Bourne Diary - March 2014

Saturday 1^st March 2014

West Street butcher in 1890  - see "The display of meat . . ."

There is something grossly immoral about the public purse being raided by those who administer the money that has been extracted from those who can ill afford to pay, especially at this time of financial restraint when most people are feeling the pinch. Those who are elected to serve the people at parliamentary or local government level have a responsibility not to breach this particular principle and to remember that they may benefit in the good times but to show restraint when economic conditions are less than favourable, especially for the less well off.

It is therefore with some dismay to learn that members of Lincolnshire County Council have just voted themselves a pay rise of £2,000 a year which will cost the authority an annual £250,000 previously earmarked for improving services, an additional burden that comes at a time when every aspect of public spending should be subjected to the closest scrutiny.

The increase has been recommended by the Independent Remuneration Panel which means that councillors can now receive £10,100 a year in basic pay instead of the £8,184 they currently receive, a rise of almost 25%, while the pay of the leader, Councillor Martin Hill, should rise by 56%, from £20,488 a year to £32,000. The vote to accept the pay increase was 50 for and 20 against, while seven members were absent.

It also also comes at an unfortunate time because Councillor Hill has just announced that the authority’s share of the council tax will be frozen for the fourth consecutive year, so demonstrating a necessary prudence which does not appear to extend to all of the 77 councillors because the majority of them have blithely voted to raid the coffers and give themselves more money. Not everyone is happy with the increase, particularly the Labour group leader, Jon Hough, who told BBC News Lincolnshire (February 21st): “I think it is outrageous. We are elected by the people in the real world who cannot understand how we can vote ourselves large increases when they are getting either nothing or maybe 1% if they are lucky and having to pay huge rises in energy bills, food cost and so on.”

The increase was also opposed by the council’s youngest councillor, Robin Hunter-Clarke (UKIP), who is 21. "I did not enter public life to make money”, he said. “I see being a councillor as a voluntary role and I think the current allowances are quite adequate."

The pay rise for councillors, however, is not compulsory. It is up to them whether or not they take it but it seems obvious that as the majority voted for it then they will. Councillor Hill says that he will not and although he believes the recommendation to be reasonable and one that could encourage people from all walks of life to take part in local politics, this was not the right time for him to take a pay rise. “Others will have to look at themselves and what they want to do”, he said. “It really is a matter for them and their electorate.”

Voting for a pay increase at this time also demonstrates a distinct lack of humility and in any case, should not be a matter for individual choice. A far more satisfactory solution at this time of financial restraint would have been an edict from the nine-member executive which administers the council’s budget and overall policy to dismiss the recommendation completely. It should not even have been a matter for a vote. The extra money to pay for it will come from an already over-stretched budget and to see it implemented at a time of swingeing cuts that are affecting all areas of our public services, particularly our libraries, is an insult to those who are vainly trying to make ends meet.

Without evidence of such leadership, now is the time for home owners to contact their county councillor and ask whether they intend to take this increase and those who say they will must expect to be remembered when the next county council elections come round. The local government machine has become so remote from the people that the ballot box is the only weapon they have left but this will be the time to use their vote judiciously.

The payment of councillors is comparatively new and has always been controversial. Sixty years ago when I entered journalism our elected representatives sought office to serve rather than to seek financial reward. This changed when the Conservative government under Ted Heath introduced allowances for councillors in 1973 and since then the amounts have slowly risen until now when some members who also qualify for special responsibility payments can pocket £20,000 and £30,000 a year plus expenses making election to office all the more appealing.

Town or parish councillors remain unpaid although becoming a county or district councillor today is therefore an attractive prospect and one that appeals to retired men and women with time on their hands and as remuneration was introduced to attract talent from a wider field, the money does therefore play a part but whether the work they do is more dedicated than when they were unpaid is a matter of speculation.

Individual cases demonstrate that a commitment to public service outweighs all other considerations and here in Bourne we have the perfect example in Alderman William Wherry (1841-1915) whose unpaid work through his church, council and other activities has been unequalled since. There are few who can say that they were instrumental in doing something really effective for the community during their time in office but William Wherry was one of the most unselfish individuals to serve this town, someone who thought so much of his fellow man that he strove continually to make life better for all and in doing so, the burden he took upon himself might well have hastened his end. He was forced to retire from public life because of ill health when his numerous offices and positions of responsibility numbered almost 100 and he died soon afterwards at the age of 74.

There are others who achieved prominence in their service for Bourne but most are now forgotten. Some are remembered in our street names while the only memorial for many more is their tombstone in the cemetery but all had one thing in common in that they endeavoured to make this town a better place to live in yet none of them were paid for their labours on behalf of others, their efforts being motivated solely by their honesty and zeal and an enduring fervour for public service.

From the archives: "Broke up this afternoon. Alderman William Wherry, chairman of the school board, presented each boy with an orange on leaving and the boys gave him hearty good wishes and cheers. Alderman Wherry has, without exception, followed this custom since the establishment of the school in 1877." - the headmaster’s final entry for the year in the log book of the Star Lane Board School [now the Abbey Primary Academy], Wednesday, 23rd December 1914.

The display of meat for public consumption has been sanitised in recent years to compensate for the reluctance among customers in associating what they are buying for the table with the animals to be seen in the countryside. The very thought of slaughtering cows named Buttercup and lambs called Larry is not good for business and so the prime cuts are swaddled in polythene packets with as little blood as possible and no pictures of the living beings they once were.

