet", a self-imposed restriction that is really another way of saying "treat
the public with contempt on this matter". Besides, it's a lousy hymn sheet.
Scale it back. They did announce they were scaling it back and then, hey presto,
we're back in dreamland again. What with the Internet stealing a lot of
specialist shopping, you would have to double the size of Bourne to justify a
shiny new shopping mall. And if Bourne were that size, you would need a mass
transit system to Peterborough. Folks, it's not going to happen.
The memorial room at the Heritage Centre in South Street
dedicated to the motor racing pioneer Raymond Mays (1899-1980) is ten years old
this year, having been opened on Sunday 29th August 1999 by the town’s MP, Quentin
Davies, the member for Grantham and Stamford. This modest museum commemorates
the life and times of the man who made his mark at international level as both
driver and designer and now attracts attention from around the world.
It began with a collection of old photographs found in the attic of his lifelong
home in Eastgate after his death, each one copied and mounted to create an
attractive display, and a pair of his racing goggles but since then other
artefacts from his career together with an impressive display of silver trophies
have been added and the collection grows annually as racing enthusiasts
contribute treasured possessions connected with the sport for others to share.
The latest addition is a white T-shirt that has been presented for permanent
display with the distinctive red logo of ERA on one side and a white mouse on
the other, emblem of the White Mouse Racing Team which owned the blue-painted
ERA R2B, the famous 1.5 litre car which Prince Bira of Siam bought from Raymond
Mays during a visit to Bourne in 1935 to mark his 21st birthday. The prince
named it Romulus, quickly becoming one of the main exponents of this voiturette
class of international racing and winning the Coup de Prince Rainier at Monte
Carlo while the car remained in his ownership until his death half a century
later. Two other models followed, in 1936 and 1938, which he named Remus and
Hanuman and for the next few years, Bira remained consistently successful.
There must be many other items lying around relating to Raymond Mays and
Bourne’s motor racing history and as we celebrate this 10th anniversary, it
would be appropriate if they were sought out and donated to the Heritage Centre
for display. This 100-year slice of our history brought both fame and prosperity
to this town and the memorial room reflects those times for visitors to see for
themselves.
I have been to church in the past few weeks more times than I have ever
done before even though I spent many years as a choirboy when it was a sin to
miss services, often held three times a day at the Christian festivals of Easter
and Christmas. My objective, however, has not been one of worship but to find
out more about the story of the building itself because I am just completing a
pictorial history of the Abbey Church on DVD, the third of a series chronicling
the life and times of this town.
My archive is extensive but in the past month I have taken a further 250
photographs to supplement those I already have and it is now almost finished,
the story of our only Grade I listed building from 1138 when it was founded as a
monastery by Baldwin Fitzgilbert until the present day. This has been a
fascinating journey that has revealed one thing that I never realised before,
that our predecessors who were charged with looking after the building did not
always do things right and left signs of their mistakes for all to see, notably
botched stonework with little regard for period and style.
The Victorians were undoubtedly the worst culprits and the jigsaw of errors that
now comprise the stately west front is testament to their dogged but mistaken
belief that they were always right whereas today their labours would have needed
the approval of various regulatory bodies to ensure that no one man is allowed
to put his stamp on a restoration that may be out of kilter with the accepted
architectural style.
The photographic survey has also revealed that much work needs to be done both
on the building and in the churchyard to bring them up to an acceptable standard
but parish churches depend today on charity and benevolence for their survival
and although God inspires it is man who provides and the wherewithal is not
always forthcoming, especially during the straightened times in which we now
live when philanthropy takes second place to those other necessities needed to
survive.
The Abbey Church is the last in this trilogy of DVDs, the others being Images of
Bourne, a pictorial tour of the town as it is today, and Bourne in Past Times, a
glimpse of yesteryear through the eyes of local photographers. Each disc runs
for just over an hour and can be played on any standard DVD player as well as a
computer.
Thought for the week: I like the silent church before the service begins,
better than any preaching. - Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-82), American poet,
lecturer and essayist.
Saturday 26th September 2009
Wind turbines in the fen near Bourne
The battle against building wind turbines in the fens
around Bourne has been waged since the first scheme was announced eight years
ago but is now long forgotten because of the opposition it provoked. The £8
million project, first proposed in December 2000, came from a company called
Wind Prospect which involved the erection of eleven turbines on 200 acres of
agricultural land in the fen north of the town, some of them 250 feet high which
is much taller than most of the surrounding church spires, but even then, it
became obvious that those who lived in the neighbourhood would not endorse such
a development without a fight and soon the idea passed into history.
