|
Saturday 6th November 2010
The lending library in South Street is included in a much
vaunted scheme to transfer all of our public services in Bourne under one roof
but it is now becoming apparent that our local councils really have no inkling
of what to do about it. For many months we have been told that they will be
concentrated at the town hall but officials have at last decided that this is
not such a good idea after all.
The Bourne Community Access Point, as this project is known, began more than two
years ago as a consultation between our three local authorities, Lincolnshire
County Council, South Kesteven District Council and Bourne Town Council, yet
only now have they realised something that everyone has been telling them from
the outset, that you cannot put a quart into a pint pot, in other words, the
building is far too small. Other options are therefore being considered and the
Corn Exchange is currently being put forward as an alternative.
The new scheme was floated in the Stamford Mercury (October 30th) when
the council leader, Linda Neal (Bourne West), said that an assessment was
currently taking place to decide whether that building could provide the
required space instead. “At this stage, we do not know whether the Corn Exchange
will remain on the agenda as a viable location as work is ongoing”, she said.
“But the town hall has not been definitely struck off the list to house this
project.”
This suggestion also appears to be a non-starter for if the Corn Exchange is to
be swamped with a demand for space to accommodate a whole assortment of new
departments and accompanying staff, then something that is already there will
have to go. In other words, this is little more than a re-run of the town hall
scheme which has now been found to be wanting.
Most people are totally bemused by all of this because the present system is
working quite smoothly and the old adage that if it ain’t broke don’t fix it
ought to apply. The council must also decide whether it is making changes for
its own benefit or for the public good because the present proposals have little
merit for the continuance of a much valued community amenity. There may be a
time in the future when we can seriously think about a purpose built centre in a
more accessible location which would be an acceptable solution, but this is not
the time for such a luxury and neither are we prepared to swap what we have for
something inferior.
The current round of public spending cuts has forced government at all levels to
start selling off their assets to fund one of the very causes of the current
economic crisis, high salary levels and pension entitlements in the public
sector, and both the district and county councils are following suit. Wake House
is already on the market, the bus station is on the list of marketable sites and
as the public library is included in the proposed umbrella project, that
building too is likely to be sold off for housing together with the fire station
next door. There will be others.
The difficulty in all of this is that too many fingers are in the reorganisation
pie with everyone involved thrashing around for a solution to a problem of
relocation that just does not exist while the real threat comes from the soaring
cost of maintaining the expanding labour forces of our local authorities, often
working in jobs that are totally unnecessary. Everyone knows this, not least
those who run our councils, and the climate is now right for them to be doing
something about it instead of throwing what we already have into uncertainty and
even chaos.
A major influence in my boyhood was our local library which I discovered
about the age of twelve, a small wooden building little more than a hut yet
containing an introduction to the world of books which could be borrowed by the
week and then returned to be replaced. These visits on a Tuesday evening became
the highpoint of my week in a world before television and other diversions and
after a pleasurable hour browsing the shelves for my regulation copies of two
fiction and two non-fiction, I would return home to devour the contents well
before the allotted time span had elapsed.
At first, my reading was random but the librarian, a bespectacled spinster who
had been my teacher at the elementary school I had recently left, soon realised
that I was in earnest and began recommending authors and subjects from which I
might benefit although she often frowned when I presented myself at the
reception desk where she rubber stamped the outgoing volumes if I had selected
something that had taken my fancy and of which she may not have approved.
Nevertheless, we established what would be known today as a working relationship
and soon, realising that I was becoming an avid reader, she began to turn a
blind eye to the rules and without comment would allow me to take home more
books than I was officially allowed, knowing that they would be read and
returned within the week, an arrangement which enabled me over the next few
years to become familiar with the great literary works of the age.
This small, and by today’s standards, insignificant library was a turning point
in my life and many others must have benefited by what it had to offer and
although all of this happened in another age almost seventy years ago the thirst
for knowledge is undiminished. There are now other and more immediate means of
obtaining information such as television and the Internet which are a speedy and
welcome addition to our resources but nothing can replace the book, not only for
its binding, content and ease of use but also for its place on the bookshelf
once read, a reminder of a pleasure experienced and to be taken down and
savoured again at some time in the future.
Our public libraries should be sacrosanct yet they are under threat and many are
closing around the country while others are being downsized or, as with Bourne,
moved into smaller locations and plans are even afoot to shift them into the
corners of supermarkets. The grand and spacious red brick palaces of past times,
pioneered by the Scottish philanthropist Andrew Carnegie, may soon be a thing of
the past, converted for other uses, while the less pretentious buildings are in
danger of being demolished to make way for new houses.
