The trim hedge,
once out of control, is now tamed,
its gangly tendrils mastered
and canopy forestalled.
Clippings lie forlawn, awaiting disposal.
Stiff-shoulders, job complete for another year,
the gardener sinks into his armchair and commands:
“let spring commence”.
When I were a lad my first proper job, in 1984, was at Marconi on Doddington Road in Lincoln and Dave Hopkins and I used to nip home to his place at midday for a spot of lunch. Things were pretty easy going in those days and lunch wasn’t typically an hour. We would pop to the Birchwood to buy some fresh crusty bread from the bakers together with a bit of ham and maybe some cheese and swing by his place to eat it.
Hopkins was a dab hand at making tea and I was happy to be the good guest and wait whilst he warmed the pot and made a proper cuppa. Dave was more conscientious than I was and was usually the one to call time and drive us back to the factory.
There used to be a pub on the Birchwood called The Wildlife and on Friday afternoons we would repair there for a few pints, often not returning until 3pm at which time we would go straight to the canteen for afternoon tea. It wasn’t much of a pub but we were fresh out of college and our standards weren’t that high.
They were pretty halcyon, those early days at Marconi. The company took on around 50 graduates over a two year period and it was a happy go lucky environment with almost every night being a party or a night out in the pub somewhere or another.
The Wildlife was the venue for one of the more memorable activities of the Marconi days which was “star stiff”. Star stiff was a competition whereby 200 celebrities, selected for their likelihood of keeling over and dying over the following twelve months were divided up into 20 “stiff portfolios” of ten names. Twenty engineers from Marconi took part, each carrying one stiff portfolio.
The names of the celebrities were contributed by all the contestants and a computer programme was written to randomly allocate the celebrities across all the portfolios. Each person had a seed which was a celeb highly likely to die over the year of the competition. The seeds were usually made up of Formula One racing drivers, which in those days was a far more dangerous sport than it is today, rocks stars known for their high living and drug abuse, and other famous people thought to be already at the edge of the abyss.
We would all gather on a day in July in the pub and eagerly wait to see who the computer had allocated us for our stiff portfolios. As I said the competition lasted twelve months. The deal was of one of the names on your stiff portfolio died you were given a pound by each of the other contestants. This may sound a little macabre but in reality if a particular celebrity looked like popping off you might have one person willing him or her to die but nineteen people doing the exact opposite and willing them a long and happy continuation of life.
The competition made for some tense moments. Salvador Dali was burned in a house fire but it took him months to actually die. Richard Burton actually went and died the day after the twelve months was up. Jim Patterson, who had him in his portfolio was gutted. Nineteen pounds was a reasonable wodge in those days when a pint probably cost 50 or 60 pence. Richard Burton, being known for his fondness of the sauce, was almost certainly a seed. I don’t think any of the racing drivers died during the competition.
When the twelve months were up we would reconvene in The Wildlife, replace the deceased with new prospects and start again with a totally new random allocation of celebrities.
After three of four years the original gang at Marconi started to focus on their careers and went their separate ways. Life was never the same again though I do look back very fondly at what might be called the star stiff days.
The day grows old. Traffic has subsided on the road outside though I can still hear the occasional car drive by. The lights are full on illuminating the front room for all to see – the curtains have been tied up to let the new paint dry on the window sill. Anne has been busy.
The printer has been fixed, paper jam removed and new printer drivers installed on my laptop. The sound card doesn’t work though since I dropped the laptop on its side and jammed the headphone jack deep in. Ah well.
Someone has ridden by on a bicycle swearing angrily at another person unseen. Oh dear.
The TV which has been showing documentaries all night is now switched off. Good.
Anne is pottering away in the kitchen. She has been out to a school fashion show. Anne is on the committee of The Friends of William Farr, otherwise known as the PTA or at least it was in my day. I have never been on such a committee, perhaps an indictment of my apathy. If they asked me for a donation I would give it.
The brightness of this room seems out of place tonight. Perhaps it is doubly bright because of the reflections off the windows. The curtains would normally be shut. Stands to reason really. For all I know someone is stood in the front garden staring in at me. Wondering.
I will be off to bed soon enough. The routine will kick in. Check the front and back doors even though I know that Anne will already have done so. Brush teeth in downstairs toilet. I find it more convenient to keep the gear there as it saves me having to nip back upstairs before heading out to work. There will probably be a quick glance round the kitchen. Ours is a large kitchen with two kitchen tables. Very useful.
Tonight I made a point of tidying the kitchen before Anne arrived home. It isn’t fair on her to be confronted with a mess which can easily be the case with three lads in the house. It is done and she seems reasonably happy with it.
