Bourne Diary - February 2012

Saturday 4^th February 2012

The writing is on the wall for the historic Town Hall that may soon be passing into private ownership after two centuries of public service. The building will become redundant with the creation of a new Bourne Community Access Point and The Local newspaper reports (January 21st) that although Lincolnshire County Council which owns it will try to find other uses, it will be put on the market if none can be found, a scenario forecast by this column six months ago.

The Grade II listed building has been the centre of our administration since it was erected in 1821 but is now being phased out, along with the public library in South Street, as part of the £200,000 project to concentrate all council services at the nearby Corn Exchange, a move that is being heralded by South Kesteven District Council as being in the best interests of Bourne.

It is widely believed the change is being made for purely economic rather than practical reasons, to save money on running, maintenance and overheads, rather than make services more accessible for the people, and the cynics are already whispering that the sale of these two properties was on the agenda long before the term community access point was ever thought of.

Nevertheless, we are powerless to do anything about it now, the consultation process being criticised as inadequate in some quarters coupled with a climate of public indifference, and so it is too late to change things and we must depend on our councillors to make the right decision. The proof of the pudding will be in the eating and when the new facility comes on stream next year, we will find out if the Corn Exchange has sufficient room to accommodate all of the various organisations tipped to be allocated floor space and whether it will operate as efficiently as the current arrangement but the indications are that everything destined to go there will be slimmed down to fit.

Before exploring the financial implications, we must first establish who owns what. Lincolnshire County Council claims the town hall and the public library and South Kesteven District Council has the Corn Exchange while Bourne Town Council owns nothing. All have been paying rent to each other for the space they use and although this basic system will remain, the small print details will change under the new arrangement.

LCC will benefit from the sale of the town hall and the public library and end the payment of rental for the register office premises at the privately owned No 35 West Street while SKDC will no longer have to pay for the space it uses at the town hall, collecting rent instead from those who use the Corn Exchange. There will also be a saving for the county police force if, as expected, they are given a corner in the community access point, because they can then close the police station on West Road although the new arrangement will mean the payment of rent to SKDC.

Other income for SKDC will come from whichever organisations are given space, notably from LCC for the public library and the register office, while the Citizen's Advice Bureau is also among the favoured contenders, although there are many others in the running because centralisation through the community access point is seen by our local authorities to be "a good thing".

You do not need a PhD in economics to realise that the money involved all comes from existing sources and is merely being shunted around between the various authorities like an elaborate game of pass the parcel, an arrangement that will be of absolutely no real benefit to those who pay the council tax. The only monetary advantage will be from the sale of the town hall and the public library, but this will go to the county council to help fund its massive staff of 12,000, the largest workforce in Lincolnshire, by maintaining their salaries, pensions and holiday entitlements in the future, not to mention the allowances and expenses for the 77 elected councillors.

In fact, this is a perfect illustration for the case of abolishing the present labyrinthine, unwieldy and costly three-tier council system, in favour of a unitary local authority with overall control which would make life simpler for everyone and at the same time reduce staffing levels, cut public expenditure and the council tax at the same time as well as releasing other properties for sale. If such a change had been addressed by national government in the past, there would in all probability have been no need for a new Bourne Community Access Point today.

In other towns where the town hall is being sold off, Louth in North Lincolnshire for instance, local community groups have been offered the chance to take it over and run it themselves as a heritage project, thus securing the preservation of the building for the future, although this is unlikely to happen if the motives for disposal are pecuniary, as appears to be the case here. But even if Lincolnshire County Council did adopt this philanthropic approach, recent experience in Bourne provides little encouragement for volunteers to undertake such a scheme.

The future of Wake House, currently owned by South Kesteven District Council, is still in limbo despite the persistent endeavours of Bourne Arts and Community Trust, who have been sitting tenants since 1997, to obtain a full repairing and insuring lease to enable them carry out much needed maintenance on the building which is showing serious signs of disrepair. This tussle has been going on since their last agreement ran out in 2005 and there is still no sign of a satisfactory arrangement, the council having added fuel to the fire by putting the property on the market in the meantime.

At the other end of the town, the cemetery chapel in South Road still stands idle while the Bourne Preservation Trust awaits agreement on a lease from the town council to enable members begin restoration work with the intention of bringing the building back into useful life. Their dossier on how it could be saved was drawn up and presented in April 2008, outlining proposals for the work and future management. Since then members have been active in seeking funds to finance their plans and in clearing undergrowth and debris from around the outside of the building preparatory to the major task but there is currently yet another impasse in the proceedings over the legal niceties required before they get the key of the door, one that readers of the Victorian novelist Charles Dickens and his vivid descriptions of the law's delays will be familiar with.