The first free public lending library in Bourne to be run by the local authority
was based at the old National School in North Street [now the headquarters of
the Grantham and Stamford Conservative Association] and was opened on 14th
November 1924. This was part of the Rural Library Scheme launched by the
education committee of Kesteven County Council which then administered this part
of Lincolnshire, and was equipped by the Carnegie United Kingdom Trust that had
presented them with 4,000 volumes of which Bourne had 240.
This modest library continued in service until the outbreak of the Second World
War in 1939 when the school was taken over for use as part of the Red Cross
hospital based next door in the Vestry Hall. The books were therefore moved to
the Bourne Institute in West Street, now the Pyramid Club, and the library
continued to operate from there for the next thirty years, and although the
number of volumes on offer increased during that time, the premises were soon
too small to continue serving the expanding population. A new library was
therefore opened in the old Civil Defence headquarters in South Street and in
1969, the service was transferred from the institute in West Street.
The population of Bourne however was expanding fast and it soon became apparent
that the original layout of the premises was inadequate and in 1981, a £40,000
improvement scheme was approved by Lincolnshire County Council which had taken
over library services in Bourne under the local government re-organisation. The
work took 16 months to complete and during this period, a temporary library
operated from the showrooms of the Jubilee Garage in Abbey Road.
The re-designed building, opened in February 1983, is as we see it today,
providing a modern open-plan layout and including better facilities for customer
lending, a children's section and an administration area. Since then, the
library has become an increasingly popular community amenity complete with a
well-stocked reference section containing a large quantity of local archive and
an area for quiet study. A bank of computers is also available where visitors
can either brush up on their PC skills or surf the Internet. A notice board in
the entrance hall is crammed with announcements from local groups holding
meetings or recruiting members and the library is also used for a variety of
other associated activities including displays, poetry reading and
story time sessions for children and even on occasions, book signings.
Although only small by comparison with some towns in Lincolnshire, the library
has a stock of around 25,000 books and as the lending system was computerised in
1992 and linking the new system to the central library department in Lincoln,
staff can check on screen for any volume being sought by readers which can then
be borrowed as soon as it becomes available.
The public library has changed dramatically since the wooden hut of my boyhood
yet we take this amenity for granted and it is only when its future comes under
threat that we realise its value to the community by providing the opportunity
for regular reading at no cost and by directing young minds towards great
literature and the writers whose ideas have helped change the world. Those who
seek to destroy this facility do so at their peril because they will be
responsible for a literary vandalism which will leave a gaping hole in our
culture that will never again be filled.
The Abbey Church is running at a loss of £300 a week. The figure has been
revealed in the latest appeal for donations, preferably through a scheme of
planned giving, to ensure that the building can continue as the centre of
Christian faith in Bourne as it has for the past 900 years.
Leaflets are being distributed throughout the parish to support the appeal
giving the current financial situation of the church which is dedicated to St
Peter and St Paul. It shows that the weekly outgoings are £1,985 while income is
only £1,700, a reminder of Wilkins Micawber’s famous dictum on personal finance
that overspending one’s yearly salary by even the smallest amount can have
wretched consequences.
The church income currently comes mainly from donations and the collection plate
during services, fees for weddings and funerals and the continual fund raising
from a dedicated band of volunteers who hold a variety of functions throughout
the year while much of what comes in is eaten up by the parish’s £1,000 weekly
contribution to the diocese towards the expense of providing a minister together
with essential maintenance costs which are continually rising, particularly
heating, lighting and insurance.
Planned giving in the past has been an essential factor in the church’s
financial situation and enables anyone to make a regular contribution, either
weekly, monthly or quarterly, and taxpayers who register can also make their
offering gift aided which currently adds 28p to every £1 given. But during the
past three years, the number of regular givers has decreased despite the
congregation remaining steady. “At present, it costs £2,000 per week to keep the
abbey open”, says the leaflet. “Our regular income averages £1,700 and unless we
can make up this shortfall we shall be unable to care for this Grade I listed
building properly or to carry out the work we are doing in the community.”
Thought for the week: Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure
nineteen nineteen six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual
expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery.
- Mr Micawber, a
character in the novel David Copperfield by Charles Dickens (1812-70), the most
popular English novelist of the Victorian era.
Saturday 13th November 2010
A notice in the window of No 15c North Street
encapsulates the plight of many small traders today who are blighted by high
rents and business rates, soaring prices for heating and lighting, and now the
downturn in the economy which has reduced their customer base.
The owner of Bourne4Sports shut up shop last month saying: “Tom and all the
staff would like to thank all their loyal customers for the past two years we
have been trading. It has been a very difficult decision to come to and not one
taken lightly. Thanks again for all the loyal support over the years.”
