CARESCO History - Theme Two - Every Community Has... THEME TWO- EVERY COMMUNITY HAS............ ........Building on what is there already:- No community development can ever "begin at the beginning." Sawtry and its surrounding villages are unique because of their history - and CARESCO germinated and flourished because of the fen soil in which it grew. In Roman times, Sawtry was a staging post on the Great North Road, distinguished by the Docks where salt, brought by barge along the dykes from the east coast, was trans-shipped by land for its further journey as the land rose at last above sea level. The traffic speeds past faster nowadays on the A1 motorway between Huntingdon and Peterborough - (10 miles north and south,) marking the limit of the fertile fenland fields. Within the past forty years Sawtry has grown fivefold, from a farming community of 900 to a commuter dormitory of 5,000. Much of the population is transitory: young families often move in for cheap housing, bring the grandparents to be near them - and then move on for promotion. There is a great deal of loneliness, even though the Parish Council tries to welcome newcomers in various ways. Surprisingly, the criteria for designation as a "Rural Development Area", (which brings much Government help through the Rural Community Council,) do not include Sawtry in spite of the effect its rapid growth has had on the surrounding countryside, and the recognition that parts of the school catchment area suffer from "deprivation". Rapid expansion will always destabilise a community, and the only answer is to consciously build on what is there already, finding people of vision, and institutions which have the capacity to change themselves and bring about change in others. So the story of CARESCO begins by looking at the institutions in Sawtry which every community has, and how these played a part in its development. Every Community has .................................A SCHOOL Sawtry is fortunate that its secondary School was founded as a Village College. In the 1920s Henry Morris, Chief Education Officer for Cambridgeshire, launched the concept of Village Colleges. The idea was born of necessity in hard times in order to bring to rural areas some match for the facilities available to townsfolk. Morris realised that it was - 1 - CARESCO History - Theme Two - Every Community Has... only by pooling the provisions for schools, for youth, and for adults that you could achieve this end. Seeing the local school as a centre, not just for the school children, but for all ages and all interests such as health, welfare, recreation and a library, he achieved far more than just an economical Centre. The social benefits of juxtaposition of all ages and all needs far outweighed any possible organisational snags. It didn't always work. As CARESCO found later, it was not always easy to persuade county institutions to trust one another, or to throw in their lot for the common good. But such was the success of the concept, (when properly adopted,) that the Village College became a model for Community Schools worldwide. In 1963 Huntingdonshire Education Committee chose Sawtry as the site of its own Village College. Community Schools were making a name for Cambridgeshire, next door, and Huntingdonshire felt the need to have one too. The All-Age school now became the Infant and Junior School, while a purpose-built Senior School for 11 to 16 year-olds was placed in the centre of the village with playing fields between the two. At first it was a "Secondary Modern", and academically bright children had to travel to the Grammar Schools in Peterborough or Huntingdon. Even so, the school set high standards, and some pupils chose to stay on after taking O-Levels to study further. In 1970 Sawtry Village College became "Comprehensive", but unlike the new Comprehensive schools in the neighbouring towns, it was not allowed a Sixth Form, so pupils who wished to take A-Level examinations had to go elsewhere, and many of their parents chose, therefore, not to let them start at Sawtry. Those who went to the Village College, however, had creditable O-Level results and more than held their own in the Sixth Forms where they completed their school careers. In 1993 the school became Grant Maintained, largely in order to have the freedom to start its own Sixth Form. In 1997 this numbers xxx (out of a school of 860.) The pressures of the National Curriculum, and the changing role of the newly designated "Community College" are examined more fully in Theme Four. But from the start the new Village College had rooms set aside for the whole community, and a Tutor to help everyone make the best use of "their" school. There was a thriving Youth Club in a purpose-built Centre. During the day those rooms were used for Nursery School and ante-natal classes. The Young Farmers panelled the walls of the Adult Common Room, earning the right of priority booking. Dances, pantomimes, wine tastings and even wedding receptions were held in the Hall. A Community Association was formed to regulate the use of the premises, and sort out the inevitable clashes. At one Football Club Dance, the revellers became a little rowdy. The Chairman of the Club (the village policeman,) was summoned before the Chairman of the Community Association, (the local publican,) and made to promise better behaviour in future! Huntingdon County and the Rural District Council offered money for an open air swimming pool. The Schools and the Community decided that they wanted the opportunity to swim all year round in a covered pool, so the whole village turned to, raised the extra money for the work they couldn't do themselves, incorporated the small pool to which the Junior school was entitled, and within a year had this and a 20 metre pool with deep end and diving completed - 2 - CARESCO History - Theme Two - Every Community Has... and in use. All the Junior Schools in the Catchment Area had lessons in the Pool, with the result that every child coming into the Village College at eleven could swim. Public swimming sessions were run, with voluntary supervisers and paid