Both of these cases highlight not only the willingness of volunteers to take on daunting projects for the benefit of the community but also the frustration they are likely to encounter from bureaucratic indecision and, as some people think, plain obstinacy, because a successful outcome by the new tenants of discarded buildings would most certainly emphasise an official failure to care for them.

Local authorities have a duty to assist and encourage community initiatives because it is the people who pay their council tax to keep them in business and without this support, voluntary effort is likely to founder and with it the Big Society so loudly trumpeted by the Prime Minister, David Cameron, an idea that we seem to be hearing less of these days as official encouragement declines. While obstructions remain for both of our own local organisations, the future of their work remains uncertain but we would do well to remember that without them, the social and cultural life of this town will be the poorer.

From the archives: A clever capture. About four o'clock on Wednesday afternoon, Mr George Coales, butcher, Market Place, Bourne, missed a loin of mutton that had been exposed for sale in his shop. He at once gave information to the police. At first, no clue whatsoever could be obtained as to the delinquent as no one had been seen about this time in the locality. Police Constable Fowler, who is well known throughout the district as an astute detective, speedily instituted a searching examination. At twenty minutes past four, he entered the Royal Oak inn in North Street and noticed four navvies busily engaged roasting a fine joint of mutton. By cautious inquiries, his suspicion fell upon one of them. Indeed, the chain of evidence was so complete that Constable Fowler charged him with the theft. The navvy frankly admitted it, saying it was no use denying his guilt as he had been fairly tracked down. At 4.30 pm, the prisoner was received into custody at the Bourne police station. The case deserves record as a smart piece of police work. - news report from the Stamford Mercury, Friday 17th July 1891.

We were given a dose of good old fashioned provincial journalism by the Grantham Journal last week with a campaigning front page and extensive inside coverage over the controversial proposal by South Kesteven District Council to charge an annual fee of £25 for emptying green waste bins (January 27th).

So many of our local newspapers are filled with anodyne stories of charity walks and church bazaars that councils and other organisations that run our affairs have a clear field to do as they wish without fear of reproach and it was therefore refreshing to read a report on an issue of some importance and the public’s angry reaction to what is obviously a very unpopular proposal.

Furious readers made no bones about what they thought about the additional charge which was condemned as a stealth tax aimed at good citizens anxious to do their bit for the environment and the headlines warned that the public had "declared war" on the council for its misguided proposal.

The newspaper said that the levy would victimise people with gardens and fly tipping would spiral out of control as readers complained that they were already paying too much for too little from the waste and recycling collection service and would not be “held to ransom". The newspaper's coverage was a model of indignation, claiming that everyone had been deceived.

"Duped into paying for THAT green bin under the illusion that the local authority wanted us to fill our eco-friendly receptacles with compostable mulch”, said the editorial, “when all the while the sneaky bean counters were planning to have us fill them with our hard earned CASH. It frankly beggars belief that under the Big Society banner, councils across the country are asking just a handful of their tax payers to plug their leaking coffers."

Who was it in the corridors of power at Grantham that dreamed up such an idea? Did they have no inkling of the furore it would cause? An annual £25 charge is little more than an increase in the council tax being ushered in through the back door and the authority has even had the audacity to say that anyone who does not wish to pay cannot claim the money back they were forced to pay for the green bin in the first place. "That was for the bin, delivery and administration", said a council spokesman. "The proposals are not to refund those who opt out of the service."

This outspoken protest by the newspaper is a valid complaint against South Kesteven District Council which must now take notice. It is an elected authority that exists to serve the public and should not take autocratic and unpopular decisions that are so obviously against the wishes of the people. The £25 charge is totally unacceptable because it penalises home owners for embracing an environmentally friendly service and will hit pensioners the hardest because they are the keenest gardeners. The message is therefore a simple one: the council must think again and certainly not axe the service altogether through pique.

Thought for the week: Among mortals, second thoughts are wisest. - Euripides (circa 480-406 BC), Greek dramatist admired for his remarkably modern attitudes and profound insights into psychology.

Saturday 11^th February 2012

The old classroom huts - see "Our local schools . . . "

Excessive water extraction from underground sources has been blamed for causing the present unsightly state of St Peter's Pool and the Bourne Eau in South Street, both of which have been dried up for several months.