The clock ticks. A quick glance informs me it is telling the right time. Unusual! Must have a new battery. Good.
Looking around I am surrounded by books. You can never have too many books. One of the shelves also has a giant pencil which I bought as a souvenir from the pencil factory at Keswick in the Lake District. It has no practical uses and were it ever to need sharpening we would not have a suitable pencil sharpener for the purpose.
The vacuum cleaner is in the corner of the room under the desk. It is a Dyson. Strange. It is normally kept in the cupboard under the stairs. Unusual for it not to be tidied away. There must be a good explanation.
I’m off to bed now. Goodnight.
wake up 7.45 ish, tweet a little & consume cup of tea brought by Anne, doze
out of bed 9am, dress immediately, blue jeans, A10 networks Tshirt picked up free at LONAP AGM, stripy fat face fleece top, thermal socks
2 weetabix and banana with semi skimmed milk for breakfast
tidy golf clubs away in utility room & put rucksacks used at center Parcs in cupboard. can only find one of my black gloves.
brush teeth & put swimming kit in bag for life
read a little of Vol 1 Gibbons Decline and Fall of Roman Empire purchased yesterday from Readers Rest on Steep Hill – closing down sale £40 for full set of 8 Folio Society edition.
start prepping tonight’s beef stew – find we are out of garlic.
10.15 head out to Tesco for garlic, mushrooms and a turnip. also purchase thermal hat, gloves & scarf set for £6. only really needed the gloves. return to car to find previously lost glove. ah well
get beef in Guinness going on stove – finish by 11.10, put in oven on low heat & wash pots.
11.30 head out to buy John Adidas astro turf trainers. drop John off to play footy & finish up for lane swimming at Yarborough for 12.30
The question on today’s lips is whether anyone has ever been killed by a golf ball on Canwick Park Golf Course and subsequently cremated and buried in St Swithen’s Cemetery.
Being killed on the course but not buried in the cemetery over the road does not form part of this discourse. Neither is death by other means such as heart attack, being run over by a golf cart or, as happened on 5 occasions in the good ole u s of a between 2001 and 2006, being killed on the golf course as a result of a plane crash1!
Heart attacks are the most common cause of death on golf courses which is understandable as golf does tend to be a pastime enjoyed by those of more advanced years. Death by plane should not be totally discounted in Lincoln due to the history of aviation in the county but whilst there are many records of aircraft related fatalities in Lincolnshire I am not aware of any specifically associated with a golf course and certainly not Canwick Park. I may be wrong about this as there is scant information available on the subject.
Before getting back on track here it is also worth clearing up some confusion that may exist in some folks’ minds regarding the subject of “sudden death” and golf. Sudden death is a means of deciding a winner if a game is drawn after the final hole has been played. The golfers involved play on until a hole is won outright, the loser or losers being deemed to have suffered sudden death.
Whilst being hit on the head by a golf ball is also likely to lead to sudden death this is not the same sudden death.
There is very little data in the public domain on death on golf courses in the UK, at least not on the first page of a Google search result and it isn’t really worth looking beyond that. The previously referred to statistic from the USA does come from a source with additional data that could inform our debate.
|
Event |
Fatalities |
| Overturned vehicle (nonhighway) |
19 |
| Other nonhighway incident (excluding overturned vehicle) |
14 |
| Fall to a lower level |
8 |
| Highway incident |
7 |
| Homicide |
6 |
| Trench collapse |
6 |
| Struck by falling object |
6 |
| Suicide |
5 |
| Drowning, submersion |
5 |
| Airplane accident |
5 |
Apologies for the spelling and use of un-British vernacular such as “Homicide” and “nonhighway”. Whilst I realise that these terms are probably used and certainly understood in the UK I personally would use “murder” and “non road” as alternatives.
It should be noted that the above statistics which cover the period between 2001 and 2006 pertain to work related deaths and not to golfers themselves. However they do help us to understand the general trends where causes of death on a golf course are concerned. There is no specific reference to being hit by a golf ball but “being struck by a falling object” would cover this scenario and for the purpose of this argument I am going to assume that that is what is meant when describing this particular form of death.
Wikipedia tells us that in 2008, just after the period under examination, there were 17,672 golf courses in the USA and 2,752 in the UK, representing 50% and 8% of the total number of courses worldwide respectively.
If we take these data and extrapolate we come up with a figure of 0.934 deaths by golf ball in the UK over the six years, or around one death every seven years. In any given year therefore in the UK there is a five thousandth of one percent chance that someone at Canwick Park will be killed by a golf ball. Whilst the science behind the calculations used here is not exact I can apply some real world data to the discussion by saying that in forty years of playing golf (I know, I can’t be that old) I have never known anyone to be killed on the golf course, any golf course.