Others that have closed include the Shoe Doctor and Pets Parlour in West Street,
the Callis restaurant and the former estate agent’s offices in North Street,
hardware merchants T R Carlton in Abbey Road, Deeping Travel in the Burghley
Arcade, Hereward Discounts in South Street and even the charity shop Break in
North Street which despite its philanthropic status does not make the business
immune from the effects of the recession.
The situation is far worse than most people realise because several others have
also closed and more are likely to join them because their leases are up for
sale trying to attract new tenants while a great deal of office space stands
empty and available for rent. In fact, a check this week suggests that twenty
shop properties in the town centre area have either closed, are available to let
or their future is uncertain and this is the background against which the town
council vetoed a planning application from the national chain, Costa Coffee, to
open a new business at No 10 North Street which has been standing empty for more
than a year.
Although the opposition was by no means unanimous, it was taken on the grounds
that existing businesses should be protected even though the use of premises
should play no part in the town planning procedures. Long serving councillor,
Shirley Cliffe, a member since 1976, told the Stamford Mercury afterwards
(October 22nd): “I am opposed to it because we have enough eating places and
coffee bars in the town already. Support the others so that we keep them. We do
not want any more shops closing.”
Nevertheless, this was a curious decision because a planning application for a
new coffee bar at No 7 South Street which was considered by the committee in May
sailed through on a majority vote with not a single objection being raised.
A decision on the Costa Coffee application now rests with South Kesteven
District Council and will be taken at a meeting of the development and control
committee on Tuesday 7th December when a favourable response is most likely. It
can hardly be otherwise. The authority struggles in vain to rejuvenate the town
centre with little effect, spending large amounts of money on sub-standard
properties in the hope that they may be of use at some time in the future for a
project that has not yet been determined. Their immediate solution is to build
more shops, in Wherry’s Lane and even on the bus station site, completely
ignoring the empty properties that stare out into our main streets from prime
locations while those still trading are having difficulty in making ends meet.
There is a distinct feeling in Bourne that we have become a backwater,
completely forgotten in the corridors of power at Grantham except when the
authority’s quota of new houses is under review and what better place to dump
them than here where eager developers are always ready to cover any available
parcel of land with bricks and mortar.
Our town councillors will excuse themselves from this disaster by saying that
nothing can be done, that their powers are limited, yet they vote against new
trade coming in, much to the chagrin of the Bourne Business Chamber. The town
also has six members on the district council who should be the key to keeping us
informed and although we do have occasional statements from the leader,
Councillor Linda Neal (Bourne West), we hear little or nothing from the others
except at election time.
It would most certainly increase public understanding if all of our councillors
engaged with the people who elected them by keeping them informed through the
many media outlets currently available about what exactly is going on in the
debating chambers and the efforts being made to bring more traders into our once busy
shopping centre which, as has already been forecast elsewhere, is in danger of
becoming a ghost town.
Meanwhile, a letter in the The Local last week should not go
unnoticed because it describes an urban Utopia unknown to most of us who live in
Bourne and are regularly out and about in the town and concerns the Costa Coffee
application to open a new business at No 10 North Street.
Although the vast majority from a very large postbag of correspondence to the
local newspapers are in favour of the coffee bar, Ian Lister, of Barleyfield,
Langtoft, near Bourne, is among the dissenters and in his letter he calls for a
march on the town hall to ensure that the objections of like-minded people to
the opening of the new coffee bar is heard (November 5th). He writes:
“I would urge anyone who visits any of the town’s fine independent coffee shops
to join me in this action. Unlike many towns and cities, Bourne has a café
culture and something that should be the envy of any place which has had the
misfortune to find a Costa or a Starbucks dumped on its doorstep and I fear that
this would slowly kill off the great independent and unique coffee shops that
Bourne is privileged to have.”
Passion for any cause is to be highly commended for without such zeal many
unwanted developments would be foisted upon us but unchecked enthusiasm in this
instance may be misplaced because a quick tour of the coffee outlets in Bourne
demonstrates that the town is not exactly comparable with London, Paris and
Milan where the café culture is part of their heritage. Julie’s, Polly’s and the
Pea Pod are all welcome independent outlets with a regular clientele and if they
are to be so highly commended by their customers, then a little competition from
an outsider should be accepted without resorting to gross hyperbole and direct
action to protect their interests.
Our new Member of Parliament, elected only a few months ago, has not got
off to a particularly auspicious start because he has already earned the
opprobrium of South Kesteven District Council by suggesting that it should be
abolished.
