where art collides philosoperontap

September 8, 2013

Lincoln A2Z F15 Swanholme Lakes SirenFM sirenonline

Filed under: A 2 Z — Trefor Davies @ 7:44 pm

I been to Swanholme. More accurately I been to the Swanholme pub which isn’t in scope in this post. F15 is at the South end of Hartsholme Park which is a good place to take the kids for a run out on a Sunday afternoon.

Never been all the way round the park because it’s quite a long way round so the only view I’ve actually had of Swanholme Lakes is from the pub and the pub car park.

It’s quite a nice facility for the locals. Nice bit of nature. We are quite lucky in Lincoln with our bits of nature. After all we don’t have to go very far until we are in the countryside. Unless that is you happen to be travelling down Tritton Road in which case it’s mostly built up for a few miles.

Swanholme Lakes lie between the great artery that is Tritton Road and the sleepy commuter suburb of Doddington Park. Looked at buying a house in Doddo Park once but we ended up not doing so. We wanted to live in walking distance of Uphill Lincoln. More accurately within walking distance of the Bull and Chain, Morning Star, The Victoria, The Strugglers, oh and the shops of course.

We can always drive out to Swanholme if we want. We don’t. The kids are a lot older now and family life has moved on.

If you’re looking for birds Swanholme is the place to be. Splash. Splish. Splash.

Lincoln A2Z R14 – Canwick Pits

Filed under: A 2 Z — Tags: , , , , — Trefor Davies @ 7:04 pm

What do you think of when you hear the words Canwick Pits? Crap innit? Canwick, it’s the pits. It’s not really. The pits are a quarry where much of the stone used in walls around the very ancient village of Canwick was sourced.

Lots of history to Can wick. That’s the cool way to pronounce it by the way. Can – wick – two separate words. The first people to roam Canwick were hunters and gatherers in the Mesolithic period approximately 8500-5300BC. The first settlers arrived in the Neolithic period, approximately between 4500 – 7000 years ago, and then a more structured settlement came here in the Bronze Age, with a Barrow cemetery near the river Witham. I got that historical bit from the internet. Google it. It’s not my own original work. Plagiarised though not in a bad way. I’ve added value to the original copy.

I’m not going to go into any more detail either. There is a lot to read. It’s been around a long time and that is all we need to know for the purpose of this discourse.

I’ve not actually visited the pits at Canwick. Not even sure you can, though it might be one of those “former” quarries where people can walk the dog or ride mountain bikes or just go for a bit of a walk. Usually there is a lot of interesting wildlife to observe – fauna and flora. I’m thinking rabbits and butterflies with the occasional bird flitting by. Then a few flowers in the long grass.

Possibly it is a place where lovers go. Somewhere for a discrete cuddle away from the prying eyes of nosy villagers, curtain twitchers and tongue reporters. Telephone calls made expressly for the purpose of spreading the news. The same people see their husbands out on the drive on a Sunday morning, polishing the car, nipping down to the newsagent for a copy of the Mail on Sunday, maybe.

Gah. I get my stone from B&Q. That isn’t really true. I don’t buy stone. I got a barbecue from there recently but now I’m straying off the subject.

R14 – Canwick Pits. You know it makes sense.

K19 – Witham/Bracebridge Low fields

Filed under: A 2 Z — Trefor Davies @ 6:22 pm

In K19 the River Witham should not be confused with the North Hykeham Pump Drain which whilst being also filled with water is not the same. The Witham is of course a natural feature of the landscape whilst the drain is not.

The Witham will quite probably contain fish though not to my knowledge, salmon. The drain may also contain fish but it is less likely to do so than the river. In any event you should take care when out walking with small children that the youngsters keep well away from the edge of the water. It can be very dangerous especially after a period of heavy rainfall. The banks can get slippery.

I mentioned salmon because I quite like salmon sandwiches. Either smoked or poached with a bit of cuke and mayonnaise. Brown bread not white and butter not margarine. You should eat a variety of sandwich fillings in order to provide a varied diet. Just salmon every day would get a bit boring and you might find yourself short of a specific vitamin. This is guesswork.