Anglian Water denies this, claiming that their demands are strictly controlled. As we are not privy to the statistics showing how much is extracted, we have to look elsewhere and the archives provide a pointer to the abundance of water available in past times for domestic and commercial consumers in the town but now used for distribution to a much wider area. In the late 19th century, the Stamford Mercury claimed that Bourne had the largest and purest flowing well in the world then known to scientists with a discharge amounting to 500,000 gallons a day (Friday 9th October 1891). The report went on:

"At Aire in the province of Artois (now known better as the Department Pas de Calais) from which province the term artesian is derived, there is a well from which the water has continued to flow for more than a century. At the old Carthusian convent at Lillers, the well dates back from the 12th century. St Peter's Pool at Bourne, a well situated in the grounds of Hereward's Castle, has been flowing with undiminished volume from the earliest times. The traces of Roman dwellings that have been discovered in its vicinity lead to the conclusion that it was in existence during the period of their occupation and may, indeed, have decided the place as a site for their colony. That the well was merrily flowing in Saxon times is beyond doubt. In their last heroic stand against the invading Normans, the Saxons under Hereward (if Charles Kingsley is correct) made the locality of St Peter's Pool the site of their camp. The unfailing supply of water was doubtless a strategic reason for this preference."

Three years later, an important borehole was sunk for the Bourne Waterworks Company in Abbey Road, supplying not only the town but also other centres of population and the Stamford Mercury reported on Friday 2nd February 1894:

"A remarkable overflowing artesian well has been recently sunk at Bourne to supply the town of Spalding with water, the engineers being Messrs C Isler and Co of London. It is stated that no records are published of springs being tapped in England yielding a larger quantity of water than the one at Bourne. At a depth of 100ft. from the surface, the yield was 1,872,000 gallons per day; and on the advice of Messrs Isler, it was resolved to carry the bore deeper with the result that at 134ft., over 5,000,000 gallons per day are now obtained. The overflow really proved wonderful and unless means had been taken for carrying this water away into a dyke which runs into two rivers, the country around would have been flooded. The water from the well flows by gravitation through ten miles of pipes to the company's reservoirs at Spalding."

These examples illustrate the abundance of water from underground supplies in and round Bourne and there are many others as the sinking of wells became more prolific. In the autumn of 1906, for instance, one of the most successful operations was carried out on the estate of Mr Thomas Mills in Abbey Road and the Stamford Mercury reported on Friday 30th November:

"The boring was continued to a depth of 98 feet when the water gushed up, sending a column four feet above ground level. The pressure was so strong that it was with the greatest difficulty the tubes could be got in and sealed, the men being drenched to the skin. The boring gives an overflow of 905,000 gallons per 24 hours. This is the largest supply of water ever tapped in Bourne from a 4½ in. bore. Mr Noble, of Thurlby, near Bourne, who is well known for this class of work, had the job in hand."

Boring for new wells needed an expert and there were several of them in the Bourne area. John Noble of Thurlby was one of the better known and he carried out drillings for many local authorities and industrial firms. His son also worked in the business which was later known as John Elwes Noble & Son, and they sent details of the strata and location of every bore they drilled to the Geological Society in London which assisted them in their compilation of the geological survey of England and Wales.

In 1900, the company sank a borehole for Bourne Rural District Council while other clients included district and parish councils, Bourne waterworks and companies at Horbling, Baston, Market Deeping, Greatford and Morton. Noble was also responsible for sinking bores at Thurlby Manor, Dowsby Hall, West Deeping vicarage, Bourne Workhouse and for local businessmen William Wherry and Thomas Mays of Bourne and Robert Gardner, the magistrate and artist who lived at Cawthorpe Hall. In January 1898, he sank the Morton bore in Haconby Lane where he tapped water at a depth of 106 feet and had an initial flow of water of 6,000 gallons an hour, a flow of water so prolific that there was sufficient to supply neighbouring farms and dwelling houses.

In 1969, there were an estimated 130 artesian bores within the urban district of Bourne, supplying farms, factories and housing developments but by 1974, all of that had changed. From then onwards, water from the Bourne area being drawn out through underground and river sources was administered by Anglian Water which was privatised in 1989 and now supplies almost 1.1 billion litres every single day to more than six million domestic and business customers in the east of England and Hartlepool, an area of 27,500 square kilometres.

Bourne, therefore, appears to be a very small part of the operation today but as St Peter's Pool is dry and the river which flows from it equally devoid of water, we are entitled to ask why, especially as history chronicles this supply for its unfailing dependability.

Our local schools have such a good reputation throughout the county for premises and performance that we tend to forget the trials that some faced in the early days until we are jolted into reality by a glimpse of the past.

