Market Rasen 1961-1970

From Lulu to men on the moon...... Here we look at the beginning of this new age through the eyes of the Market Rasen Mail.

1960's- The grand old men of Middle Rasen

How's this for staying power? The grand old men of Middle Rasen in this photo taken by your Mail in the early 1960s have a combined age of well over 450! Pictured, left to right, are Mr S E Codd (75), Mr T Boardman (72), Mr George Marrison (75), Mr W Hyde (71), Mr Robert Johnson (84), and Mr J P Rhodes (age unknown).

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1961 - Cottage Hospital revisited

IT'S OVER 50 years since Market Rasen's hospital closed down and yet few people today realise that there ever was one.

The Market Rasen Dispensary was formed in 1857 and the Cottage Hospital itself 11 years later in 1868. The two facilities were merged and a building in Dear Street converted to house the new Market Rasen Cottage Hospital and Dispensary in 1871. In 1891, the Matron is named as Miss Joan Coles and the Secretary as Mr H. Gadd.

The hospital had four beds upstairs for maternity cases and four downstairs for general cases. It was financed by donations and subscriptions, which early in the last century amounted to about 60 a year. There were also dances, bridge drives, socials and church collections which helped towards the running of the hospital.

Management of the hospital was quite exclusive, which led to criticisms that this caused donations not being forthcoming since ordinary people did not feel involved in the hospital. Patronesses were traditionally the Countess of Yarborough and, for many years, Mrs Tennyson d'Eyncourt of Bayons Manor.

Medical care was provided by resident nurses, who lived at No 7 Dear Street, and the town's doctors, who had to apply to be appointed to the medical staff – unpaid – in order to go and treat their own patients. There do seem to have been one or two occasions when doctors were not allowed onto the staff. All this, of course, was before the National Health Service came into being and all medical care was paid for. People usually belonged to clubs into which they paid money each week to pay for their medical care or hospital stay in the event of illness or injury.

Apparently, the regular Market Rasen fair of Smith and Warren used to give one evening's takings to the hospital. One night, one of their four sons was taken ill, but the hospital refused him admission. The fair never made a contribution again.

There are some interesting little stories from former patients.

Jack Cook, of Chapel Street, recalls that there was a bed there which, in the 1930s, notoriously usually seemed to finish off its occupant!

First to go was a Mr Parker of Tealby who died there from pneumonia. Next in the bed was a motorcycle victim who died nearly straight away. Jack's own father was then taken ill and taken to the hospital with a 'demon' arm!

Jack recalls: "Mrs Knott the matron went into him one night – 'Hey Peter, I've got some bad news for you. There were two people that died on that bed and there will be a third!'

"After three weeks, a Dr Torrins was called in to give an opinion and he said 'Get this man off your hands, he will die here,' so they took him to Lincoln where he recovered, living until the age of 91."

In 1940, it was decided that the Cottage Hospital was no longer suitable to be used for maternity cases and warnings were given that this would put the whole future of the hospital in jeopardy.

Sure enough, the hospital was closed on May 17 1941.

The two nurses bought the building and continued to live and operate the district nursing facilities from there. After the district nursing ended there, the two ladies, Nurses Langley and Wholey continued to live there as a purely private residence until 1961, when it was sold to the present owners. It remains largely unchanged since its hospital days.

Our thanks to the present owners, Mr and Mrs B. Atkin and to the other people who sent in memories and reminiscences.

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April 1961 - and meet Market Rasen's mole man!

WHEN Mr Arthur Wright retired from farming at Tealby Thorpe two years ago friends told him that he would have a hard job to fill in his spare time. They need not have worried. As it has worked out, he has had practically no spare time at all.

Exercising his skill as the best amateur mole catcher in Lincolnshire, he has practically cleared the immediate neighbourhood of Market Rasen of moles since he arrived on the Walesby Road side of the town and his present score of over 1,500 is still mounting.

Mr Wright told a Mail reporter: "Mole catching has always been a hobby of mine. I used to do it when I lived at Tealby. So when I looked out from my present house and saw a lot of mole hills in the field at the back I thought straight away, 'I will have some of them,' and I did.

'That started the ball rolling. Other people asked me to help them clear their land of moles. I got some traps and set about it. I said I wanted 1,000 moles by my birthday last May. I got over 1,000."

Mr Wright recalled that people had said that there would not be any moles left after the dry summer of 1959 and it was, he thought, true that the moles would find it hard to get enough food for themselves and their families and some perished.

The 1959 dry spell was a setback for the moles but in November and December of last year there were some good patches and in the present late winter and early spring still more moles have been caught.

Mr Wright shoots moles as well as traps them. His records show that since he came to Market Rasen he has accounted for 334 in this way. He shoots them when they reveal their presence while they are burrowing under the ground.

