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Streets Of Shame, and Roads of Ruin

PICKWICK WOULD LIKE TO APOLOGISE for the confusion caused by his putting a 'trailer' picture on our cousin Facebook page, Wisbech…Oh Dear. The picture showed two provocatively dressed ladies trying to drum up business at the kerbside. If this led web surfers into thinking that tonight's blog update was about vice and illicit sex on the streets of PE13, then it has to be said that the ploy was absolutely intentional, and was a cheap and shabby trick to try and drum up more traffic. Just for the record, here's the picture again, and no, it wasn't taken in Wisbech. It just demonstrates the depths to which Pickwick is prepared to sink to get more readers.

BUT NO! Tonight we look at the appalling state of some of the roads in  Wisbech. Pot - holes that will rip your tyres off. Yawning chasms that will have you queueing round the block at Kwik-Fit to have your suspension replaced. Crevasses that will send your wheel covers cartwheeling off into the bushes. Why are the roads in such a dire state? Well, I suppose it's because there is no money to repair them. No money?, you say. Well, the last time I checked on what I pay to the government for the privilege of swerving round on these hazardous tracks humorously called roads, it looked like this. Every time I put fuel in the car, most of the money goes to the government. Each year I pay nearly £200 in tax for a little piece of embossed paper which is sellotaped inside my windscreen. I realise that central government is not responsible for maintaining roads, but I believe that the government of the day writes a cheque to local authorities so that they can keep roads safe and in good repair.

I REALISE that the awful roads of Wisbech are not unique in the UK. But they are unique to me, as I live here, and expect to be supported by local authority personnel and politicians whose wages I contribute to. Here follows a little photo-essay on some of the choicer spots in this fair borough. All the pics were taken when I was on a bike-ride. And don't get me started on what some of these chasms do to cycles and cyclists. Yes, I ride on the pavement whenever possible, much to the disgust of pedestrians, but that's an argument for another day. 

A SECTION OF HIGHWAY which we can proudly call put up for comparison with anything in the Third World, is a short stretch, no more than 200 yards, between the Town Bridge and the end of Old Market. This is getting rapidly worse, while traffic can no longer go beside the river due to the flood defence work.

CHAPEL ROAD JUNCTION

OLD MARKET

TOWN BRIDGE JUNCTION

TOWN BRIDGE JUNCTION

SOUTH BRINK AND CROMWELL ROAD have been excavated more times than The Valley Of The Kings, and there is no sign that the Highway Engineering Consultants are becoming any more adept at their trade. I am old enough to remember Steamrollers, and their diesel successors. Road repairs didn't simply consist of dumping a bit of tarmac into a hole, slapping it with the back of a shovel, and then popping off for a McDonald's somewhere. Roads used to be levelled, graded, rolled, and cambered properly. But that was then.

SOUTH BRINK

CROMWELL ROAD

CROMWELL ROAD

PART OF THE PROBLEM IS THE ENDLESS UNCO-ORDINATED AND RANDOM TRENCHES driven across the highway by a motley collection of 'Service Providers', including Telecoms, Power, Drainage, and Water, No-one seems to talk to anyone else. There is no-one with an overview. No-one seems to plan, no-one seems to be able to pull projects together. The result is the haphazard mess of humps, ditches and trenches which crop up in the most unlikely places.

RAILWAY ROAD

 ONE OF THE GAPS IN MY EDUCATION was that I was never privileged to quaff a pint of foaming ale in that most curious of Wisbech watering holes, The Flower Pot. Friends told me it had a lurid reputation, but at least no-one had met their death by stabbing or violent assault within its walls, unlike several other venues of choice in PE13. Currently, the road outside it leave much to be desired.

OUTSIDE 'THE FLOWER POT'

MY ABSOLUTE FAVOURITE is this completely unexplained, unexplainable and unfillable crater at the top of a quiet, secluded suburban street. maybe the street name is something to do with it…? A stray cluster bomb from a passing V-Bomber, perhaps…?

BEFORE ANYONE CHIPS IN TO SUGGEST that we only have to visit the Cambs County Council Highways website and report the fault…I have been there, done that…..and got the meaningless brush-off. I reported the traffic chaos caused by the mismatched signage and road markings as drivers approach Freedom Bridge roundabout from Churchill Road. Within 48 hours, the report was annotated online as 'Case Closed', despite nothing whatsoever having been done to resolve the issue. So please, please, pretty please DO NOT point me in that direction.

