Bourne Diary - August 2013

Saturday 3^rd August 2013

One of the more colourful features of the Abbey Church are the assortment of kneelers that can be found in the pews. They are also known as hassocks, a word that has a special association with the church because it is used to describe the thick cushions employed by the congregation to kneel on while at prayer.

These items began life in centuries past as small pieces of furniture used as footstools but completely covered in cloth so that no legs were visible but progressed in design to the present embroidered cushions that in many cases are small works of art demonstrating the ancient craft of needlework and usually completed by ladies of the parish. A large collection may be found in the Abbey Church with a variety of designs finished in coloured wools including birds, flowers, rural scenes, landscapes and commemorative motifs, the result of countless hours of dedicated work by many pairs of hands. 

Each has its own story and the latest addition to the collection is no exception because it commemorates a moment in the history of this town, the restoration of the wheel which once powered Baldock’s Mill in South Street, now the home of the Heritage Centre. The present building dates back to 1800 when it was used for grinding corn but stopped working around 1924 when the wheel collapsed and it was decided that repairs were too expensive.

Ownership of the mill eventually passed to Bourne United Charities who now lease it to Bourne Civic Society for use in its present role and in 2002, committee member Jim Jones, a qualified engineer, embarked on an ambitious project to restore the wheel, 15 feet in diameter by 3 feet wide, to its working condition and provide power to light and heat the building and so reduce the annual electricity bill. It was a massive task of design and construction but, ably assisted by Doug Fownes and several other enthusiasts who popped in from time to time, the work was finished in September 2003 when an official ceremony was held to mark completion.

It is this project that has been commemorated on the latest kneeler, the work of Mrs Avice Budd who wanted it dedicated to Jim Jones to mark his marathon task which he reckons took more than 400 hours of working time. She put the idea to the Civic Society and Doug Fownes produced a computer generated design showing the pattern and appropriate colours but the right materials were needed before work could begin.

Kneelers worked by church members in the past have come from tapestry kits supplied by Jackson of Hebden Bridge in West Yorkshire and they have become so popular that the finished products can be found in churches and cathedrals at 8,000 locations around the world. The average price is £44 each but the wheel design with the wording “Baldock’s Mill, Heritage Centre” around the edge was a special commission for an individual pattern and therefore cost three times as much but Avice managed to find sufficient money from donations to place an order. The kit arrived in November 2012 and she set to work, completing the kneeler in February this year when it was handed over to the Civic Society. 

There are currently 70 kneelers in the church, mostly worked in recent years although some are much older. A renewed interest in adding more began six years ago when a Knit and Sew Friendship Group was started by Mrs Rosie Cudmore with members meeting in the church every month.

Avice’s kneeler is one of several new ones that will soon be gracing the nave because £800 has recently been donated to the project by Jim and Betty James which was collected during their recent diamond wedding celebration held at the Abbey Church earlier this year in lieu of presents. Betty has already completed several in memory of family members and she thought it appropriate that the money should be used to buy more and an appeal for volunteers has been made in the July issue of the parish magazine. “We are relying on some kind people who will be happy to work on a kneeler of their choice, one they can choose from the brochure”, said Betty. “We all know of someone who would appreciate such a token in memory of a loved one or perhaps someone who has contributed in some way to the Abbey Church or even the town itself.”

But the task is not an easy one. “All of us who have worked on the kneelers know that they cannot be polished off in five minutes”, said Betty, “so anyone who does decide to join in must allow several months for completion.”

Among those already in the pipeline is another connected with the Heritage Centre, this time a kneeler to commemorate the BRM victory in the 1962 world championships, a design again completed by Doug Fownes showing the winning car with Graham Hill at the wheel, and once the materials arrive the Civic Society will be seeking someone to sew it. This and the mill wheel kneeler will be blessed by the vicar, the Rev Christopher Atkinson, at a forthcoming Sunday service this winter together with other kneelers completed in the meantime.

The feature which appeared in The Local newspaper last week (The curate who became a pauper,  P4, July 26th) and also on this web site stimulated so much interest among our readers that many telephoned or emailed to say how fascinated they were to read it and asking how the story came to light.

It was written as part of my fortnightly series on Bourne’s past and concerned the downfall of the Rev George Parkinson (1846-1908), curate at the Abbey Church who was also chaplain of Bourne workhouse where he was eventually admitted as an inmate following a spell in jail for passing dud cheques, thus becoming a pauper in his own parish.

The feature was the result of extensive research in the archives of several provincial newspapers including the Stamford Mercury which has covered Bourne’s affairs for the past 300 years, census returns and records of births, marriages and deaths, as well as a check on old copies of Crockford’s Clerical Directory which contains details of all clergymen who have served with the Church of England.

This one subject took more time than any other I have researched but I was so consumed with curiosity as to what happened that I had to continue. In the end, it produced one of the most bizarre tales I have ever written as well as giving an insight into the living conditions in a Victorian workhouse. The feature also stimulated a great deal of interest and as well as the emails and telephone calls I have been stopped in the street and even in Sainsbury’s when out shopping with my wife by people who just wanted to say thank you for being able to read about such an unusual episode in Bourne’s history.

There is a sequel to the story in that Mrs Janet Goodacre of Coggles Causeway telephoned to ask what happened to Mr Parkinson’s wife and two daughters who he deserted and research now suggests that they emigrated to South Africa to live with relatives and start a new life and so at least their part in this unfortunate affair had a happy ending.

Every article in the current series on local history that has appeared in The Local since 2005 is reproduced in A Portrait of Bourne, the definitive history of the town which is available on CD-ROM and an order form may be downloaded from the link on the front page.

Plans are underway to hold a christening exhibition at the Heritage Centre inspired by the forthcoming ceremony for the royal baby, Prince George of Cambridge. Although the date of the royal occasion has not been fixed, the Bourne event will open on Saturday 10th August and run for five weeks, opening every day from 2 pm until 4 pm.