The war which Mr Wright wages against the moles still continues. Normally moles abound in sandy soil and light loam such as is to be found near Rasen. But, with Mr Wright about, they haven't much chance.

Mr V. J. Lucas, clerk of the course at Market Rasen Races, spoke of the way in which Mr Wright had practically banished the mole from the steeplechase course.

"We hardly ever see a mole hill now," he said. "We are not the only people who benefit. He keeps them down on all the land surrounding us."

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1962 - Bond, Coronation Street and the last steam train!

"BOND...James Bond" with those legendary words from the lips of Sean Connery in the 1962 movie Dr No the Sixties really started to swing!

How many Mail readers of a certain age remember as schoolboys sneaking into the cinema 40 years ago to watch 007 save the world?

It was a good thing we had James Bond around in 1962. He helped keep our minds off a real threat to civilisation as we knew it - the Cuban Missile Crisis.

There were other distractions too. Teenagers were listening to the first Beatles hit and the whole family was sitting round the TV watching Z Cars, Sunday Night at the London Palladium, Take Your Pick and Emergency Ward 10.

But what was going on closer to home? Well for a start a lot of Rasen folks were fuming that they couldn't watch TV at all!

Thanks to a fault at the new electricity sub station on Tealby Road TV reception was badly affected and so were household appliances.

Mr J W Stainton, radio and TV specialist of Middle Rasen, told the Mail at the time he had received over 400 phone calls from viewers asking why they were getting such a poor picture.

Rasen residents may not have been able to watch new soap opera Coronation Street - but at least they could meet the stars.

Peter Adamson who played Len Fairclough, Doreen Keogh who played Concepta Hewitt and Ivan Beavis who played Harry Hewitt appeared at Market Rasen Racecourse in September dressed as bookies.

It was the end of an era at Market Rasen in 1962 when the last steam train pulled out of the station for Cleethorpes at 8.16pm on Saturday September 8.

From the following Monday the entire passenger service on the branch line became diesel operated.

The last of the steam trains was taken out of use for 'economy' reasons.

Also in '62, De Aston School announced numbers in the sixth form were up to 50 for the first time in the history of the school - making a grand total of 300 boys.

Meanwhile, the new Fire and Ambulance Station was unveiled to the public on Linwood Road. It cost 5,500 to build.

Market Rasen parish church marked the centenary of the restoration of the building by architect James Fowler.

There was sadness when the oldest inhabitant of Market Rasen, Methodist church stalwart Mrs Mary Jane Hill (101), of Queen Street, died.

And the opening of Rasen's new Co-op store on the site of the old town hall in the Market Place was greeted warmly by townsfolk.

Quite a year for Rasen - and the world. But have things really changed all that much?

They are still talking about a swimming pool for Rasen as they were back then - and the new James Bond film is about to come out!

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Click on >> button for next page!1962 - Those fabulous Feast Weeks a fond memory

For many years Feast Week was a major event in the Rasen calendar. It was revived in the 1960s as part of fundraising for the Festival Hall. In this report, reprinted from the Rasen Mail of 1962, we hear from a man who remembers the original Feast Weeks of bygone days.

THE OLD Market Rasen charter fairs, traditionally held in May and September, are now a rapidly fading memory, even in the minds of the elder generation. But in the diary of Forgotten Lincolnshire both dates were important.

The Rasen May hiring fair was always thronged with farmers and servants because of its conveniently central position in Lindsey while the September fair included both the town 'feast' and the special sales of horned cattle, horses and sheep.

In Victorian times a race meeting followed on the first Monday after September 25.

The special significance of both the Spring and Autumn dates lives on dimly in the memory of locals. But for a showman like John Barlow, proprietor of the dodgems and fun fair attractions gathered in Rasen Market Place, memories are still vivid.

Mr Barlow, aged 66, told our reporter: "Rasen, for us, is the happiest place on our circuit. People meet you here with a hand shake and a smile. That is worth a lot more than big business."

His memories of the Rasen fairs go back to a few years before the first war when he visited the town as a young man wearing Edwardian tight trousers with raised seams – "and lids on the pockets."

The old attractions were swing boats, coconut shies and stalls. Everything cost a penny.

"You might think," he said, "the old farm labourers and the girls who worked on the farms hadn't much money. And this was true. They hadn't.

"But in May and September, at Rasen, they really let themselves go."

After the first war, newly married, Mr Barlow and his wife bought an old road caravan for 40 and got a pony for 6. They started in showbusiness with one small coconut shy and a set of Lincolnshire skittles. They attached themselves to the Smith and Warren company, then dominant in the amusement world in this area, and paid a toll to them for their takings.

After the second war and ups and downs Mr Barlow was himself able to buy up the Smith and Warren concern.

He is now a seasonally familiar and popular figure at towns between Pontefract and Wakefield in the north and Wainfleet in the south. But there is no place which appeals to him quite so much as Market Rasen.