The flat and often windswept landscape is regarded as a prime location for wind
farms and there have been other similar proposals since including one from
Scottish Power Renewables which wants to erect six turbines, each 410 feet high,
on farmland at Sempringham, north of Bourne, but this time the Ministry of
Defence added weight to the local protest by saying that they would interfere
with the radar systems at the Royal Air Force stations at Cranwell and
Cottesmore which are not far away and so the application was withdrawn for the
time being.
Meanwhile, the energy supplier E.ON has been holding a public exhibition to seek
support for its own scheme to build 17 turbines at Billingborough while yet
another project is rumoured to be in the pipeline for twelve of them on the old
airfield site at Folkingham, both under fire from local residents. They do then
seem a popular idea to provide electricity which ought to be welcomed,
especially at a time when world supplies are at a premium and are likely to mean
widespread power cuts in England by 2016 because green energy such as this is
coming on stream too slowly.
Protest organisations, however, abound, such as the Action Group Against
Sempringham Turbines which has been challenging local proposals since 2005.
Chairman Debbie Wren, told the Stamford Mercury (September 18th): “I have
had four years of going through dark periods of my life fighting this but as one
application is withdrawn, the Billingborough project materialises. It is
relentless and looks as though it will continue blighting our lives for the time
being.”
There is an alternative view, that wind power is the way forward for a
civilisation that has plundered fossil fuels from the earth over past centuries
when energy could literally have been plucked from the skies. Supporters of this
theory suggest that those people opposed to change do so without really thinking
about what is involved and the NIMBY syndrome is writ large in most objections
no matter how they are wrapped up in concerns over property prices, health,
noise, unsightliness and pollution of the environment.
History often provides the answer to our current ills. Windmills have been with
us since they first appeared in ancient Persia almost 1,400 years ago and
there were 10,000 of them in England and Wales during the early 19th century
when they were particularly useful for drainage work and considerable areas were
freed from water for the greater part of each year including Deeping Fen, a
large tract of mainly sodden peat that runs to the very edge of Bourne.
Windmills were use to counteract the effect of the lowered land surface and by
1763, over 50 were at work in this one fen alone. Many survive and are preserved
as valued reminders of our heritage, notably the smock mill at Dyke village that
was built by Dutch drainage engineers in the late 17th or early 18th century as
a pumping mill and moved to the village around 1840 when it was converted to
grind corn.
There are many others scattered around this part of Lincolnshire and the
opprobrium of the preservation lobby would be heaped upon your head if you tried
to dismantle or alter one of these magnificent monuments to man's achievement
and so one wonders what all the fuss is about each time a wind turbine is
mentioned.
How long then does a structure have to remain in our landscape before it is
acknowledged as something that should be preserved as an example of the way life
once was? Vast sums are being spent on preserving the Lancashire woollen mills
of the 19th century, the manufactories in the Potteries, old railway lines and
the tin mines in Cornwall, while anything remotely connected with water such as
sluices, aqueducts and canals, is sacrosanct. If the new wind turbines that are
currently causing so much concern were to materialise here in the Bourne area,
they too would eventually become listed monuments. It is only a matter of time.
The electricity pylons that crisscross our countryside will eventually become
defunct as power lines go underground but the prospect of dismantling these
magnificent steel structures will be resisted in many areas by preservation
groups who see them as examples of our island's industrial progress. One of the
best examples of the changing face of conservation in recent years has occurred
at Fylingdales, a remote but picturesque area of the North Yorkshire Moors
National Park where in 1964, during the height of the cold war, an early warning
radar station was erected at a cost of £46 million, linked with similar stations
in Greenland and Alaska to give a four-minute warning of a nuclear attack.
The station consisted of a series of massive white, circular structures on the
top of a hill that resembled gigantic golf balls, each nearly 150 feet in
diameter, an eyesore in this place of rolling heather moorland if ever you saw
one, and despite the dire state of the world on its headlong flight into
Armageddon, angry voices were raised in protest at the desecration of this
beautiful place. The threat from Russia has disappeared along with the Iron
Curtain and the Berlin Wall and so the golf balls, as they became affectionately
known, outlived their usefulness and were dismantled in 1992 in favour of more
sophisticated but less obtrusive equipment but the outcry over their
disappearance was equally vociferous as protestors insisted that they should
remain as a significant part of our 20th century history.
How long then before wind turbines will find a similar place in our affections?
