LETTERS – No different 300 years later

Many people will have heard of Daniel Defoe – he wrote “Robinson Crusoe” and lived between 1660 and 1731.

He travelled widely and kept diaries of his travels. His description of Holland, the Fens, and Spalding is quite apt, as it is now some 300 years later not very different.

Spalding is a dirty, smelly, rubbish infested dump of detritus! Spalding does not have a Parish or Town Council, only South Holland District Council, who with their wider remit from Sutton Bridge to Market Deeping, apparently do not have the time or interest to keep their capital city of Spalding in a decent state of cleanliness.

Holland Road Car Park

Daniel Defoe wrote: “This part is indeed very properly call’d Holland, for ’tis a flat, level, and often drowned country, like Holland itself; here the very ditches are navigable, and the people pass from town to town in boats, as in Holland: Here we had the uncouth musick of the bittern, a bird formerly counted ominous and presaging, and who, as fame tells us, (but as I believe no body knows) thrusts its bill into a reed, and then gives the dull, heavy groan or sound, like a sigh, which it does so loud, that with a deep base, like the sound of a gun at a great distance, ’tis heard two or three miles, (say the people) but perhaps not quite so far.

“From Boston we came on through the fen country to Spalding, which is another sea port in the level, but standing far within the land on the River Welland. Here was nothing very remarkable to be seen as to antiquity, but the ruins of an old famous monastery, of which the Monasticon gives a particular description.

“There is a bridge over the Welland, and vessels of about fifty or sixty ton may come up to the town, and that is sufficient for the trade of Spalding, which is chiefly in corn and coal.

“The town of Spalding is not large, but pretty well built and well inhabited; but for the healthiness or pleasantness of it, I have no more to say than this, that I was very glad when I got out of it, and out of the rest of the fen country; for ’tis a horrid air for a stranger to breathe in.”

My wife and I went for a walk into Spalding Town this morning, and were disgusted to find so much rubbish, black sacks, green sacks, beer cans, vodka bottles, uncollected rubbish, and unswept leaves blocking most of the drains around the streets.

We departed from Green Lane, along Priory Road, up the Crescent (looked at Abbey Passage), noted the detritus next to the derelict Post Office building, and back home, where in Green Lane, there are now some 12 empty Vodka bottles, numerous beer cans (all of foreign origin) and various other items of detritus.

I cleaned up Green Lane a couple of weeks ago – and it is back to normal – a s**t heap!
SHDC – please tell me when I can expect some action?

Paul Matten
Green Lane
Spalding