"It is just like coming home to us when we get here," he said.

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1962 – opening of Rasen's new Fire Station

A snippet from the Market Rasen Mail:

A NEW fire and ambulance station which has been built by Lindsey County Council on a site on Linwood Road, Market Rasen, at a cost of 5,500 was opened by Canon F J Brown, Deputy Mayor of Scunthorpe, in the presence of a large gathering on Wednesday evening.

The site is one which was formerly used by the county highways department. An existing brick built office, workshop and stores has effectively been converted into an appliance bay, garage and entrance hall with a watch room, small workshop and recreation and lecture room.

Recalling the old Market Rasen fire station in Mill Road, Coun Brown said: "When one remembers the facilities there and the difficulty of getting out on to the main road, we can realise what a tremendous improvement this new station is."

He paid tribute to the Market Rasen member, Mr W C Hall, in so strongly putting forward the claims of Rasen for consideration.

One of the great reasons for action, too, was to be found in the falling off in numbers of retained personnel at Rasen. They dropped down here to the very low level of three.

He suggested the new station was a factor in encouraging men to come forward and volunteer. Coun Brown complimented the Fire Chief on his energetic efforts in recruiting men.

Following the formal opening of the station, both the fire and ambulance men joined in giving a demonstration showing the speed with which they can spring into action.

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December 1962 – when Dr Shegog faced a fiery ordeal

snippet from the Market Rasen Mail

FIREMEN who for three hours fought a blaze which threatened to engulf the house of Dr F W Shegog in Morley Park, Market Rasen, early on Saturday morning were at last successful - but only when damage amounting to about 4,000 had been done.

Fire broke out in a wing jutting out from the main part of the building.

The great threat came when the strong wind fanned the smouldering woodwork into flame and when firemen arrived from Rasen and Louth there was a serious risk of the whole house being gutted.

Dr and Mrs Shegog were awakened by the smell of smoke and Dr Shegog, realising the seriousness of the danger, at once dialled 999 from his bedroom.

He and Mrs Shegog had been playing important parts on the night before in the local Amateur Dramatic Society production The Holly and the Ivy and had been late to bed.

By the time they got out onto the landing in their dressing gowns the whole house was full of smoke.

They went to the house of a neighbour and later Dr Shegog went back to his garage to drive away his Bentley car to a place of safety.

Hoses were run out to points along Dear Street as soon as the brigades arrived but flames were already breaking through the roof at several points and initial efforts were concentrated on preventing the flames from spreading to the main part of the building.

Volunteers came to assist from surrounding houses and furniture and household treasures were piled up on the lawn.

Even when the fire had at last been brought under control stripping of tiles from the roof had to be continued so woodwork which was continuing to smoulder could be damped down.

Mr S B Vickers, stage manager of the Dramatic Society, decided it would not be possible to carry on with the current production in the absence of Dr and Mrs Shegog and what would have been the last night of the show was cancelled.

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1964 - Boy in court for lorry manoeuvre

A 15-YEAR-old-boy was in trouble at Caistor Magistrates Court after trying to do a bus driver a good turn.

A Lincolnshire RoadCar bus driver had been unable to draw up to its usual stopping place in the Market Place because a lorry was blocking the space.

The court heard the boy got into the cab of the lorry and tried to drive it away but unfortunately merely managed to drive it into the bus!

He was placed on probation for two years.

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1964 - Rasen civil defence team performs well

Civil defence was still a priority in the Cold War days of 1964 and the Rasen team did well in a demonstration. Pictured from left are (back row) - C Codd, Elizabeth Dowse, Alan Sawyer, Betty Sawyer and Marion Hutchinson (front row) - Valerie Keen, Mrs Hubbard, C Richards and Mrs Langford.

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Click on >> button for next page!1964-'Let girls attend De Aston'

January 1964, and our edition of January 25 led on the demand for girls to be admitted to De Aston School.

Holton Beckering Women's Institute was reported to be taking the lead in urging the Minister of Education to reach an early decision on the question.

A resolution from the group was on the agenda of the Lindsey County Federation meeting at Lincoln, saying the matter had 'already been postponed for an excessively long time.'

Mrs J Downend of Holly Farm, Bleasby, told the Mail: "We are bringing the matter forward because it is so serious for mothers of girls in our district.

"Our girls are supposed to go to Caistor Grammar School, which is about 13 miles from here.

"But we have no school bus nearer than Market Rasen, which is about four miles away.

"This means that girls have to cycle to Market Rasen in the early morning and at night have to come home in the dark."

lGirls were finally admitted to De Aston in 1971, but the first girl to actually be educated there was in 1901 when the headmaster's daughter attended classes.

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1965 - A worrying time as winter took hold of Belmont

TOWERING above the Wolds at a massive 1,263 feet, it is one of the tallest structures in Europe and one of Lincolnshire's most recognisable symbols.