In the meantime, an appeal has gone out for photographs and personal items that might be included in the display. Mrs Brenda Jones, chairman of the Civic Society which runs the Heritage Centre, said that they were hoping to find christening gowns and other items from these occasions as well as photographs from family albums. “They need not have been held in Bourne”, she said, “but as long as the item reflects the occasion then there will be a place for it.”

This is one of several similar events already held at the Heritage Centre, notably in April 2011 when a highly successful exhibition was staged to coincide with the royal wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton. “We had so many visitors that we could not let the christening go by without holding another”, said Mrs Jones.

The buddleia in my garden has produced a startling display this summer and for the first time this year we are seeing a few butterflies that are attracted to these massive purple flowers.

These are welcome visitors but fast becoming a rarity as agricultural chemicals continue to take their toll and as we live on the very edge of an intensive farming area with fields immediately beyond my garden fence there is no escaping the effects and so there has been a marked decline in the appearance of the red admiral, the peacock and even the common cabbage white, that were so prevalent in years past.

When I was a lad, before agro-chemicals became so important to the farming cycle, butterflies were part of my summer and they could be seen everywhere in their thousands although some species have disappeared for good, the gradual increase of intensive farming having reduced their numbers, and it is left to those pockets of land in the urban belt tended by environmentally aware gardeners to entice them back although the task may take many years.

The buddleia has a particular place in our local history because the man who gave his name to the shrub was the Rev Adam Buddle, a distinguished botanist who came from Deeping St James, near Bourne. He was born there in 1665 and studied theology at Cambridge where his interest in botany began and he started on his quest of studying native mosses, grasses and plant species and soon established a reputation for his subject, being consulted by the experts of the time.

Buddle wrote and compiled an entirely new and complete reference work called English Flora in 1708 and although the book was never published, the manuscripts now form part of the Sloane collection at the Natural History Museum in London. Carolus Linnaeus (1701-78), the Swedish naturalist and founder of modern scientific nomenclature for plants and animals, subsequently named the species Buddleia, commonly known today as the butterfly bush because of its attraction for butterflies, in honour of Buddle's work in taxomony, notably Buddleia globosa, the first of many buddleias to follow. Adam Buddle died on 15th April 1715, aged 50, at Gray's Inn, London, where he was a reader, and he is buried at St Andrew's Church, Holborn, London.

The buddleia originates from China and is now regarded in many parts of this country as an invasive threat to native plant diversity, producing millions of small wind-blown seeds from a single bush which are likely to colonise bare and disturbed ground and once established can quickly form dense undergrowth. Whilst it may actually be a useful wildlife resource on urban waste ground and other places such as railway yards which would otherwise be barren, it is generally regarded as an unwelcome competitor with native plants.

It must therefore be kept under control, a worthwhile task because for a few weeks each summer, its copious nectar production famously attracts butterflies more than any native plant species, and they can be a most welcome sight. But it is also worth remembering that while providing nectar for the adults, it provides no food for the leaf-eating caterpillars of most species and so its usefulness is limited.

Thought for the week: Flowers are a proud assertion that a ray of beauty out values all the utilities of the world. - Ralph Waldo Emerson (1802-82), American poet, lecturer and essayist.

Saturday 10^th August 2013

The government is currently making preparations to mark the centenary of the outbreak of the Great War next year with a series of events across the land, among them a scheme to remember those men who were awarded the Victoria Cross with specially designed paving stones that will be presented to local councils and intended to be laid in their home towns.

Among those to be honoured in this way is Charles Sharpe who took part in an Allied assault on Fromelles in France by General Henry Rawlinson's 4th Army during the Battle of Aubers Ridge in the spring of 1915. Sharpe, then aged 26, became the first soldier of the war from his regiment to win the V C, Britain's highest military decoration for gallantry in the field, awarded for most conspicuous bravery, a daring or pre-eminent act of valour, self-sacrifice or extreme devotion to duty in the presence of the enemy. When two companies of his battalion reached the German lines near Rouges Bancs, north-east of Neuve Chapelle after crossing No Man's Land under heavy fire, he captured an enemy trench single handed and led a successful assault on another.

The Victoria Cross was founded by Queen Victoria towards the conclusion of the Crimean War in 1856 and, until the supply was exhausted, was cast from the metal of Russian guns taken at Sebastopol. It consists of a Maltese cross made of bronze and bearing in the centre the royal crown surmounted by a lion and with the scroll inscribed with just two words "For Valour".  The number of V C awards made to members of the armed services during the First World War of 1914-18 was 633 and of this number 187 were killed during their acts of heroism.

Unfortunately, the government list of those honoured gives Sharpe’s home town as Sleaford which means that the paving slab will go to there whereas he was born at Pickworth in 1889, a village halfway between there and Bourne which he always regarded as his home town and where he lived most of life after leaving the army.

After being honoured with the V C, Sharpe returned to England on leave for two months and on 24th July 1915, received his medal from King George V at Windsor Castle and then took part in a recruiting drive to urge young, single men to volunteer for military service while visiting Bourne. He continued with the colours for a further five years after that and was discharged in 1928 with a total of 23 years' service but returned to the army for a further two years during the Second World War when he was in his fifties and although too old for active service, he was gainfully employed at home as a Master Sergeant Cook.

As a civilian, he worked on various jobs in Bourne including a spell as a labourer and cleaner at the BRM workshops and he also taught gardening and physical training at the Hereward Approved School in what is now Beech Avenue where the boys regarded him as a role model. It was here that he was injured by a splinter when the school was bombed towards the end of the Second World War. He lived at No 68 Woodview and after a spell as a council refuse collector, his last job was as a gardener for the Bourne United Charities and, ironically, one of his duties was to tend the cenotaph and surrounds in the town's War Memorial gardens where the dead from two world wars are remembered.