The very thought of seeing a carcass hanging outside a butcher’s shop in the High Street is anathema to most people today and according to the Daily Mail (Alex Renton, February 24th) one retailer at Sudbury, Suffolk, has been forced to remove a window display of pigs’ heads, limp rabbits and dead pheasants because shoppers were offended by the sight of mutilated carcasses which were also upsetting passing children.

There was a joke circulating in the country during the Second World War of 1939-45 when children from the inner cities were being evacuated to the countryside and seeing animals for the first time in their natural surroundings and one lad seeing a crate of milk at the farm gate exclaims: “Oh look, there’s a cow’s nest.” This ignorance over the source of our food is widespread today and a survey carried out last year among 27,000 children by the British Nutrition Foundation found that almost one third of those aged from five to twelve thought fish fingers came from chickens or pigs. One secondary school pupil had no idea where potatoes came from and 10% of them thought they grew on trees.

Certainly most of the fish and meat which is on offer today has usually been changed out of all recognition to hide its origins before being presented to the public for sale and as a result, the small and delicately packaged offerings from the supermarket give no indication where they came from. You will never see the picture of a cow in McDonald’s and modern joints of meat bear little resemblance to the animals found frolicking on the farm and so they are bought, cooked and eaten without a twinge of conscience about the killing involved while few children actually know the origins of their beef burgers or the contents of their sausages which would certainly not be eaten with such relish if they did. This retail camouflage has enabled many of the more dubious suppliers to adulterate our meat to the extent that what is inside is not necessarily what it said on the packet and has resulted in the horse meat scandal which is still with us.

In years past, butchers’ shops had large charts on the walls with diagrams of livestock showing which parts of the body the best cuts came from while carcasses hung from large hooks, often in the window or even outside in the street where they attracted flies, especially in the summer, but then this was in the days before Health and Safety when few were offended by the thought of eating animals.

Meat eating was particularly popular during the Victorian era and Christmas was a period when most families gorged themselves, gargantuan meals of meat, fish and game graphically described by Charles Dickens. In the late 19th century, when the population of Bourne was only 3,760, there were ten butchers in Bourne and for the festive season in 1887, they provided large quantities of meat for local families, George Mays, of Eastgate, for instance, killing 300 sheep, two of which had been recently exhibited at the Smithfield Show, one weighing 211 lb., the other 187 lb., and nine beef cattle, while others made similar preparations.

Today, this slaughter to fill our tables is done almost in secret before the meat reaches the supermarket shelves in protective packaging because most people shut their minds against the processes involved to satisfy their appetites. Perhaps meat eaters ought to spend a day in an abattoir before buying their next joint although it is fairly certain that if they did, many would elect to become vegetarian as a result of the experience.

Thought for the week: A man can live and be healthy without killing animals for food; therefore, if he eats meat, he participates in taking animal life merely for the sake of his appetite. - Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910), Russian writer and master of realistic fiction who wrote novels and short stories but is widely considered one of the world's greatest novelists best known for War and Peace and Anna Karenina.

Saturday 8^th March 2014

The freedom of the Internet has brought with it a perceived laxity in the rules of copyright that enables writers and web designers take what they want of other people’s work and use it for their own ends whereas the law on this applies equally to that which appears in cyberspace as it does in print.

Nevertheless, there are so many inexperienced writers and publishers out there that flagrant breaches continue on a regular basis and those who have toiled long hours to perfect their creation still face the risk of having it plagiarised and appearing elsewhere without their consent or even an acknowledgment as to the source. Litigation to right such wrongs can be long and costly and is therefore not an option and as many web sites shelter under the cloak of anonymity there is little that can be done other than fume quietly until the memory of the misrepresentation has dispersed.

Some years ago, I was given a small notebook bound in black oilcloth containing the diary of a young lady, the daughter of a former rector of St Andrew's Church at Pickworth, a village in the less frequented countryside of the stone belt nine miles north west of Bourne. It was written entirely during the First World War, the entries beginning on Wednesday 24th January 1917 and continuing for the next fifteen months.

The diary written by Dorothy Houghton is a delightful evocation of past times, often troubled by war but filled with thoughtful observations, always optimistic and hopeful for the future, and my wife and I spent many hours transcribing it, identifying the people, visiting the places and researching the events mentioned, and I eventually produced a booklet of our researches entitled A Pickworth Diary that was reproduced on the Bourne web site for everyone to enjoy. As a result, it was read by descendants of Dorothy’s family who were quite surprised by the discovery and after contacting me, added considerably to the family biography and provided so much information that I added a sequel to the story. They were so elated about finding this relic from their past history that I handed the diary over to them where it rightly belongs. That was eleven years ago.

Many people read A Pickworth Diary during the weeks it appeared on the web site but one lady in particular seems to have taken more than a passing interest because we have discovered that large sections of the diary have been copied out and used in a book now available on the Internet. The Polish Connection is written and self-published by a Jean Wyngarden Day, a tale with a convoluted plot involving an Englishwoman and a Polish fugitive, the action moving around various locations including an internment camp on the Isle of Man, an army base in Cyprus and Marple Bridge in Cheshire.

As the narrative proceeds, paragraph after paragraph from A Pickworth Diary are woven into the story and even the names of the Houghton family and friends have been unchanged, all of which was a disturbing and even unnerving surprise to Tony Sherwin, of Chessington, Surrey, one of Dorothy’s descendants, who stumbled across this unusual tale while surfing the Internet, and his cousin, Susan Simmons, of Warkworth, New Zealand, who is equally incensed. Both are quite upset at seeing the diary used in this fashion and particularly the names of their family which have been taken completely out of context to pad out a novel of dubious worth.