At night the red aircraft warning light on top of the Belmont TV mast can be seen for miles around.

The mast, which weighs 30 tonnes and has a passenger lift in the central shaft, was built in 1965 at a cost of 274,000.

At the time your Mail proudly announced: "When it is brought into operation it will lead to the biggest-ever improvement in television reception in the whole area from the Humber to the Wash".

That meant relief for thousands of folks who no longer had to bang on the top of their TV sets to get a better reception!

The Belmont mast had a jittery start however. Work on completing it was delayed in the Autumn of '65 by high winds.

In November of that year a large number of sightseers gathered to watch 50 men of the Lincoln TA illuminate the new mast with seven searchlights situated in the surrounding hills as part of an exercise. It was quite a sight.

The mast began transmitting Anglia TV programmes in December '65 - with colour pictures following a few years later.

A state of emergency was declared and Caistor High Street was closed at Benniworth in March 1969 when tons of ice formed on the mast's supporting wires - threatening to bring the whole structure tumbling down!

In the same week Belmont's 'twin' mast at Emley Moor collapsed due to bad weather.

The ice made Belmont lean five degrees out of true and only a skeleton staff manned the transmitting station at its base.

James Clarke, ITA's chief

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1965 - The Gorbutts of Caistor

In this special feature we look back at the Caistor of yesteryear – and a family whose roots go back to Stuart times. This article on the Gorbutts of Caistor appeared in the Mail back in 1965 and marked an historic severing of ties with the town

Mr and Mrs John Gorbutt will close the door of their double-fronted general store in South Street, Caistor, for the last time next month.

It will be something more than an ordinary business change. There have been Gorbutts at Caistor since Stuart times.

Mr Gorbutt was born at the shop 73 years ago. His father first had the family name painted up over the door way back in the 1870s or 1880s. It is always difficult to remember exactly to a year.

Mr Gorbutt showed our reporter some of the old accounts and shop records going back 70 or 80 years and the thought which occurred to him was how fond Caistor must have been of bacon in those far off days.

The old ledger shows the Gorbutts of the day bought their hams from local farmers at around 10s each. Shoulders of bacon, bought wholesale, worked out at 11/2d per pound. Granulated sugar, sacks and sacks of it, cost 15s 6 and 3/4d a hundredweight.

Mr Gorbutt laughed a little as he looked back. "These old bills show how the value of money has changed," he said.

Mr Gorbutt was educated at Caistor Grammar School when it was at its lowest ebb with only seven pupils. In his form was Bernard Manning, who became Master of Jesus College, and was a close friend of Quiller-Couch, the great Edwardian man of letters.

But it isn't the famous old boys of the period Mr Gorbutt now thinks about as he looks back but of the tremendous limitations and shortcomings of the school at the time. There was, of course, no football team at the school until Arthur Brooke came along as head early in the new century and brought a number of pupils with him from over the Humber.

"I remember we played our first match then against De Aston School, Market Rasen," Mr Gorbutt recalled. "And we lost 13-0. But we soon got better."

Mr and Mrs Gorbutt, who now have a very happy married life of 41 years behind them, are full of detailed information like this because for generations both their families have been in the centre of Caistor life.

Mrs Alice Gorbutt's mother, Mrs J Campbell, was for many years the only woman member of Caistor RDC and Board of Guardians and it was an unfailing ritual every speech of any importance in the board room where meetings were always held began with the words, "Mrs Campbell and gentlemen."

Mrs Gorbutt is today numbered among the select company of women who can be presented with a fleece of wool from the farm and spin it and weave it according to the old tradition. Examples of her work have often been on view at the shows but Mrs Gorbutt prefers not to enlarge upon her prowess in this field.

Mr Gorbutt agreed the family shop was formerly one of the six inns which carried on business in South Street. Later the premises became the site of a clothing factory and the inquirer can still see how unfinished garments were passed through a trap door from one department to another.

Exact information as to how far back the Gorbutts go is hard to come by before the date of 1680 or 1690. But it is on record William Gorbutt married Faith Smith at Caistor in 1730 and Gorbutts can be traced back in direct line since that time.

But the double doors in South Street will soon be closing now for the last time and no more Gorbutts will be left in Caistor. Mr and Mrs Gorbutt are to live in retirement in Wharfedale in Yorkshire so as to be near their two daughters.

Their business has been sold to Clifford Rushby of Binbrook, who is expected to carry on where the Gorbutts leave off in what is said to be Caistor's most important shopping street.

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1965 - Mr Limon's old Rasen - no pavements and gas lit streets

Back in 1965 your Rasen Mail interviewed an old Rasen character about the town in olden times. We reproduce the article here for the interest of 21st century readers.

IT IS awfully difficult to obtain any broad sense of panorama in looking back over the years in a purely local sphere – to reproduce any feeling of the current march of history or of the progress made in our time.