He eventually moved to live with Dorothy, his daughter from an earlier marriage, at Workington, Cumbria, but thirteen months later, on 17th February 1963, he was taken ill and died in Workington Infirmary after a fall, aged 73. The funeral was held at St Nicholas' Church, Lincoln, with full military honours and he was later buried at the city's Newport Cemetery.

Although he originated in Pickworth, he has always been regarded as a Bourne hero and is also remembered among our street names, a short cul-de-sac off Beech Avenue which was named Sharpe’s Close soon after his death in 1963. His medals and decorations passed to his children who decided to sell them and in 1989 they were sent to Christie's auction rooms in London. In addition to the Victoria Cross, there are eight campaign and commemorative medals. The sale attracted a great deal of attention and press coverage and two local men, Fred King and the late Melvyn Patrick, both deeply interested in the First World War, launched a fund to buy the medals for public display in the town but the £4,000 they raised in donations and promises was insufficient to secure them and they went to a surprise bidder for £17,000 who later turned out to be Chris Farmer, treasurer and later Chief Executive of South Kesteven District Council, who bought them on behalf of the community to commemorate the centenary year of Sharpe's birth.

The medals were cleaned, polished and mounted by a specialist firm in Bridlington and wooden plinths were made by craftsmen from the council's own workshops at Grantham to enable them to be put on permanent display. They are now on show with other regalia in the chairman's office at the authority’s headquarters in Grantham, although visitors can see them on request while copies are on display at the Royal Lincolnshire Regiment's museum in Lincoln.

Concern has also been expressed by members of the Pickworth Local History Group who insist that Bourne should be the selected town. “We have had misgivings”, said their spokesman Joe Seddon. “The first thing that occurred to us was that Pickworth was not appropriate but Sleaford does not make sense. Bourne would be as natural a connection with Charles locally as Pickworth has been historically and we are hoping that this will be changed by the appropriate authority.”

It is therefore quite clear that the memorial paving stone should come to Bourne but fortunately help is at hand. After contacting South Kesteven District Council and advising them of the situation, officers are to ask the Communities Secretary, Eric Pickles, and the Culture Secretary, Maria Miller, to amend the official list by changing the name Sleaford to Bourne swiftly before the mistake becomes too difficult to remedy.

From the archives: No 7942 Acting Corporal Charles Sharpe, 2nd Battalion, The Lincolnshire Regiment: For most conspicuous bravery near Rouges Bancs on 9th May 1915. When in charge of a blocking party sent forward to take a portion of the German trench he was the first to reach the enemy's position, and, using bombs with great determination and effect, he himself cleared them out of a trench 50 yards long. By this time all his party had fallen and he was then joined by four other men, with whom he attacked the enemy again with bombs and captured a further 250 yards long. - citation from the London Gazette, 29th June 1915.

The former library building in South Street is to become a charity furniture warehouse for the next twelve months once the formalities have been completed with Lincolnshire County Council to hand over the premises to the Salvation Army.

This worthwhile project will cost £29,000 a year and is being supported by grants from Bourne United Charities, the Len Pick Trust and the county council, and will ensure that donated second hand furniture that otherwise may have been dumped will be passed on to those in need after being rehoused or who find themselves in difficulties as a result of the current economic crisis.

The Local newspaper reports (July 26th) that the Salvation Army is negotiating for a twelve month lease on the premises and will launch the scheme at the end of the month. Those who will benefit will be referred by the various housing agencies and the Citizens Advice Bureau and will be supplied with furniture for a nominal payment of £10 an item, up to five items each.

The empty building dates from 1965 when it was designed as the area’s Civil Defence headquarters but was converted for use as our public library four years later and gave good service until last March when it was closed and the library moved to less spacious premises, some say cramped, at the new £600,000 Community Access Point established at the Corn Exchange in an attempt to cut costs. The Salvation Army is expected to stay in occupation for the next twelve months when the premises will be sold, together with the Town Hall which has also become redundant as part of the Community Access Point project.

There has been speculation that the library site may be snapped up for housing but although the Town Hall is Grade II listed, future uses are anyone’s guess although in the present climate it could also become a furniture warehouse, a Weatherspoon pub or even a night club. These are changing times and nothing should surprise us.

Bourne has an impressive record in the world of brass and silver bands dating back to the early 19th century and there are now hopes that this reputation may be restored. Local osteopath, Jo Sunner, a keen instrumentalist who plays both the tuba and the trombone, wants to share his passion with the public and so nurture a new appreciation of this music.

“It seems a great shame that the town does not have its own brass band”, he told The Local newspaper (August 2nd) and he has begun a campaign to rectify this omission. Mr Sunner, who practices at the Hereward Medical Centre in Exeter Street, already travels to Spalding regularly to play with the Salvation Army band while he and a group of like-minded friends also play together as an ensemble, often at public events, but the discipline of an organised band is required for a wider appeal. “A lot of young people in the Bourne area play brass instruments but cannot get the experience of playing with a band without travelling long distances”, he said.

Mr Sunner, who is 57, has already secured several instruments, music stands and a place to practice but more members are needed to make up a band. He began playing brass instruments when he was eleven years old and feels that our local schools have an abundance of musical talent which is being wasted.  “A young membership would be ideal”, he said, “and although we are keen to recruit cornet players, trombonists and tenor horn players, everyone is welcome to join.”

Bourne has had several town bands, the earliest mentioned being in 1871. But all seem to have foundered in times of national conflict, during the Boer War of 1899-1902, the Great War of 1914-18 and the Second World War of 1939-45 and there has not been one in the town since then.

The last band enjoyed the most success, having been formed in 1921 under the direction of bandmaster Richard Newton Pattison, a local tailor and trumpet player. The music was a particular favourite of the vicar of that time, Canon John Grinter, who made the vicarage lawn available for concerts during the summer months that were well attended. Christmas was also a popular time for carol concerts in the market place and in the surrounding villages which always received a visit when everyone gathered round and joined in with tremendous enthusiasm.