Searching through the archives this week, I came across a newspaper cutting from over 30 years ago which revealed just how difficult conditions were for the Bourne Academy in its formative years. The school was established in 1946 with senior pupils from the Abbey Primary School using temporary accommodation on a split site in Queen's Road, wooden buildings known as HORSA, or Huts Occasioned by the Raising of the School Leaving Age, although new extensions were opened in Edinburgh Crescent in 1958 when ties with the Abbey Road school were severed completely and it became known as Bourne County Secondary School.

By that time, the pupil roll had increased dramatically and so the wooden huts were still in use despite frequent protestations by the governors to Lincolnshire County Council that more modern accommodation was needed as a matter of urgency. The school had been growing steadily yet mobile classrooms had become a familiar feature and the temporary buildings remained a constant source of irritation, a situation colourfully described by the headmaster, Howard Bostock, in a landmark address at the annual Speech Day held on Monday 22nd May 1978 when he said that the school had lived up to its reputation as a disaster area during the previous twelve months. He told parents:

"On the evening of January 11th, at the height of a northerly gale and with several inches of snow on the ground, the Queen's Road boiler burst. In February, with the temperature well below zero, one of the boilers in this building disintegrated. Last term the school was decimated by the flu epidemic and for only 3½ days during the spring term the school had a full staff. Our buildings have survived intact but they have been patched up so much that we are almost running out of patches. What can you expect when you have almost 600 children housed in permanent accommodation for only 235, only six permanent classrooms for this number of children, the rest of the accommodation being temporary? It is not perhaps for nothing that the school is designated by the county as a disaster area.

“The assembly hall floor has been cut up several times during the year because of expansion and shrinkage but the ground below is at last clear of water. In these difficult financial times, I cannot see a lot of hope for the school buildings, when it now costs more to paint the school than it did to build it. It is an indication of the lack of a building programme for this school when we regard as heaven-sent the arrival of two mobile c1assrooms, second hand from another school, covered in graffiti. Educational standards have been good and examinations results high and there have also been sporting successes and much activity in fund raising. Progress has been made but it is the kind of progress which makes one, after skirting round the edge of the pit for years, jump right into the middle of it. The Secretary of State for Education and Science, Mrs Shirley Williams, has dug her heels in and said that Bourne will go comprehensive by 1980. The Lincolnshire education committee has equally dug its heels in and said that it is a financial impossibility for Bourne to become comprehensive by 1980.

"So there we are. And while others deliberate and argue, we get on quietly with the job of educating our children. Let me add that while this argument is going on, Bourne is enjoying the privilege of having four schools. Each is of a different nature. They all work together in peace and harmony and produce a local educational system which is the envy of many people in this county and others."

In the event, the school never became a comprehensive. Mr Bostock retired in 1980 and after that it grew rapidly over the ensuing years with the building of new premises and the opening of craft, design and technology rooms and science laboratories. There has been a constant programme of improvement since as the name was changed to the Robert Manning School in 1987 and the Robert Manning Technology College in 1999 and on 1st September 2011, it became Bourne Academy which now enjoys some of the best accommodation and teaching facilities in Lincolnshire.

The problem of senior pupils from Bourne Grammar School parking all day in the Austerby during term time has again been put on the back burner. A report in The Local newspaper suggests that home owners will just have to put up it with it because neither Lincolnshire County Council nor the school authorities intend to do anything about it (February 3rd).

In an attempt to solve a problem that has been rumbling on for the past ten years, the county council wrote to 400 homes asking whether they would accept parking restrictions with single or double yellow lines or for the school to provide more on-site parking places and there were 80 replies. "None of the options received widespread support and so we are not planning to take any of them forward", said Brian Thompson, divisional highways manager. He added that the school may be able to provide more parking spaces in the future and in the meantime pupils were being encouraged to take advantage of the 20 spaces offered by the Tesco supermarket further down the road which until now have been hardly used.

In other words, the entire exercise appears to have been little more than window dressing and residents of the Austerby now realise that nothing will be done. One home owner has already sold up and moved out because of the daily aggravation and another, Samantha Bullen, aged 36, a driving instructor, said: "There will never be a resolution to this."

The newspaper report appears to bear this out. The county council has refused to divulge the exact results of the survey, that is who supported what, and the headteacher of Bourne Grammar School, Jonathan Maddox, declined to comment. Anyone planning to buy a house in the Austerby in the future will most certainly need to take note.

Thought for the week: The civilized man has built a coach, but has lost the use of his feet. - Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-82), American poet, lecturer and essayist.