This is because, though we are all conscious of such change, it is not enough to look back 30, 40 or 50 years to see how swiftly the current of events is flowing. No, to do such an exercise properly, you have to go back a century.

One of those who can do this is Mr Edwin Cornelius (Ted) Limon, now living in very happy retirement on Caistor Road, Market Rasen.

Mr Limon has just celebrated his 86th birthday and before he came to Caistor Road he had lived all his life at Sunny Vale, between the river and Gallamore Lane, as had his father and grandfather.

"We know," he says, "we were at Claxby for 300 years before that." And there is a family tradition the Limons, whose name was corrupted from the French, came to Lincolnshire following the Hugenot massacre of 1572.

All this shows Mr Limon does not lack perspective as he looks back. It is wonderful, he told our reporter, how Rasen had gone ahead since the beginning of the century.

"I can remember," he said, "when there were no pavements in the streets. The streets were already lit with gas lamps when I was a boy and the first pavements were laid about 70 years ago.

"They used to send big scrapers round to scrape the mud off the streets and then take the mud away in carts. In summer they used to send round a council water cart to lay the dust.

"It was the Methodists who mostly ran the town when I was a boy. There was Ted Wilson, the baker, Jesse Wilson, the tailor, J Wilson at Albion House, P H Watson, the outfitter, Dixon and Pinder, Mrs Pepper who sold sweets, Ringrose, the saddler, and Castertons the chemists. All these, and more, were Methodists."

Mr Limon blames Lawyer Thomas Rhodes, who was secretary of the Gas Company, for the closing of Cut-throat Lane, which ran from Middle Rasen Road to Gallamore Lane, almost parallel to Caistor Road.

"Rhodes put up a fine new house 'The Elms' on Middle Rasen Road and he didn't like having Cut-throat Lane so near him."

So Mr Rhodes, he says, took Cut-throat Lane on a lease of 99 years and planted trees along it. This made it less useful as a footpath.

Another thing which Lawyer Rhodes did, he recalls, was to divert the River Rase near his property. All these things go a long way back, says Mr Limon.

The Limons were market gardeners at Market Rasen for 100 years. They had a shop in the old town hall premises for over 80 years.

"I can remember," he said, "when Rasen had two brickyards – one on the Walesby Road and one run by John Lill on the Willingham Road.

"There were also two breweries here – one, which had a big output, in Oxford Street, the other in Union Street.

"But there was never much money about. The farmers say they are not very prosperous now but I can remember when they had no money at all.

"I know one fair sized farmer who went to Bernard Cooper the auctioneer, and said to him, 'I'm finished I can't carry on.'

"Bernard Cooper said to him, 'Stick to it. Go back to your farm. Things are so bad they are bound to get better.'

"And he was right. Rasen was badly hit at this time, and the whole district was hit because farm produce was making nothing and there was hardly any money in circulation.

"What makes some of us wonder today, knowing all this, is whether present day prosperity is bound to last."

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November 1 1965 - Oh, Dr Beeching whatever shall we do?

THERE had been whispers and rumours for a long time but the day had to come - and come it did on November 1 1965!

Dr Beeching, the man brought in to transform the national rail network, wielded his axe and stations across the country closed for the final time.

Market Rasen survived – but it was the end of the line for Leadenham, Holton-le-Moor, Reepham, Langworth, Snelland, Wickenby, Moortown, North Kelsey and Howsham.

Announcing the closures the British Railways Board advised people to get 'on the buses'!

The then Caistor Rural Council tried to look on the bright side and said the closure of the little stations would mean a faster and more direct service to London and the Midlands from Rasen.

The then Stationmaster at Rasen, Mr R. Kew, was certainly proud of his staff. "There's no other station on British Railways that gives a better service to its customers than Market Rasen," he told the Mail.

Rasen may have escaped the axe but if Dr Beeching and his successors could see the state of the station today even they would shake their heads with shame.

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1967 - Skeletons found

A large number of skeletons which have been found this week at a lonely point on Normanby House Farm, Normanby le Wold, may be a pointer to the fact one of the lost villages of the Wolds which disappeared at the time of the Black Death has been located.

Alternatively, this may have been the scene of a medieval battle ground or skirmish.

The skeletons have been discovered near a steep hill, never cultivated before in the memory of William Cade, who is over 70 and who farms here.

The field is known as Pudding Holes. Nearby are about 12 huge sand stones, deeply embedded in the ground.

George Dean, who drove a heavy bulldozer into the virgin ground, said: "What first drew my attention to the fact this was no ordinary ground was when one or two skulls were turned up.

"Then there were skeletons of men laid down in rows. Also there were one or two skeletons of horses."

Interesting individual finds include clasps of what may have been cloaks or coffins, a number of primitive axe heads and flints.