This band also failed to survive and as members left for military service following the outbreak of war in 1939, closure was inevitable and this time it was not re-formed. The brass band tradition, however, has been revived in recent years with the popular music in the park events provided by visiting bands playing in the War Memorial gardens on selected Sunday afternoons during the summer months.

Unfortunately, there is no permanent place for the musicians who have to sit around the stone cenotaph and as a result, a vigorous campaign is currently underway to build a Victorian-style bandstand to mark the 100th anniversary of the outbreak of the Great War when it is observed throughout the country next summer, a large portion of the money having already been secured together with expert help in the planning and legal procedures.

The formation of a new brass band for the town would certainly be a welcome addition to our cultural life and although agreement will be needed from the trustees of Bourne United Charities before a bandstand can be built on the proposed site in the War Memorial Gardens, it would surely be churlish of them to dampen such enthusiasm in the town by refusing.

Thought for the week: Music has charms to sooth a savage breast, to soften rocks, or bend a knotted oak. - William Congreve (1670-1729), Yorkshire-born playwright and poet who wrote some of the most popular English plays of the Restoration period.

Saturday 17^th August 2013

The violent thunderstorms that have accompanied the recent hot and sultry weather are a reminder of how man is at the mercy of the elements when these meteorological phenomena occur and the wonderment and fear with which they were regarded in past times.

Even today, the sight of forked lightning seen from my study widow, streaking from an ominously darkened sky to earth out there over the fen is enough to make one catch the breath and marvel at the forces of nature but imagine what it was like before man understood the reason why this was happening and he can be forgiven for thinking that this was a supernatural manifestation or that magical powers were at work.

Lightning is a massive electrostatic discharge within clouds or between a cloud and the earth's surface, the subsequent flash being commonly known as a strike if it hits an object on the ground. This phenomenon occurs approximately 40-50 times a second worldwide, resulting in nearly 1.4 billion flashes per year. Strikes are less frequent today because modern science has helped us take precautions through the use of conductors which will safeguard buildings and other tall installations although the countryside remains at risk as was seen at Stainfield, near Bourne, last month when a farm workshop was struck, exploding a gas cylinder and starting a massive blaze which took eight fire crews several hours to bring under control.

But imagine the consternation before this scientific explanation could be understood. The earliest detailed account we have of lightning over Bourne is from 1800 and a vivid description survives of a fierce storm at Morton, written by the Rev Samuel Hopkinson, Vicar of St John the Baptist Church, who said that villagers were assembled in the church for morning service on Sunday 4th May when a darkness descended over the village as the storm broke accompanied by a mighty wind. “With several others I immediately ascended the steeple”, he wrote. “But no mind can comprehend, no tongue can tell, no pen can represent the scene now exhibited to the astonished sight. The fury of the storm became excessive. The sun withdrew its shining and a partial darkness overspread the land. We could neither stand without support, see with difficulty or hear anything except the elements of disorder and we quickly descended for safety into the nave.”

The church shook as the wind roared, the thunder pealed and the lightning flashed, he wrote. Nature seemed to be struggling for her very existence. For over half an hour, monstrous hailstones rained on the building like musket balls, peppering the stonework and windows, shattering many and even dislodging the frames which fell down into the nave. “The confused noise occasioned by the rushing wind, by the glass and hail, by the shrieks of the women, the cries of the children, together with the dismay visible in the faces of all, was much increased by a sudden hollow explosion, not unlike a gun discharged either in a cavern or with its muzzle close to a wall. This was soon discovered to be the effect of lightning, which struck and scorched the leg of a young man, who had retreated with many more under a pillar of the western entrance for safety.”

As the storm abated, villagers plucked up courage to venture outside and to return to their homes to find the widows of the properties to the south and south west almost entirely demolished. Of 121 panes in the eight sash windows in the western front of the vicarage house, only 21 were saved, which was owing to the sashes being left up. Towards the south, of five windows with 281 panes, there were only 23 left and the damage was similar in the surrounding villages of Stainfield, Haconby, Dunsby, and Rippingale. “The  cottage of the poor man as well as the mansions of the rich suffered in the general wreck”, wrote Hopkinson. “None hath escaped God’s avenging arm. Here was a scene the most awful and extraordinary I ever witnessed through the course of my life, such as I supposed as had not been displayed from the beginning of time.”

In past times, lightning was not fully understood and even in the early 20th century is was being referred to as “the electric fluid” as though it were some mighty liquid flame about the engulf all in its path. Farm workers out in the open were frequently killed after being struck, an occurrence regarded in many areas as an act of God and newspaper descriptions of these terrible tragedies give the impression that they were regarded in awe but an inevitable part of life.

In June 1848 for instance, it was reported that “a servant girl was knocked down by the electric fluid at Graby and much hurt, but is now recovering".

There were also tragedies and in the summer of 1871 a twelve-year-old lad, William Fisher, was working with his father in the fields in Bourne South Fen when a violent storm of hail and rain with vivid flashes and heavy peals of thunder passed overhead. According to a local newspaper “he was struck by the electric fluid and killed instantaneously” and an inquest later returned a verdict that he had been killed by lightning.

Another lad, Samuel Northern, aged eleven years, son of a labourer from Eastgate, was killed in September 1878 while working with a gang of boys hoeing coleseed. They sought shelter near a haystack from a sudden storm but there was a flash of lightning which struck them all down, killing Northern and injuring two others.  A doctor who examined the unfortunate boy’s body found that his hair was singed, his clothes rent in shreds from top to bottom and there were burn marks on various parts of the body.