After all, their installation does not eat up the open countryside or destroy
our flora and fauna. They not only have a stately grace, are practically
noiseless and move only with the wind, but are also perhaps a sign that there is
hope for us in a world that has become far too dependent on the internal
combustion engine and nuclear power. Would it not be better to embrace them as
sentinels on the road to a new and greener technology rather than trash them
like the Luddites of old simply because we are offended by the sight of their
sails turning when we step outside the back door? Once their use is proven here,
as it already is in many parts of the world, then in fifty years' time, perhaps
even less, not a voice will be raised against them and anyone who dares suggest
their removal will do so at their peril.
The countryside is tinder dry after a lengthy period without rain,
a difficult circumstance to accept in view of the poor summer weather we have
had, but that is how it is. The trees and undergrowth in Bourne Wood look
decidedly dejected through the lack of moisture while even the ploughs now
turning the land for another growing season are throwing up clouds of dust as
the tractors pass up and down the newly turned furrows.
This would be a disastrous scenario were it high summer with the risk of fires
in the fields and alongside roadside verges but evenings and early mornings
in late September tend to be misty and damp and so lessen the risk of sparks and
discarded cigarette ends starting a blaze that would soon spread and cause
untold damage.
Those who live in urban areas will have noticed the paucity of rainfall by the
state of their lawns, all parched and looking positively unhealthy, because
grass thrives on a constant supply of water, and the only alternative is a
regular dose from the tap, now a costly exercise for those on a meter and
distinctly frowned upon as wasteful and even illegal by those who are not. We
therefore hope for a downpour not only to relieve the tired appearance of our
gardens but also to replenish supplies in our reservoirs because it is low
levels here that cause the biggest problems.
I can already hear the cries of global warming as an explanation but then this
situation is not new and was well known in past years even before the term had
been invented and had gained such popular currency. What we are witnessing is a
fluctuation in the weather pattern similar to that experienced in past times,
particularly in my boyhood seventy or so years ago when I distinctly remember
pouring every available drop of water on to our vegetable patch to keep the
produce healthy during a prolonged dry spell and ensure that we always had
something to eat. Today, we can pop down to Sainsburys to replenish the larder
with fruit and veg from Israel and other foreign parts but in those days we were
entirely dependent on the garden for our food.
But life has moved on and today we worry less about the lack of rain, even if we
notice it, and our awareness is only alerted when the water companies impose
swingeing restrictions, as they have done in the past. In the absence of a
prolonged downpour, that time may not be far off.
While waiting for my wife at Boots in West Street this week, I saw two
ladies leaving, each clutching large bags full of prescription drugs which they
had just picked up from the dispensary where many more people were waiting to
collect their pills and potions. The story is the same at the Anglia Co-operative
pharmacy in Exeter Street where business is so brisk that a wait of
four and five days for a prescription to be dispensed has become a regular
occurrence.
This evidence, together with a little eavesdropping among the oldies on market
day who are always ready to discuss their ailments, reveals an extensive pill
and potion culture and as advances in medicine are ever changing, we wonder
whether they are all really necessary. Certainly not, if we are to believe
everything we hear on the television newscasts and read in the public prints
because in recent months, to cite just two examples, the widespread use of
medicaments to control high blood pressure may be mistaken and the popular daily
dose of low level aspirin for elderly people to prevent heart attacks similarly
flawed. Who are we to believe?
My mother lived to be 85 and in her final years was taking 18 different
prescribed tablets a day until a new doctor arrived for her regular examination
and promptly threw the lot out and told her to take just two a day which worked
equally well. Even then we have no way of knowing if they were beneficial or if
the millions of others being swallowed regularly around the country have any
effect whatsoever on our health although one factor that is not in doubt is the
advantageous consequence that mass medication has on the profits of the
international drug companies.
Unfortunately, we are dependent on our general practitioners and we need them as
much as other experts in their own field, such as the plumber and electrician,
and must therefore take their advice rather than pursue a policy of
self-medication any more than we would try to unblock a stubborn drain or rewire
the living room. In turn, the doctors can do no more than keep up with the
latest research most of which is in the grip of the drug companies and so we are
stuck with it and can do no more than trust them.
Our attitude is more or less the same as it was when physicians were trying to
cure a multitude of illnesses and bodily disorders by blood letting with
leeches. Such procedures by a trusted profession were quite acceptable and never
questioned and perhaps pill taking will be regarded with much the same dismay a
decade or so hence. In the meantime, we have little choice but to keep taking
the tablets.
Thought for the week: I remember when our whole island was shaken with an
earthquake some years ago, there was an impudent mountebank who sold pills which
(as he told the country people) were very good against an earthquake.
-
Joseph Addison (1672-1719), English essayist, poet, dramatist and statesman and
co-founder of The Spectator magazine.
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