I am somewhat digressing here. Artistic license. I did look online to see what information I could find about the drain. I was hoping to find the date where it was cut/invented (delete as appropriate). I couldn’t. At least on the first two pages of Google and I wasn’t desperate enough for the information to look any further.

So that’s it. Not a particularly enlightening article but it’s all you’re getting. Ciao.

July 20, 2013

Lincoln A2Z – C19 Hykeham Sailing Club

Filed under: A 2 Z — Tags: , , , — Trefor Davies @ 12:44 pm

A life on the ocean wave.

Land Ho

Riding along on the crest of a wave

Splice the mainbrace

Shiver me timbers

In search of the North West Passage

The sun is over the yardarm

Bermuda triangle

Doldrums

Narwhal

The white hot sun beat down on the water, its glare blinding the weekenders that had turned out for a sail. There was not a breath of air and the sails on the small boats struggled to fill, the occasional lifeless flap offering little grounds for optimism.

They sat at the edge of the water waiting. Occasionally someone would get a cold drink out of the picnic bag. It wasn’t a bad way to spend the afternoon. Although there was no sailing it was too hot to do anything else and dangling your legs in the water was a good way of cooling off.

As the heat of the day died away the barbecue lit itself and the beers came out.

July 7, 2013

Db5 Pelham Bridge

Filed under: A 2 Z — Tags: , , — Trefor Davies @ 10:13 am

You can bet yer booties that Pelham Bridge made a massive difference to traffic flow in down town Lincoln. It’s bad enough these days with the railway crossings that we have but without Pelham Bridge there would be even more.

Pelham Bridge was opened by the Queen in June 1958. It was chucking it down – typical British Summer weather. In those days it would have been horse and cart, or maybe the Model T Ford. Had cars even been invented? I dunno.

Anyway Pelham Bridge was built to provide a useful viewing point for train spotters wanting to watch the steam trains at Lincoln Central Station. Trainspotting was a perfectly acceptable hobby in those days and was something to be encouraged. Nowadays trains all look the same and have no romance. Anyone interested in trainspotting needs their head examining. Probably other parts of the body too.

In 1958 Pelham Bridge was the first of a series of planned constructions designed to alleviate the traffic in Lincoln. The others are still waiting to happen though we do now have the bridge at the far end of the Brayford which is very handy. It was built for people to have a good viewing point for looking down at the boats and to make it easier to get to the Hub pub on the other side of the water.

There isn’t much attractive about Pelham Bridge. It’s a bit of a concrete jobbie and can get very windswept when you walk over it which doesn’t happen very often. I’ve seen people do it though. On their way home from Sincil Bank maybe. I’d be inclined to cross using the pedestrian bridge nearer the Railway Station. It’s more direct.

I wonder how many bridges the Queen has opened since then. Loads. She specialises in that kind of stuff. Means she can reuse her speech. Just changes the word bridge to school, hospital or other civil engineering project.

Sometimes she delegates smaller openings to Phil the Greek but when she did Pelham she was still fresh on the throne and was doing most of them herself. I wonder if she remembers doing Pelham Bridge. It was a long time ago now. It was opened in 1958 and it was raining.

K13 Sir Francis Hill Primary School named after Lincoln historian

Filed under: A 2 Z — Tags: , , — Trefor Davies @ 9:36 am

When you drive south along Tritton Road and you get to the Chieftain Way trading estate there is a school on your left. It’s one of those things you notice but don’t give any though to.

Well you should. Not specifically because of the school but because that school is named after one of Lincoln’s most famous historians, Sir Francis Hill.

Wikipedia tells us that Sir James William Francis Hill CBE (1899–1980) was a British solicitor and leading historian of Lincoln and Lincolnshire. He was the third Chancellor of the University of Nottingham. He also served as a Councillor, Alderman and Mayor of Lincoln.

I am somewhat saddened that there is very little information about him on tinterweb. There will I’m sure be something archived in Lincoln but he predated the internet. Sir Francis wrote three books on the history of Medieval, Georgian and Victorian Lincoln which if you like that sort of thing, which I do, are definitely worth a read. Worth buying even I’d say.

I refer to him very formally as Sir Francis but I did find a reference to him on google books where he was called Frank Hill and discussing the fact that he started writing the Medieval book in the 1920s which is interesting. I assume that his friends called him Frank. I don’t imagine his wife calling him Sir Francis do you?

