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Saturday 10th May 2008
Earmarked for closure - see "The public toilets . . . "
Historians lean
heavily for their research on old documents and although they are a valuable
source for a great deal of material, they are not always reliable. There are
many instances of documents not being exactly what they purport to be and in
recent times the Hitler Diaries were exposed as fakes in 1983 despite being
bought by The Sunday Times and endorsed by an eminent historian of the day,
Professor Hugh Trevor-Roper, while only this week it was revealed that a large
number of historic papers relating to Britain’s perfidy during WW2 which form
part of the National Archive, the official custodian of Britain’s glorious past,
were the work of a master forger.
Closer to home, the story of Hereward the Wake, as well as many other tales from
this part of South Lincolnshire, rely on the narrative of Ingulph, a Benedictine
abbot of Crowland Abbey in the 11th century whose chronicle was regarded by
scholars as authentic but the manuscript has since been found to have been a
forgery written two or three hundred years after his death.
But perhaps these are extreme cases and rarely come the way of local historians
who are more likely to encounter the work of enthusiastic amateurs who
exaggerated and romanticised rather than fabricated.
The story of Hereward has certainly been embroidered over the years, notably by
several Victorian historical writers such as Charles Kingsley and Charles
Macfarlane while more recently, Christopher Marlowe (not to be confused with the
16th century dramatist) added his four-pennyworth in 1926 with a colourful
account in his book Legends of the Fenland People which was required reading in
my early schooldays.
One of the great church celebrations of past times was the Bourne Pageant which
was held in the garden of the old vicarage [now the Cedars retirement home] in
1938 to celebrate the 800th anniversary of the founding of the abbey by Baldwin
Fitzgilbert in 1138. There were several days of events and on this occasion, a
service was held in the open air with a fully robed choir while special stands
were erected around the lawn for the congregation. Among the re-enactments
staged by parishioners was that of monks taking the body of Hereward the Wake by
river to Crowland Abbey for burial, although it has been established since that
this incident has no foundation in fact, thus proving that fictionalised
accounts from our history have persisted into recent times.
The history of Bourne has suffered particularly from contributors who may not
have been fully conversant with their subject, either by not having lived here
or who visited only briefly, and there are many examples of one copying the
other with the result that mistakes are repeated from one volume to the next yet
still quoted as fact by the lazy and the unwary.
Yet it would take only a moment’s thought to realise that no one could possibly
cover an entire county and give accurate accounts of each village and town
without consulting an outside source and this is indeed how it happened. Among
the oft-quoted authorities is one of Lincolnshire’s earliest historians William
Marrat (1772-1852) whose main interest was commercial because his occupation was
that of a printer whose firm, Marrat and Company, operated from premises in High
Street, Boston.
It was his idea to chronicle the history of every town and large village and
publish the results monthly as a series of small gazetteers for sale but after a
few months realised that it was too big a task for one man to visit and describe
them all. He therefore enrolled the aid of a learned gentleman in each place,
usually the schoolmaster or the parson, who sent their manuscripts to his
printing works where the booklets were produced and eventually distributed for
sale. In the event, the first publications were so successful and help from all
quarters so forthcoming, that Marrat changed his objective and eventually mapped
and made several topographical surveys of the county between 1814 and 1817, so
completing the entire area of Lincolnshire in three years in a series of 31 slim
volumes although the evidence is that he visited only one or two places himself.
These publications are now rare but I have been fortunate to find an almost
complete set and although in rather a battered condition, still readable and
containing details of his methods of obtaining information about each locality.
The Bourne entry is important in that it proves that the contents have been
repeated elsewhere in earlier and subsequent years, in part or in whole, ad
infinitum, mistakes and all. The date of the first publications was 1814-16 and
the information requested by and supplied to Marrat set a standard for that used
regularly in the various county directories such as Kelly’s and White’s,
published throughout the 19th and well into the 20th centuries. All carry long
descriptive accounts of the town but close inspection reveals that they are all
very much alike and in many instances came from the same pen.
It is also apparent that much of what Marrat published came in fact from a
previous historian, John Moore, who wrote an account of Bourne in 1809 under the
patronage of Mrs Eleanor Pochin, widow of George Pochin (1732-98), Lord of the
Manor of Bourne Abbots, to which it is dedicated. This is a lengthy account and
contains many references that have since been disproved, particularly the claim
that the Gunpowder Plot was hatched at the Red Hall although we now know that it
was not built until 1605 when the perpetrators had already been discovered yet
this assertion still appears in some articles and guidebooks today as an
indication that old tales live on despite being disproved by later research.
As with Moore, Marrat’s description of Bourne is a long and tortuous, and often
inaccurate historical account. Printing was still at an early stage and
publications such as this had little regard for conformity or the niceties of
language that we know today and so his writing is full of spelling
contradictions and errors of punctuation and grammar yet these entries continue
to be quoted as an authoritative source. Perhaps Henry Ford was closer to the
mark than he realised when he said that history is bunk.
The toilets in Bourne Wood will only remain open if the public is
prepared to pay for them. The Forestry Commission which is responsible has made
its position quite clear that reduced funding has made cuts in the provision of
visitor facilities inevitable and that the lavatory block is among of the first
victims. Other cuts may follow, particularly the children’s play area, wayside
seats, woodland trails and markers, but have been put on hold for the time being
because of the current outcry although they are unlikely to survive for much
longer.