Unfortunately, we know little about the author other than her name, Jean Wyngarden Day, originally from Bismarck, North Dakota, but now living at Marple, Stockport, England, who started writing about ten years ago, mostly historical fiction, or family history using genealogical data. She has several books listed on her web site although most of them appear to be free downloads rather than printed copies, all apparently dealing with similar subjects of families from the past. The publishing web site goes under the name of Lulu which has been specialising in self-published books since 2002 and although it appears to emanate from the United States, there is no email address to contact them or the author which remain hidden.

We are therefore left in a situation where long hours of hard work have been lifted and used elsewhere and completely out of context with no opportunity to lodge a complaint. In the case of A Pickworth Diary there is the added dimension of using family names in a totally alien context. “Not only has the researched material from the diary been stolen but also the identities of members of our family”, said Susan Simmons. “It is a blatant breach of copyright. Both my cousin and myself are most annoyed that our family have been made use of in this way.”

My own attitude is one of annoyance but also of déjà vu because this is now happening frequently, both with photographs and researched material that is taken and republished elsewhere without seeking permission, even though it is quite clearly marked as copyright. The culprits are always those who think they have a right to take anything they find and put their name on it whereas such action reveals not only a basic dishonesty but also a paucity of ideas in someone who presents themselves as being creative.

The computer and the Internet have provided unlimited and exciting possibilities for those who think they can write, whether it is blogs or books, but the message to those who aspire to this method of inspiration is therefore a simple one. Whatever you produce is worthless unless it is your own work and if published, either on the Internet or elsewhere, after relying on the labours of others, then the task is neither worthwhile nor indeed, honourable.

Despite these setbacks A Pickworth Diary continues to inspire and we hear from the village that it will be included in their observances for the centenary of the outbreak of the First World War of 1914-18 which will be held around the country this summer.

Tony Sherwin, who now keeps it safe on behalf of the family, is making the journey up from Surrey next week to meet members of the Pickworth Historical Society which hopes to make copies and use extracts in their commemoration. The diary will therefore feature alongside an account of the life and times of Charles Sharpe who was born in the village in 1889, the farmer’s boy who left home to join the army and was subsequently honoured for his bravery during the Battle of Aubers Ridge in the spring of 1915. Sharpe, then aged 26, became the first soldier of the war from the Lincolnshire Regiment to win the Victoria Cross, 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. The village is naturally proud of his achievement and his name can be found on the roll of honour in St Andrew’s Church at Pickworth where he was christened.

As a result of this renewed interest in A Pickworth Diary we have decided to publish it again on the Bourne web site to give those who have not read it the chance to discover a small literary gem from those troubled times a century ago while those who do remember it might like the chance to glance through it again by clicking on the link that appears on the front page.

The sale of Bourne Textile Services this week for £22 million is a reminder of the company’s humble origins. It began life in 1932 as a family firm founded by Ernest Stroud and occupying a small site on the corner of Manning Road and Recreation Road, expanding as the years progressed and changing its name several times to reflect the evolutionary nature of the service sectors in which it operated but still concentrating on what it knows best, namely washing and cleaning.

Few people in the town have not availed themselves of its services, whether it was washing and ironing, garment alterations or dry cleaning, because no matter what progress was being made in the industrial sector the company kept a foot in the domestic market and was always known locally as Bourne Clean. In the summer of 2008, Bourne Textile Services re-located to a new and much larger site on the Cherryholt Road industrial estate which included major investment in new washing machines and tumble driers and current operations entail the hotel linen rental market, supplying some 350 hotels with around 28,000 bedrooms.

The Stroud family has retained control over the years, making the firm one of our biggest employers with 300 workers. Hedley Stroud, grandson of the founder, is resigning as chairman and managing director after 33 years with the company although senior management are staying on. The new owners are the Johnson Service Group, a British company dating back to 1780, which rents and dry cleans uniforms and other textiles but no matter what changes they decide to implement, the company will always be known as Bourne Clean.

Electric lighting has become part of modern life with the flick of a switch driving out the darkness in our homes, offices, public halls and elsewhere. But before it became commonplace, coal gas enjoyed a popularity over many decades and prior to that oil lamps and candles were widely used including places of worship such as the Abbey Church.

Open flames were however dangerous and candles expensive, particularly for the magnificent brass candelabra which hangs in the nave, donated to the church by local landowner Mathew Clay in 1742 to the memory of his daughter who died at the age of 22. It has 24 branches and is still lit for special services and festivals but as each requires a tallow candle to provide the light, this could have been be costly around Easter and Christmas. The rest of the church was also lit by candles with brass sconces or pillars of varying sizes fixed to the walls and the backs of the pews, a total of twenty-six in all, the larger ones holding two and the smaller models a single candle. All had to be lit prior to services and extinguished afterwards with each candle being replaced once it had burned low.

The coming of coal gas changed all that with the formation of the Bourne Gas Light and Coke Company in 1840 with premises on a site at the top end of Eastgate. This was a commercial undertaking but the Rev Joseph Dodsworth, first curate then vicar of Bourne, was a man who took a deep interest in the many modern ideas then being developed for community benefit.

Mr Dodsworth immediately saw the advantages of a gasworks for the town and became one of the company’s original investors after buying £10 worth of shares which were issued to those who wanted a financial stake in the venture and because of his social standing in the town he was also appointed one of the five trustees. The gasworks were erected at a cost of £2,000 and the enterprise prospered, the first project being the installation of gas lighting in the Abbey Church.