lifesavers. Most of the supervisers were parents, whose own children would benefit from the swimming sessions, but they also had an intimate knowledge of the other children, both goodies and baddies, and of the talents of those children's parents, (who might also be persuaded to come and help.) Outside the pool was a plaque saying:- THIS POOL HAS BEEN MADE POSSIBLE THROUGH THE GENEROSITY OF THE COUNTY COUNCIL, THE RURAL DISTRICT COUNCILS OF HUNTINGDON AND NORMAN CROSS, THE PARENT TEACHERS' ASSOCIATION AND MANY INDIVIDUALS. THE WHOLE OF THE CONSTRUCTION AND INSTALLATION, APART FROM THE CONCRETE SHELL OF THE MAIN POOL, HAS BEEN THE WORK OF LOCAL PEOPLE OF ALL AGES WHO HAVE GIVEN GENEROUSLY OF THEIR TIME AND SKILL. WITHOUT THEIR HELP, THIS POOL WOULD STILL BE ONLY A DREAM. In the 1970s the Occupational Therapist from the Social Services set up a Day Centre for frail elderly people, using the Adult Common Room on Wednesdays and getting a midday meal from the school kitchen. Over twenty housebound men and women from villages in the school catchment area were given a day out; they were encouraged to do some craft work; their grandchildren could call in and see them at Lunch Break; the GPs, nurses and physiotherapists could combine visits to several people at once and, most importantly, the regular carers had some time to themselves. Ken Wilson, the Social Worker who ran the Day Centre, had help from a team of volunteers. An Agricultural Education Centre stood between the Village College and the Junior School, providing training in welding, tractor maintenance, accountancy and other skills useful to the men and women on the surrounding farms. Part of this was a Homecraft Centre where Joy Robinson, a "Rural Domestic Economist" ran classes in cookery, dressmaking, and upholstery. One of her classes turned into a "do-it-yourself" luncheon club, designed for pensioners and young mums wanting to cook on a budget (and also for widowers whose wives had never let them get near the kitchen!) Every Community has...........................A PARISH COUNCIL Sawtry's fifteen Councillors take seriously their responsibility to respond to the need for facilities in a fast expanding township and to seek cooperation from the residents in planning to provide them. Since 1977 a printed Annual Report has provided the Agenda for the Annual Parish Meeting and the Parish Council has exercised to the full its right to comment on planning applications before the District Council determined them. Open spaces were negotiated in the middle of tightly-packed housing estates. First an adventure playground and then a toddlers' play area were built on land beside the schools. Urged by its Chairman, - 3 - CARESCO History - Theme Two - Every Community Has... George Chaney, (formerly the Community Tutor at the Village College, with a background of community work in developing African countries,) the Council raised money to buy a field which had been turned down for housing, and develop it as allotments and a play area for older children (and adults.) A "Welcome Pack" was prepared for newcomers to the village and distributed by a network of neighbours. When a new Junior School was built, the Council bought the Victorian school building to provide extra meeting rooms for the community as well as its own offices. SAWTRY's EMERGENCY PLAN. In 1980 the country feared the devastation which might ensue if nuclear weapons were used in any European war. Cambridgeshire, like other counties, drew up a Home Defence Plan "to increase the prospects of - and to direct - national survival." They ran a Community Advisers' course, to which Sawtry sent six representatives. They, in turn, reported back on the IMPLICATIONS FOR SAWTRY PARISH COUNCIL Take DEFEATIST attitude OR: COMPLACENT No point in any action. Presume Assumptions rubbish and wait for re-examination. OR: ACTIVE Prepare a Sawtry Nuclear Emergency Plan. A Committee was established at the September Council Meeting, and later in the meeting, noting the proposed siting of Cruise Missiles at the nearby airbase at Molesworth, a motion was carried 8:2 ... "That this Council urges the Government to seek ways of improving the security of the world other than through an arms race. We urge that understanding between nations be given a higher priority than increase of arms." The Chief Executive of the Huntingdon District Council, Neville Godfrey, came to a meeting to outline the District's preparations. He congratulated Sawtry on being the first Parish to invite him, and urged them to "continue to keep their preparations low-key, at parish level." Very soon the Committee changed its name to the MAJOR EMERGENCY COMMITTEE, feeling that "it needed to plan for dealing with ANY major crisis which could affect the village, whether it was flood, plane crash, or chemical spillage on the A1 trunk road, as well as war....Soon both Cambridgeshire and the Government agreed with this policy and included such emergencies within their Emergency Planning briefs." Sawtry Parish Council Annual Report - 1984/5 By summer 1984 a crew from Anglia Television came to Sawtry to film some of our activities as part of a documentary on the Cambridgeshire Emergency Plan. Training sessions on Emergency Feeding - by the WRVS, and Emergency First Aid - by the St. John Ambulance Brigade, featured, as well as a "Committee Meeting." The Interviewer said afterwards that "the whole idea of Emergency Planning had seemed a nonsense to him until he saw the practical approach Sawtry had at the grass-roots." - 4 - CARESCO History - Theme Two - Every Community Has... THE PARISH HEALTH COMMITTEE. Ultimately, following through their practical concern for the welfare of Parishioners, the Parish Council set up, first, a WELFARE COMMITTEE which became CARESCO, (see p ) and later, a Health Committee, whose primary purpose was to liaise with the local Doctors. (See p ) Every Community has......................CHURCHES. Sawtry is fortunate (unlike many rural parishes,) to have its own Rector, and the Methodist and Roman Catholic congregations join in a close ecumenical group holding many joint