Brash though it may seem, Mr Boles, the member for Grantham and Stamford
constituency (which includes Bourne) since the May general election, put forward
this controversial viewpoint in his new book Which Way’s Up? published in
September in which he wrote: “Nobody in Britain feels a surge of pride when the
name of their district council is mentioned and few of the people it serves
would mourn its passing.”
This is not exactly the way to win friends and influence people yet he
specifically mentioned SKDC as being ready for the chop although it is quite
clearly run by the Conservative Party to which Mr Boles has hitched his wagon.
“The void would be filled”, he said, “by a town council, thereby saving money
and giving local people more say in their affairs.”
Councillors have now had time to digest this concept and consider their response
but the result is not exactly encouraging and they do not mince words because
all 44 of them who attended their last meeting in Grantham voted unanimously to
reject his proposition, suggesting that Mr Boles is not only “wet behind the
ears” but also “living in a fool’s paradise”, comments that were received amid
loud applause.
After covering local government affairs for well over half a century, I cannot
remember a single instance in which a councillor, let alone an M P, has so
quickly and decisively alienated those at the very grass roots of his
appointment yet his book purports to describe “the future for coalition Britain
and how to get there” and so we must assume that what he says is all part of the
Big Society which is currently being drummed around the block by the two
governing parties.
The continuing casualties among our soldiers in Afghanistan are a
reminder of the horrors of war and that we should not forget their sacrifice.
Although armed conflicts between nations are caused by the politicians, it is
the ordinary people who have to settle them on the battlefield and they should
be honoured for their patriotism, professionalism and duty.
Remembrance Sunday, which will be observed this weekend, is mainly an act of
homage for those who lost their lives on active service, during the two world
wars of the last century and particularly the Great War of 1914-18 which began
it all, but also embraces the Second World War of 1939-45 and those smaller
though no less momentous conflicts since. The living connection with the victims
who fell in Flanders recedes with the years as those whose fathers and uncles
went off to fight also pass away but their memory lives on and it is this
sacrifice that is commemorated this weekend and by the Poppy Day appeal.
For more than ninety years, we have observed this annual homage to our valiant
dead, an act of faith at the war memorials in towns and villages across England
which began to appear on our village greens and elsewhere after the Great War,
often financed by the lord of the manor whose son most probably died in the
trenches while commanding a unit consisting of country lads, many of whom may
have worked on his own family estate. After the Armistice, when the conflict
officially ended at the 11th minute of the 11th hour on November 11th in 1918,
there was optimism that this had been the war to end all wars, a forecast sadly
found to be wanting, and so these cenotaphs large and small have become the
place for added inscriptions that reflect further loss of life in causes that
have been long forgotten.
Our own War Memorial in South Street is of recent origin, barely half a century
old, erected in 1956 on land bequeathed to the town by Alderman Thomas Atkinson
(1874-1954), a farmer, alderman and magistrate, the design based on the cenotaph
in Whitehall, London, and is the work of the architects W E Norman Webster and
Son. It is not recorded how many men left the town to join the armed forces
during the Great War but it is known that 97 men lost their lives and their
names are inscribed on the stone cenotaph although there have been suggestions
that the figure is nearer 140 and that over 40 names may therefore be missing.
The memorial also includes the names of 32 men who did not return from the
conflict of 1939-45 and a further three who died on active service before the
century ended. There is still space for more and unfortunately, as unrest
continues in an increasingly dangerous world, there is every indication that it
may be filled at some time in the future. Valiant men throughout history have
never needed a monument and whether their names are recorded or not, they will
not be forgotten, especially during this remembrance weekend.
Thought for the week: The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here,
have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will
little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what
they did here. - Pericles (495-429 BC), eminent Athenian statesman and
general, in his oration during the public funeral for those who had died in the
first year of the Peloponnesian War.
Saturday 20th November 2010
Post Office staff are seeking public support to save the
sorting and delivery office in West Street from closure and they seem to be
surprised at the lack of response.
It appears that the delivery office, which is situated at the rear of the Post
Office and overlooking the Burghley Street car park, employs 32 people, twenty
of them living in Bourne. But some of these jobs may have to go because the
Royal Mail is proposing to move this facility out of town to cut costs, either
to Spalding or to their massive complex off Bourges Boulevard in Peterborough
which has become the centre of operations for the PE post code area.
However, our local M P, Nick Boles, the member for Grantham and Stamford, has
told The Local that although the possible loss of jobs is regrettable,
modernisation is needed to survive the devastating challenge posed by email and
ensure that the business remains viable (November 12th). This would appear to be
a reasonable stance but the Communication Workers‘ Union, to which these workers
belong, has accused Mr Boles of having contempt for the views of his
constituents and claim that plans to privatise Royal Mail have proved to be
massively unpopular.