I’m going to stick with Sir Francis out of deference.

As far as the rest of K13 goes there isn’t much to say. It touches a couple of trading estates and part of Tritton Road runs through it as I have already said…

July 6, 2013

Lincoln A2Z G8 – Fossdyke

Filed under: A 2 Z — Trefor Davies @ 8:39 am

When the weather is fine you’ll be spending your time just messing about on the river. As the song goes. The Fossdyke isn’t an actual river but hey. Who cares. It is water and if it is a sunny day it is nice to mess about on it.

Most of don’t have that luxury of course for to mess about on the water you have to have a boat. Still like the idea though. I wonder if there is a rush on boats when the weather is fine in the same was as when it snows the shops soon sell out of sledges (bit of poetry for you there).

I suspect not because you can get a sledge for a few quid but a boat is going to cost you quite a bit more, depending on how big you want it to be. The choice of boat size is very important because if you have a lot of people wanting to come on board and the boat isn’t big enough then it could sink.

I realise that this is a very obvious piece of advice but to stray off the path of political correctness for now fleeting moment there are some people out there who need instructions like this to be written in very large font and shoved in front of their face. I’d even go one step further and ask them to sign that they have red and understood the instructions. You’d need a lot of space for the signatures because there would be a lot of them.

Anyway I digress. Boat size, as I say, is important. Especially when the weather is fine because all your friends and neighbours will just happen to call round and slip into the conversation the fact that it’s a lovely day to be out on the water isn’t it? They expect to be invited. That is why you should buy a bigger boat than you think you need. Unless you aren’t particularly sociable or don’t like your neighbours in which case you could just tell them to stuff it.

You do get a lot of boats pootling along the Fossdyke. A walk along the bank, just past the golf course can be very pleasant. Don’t be shy, give it a try.

May 11, 2013

Lincoln A2Z L5 Ermine West

Filed under: A 2 Z — Tags: , — Trefor Davies @ 10:56 am

You can get lost in Ermine West without too much difficulty. Actually that is not true.  I once took a wrong turning there and ended up nowhere. It was a mistake easily rectified and nothing was really lost other than a minute of my time spent retracing my steps, or wheel rotations as it happened to be. The steps or wheel rotations rewound I took a different turn and meandered my way from Riseholme Road to the Road of Burton whereupon I continued to the shops and the execution my errand which was so trivial I now struggle to remember its nature. There is nothing further of note to report.

May 6, 2013

Lincoln A2Z P17 Bracebridge Heath

Filed under: A 2 Z — Tags: , , — Trefor Davies @ 1:10 pm

Hi Y’all. Randy’s the name. I’m from Alabama. Doin the United Kingdom to discover ma roots. I’m jest here fra long weekend so gotta cram as much in as a caine. Ma great great granddaddy was from Brace bridge Heath so soon as I got off the plane in London I jumped in a cab and came straight up. Caint be that far I thought. Well let me tell you your English taxi drivers charge a mint. Cost me a few hundred of your British Pounds but I’m here now I guess. Stayin at The White Hart Hotel.

I asked the girl behind the desk the way to Brace bridge and she very kindly gave me a map. Best way is to jump in a cab she said. I said after my first experience with cabs in your country I ain’t taking another one so I said I’ll walk. Caint be that far. Never walked anywhere before but my mind was made up.

It sure was jest a little bit further than I bargained for but ah got there in the end. Up Can wick Hill and then hang a right until I got to Can wick avey new. When I got there it was nearly midday and I was getting jest a little bit peckish. Ok mighty peckish if I’m goin to be totally truthfull. I got the the end of Can wick avey new and what did a see but a Homestead. A good ole ornery homestead jest like they used to have in Alabama. What’s more that Homestead did good plain Amurucain food. Steaks, burgers, BBQ chicken. Why it sure as heck reminded me of home and ma granny’s cookin.

If I had to pick a fault it would only be that there were no grits on the menu. I asked the waitress and she looked at me as if I was from another planet so I didn’t push the issue. I would also have been nice to have unlimited refills because the glass my coke came in was pretty small but I figured after the grits incident I’d better hold ma tongue.

