How can we put Spalding 'on the map'?
We can safely say that Spalding, the Deepings, Holbeach, Whaplode and Moulton, are on the map. You just have to look at any selected 'Map of the World' and go to map cordinates 7D3, and there you are. Its even easier online, just type it in and you're there on spaldingtoday.co.uk and know that there is a town where things happen, stuff goes on, the place exists.
There's only one catch though. If you're not from the area, those place names above probably sound like something from a book of horror fiction. Or if you're from the U.S and your first search result for 'Spalding' actually took you to the website of a Company the Makes the Basketballs.all the way onto the other side of the North Atlantic ocean.
Like me, I think all those from Spalding who like the town to be recognised for what it is were in jubilation when it was announced that the annual Spalding Flower Parade would be going on past its 50th anniverary. Its great to have something that gets the area recognised, that pulls the community together and that we can showcase to the world.
Two and a half years ago I left Spalding for good. Or so I thought. I was moving to the big city of London, the capital city of the country, the biggest and best city in the world. I ammassed photo albums entitled, 'Last times in Spalding', and thought back on my lifelong affiliation with the town, the schools I went to, the church choir I sang in, the football team I played for, the generations of my family that had lived there before me. That was it. I had left and noone I knew would ever hear of the place ever again.
I was aware of Spalding and where it was in location to the world. When I was 5 years old and bored I used to write my address followed by, 'Spalding, Lincolnshire, England, the United Kingdom, Europe, The World, The Universe.' But even through my summer holidays going around France and once as far as Florida, I never really put it into my mind where Spalding was on the map but crucially neither did other people.
So when I arrived at Queen Mary, University of London in the east end of London nothing could have been more different. The diverse make up of the population and the different culturesin the area hit me.
And as I am now in my final year it has all flown by. And I've made many journies on the train to Peterborough, then changing to get the 'bone-shaker' train back to return to Spalding and became more and more interested in how many people in London had heard of Spalding, especially after working in a pub on Goodge Street, W1 and trying to run my own unoffical Spalding Fan Club, or unnofficial tourist board from there.
To my absolutely gobsmacked surprise, they had. One guy I met had actually come to the Flower Parade on a regualr basis as a child and one girl's father had worked for a local Spalding newspaper. And others had passed through and been there. Another lady I met had moved and lived there for a few months after her father relocated to work at a production factory on the banks of the Welland.
Maybe all this is not that surprising. But as I have grown up and become more politically aware I am extremely interested that Spalding gets represented. Because I know that in town there are many of the groups and organisations that government buzz words describe as 'community binding', which provide what school lingo describes as, 'enrichment' activities. And as many Spalding folk who move away from home do, I can't help but mention for one more time that the Flower Parade is so great because it provides a platform for SADOS (the local amateur dramatics society), a young local band, or the local Rotary club, local businesses that shocase not their profit making but their involvement in Lincolshire; taking Spalding forward into the 21st century. And that's the thing. London has all the investment so groups like those in Spalding can flourish. But there is a genuinity to organisations in Spalding. A real nature to the workings of them. People are actually enriched.
So this is why I feel us Spaldonions need bigger representation at the top. In the Westminster bubble in London we need to be chipping at Cabinet ministers and leading figures to change things. The local council does a great job with what it can do but I'm talking big things. Like the development of a new railway station in spalding that won't shake your bones but make you feel like you have actually arrived in a town where all these interesting activities are going on. I appreciate that the governments pumping of millions and billions of pounds of money into a north-west super railway line is economically and servicably important and was a good decision. But I feel that we need to represent at the top and ask why our town is not getting a fraction of that money. Someone who goes to parliament to represent the area but that doesn't mention the people or what goes on there is at fault. We need a figure who will not only be a good local representative but a real person who will harass the ruling elite for your area and who will badger parliament so much that you can turn on the BBC Parliament freeview channel and hear Spalding being mentioned, being fought for, being talked about - rather than a London borough that you've never even heard of.
Published Date:
21/11/2009
Modified Date:
21/11/2009