This was a scheme dear to his heart and one that was encouraged by one of the church wardens, Henry Bott, landlord of the Angel Hotel, who had also been appointed a trustee and so lighting the church had solid support within the company. The work was completed in the autumn of 1841 and a special sermon was preached to mark the occasion on Sunday 31st October when a collection was held to help defray the cost of the fittings. It was a source of wonder to the congregation when they saw the gas lighting on for the first time and the churchwardens immediately removed all of the candle holders from around the church and put them up for sale as being surplus to requirements.

Joseph Dodsworth died on Wednesday 9th May 1877 at the age of 79 after a long and painful illness, although his dedication to public service was such that he was attending meetings of the various organisations to which he belonged until a few days before he died. He was the town’s longest serving clergyman, having been first curate since 1822 and then vicar from 1842 and so his service to the church at Bourne totalled 55 years.

Thought for the week: As far as we can discern, the sole purpose of human existence is to kindle a light in the darkness of mere being. - Carl Gustav Jung (1875-1961), Swiss psychologist and psychiatrist whose work has been influential in the study of religion, philosophy and literature.

Saturday 15^th March 2014

The Sugar Mill - see "Another example . . . "

A few weeks ago this column discussed the advent of localism in our public affairs, a government initiative that is intended to improve participation in neighbourhood planning.

This is a grand and optimistic scheme outlined in the Localism Act of 2011 in an attempt to divert some of the concentrated power hoarded by central government into the hands of the people. Ministers have finally realised that trying to improve our lives by imposing decisions and setting targets simply does not work and merely adds to the bureaucratic process.

The Localism Act aims to achieve a substantial and lasting shift in power away from central government and towards the people directly involved through new freedoms and flexibilities for local government, new rights and powers for communities and individuals, a reform to make the planning system more democratic and more effective and to ensure that decisions about housing are taken locally. “It is to help people and their elected representatives to achieve their own ambitions”, says Greg Clark, Minister of State for Decentralisation. “This is the essence of the Big Society.”

The reason for our interest was an initiative by three members of Bourne Town Council who called a public meeting at the Corn Exchange to seek opinion and input from residents over future development for Bourne, a neighbourhood plan having been drawn up stating where new homes will be built in the future, the employment to be provided and the construction and appearance of any new buildings.

The councillors who had been working on the neighbourhood plan were Roy McKinney, David Mapp and Trevor Holmes, who promised to be on hand to explain the purpose and content of the document with time for questions from the public. Councillor McKinney set the tone of the occasion when he told The Local newspaper (February 14th): “We hope that the people of the parish will take this opportunity to tell us what their hopes are for the future of Bourne and take advantage of this chance to make it an even better place to live and work.”

The meeting was scheduled for Monday 24th February but not a word of it was reported in our local newspapers the following Friday. In fact, it was left to the three organising councillors to go cap in hand and write a letter to The Local which appeared in the correspondence column last week (March 7th) giving a resume of what happened and urging the public to support their initiative through emails and letters.

If localism is to work, then everyone must become involved, not least our local press for without them there can be no means of keeping the people informed of what is going on. Certainly this particular newspaper is having problems and is trying to keep going with the support of contributions from readers but a meeting of this significance held under a new policy of involving the people can only work if it is given prominence in the public prints yet representation by this newspaper was noticeably absent.

Another example that localism still has a long way to go before becoming an accepted policy surfaced last week with a decision by South Kesteven District Council to extend opening hours of the Sugar Mill, the new public house and restaurant which has been operating in South Road on the outskirts of the town since December 2012.

Opening hours were limited to 10.30 am until 11.30 pm when planning permission for the development was granted in March 2012 but the council has now agreed to an extension from 8 am until 1 am the following morning, much to the annoyance of people living nearby, notably at the various housing estates which are all around.

An objection was therefore lodged by Bourne Town Council and there were also letters of protest from local residents who complained that they were already being disturbed by the noise from the pub and extended opening hours would only make matters worse and most likely become intolerable during the summer months although the owners, Marstons plc, the national chain of brewers, has promised to take certain precautions to minimise such problems. There is another anomaly here in that the Sugar Mill was widely advertised as a family pub when it opened and indeed has special areas for children both inside and out but it is difficult to believe that parents and their offspring will be frequenting this place until the early hours.

There would then seem to have been insufficient consultation with people living nearby and a supportive effort by the council would have been more in the spirit of the Localism Act, especially as firm objections had been lodged by the town council whose members have a more intimate knowledge of this area than anyone from the district authority. As it is, a decision has been taken in Grantham and that is final which cannot be good for localism and certainly not for democracy.

It is with some relief to learn that South Kesteven District Council has pulled back from its original intention of putting up the council tax this year in defiance of government policy which quite clearly stated that because the public has been bearing much of the brunt of the current austerity measures there should be no increase for the coming financial year.

It was announced in January that the council planned to defy the freeze and demand more from home owners despite being able to collect a grant of £64,000 if it toed the line, claiming that even more cash was needed to keep the wheels of the bureaucratic machine turning and squeezing the electorate is considered to be a far better way of getting it because increasing council tax by “only 1.75 per cent” would bring in double this amount, generating £112,000.

However, sanity has prevailed in the corridors of power at Grantham after hearing the results of their public consultation and criticism from other quarters and so there will be no change after all. Darren Turner, the grandly titled Strategic Director of Corporate Focus, told The Local newspaper (March 7th): “We want local people to live and work in a low tax South Kesteven and want to avoid increasing council tax bills, allowing people to keep more money in their pockets. Our budget invests in our residents, our infrastructure and jobs. This strategy is seeing us through these difficult times while maintaining excellent local services.”