This may not be quite true. Most people regard the Post Office as failing the
public for many years, firstly through its inefficiency and rising costs and
secondly through its continuing reduction of services which are eroding the
reputation of the Royal Mail from past years, not to mention the number of times
that the public has been left in the lurch when workers went on strike.
Letters are no longer collected from post boxes after midday on Saturdays, the
second delivery being axed in 2004 and the morning one now frequently arrives
well into the afternoon, sometimes as late as 5 pm, which can prove ruinous for
small businesses, while the cost of posting a letter or parcel has risen to
phenomenal levels out of the reach for the elderly on a fixed income, making the
sending of Christmas or birthday gifts to a grandchild either prohibitive or a
rare luxury.
The stamp machine outside the Post Office in West Street has been removed, there
is invariably a long queue inside when you need to transact some business with
only one or two of the available positions manned and the staff are too intent
on selling you something before you have even scooped up your change. Then there
is the conduct of the delivery office itself which is not always at its best as
anyone who has tried to collect a parcel which the postman was unable to deliver
can attest, especially if you call at lunchtime to find the doors firmly shut.
No wonder we are all moving over to the Internet to do our business and once a
private courier arrives at the door to deliver something ordered from a company
the other side of the country the day before, carriage paid, you realise that
the Royal Mail has outlived its usefulness.
The time has not yet come when we can do without it completely but the present
climate of opinion ought to be taken into account by union leaders when
considering any proposals by the management to keep the business on the road and
not to shout foul each time something constructive is suggested and in this
instance, perhaps our M P has got it right after all.
More discontent in Post Office circles is likely with the announcement
that counter staff may soon be redundant with the introduction of do-it-yourself
machines to enable customers weigh their own letters and parcels, a procedure
that is currently one of the causes of the long queues at the West Street
outlet, sometimes stretching outside on to the pavement.
Automation is certainly catching on in the retail trade and Sainsburys in Exeter
Street has already introduced similar machines instead of queuing at the
checkout, a daunting experience at first but a simple and speedy procedure once
you get the hang of it and there is no reason why a similar system should not
operate at the post office.
Self-service tills appear to be the key part of a radical shake-up in the ailing
state owned network but as with the new proposed opening hours, from 6 am until
11 pm to bring them into line with the local newsagent or convenience store, and
the scrapping of those screened off glass counters, the trade unions are sure to
protest and even strike in the face of such a drastic upheaval in the way they
operate.
From the Luddites onwards, organised labour has always been opposed to change
which threatens to reform the old ways when jobs, work patterns and their way of
life are threatened and that is as it should be. Progress is unstoppable and
casualties inevitable, especially with a national network that pioneered postal
services throughout the world and once had such an impressive reputation but now
at the latest assessment, is far from perfect and financially “a basket case” (Daily
Mail, 10th November 2010).
In times past, the postal service in England was second to none, fast, efficient
and always on time and it is worth looking back in the records to see just how
dependable it was. In 1860, for instance, the speed of delivery was reflected in
this news item which appeared in the Stamford Mercury on Friday 9th
November:
The day delivery of letters in Bourne, which
previously took place shortly after 3 o’clock in the afternoon, now commences
about 11.30 a m. The train, which heretofore was due at Bourne at 10.58 a m, is
now timed so as to reach Bourne at 11.20. By this alteration, a letter posted in
London early in the morning may be delivered at Bourne the same day about noon.
In 1905, when the postal service had become universally popular
and extremely well used, the arrangements are quite surprising when compared
with today and Kelly’s Directory for Lincolnshire that year recorded the system
operating in Bourne:
Letters from London, by mail cart, via
Peterborough, arrive at 4 am and are delivered by 7 am. A second mail arrives at
11 am and is delivered to callers at 11.30 am. A third mail arrives by rail at
2.27 pm and is delivered by 3 pm and a fourth mail at 6 pm and is delivered by
7.20 pm. Letters from Folkingham arrive by mail cart at 7.45 pm and despatched
thereto at 4 am. Letter box closes for town and district at 5.45 am, for general
despatch at 10.30 am, at 3 pm for all parts, 5.30 pm for Dyke, at 6 pm for
Wales, Scotland, Ireland, North and Midlands counties; London and all parts at
7.20 pm and 7.55 pm; Folkingham at 8 pm. Sundays boxes cleared at 7 pm. Wall
letter boxes: Eastgate cleared at 8.55 am, 2.30 pm and 7.05 pm; South Street at
8.35 am, 2.20 pm, 3;15 pm and 6.45 pm; West Road at 7.50 am, 4.30 pm and 6.50
pm; North Road at 8.45 am, 3.50 pm and 7 pm.