After lunch I spent a wonderful 15 minutes walking around. I found that the place used to be a mental hospital. Maybe ma great great granddaddy was a doctor? Weel I finished Brace bridge Heath and headed back to the Homestead to ask them to call me a cab, I done enough walking for another year.

I’m home now, Back in Birmingham, Alabamy that is. The hotel told me to catch a train. I guess after seeing Brace bridge I didn’t have much time for anywhere else. I spent the rest of the trip resting in my room and in the hotel restaurant. I guess some day I’ll have to come back and see your Cathedral and Castle.

Have a nice day y’all.

Randy.

May 5, 2013

Lincoln A2Z W18 Branston Old Hall

Filed under: A 2 Z — Tags: , , , , , — Trefor Davies @ 9:23 am

I have to be honest with you I know absolutely nothing about Branston Old Hall. Nowt, niet, dim byd o gwbl – that last bit was in Welsh in case you are wondering. I wouldn’t want you to think that Welsh was ever natively spoken in the area because I’m not sure it ever was. However I am Welsh and there has clearly been some population movement from the West of the British Isles into the general Lincoln area at some point in history.

One might ask what therefore qualifies me to write a piece for Lincoln AtoZ on the subject. Well here’s the rub. They didn’t say I ever had to have been there though something in the deepest recesses of my memory banks tells me I might have been there for a wedding once but how do you expect me to remember the details. It was a wedding for goodness sake. They all pretty much fade into one and it has been some considerable time since I actually went to one.

Apart from my own wedding the one I do specifically remember was that of Ian and Michelle Reid. The do was somewhere between Lincoln and Scunthorpe – we got there on a coach. The reason I specifically remember it was because our table was supposed to have eight people but only four made it to the “breakfast”. One couple that to leave with their little boy because she went into labour in the church and another person had to bow out because she had the flu.

So there we were on a table for eight but with only four people present. We all had two bread rolls, two starters, two glasses of champagne, two puddings and best of all, knowing their friends well, the bride and groom had very generously laid on six bottles of wine for the table. It was made even better by the fact that one of the people on our table was driving!!! What a night. I’m surprised I remember it at all.

Anyway that wasn’t Branston Old Hall. A cursory glance using Google tells me Branston Old Hall was built in 1735 by Lord Vere Bertie. Sounds like a character from a Jeeves novel doesn’t he? After the Enclosure Act of 1765 he was the largest landowner in the area. His land stretched as far as the River Witham. That’s all you’re getting because frankly I’m not interested in doing any more research on this subject. Google it if you want. It’s easy enough.

Arrivederchi (lots of Italians around here innit? – population movement and all that)

April 28, 2013

Lincoln A2Z P2 Riseholme Park

Filed under: A 2 Z — Tags: , , , — Trefor Davies @ 5:11 pm

P2 is an interesting plot to cover. I was going to write about the fact that the Lincoln RFC junior rugby section trained there before the end of the cricket season made more of the Lindum ground available.

However in checking to see whether the rugby pitches were actually in P2 I came across far more interesting things to talk about.

First of all the A2Z map suggests that the park ends at Riseholme Lane. A look at Google maps in satellite view shows a long avenue of trees that cross the lane and beyond into territory not marked as Riseholme Park.

Clearly there was a time, when the park was laid out, when the grounds were more extensive than today. A quick Google reveals the following:

Riseholme Hall was built in the middle of the 18th century by the Chaplin family. Formal tree planting and the lake were already in place by 1779, but by the early-19th century the south park had become more informal. In 1840 the estate was sold to the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, to become the Palace for the Bishop of Lincoln. The hall and park were re-modelled and a new church was built.

The Bishopric (I assume there was more than one Bish in the time) was clearly still a powerful entity in Victorian times for the Bish to have such a large pad. Worra life.

The estate was sold in 1887. It was later bought by the County Council in 1945. In 1949, the Lindsey Farm Institute was opened. 1

Today the park forms the site of the Agricultural College of the University of Lincoln as well as hosting an Inland Revenue Training Centre.

Balls are sometimes held at the Hall. I once went as a guest to someone’s school bash but I have to say it was a dull affair. To save costs the entertainment was a jazz band put together by some parents and they weren’t particularly good! A second school ball but for a different school redeemed the place and on the hot summer’s evening we were able to enjoy the views of the park out across the lake.