Saturday 18^th February 2012

How the new town centre might have looked

The refurbishment of Wherry's Lane continues to be presented by South Kesteven District Council as the town centre regeneration scheme for Bourne and this has also been embraced by the local newspapers when in fact it is nothing of the sort.

The original scheme intended to cost over £27 million died a death in June 2010 after ten years of planning and the expenditure of an enormous amount of public money, as yet undisclosed, but without a single brick being laid whereas the present proposal is merely the cleaning up of a derelict alleyway that has been badly neglected for decades.

The council just happens to have a few empty buildings on its hands, bought at exorbitant cost for the town centre project and now standing idle, and it is those properties that will be included rather than the grandly sounding "town centre revamp" which continues to dominate the headlines. The "multi-million pound scheme" to which the newspapers refer is also misleading because the cost is a mere £2.2 million, less than one tenth of the expenditure originally intended and a figure that hardly justifies the dictionary definition of that phrase.

We have similarly euphemistic statements from the council to support this supposition because the property development manager, Neil Cucksey, told the newspaper that the council was pleased that the plans for "the Bourne core area project" had been approved. A narrow lane that is dark, damp and untidy, hardly fits this description, especially when we can compare it with the definition of the core designated area of eleven years ago when it appeared in the original proposals as that triangle of land between West Street, North Street and Burghley Street, one that covered over four acres and involved more than 40 land and property owners.

"We are", continued Mr Cucksey, "looking forward to contractors starting work on what we believe will be a vital development for the future of Bourne. We will be working with all landowners and businesses affected by the development to ensure that we address their concerns wherever possible."

All of this has been said many times before but the statements from the council that are appearing in our local newspaper have all the hallmarks of an attempt to resurrect an abysmal and costly failure as a resounding success that will benefit Bourne in the future. Furthermore, the promise to address local concerns about the work has a hollow ring after SKDC ignored a request from Bourne Town Council for a meeting to discuss the scheme which members say is unacceptable.

The criticism came from the council's highways and planning committee which met on Tuesday 13th December last year, particularly the inclusion of seven shops and fourteen apartments. The chairman, Councillor Trevor Holmes (Bourne West), a former mayor who has lived in Bourne for almost 40 years, said that the scheme would simply provide more residential properties without adding to the local infrastructure which is what Bourne needed at the present time. "This plan does not serve the town", he said, and he called on the district council and the nominated developers, Trent Valley Construction, to meet them for further discussion. "We want some genuine local input", he went on. "We want them to go back to the drawing board and prepare something that better serves the needs of Bourne."

No such meeting has been held and on February 10th, the Stamford Mercury reported that the scheme had been given the go ahead by SKDC and it now seems likely that work will start soon although talks with our own town councillors would not only have been democratic but also a helpful input before the scheme was finally agreed. As it is, we may well be seeing yet another misjudgement in the making. Councillor Holmes told the newspaper (February 3rd) that the entire concept of the development was against the local plan which decreed that no more houses should be built in Bourne. "We do not want this development", he said. "We want one that fits the needs of Bourne. I find this incomprehensible."

Nevertheless, SKDC remains optimistic that this very reduced development will at some time in the future be equally as good as that originally proposed. The leader, Councillor Linda Neal (Bourne West), told the Stamford Mercury that once the application was approved, the exciting part of the project would begin (February 3rd). "The hope is to breathe new life into Bourne town centre", she said. "The economic downturn has intervened from when we hoped it might start but we see it as a catalyst for improving the town centre. The success of this section will lead through into the next stage."

Everyone will agree that Bourne has been neglected in recent years and that what is about to happen in Wherry's Lane may at last be the beginning of a much larger improvement as was originally promised more than a decade ago. But the sceptics may be excused for their doubts because we have been down this road before.

From the archives (1): Bourne is to be revamped as part of the action plan for re-designing the town centre, a vision for the future. There will be a new town square and market place, surrounded by shops and cafes on derelict land between North Street and Burghley Street and a new library and community centre at the bus station site in North Street. Other ideas include relocating the market to Abbey Road to help revitalise shops and the building of a supermarket near where the bus station currently stands. - front page news report from the Stamford Mercury, Friday 24th August 2001.

From the archives (2): The scheme extends and diversifies the town centre with retail-led development, emphasises existing routes across the site; promotes links to existing retail areas and links to public transport; provides public spaces; enhances pedestrian and cyclist access; retains existing buildings of architectural quality; enhances community safety; new buildings will reflect qualities and features of existing buildings; materials used will complement those found in the Bourne town centre locality and the scale of buildings to be in keeping with Bourne town centre and progressive town centre development. - description of the original town centre project by Henry Davidson Developments of Nottingham during a public exhibition of the plans at the Town Hall from 9th-13th December 2004, later accepted and approved by South Kesteven District Council.