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TODAY'S UPDATE is to thank everyone who has responded to my request for unwanted guitars. The Fenland Citizen and the Wisbech Standard were good enough to publish my letter, and I have spent the last few days motoring around Fenland picking up instruments from some really generous people.

I have been busy re-stringing,polishing, adjusting and repairing where necessary, and we now have enough instruments not only to run the classes at the Rosmini Centre, but to loan instruments out to youngsters so that they can practice between lessons.

I made this point in my letters to the papers, but will emphasise it again now. These lessons are open to any young person, no matter what their personal circumstances are, or where in the world they come from. All we are asking is that they are willing to learn and work hard at acquiring a valuable musical skill.

THE INSTRUMENTS WE HAVE BEEN GIVEN range from cheap, cheerful but playable guitars, to a really beautiful Brazilian Di Giorgio from the 1970s with a wonderful bookmatched back. For the uninitiated, this is where a piece of wood is split down the middle, and the two halves opened out beside each other so that the grain gives a mirror-image appearance. How lovely is this just to look at, never mind the warmth of the sound?

The gentleman who gave us this guitar also provided a real 'lump in the throat moment'. He had been a musician all his life, but as he showed me his hands, gnarled and lumpy with arthritis, he said, "I can't play it any more, but I'd be delighted if someone else could."

IF ANYONE HAS ANY FURTHER HELP TO OFFER, or wants their child to be considered for lessons, these are the contacts. The Youth Worker at the Centre is Daina Zagurskiene, and her email is dainazagurskiene.rcw@gmail.com

The Centre phone number is 01945 474 422

 

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THIS IS A LONG-DELAYED PHOTO-ESSAY from those glorious warm March days when we all thought that Spring had sprung, and there was a clear run-in to the long summer days of pavements you could fry an egg on, nose-to-tail traffic trying to get to the coast, and endless nights in the garden with cold beer, swifts wheeling in the dusk sky, and the smell of meat on the barbecue. This is written on a dank, cold, and utterly vile April night with disastrous weather yet to come, and summer so far out of sight that it may never happen. 

A DAY WITH NAN

ANOTHER WINTER SURVIVED

"BEEN THERE, DONE THAT"

FOUR GENERATIONS

THE BOYS ARE IN TOWN

THE DARK END OF THE STREET

TOWN GIRLS

WHEN THE GOING WAS GOOD

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WISBECH IS HAUNTED BY THE GHOSTS OF DEAD PUBS. Here a few where the buildings still survive. There are as many again that have been demolished. The text is taken from Arthur Oldham's book, 'The Inns and Taverns of Wisbech.

THE BIRD IN HAND, North Brink."Thomas Bulman was there in 1846, and kept it until October 16th 1866. Mr Bulman was a retail coal merchant, and every year three or four 'billy-boys' came up the river and were unloaded there, the coal being stored at the back of the inn.The inn was the background of a tragedy in 1852, when on June 4th an inquest was held within its walls into the death of a Mr Wright, of Leverington, aged 77, who was in a conversation with a Mr Whitley of Barton Lane, and whilst so engaged fell to the ground and shortly afterwards expired. A verdict of 'Died By The Visitation Of God' was returned. In 1867, the landlord, Thomas Thacker was charged with assaulting his step-daughter, Fanny Webster. It was a brutal assault, and he was fined twenty-eight shillings."

THE BIRD IN HAND

THE BRIDGE, Norwich Road. "It was kept in 1850 by George Barnes. There was also a side entrance from Wellington Terrace, on the canal"

THE BRIDGE

THE ELEPHANT AND CASTLE, North Street. "In 1846 it was occupied by Edward Shacklock. In June 1869, a very rough looking character named Joseph Stafford, a labourer, lodging at the Elephant and castle, was brought up, charged with being found on the enclosed premises of Mr John Curtis, with felonious intent."

THE ELEPHANT AND CASTLE

THE ENGINEERS TAVERN, Victoria Street. "This tavern dates from the early days of the Great Eastern Railway. The Conservative Club, now at Hill Street is said to have commenced in The Engineers Tavern."

THE ENGINEERS TAVERN

THE FERRY HOUSE, or FERRY BOAT, Norfolk Street. "The river in Wisbech, in olden times took a very different course from that taken by it now. It was known as 'The Ferry House' as far back as 1874, and alternatively has been called 'The Ferry Boat up to the present time."