Tales abound of the confidence the public had in the post office
and any collector of old postcards will know of frequent messages on them
telling of an arrival later that day, the card having travelled on the train
only a few hours earlier. Today, the one daily delivery we have left is
haphazard and unreliable and what letters or cards you might have will come in a
mighty bundle of utterly useless junk leaflets and fliers from anonymous
senders, jamming the letter box and littering the doormat, and need to be picked
over carefully to ensure they contain no personal items before being consigned
to the waste paper bin.
What the local newspapers are saying: Old photographs have become a
popular feature in our local newspapers and serving two purposes, firstly to
fill up space cheaply because they are usually sent in by readers and secondly
to stimulate the nostalgia we feel for the halcyon days of yesteryear.
Unfortunately, little research is done before these pictures from the past are
published with the result that the accompanying descriptions are often riddled
with errors that go uncorrected and therefore remain for the social historians
of the future who will be equally badly informed.
Such a photograph of Bourne, an aerial shot taken circa 1980 and showing the
town centre, appeared in the Peterborough Evening Telegraph (Monday 8th
November) with a top of the page story consisting of six short paragraphs of
text making two main assertions, both of which were completely wrong. “The town
owes its origins to the Roman road upon which it was built. It has a rich
history with its two most important buildings being Bourne Abbey and the parish
church of St Peter and St Paul.”
Firstly, Bourne sprang up around its water supply, the underground springs which
rise at St Peter’s Pool and sustained subsequent communities through the
centuries, and secondly, the abbey was founded in 1138 but never completed and
also suffered during the dissolution and what you see today has become the
parish church of St Peter and St Paul and they are therefore, one and the same
building. All of this information is freely available in guide books and, more
importantly, on the Internet which will take you to this web site at a mouse
click.
The newspaper circulates in Bourne yet carries only occasional material relating
to it, perhaps to stimulate advertising revenue, and I do not know anyone
locally who actually buys it, the article being sent to me by a reader over the
county border in Cambridgeshire. But even the most tenuous claim to belong to
this town should be supported by responsible reporting if it is to retain a
credible presence. Had I been responsible for such misinformation when I worked
there more than 50 years ago, the editor would most certainly have suggested
that perhaps I ought to consider a career other than journalism.
Message from abroad: I had great joy in viewing your Portrait of Bourne
on CD-ROM which puts pictures to what I have imagined from this side of the
world. My mother was married at Bourne Abbey soon after the second World War and
I have traced her family from the 1940s back to the 1600s and the disc brings it
all to life. She is now 86 and I cannot wait to visit her at Christmas and play
it for her. Many thanks for the wonderful work that you have done and allowed us
to share. - email from John Dashwood, Takapuna, Auckland, New Zealand, Monday
15th November 2010.
Top coats and scarves were evident in Bourne this week as the
temperatures suddenly dropped with early morning frosts and a cold snap that
lasted for much of the week and there are fears that this is an early indication
of a very severe winter to come. After several catastrophes in our weather
forecasting, Michael Fish and his denial of the 1987 hurricane and the erroneous
prediction of a barbecue summer in 2009, we no longer tend to depend on the met
men but experience has proven that the animal kingdom usually gets it right.
It was therefore dismaying to read a letter in The Times that according
to our bees we should batten down the hatches, cram log and coal stores to
bursting, fill the freezer and buy a warm overcoat because we have been warned
(November 13th). “From the end of July”, wrote Gloria Havenhand, a beekeeper
from Troway, Derbyshire, “hive entrances have been intricately blocked with
beeswax to unbelievable proportions, just enough to squeeze an individual bee in
and out. They have prepared insuperable defences against wind, rain and snow and
perhaps we should be doing the same.”
Thought for the week:
There's a whisper down the field where the year has shot her
yield,
And the ricks stand grey to the sun,
Singing:- "Over then, come over, for the bee has quit the clover,
And your English summer's done."
- Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936), short story writer, poet, novelist and winner
of the Nobel Prize for Literature.
Saturday 27th November 2010
The illuminations in 1968 - see "The Christmas lights . . . "
Our only petrol filling station, Tesco Express, continues
to be an annoying experience with a forecourt frequently jammed with cars and
delivery lorries, winding queues at the tills which are rarely fully manned and
so a long wait to pay has become a regular occurrence. This is the consequence
of the monopoly this outlet currently enjoys in the town but a small news item
on the front page of the Stamford Mercury suggests that all of this
hassle could soon end with the opening a new garage in South Road.