Local authorities continue to approve the building of new shops despite the growing climate of opinion that the traditional high street is in decline in the face of intense retail competition from the Internet and out of town supermarkets.

The latest to support this theory is Justin King, chief executive of Sainsbury's, who this week called for empty shops to be replaced with houses or classrooms (Daily Mail Online, Sunday 13th February). The nation's high streets, he said, have become a poor second to out of town supermarkets. In a speech to the annual City Food Lecture at Guildhall in London, he said: "Supermarkets have reflected society and changes in society. Many shoppers do not have the time to potter between the butcher, the baker and the grocer. We need to be brave enough to shrink the high street and allow empty shops to be converted for other uses such as residential where there is overcapacity. I believe that in this way, the high street can bounce back from what many have termed as an irreversible decline."

This scenario is now becoming commonplace throughout the country yet seven new shops are to be built by South Kesteven District Council as part of the Wherry's Lane improvement although who will occupy the shops in another matter because retail premises are standing empty in the nearby town centre while the owners of others are struggling to make ends meet. The authority should follow the advice of the town council and think again.

A novel written in Bourne eighty years ago continues to engage readers and, more importantly, inspire writers. Her Privates We was the work of Frederic Manning, who liked this town so much that he called his hero Private Bourne and the book is regarded to be one of the greatest to come out of the Great War of 1914-18, having been hailed by critics as the true voice of the trenches.

Manning was an Australian who came to England at the age of fifteen with his tutor, the Rev Arthur Galton, who had gone to Australia as private secretary to the Governor of New South Wales, Sir Robert Duff.

Galton was appointed Vicar of Edenham, near Bourne, in 1904, and Manning, who had decided to pursue a literary career, went to live with him at the vicarage. He remained there until Galton died in office in 1910 and, finding himself homeless, moved in as a lodger with the village schoolmaster and his family at their home in School Lane. He led a retiring, leisured and scholarly life, steeping himself in the classics, although he made occasional visits to London where all of his works were published.

In 1915, he enlisted as a private in the King's Shropshire Light Infantry, serving in France and became an officer in the Royal Irish Regiment of Foot but resigned his commission although it was his experiences during the Battle of the Somme in 1916 that were to provide the material for Her Privates We, dealing with the horrors of life in the trenches. The book was first published in 1929 under the title The Middle Parts of Fortune and later as Her Privates We.

Manning had a deep affection for Bourne and returned to the town for long periods. But as a lifelong asthmatic, his physical condition was deteriorating and he needed constant treatment for chronic respiratory problems. Dr John Galletly (1899-1993), who had become a friend as well as medical adviser, later recalled attending him in his bedroom at the Bull Hotel, now the Burghley Arms, where, with oxygen cylinders within reach, he would be inscribing yet another blank page with his meticulous but diminutive handwriting.

Eventually, Manning returned to Australia in 1934 for a spell of sunshine but returned in May 1934 and took lodgings with a family in Burghley Street where he was given the front room as a bed sitter. In the ensuing months, Dr Galletly became increasingly concerned about his state of health and as his condition worsened, persuaded him to move to a nursing home at Hampstead in London and actually took him there in his own motor car. Manning died on 22nd February 1935 at the age of 52 and was buried in Kensal Green cemetery beside his lifelong friend and literary hostess Mrs Alfred Fowler.

Last weekend, William Boyd, one of our most successful writers and author of eleven novels, wrote that Manning’s book had been one of those that had been an inspiration for his latest offering Waiting for Sunrise, both for reference and reassurance (The Times Saturday Review/Books, February 11th). “If you want to know what it was like to be a soldier in the trenches, then this is the novel”, he said. “It is honest and unflinching and shows you how soldiers really spoke. All myths stripped away.”

Manning’s portrait by Sir William Rothenstein hangs in the National Portrait Gallery in London while a blue plaque erected by the town council in June 2009 to commemorate his connection with Bourne, can be seen on the front wall of the Burghley Arms in the town centre.

Thought for the week: Thought for the week: The old Lie; Dulce et Decorum est, Pro patria mori [It is a wonderful and great honour to die for your country] - Wilfred Owen, poet and infantry officer of the Great War (1893-1918), who was killed at the Battle of the Sambre Canal, France, on 4th November 1918 in the closing days of the conflict.