Research by the University of York reveals that “According to the Office of National Statistics, there were 493,242 deaths registered in England and Wales in 2010, compared with 491,348 in 2009 and 537,877 in 2000. In England, in the vast majority of cases, deaths are followed by cremation: in 2010, the current cremation rate was just over 73 per cent. However, in a significant and growing number of cases, cremations are themselves followed by the formal burial of cremated remains at cemeteries, crematoria and churchyards.”
Departing for a moment from scientific facts and methodology the chances are that if someone was killed by a golf ball at Canwick Park they would end up in the crematorium over the road with some degree of likelihood that they would subsequently be buried in the cemetery. We can’t be more exact than this because the ONS doesn’t tell us what percentage of cremations are subsequently buried. The problem is exacerbated further by the fact that there are other cemeterial options in Lincoln. I assume here that cemeterial is a word. If it isn’t either I have invented a new one or, well you knew what I was trying to say really.
In conclusion, and to put everyone’s mind at rest, especially the members of Canwick Park Golf Club it is unlikely that anyone has ever been killed by a golf ball on their golf course and subsequently cremated and buried in St Swithen’s Cemetery.
It’s quite nice to be able to quash rumours of this sort before they begin to take hold thus causing a stampede for the car park of golfers no longer wanting to risk playing at Canwick Park. Such a mad dash for the exit in itself is more likely to cause death than the golf balls now locked safely up in bags in the boot of the car.
Fore!
1 Source United States Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics http://www.bls.gov/opub/cwc/sh20080416ar01p1.htm
Fire flickers in the comfort of the hearth and all is quiet. The curtains are drawn on the world. Whisky evaporates by the glass. Another room coughs. The world is at peace.
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Warring peoples settle centuries old scores and inter-marry. Marriages last a happy lifetime. Children remain obedient without dulling their sense of radicalism and change and perform well at school. All religions agree to coexist happily. Nags Head wins the 3.30 at Epsom and beer is freely dispensed at all public houses. Lincoln City are promoted to the Premier League.
Ok that last one was a dream too far.
Christmas Day 1991 was a quiet affair. The two of us had Christmas lunch on our own at the house in Greetwell Gate. Anne was heavily pregnant and now two weeks overdue.
We went out pretty much every night in the weeks running up to Christmas, determined to make the most of our last days of freedom. Six weeks earlier we had been in the Prince of Wales pub in the Bailgate. In those days it was a proper local. Small cosy rooms and good for a lock-in in the days before licensing laws became more liberal. I used to play rugby with the landlord Wayne.
At some point during the evening the conversation came round to the baby’s due date. Officially this was the 12th December but of course these things are never certain. For a bit of fun we decided to have a sweepstake, pound in and whoever guessed the actual birthday right took all the cash. The only rule was that nobody was allowed to choose Boxing Day as this would be the day she would have to go in and have the birth induced had the baby not yet arrived.
We came out of the pub that night with the twenty quid sweepstake cash in our pockets. The whole pub had taken part. On the way home we passed the Raj Douth Indian Restaurant (now the Saffron) so we stopped off and blew the lot on a curry. I had planned to replace the cash at the appropriate moment before handing it over to the winner.
Winding the clock forward six weeks and the baby still hadn’t arrived so it looked very much as if we would be going in to the hospital on Boxing Day for the birth. After the Christmas lunch I fell asleep on the sofa and Anne set to clearing away the table. When I woke up a few hours later the whole house was spotless. The nesting instinct had kicked in and the big moment was obviously about to arrive.
The contractions started early evening but were not close enough together for us to go in to hospital. I started recording the intervals on a bit of paper on the bedside table. We didn’t get much sleep that night and by the morning had a complete record of the contractions which gradually got closer and closer together.
By 10am it was time to go in. The hospital was only a few hundred yards away and it took minutes to get there. For much of the time I paraded around the ward chatting to the nurses and availing myself of the huge supplies of chocolate that had been donated by grateful patients. It was a lot easier for me than for Anne who, this being her first child had a pretty hard time of it. We went through three shifts of midwives until finally, twelve hours after our initial arrival at the hospital, Anne gave birth to a fine baby boy who we named Thomas Alun Davies.
It was too late to celebrate as the pubs were by now all shut and I went home to bed a tired but ecstatic parent.