It is a pity that this decision was not reached in the first place rather than flying the kite for an increase which few could afford despite it being publicised as “only 1.75 per cent” which may be small beer to our more affluent citizens but the straw that was liable to break the camel’s back for many others. To put this into perspective, the government has just increased the old age pension which in many cases would just about have covered the additional money being claimed in council tax.

Fortunately, that proposal is now in the past and we look forward to another year without having to pay more. What a pity such restraint is not being shown in other sectors of our public utilities such as gas, electricity, water and telephone whose exorbitant price rises are driving down living standards and causing hardships to many families, an appalling situation already reflected by the number of food banks currently operating in the council’s own area where a new poverty is now taking hold as a direct result of the government’s austerity measures being imposed on the backs of the poor to help solve a problem which was not of their making, one that is not always outwardly apparent yet is threatening their standard of living and lowering morale among those families so affected, especially the elderly.

One of the more bizarre beliefs in Victorian England was the possibility of spontaneous combustion in which a person suddenly caught fire and was enveloped in flames. This was the stuff of fiction but perpetuated as fact by writers of the time, notably the novelist Charles Dickens who describes such an incident in Bleak House (1853) when the rag and bone dealer Krook is alone in his shop at night, his clothes saturated with spirits, when he burned to death, leaving what seemed to be “the cinder of a small charred and broken log of wood sprinkled with white ashes”.

Dickens was at great pains to explain that he had based the incident on real life events, claiming to have known dozens of documented examples of such deaths, and the theory has persisted ever since although no one has ever fully explained how a body can catch fire without being ignited.

Fascinating though these examples are, few would bear close scientific scrutiny and as rational thought insists that there is an explanation for all things that must be so in these cases. It was therefore with some surprise that during my researches I stumbled across a small news item in the Stamford Mercury published on Friday 15th March 1844 which read as follows:

“A gentleman at Billingborough, near Bourne, was a few days ago considerably alarmed, and a little hurt personally, owing to his putting some lucifer matches into his waistcoat pocket. Friction with some silver which he happened also to have there produced combustion and his waistcoat and shirt were a good deal burnt.”

A lucifer was an early match made of a piece of wood and an inflammable substance which was lit by friction with a rough surface. It made its appearance in the early 19th century but there were problems in that they had an unsteady flame and an unpleasant odour and could easily ignite explosively, sometimes throwing sparks a considerable distance. As a result, they were eventually replaced by safety matches which were less dangerous to carry although their use persisted for many years.

Perhaps the incident involving the Billingborough gentleman was an example of how they could be ignited when being carried about the person although in this case he was lucky to escape serious injury but it might well explain the Victorian phenomenon of spontaneous combustion.

We get many queries about Bourne from around the world and strive to answer them all, usually with ease but as old age advances the frequency of senior moments thwarts our endeavours. Such it was when we were asked the meaning of the three red circles on the badge of Bourne Grammar School, a definition well known to me but one which was not immediately available as my mind had gone blank.

I therefore emailed the school but as there was no reply I assumed that they did not know either. Then without warning, inspiration came and I was urged to consult my own oracle, A Portrait of Bourne, the definitive history of the town on CD-ROM, and there it was in the entry I had written some fifteen years ago on the town’s Coat of Arms on which the school badge is modelled.

The shield is a modification of the Wake coat of arms in which the three red roundels signify the battlements of the castle of Bourne while the lines underneath represent the Bourne Eau and the Car Dyke. Below that is the Wake knot which has been adopted by our other secondary school, Bourne Academy, and the Latin motto Vigila et Ora, or Watch and Pray.

The coat of arms was originally granted to the old Bourne Urban District Council by the College of Arms in July 1953 and subsequently transferred to the town council on 21st May 1974. The actual Letters Patent issued by the College of Arms is now in the possession of the town council, an elaborate document finished on parchment with three royal seals attached and contained in an inscribed case, the value in 2007 being estimated at £8,000 although now probably much higher. Councillors were then considering ways of putting the document on display to the public on suitable occasions but this eventuality has yet to come to fruition.

Thought for the week: Seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you. – The Gospel of Matthew in the New Testament, Chapter 7, verse 7.

Saturday 22^nd March 2014

The Hereward clinic - "sit and wait"

A major talking point around town continues to be the long wait to see the doctor which was discussed in this column earlier this year (Diary January 25th) and we now hear of one lady needing treatment being given the only available appointment which was three weeks and five days hence, and so instead of performance improving, it is rapidly getting worse and at this rate the waiting time will soon be one month.

But we have not yet reached the situation outlined in a letter to the Daily Mail (March 7th) in which Erica Gill of Barnet, Hertfordshire, revealed that the appointments desk at her surgery had been closed completely. “Now you have to phone and leave a message, wait hours for a ‘health care assistant’ to call you back, then beg, cry or lie your way to an appointment even if you’re very old and ill”, she wrote. “An appointment after three weeks? We can only dream of such luxury.”

If the current crisis continues perhaps this is what we can expect in Bourne. At the time of writing, the earliest available appointment at the Hereward Group Practice in Exeter Street is some time next month and so alternative methods of finding relief from a worrying medical condition appear to be on the increase. We recently met one man at the Tesco supermarket in South Road who was suffering the most excruciating pain after being told that he would have to wait weeks to see the doctor and was there seeking advice from the store’s pharmacist. Others surf the Internet for a diagnosis and remedy while some who are alarmed at their symptoms drive to the hospital at Stamford or Peterborough or even call an ambulance.