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Click on >> button for next page!Summer 1967 - The day they blew up Willingham House

IT WAS a sad day for the Rasen area when the army blew up Willingham House back in the summer of 1967.

The late eighteenth century mansion was described as one of the best examples of Palladian style architecture in Lincolnshire – but that didn't stop them reducing it to rubble.

Willingham House had been built for Ascough Boucherett, of Willingham and Stallingborough, in 1790 in place of an older hall which had stood near the foot of Willingham Hill.

It was praised by Thackray and used as a palace by the Bishops of Lincoln for a time.

The great feature of the building was its grand Ionic portico and its shapely arched ground floor windows.

Inside the hall on three sides was a wrought iron balustrade and a stately main stairway.

For many years there were tales of a Willingham House ghost – and the belief was held at Willingham that the great house was unlucky. It certainly had its fair share of misfortune.

The son of the first owner, who was among the best known Lincolnshire squires of his day, broke his neck when his curricle overturned as he was coming down Willingham Hill at speed and failed to get round the sharp turn at the bottom of the hill.

The family succession was changed as a result of this mishap and the Wright family, who later became the owners, lost both their sons early in the first war. Charles Wright, their father, was killed in a gun accident in the house itself.

In the First World War the house was used by the War Office as a centre for convalescent soldiers.

Early in the Second World War it housed German prisoners of war and several daring escapes occurred which led to both the police and the army being alerted all round the Rasen area.

The belts of woodland all around Willingham offered so much cover that German prisoners were eventually moved away and replaced by Italians.

After the war the mansion was used as a Civil Defence training centre for Lindsey. Hundreds of men and women from an area extending from Scunthorpe to Skegness came to the house and sat in the lofty reception rooms with their neo-classical wall plaque decorations and their graceful Adam fireplaces.

Sadly after this time the mansion was left to go to wrack and ruin and by 1967 was kept locked and condemned as a dangerous building.

Heavy roof timbers collapsed after being attacked by wood beetles and the County Architect declared that part of the building was in danger of falling in.

In May that year the decision was made that to prolong the life of the building would be 'dangerous' and that it should be blown up.

Some of the old plaques and marble mantelpieces were removed and sold at auction – and then at 2pm on June 7 1967 the final act in the history of the graceful mansion came to a dramatic end.

The grand pillars were drilled and filled with high explosive by the Royal Engineers and charges set inside the building.

Traffic on the main Market Rasen to Louth Road was halted by the police as the countdown time approached.

Beside the lake running alongside the road a small party headed by Mr A. Hamlett, Civil Defence officer for Lindsey, crouched low behind a small brick building.

The Mail's reporter was there for that historic moment and here is an extract from his report -

"Mr Hamlett's hand was poised over the plunger. Lieut J. G. Barber, in charge of the demolition party, counted downward – five, four, three, two, one... zero.

"Mr Hamlett's hand went down and seconds later there came a deep boom. The pillars supporting the Palladian type portico could be seen breaking up as broken stone was forced outwards and the whole structure collapsed in a cloud of dust."

The demolition was carried out very carefully so as not to damage Home Office buildings at the side and rear of the mansion – and not a single pane of glass in these windows was broken by the explosions.

Much of the debris from the house was carted away and used as hardcore for building construction.

Afterwards, the Mail's reporter asked Lieut Barber about the Willingham House ghost said to roam the corridors on winter nights. "Not a sign at all," he said, shaking his head.

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March 1968 - when a sandstorm engulfed a village

THE VILLAGE of Holton le Moor this week fell victim to one of the worst sand blows in memory.

Roads leading into the picturesque village were kept open by teams of highway authority workmen.

But in patches motorists had to reduce speed to a crawl and use headlights to see their way through the 'storm'.

Residents described the village as a 'desert'.

And Mrs Lizzie Starbuck, whose bungalow faces onto the four acre Cold Blow Close, said she had never known it so bad in the 20 years she had lived there.

Nothing, she said, would keep the sand out of her kitchen which faced into the storm's path.

Nearby council house residents claimed the dust got into their hair, throats and clothes.

"I haven't felt clean since Sunday," said jovial Mrs Iris Duke of number 3.

"I had my hair set last Friday - it looked lovely. But by Monday it felt so gritty I had to wash the set out."

Both she and her neighbour, Mrs Hilda Waring, claimed walking across their bedroom floors was like "walking in a desert."

Downstairs the conditions were no better.

"On Monday I cleaned the lounge window sill four times during the day," said Mrs Duke. "But by 5pm the sand was a quarter of an inch thick again. I felt like weeping.

"All the furniture is covered in dust and I haven't dared tackle the weekly wash..."

Holton farmers have not dared to assess the cost of blow damage to their recently sown crops.