THE FERRY BOAT

THE RAILWAY TAVERN, Victoria Road. "Situated near Wisbech East Passenger Station, it has done a steady trade since Job Whitlock was landlord in 1860. There were originally two small cottages on the site of the present tavern. At the rear of the premises can still be seen the remnants of a skittle alley. William Bennett, the present tenant, has been at the Tavern since October 1924."

THE RAILWAY TAVERN

THE RUTLAND ARMS, Lynn Road. "From here, in 1845, departed passengers and goods by packet boat for Ely, every Saturday, returning on Thursdays. On a Friday in 1880, a Coroner's Inquest was held in the building, into the death of Henry Elget, who had hanged himself in the hayloft."

THE RUTLAND ARMS

THE SHIP, Market Place."Thomas Thompson was landlord in 1792. William Hides became landlord in December 1853. In April 1858 he respectfully informed his friends, and the general public, that he had, at considerable expense, engaged for one evening only, on Monday April 12th, 'A Galaxy of Novel, Curious, Comic, Musical and Ventriloquist Talent entitled HOFFMAN'S UNIQUE ENTERTAINMENT, which was patronised by Roralty, Nobility, Clergy and Gentry, comprising Hoffman's Organo-phonic Band, or Human Voice Orchestra."

THE SHIP

THE UNICORN, West Street. "It has been occupied for a long while, the earliest tenant known was the widow of William Terry, who kept the inn in 1792."

THE UNICORN

THE VINE, Old Market. "This was one of four most important coaching inns in the town. In 1816, Mr J.C. Curwin, a leading solicitor and Town Clerk of Wisbech was accustomed to spend convivial evenings at 'The Vine'. On a certain Saturday night he joined others in drinking many shilling glasses of punch. He lost consciousness (his wisdom having left him long before) and on awakening, he made the painful discovery that his queue, or pigtail, had been shorn from his head. Rewards were offered, but failed to discover the perpetrator of the outrage, and the offender escaped detection."

THE VINE

HERE ARE TWO LINKS TO  WEBSITES LISTING MORE OF THE 'LOST' PUBS 
http://www.closedpubs.co.uk/cambridgeshire/wisbech.html 

http://deadpubs.co.uk/Cambridgeshire/Wisbech/index.shtml 
 

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"YES. I REMEMBER ADELSTROP.
The name, because one afternoon
Of heat the express-train drew up there
Unwontedly. It was late June.

The steam hissed. Someone cleared his throat.
No one left and no one came
On the bare platform. What I saw
Was Adlestrop—only the name.

And willows, willow-herb, and grass,
And meadowsweet, and haycocks dry,
No whit less still and lonely fair
Than the high cloudlets in the sky.

And for that minute a blackbird sang
Close by, and round him, mistier,
Farther and farther, all the birds
Of Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire."

THAT IS, PERHAPS, THE MOST FAMOUS ENGLISH POEM ABOUT RAILWAYS. It was written by Edward Thomas, a young poet who died on the Western Front in 1917. And yet, it isn't really about railways, and certainly has no connection with Wisbech, but sums up simply and directly what it was about rural railways that bound us all together and, in the days when most villages had a school, a church, a pub and a station, made us all part of the same body.

EDWARD THOMAS was buried in Agny Military Cemetery, in France.

WE DO HAVE A RAILWAY REVIVAL GROUP IN WISBECH, but to be honest, it is in intensive care, the graph of its vital signsis close to flatlining, and the anxious relatives have already made contact with the undertakers.

APPLY THE SUBLIME IDIOCY OF THE PARROT SKETCH to The Bramley Line.
"It's passed on! This railway line is no more! It has ceased to be! It's expired and gone to meet its maker! It's a stiff! Bereft of life, it rests in peace! Its metabolic processes are now 'istory! It's off the twig! It's kicked the bucket, it's shuffled off its mortal coil, run down the curtain and joined the bleedin' choir invisible!! THIS IS AN EX-RAILWAY LINE!!