Barnet is part of the densely populated London conurbation and so difficulties are inevitable but we would not expect a similar crisis in a market town such as Bourne with a mere 15,000 inhabitants although we do appear to be lagging behind many other areas. A spot check reveals that you are able to see the doctor at the Deepings within two days and at Whittlesey, just over the county border in Cambridgeshire, the same day, the latter being the norm in many areas such as Lymington, Hampshire, where my brother and his family live and he tells me that their doctor will usually see them the same morning that they telephone.

While those who run our clinics appear to be slow in addressing the problem then it is up to the patients to make their protest known although it was revealed this week by the patients’ watchdog Healthwatch England that the current complaints system for the NHS is “hopelessly complicated” and in need of an immediate overhaul (BBC News, March 20th) with more than 70 organisations involved in the process. There is also an unfounded fear among some people, particularly the elderly, that they might be refused treatment if they make waves and so most prefer to literally suffer in silence.

The Hereward practice has now acknowledged the current logjam by introducing a “sit and wait” clinic for two hours on Monday mornings only when patients can turn up between 9.30 am and 11.30 am and see the doctor according to their arrival times. “We cannot guarantee which doctor you will see or how long you will have to wait but can ensure that you will be seen”, says the clinic which does not address the problem of being ill on all of the other days of the week, not to mention the weekends.

This is hardly a cure for the current impasse, more of a sticking plaster over a gaping wound, although anything that enables sick people get help quickly is to be welcomed. This particular scheme, however, is turning the clock back fifty years to the old days of general practice when doctors held surgeries in their own homes and all patients turned up without an appointment but knowing that they would be seen in rotation. Surely a more efficient system could be devised for this 21st century to enable patients see the doctor as and when they need and not at the convenience of the clinics. The “sit and wait” system, for instance, is simply squeezing in more appointments on top of those already booked whereas a more viable method would be to hold it in the evenings when the clinic is normally closed.

The equation is a simple one. If there are more patients to be seen than can be accommodated in the opening time available then that time should be extended. This will probably not be acceptable to the staff but in the final analysis, the clinics are there for the benefit of patients and not for those who work there and if this is not being achieved then changes must be made.

Doctors, especially, have been given the gift of healing, of easing pain and suffering, and even of life itself, and it is unthinkable that they should withhold it at evenings and weekends. Ill health does not keep office hours and by the very nature of their profession, family doctors should not expect to work nine to five, five days a week, which is a recent phenomenon and one that is at the very heart of our current ills in the National Health Service.

There appears to be little activity in recent weeks on the Wherry’s Lane redevelopment site where work is already several months behind schedule and the entire area remains fenced off. According to predictions by South Kesteven District Council, this project should have been completed early last year but it is apparent that much still needs to be done, not least the laying of a new roadway and surrounding landscaping, before it can be declared open.

There is also a great deal of misinformation about the project circulating in the public domain with a headline in The Local proclaiming “Flats sell out in Wherry’s Lane redevelopment” although the story actually says that “four flats have been snapped up within weeks of going on the market” (March 9th) whereas there are fourteen apartments for sale and they have all been on the market since last April which hardly constitutes a speedy sale.

The council is spending £2.14 million on converting the old Burghley Street grain warehouse into 14 apartments with an arcade of seven shops nearby, a scheme that has not been without its problems since the start. Nevertheless, the authority continues to put a brave face on it because property development manager Neil Cucksey told the newspaper: “This just shows that our investment in Bourne has been worthwhile and there is a genuine demand and need for good quality town centre apartments and retail units.”

That may be so but the greater demand at the moment is for social housing and as the council has 440 names from Bourne on its waiting list, the money would have been better spent on providing those rather than apartments that have been advertised for sale as private investment while the need for more retail outlets does not seem to be a priority when so many in the town centre are standing empty.

It is also hoped that we will not have a second unfinished corn warehouse development leaving a hole in the street scene similar to that in South Street where the Grade II listed building within the town's Conservation Area was sold to private developers in 2006 for a reputed £½ million for conversion into the Corn Mill flats for elderly people with an additional block to be built on the spare land on the north side.

This was marketed as a prestige development of 24 apartments in a unique and sensitive location opposite the War Memorial Gardens and the Bourne Eau and close to the Abbey Church and although the main building has been converted into six self-contained apartments that now appear to be all occupied, there has been no work on the adjoining site where a further 18 apartments are due to be built with the result that the site has remained enclosed by a high wire fence for well over five years and another similar eyesore would do little to enhance the appearance of this market town.

Rumour about the progress of the Wherry’s Lane project also abounds in Bourne, a sure sign that the public is not being kept fully informed about what has been happening. Optimistic reports such as those now being given prominence do little to allay public unease and without a full statement of the facts outlining the reasons for and consequences of the lengthy delay in completion, then uninformed speculation will continue.

Gossip has become part of our social fabric but it is usually insidious and often even dangerous. It has many definitions but is best described as idle talk or rumour, especially about the personal or private affairs of others. It is one of the oldest and most common means of sharing facts, views and slander but is usually ill-informed and, most importantly, trivial and frequently untrue, while errors and variations in the anecdotes discussed become more exaggerated as they are passed on.

The perfect example of this type of social contact occurred at Baston, near Bourne, almost 200 years ago, following the death of a local resident, George Norton, aged 56, who lived in a cottage in the village and had been buried in the churchyard after his funeral.

But within days, rumours had begun to circulate that he had been the victim of violence but there was no police force in those days to investigate such claims and so villagers had to take the law into their own hands. In an attempt to scotch the stories therefore, several of the more respectable parishioners called a public meeting in St John’s Church to investigate the circumstances of the fatality but after a lengthy hearing they decided that the rumours were groundless.