Animals left in the fields are particularly at risk and in 1848, three sheep were killed at Aslackby, a horse was killed near the toll bar in Mill Drove in 1862 together with two sheep at Rippingale and in June 1874, a bullock was killed in the North Fen. Houses in Eastgate were struck in 1902, Hereward Street in 1907 and in Abbey Road and Woodview in 1910 although generally, lightning causes greater fear from its visual effects than its physical manifestation.

In June 1886, for instance, a local newspaper reported that “a fine old oak tree in a hedgerow on the Spalding Road was struck by the electric fluid and completely shattered in all directions, so much so that not a perfect foot of good wood has been left in the tree. A farmhouse close by had a very narrow escape, several windows being broken. During Sunday afternoon and evening and also during the past week, several hundred people have journeyed to the spot, which is about half a mile from the town, in order to obtain a view of such an uncommon sight.”

In 1889, the Corn Exchange was struck by lightning but no serious damage was done although the weather vane to which the point of the lightning conductor was attached was bent and the wire was twisted throughout its length to the earth. There was a more serious lightning strike during a heavy storm in 1960 when Bourne Hospital in South Road was hit, cutting off the power supply and causing serious damage to the electrical installations. Subsequent repairs involved rewiring the entire hospital at a cost of £5,000 (almost £100,000 at today's values).

Despite these events, damage or death by lightning is a rare occurrence and it rarely strikes in the same place twice yet it remains a powerful image in our lives and imagination mainly because its appearance is so impressive, accompanied by wind and thunder and lighting up the countryside as though Armageddon were imminent and so it is not surprising that despite our scientific enlightenment, its effect on us today is much the same as it has been on man down the ages.

Bats in the belfry may be an antiquated phrase for madness or insanity although it does have a basis in fact in that these flying mammals find the bell towers of churches a suitable place to roost because the darkness and seclusion suits their lifestyle but as all church officials know, their presence can be a real nuisance.

However, all bats are protected by law under the Wildlife and Countryside Act of 1981 to such a degree that a bat may not be killed, captured or injured and their roosts and way of life are similarly safeguarded with the result that many developments in old buildings have been jeopardised rather than have these intruders or their habitats disturbed in any way.

Old churches are a favourite haunt although bats do not confine their activities to the bell tower and can often be seen in other parts of the building including the nave where they are currently causing problems in the 12th century Abbey Church in Bourne. As a result, droppings can often be found on the pews and tables, on books and pamphlets that are left lying around, and even on the brass offertory plate near the entrance. Choristers too, find their white surplices spoiled during services when they inadvertently sit down without first wiping down the seats, much to the dismay of the ladies who have to wash them.

Church cleaner Philip Pettit does his best to tidy up after them but he appears to be fighting a losing battle, especially at this time of the year when the bats are particularly active and when they often appear during services. “We cannot make life uncomfortable for them because they are a protected species and so we cannot disturb their roosts and evict them”, says churchwarden Merryn Woodland in the August issue of the parish magazine. “Loud organ music does not disturb them, nor does loud singing of favourite hymns by the congregation and nor do clouds of incense.”

The problem is much the same in many Lincolnshire churches which are inhabited by bats and as a result the diocese has been holding a workshop for churchwardens to give them guidance for the future although it appears that little can be done. When the parochial church council applied recently for permission to carry out internal alterations to the church they had to declare the presence of bats and inform the Bat Conservation Trust with assurances that the proposed work would not disturb them. “Perhaps the workshop will teach us how to love our bats”, said Mrs Woodland.

One place where bats are welcome is Bourne Wood, home to seven out of the 17 bat species found in the British Isles including the rare Leisler bat, the only place in Lincolnshire where it can be found, having been first discovered in nesting boxes in 1991 and is now being closely monitored by the Forestry Commission. Other bat residents include the pipistrelle, Daubenton's, the whiskered, the brown long-eared and the noctule bats.

Bat boxes have been installed over the years at various vantage points by a small but efficient team from the Friends of Bourne Wood organisation under the direction of forestry ranger Willie McLaughlin, all placed on selected trees, often three around a trunk, to enable bats move around to avoid full sun, and these are monitored regularly to check on their use.

Unfortunately, there are no grey long-eared bats which we were told this week have become so few in number that they are fast disappearing and have become the rarest mammals in England as a result. There are only 1,000 of them left in a few fragmented colonies confined to the south coast and the Channel Islands and a single one being recorded in South Wales and as a result, enforced protection for their foraging habitats is being introduced such as keeping their locations secret to ensure that they are not disturbed.

A statement from Natural England, the government organisation responsible for the protection of our natural environment, said that the grey long-eared bat's habitat had been "greatly altered throughout the last century through changes in farming practices and land management techniques" and added: “Bats are among the most protected mammals in Britain. This degree of protection recognises the level of threat posed to these species and seeks to conserve populations for this and future generations."

Thought for the week: A bat is beautifully soft and silky; I do not know any creature that is pleasanter to the touch or is more grateful for caressings, if offered in the right spirit. - Samuel Langhorne Clemens (1835-1910), better known by his pen name Mark Twain, American author and humorist and friend to presidents, artists, industrialists and European royalty.

Saturday 24^th August 2013

Picnic at Grimsthorpe Park - see "Bank Holidays . . . "

We are a nation riven by lawlessness, according to some national newspapers. Last week, for instance, the Daily Mail analysed figures published by the Home Office and came to the conclusion that Stratford in East London tops the chart of crime hotspots in Britain as a magnet for muggers, pickpockets and thieves and clocking some 200 offences a month (August 11th).

The report also claimed that there were a large number of arrests at airports where weapons are often seized from foreign visitors, railway stations haunted by beggars and football hooligans, and high streets where drinkers gather. Apart from London, Newcastle, Leeds and Manchester were singled out as the worst places for crime in Britain while high levels of violence were evident in Belfast, Watford and Birmingham. Other places were listed for their high rate of drug use, burglary, robbery, criminal damage and car crime and after an exhausting read it is gratifying to know that we live in a rural backwater such as Bourne where crime is relatively rare when compared with statistics such as these.