services. In 1981, shortly before CARESCO was formed, the Parish Church had held a Stewardship campaign, inviting people in the village to offer time and talents, as well as money, to enrich their community. As this was about the time of the "Year of the Disabled" one of the initiatives to come from it was a Voluntary Car Scheme, enabling people who would otherwise be housebound to go to church, to go shopping, visit friends, attend appointments at surgery or hospital, contributing the equivalent of a bus fare to the expenses of the volunteer drivers. It is a measure of the novelty of the idea which became CARESCO, that when we went to the Church Council to ask for support in running the Day Centre and Lunch Club, they hesitated to burden themselves with what they thought would be an additional fund-raising task, not realising that it was really Time and Talents (and publicity) that we were asking for. Every Community has...................A DOCTOR'S SURGERY. Well...almost every community.......Sawtry was fortunate in that Dr. Hackman and her partners, following Dr. Paterson's vision of a Health Centre for the village, had obtained land and built a new, more spacious, surgery in the late seventies. (The Parish Council gave a set of children's chairs and a table for toys to go in the waiting room.) Social and health workers could use an office there, and it was they who valued the opportunity the Day Centre gave them on a Wednesday to find several of their clients together in one place. The Peterborough Health Authority, which included Sawtry until reorganisation created the Huntingdon Health Authority, had developed a pioneer scheme aimed at shifting the balance of care from hospital to home. - The PETERBOROUGH HOSPITAL AT HOME initiative is a project designed to meet the demand for intensive home health care, and provides a sympathetic professional and caring approach taking account of the needs of both the patent and the carer. A community district nurse visits patients twice every twenty four hours to provide treatment and monitor the patient's condition. Additional nursing care is provided if required. The service is given to anyone (except those needing midwifery or psychiatric care,) whose GP and district nurse will accept medical and nursing responsibility for them. The spouse and relatives who act as carers are consulted first and no attempt is made to provide a Hospital at Home service without the - 5 - CARESCO History - Theme Two - Every Community Has... agreement of both patient and carer. Over the year the initiative has been extended to encompass patients with a variety of needs, who would otherwise have been nursed in hospital. Relatives living with or near patients have played an important role in helping with daily living. One carer in six said this created a problem for them; one in two said that their social lives were restricted - the great majority reported they were glad to have their relatives at home earlier and were pleased to have been involved in their care. The range of health services users who might well benefit from intensive domiciliary nursing and professional support at home includes: elderly people with respiratory or urinary tract infections or cardiac failure; people recovering from strokes; people with HIV; children and adults with muscular dystrophy or cystic fibrosis; people with mental health problems; people recovering from hip replacements; terminally ill patients. Hamilton - King's Fund Centre's Care Link - Winter 1989. Doctor Hackman and her colleagues saw the benefits of Hospital at Home for some of their patients and were prepared to undertake the responsibility involved, but it was some years before Huntingdon Health Authority was able to devise its own version of the scheme. Meanwhile members of CARESCO, who felt that a service had been taken away from the community, actively lobbied for its restoration through the Community Health Council. The eighties were a time of great stress and change for the whole Health Service, and it was not perhaps surprising that professional workers feeling under threat, questioned the competence and reliability of CARESCO's volunteers. The situation is very different now, but it has taken 14 years of patience and tact in joint working on both sides to achieve this. Meanwhile many GPs have set up Patient Participation Groups. Some of us in CARESCO have always felt that our practical, cooperative projects form a better foundation for positive participation than a group which might burden the GPs themselves with the task of organising its meetings. Every Community has..........................OTHER CARING GROUPS. In the context of the social and sporting groups of the village there was already much "caring" going on. The ladies who catered for the Cricket and Football teams provided a magnificent Feast Supper for the Senior Citizens of the village in the first week of June each year. For many years a team of WRVS volunteers had taken round Meals on Wheels in Hot-Locks brought out from the WRVS kitchen in Huntingdon, not only to Sawtry residents but to surrounding villages. Many of the same volunteers had established two Senior Citizens' Clubs - the Threescore Club, meeting monthly in the Women's Institute Hall, and the Mellors' Court Club, meeting fortnightly in the Common Room of the District Council Warden- controlled Accomodation. The Warden also welcomed members from outside, who kept the residents in touch with the wider community. As already mentioned, in the Year of the Disabled a "Care and Share Car Scheme" had been set up. A volunteer Coordinator received requests from people who would not otherwise have been able to get to the shops or visit friends, and matched them with a panel of volunteer drivers. - 6 - CARESCO History - Theme Two - Every Community Has... THREATENED LOSS...... As so often, however, the next step forward was triggered by the prospect of losing institutions which had been provided by statutory bodies. The pages that follow will say more about the two original projects and how the patchwork that is now CARESCO grew from them. - 7 -