For a time, the investigation appeared to have lulled the suspicions of some although it increased those of others and the Stamford Mercury reported: “One narrative of the cause of the deceased’s death gave rise to another and by degrees, so many different rumours were current that to satisfy the country it became necessary to have recourse to the only legal mode of setting such matters at rest, namely a coroner’s inquest.”

A warrant was subsequently issued by the coroner instructing the vicar and parish officers to exhume the body and an inquest was convened on 14th July 1823 before the coroner, Samuel Edwards, sitting with a jury. The hearing lasted for eight hours and the evidence surrounding the circumstances of Norton’s death was detailed and exhaustive but the result appeared to be conclusive and was returned by the jury accordingly: that he died of a disease called cholera morbus [severe gastroenteritis of an unknown cause] and, in a natural way, by the visitation of God.

From the archives - 150 years ago: A facetious correspondent sends us the following account of a fatal accident on the Bourne to Essendine railway: On Wednesday last week, a rumour was circulated in this town that a person had met with his death upon the line. This of course caused serious reflections in the minds of the sympathising public and numerous questions were asked, as to name and native place of the deceased. Fox was given as the name but the place could not be defined. It afterwards transpired that the victim was not a biped but a quadruped, frequently known as Reynard the Fox. It is supposed he had been out to a Christmas party, indulged too much, stopped too late, and that in crossing the line, he was knocked down and killed by the engine. His head and brush were forwarded to a well-known taxidermist in Bourne to be preserved as a memento. The timely disclosure of the facts prevented a gentleman from seeing the fatal spot, after taking his railway ticket. - news item from the Stamford Mercury, Friday 28th December 1866.

Thought for the week: Today's gossip is tomorrow's headline. - Walter Winchell (1897-1972), American newspaper and radio commentator who worked for the New York Daily Mirror where he became the world's first syndicated gossip columnist.

Saturday 29^th March 2014

Students from the University of the Third Age (U3A) have been misinformed about the history of this town during their last meeting at the Corn Exchange earlier this month when they were told that although Bourne once had a workhouse, “it has never been identified to this day”.

The guest speaker at the meeting on March 17th was Stephen Perry who gave a talk on workhouses generally and the suggestion that the location of the one in Bourne remains a mystery was subsequently printed by The Local newspaper in a report of the proceedings (March 21st). U3A is a highly commendable organisation which provides learning opportunities for retired and semi-retired people, not for qualifications but for the sheer joy of discovery and for that reason we would not wish them to be misled.

The workhouse that existed in Bourne dates back to the Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834 which ended supplemental dole for the impoverished and forced husbands, wives and children into separate institutions in the name of utilitarian efficiency. Until then, each parish was responsible for providing relief to deserving cases but the burden on the rates was becoming heavy and the relatively easy terms on which men without an adequate wage could get financial help from public funds was being regularly abused. The government therefore decided to impose a more rigid procedure and the new legislation decreed that able-bodied men who could find no work had no option but to enter the workhouse, taking their families with them although in some cases, children were boarded out with foster parents.

This was the main principle of the act that also required parishes to be grouped together as unions with a workhouse for each. Bourne Poor Law Union was formed on 25th November 1835 and a Board of Guardians to supervise the system was elected, a total of 44 in number representing 37 constituent parishes, and they lost no time in establishing the new regime that became operative before the end of 1836.

The town already possessed a workhouse that stood in North Street near the junction with Burghley Street which was then called Workhouse Road but this was too small to cater for the new legislation and so a new building was planned at the end of what is now St Peter's Road. It was designed by Bryan Browning, the architect responsible for the Town Hall at Bourne, and built in 1836 at a cost of £5,350 with room for 300 paupers but was rarely full because admission was discouraged by the guardians. They enforced a strict regime in a bid to persuade the poor to seek employment rather than live in such grim and uncongenial surroundings. In 1841, there were only 84 inmates and 178 in 1851 when the census was taken. The staff included a master and matron, usually a husband and wife team approved by the board, a medical officer, chaplain and schoolmaster to assist with the welfare of the inmates who were not generally treated with much sympathy.

Productive work was not encouraged, rules were strict and the official policy of economy left no room for luxuries. An example of the conditions that prevailed can be found in the workhouse accounts which indicate that 5p per head per day was spent on the inmates and that included clothing. Outdoor relief was also provided for the poor in their homes, there being a great resistance to entering the workhouse and some who could not face the stigma took drastic action such as inflicting self-harm or even committing suicide. Nevertheless, poverty was so widespread that overcrowding became a problem.

In 1863, the name of the institution was changed from the Bourne Union Workhouse to Waterloo Square in an attempt to remove the stigma attached to the original address, especially among unmarried mothers who often gave birth there. Apart from providing for the poor of the parish, the workhouse also catered for tramps passing through the district and who received lodging and a meal of bread and gruel for perhaps one or two nights in return for some menial work such as chopping wood or sweeping floors. These vagrants had been known to cause trouble, and even to bring lice into the workhouse, and as a result, the guardians decided in 1868 that everyone should be searched and given a bath before being admitted.

The social disgrace of the workhouse system remained until improvements in welfare conditions brought about its gradual decline and in 1930, the premises were converted for use as a mental hospital known as the Bourne Public Assistance Institution. It was also referred to as Wellhead House but subsequently became St Peter's Hospital for mentally handicapped women and children. This facility was slowly run down during the late 20th century and patients moved out under the government's policy of care in the community. The buildings stood empty for several years until 1997 when the entire complex was bought by Warners Midlands plc, the printing firm that owns the adjoining premises, for an expansion of their business interests and was demolished without ceremony in 2001 and the site is now occupied by the company’s new press hall and bindery.