But imagine what it was like 200 years ago. Life was very different in the early years of the 19th century when the majority of the population earned little and had few possessions. They were perpetually hungry and always cold in winter, their homes often primitive with no heating or lighting and so the darkness that descended when the sun went down aided the criminal who was ever present with an eye on the main chance.

Crimes may seem petty by those recorded today but this was an age before the people owned very much of value and miscreants were usually out to steal money whenever possible, clothes to keep themselves and their families warm and food to sustain them. Yet the threat to society appears to have been just as great, as illustrated by this report from the Stamford Mercury on Friday 26th February 1819:

“We are concerned to hear that, after the lapse of four years only, the village of Morton, near Bourne, and the circumjacent neighbourhood are again infested by a horde of thieves. Early in the autumn they commenced with various petty crimes, frauds and misdemeanours, poaching in different branches, obtaining money in dishonest habits under false pretences, clearing onion beds, breaking trees and snipping them of the fruit, pilfering wood yards etc. With the advancing winter, they advanced to more atrocious acts: not a single week, and scarcely a night, elapsed without some depredations, more or less, upon the poultry and sheep, generally by cutting off the limbs of the latter; sometimes by driving them entirely away.

“As wickedness is, for the most part, progressive, so, in the depth of winter, they advanced to more alarming modes of spoilation, entering shops under cover of the evening and carrying away whatever was at hand: and, about 7 o'clock on Thursday night the 16th inst. while William Fisher, labourer, was employed in thrashing his mother's gleanings in a distant part of Morton, some persons, one of whom is supposed to have stood sentinel, broke into his house and, after forcing six different locks in the interior, succeeded in taking £7 in Sleaford bank bills and carrying away various articles of apparel, linen etc. Several loose characters, reputed rogues and poachers, are suspected and measures are adopted which encourage the inhabitants generally to hope that the offenders will be brought to speedy justice.”

We should remember that there was no police force in 1819 and so the search and apprehension of criminals was left to individuals or to village constables but few were willing to venture outside their own locality. Those who could afford it offered a reward for the capture of the offenders in the hope that someone would expose them and so the likelihood of their apprehension was extremely low and crime frequently went unpunished as a result. It has become fashionable to blame our police forces today for not doing their job but imagine what life would be like without them.

An email has arrived from Andalusia with photographs of our son and his family enjoying the sunshine on the terrace of a luxury villa in the Sierra Nevada with the Alhambra in the distance, a halcyon scene if ever I saw one, but the accompanying thought of “Wish you were here” fails to excite. Holidays have now passed us by and while the world and his wife are spending August in exotic climes we are happy with our own company in our own back garden for we have long discovered that home is where the heart is and that place is here.

Summer holidays are now rated as one of the most stressful experiences of modern life and the very act of being somewhere else takes a Herculean effort of will to uproot yourself from familiar surroundings to face the hassle of travelling long distances by car, train and plane, the indignities of jostling and queuing and then the discomfort of unpalatable food and strange beds, all at exorbitant prices that you would never dream of paying back home, while many foreign adventures bring with them those emergency occurrences that catch you unawares and before long you have vowed never to go on holiday again.

This urge to leave an environmentally unfriendly footprint across the globe is a comparatively new phenomenon, one that started in Victorian times with the invention of the seaside and then with the emergence of a new affluence in the years following World War Two, shifted abroad, a mass summer exodus aided by the arrival of the package holiday that is with us still for the footloose to pursue at all times and not just in the summer months, as the entire world has now opened up as an arrival destination.

Yet few who pursue these dreams can actually describe the benefits of two weeks abroad other than it has become a habit, something that everyone else does, or that they feel like a break, whereas time-out from the daily round can be more satisfactorily spent on your home territory, for what is the good of anyone seeking new horizons when they have not explored those that they see every day.

In recent weeks, during this extraordinarily fine spell of summer weather, we have been out and about as much as our mobility allows, finding a new enjoyment and appreciation by visiting old familiar places. An hour or so at the Wellhead and War Memorial Gardens was a particular joy because we found the place trimmed to perfection and looking an absolute picture in the morning sun while the place was full of people enjoying themselves, children playing along the banks of the Bourne Eau, mums preparing picnics and old people like ourselves just strolling around. The very sight of such simple pleasure brought the realisation of how this town is blessed with this wonderful amenity.

The same may be said of Bourne Wood, another place on our itinerary and somewhere we have explored regularly in past times but those secluded glades and the lakes at the far end of the forest are now beyond our walking ability and we can usually make the first bench from the Beech Avenue entrance or perhaps the second on a good day with a prevailing wind. Nevertheless, an hour here amid the trees is enough to lift the spirits and to provide that enjoyable morning outing before heading home to a glass of Sainsbury’s best on the patio before lunch.

Those faraway places once beckoned, much as they do to young people today, but then you must have been there and collected the T-shirt to appreciate how much more satisfying it is to be at home. Ask anyone who has just been to the Bahamas or Benidorm, Mexico or Majorca, India or Ibiza, and it is a fair bet that the majority were pleased to be back and perhaps when they have finally got being abroad out of their system they too will find a visit to Bourne Wood a far more fulfilling alternative.

Bank Holidays have become regular and inevitable and yet another will be here on Monday, the signal for thousands to take to the roads and sit for hours amid traffic congestion, vehicle fumes and frayed tempers. There is certainly something in the English psyche that forces them to participate in these annual torments in pursuit of enjoyment, only to end up on packed beaches or queuing for varied entertainments around the country ever since they were introduced by the Bank Holidays Act of 1871, although they were slow to catch on.