The only good point about the week's storm: "It would have been far worse if it came a month later when the beet was beginning to grow," said Mr C Cottingham of Yewfield Farm. "Personally I haven't dared to take a look at the damage as yet."

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1969 Sale – a personal landmark for Mr Frank Brumpton

This week we reproduce a spotlight on Frank Brumpton, which first appeared in the Rasen Mail back in 1969.

THE SALE by Mr Frank Brumpton of his flourishing grocery business in King Street, Market Rasen, marks one of those little personal landmarks which keep recurring in our local annals.

Frank started at this shop when he was a young man of 21. In those days it belonged to the India and China Stores, the name denoting that the firm specialised in tea.

They made a great point of the quality of this tea and every time they sold a quarter of a pound you got a cup and saucer as well.

From the India and China firm the store passed to Joseph Burtons, of Nottingham, with Mr Brumpton becoming the local manager. Then, 10 years ago, Burtons sold and Mr Brumpton bought.

Always through the years the King Street store had attached importance to its country trade and Frank, as went without saying, knew every village round about intimately – the little lanes, the farmhouses, the cottages.

In one direction they went out as far as Glentworth. In another to Binbrook, Orford, Barkwith, Donington. It was all part of the Rasen service, the close covering week by week of Rasen's sphere of influence.

And Mr Brumpton, retiring from business after all these years, is confident that Rasen influence as a supply centre will be maintained notwithstanding all the changes that are going on around us. "Ours is not a trade," he says, "which fluctuates a lot. It just goes on steadily week by week."

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January 1969 - A song for Lulu

THIS week back in 1969 was an important one for local music star Bernie Taupin.

The 18 year old from Owmby by Spital had written a song for Lulu to sing at the Eurovision Song Contest.

The song I Can't Go On Living Without You was one of six selected from 200 entries to go forward for viewers' adjudication on Lulu's Saturday TV show.

Bernard's mother, Mrs R Taupin, of Church Lane, Owmby, told the Mail she and the family were 'keeping their fingers crossed' the song would be the one chosen for Britain.

She told us: "Bernard has done well since he decided to make his way in the pop world.

"He has never done anything like it before, although he was always keen on writing, and we feel very proud of him."

The former Market Rasen Secondary Modern School pupil had only started writing lyrics for the pop world a year earlier.

His name was already getting known - and the disc jockeys of Radio Luxemburg and the BBC were spinning the record Lady Samantha, which featured Bernard's lyrics and the voice and music of his partner Elton John.

Bernie's song was not chosen to represent Great Britain at the 1969 Eurovision Song Contest in the end.

That honour went to Boom Bang A Bang - which helped Lulu walk off with joint first prize.

The setback didn't seem to put too much of a kink in Bernie and Elton's pop careers though!

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Click on >> button for next page!February 1969 Youth club brings community together

FEBRUARY 1969 saw celebrations in Caistor as the town's sparkling new Youth Centre on Plough Hill was opened.

Housed in a former Methodist Church the centre included a large main hall for team games, trampoline, table tennis and other activities.

Youth club members made a coffee bar out of the old chapel pulpit.

The centre, which boasted 126 members, was opened by Mr G V Cooke, Director of Education for Lindsey.

He singled out Mr and Mrs Arthur Clark, the Caistor youth leaders, for particular praise and told the Mail: "You get a feeling this building belongs to the community and involves the community."

Many former worshippers at the chapel attended the youth club's open evening. Coffee was served by club members while games took place in the hall.

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March 1969 - Goodbye to the Greyhound

THIS week back in March 1969 Market Rasen's oldest pub, the Greyhound Inn on King Street, was reduced to rubble.

The Inn, believed to be more than 300 years old, was demolished to make way for a brand new pub - The Chase.

Tradition says soldiers rested at the Greyhound on their way to the Battle of Waterloo.

The demolition was greeted with dismay by many, including The Rev F E Stalley, the Vicar of Market Rasen.

He wrote in the Mail: "Other people besides me must have been saddened by the demolition of the Greyhound Inn.

"It was one of the oldest buildings remaining in the town. In its setting, flanked by the former White Hart and the Willow Wine Ship, it provided one of the more pleasing and more distinctive bits of 'townscape' in Market Rasen.

"Rasen, though it was never a show place, has a distinctive character. This unfortunately is being steadily eroded.

"We were given the depressingly commonplace Co-op building. This was followed by the erection of lamp standards which are disastrously incongruous with the intimate setting of a small country town.

"Now we have lost the Greyhound. We could fairly soon have the centre of the town looking like one of the drearier suburbs of London."

Despite the misgivings Hewitt Brothers Ltd opened their new Chase pub almost a year later in March 1970.

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July 1969 - Shoot for the moon!

WHEN the Apollo 11 rocket blasted off for the moon in July 1969 few people realised a Rasen area man had helped to launch it!

The man who sat at the desk in Cape Kennedy counting down the blast off was Bill Schick – who lived at Walesby in the '60s.