The next night I was back in the Prince of Wales with my mates to wet the baby’s head. The subject of the sweepstake was brought up and of course there was no winner. I told the boys that I had spent the cash on flowers without mentioning the fact that really we had spent it on the curry that same night.
In fact I did buy the flowers, from the Shell Garage on Burton Road. It being the day after Boxing Day the flowers were getting past their best but the woman in the shop, understanding their purpose, picked through all the bunches and gave me a huge bundle of the best she had which were fine. Back on the ward in the hospital Anne’s bed was surrounded by colour making everyone else’s look a little pathetic by comparison.
I kept both the piece of paper with the details of the contractions and the beer mat with the sweepstake guesses in my bedside table for years. Sadly they were lost during our house move but the story remains a nice little memento of what was a big moment in our lives.
We visited the maternity unit another three times before settling on four as the ideal sized brood. None of the others took as long to come out as the first and there were no further sweepstakes involved though I’m sure I must have felt it appropriate to wet the baby’s head each time.
I have since been to the Prince of Wales on many an occasion but never again to the maternity unit.
In the depths of winter there is no way out. Cheerless skies shroud the condemned. The weak withdraw silently into their dark subterranean holes and are not seen again. All hope is lost. Cold metal doors slam shut, echoes wither. Silence.
My hands are cold, they need an infusion of warmth. The fire is going in the grate but it has not long been lit and the room has yet to warm up. Outside the temperature is, at best, zero degrees. The wind is North Easterly. The hedge needs cutting but that requires someone with the inclination to do it. Light snow is forecast for tomorrow. That is no use. If it is going to snow it needs to be heavy snow. Snow that will make a difference. I have coal supplies to last the weekend. Spring is more than a weekend away. Spring is awaited with eager anticipation.
Part of the ancient Lawress Wapentake (apparently Lawress is Old English for “lark”) the village of North Greetwell lies on the Roman highway the A158 Wragby Road heading in a North Easterly direction towards the Lincolnshire Wolds. The village comprises perhaps a hundred residential dwellings, an Indian restaurant and a roadside filling station.
Note it is my firm belief that a village is not a village without a pub. It may well have an Indian restaurant, which is a big plus and which is certainly a step up from the Little Chef that was its predecessor but a pub it is not. The petrol station, which is useful and probably ok to nip out to for a bottle of wine or a sixpack of lager is also not a substitute. I will say no more on this subject other than it can’t be that much of a lark living there.
In 1801 North Greetwell had a population of 31 people. This was quite convenient because the parish church could only accommodate 35. The population grew steadily and by 1891 reached 93 persons. Ten years later this had dropped to 51 which must surely have represented some calamitous happening in the village. By 1911 this had risen to 75 but by 1921 had only grown another by four souls to 79. The Great War had taken its toll.
The nineteen twenties saw a rapid expansion and by 1931 the population was up to 253 which from the local parish priest’s perspective would have been a nice problem to have.
We do not know how he dealt with this problem and an examination, hitherto unperformed, of the church records might well shed some light on the issue. That degree of research does not however lie within the remit of this work and the church itself lies in V9, a couple of clicks south of V5 which seals it for me. Marriage records for the Lawress Deanery do go back to the year 1700 and the Anglican parish register dates from 1723 so we could probably find out what was going on.
Perhaps they had a marquee in the garden to accommodate the extra people or maybe market forces and the availability of better transport meant that some went elsewhere for their spiritual guidance. It’s amazing the lengths people will go to for a better quality biscuit to dunk in their post sermon cup of tea or coffee. I’m only speculating here. I don’t know for sure. For all I know all the local parish priests had a pact to buy the same sort of biscuits so that this sort of thing didn’t happen. It only takes the lure of more ten bob notes in the collection plate to make a difference though…
The village does possess a Manor House which in 1912 was the residence of William Bowser but that too lies outside square V5 and so is also not being given much airtime here.
In 2005 an archaeological dig was undertaken in the area ahead of some new houses being built. Disappointingly absolutely nothing of interest was discovered beyond some medieval furrows. We could probably have guessed that.
At the time of writing there are eight properties for sale in North Greetwell four of which are bungalows. Prices range from £110k up to £250k. That seems to be a fair percentage of the housing stock on the market if you ask me and possibly down to the fact that there is no pub or maybe because it is on a busy main road. Who knows.
A quick online scout for what’s on in North Greetwell reveals nothing. So that means either they are all watching the TV, on the internet or out at the garage or the Indian restaurant. One little surprise is that the BT speedchecker shows that the residents of the village are blessed with pretty fast fibre broadband. There again BT has been known to be wrong about these things.