Some businesses even refused to acknowledge them, notably the tradesmen of Market Deeping who did not observe the August Bank Holiday in 1875. “It is paltry that solitary selfishness should deprive the whole of the employees here of what has become a national holiday”, reported the Stamford Mercury on Friday 6th August.

The August holiday was then the first Monday of the month, one of the four original Bank Holidays that have now been extended to six, plus two public holidays, when everyone expects to have the day off. The majority of people depend on organised events for their entertainment but in times past, most communities observed these holidays with an optimism that something special should happen and as it was usually up to them to make it so, picnics and sports gatherings were among the most popular activities. In country areas particularly, it became a tradition for the gentry to contribute either by helping to foot the bill or providing a place for them to be held.

On the August Bank Holiday of Monday 1st August 1887, for instance, the Baroness Willoughby de Eresby invited townspeople to picnic in Grimsthorpe Park and the occasion was reported by the Stamford Mercury: “Several wagons were drawn up in the Market Place at Bourne for the convenience of children and others who desired to avail themselves of that mode of conveyance. An excellent meat tea was provided in the deer park by Mr Thomas Hardwick of the Crown Hotel, about 100 sitting down. The company had greatly increased towards evening when dancing commenced. An efficient string band under the conductorship of Mr Mooreson (acting for Mr Rippon who was ill), played selections during tea and throughout the evening. Games were provided and cricket, tennis and quoits were popular. Dancing was carried on with spirit, the moonlight being favourable for the fascinating exercise. The picnic was so successful as to justify a repetition of the experiment and those who conceived and carried out the enterprise are to be congratulated.”

Such innocent events have all but disappeared and in their place we have the all-day barbeques with licensed bars, lager and hamburgers, followed by a disco until gone midnight. What a joy it would be to step back in time and sample the simple pleasures of yesteryear.

From the archives: We are pleased to say that the energetic committee of the Bourne Cricket Club have decided not to allow August Bank Holiday pass over without some kind of recreation. At a meeting held on Monday last, it was unanimously resolved that an old English game of cricket should be played, the ball to be pitched at eleven o'clock. The teams will consist of the Bourne club and the H Company, 2nd Volunteer Battalion, Lincolnshire Regiment. The former will appear in the old English cricketing costume and the volunteers in uniform. An efficient band, under the leadership of Mr J G McDermott, of Grantham, will perform during the match. At 6.30 pm, dancing will commence on the Abbey Lawn ground, but in the event of the weather being unfavourable this part of the programme will take place in the Corn Exchange hall. Following closely in the wake of Whitsuntide, when the holiday traffic in Bourne was quite unprecedented, it may be fairly assumed that the last of the summer bank holidays will be less extensively observed. Spalding, Stamford etc are all preparing to furnish athletic sports; there is also a cheap day trip to Mablethorpe. - news item from the Grantham Journal, Saturday 31st July 1886.

Thought for the week:  A perpetual holiday is a good working definition of hell. - George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950), Irish literary critic, playwright and essayist who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1925.

Saturday 31^st August 2013

Any day now we may expect the Town Hall in Bourne to be put up for sale and so one of our historic buildings that has served the town for almost two centuries will be lost to the community. There has been some speculation over future uses as a carpet warehouse, nightclub and even a Weatherpoons, because only an entrepreneur with an eye on the market will take it on.

When the building was vacated earlier this year there was some discussion over ownership, now vested in Lincolnshire County Council which presided over its closure with South Kesteven District Council and all public services have been transferred to the new Community Access Point at the Corn Exchange. The public were not consulted in any depth and although some voices have been raised in protest it is quite likely that the sale of the building will go through uncontested.

This is a pity for although ownership of the Town Hall may now be claimed by the county council, a thorough legal investigation might well prove otherwise and even if the lawyers did come down on the side of the local authority, the building would morally remain the property of the people of this town and the evidence for this is overwhelming.

The origins of the building are not in doubt, built in 1821 at a cost of £2,450 and financed mainly by voluntary subscription. Administration was originally the responsibility of the magistrates because it was also intended as a sessions house for the hearing of court cases but later in the 19th century passed to the vestry meeting which had complete control over the town, an arrangement that continued until the Local Government Act of 1894 when the present council system was created, separating church and state at parish level and putting the administration of our local affairs in the hands of councils at town, district and county level with elected councillors to run them.

This meant an end to the vestry meeting and the eventual formation of Bourne Urban District Council in 1899 which assumed control of the Town Hall which then passed to Lincolnshire County Council during a reorganisation of local government in 1974 and in turn, the county council leased it to South Kesteven District Council. The building has therefore run the gamut of ownership from people to parish to county and those who dug into their pockets to pay for it almost 200 years ago are long forgotten.

The fact that the Town Hall, now Grade II listed as a building of special architectural interest, was built with money donated by the town is at the heart of the current controversy and the names of those who made donations can be found inscribed on a panel fixed to the wall of the old magistrates’ court. The list is a cross section of the town at that time, from the landed gentry, lord of the manor, chief constable and magistrates, doctors and clergymen to farmers, shopkeepers and tradesmen, a fund raising effort that took place over an entire year at a time when money was not as plentiful and as easy to come by as it is today and the population a mere 2,242 (1821 census).

But another factor has now come to light which not only confirms the voluntary effort of those who paid for the building but also their intention that it should remain in the possession of the town because I have discovered that when construction work began in the spring of 1821, a document detailing its origins was buried with the foundation stone which was laid on April 30th that year. The list is headed by the Marquess of Exeter, Lord of the Manor of Bourne, who performed the stone laying ceremony, and includes those magistrates, clergymen, constables and bailiffs who attended together with the Lord Lieutenant of Lincolnshire, Earl Brownlow, with reference to “the many inhabitants of Bourne” who had contributed towards the cost.