Saturday 25^th February 2012

Lorry mishap in the town centre - see "Never has the need . . . "

A new community centre for Elsea Park which was promised when the estate was first planned thirteen years ago has finally materialised. The developers, Kier Homes, will present the keys to the new £750,000 building off Sandown Drive at a ceremony to be held next month and residents are jubilant that their long wait for a meeting place is finally over.

The new centre will include a reception area, an office for the Elsea Park Community Trust which will run it, kitchen and main hall with a stage and an outside patio area, while the hall will be linked to the estate through footpaths and cycleways. "It has been a long time coming but everyone is very excited about it", said Angela Bailey, chairman of the Elsea Park Community Trust in an interview with The Local newspaper (February 17th). "The hall looks absolutely stunning."

A community centre was among the many amenities promised by the developers when the 2,000 home estate was first proposed in March 1999 and later became part of the Section 106 agreement (S106), the legal contract that formalises what will be provided. This also included a relief road, primary school, doctor’s surgery, sports pitches, cycle and pedestrian links and a shuttle bus route, but they have been slow in materialising. The south-west relief road did not open until October 2005 and only then after a lengthy delay and there is still no sign of a school or doctor's surgery.

The community hall has been subjected to similar delays. Planning permission was granted in 2008 but work did not start until November 2010 when residents were promised that it would be open by the following April, a date that was put back twice. But past failures will soon be forgotten. "We want to open with a big bang", said Mrs Bailey. "We are thinking of a barn dance, children's entertainment, a barbecue or hog roast, a really good weekend for everyone."

The need for the community centre, however, is becoming paramount as the estate slowly expands, the biggest single residential development in the history of Bourne, and it is unthinkable that residents should not have a place to meet. It will also relieve pressure on other venues in the town which will soon be reduced as letting space at the Corn Exchange is phased out through the establishment of the Bourne Community Access Point which is due to come on stream early next year.

Organisations which meet there have already started making plans to move elsewhere and there are signs that other venues such as the Abbey Church Hall in Church Walk and the Darby and Joan Hall in South Street are enjoying additional bookings, all of which is a satisfying indication that community activity in Bourne is alive and well.

The possibility of a skateboard park being established in Bourne rumbles on with little public interest except the whisper currently doing the rounds that the trustees of Bourne United Charities have actually been discussing siting it at the Abbey Lawn, an unthinkable proposal that is unlikely to get much support.

A skateboard park is one of those lost cause projects that has been around for several years, the latest initiative being mooted in February 2001 when a petition was raised in the hope of finding the necessary £190,000. Several town mayors pledged cash during their terms in office but little happened until the campaign won official recognition in 2007 when it became known as the Dimension Park Project. This was abandoned in October 2010 but a new initiative was launched last November when it was decided to test public opinion once again and it is from this that the Abbey Lawn rumour has originated.

This particular sport does not have a good record and skateboard parks that have been established in neighbouring towns such as Stamford and Sutton Bridge have attracted an unruly element and have even been closed down through vandalism. The Abbey Lawn, therefore, would not seem to be a suitable venue. This open space has been used for sporting and social activities for decades and venerated by this and past generations but was fenced off in 2009 at considerable cost to put an end to the habitual vandalism that had plagued the various sports organisations which use it, a policy that appears to have paid off.

We wonder if the Abbey Lawn Sports Association, which represents the various clubs that use it, has been consulted because it is our opinion that the officers of this active organisation which pays considerable sums towards the security precautions to protect their interests will be appalled at such a suggestion. There is also the question of upsetting the neighbours because the noise will infuriate residents of Victoria Place and Coggles Causeway who live close to the only vacant area suitable for such a venture.

Nothing could be more incongruous than putting such a facility in these tranquil surroundings and we can therefore only surmise that this is a wild rumour, although it has been circulating for several weeks. Wiser counsel is sure to prevail and perhaps the time has come for the trustees to issue a statement on their web site that they would never countenance such a project, a denial that would provide a reassurance for those who see this as being detrimental to the town's traditional sporting and recreational amenities.

Skateboard parks have not been a success elsewhere in this country and we should remember this before proceeding with a similar venture here in Bourne. Youngsters can still be seen occasionally practising their sport in the late evenings and at weekends wherever they find an area of concrete or hard standing, usually at unauthorised locations such as the bus station in North Street and the car parks at the Burghley Centre and the Hereward Health Centre in Exeter Street and they were once even spotted around the paved area around the War Memorial in South Street.