The newspaper says that the site alongside the A15 which has been earmarked for
a new petrol station will be sold if negotiations between South Kesteven
District Council and a prospective buyer are completed successfully by the end
of the year (November 19th). Nothing could be more welcome for motorists than
this, to have somewhere locally other than Tesco Express to buy our petrol, and
if all goes well and it opens next year as predicted then the North Street
forecourt will eventually have a deserted air.
The original scheme for the land was a Southfield Business Park covering some 17
acres to be developed at a cost of £10 million, including a restaurant, fast
food outlet, petrol filling station, public house and hotel, the site accessed
from a new estate road and roundabout and the remainder of the land developed
for a range of uses including offices, light industrial units and warehousing.
It was intended to be one of the most ambitious commercial undertakings in the
history of Bourne but never materialised, the scheme finally being shelved in
May 2001.
There followed many reports and rumours about various uses while much of the
original land in the vicinity was chipped away for housing but in August 2008
came details of real interest from the Wolverhampton-based Marston's plc, one of
the country’s leading companies which owns four breweries and controls some
2,272 pubs, to build a long-awaited second petrol filling station for the town
together with a family pub and restaurant.
There was general relief in Bourne that at last something was happening to
alleviate the current situation but the town was soon back at square one, a
situation fully appreciated by the leader of SKDC, Councillor Linda Neal (Bourne
West). "Clearly the highest priority here was to create a second petrol station
for the town", she said. "The problem is about expectations being raised which
have now been dashed which was probably related to the economic downturn and I
do not know what will now happen to the site."
We are back in with a chance. The opening of the Tesco/Esso filling station in
August 2002 has not been an entirely satisfactory project and apart from the
establishment of the much criticised road system in North Street with its two
questionable mini-roundabouts, a price war was also created, resulting in the
closure of two other petrol outlets which could not compete. Motorists therefore
have nowhere else to go locally and this is an absurd situation for a town with
a population of 15,000 but, hopefully, this monopoly may now soon come to an
end.
The sale of this land will be a blessing to South Kesteven District
Council because it will provide much needed income at a time when cuts of 7.1% a
year in grant income are being implemented over the next four years as a result
of the economic crisis which means that many of our local services are in danger
of disappearing. There is however, no mention of reducing the exorbitant
salaries of the eleven-strong management team who are currently being paid a
whopping £843,000 a year between them which, with their pension entitlements,
will be 6.25% of the authority’s entire budget.
The team is defending the payments by claiming that they are actually saving the
council tax payer money although those that have to stump up £1,200 a
year and more with little noticeable return will find that a hard excuse to
swallow. A spokesman told the Grantham Journal that they would continue
to seek ways of saving money, concentrating on reducing costs through gaining
service efficiencies (November 12th) and added: “We are committed to progress
but it comes with challenges.”
The revelation of these high salaries by the newspaper at a time of recession
brought an angry reaction from readers the following week when the letters
column was filled with condemnation which will have a resonance here in Bourne.
Under the headline “Overpaid SKDC chiefs are ruining the town” (November 19th),
Richard Smith, of Edward Street, Grantham, wrote that the payments were vastly
inflated and added: “We have become a maze of fast food outlets and have lost
our identity. You can wrap up the roles of these officials however you like but
they certainly do not deserve to be paid like Premier Division footballers.”
SKDC has a budget of £16 million (2009-10) and a workforce of more than 700 and
although the accounts provided with the council tax demands never reveal either
salaries or how many are employed, it does not need a degree in maths to work
out where a large slice of it is going especially if so much is being paid to
just 11 officers in the top jobs.
In fact, around 70% of the council’s income is eaten up by salaries and pension
payments which in simple terms means that £11 million is paid out in salaries to
staff who administer the spending of the remaining £5 million on services. But
these figures are hidden away in the various departmental expenditures under
headings such as housing, culture, highways, roads and transportation,
environment, planning and so on. Few people would be able to identify the
services they actually provide other than the rubbish collections which are
given such a high profile and so such public unrest about what is going on is to
be expected, especially as it is now revealed that the bulk of the council tax
they pay goes in salaries.
One reader suggested a solution that would appeal to many. Steve Cattell, of
Hougham, near Grantham, criticised what he called “this bloated and top heavy
infrastructure” with officers filling obscure jobs. “What do they do all day?”
he asked. “I would love to see time sheets kept for a week by all of these
commissars who cannot be fully occupied for an eight-hour day. The entire layer
of strategic directors could be removed, leaving a managing director on £50,000
and seven managers on £40,000 and the council would function a lot more
efficiently and do a better job.”