Despite this new evidence, it is fairly certain that Lincolnshire County Council will continue with its declared intention of selling off the most prestigious public building in Bourne for commercial gain to the detriment of the town which bought it because the preservation of our heritage now takes a back seat to the current policy of cutting costs and reducing the budget.

The irony is that the document buried with the foundation stone also contains a dedication by the architect, Bryan Browning, Fiat Justitia in arternum or Let justice be done though the heavens fall. Perhaps he and his contemporaries had a premonition of the future when they left this reminder of those who had paid for the building that we would not keep faith with those who went before although it has taken two centuries before their philanthropy has finally foundered against the incoming tide of financial expediency.

A letter has arrived from the Royal Mail containing what it calls “important information” about changes to the postal deliveries in this area. Without reading further, we know that this is bad news and that a further decline in this once prestigious service is about to be thrust upon us. However, it is hard to determine exactly what is going to happen because the writer has striven so hard to disguise their real intentions that we end up with half a dozen paragraphs that tell us so little that we know instinctively that there is to be no improvement on the late hour of our daily deliveries which are always well past breakfast and often well after lunch.

The main thrust of the statement is that far fewer letters are now being posted every day, a fact of which the entire nation is well aware, and as a result delivery routes are to be re-organised to make them as efficient as possible. More packets and larger items are being delivered and so new equipment is being introduced to carry them “even more securely and to improve the safety of our people” and we wonder whether this means armoured vehicles and guard dogs. Then we are told that “changes are being made in this area to maintain and protect services and to keep prices as low as possible” and it was at this point that I realised we were, in fact, being told nothing except that yet another increase in the cost of postage is now quite likely.

What the Royal Mail appears to be saying is that because business is on the slide, deliveries, particularly of letters, will get later and more infrequent and parcels will be delivered when they can make it. But the oddest nugget is this one. “These changes may mean someone different from your local office will be delivering to you”. Now that is very strange because the mail arrives at such irregular times that I doubt if anyone knows their postman by sight anyway and it gives the distinct impression that in future our letters and parcels may well be delivered by white van man.

Lastly, the propaganda. “I am confident”, writes the delivery sector manager, Mark E Wilkinson (for it is he, even though he is based in Plymouth), “all of my local team will continue to provide the reliable, friendly service you have come to expect from us and of which we are very proud.”

Postage for a first class letter is 60p with no assurance that it will be delivered next day, the cost of sending anything larger is prohibitive, street collection boxes are no longer reliable because they may not be emptied daily, Monday deliveries consist entirely of junk mail and one day recently our mail arrived just before teatime. The contents of this letter therefore, appear to indicate that things are about to get worse than they were when the postal service was in its infancy 150 years ago.

From the archives: 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. – news item from the Stamford Mercury, Friday 9th November 1860.

Local history is a particularly difficult subject to determine because sources are few, gossip is plentiful and most people have their own fixed ideas. As a result, there are many controversial subjects around Bourne that would benefit from closer scrutiny to discover the truth that seems to have been lost in the mists of time. But is does not need the passage of too many years before what actually happened either becomes distorted or, at least, disputed, as with the origins of The Archers, the BBC radio series which began way back in 1950 as an everyday story of country folk and is now the world’s longest running soap opera with five million listeners every weekday.

The series is based on Ambridge in the fictional county of Borsetshire, somewhere in the Midlands, and several places claim to be the inspiration for the village and its public house known as the Bull, notably our own Rippingale, just off the main A15 five miles north of Bourne. No one really seems to bother very much although every few years the rivalry over this claim surfaces in the national press, usually in those languid days of late summer when news is so scarce that this time has become known in the trade as the silly season.

So it is that the Daily Mail has given prominence to a tale under a headline announcing “The battle of Ambridge” (August 23rd) in which it reports that Rippingale is at loggerheads with Inkberrow in Worcestershire which has an Old Bull Inn and claims that the radio series was modelled on their village and their public house.

Inkberrow would seem to be the more favoured candidate because not only did Godfrey Baseley, creator of The Archers, live nearby but the BBC has also used the village in its publicity shots for the Radio Four programme. Rippingale, however, also has a claim, because the series was suggested to Mr Baseley by local farmer and seed specialist Henry Burtt when they met in 1946 while making a farming programme in the area and from this meeting, the idea for the programme developed.

None of this seems to be in any doubt although residents now say that Mr Baseley was so taken with the suggestion that “he went back to Rippingale to have a proper tour and would have visited the Bull Inn”, all of which gave him inspiration for the programme we know today.

According to the Rippingale village web site, it is now accepted that Inkeberrow is the modern day Ambridge but that “Rippingale was its birthplace where the idea, original scripts and characters were conceived and born”. All of which omits one fact. Mr Burtt did not live at Rippingale. He came from Dowsby, having occupied the old hall there since 1929. By all means he may have entertained Godfrey Baseley when they discussed the show but there appears to be no evidence that he took him to the Bull at Rippingale and as there are several other villages with attractive hostelries close by, it could have been any one of them. It might even have been The Vine at Dowsby, an old public house which was still in business at the time because it did not close until 1951 and still exists as a private house. A short walk from Dowsby Hall to Mr Burtt’s own local would have been a far more likely proposition than getting into the car and driving the two miles to Rippingale.

So it seems that even Rippingale’s claim to fame is based on speculation and the fact that it has a hostelry called the Bull, one of the most popular pub names in England. In fact, there are thousands of them and there was even one here in Bourne at that time [now the Burghley Arms] and so there is a good chance that they might have gone there which would also justify yet another claim for the honour of being in on the birth of The Archers, especially as this particular pub was always full of farmers and country folk and so would have been well known to Henry Burtt. But I suppose that all of this discussion helps fill the newspapers on a dull day although in the absence of any real documentary evidence, there the matter will rest until next year’s silly season.

Thought for the week: History is the version of past events that people have decided to agree upon. - Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821), military and political leader who became emperor of France and one of the most influential figures in European history.

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