That’s pretty much it for North Greetwell. It would appear, and I may be wrong here, that the MP for the area is Edward Leigh (Conservative) who has no doubt made himself known to the residents in a doorstep campaign at some time or another. I note that Mr Leigh has three sons and three daughters and was President of Durham University Union. Fair play.
I will finish with the consideration that the title of this piece is “Lincoln A to Z V5 North Greetwell – one horse town and no pub”. I have no idea of the origin of the saying “one horse town” and although it seems to me it should apply to North Greetwell I am ok if someone comes back and tells me that they have a couple of horses stabled at the back of their house. I can believe it. Some of the gardens are quite big and equestrianism is a good hobby that provides one with exercise and a bit of healthy fresh air, as long as you stay away from the main road.
That’s all folks…
Oh and PS I know I said I wouldn’t say any more about the no pub bit but I did – sorry
There is nothing else to say on this subject. Dave looks down from his place above ten pin bowling alleys everywhere and decides on the outcome of an individual ball.
There are times when you think a ball is a sure fire strike but Dave thinks differently and leaves the two end pins upright. It is impossible to then knock over both pins with the second ball unless your name is Fred Flintstone.
If Dave doesn’t like you your balls are destined for the gutter that runs alongside the very slippery main bit that you’re meant to roll them down.
It is possible to partly defy Dave by using the rails that stop the ball from going off the main slippery bit. However this does come at a price as people that use the rails are considered to be real woosses unless they are under the age of five.
Dave is never very impressed if you score less than a hundred although quite frankly who cares. Anyone who is good at ten pin bowling has to be in need of a life and probably has all the gear including a special bag for their own bowling ball and a tailored bowling shirt.
Dave can shove off.
The basic game shall consist of two players sat side by side. Each player shall have a badminton racket and one shuttlecock between them.
The rackets are held out in front of the players with a flat surface facing upwards. One player has the shuttlecock on his racket with the rubbery bit that you hit facing upwards. That player attempts to flick the shuttlecock onto the racket of his opponent.
Should the shuttlecock bounce on the neighbouring racket but not stay on then a single point is earned. A shuttlecock that stays on the opponents racket earns five points.
The game is played for a predetermined time agreed between the players with the winner being the person with most points at the end of that time.
There are no other rules though these may appear as the game evolves and matures.
When our third child was quite young he went along to Saturday morning football at Mulsanne Park. We were never sure whether Mulsanne rhymed with frying pan or window pane. I was of the former camp but others in the family claimed the latter. Being of all seeing all knowing disposition I am of course right though the argument was never truly settled and I doubt that anyone cares or even realises it was an issue.
The boy was never going to make it as a footballer. I recall a beautiful spring day when the sun was shining and for once it was a pleasure to have to perform parental duties and take him and his pals out to Nettleham. There have been other times when the icy blast of a gale blowing across from the Urals made me wonder why he wasn’t more interested in jigsaws as a hobby but this was not one of them. It was a perfect day for football.
Conditions that are right footballing are also ideal for other activities. At Mulsanne Park these conditions are, where the parents are concerned, good for sipping a cup of tea purchased from the pavilion and chatting with other parents. Some people are more interested in following the on field activity and I must say that to some extent I fall into this camp. However I do feel that I can with a degree of concentration adequately multitask and also drink tea and chat. I know not what the chat is about – as far as multitasking is concerned “remembering” is one task to far.
You should know I am not one of those competitive parents who shout instructions from the sideline and remonstrate with the ref when he thinks that a decision has not gone the right way. Still I do like to celebrate the on-pitch success of the boy. I can be very loud in my appreciation. No wilting lilly I.
This brings me to the other point about ideal footballing conditions and that is what is good for football is also good for spring growth. In the case of Mulsanne Park this might be a renewal of activity in the hedgerows and also on the playing surface itself. We like the new growth in the grass even though it means work for the lawnmower. Unfortunately grass isn’t all that grows on a football pitch. Daisies also flourish.
On the beautiful day in question the lad was dawdling in the outfield and his attention was caught by a certain daisy. This daisy must have been a fast grower because the pitch had not long been mowed. The daisy clearly merited closer inspection.
Now one of the aspects of the game of football is that people run around the field kicking the ball this way and that and there is a good change if you stand in one spot that the play will eventually come your way. On this occasion with daisy inspection in full flow the opposition winger came thundering towards my lad who was totally oblivious to anything other than the daisy. The winger shot past and with only the keeper between him and stardom made certain of his place on the scoresheet and no doubt of lasting fame in the history of Nettleham Under 6’s football.
The boy looked up and trotted over to some other part of the pitch, neither jubilant nor utterly dejected.
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