The revelation was made to readers of the Rasen Mail 33 years ago this week, just after the astronauts returned safely from their historic mission.

Bill, the Mail explained, lived at Red Cottage on the Moor Road. It was known in the district he was a rocket expert and villagers said his job was 'very hush-hush'.

Though linked with the US Air Force he always had civilian status and travelled by fast car all along the east coast. When he lived at Walesby he was said to have a faster car than anyone else in the Rasen area! He was frequently on the roads in the early morning.

From Walesby Bill and his wife Jewel went to live in Norfolk but they still kept in touch with their local friends. Bill always called Walesby 'my English home'.

In 1968 he was moved to Cape Kennedy for the 'big project' – but Walesby was not forgotten. Just a few days before the Apollo 11 blast off Jewel wrote to May Blanchard, President of Walesby WI, telling her: "Be sure to listen to Bill on the countdown."

Sure enough, when Mr and Mrs Blanchard tuned in to the TV broadcast of the rocket launch on July 16 they heard their friend's voice – and that deathless countdown to the moon.

"That's Bill," Mrs Blanchard told the Mail's reporter at the time. "Ten – nine – eight – seven – six – five – four – three – two – one – Zero."

The blast off and journey through space went smoothly and on July 20 1969 the lunar module with astronauts Neil Armstrong and Edwin 'Buzz' Aldrin touched down on the moon.

As Armstrong climbed down the ladder onto the desolate surface he said those famous words: "One small step for man – one giant leap for mankind."

And it was a man with Rasen area links who helped put him there!

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August 1969 - when there was much debate about Rasen's railway station, as our editorial of the time reveals.

LESS than a year ago Market Rasen railway station was a scene of activity and liveliness. Its big goods yard was constantly open and busy. Local RAF personnel came daily in lorries to collect piled up equipment and to empty waggons of freight from its sidings.

The passenger side of the station was, it seemed, equally active. Everywhere one found friendliness, good humour, courtesy and helpfulness from the staff.

But take a look now. What a change. The booking centre, once the centre of the 'hive' is closed.

The porters' room is shut and the ladies' waiting room is heavily padlocked.

Though the general waiting room is still open, an air of forgottenness seems to have replaced all that, just a little while ago, was the centre of something essentially alive in Market Rasen.

Trains still stop and passengers continue to travel from Rasen, but with the introduction of pay trains these changes have come.

It seems a friendless, lonely place now. Silent often, without the bustle and the familiar faces so many know so well. It's a pity that Market Rasen station will never be the same again.

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Click on >> button for next page!Mail back in 1969 - Memories of Rasen races

THE RACECOURSE at Market Rasen remains today very much a meeting place of old and new. Swishing in at one gate you see a car, Racecourse Specialist Services, whatever that may mean. Going out of another you see such old hands as Jack White of Legsby, or William Jollands of Walesby.

William, now aged 80, has hardly missed a race meeting since he used to go down to the meetings when they were held years ago on Caistor Road and when he was then, and for many years later, Wilfred Cartwright's right hand man.

It is delightful to see with what interest Mr Jollands still follows the racing.

He is one of those people for whom motor cars have no meaning and for whom a world bereft of horses is denied one of its main objects of interest.

Today, spending money in tens of thousands of pounds at a time, we hardly realise how people like him helped to build up the racing organisation which we know today in days which now seem distant.

Walking along from the paddock to the exit gate, we chatted for a few moments about the old days. Mr Cartwright became clerk of the racecourse at Rasen in 1913 or 1914. Then in the first war some of the crack cavalry regiments were mounted and re-mounted on horses which had passed through Mr Cartwright's hands and through William's hands.

Wilfred was clerk of the course at Rasen for years and years. William was his right hand man, knowing everything. Along then came Mr Lucas and what changes followed!

It is a rich field of memories, all this. When we praise famous men let us think, too, of those at ground floor level like William who, aged 80, would still not miss his regular steeplechase meetings, no not for anything.

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September 19 1970 - TOP TEN

Back to September 19 1970 for the latest blast of musical past.

1. Band Of Gold - Freda Payne.

2. Tears Of A Clown - Smokey Robinson and the Miracles.

3. Give Me Just A Little More Time - Chairmen Of The Board.

4. The Wonder Of You - Elvis Presley.

5. Mama Told Me Not To Come - Three Dog Night.

6. Love Is Life - Hot Chocolate.

7. Make It With You - Bread.

8. You Can Get It If You Really Want It - Desmond Dekker.

9. Wild World - Jimmy Cliff.

10.Which Way You Goin' Billy? - The Poppy Family.

Couple of classic tracks here - the top two - and Elvis with one of my least favourite of his just falling after five weeks in the top slot. Very little else that has stood the test of time but I'm sure there are some of your favourites here.

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