THAT BEING SAID, Pickwick defers to no-one in his affection and longing for the lovely, languid, long-lost days of meandering steam railways, half-empty trains and lonely stations. When Pickwick were nowt but a lad, he would spend long summer days travelling up and down the  railways of Lincolnshire, courtesy of a Five Shilling (that's 25p to you…) rail Runabout ticket. It was a substantial rectangle of stiff blue card, with a map printed on one side, showing the rail routes available at the time. Hair Brylcreamed down, with a school satchel full of sandwiches, Ian Allen railway books and freshly sharpened pencils, Pickwick would set off with his friends, usually on the 8.07am train from Louth to Peterborough (North)
IT WAS ON THESE LONG, SOOTY, RATTLING, CLATTERING DAYS that Pickwick's passion for railways smouldered and flamed. And the supreme irony? One of his teachers was a perfectly decent but dull chemist called Ian Beeching. Whose brother……..was Beelzebub, Satan, The Arch-Fiend, The Great Defiler, Spawn of the Devil, The Son of Perdition, Belial, Baphomet, The Angel of Death…..Dr Richard Beeching. Beeching's mailed fist smashed down on Britain's ailing rail network and ripped out its heart.

WISBECH FELT THE FULL FORCE OF BEECHING'S AXE. First the tramway, and then anything resembling a passenger link to anywhere was closed. Anything that might resemble 'the built environment' connected to the railways was flattened and sold to developers. The line to March was kept open, but only to allow a dwindling goods traffic to operate between the Wisbech food processing factories and the rest of the rail network.
AND NOW, WHAT REMAINS? A festering, overgrown, rusted and partially tarmac covered permanent way that runs from somewhere within the bowels of Nestle Purina, and ends someway short of March station. Other than that, one has to rely on the brilliant enthusiasm and guardianship of people like Andrew Ingram, with his books and photographs, and one's own sense of landscape and feeling for how the past still lives and breathes around us.

THE TRAMWAY and the line to Watlington crossed Elm Road near the site of the Fire Station. The Harbour line shared the same crossing as the Watlington line, and wound its way north along the edge of Ramnoth Road. All that is left is the contours and shape of the landscape. The bend in the road is still there, as is the slight gradient.

A MAP FROM THE 1900s and an adapted satellite photo show how the railway lines fitted into the landscape.

IN ANOTHER 'THEN AND NOW' COMPARISON the only anchor point is the little railway cottage beside the Watlington line. It still stands on Ramnoth Road, but has been much changed over the years. Of the identical cottage which stood by the tramway on Elm Road, there is no trace.

THERE WILL BE NO ROLLING BACK OF THE YEARS, no return to a Golden Age, no opening of stations, no huffing and puffing as the 6.45 train to March chuffs off into the setting sun on a warm May evening. Instead there will be the hiss and roar of hatchbacks as they edge their way along roads laid over the ghost-lines of railways and canals. No piece of music better sums up this sadness than this song by Flanders and Swann - The Slow Train.

 

"Millers Dale for Tideswell, Kirby Muxloe,  Mow Cop and Scholar Green ….

No more will I go to Blandford Forum and Mortehoe,
On the slow train from Midsummer Norton and Mumby Road,
No churns, no porter, no cat on a seat,
At Chorlton-cum-Hardy and Chester-le-Street.
We won't be meeting again on the slow train.

I'll travel no more from Littleton Badsey to Openshaw,
At Long Stanton I'll stand well clear of the doors no more,
No whitewashed pebbles, no up and no down,
From Thornby Four Crosses to Dunstable Town,
I won't be going again on the slow train.

On the main line and the goods siding, the grass grows high,
At Dog Dyke, Tumby Woodside, and Troublehouse Halt.

The sleepers sleep at Audlem and Ambergate…
No passenger waits on Chittening platform or Cheslyn Hay,
No-one departs, no-one arrives, from Selby to Goole,
From St. Erth to St. Ives,
They all passed out of our lives, on the slow train, on the slow train.

Cockermouth for Buttermere
On the slow train.
Armley Moor, Arram, Pye Hill and Somercotes, on the slow train. Windmill End....."

 

 

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THERE IS A PSEUDO-SCIENCE called psychogeography. It was defined as far back as 1955 as "the study of the precise laws and specific effects of the geographical environment, consciously organized or not, on the emotions and behavior of individuals." English writers of our own time,such as Iain Sinclair and Peter Ackroyd, have explored it their books about London. In everyday language, it is looking at the streets and buildings of a town or city, and using the imagination to bring out a sense of the people that walked and worked there in the past. For psychogeography to make any sense, you have to believe that the events of the past and the things that people did and said in places over the years leave some kind of impression which can be experienced by modern visitors to those sites.