This council has been consistently criticised for employing too many people but
the complaints have gone unheeded and there are fears that the current round of
protest over these massive payments will also have little effect. In the final
analysis, no appointment is made and no salary confirmed without the approval of
councillors. SKDC has 58 elected members, six of them from Bourne, and we are
entitled to ask if they have always voted against the appointment of highly paid
officials and their regular pay rises or whether they have advised restraint as
the electorate wishes.
These questions must be asked of them before the next local government elections
when our own representatives will no doubt be seeking to retain their seats. We
go to the polls in May and this issue is sure to be raised again before then as
a reminder of what is at stake in the future.
The new computer system recently installed for borrowing books at the
public library in South Street is working well and is much easier to use than we
expected. The directions on the screen are also simple to follow. Pick you
choices from the shelves, slip your membership card into the slot and place them face up on the scanner and hey presto, the operation is completed in
seconds. Whatever you borrow may also now be renewed online, and nothing could
be simpler.
The library closed for two weeks in August for the installation of the £29,000
system of self-service computer units providing convenient and easy-to-use
technology for borrowers and so free up valuable staff time. There have also
been improvements in Internet access for the bank of computers currently housed
in the reference section and the introduction of new book stocks.
The changes are obvious but not drastic, the main one being that computer
screens are much in evidence when you go in and some familiar faces are absent,
helpful staff who have always been on hand over the years but are no longer
there. As the library now comes under the direct control of Stamford, the
changes may have been a means of reducing staff numbers and although those who
have gone are missed, this is progress and the improved efficiency cannot be
denied.
The Christmas lights went up in the town this week, a reminder that we
will all soon be spending more than we can afford because these annual
illuminations are there to stimulate shopping as well as bringing festive cheer
to visitors.
The lights have become part of Christmas for most towns yet they are a
comparatively recent innovation. The most famous are the Regent Street
illuminations which began in 1954, prompted by a letter in the Daily
Telegraph complaining how drab London looked at Christmas, and soon they
became one of the capital’s major tourist attractions, renowned worldwide and
attracting huge numbers of visitors each year. Oxford Street followed suit in
1959 and today the displays from the capital are so bright and attractive that
they can be seen from outer space. Towns and villages soon latched on to the
idea and within a few years the street lights became part of the Christmas
season for every community.
The first Christmas illuminations were switched on in Bourne as a trial in 1967
with a ceremony outside the town hall and they remained on between dusk and
midnight each evening until New Year's Day. Although only the market place [now
the town centre] and part of North Street were lit up with little more than
strings of fairy lights, the experiment by Bourne Urban District Council and the
Chamber of Trade proved to be so successful that it was repeated the following
December. Council chairman, Councillor Ted Kelby, told the assembled crowd: "It
is pleasing to know that towns from all over Lincolnshire have asked for
particulars of our arrangements. This lighting system has started something
Bourne can be proud of. In five years, we hope to have lights all along the
shopping centre."
The illuminations were improved over the years but the old
system was soon in need of replacement and by this time, Bourne Town Council was
responsible. By 1998, there had been some criticism about the quality of the
illuminations and so new ones were purchased with the task of erecting them each
year being carried out by volunteers from the Bourne Lions organisation, a
system that worked well but there were concerns over health and safety and the
authority therefore decided that professional help was needed.
In June 2001, the town council announced that they would be solving the problem
by spending £40,000 on new Christmas lights and they were launched on Saturday
December 1st amid general approval although there were some complaints that the
bulbs were all the same colour, namely natural, with a distinct absence of reds,
yellows, blues and greens, and one housewife suggested that it was like
switching on the kitchen lights, "all brightness of no colour and therefore
lacking in warmth".
Nevertheless, the consensus was that the ultimate effect was a great improvement
on the previous year although further enhancements have been made since, making
Bourne‘s Christmas lights compare favourably with any market town of the same
size.
The switching on ceremony has now become a tradition, although is used to be on
a Saturday evening from the front steps of the town hall with children and their
parents thronging the streets for the occasion but increasing traffic flows have
made this spot dangerous. The event has therefore been moved to a Friday on the
paved market area behind the town hall where the Mayor of Bourne, Councillor Pet
Moisey, officiated last night amid rousing cheers of festive approval with
carols sung by school choirs, bands and Morris dancing, Santa's grotto and the
inevitable late night shopping to remind us that Christmas has arrived for
another year.
Thought for the week: To perceive Christmas through its wrapping becomes
more difficult with every year. - E B (Elwyn Brooks) White (1899-1985),
American writer and author of many famous books for both adults and children.
Return to Monthly entries
|