But these are isolated occurrences and participants are now distinctly in the minority. Popular and highly respected venues such as the Abbey Lawn should not therefore be spoiled by the introduction of an activity that has become largely passé among the younger generation and is now almost a thing of the past along with skipping and hop scotch. If a demand is identified in Bourne and somewhere needs to be found, then the land adjacent to the play area in the Wellhead field would be far more suitable and well out of the way of anyone who may be inconvenienced. Yet serious consideration must be given before even that is allocated for such a purpose.

Bourne may soon have a new brewery. Vacant commercial premises off Roman Bank have been chosen for the venture and a planning application has been submitted to South Kesteven District Council. If successful, it will be known as the Stamford and Bourne Brewing Company run by business partners Michael Thurlby and Simon Raines, producing three specific ales as well as seasonal guest beers and later moving into the bottled range. There will also be a shop and visitor centre.

Brewing is not a new industry for Bourne. The first people to produce beer in any quantity would have been the monks at Bourne Abbey. Later, large houses or mansions, such as the Red Hall, had their own brewhouse for the production and storage of ale and beer. Trade directories from the second half of the 19th century also show that Bourne had several breweries, including one run by Henry Bott whose family owned the Angel Hotel for more than half a century.

In 1884, Joseph Wyles took over Robert James Shilcock's brewery in Manning Road. The business known as the Star Brewery increased in size and in 1891, it became a limited company under the title of Joseph Wyles and Co (Bourne Brewery) Limited with a share capital of £20,000.

The Stamford Mercury reported on January 23rd: "From enterprising management, rapid development, and the increasing trade of the firm, there is little doubt that the shares will be quickly subscribed and that the new departure will lead to still further development and prosperity. It is acknowledged by competent authorities that Bourne water is excellently adapted for brewing purposes and there is no reason why Bourne should not become one of the most important centres of the brewing industry in the country." The number of barrels of beer being sold at this time was 3,500. 

The business became Bourne Brewery Ltd in 1898 and in 1913 it was taken over by Charles Campbell MacLeod and subsequently by Soames and Co Ltd in 1922. Brewing ceased in 1937 by which time the premises were described as "a beer depot". The brewery buildings disappeared in the 1960s to make way for the premises of Johnson Bros (Bourne) Ltd, the agricultural machinery engineers.

Since those days of large regional breweries serving many public houses, smaller businesses have sprung up around the country, employing only a few people and specialising in brand ales for a particular market. The new proposed Bourne brewery is likely to service specific public houses which Mr Thurlby owns in the area including the Jubilee and Smiths, both in North Street.

Never has the need to rid the town centre of its heavy through traffic been better illustrated than by the events of almost twenty years ago when a huge lorry overturned on the pedestrian island at the entrance to West Street.

The 20-tonne vehicle blocked the road for almost two hours at lunchtime on Saturday 24th April 1993, spilling its load of straw, and the emergency services stood by because of fears that leaking diesel fuel could be ignited by the electricity supply to the traffic lights which had been flattened by the impact. Miraculously, the driver escaped injury and although this was a busy time in the town, none of the many shoppers who were in the vicinity were hurt.

The accident highlighted the increasing danger from heavy traffic using the main roads through Bourne, the A15 and the A6121, and renewed calls for a bypass. Town councillor Peter Garner warned of the danger in an interview with the Lincolnshire Free Press. "With all the shoppers about, we were lucky that no one was killed", he said (April 27th). "We have got to get heavy traffic out of the town centre as a matter of urgency."

Councillor Garner pointed out that work on the new Spalding bypass had then started and the Market Deeping bypass then scheduled (both now completed) but proposals by the highways authority, Lincolnshire County Council, for a relief road east of Bourne "were faulty and showed a lack of detailed knowledge. A western route, he said, would cope better with traffic from the A15 south as well as the A151 from Colsterworth and the A6121 from Stamford. "With the planned improvements to the A1, we are going to get more and more traffic from those directions", he said.

In the event, it was to be another twelve years before a south-western bypass was eventually opened, the new 1.5 mile stretch of single carriageway from South Road to West Road built at a cost of £4 million by the developers as part of the planning gain for the Elsea Park estate. This has relieved the town centre of a great deal of traffic but there are still problems at busy periods when North Street is at a standstill as both lanes are jammed with heavy vehicles and although there has been much talk of a new north-south by pass for the A15, there is little or no likelihood of it materialising in the foreseeable future and this incident is therefore a stark reminder of what could happen until it is.

Thought for the week: The car has become the carapace, the protective and aggressive shell, of urban and suburban man. - Herbert Marshall McLuhan (1911-80), Canadian educator, philosopher, and scholar whose work is regarded as a cornerstone in the study of media theory.

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