As a result of my researches over the past fifteen years, the Bourne workhouse is now among the best documented of the town’s buildings. It has been featured in many articles in The Local newspaper and is also the subject of a booklet now in the Lincolnshire county archives and is given generous mentions in many of the books I have written about this town.  An illustrated account is also included in A Portrait of Bourne (on CD-ROM), now the definitive history of this town, and if Mr Perry intends to give further lectures on the subject the perhaps he might think it worthwhile to obtain a copy before proceeding.

The long wait to see the doctor which has become a major problem in Bourne and has been discussed twice by this column in recent weeks, has now progressed to a national debate and, as suspected, more money is advanced as the only possible solution. The Royal College of General Practitioners has warned that a funding crisis and increased demand for care has put general practice in this country "under severe threat of extinction" (BBC News, March 23rd). President Dr Maureen Baker also said that failing to fund GP surgeries properly could have an impact on the sustainability of the National Health Service as a whole and some practices were already closing due to lack of staff.

"General practice is imploding faster than people realise and patients are already bearing the brunt of the problem”, she said. “For generations, GPs have been the bedrock of the NHS and provided excellent care for patients. But we can no longer guarantee a future for general practice as our patients know it, rely on it, and love it. GPs are doing all they can but we are being seriously crippled by a toxic mix of increasing workloads and ever-dwindling budgets which is leaving patients waiting too long for an appointment and not receiving the time or attention they need and that GPs want to give them."

So there we have it. More money for clinics obviously means pay rises for existing doctors and staff and while the tussle goes on between the Royal College and the Department of Health which is likely to take months, if not years, it is the patients who will bear the brunt of the consequences.

The problem in Bourne may well have been solved if promises had been kept and our local authorities had pursued those who made them. A new clinic was part of the planning gain for the Elsea Park development when it was announced back in 1999 together with several other amenities such as a south-west relief road and a primary school, both now achieved but only after much public pressure, although the clinic seems to have been quietly forgotten despite the increased burden on existing facilities by the occupants of almost 1,000 new houses on the estate that have since been completed.

A similar medical amenity was promised in 2006 for a site in South Road by a Leeds-based company which planned a centre offering a wide range of services from general practitioner appointments and dentistry to home care for the elderly and mentally ill which would help meet the shortfall in hospital services for the town following the closure of Bourne Hospital in 1998 but that too has disappeared from the radar. Both schemes went through the planning process instigated by South Kesteven District Council yet all we get from them now on both counts is complete silence.

We must therefore make the best of what we have and as a result the current wait to see the doctor in Bourne is likely to continue and even worsen. It has been suggested that the system nationally is being disrupted by too many people who do not turn up for appointments and, equally culpable, by patients who could easily solve their problem by self-medication or advice from a pharmacist. Then there are time wasters, hypochondriacs and the idle seeking sick notes, all of whom are also eating into the resources of the clinics. Perhaps the time has come to impose a charge for an appointment, say £10 or £20, which would cure this misuse at a stroke and leave room for those who are really ill.

Few patients who do need to see the doctor but now have to wait three weeks and even a month for an appointment would object to paying a small fee if only to remove the worry and stress of a debilitating condition that is likely to worsen until they eventually get expert medical help. It is a pity that our National Health Service has come to this but times have changed since it was introduced in 1948 and unless our politicians can come up with a better remedy then this would seem to be the way forward.

Spring tip-toed in last week almost unnoticed on a day of indifferent weather but there is little doubt that the new season is well and truly with us. Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822), one of our major English romantics who is regarded as being among the finest lyric poets in the English language, penned the immortal line about the change of season so often quoted at this time of the year that "If winter comes, can spring be far behind?" and around Bourne this week, there are signs that after that annual spell of dull, dark days it has finally arrived.

Snowdrops and crocuses, those beautiful but fragile heralds of spring, can be seen in many gardens, together with the ubiquitous daffodil and even primroses, while the first patches of green are beginning to burst forth in our hedgerows. Celandines have appeared alongside the paths in Bourne Wood and the first wood anemones are pushing through the undergrowth ready to provide their annual carpet of white. The chill easterly winds will soon be dying away to be replaced by more gentle and balmy breezes and on some recent days the sun has already been flooding the countryside with a welcome warmth that usually accompanies the new season.

The birds are leaving those tasty morsels on the garden and are turning their attention to the natural foods of field and fen while the shrill, musical notes of the blackbird can already be heard from their evening song posts. Evidence that spring is here can be seen all around us, even in the streets of Bourne where ornamental cherries are a blaze of pink and white blossom although I remember an old country saying from my boyhood that you should not say that spring has arrived until you can put your foot on nine daisies.

The start of the new season is officially listed in our calendars as the vernal or spring equinox which fell on Thursday 20th March this year, a day when daytime and night time are of equal length, the start of increasing daylight, warming temperatures, and the rebirth of flora and fauna, the beginning of nature’s renewal. Although many of our favourite places still wear that winter drabness, within a few weeks they will take on a welcome mantle of green and the bright colours of our favourite flowers will burst into bloom during April and May to show spring in all of its glory for another year.

Thought for the week: If I ruled the world, every day would be the first day of spring. - first line from the popular song from the 1963 musical Pickwick, words by Leslie Bricusse, music by Cyril Ornadel.

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