The commission claims that the toilets are in such a poor condition that they no
longer meet health and safety standards and that there is no money to either
maintain or replace them. Protests from local groups, particularly the Friends
of Bourne Wood, have fallen on deaf ears, despite the woodland being a regular
venue for many mass events which attract parents and their children. Instead,
when the need arises, they will have to disappear into the undergrowth which can
hardly be an acceptable solution when hundreds more people are milling around.
This information stems from a statement by the commission about its intentions
at the insistence of Councillor Mark Horn, a member of both Bourne Town Council
and Lincolnshire County Council, who was spurred into action because of the
strength of public concern. “The rationale for the decision is simple", he said.
"With increasing health and safety obligations and at a time of budgetary
restraint, the commission does not have the funds. The alternative therefore is
to introduce parking fees to cover the cost of maintenance of the toilets and
other facilities or close them and leave access free. These are choices faced by
most providers of public services. Money is tight. The choice for the people of
Bourne is whether we want toilets and other recreational facilities in Bourne
Wood. If so, are we prepared to pay for them through the introduction of car
parking charges? I do not know, but I am keen to hear your views."
The commission has stressed however that the problem of visitor amenities it
quite a separate issue from the suggested bypass through the wood. Their
statement says: “Unfortunately, the subject of recreational facilities and the
Larkfleet Homes development proposals have become merged in the eyes of the
community and for that reason the removal of way marking and the play area has
been deferred for one year. The toilets, however, are so poor that they will
close.”
What the local newspapers are saying: An optimistic story appears on the
front page of The Local suggesting that the old red brick corn warehouse
in Burghley Street might be converted for use as a community base for the arts
(May 9th), an excellent idea but one that comes firmly under the heading of pie
in the sky and there are many precedents. The most notable one in recent years
is that The Croft, an abandoned mansion in North Road currently the subject of a
planning wrangle between developers and the local authority, might be turned
into a hospice or some other amenity beneficial to the town, but all fall at the
first hurdle of financial backing.
Bourne is full of enthusiastic people who wish to see nothing but good from new
developments but unfortunately they have to cope with councils that put staff
salaries and pensions before public services and so in the future we are likely
to see less provision for leisure and amenities than at any time since the
present system of local government was introduced in 1894. The current situation
is that the use of land and buildings is now dictated by commercial developers
and although the Burghley Street warehouse has recently been purchased by South
Kesteven District Council, it is in the middle of the town centre redevelopment
area and so any future use will be dictated by whichever company buys it and
that is most likely to be one that is willing to turn it into residential
accommodation because there is no profit in altruistic projects and the planning
gain has become difficult to enforce. Indeed, the £27 million redevelopment
scheme itself is dependent entirely on the developers because they provide the
bulk of the investment and therefore call the tune with SKDC playing little more
than a walk on role and as staffing numbers and entitlements continue to rise,
that is the way it will be in the future.
It is reckoned that Mr Colman made his fortune from the mustard that was
left on the plate after a meal and the paint manufacturers appear to be
following this policy of profiting from what we throw away. Every spring, as
thoughts turn to the maintenance of home and garden, it is time to check the
contents of the shed for the varnishes, emulsions, glosses and satins needed for
this job, to touch up here and to recoat there, but the task always proves to be
more expensive than was envisaged because the leftovers so carefully stored last
year have invariably dried out and a new tin is needed.
Adding to the expense is the insistence of suppliers to use only large tins and
even if you need only a few brush strokes you can never find a small one and
when I put this to my shopkeeper he gave me that age old excuse that there was
no demand and everyone wanted the big container even though I was there in his
shop disproving this statement. Retailers are meant to be consumer driven but
the dictum of past times that the customer is always right has long since gone
by the board and today you either buy the way they sell it, no matter how
expensive or inconvenient, or go without.
The only way to change this, as with so many other systems that operate against
the public interest, is to boycott those who refuse to comply and let them
suffer the financial consequences but unfortunately we live in an age where most
people shun concerted action, even though it might improve our lot, and are
perfectly happy to put up with life as it is, no matter how inconvenient it may
be. Never has the old slogan “I’m alright, Jack” had a deeper resonance in
society than today when the truth is that standards are being slowly eroded by
suppliers of commodities and services who are calling the tune irrespective of
public demand and making a handsome profit into the bargain. While we continue
to accept what is on offer without question we are likely to wake up one morning
soon to find ourselves in thrall to our shops and supermarkets with their policy
of take it or leave it and the old concept of retailers providing what the
buyers actually want little more than a distant memory.
Thought for the week: The young have aspirations that never come to pass;
the old have reminiscences of what never happened. - Saki (Hector Hugh
Munro), British writer best known for his short stories (1870-1916).
Next diary entry 17th
May 2008
NOTE:
Accounts of Bourne by John Moore, William Marrat and others can be found
on the
CD-ROM A
Portrait of Bourne
IF YOU HAVE A COMMENT ON ANY OF THE TOPICS DISCUSSED IN THIS
DIARY, PLEASE MAKE IT TO THE
BOURNE FORUM
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