That’s all for now. Tune in again for another Lincoln A2Z by Philosopherontap.

1 source http://www.parksandgardens.org/places-and-people/site/2812?preview=1

April 27, 2013

Lincoln A2Z S12 sewage works

Filed under: A 2 Z — Tags: , , , , — Trefor Davies @ 4:32 pm

What is there to say about a sewage works? Not much. Horrible smelly places I imagine though I’m not speaking with any authority. Mine is merely a biased view built on ignorance and a willingness to make judgement without any real evidence.

I haven’t even been to this sewage works though I have driven past. It’s not the sort of place you stop at to take a closer look. A necessary evil and not something to dwell upon. Yuk.

After all we all know what sort of stuff gets processed at these places. I’m not going to elaborate. Your imagination is already running into overdrive though if I were you I’d move on mentally as I did in the car.

People must work at these places. Hey, a job’s a job. I wonder whether they leave the house in a suit in the morning, kissing their wives who hand them a briefcase containing their packed lunch. When they get to the office, the sewage treatment plant, they change into a boiler suit with helmet and rubber gloves. They don’t tell the wife. Probably say they work for the council or at a solicitors’. After all what girl would want to be at a coffee morning with her pals and chat about what hubby was going to be doing today when hubby was cleaning gooey blockages from the feeder pipes.

At night on the way home they do the same in reverse. Probably make up some story about someone at the office. “Old Reg he’s a real card you know”. Funny how they never have a Christmas do with wives invited at this solicitors. Every other solicitors’ does. What was the name of the firm again?

I once went on a sewer tour in London. Wouldn’t want to do it again. I was wearing double rubber protection all over. When climbing down the ladder to the sewer my nose developed an itch and I scratched it with my gloved hand. At that moment I realised what I had done. The ladder was wet with sewer “water”. Nightmare.

It would not be fair of me to leave S12 without finding something nice to say about the plot. After all sewage works do perform a useful public service and the circles that appear on the map are actually quite artistic. That’s it though.

S12, sewage works, yuk.

Lincoln A2Z Bb2 The Joiners Arms

Filed under: A 2 Z — Tags: , , , — Trefor Davies @ 3:07 pm

I’ve only ever been to the Joiners Arms the once but that was only a couple of weeks ago and you can be sure that I’ll be going again. I was late home on a Friday night having been to Derbyshire to drop the kids off on their Duke of Edinburgh Silver Award expedition. It’s not my idea of a good time, driving to Derbyshire and back on a Friday evening!

I didn’t get to the pub until 8.45. That’s unusual for me on a Friday night. I normally like to get a few in early doors and then get home for dinner with Anne at a sensible time. On this occasion it was too late for dinner so I called the boys to see if they were still around. They were, at the Joiners Arms.

The Joiners Arms is on Victoria Street, near the copshop on West Parade in Lincoln. You will have probably seen the Burton Arms without noticing the Joiners Arms further up the street on the left.

I’ve got to tell you it’s a gem. When I got there the boys were playing killer on the pool table. Miss three pots and you’re out. Pound in winner takes all. They had been drinking since five o’clock so the party was in full swing by the time I got there. I had half an hour before picking up my takeaway from the Newport Arms Chinese Restaurant up the hill so I nursed a pint but still had a good chat.

The thing about the Joiners Arms is that it is a simple proper pub. No pretensions. There is a wide selection of real ales behind the bar at very reasonable prices. There was no juke box, just a CD player which people used to play their CDs of choice.

The game of killer eventually finished, someone loudly took his winnings and the boys began to move on to the Tap And Spile down the road. I set off for my takeaway and home. The Joiners Arms deserves success. I shall return.

February 27, 2013

Lincoln A to Z D13 Birchwood

Filed under: A 2 Z — Tags: , , , — Trefor Davies @ 6:16 pm

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.

February 23, 2013

Lincoln A to Z Q12 St Swithens Cemetery and Canwick Park Golf Course

Filed under: A 2 Z — Tags: , , , , , , , — Trefor Davies @ 11:15 am

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

« Newer Posts — Older Posts »

Powered by WordPress