A practical and visual way of dipping into psychogeography is to construct 'then and now' photographs, where a photo of a building, or scene from, say, 100 years ago, is set alongside a modern photo taken from as close to the original viewpoint as possible. Here are some images of Wisbech pubs as they are now, and as they were many years ago. Firstly, the Duke's Head, in Church Terrace. It is a very old establishment, and was originally a coaching inn.

The Globe is another pub that was certainly in existence in the 1760s, when the first Trade and Commercial gazettes began to be published. It has undergone many name changes, even recently.

In his book 'The Inns and Taverns of Wisbech', Arthur A. Oldham lists over 140 names of pubs. Not all of them were functioning at the same moment in time, but when you read that there were nine different pubs on the Market Place alone, it gives some idea how many different places you could have gone to to get a drink. The Rose and Crown is reckoned to be one of the oldest places in town, but were it still operating, The George might be even older. It was still open when Oldham wrote his book in 1950, and the landlord was Sidney Maurice Height who took over from his father when he was demobbed from the R.A.F.

A pub which is long gone was the Ship Defiance, which stood on North Street. Younger readers will not remember the brewery Steward and Patteson. They were one of the biggest breweries in East Anglia, and had breweries in Norwich, Yarmouth and Ely. They were bought by Watney Mann in the 1960s.

A pub which still trades is The Royal Standard, and it is included here mainly because it gives me an excuse to use another splendid picture borrowed from one of Andrew Ingram's books. It shows the Elm Road canal bridge. Today's blog concludes with a not-so-sly laugh at the expense of a local newspaper and how it covered the story of a fire at The Royal Standard a few years ago. No further comment from your blogger should be necessary - it wasn't even April 1st!. 

 

PICTURE THIS. IT IS A MILD APRIL AFTERNOON IN 1968. A 21 year old Pickwick alights from the train at Wisbech Station, clutching his art portfolio. He has applied for a job as Art Teacher at The Queen's Girls' School. He has travelled from the Midlands by a variety of train connections, and is full of hope. He is nearing the end of his teacher-training course at a pleasant, but undistinguished Training College in Berkshire.

ALAS, POOR PICKWICK! His daubs do not impress the powers-that-be at The Queen's Girls' School, and so he leaves the ancient borough, tail firmly between his legs, the first of many rejections scarring his fragile psyche. Unknown to him, the station was to close to passengers later in the year, and the station would eventually disappear, stamped underfoot by developers, planners and architects with the collective creative ability of a cage full of parrots.

PICKWICK'S LONG BUT UNREMARKABLE CAREER took many turns, but the last throw of his residential dice saw him happily housed in the very town which saw fit to reject him and his artistic skills all those years ago.

THE RAILWAYS ARE ALL BUT GONE. There is a final vestige of a line, rusting and overgrown, which just about links Wisbech to March. Delusional enthusiasts dream of resurrecting it as a tourist railway, taking passengers through the spellbinding natural beauty of……Weasenham Lane, Begdale, Waldersea, Coldham and Chain Bridge, to arrive breathless and overjoyed at Cambridgeshire's answer to Venice - March.

I DIGRESS. When I first moved to Wisbech in the 1990s, there was a National Tyre Services depot on Harecroft Road. It was a decent enough place, staffed by the grimy, blue-overalled, woolly-hatted gentleman who no longer seem to exist in the modern auto accessory trade, with its coffee machine, computers and laser geometry diagnostics. Hanging in the workshop was an aerial photo of the old railway station - Wisbech North - which used to stand behind their premises. Now the tyre depot is long gone, replaced by Airfix Kit houses occupied by Eastern Europeans of dubious intent, or so it seems, from the frequent presence of Cambs Constabulary. The railway used to cross Harecroft Road. Here is a 'then' and 'now' comparison. The older picture was taken from the top of the footbridge, hence the difference in the elevation of the photographs.

IF YOU FOLLOW THE PATH which goes along the back of the Squash Club towards the astroturf, you can still see iron fencing and stonework which belongs to the railway age.

THERE WAS ANOTHER SIGNAL BOX AND CROSSING  just west of the haulage depot on the north side of Leverington Road. The signal box stood more or less where the Anglian Water buildings are, but the bungalow on the other side of the road is still there, although much modernised.

The black and white photographs have been shamelessly stolen from Andrew Ingram's excellent book on railways around Wisbech. I can only say that no animals have been harmed during the preparation of this blog, and if anyone feels that their commercial or intellectual rights have been impinged upon, then I can only direct them to my legal team, Messrs Sue, Grabbit and Runne.